Good afternoon and good morning. We start with General Questions, Questioning number 1, Mary Fee. To ask the Scottish Government how many problem drug users there are. Y latest figures from the IFD information services division Scotland published on 28 October 2014 estimate that between April 2012 and March 2013, the number of individuals with problem drug use in Scotland aged from 15 to 64 Meri Fee Rzeń. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The 2015-16 justice draft budget set us out the Scottish Government's plans to spend 32.7 million tackling drug misuse. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what proportion of this money will be spent and opioid replacement therapy, what proportion will be spent on rehabilitation and how much of the health budget is targeted at drug misuse. Rwy'n ei ddweud, ac na fyddwch chi i adnodd wilach roedden. Rydyn ni I cangwt gyda'r adnodd oau, ac rydyn ni rydyn ni'n wedi bod raddan oedden nhw yn mynd ar gyfer iawn oedden i gyliannion cyfnod oedden. Felly, mewn cyfnod gael y cyfnod oedden, rydyn ni'n dd Jang Bothwyr, ac mae'n tydd gilych gan gwasanaeth Cymraeg yn agnwg i'r cer juicyr Fervysiwr. Mae ar hyn o gweldog eraill ar ei wneud rydyn nhw oedd oedd y yrthlikef. wrth dcyclพwledig, mae'n eu hwytiau i fynd i nhw anodd yr ystod i fynd i'r gwrs naglwyddiadau.  I'm happy to write to the member to give her the precise answers cos that statistic's not there, but it's about meeting the needs and the challenges. There are changing. We are seeing progress as perhaps a quarter of older ones with opiate issues have challenges. Drug use is down with regard to youngsters. Equally, NPS has come and is facing us and challenging us all. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Is the Cabinet Secretary aware of what appears to be an increasingly high incident of cannabis farms being discovered in Lanarkshire, Essex, Central Scotland and elsewhere? Given that this is almost certainly indicative of rising demand, what action is the Government taking to address this specific point? The specific point is that this is serious organised crime. Those in the main tend not to be individuals having one pot or whatever. It's done on an almost industrial scale, whether it's in Lanarkshire or elsewhere. That is why, within Police Scotland, we have the specialist crime unit who is seeking to tackle this to raise awareness to make sure that we try and work out who is dealing with it. Some of it, as I say, relates to people who have been brought here to create farms. Some of it is about raising awareness with those who are involved in letting properties where action should be taken. However, I can give the member assurances that Police Scotland takes this most seriously, whether it's in Lanarkshire or elsewhere. It is about tackling serious organised crime before the issues that can follow in terms of the drug supply into our community. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on Glasgow City Council's decision to award a house in multiple occupation licence to the Bellgrove hotel and whether it considers this as an appropriate level of regulation for a building housing over 140 people. The purpose of licence in homes in multiple occupation is to ensure the safety of those who share accommodation with multiple occupants. It's not unusual for an HMO licence to be granted to a large establishment such as a hotel or a student halls of residence. Obviously, the Bellgrove hotel raises particular issues about the best way to address some of the more complex needs of those who are at risk of homelessness and who might not be as engaged with services as others are. Margaret Burgess met with Glasgow City Council to discuss that particular issue earlier in the year, and the Government and Glasgow City Council are continuing to work together to find appropriate and sustainable solutions that will help the residents of the Bellgrove hotel. I'm happy to ensure that the member is kept up-to-date with the progress of that work. John Mason. I wonder if she understands the frustration that, in the year 2000, the BBC did a huge documentary on how awful the Bellgrove hotel was. We are now in 2014, and it is still awful. Cabinet Secretary. I absolutely understand the member's frustration. With the greatest respect to the member, more importantly than that, I understand the seriousness of the issues that were uncovered by the BBC and the importance of making sure that we as Government work with the council, who are in prime position here, to ensure the safety of people in the Bellgrove hotel and to look at alternative solutions for them. That is what we are determined to continue to do. I want to reassure John Mason that the Government is continuing to work with the council to find a solution to what is a complex issue. I think that we also need to understand some of the complexities of it, but I am more than happy to ask Margaret Burgess to meet John Mason to bring him up-to-date with the work that is on-going and to repeat the undertaking that I gave him in my initial answer, to keep him regularly posted as that work progresses. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that disabled people and their families are able to access cultural and leisure opportunities. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that disabled people in Scotland are able to enjoy a wide range of leisure and cultural opportunities on the same basis as people without a disability. Our obligations to improve accessibility are set out in international treaties and domestic legislation, and we have committed to a range of specific actions that are now being implemented. We recognise that we need to do more to remove barriers that prevent disabled people from participating, and we are working with people with a disability to develop a draft disability delivery plan that will be published for consultation in the spring of next year. Mark McDonald? Part of access to venues includes being comfortable while visiting and experiencing them. Many venues have changing places toilets in Scotland, but I am advised by a number of parents that two venues—the Museum of Scotland and the Hydro—both recently refurbished or recently constructed do not have those available, and that impedes on the enjoyment for many disabled people and their families. I wonder if the cabinet secretary might meet me to discuss how we can ensure that popular attractions in Scotland can be enjoyed by individuals with disabilities and their families by having the appropriate facilities available to ensure that they can enjoy them. We are aware that the lack of suitable changing facilities in toilets in the community is a problem in preventing people with profound and multiple disabilities from going out and about and, of course, can increase social isolation. The member might be aware that last year Michael Matheson, the Minister for Public Health, launched the keys to life and announced funding of more than £5 million to implement that strategy. That recommended that the number of changing places toilets be increased in Scotland to 100 by June 2015. I am pleased to be able to advise the member that we have been working with partners to take that forward and that the 100th changing place toilet will be opened on 9 December of this year. However, we recognise very much that there is more that needs to be done, and I am happy to meet the member as requested to see what more can be done. Richard Simpson? I wonder if the minister is aware of the fact that the UN's guide, which is a developing website for access by disabled people to all sorts of venues, will be celebrating its first anniversary at the beginning of December. I wonder if she should join with me in congratulating those who have developed UN's guide and all members of the public who are giving information to that guide in developing a site that tells people if there is good access or not. I am very happy to join with Richard Simpson in doing so and in congratulating those who are behind UN's guide. I think that it is very important that that information is out there. It is obviously a good source of information for people. I am very happy to endorse it and support it. Question 4, Neil Bibby. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Presiding Officer, both ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet with all health board chief executives. Neil Bibby. The Scottish Government and the Cabinet Secretary made a lot of comments during the referendum about protecting the NHS from privatisation. I therefore ask the Cabinet Secretary what his view on the decision by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde toward a contract aimed at tackling obesity to the US private company Weight Watchers. First of all, I point out that the Auditor General's report last week indicated that the amount of money spent in the private sector by the health service in Scotland went down last year, and it remains at 0.84 per cent of the entire budget, which is what it was in the last year of the last administration. Like the previous administration, where we don't have a particular capacity or expertise in the national health service in Scotland, we buy that additional capacity in, as happened in this case. There is a big difference between buying in additional capacity that you don't have and privatising existing facilities, which is what's happening south of the border. Question 5 Colin Kear. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has carried out a joint traffic assessment with the City of Edinburgh Council regarding long-term pressures on the three main western road approaches to the city. Minister Keith Brown. The Scottish Government continues to work closely with local authorities and key resilience stakeholders to improve the resilience of Scotland's roads network. Transport Scotland is currently undertaking a study with key stakeholders, including the City of Edinburgh Council, to assess the transport impacts of development proposals in the SES plan, strategic development plan area. That study includes the three main western road approaches to the city. The study will take cognisance of the benefits of the Edinburgh to Glasgow improvement programme and the new Edinburgh gateway station in the Gogart area of the city, which will be delivered in December 2016. Those will provide relief to road traffic in the west of Edinburgh through provision of enhanced connectivity, capacity and reduced rail journey times. Network Rail recently announced a £250 million contract award for the electrification of the main Edinburgh to Glasgow rail route. Colin Kear. I thank the minister for his answers. It's clear that the traffic congestion in the west of Edinburgh is at critical levels at present, as we wait to see any benefits from the trams. Will the minister agree to meet me following the publication of the joint study with the City of Edinburgh Council in order to discuss its findings and possible future actions? I'm more than happy to meet the member. As I've mentioned already, the work that we're undertaking in relation to the tram interchange and also the work on Egypt plus other infrastructure works seek to help the flow of traffic into and out from Edinburgh, but I'm more than happy to meet the member as soon as the study becomes available publicly. To ask the Scottish Government what safeguards are in place to ensure that sex offenders are appropriately rehoused. The national accommodation strategy for sex offenders forms part of the multi-agency public protection arrangements. It provides a national framework for housing sex offenders in the community. Under the strategy, housing providers, social work, the prison service and the police work closely together sharing information to assess the risks sex offenders pose and to find accommodation for the offender that allows these authorities to manage the risks. Jackson Carlaw. The cabinet secretary may be aware of the coverage following the recent local media exposure of a convicted paedophile and barhead in my west of Scotland region. Individuals described those assigned to monitor him as fools and his strategy as being to tell these people what they like to hear. Nevertheless, I suspect the cabinet secretary and I will share his giving about revealing the location of individuals in any sensationalist way. Can I invite him to associate himself with the assurances of chief inspector Angela Carty, who has moved to reassure the public in East Remfisher regarding the monitoring of sex offenders? Can I ask him what more he can say about the review that was announced by our Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland and the Care Inspectorate regarding the effectiveness of the multi-agency public protection arrangements? Finally, can I welcome his announcement of an expert working group to test GPS technology, something that Scottish Conservatives have been encouraging since 2007, and ask him when he expects the fruits of this to be deployed? I thank the member for that. There is quite a significant number of questions. I would be happy to meet them at sub-stage if he wanted a greater briefing. In 2015, the Care Inspectorate in Scotland, in conjunction with the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, will undertake a joint review to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of MAPA. Its review will report on findings in late 2015, so we are under way on that. With regard to GPS tracking, I know that this is an issue that Mr Carlaw and indeed others throughout the chamber have raised. We do see merit and benefits in it. I think that it would be fair to say that we are going out to consult yet again, because technology is not quite there to satisfy us that it will provide the security and safety that we want. We do know that it offers great opportunities, but I think that we have to ensure that whatever opportunities it provides will, in fact, give us the reassurance. What I can say is that in terms of MAPA, we are going out to review, and we are happy to discuss with them. That will come back in the latter part of next year. With GPS, we continue to work to ensure that the progress technology has made that we are all aware in our mobile phones or whatever can provide the security and reassurance that we all require. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Under the MAPA arrangements, the Cabinet Secretary is aware that a released sex offender will most likely be rehoused in the council area where it last resided, and, unfortunately, perhaps where the crime was committed, and we will recall the difficulties in the Robert Greene case in Midlothian. Is the room to review those housing provisions, particularly when it is a very small council area and people can be identified? I can give the member the assurance that that is what is in fact done in common with other offenders. Registered sex offenders will generally return to their own communities in lesser exceptional circumstances, which means that this will increase the risk. One of the reasons is that one of the ways in which we can try and ensure that somebody is less likely to re-offend is that they have a home to go to, some individuals who might very well care for them, and there is good reason to, and I believe that going back to where there is some perhaps greater continuity of care and some friendship, it may be less likely to re-offend. There may be good reason, whether it is about the safety of the community, the nature of the offence, that would mitigate against that. That is why, as I say, those things are done on a multi-agency basis, as I referred to with Mr Carlaw, to try and ensure that we balance the rights of the offender to be able to try and keep himself in a straight and narrow, having served his time and being what under whatever additional arrangements may be through SOPA or OLRs, equally providing security and safety for a community, especially when we know that we have challenging individuals who can cause great harm and danger. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Scottish Woodlaw Association submission to the Smith commission that full powers over forestry should be devolved to this Parliament. The member will recall the positive debate on woodlots in the Parliament last year, and the support that the Scottish Government is giving to the Scottish Woodlots Association. As the association's submission to the Smith commission points out, forestry in Scotland is already a devolved matter. However, there are other issues raised by the SWA, such as tax, that can have significant impacts on forestry and yet remain reserved to the UK Parliament. The Scottish Government has called for the Scottish Parliament to full fiscal responsibility in order to increase the democratic and financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament to the people of Scotland and also to allow the Parliament to use tax powers in a targeted way to pursue specific policy objectives, including those that support forestry. I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer. Given that biomass has become one of the fastest-growing markets for Scottish forestry, with planned new energy generating plants in Scotland and the rest of the UK that could consume all Scottish timber production quite easily, does she agree with me that that necessitates the full devolution of energy policy to Scotland in order to deal with the demand in a way that suits our forestry industry? As Joe McAlpine will be aware, the Scottish Government has already put in place a cap on the size of new biomass electricity-only plants in Scotland, and we have done that under the renewables obligation to promote the most carbon-beneficial use of our forestry resource. As I indicated in my initial answer, we have set out our proposals for further devolution in the submission that we made to the Smith commission, and that includes having greater responsibility for energy policy and regulation. That would include additional powers to tailor support for low-carbon and renewable generation, so that we can deliver Scottish priorities in a cost-effective way within a single energy market, and of course have joined oversight over the UK energy regulator of GEM. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on whether defence is following the launch of the ready for winter campaign. The Government continues to work closely with councils and stakeholders to improve the resilience of Scotland's weather defences and to ensure that robust resilience arrangements are in place. The ready for winter campaign raises awareness of the risks from all kinds of severe weather, its consequences and the simple steps that people can take to prepare themselves. I encourage people to sign up to the tools such as floodline and consult the Traffic Scotland website when planning to travel. The Transport Scotland winter service has been enhanced again this year with new trunkload operating company contracts across the whole of Scotland, meaning that roads and pavements will be treated even more quickly than before. I thank the minister for that statement. I know that the minister will be coming to Parliament to make a full statement this afternoon on the matter, but in the meantime I can ask what assurances has been received from local authorities that their preparations for the winter period are ready for extreme adverse conditions. Councils work with responder partners in the voluntary sector and community councils, and they have a vital role to play in preparing for the many impacts that severe weather can have on individuals and communities. We liaise very closely with our council colleagues in our winter planning work, and I was delighted to be joined by, because of the president, Councillor David O'Neill, who joined me at the launch of the ready for winter campaign last month. The Government's resilience team has been in contact with all local authorities through the local and regional resilience partnerships. We have received assurances that detailed winter preparation plans are well established across the country. In terms of one specific area, road clearing, Scotland's 32 local authorities are responsible for the maintenance and safe operation of Scotland's local road network, and each council is responsible for all aspects of the non-trunk road network within their jurisdiction, including winter service operations. It might be useful to mention that there is an amber warning out today for Aberdeenshire, Dumfriesen, Galloway, Ayrshire, Argyll and Bute, Central Tayside, Fife, Stirling and Perthincan Ross in relation to heavy rain. Thank you for the warning, Minister. We now move to First Minister's questions. Question number one, Jackie Baillie.


Hi everyone Joe for jazby's case breaks comm with break lucky 13 Right here part of the brand new big it express series for our our specially curated product Now we did just for you big thanks to All of these wonderful people right here for getting to the action Congrats to Nick for winning that spot in the previous break There's everybody here There's all the teams here, and there's the remaining case numbers there. Let's roll it. Let's randomize it seven times All right six and a one seven times We've got Richard down to SKS seven times for the teams Seventh and final time after I write is it seven okay seven times White socks down to the Pacers All right, so there's the list right there on your screen I'll alphabetize by your first names and just a moe All right, so there's all your teams right there sorted by your name Adam Andrew Barry Charles so on and so forth Thanks boys and girls for getting in really appreciate it So far this stuff has been pretty great All right now let's randomize the case numbers here seven times number on top is the one will break and Seventh and final time case two Case two all right any trays or should we just roll? I think we need to roll I have to pick up the pace a little bit on these All right TWC trade want to close. No that Brady College card has not been pulled Not yet remember our college rules folks Goes to the team that Goes to the team that they are currently on to that Brady will go to the Bucks All right, that's the hit list list. I'm gonna keep track of right there Rich do you have the Bucks? He does There you go. There's the official printout Hot off the presses makes it official. There's case number two Good luck. No, I'm watching WNBA old WNBA games. That's just one up. What's on the SPN? We have oh Kauai Leonard spurs edition nice treasured threads authentic autograph Spurs That'll go to Adam Wilson. There you go, Adam next guy Not tonight Denny tomorrow Oh Matt Ryan NFL shield and on-card autograph That is sharp from preferred Panini preferred football.  Jason M with the Celtics Falcons Rockies combo and All aboard the big hit express May have to use the wooden train whistle in a few breaks NFL shield is great next one Series four is excellent packaging series four and we've got Javi Javier Baez nine five ten and Centering is a ten edges Corners a nine five surface and nine that's from 2014 Bowman Sterling it's a prospect autograph It's pretty cool Cubs that goes to Marcus with the Cubs Next one. This should be fun last dance on ESPN. We've got a nice Cal Ripken. It's a great patch there Nice autograph just a couple off a train whistle two out of seven Orioles who's got the O's that's another that's another one for Adam Wilson next up is Andrew Vaughan Chicago White Sox prospect Gold There it is. Yeah, couldn't find it was on the front It's kind of hidden there gold on gold on gold one of one on that Andrew Vaughan There's corner infielder prospect going Richard Richard G With the White Sox Raiders and hockey spot There you go Richard All aboard Next up is Kevin Love one out of five another train whistle nice Penmanship autograph MNT Cavs edition Mike Tower With the Cleveland Cavaliers and uh All aboard the Big Head Express We've got a couple more left here Good luck everybody. This is break 13 Break 13 and we got Rui Hachimura stainless stars on plate autograph Nice one from impeccable 55 out of 99 wizards Josh proves you're a wizard Josh with the Hachimura nice and The next one is Opulence Deandre Aiden rookie Deandre Aiden two-color jersey On-card autograph a pretty underrated set opulence. I like this 33 out of 79 and that's it Phoenix Suns Frank with the Phoenix Suns All right, let's flip back to the to that screen right there. So there are there are the sad people right there They went hit list apologies. It happens But we have that hit list promo where you have a shot at Winning an extra spot. All right, I missed Louie in a previous break Ladies and gentlemen, so I apologize to Louie. I'm gonna add him to this list right here And not only will I give away that free spot? But just as just for everybody else just for adding that extra name I'll give away $30 a break credit to spot number two All right, let's roll it. Let's randomize it four and a one five times and a one fifth and final time after five times Kevin I'm gonna send you a little bit of money and then Richard There you go. Congrats to you. You want a free spot in the next break another one of these coming up I'm Joe. I'll see you next time. Jasper's case breaks calm


Something I really wanted to take with you is that closings happen every single day by the truck loads. How did I realize this and make a video about it? Two reasons, one, whenever I see a retraction in transactions, I know the demand is building. You know how easy it would be? It's not only sell properties for half price, but to buy the properties for half price. So not only are we going to get relief from inflation and 30-year fix going down, but also this spread is going to equal out to what it's historically been. How are we going to get back? You know guys, in 2017-18-19, we were still low on inventory. If it doubles the inventory, we'll right back where we were and which was low anyway, we've got wire 5% of these 14 million homes going to sell. There's no reason for them to sell A and B, they're not going to do it the same day. How we doing? Are you guys excited to be here? Even after lunch? Yeah, so I'm Ricky Kruth. I've been in the real estate industry for over 21 years now.  But first, I want to ask you guys, what image or what words pop into your mind when you hear the word Alabama? I was in New York several months ago and asked that question and they said, mud. And then I was in Orlando and they said, civil rights. And I said, this is not going the direction. Let's see where we had on the slides. There we go. Alright, so this is actually where I grew up in Alabama. Did you guys know that Alabama had beaches like this? Okay, some yes, most no. This is where I've sold real estate as a real estate agent for over 21 years, mostly those condos right on the beach. Florida extends into Alabama good 40 miles and it's just absolutely beautiful. If you guys have never been there and never heard of it, if you're looking for a good Airbnb, the property taxes are incredible. The returns are incredible. Reach out to me. I'll be glad to help you find one. But this is where I grew up and I got a real estate when I was 20. I'll give you the short of it. It was 2002. There was no social media. There was none of this stuff that's available to everyone now. I had to do it the old way and I made a million dollars before I'm 23, 22, 23 when the market blew up. To make a long story short, because I got 13 minutes left, I lost everything when the market crashed, went back to roofing houses, sleeping in my car, eating out of people's refrigerators, homeless. I was bankrupt and I eventually landed a job on an oil rig before I got laid off from that and back in real estate in 2008. 2008 to 2014, I built my business the right way and one of the greatest lessons that I ever learned during that time, something I really wanted to take with you is that closings happen every single day by the truckloads, regardless of market conditions. It took me having to lose everything, going back to nothing to realize this. But this is the greatest lesson that I ever learned. When you actually understand this, then you're not scared of the market and you become invincible. I want to break down the market where we are right now currently. Let's start with how the US is faring against these other countries since the pricing peak last year of these other countries. You can see that we're crushing these other countries in terms of how far we are down on prices from the 2022 peak compared to these other countries. We're doing well. We just had existing home sales report up 14.5% big jump month over month. Still a little down year over year, but huge jump month over month. Now, what's the media talking about? Right? Crash, burn. And so we're seeing articles like this. Prices fall in February for the first time in 11 years. And you know what's so confusing about this is because their tagline, prices down for the first time in 11 years. However, US sales of existing homes jumped 14.5%. What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Wall Street Journal? I'm confused. This is prices. This is medium prices. This is something I really want to get across because people don't realize prices are going up right now. We bottomed out a good 30 days ago. Does everybody understand this? Who here is in real estate in some capacity? Make some noise. Okay, cool. So we're up price-wise. Not only from the bottom, but for the year, we're higher. 344 was the low, 361. Now I looked in Vegas, I looked in LA, I looked in Miami, I looked in Jersey, I looked in New York, Miami, Dallas, everywhere, Austin. All of them have the same trend. Up from the bottom and positive on the year. But people are still saying it's going to crash harder than 2008. And it just depends on, let's go back. You see we're negative year over year. The blue is under the black with this 2022. That's why the articles are coming out. Prices down year over year. Let's see some articles about prices up from last month. Which I just saw the first one yesterday. But it just depends on who you're talking to. This is realtor.com, median listing price, still positive year over year. 6%. Just depends on who you're talking to and how they collect their data. What were we all doing on April 28, 2020? Do you remember? We were locked up in our houses. Quarantining. The economy was shut down. I posted this video, why real estate will surge as soon as the economy reopens. What happened? The real estate surge is harder than we've ever seen. How did I realize this and make a video about it? Two reasons. One, whenever I see a retraction in transactions, I know that demand is building. It's like right now. We're on track to do 4.6 million transactions in the US this year. Two years ago was 6 million. Last year was 5 million. This is a retraction. This is doing nothing but building demand in a very low inventory market. When we took this quarantine and 20% last transactions, I said here we go and add stimulus to that. This is not rocket science, guys. Let me take a second to say, if it did crash harder than 2008, good. You know how easy it would be to not only sell properties for half price, but to buy the properties for half price? We win either way, ladies and gentlemen. You're in a win-win scenario, no matter what. Go all in because a lot of you are not committed because you don't know if it'll work. Let's talk about mortgage rates, which are driven by inflation, not the Fed fund rate. You can see it's driven by inflation. It's also driven by the ten-year treasury. Look at this spread historically. 1.75% to 2% historically. We're at 3% spread right now. Why are we at a 3% spread? Because the mortgage people know that people are going to refinance when rates go down. They're not even going to be able to keep that loan very long. People are going to refinance, so they've got to make money on it when they can. Not only are we going to get relief from inflation and 30-year fix going down, but also this spread is going to equal out to what it's historically been. For real estate people in the room, are you guys seeing multiple offers in your market right now? Yeah. This is something I've been talking about for months and months and months. Recessions, we're headed to a recession. Mortgage rates go down in recessions. Real estate prices go up. The only time they didn't was 2008. Bring a recession on. Let prices go up, let mortgage rates come down, but even if that doesn't happen, I'm going to still continue to crush it. I don't care about any of this, because why? Closings happen every single day forever, no matter what. And there's always an opportunity. Let's talk about the real housing crisis that everyone needs to be talking about. I'm going to leave this right here for just a second and let this digest. This is houses for sale in America going back to 80. Look at where we were in the 80s. It was 2 million to 3 million homes with half the population and half the homes that exist. And look at where we are now. Look at where we were in 2008. Is this mind blowing? To think about that we're not even half of the inventory that we were in the 80s? This is the real housing crisis. Now let's zoom in. You see the last 10 years there? Let's zoom in on that. Every single year inventory shoots to the moon and drops like a rock. Every single year, including 2021, the year of the boom, the year of the multiple offers and 100,000 over asking price. Inventory still went up during that year. If we look at data, we start to realize this is all cyclical, completely cyclical. And guess what? You never see any of this going to zero. Building your short and long term confidence in the market is what I want to accomplish today. This is also active listings. You can see we're right in line with where we were in 2021. And you see where 2020 is. This is 17, 18, 19 at the very top. And here we are pink. How are we going to get back? You know guys, in 2017, 18, 19, we were still low on inventory as a country of what we needed. How are we even going to get back there? I don't know. And that's the real crisis here. It's not going to come from traditional existing home sellers. They're sitting on 4% rates. 85% of people are sitting on 4% rates. It's not going to come from builders who slack back 30%. They couldn't even keep up anyway. It's not going to come from the 14 million. That's the new thing from the doom and gloomers. There's 14 million vacant houses in America. If only 5% of those list, then it's going to double the inventory. If it doubles the inventory, we're right back where we were, which was low anyway. But why are 5% of these 14 million homes going to sell? There's no reason for them to sell A and B. They're not going to do it the same day. Foreclosures. It's going to be this crazy recession. We're going to see so many foreclosures. We're not even halfway back to pre-pandemic levels. I'm going to rush through these because it says 436. Equity in America. Average equity in a household. 58%. How are you going to foreclose on somebody where they're delinquent on their note? They can just sell and make 100,000 today. I'm late on my note. I'll just sell it and make 150 today. Yes, there are about 300,000 houses that were bought with VA loans and FHA and government loans for 3.5% who are under water right now that bought in June. They didn't buy it to sell it next year. You guys don't understand how incredibly solid this market is. Fannie Mae says we're going to drop in prices 4.2% this year, 2.3% next year. Even if that happens, you see the last line. Prices are still up 29% from March 2020 pre-pandemic. But you guys see the pricing chart that I just laid out. We're positive on the year. Where it goes from here? I don't know.  This is mind-blowing. This is total sales.  But look at the similarities, the peaks and valleys. And look in there at the end where 2020 caught up with 2021. You can barely see the red line in some of those instances. It's so seasonal. It's not even funny. This is mind-blowing to me when I saw this for the first time. Mortgage applications, 1994 low. When I see this chart, I see a 2004 that it was twice as much as 2021 which was one of our biggest years. I also see the low which is close to where the low is now in 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14 which was some of the most amazing years to be in real estate. This means nothing. Now, every time we see a dip in mortgage rates, we see an increase in pending sales, existing home sales. So what does all this mean for your business? Anybody? I can't hear you but it sounds... What's that? Abundance. I don't even know how to place that into this situation. That's wild. I'll tell you what it means. Straight up. Why'd you spend all that time on it? Because it's mind-blowing to see the data and realize it doesn't even matter. Because of this. I'm going to blow through these. I've got two minutes. The market always serves us back 110% every time. Right? We're on track to hit 4.6 million sales. Last time that happened was 2012.  This was actually my business. What I did in 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 got me to 100 deals a year by 2014. I didn't do anything different. I did the same stuff but the market expanding expanded my business because I expanded my market share. Which, by the way, are property owners who know who you are. Who you've created friendships with. How many friends do you have in the market? Whether you're an investor, real estate agent, anything. Any business. I was the number one in my entire MLS for eight years in a row. Single agent. You don't see team next to much. Team, team. Okay. Where's the opportunity right now? I'm going to talk to agents and I want to talk to investors. For agents, we've got 23 active listings. Most we've had in like four years. How do you stack listings? By making friends or property owners. This is super simple. Here's what you need to do every day. You ready for this? Boom. Create five new friends or property owners every single day. If you do that for five years, 250 working days a year, that's 6,000 over the course of five years. If you're doing a weekly email to your entire database on the same day that we forever, how big is your business if you talk to and made five new friends or property owners every single day, right, built the database of 6,000, they get a weekly email from you that you created on the same day that we every week forever. How big is your business? You're the number one agent or investor or whatever you do in your market. Watch the MLS Hot Sheet every day. Make calls from 9 to 12 every day and I don't care who you call. And do social media all afternoon. It's the blueprint. This is super simple. If you want to close one deal a week, have 15 to 20 active buyers and sellers at all times. You want to close two deals a week, which I've done for nine years in a row, but I've had a lot of buyers and sellers at all times. The problem is most people only working with four. That's it. Statistically you're working on zero. Nothing. That's .8 deals statistically. And once you build your database up to the point where when I got to 10,000, I was closing 100 deals a year, now I don't prospect anymore. That's the dream I want to sell you guys today. You can have the business of your dreams if you build the database and put that sweat equity into your business in a fashion where people are always going to come back to you forever and refer all their friends and family to you. Now you've got a business where people aren't interviewing three agents or investors or whatever it is that you want to do. This can be applied to anything. And I don't sell you anything. I have seven or eight courses all for free at zero2diamond.com. All my scripts, videos of me calling prospects live, tutorials, 60-day challenges, anything that you want. Now, survey shows. 7 out of 10 agents get more listings, close more deals. They go through the 60-day challenge. 87% have better time management. 75% read more. 98.8% enjoy being a real estate agent more. .000475 found their significant other on ZTD. This dude said, I got 30 Actives Under Contrast coming soon after 12 months of using your method. I met the love of my life through ZTD. Will you marry us? I was like, are y'all engaged? He says, dead serious, not yet, but soon. We met six months ago through ZTD. I said, I'll marry you. So you know what I went out and did. Oh my God. That's really them, by the way. Just kidding. What about investors? Real simple stuff, guys. Real simple stuff. My goal this year is to buy 100 million myself. I want to do business with you guys. If you've got multifamily commercial deals you want me to look at, DM me on Instagram. I answer every single message myself personally. Send me deals. If you want to go in on deals with me, let me know. I want to do business with you guys in the real estate investing world. This is my book. List the last how to survive every real estate market crash.  Just text me the word book at this number.<PHONE_NUMBER>. Your phones aren't out. I'm just kidding. These are my socials. Instagram. YouTube. Okay, I'm going to leave you with this. Always value relationships over transactions every single time. Which means when I lost everything it was because I didn't do this. When I got back in the business it was about what I could do for my prospect not what they could do for me. When I talk to a prospect I do not care if they want to or need to or buy or sell from me or not. I just want the opportunity to get to know them see what it is they do want to do and try to figure out how it can help them do it. Make sense? Now, the power of four. Every time I do an event, a Zoom call, a challenge, I say, who all is going to do this? Everybody says me. They go back. I come back a week later. I say, okay, who all did it for?  Four people normally follow through. That's a week. You think about the people that actually execute on what they learn here today over the next ten years to do something special. Like, what a lot of successful people that come on this stage have in common and they didn't do anything crazy. They were just willing to see opportunities and work really hard and be super patient. So if you're going to be one of the four people in this room that takes something away, go execute for ten years and do something special, make some noise. Okay, number one, that was weak. And number two, there can only be four of you guys. So let's try that again. Who are the four people in this room that are going to take something you learn today and go crush it? There's still too many. That's my time. I'm past my time. I love you guys. Thank you.


A new report by the Institution of Development Studies, a UK-based think tank, has placed Nigeria as the second poorest country in the world in terms of food affordability. The report, which was compiled through a publicly available global cost-of-leaving database, Numbio, was used in creating a cost-of-food basics analysis that compares the monthly minimum recommended spend on food per adult and monthly average wage in 107 countries across the world. The minimum recommended amount of food is based on 12 to 14 basic items that together would account for 2,100 calories per adult per day, which is the level recommended by the World Health Organization for energy needs. The cost-of-food basics found that more than one year since the outbreak of COVID-19 there is vast disparity between countries in terms of the proportion of average wages needed to afford enough food.


Everybody force and shawning ripping 2023 origins certified in gold standard football hobby eight box mixture number 10 Random teams, so you got three origins three certified in two gold standard of 2023. Let's randomize And rip. Good luck everybody. Thanks for filling this up Go eight times six and two one two three four five six seven and eight Ken W down to call M and the teams eight times One two three four five six seven and eight Buffalo down to the Giants Ken W bills Bruce B chiefs Brayden with the Rams Charlie P cowboys Mike D patriots Brayden with the Jets Daniel L Jaguars Mike D commanders Andrew B. Browns Robert H. J. Texans Brian G Raiders Cody L Chargers Dan F. Seahawks Pauline with the Bears Frank L. Dolphins Mike D with Colts Richard H Ravens Ryan and Steelers Stannislaw Broncos Rob H E Saints Mike D Vikings and the H Packers Robert H a Niners Justin R Eagles Chuck F with the Bucks Ken W bangles Cole M Panthers Raul with the Falcons Derek L Cardinals Thomas W Titans Jason T Lyons and Cole M Giants I think they they're probably stick with Daniel for another year, right? And then I think it's easier to cut him After next season I Think After you just gave him the bag. Yeah, but you can get if you cut him now you own a bunch But I think after 2024 season they can like get out of it way easier They structured it kind of like that like it seemed like a lot of money, but it's like a running back contract They go a pretty good deal. It's like yeah, they can cut it after two years and not pay him like Like 40% of the contract. All right, certified Pre-certified three origins and two goals on you straight pennies. All right certified stars B. Jean with a Miles Sanders out of 50 for the Panthers. I'm not like dying to have Mike Raebel as coach Sounds all right. It's not okay. Justin Herbert franchise foundations to 349 Chris Goblin Bucks Mark Andrews rookie Jersey autograph Sean Clifford at 249 Green Bay gold team CJ G J a Christian Ocoye auto to 50 for the Chief does a cool one mirror signatures Christian Ocoye Nigeria nightmare Raebel's fine like I think he's a decent coach Certified stars Henry to 275 rookie Browns Dory and Thompson Robinson. He's also never had a great quarterback there They've been they were pretty successful for a lot of years like they had a good defense It ran the ball. Well And it was pretty good for a couple years when you have like a decent my brothers brother line Fields franchise foundations out of 199 is Gino for the Seahawks Look at that Jersey card is powered for the Cowboys out of 99. How many people? Immortals the 149 Dan Marino Dolphins Jersey rookie Roshan Johnson a 999 or 399 for the Bears Jackson there Yeah, the Titans a line was good Was good a few years ago, and then they lost the Conklin and a few others and then So the guys are just also, you know Not quite as good as they once were 325 rookie tank Dell for the Titans nice tank Certified stars Mahomes chiefs with the Rikita 75 Michael Mayer for the Raiders Justin Jefferson franchise foundations. That's the 349 George Pickins Steelers Calling cards Devonte Adams rookie Jersey auto trade Tucker for the Raiders out of 199 Gold team Debo. That is an Otis Anderson auto out of 199 for the Giants Certified stars Hertz number to 399 K. Shamputee rookie for the Patriots Borough of franchise foundations with a Devon Lloyd out of 275 for the Jags or leavey Jersey card rookie Colch Josh Downs out of 399 Justin Herbert's number to 75 franchise foundations Chargers Chase Brown bangles rookie Jersey card of 399 George Kittle Gold team Patterson rookie tank big speed Jaguars number to 199 Dante Hall of Mortals rookie Jersey Lions Hindenhooker to 349 Pollard there that's rookie Jaguars Parker Washington out of 275 Gold team Jordan Brooks rookie Jersey card Will Leviss Titans Number to 249 like a Parsons franchise foundations Saxons Derek Stingley junior to 275 Mortals Marshall Falk that's to 325 that is rookie Steelers Broderick Jones Calling cards saw Skarner rookie Jersey autograph Broncos Marvin Mims number to 199 Nice names for Denver Yeah, that's pretty much it To 99 gold team saw Skarner jets Colts to 149 Shaquille Leonard certified stars Travis Kelsey Johan Dotson certified potential auto to 99 commanders to be your Gibbs certified stars Lions rookie out of 99 for San Francisco You got Fred Warner box zero do the origins and then the gold standard Six of ten Michael Thomas for the Saints we go Saints six of ten Michael Thomas rookie to my 8-chain 11 of 99 for the Dolphins Herbert Laporta Cowboys rookie patch to 25 deuce Vaughn deuce Raiders rookie auto read the 99 trade Tucker and redemption gonna be Clayton tune Rookie jumbo patch auto orange here. We go tune for the Cardinals Aaron Donald the 75 for the Rams to 125 almond Ross St. Brown Lions Rogers Bay's B John rookie for Atlanta Jackson Smith and jima rookie patch to 199 for Seattle Seattle Saints rookie autograph Jake Hainer. I'll say it is kind of cool having like the seven teams in because it makes the last week Like there's a lot of scenarios like every year now And like a lot more teams actually have to play which is a good thing for I guess entertainment And Jane and Reed rookie patch auto to 99 for the Packers thumbs up for Jane Reed, right? right Spencer Thumbs up for Jane Reed because he's a packer. This guy's actually turning to pretty damn good player Vaughn, what's the player prop tomorrow Wolves magic? What do we what am I good? What should I go with go a magic money line no matter what that's that's a given But that's gonna be a standalone bet I think I went to Michigan today. That's right But also because it's a packer tank del rookie to 149 Texans 225 radar for the Falcons DTR. Oh, we got the oh Green Bay rookie origin story Lucas van Ness short print for the Packers Nice card Packers SP going to Andy our rookie patch to 99 is Clayton tune for the Cardinals Okay, Sean but a rookie a variation on to 99 Patriots Sean doesn't even only thumbs up with your thumbs down. I have no idea in the opposite of Spencer Whatever Spencer is doing oppo and a redemption Beeshawn Robinson rookie jumbo jersey auto for the Falcons you go Falcons All right two gold standards now that fourth down dude. That was that that was the game End of being the game Second half kind of ever you miss your shots, but that was the one where it's like oh man No, the time sensor offers spamming. Yep Number to 14 is easy to climb the Dolphins Banks to 75 rookie for the Giants. It's a good question Forget I think right about one point Yeah, they kind of do Hockey hockey stand out Jamal Williams jersey to 99 for the Saints dude this guy hurt the Saints hurt Arthur Smith's feelings yesterday Like what you're playing a profession it's a professional sport get over it That's how I always remember Arthur Smith as the head coach of the Falcons He went seven in ten for three straight seasons and you cried because they scored 48 on you in your last game Get over it, dude White gold patch at 24 Cooper Cup for the Rams They're not like trying to do it to hurt your feeling or something. They're just doing it because they want their dude to score They want their boy to get a touchdown, dude Girl, they're Smith out of here 25th Cooper Cup three-color patch for the Rams Prop nepotism or something do get him out of here Definitely not definitely didn't earn it totally. You know what I mean 29 Broderick Jones for the Steelers rookie auto Have bugged you have bugged me. This is pretty sick actually. How about this double standard autograph Colts Jeff Saturday Ryan Kelly to three That's a very cool hit Big man love right there Mike D with the skull tier Saturday and Kelly do a lot of that founded FedEx Literally the definition of like silver spoon Sean Clifford Ricky Jersey out of 2199 for the Packers. I'll tell you I never worked for anything But like when you start off five feet away from home plate a lot of questions. I'm gonna be asking Nice Clifford there for the Packers Anyway, that's about Arthur Smith. He gone. He gone Well check to the Falcons would be interesting They'll attack to the Patriots baby last box of the break Ricky to 99 is Garanski Titans Number to 49 Reese Hall for the Jets Christian Kirk Jersey out of 299 for the Jaguars This went to Spam time out here. We might have to Zach Sharpen a rookie Jersey to 399 for the Seahawks low excessive Spencer desperately needs a water. Mm-hmm.  Just get some water Spencer Well outside get the hose This guy's out of control Can he pick it on the white gold Jersey to 299 for the Steelers? I'm not doing anything. I don't know what I can't hear the sound That would be a YouTube function Redemption here is for Michael Mayer rookie Jersey Auto triple for the Raiders Raiders Michael Mayer rookie Jersey Auto triple And it's a trick someone rookie Jersey Auto to 149 for Cleveland It's only a 60 second time out. Yeah She'll chill chill chill chill chill chill You know how you have like recently used emojis when you type in like emojis and stuff on the keyboard It's probably only thumbs up and thumbs down. Oh, yeah, no other he doesn't use any other no It's just thumbs up and thumbs down. That's got problems, man. All right, relics Kirk Sharpen a Cooper cup Jamal Williams Clayton Tune Jackson Smith and Jigba do's Vaughn and we'll let us with the dolphins or the playoffs. Oh Jesus Is this do we really need this right now? Do we really need this right now? Ravens Vinnie test the Friday is in our chat right now. That's that's As if Vaughn didn't go through enough tonight dealing with the Celtics loss Henson Hooker Chase Brown Josh Downs Roshan Johnson and 20 power do I have to make Vaughn up a mod just so you defend himself. Let's go That's a joke. I make no no one's mods. You got to work. It'll be a mod Autos of Tillman Clifford Saturday and Kelly dual O line auto to three. That's cool Roderick Jones Van Ness on the origin story Short print insert autos of Boute read RPA Jake Hainer trade Tucker Johan Dotson that is Marvin Mims Otis Anderson trade Tucker Christian Ocoye Sean Clifford Clayton Tune redemption from origins RPA Orange for the Cardinals Falcons Jersey Auto V. Gen Robinson and Michael Mayor Raiders Ricky Jersey for the Raiders. Thanks. Get everybody moving on now to the next break


It's highly recommended you don't accept cheques for any type of merchandise through Craigslist. This is probably our most popular scam. This is originating out of the country. You get the victim that is selling a dresser or a bed or a TV. They get contacted via email. I'd like to buy that TV for asking price.  I know the TV is only $100, but I'm going to send you a cheque for $2,500. You keep the $100 and send the $2,400 to my shipping company so they can come pick it up. The recipient receives the cheque. They deposit it. The person selling the TV gets the rest of the funds at $2,400 and sends it off to some of their unknown address. In the meantime, they still got their TV, but the cheque bounces. Now they're responsible for all those lost funds to the bank. If you don't meet someone in person or you don't take cash, it's a high, high risk. If you don't receive a cheque from someone you know, you're taking a chance. Cash is the safest way to go when you're selling items on Craigslist.


In this video, we provide the solution to question number four for practice exam number four for math 1050, we have the logarithmic expression log base five of the fraction, the cube root of x squared plus one over x squared minus one. And we want to expand this log and that is we want to break it apart into smaller simpler pieces as far as we can go. And so the three laws of logarithms are going to come into play here. So first of all, we're taking the logarithm of a quotient. And so therefore using the second law of logarithms, we can break this up into a difference. This will become the log base five of the cube root of x squared plus one minus the log base five. The base doesn't change when we do these calculations log base five of x squared minus one like so. So that's the first thing we want to keep on going here. So with the first expression, notice that if you have the cube root of x squared plus one, the cube root is really just the one third power. And that one third power can be factored out of the logarithm via the third law of logarithms that we've learned about. So you end up with a one third log base five of x squared plus one. Now x squared plus one, it's a sum of squares. It's not going to factor anymore. But on the other hand, we have a law for the second law, we have x squared minus one that does factor as a difference of squares. So that would factor as the log base five of x minus one plus the log base five of x plus one. And utilizing the fact here that of course that x squared minus one, it factors as x minus one and x plus one. That's what we're using here. Now, of course, we broke apart the product, but there was this negative sign in front of them. We have to distribute this onto both pieces. So you're going to end up with one third log base five of x squared plus one minus log base five of x minus one and then also a minus log base five of x plus one. Don't forget to distribute the negative sign right there. And so then we see, let me get this out of the way because this is now covering up the correct answer. We see the correct answer is going to be D one third log base five of x squared plus one. That's exactly what we had right here. Then we're going to have negative the log base five of x minus one just like we saw and then a negative because again, this second one will be negative as well. We distribute the negative sign onto the log base five of x plus one.


Well, thank you very much indeed, Craig. It's great to be here and thank you for the opportunity to join you today. It's great to be at an event that the LSE is hosting and as one would expect with the only event with the LSE involved, I've already been listening to a lot of rigorous discussion and analysis of policy options. But I think what we're also doing today is celebrating urbanism and celebrating what cities contribute to the world. They are drivers of innovation which, as Craig rightly said, is one of my crucial ministerial responsibilities. They're also drivers of creativity and that's why it's so right to be holding this event in one of London's great creative districts. It was that kind of celebration that came across very vividly in the Prime Minister's speech because tech city itself is a great example of that. Now, what can we in Britain and in London in particular offer to what is now a global debate? Well, we were, of course, the first country to urbanise. We were the first country to go through that crucial benchmark where more than 50% of our population lived in cities. We went through that according to the census in the 1850s. That's when more than half of England's population was living in cities and that very same crucial hurdle of more than half of your population living in cities was passed by the world as a whole in 2008. And it does profoundly change the character of a society once it is urbanised on that scale. Of course, when we did it, the population of England in the 1850s was about 20 million. China is doing it with a population of 1.3 billion. So the challenges are on a different scale. But we find that there is continuing international interest in British expertise and engagement with urbanism. And cities are the places where a lot of the economic growth and the innovation happens. 80% of global GDP is generated in cities. 60% is generated in the world's top 600 cities. Though, of course, of those top 600 cities, at the moment it's the 380 that are in the major cities of the developed world that are generating 50% of global GDP. It's the other 220 cities of the developing world who are currently only generating 10% of world GDP. The shift in the balance between East and West, between conventional advanced economies and developing economies, the shift in the balance of urbanism over the next 20 years is going to be one of the crucial changes facing the world. Cities don't just generate growth in the high tech and that's going to talk about in a moment. I buy the argument that if we go right back to the origins of urban living right back into prehistory, it wasn't that advances in agriculture were made urban living possible. It was also humans coming together in greater concentrations that drove the need for more domestication of animals and more agriculture. The development of agriculture and urbanism went together. If I can just report, because one of the fascinations of my job is seeing all these extraordinary research projects going on around the country, led by scientists and researchers and sponsored by our research councils, I think of going to a BBSRC research centre in Yorkshire only a few months ago to see what might be the future of city agriculture. In the past, one of the problems with intense agriculture in warehouses was that conventional old fashioned electric lighting, the bulbs generated so much heat that the distances, the spaces that were required were too great. Now with modern LED bulbs, that is not a problem. So we've got teams of researchers that are working out the exact correct combinations of LED lighting in order to ensure that your broccoli or your tomatoes or your raspberries will grow most rapidly in neat ranks, only about a metre, just over a metre apart, and the absolutely clear objective is in future there will be a warehouse around the back of your urban Tescos where they will be growing a large proportion of the green produce that people get about. There are innovations and research underway in leading British research institutes to make that kind of thing happen. Well, as well as that agriculture, there are of course a lot of more other areas of technological advance linked with the rise of urbanism. We need intelligent traffic management systems to avoid gridlock, something that was being touched on in the discussion when I arrived. We need sophisticated energy markets, again something that was being touched on in the earlier discussion. Cities are intense users of energy and one of the areas again where we're leading the research agenda is to try to find smart ways of reducing energy demand. High performance IT has itself become a major user of energy every time we're on Facebook it consumes roughly the same amount of electricity as boiling a kettle. We have people who are locating their large IT data handling capabilities in places like northern Sweden to try to lower on cooling costs. Although other countries are the leaders in high performance computing, we are the leaders in energy efficient high performance computing which is exactly the type of computing you want if you're going to have intense data centers located in urban areas. We're world leaders in energy efficient computing because we write very smart algorithms which mean you require fewer calculations and fewer individual processes in order to generate a particular output from your IT system. So we look forward to the day when the IT computer load on our energy systems is reduced by sophistication in skill in the way in which the programs are written. As well as those type of developments, let me briefly review some of the commercial and policy initiatives that we're taking. We've obviously got the advantage of a range of firms with real expertise as providers of solutions, whether in specific vertical sectors such as traffic management or water management or in the design and management of large scale projects that you need in order to develop future cities. And I know that many such firms are represented here today and perhaps some of the firms that aren't here today are instead participating in the current UKTI sponsored ministerial mission to Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines which is there specifically to explore opportunities for UK businesses in future cities in Asia right now. So we've already identified this as a priority for UKTI and trade attention. We've also launched our program of city deals. I found one of the good working rules for urbanism is there's usually someone called Greg Clarke involved and my ministerial colleague, the ministerial Greg Clarke has driven that agenda and we're making great progress in deals which provide much greater autonomy to leading cities outside London, Birmingham, Manchester than they've enjoyed for many decades. Many of you will be aware also of the future cities demonstrator competition which the TSB launched earlier this year worth £25 million. Some 30 cities were successful with feasibility studies and now the short list of four cities is being carefully studied to determine which city will be funded and the final winner will be announced in January. As well as that alongside that demonstrator, the TSB of course is also establishing the future cities catapult which will have a player crucial role. It will be different from some of the other catapult centres, the technology innovation centres. It won't simply look at technologies to support cities. Future cities, important though that is, it will also look at issues such as citizen behaviour and the financing of new business models, exactly the type of cross-disciplinary approach that you're taking at this important conference today. And actually some of the other catapults we've got such as connected digital economy, transport will also have a role to play in enhancing our capability in urbanism. And then of course as well as that within the framework of the industrial strategy we have specifically got the information economy, a strand which I will be leading as the minister responsible and we see future cities as very much playing into that. So if you look at that range of policy activity you can see that alongside the agenda of the mayor alongside the Prime Minister's powerful speech about tech city we're also trying to use our research strengths and the commitments of the TSB and the activities of the UKTI to grow and take international our expertise and capabilities in this area. I very much look forward to your comments and questions. Thank you very much indeed. Minister has time for a few questions from us and we invite people in the audience. There are people out with yellow scarves and roving microphones if you have a question. Raise your hand. Well what we plan to do is to launch our catapult in the new year. The TSB are in the lead. I can't really add much at the moment other than to say that it is a shared resource. It will be particularly we think of help to SMEs and startups who don't individually have the capability to study transport systems energy patterns but have ideas that they may have a specific project that is relevant. They will find at the catapult centre experts who have already got the basic modelling and the basic understanding of those so that their particular projects and programs can be slotted in. But the detail will be launched by the TSB in the new year. Well that's a very good question. Although there aren't any proposals on changing political or institutional arrangements when I looked at it first of all from my perspective what I see is London as a centre for higher education, in fact education more generally and several of our leading universities basically running out of space. I don't know how the LSE is doing on its campus but there's a very interesting trend developing. There is UCL moving to have a second campus east on the old Carpenters estate alongside the Olympic Park and separately you've got Imperial moving west with its second campus out in Hammersmith Shepherds Bush. You put all that together and you stock and you then have a kind of connection out from Imperial out to Oxford and then up from UCL via King's Cross up to Cambridge. You see a kind of arc of activity. Something that I'm very keen to do is to leverage further the capabilities of research activity. Only last week I announced that we would be looking for a different model for the National Physical Laboratory out at Teddington which is a potentially very valuable and important campus that I'd like to see a more heavily used research centre for London. We thought that it needed a different model than CERCO's management. They've done it very efficiently but they've essentially been managers and we're looking for a joint venture now between government and external partners that could be other universities, could be international universities to help us grow and develop that site including of course but protecting it as a global centre of expertise in metrology. That's before we move on to other investments such as the investment which the Chancellor announced yesterday of a guarantee for £1 billion of funding to take the northern line out across to Battersea and the enormous development that is happening there. So yes we are, although of course there are exciting things happening to the east, if you put together just what I've been able briefly to list, Battersea, Teddington, Imperial West, there is also a lot of activity out west as well. I'm happy to say the OEC is at the centre of London except in old Russia. Mark Charmer from ACT though. We've had a lot from you this morning about the things that are happening but what about the things that you feel are stuck, things that aren't happening? Well what we endlessly discuss in Cabinet and which we're quite rightly there, Prime Minister and the Chancellor hold the rest of us to account is just getting on with implementing our objectives in the growth strategy. That can mean planning delays, it can mean delays in getting the state aid approvals in order for us to deliver the rollout of superfast broadband. So there are those types of obstacles. I'm keen to see even more expansion of London as a global centre for education and it's a theme I want to take forward in the education strand of our industrial strategy which I'll also be leading. In terms of delays I've also been frustrated by the delays in the Galileo satellite programme and that's relevant for cities, very relevant for cities because GPS, when you're only using the American satellite system GPS doesn't always work in crowded urban areas with skyscrapers. There are too many places where there's a shadow that stops the full performance of GPS. What you do when Galileo arrives, not to mention the arrival of also some Russian and Chinese systems, is you at least double the number of satellites available for positioning services and you increase the chances that people in urban areas are able to get extremely accurate global positioning data. One of my responsibilities is space so we try to push that agenda forward and there are so many interactions in today's high-tech world I think paradoxically that the delays in Galileo have been have a direct relevance, the kind of level of service you can offer in a city. Savasberg is from LSEC. We heard in the previous panel the sometimes tension between city government and national government and city government is taking a step forward. What happens when you have tensions for example when you want to promote higher education and you have national government restricting for example student visas? How does your government deal with this tension between the city and the national government? Well, I mean the visa issue, I know it has been a challenge and I recognise the challenge to our perceptions of Britain internationally from the London Met episode but there is no limit on the number of legitimate students that can come to London or Britain as a whole in order to study and that's very important and we are and that's an environment that we need to communicate and I personally need to communicate in all of us in the government especially to markets like India where there are misapprehensions and misunderstandings about our policy. I have to say though, pushing the challenge back, your assumption was that there are cities that wish to grow their universities and there are national policy constraints. It doesn't always feel like that and the example I am about to give, the university involved always dislike it when I cite them but Oxford for example which should be I think a growth centre for higher education there is a deal between Oxford University and the council as far as I can tell really set by the council which states there will only be 3000 Oxford students in private rented accommodation which means if you want to grow Oxford via their collegiate system you need to build new student accommodation before you can grow it so I have other stories from university vice-chances of the difficulties of getting planning permission for extra student accommodation so where I am it sometimes looks as if the constraints are not set always nationally there are sometimes local councils that are trying to stop the growth of a very dynamic and important global British opportunity. Take this one. Thank you. Dan Hill from Fabrica. One of the problems of technology oriented thinking is it can sometimes reproduce the sort of silo based thinking that is common within institutions and governance or has been one of the challenges we absolutely need to address and dissolve in a sense. When I look at the catapult centres in a way they seem to mirror some of that silo based thinking as you have manufacturing cities, transport systems, renewable energy in the economy as all the separate catapults. Surely you want business ideas to emerge which manufacture transport systems based on renewable energy and transport systems and are seen as part of a wider area of the context. So a sort of more joined up thinking, how are the catapults going to address that issue? I mean it is a fair point. However you do need some boundaries somewhere and you can't just do everything everywhere and you need a kind of a spine, a shape to individual entities. Sometimes I get the opposite criticism from yours. I get the criticism that our catapult centres are too broad and if you compare them with say the German Fraunhofer Institutes on which to some extent they're modeled Germany has many more Fraunhofer Institutes I can't remember the exact number but certainly over 50 in more precise technological areas than our catapults so sometimes I get told to narrow rather than to broaden. What they are all intended to be is multidisciplinary and as I hope I said in my speech the future city's catapult in particular is intended to not simply look at technologies but also issues around citizen behaviour, financing and new business models and I think that given cities are the places where all these different technologies, disciplines forms of human experience come together I hope that will certainly be embodied in that catapult above all. David can I take the liberty of asking a last question myself? Having just moved here from New York and sitting which bemoaned a shortage not just of investment the last steps before commercialisation of new technologies but of training and engineering and the strength of the education sector in the background of this this led to the Bloomberg-led initiative that brought Cornell University and Technion to create a major new engineering system to the city. I wonder if there's thinking in London that goes beyond some of what we've heard about the support for the silicon roundabout and the support for the steps very close to the immediate commercialisation of new technologies for example to secure the existence of major kinds of engineering architecture design support in the city and education. No, I agree that but that's actually one of the areas where I am an optimist. I think first of all it's clear that education is one of London's strengths at all levels it looks as if the schools revolution happened in London earlier and has been sustained more than interesting research, not least done by my former researcher Chris Cook now with the Financial Times showing that it looks as if London schools outperform and standards have been rising in London schools for longer and reaching higher levels than elsewhere and of course at the other end of the spectrum one of the other great things about London is mature students often when people want to change take a different educational or career direction in their lives that often involves coming to London and going as a mature student to Birkbeck or somewhere else and getting a new set of skills. London is a place where you come and it could be anything from being made redundant a marriage broken up, just become dissatisfied with the course your career has taken reshaping your life might well involve moving into a city and particularly moving to London and we are very strong in London at that. I looking to America I think there are two lessons from America first of all we are specifically are learning from the Mayor Bloomberg competition and although it's on a more modest scale what I described a few minutes ago about our competition for the future of the Teddington site is modeled on what we have observed in New York there is a substantial site at Teddington it is currently underused we are going to invite partners and they can be overseas they needn't be British to come and do joint ventures with us and develop that site recognising a particular expertise in metrology and final point something else I've learnt from the US that probably doesn't apply so much in London this is less of a problem in London but does apply to some other centre you notice it in America universities are also used as instruments of what I might call demographic competition you use cities that want to revive themselves use universities to attract young people and there is then a clear stickiness if you've got a lot of young people coming to your city to study at a prestigious university quite a few of them stay now London has a very favourable demographic structure but I've had this conversation in places like Newcastle where it's clear that the strength of Newcastle University and also University of Northumbria where Johnny Ive studied design is one of the things that is keeping that they see as ensuring a continuing flow of young people into Newcastle and I think America is much more adept at that city authorities are much more aware of how they can use cities to change their demographic and keep it young and renewing itself and I think that's why I was so frustrated and asked the earlier question about the attitude of some councils towards universities I personally think university growth is one of the ways that university can ensure it has a dynamic, prosperous and vigorous future Thank you very much


So I thought I'd explain what a lucid dream looks like I Know you're probably wondering and I've made a video about what lucid dreaming feels like as in what is the sensation and the experience of lucid dreaming But in terms of the visuals of the whole thing What does it look like if you where if you're watching this video now? Just pay attention just take a moment or just take a few seconds Just stop what you're doing pay attention to the room or the scene around you You might be on a train. You might be at work I don't know where you are but take a moment to pay attention to the scene around you Just look around you don't put it don't listen to the sounds don't even focus on how you're feeling Personally just focus on what you can see Chances are that if you look at something you will when you look at that thing where whether it's a clock on the wall or a Tree outside you'll notice that you focus on the main thing and Then you're also aware of the peripherals around that thing and this is put into context by your brain So what's actually happening is you're focusing on something for example a light bulb and Then your residual image or your blueprint of the world is being called up by your subconscious mind And it's telling you that okay, so if you're looking at a light bulb You've been in this room before you know that roughly where you know roughly where everything is in that room And so your mind sort of fills in the blanks, okay? So in the back of your mind or you know in your peripheral vision You'll notice the things like the bed and the bookcase and whatever else is in your room Even though you're looking at the light bulb now This is what happens in waking life normally when you look at something you're aware of the particular thing you're focusing on You're then also peripherally aware of what's around it And then your subconscious mind fills in the blanks that you can't see or that you're not really aware of to create context This is how we see an interpret the world in waking life now in a dream. It's completely different It's similar in the sense that you can focus on something But what tends to happen is you have a lot more of that blueprint being called up and a lot less of that peripheral vision So although you still will have peripheral vision in a lucid dream You'll be able to look at something and notice what's to the either side of it because you're not actually using eyes in a lucid dream Okay, because you're not actually using an organ you're using your mind It's a lot less based on optics and more based on the feeling and sort of creative construction of it from your subconscious mind What this means is in layman's terms because you're not using your eyes to see in a lucid dream You can change the way you see the dream by thinking differently bear that in mind and you know don't skip over this part That's quite an important statement. You can change what you see in a lucid dream based on how you think You can't do that in waking where you can to some degree But in most cases you can't do that in waking life. What you see is what you get in waking life But in a dream You could be looking at something but then by thinking differently you can change what you're seeing you can also make it You can also change your focus so that you're focusing on either one particular thing miles away Like you can have telescope vision in a lucid dreams. You can be looking at one particular tiny detail miles away Or you could be focused on everything around you at the same time This is not this is not something I can explain to you before you've actually done it because Like I said in waking life We're used to looking at one thing and being sort of subconsciously aware of everything around it to give Context of where it is you look at a book on a bookshelf You don't really have to focus on the corners and edges of the wooden bookshelf. You just know it's there peripherally Okay, whereas in a lucid dream you can train yourself to see every single detail of the scene at the same time But I know there's a lot of you who are watching this video who'll probably say or comment things like well That's not true every time I have a lucid dream It's sort of hazy a bit blurry You might be able to focus on one thing and then everything else fades out and it's hard to focus on everything at the same time Yeah, I agree What I'm saying is you can train yourself to do that you can train yourself to take in more information and more detail There's lots of ways of doing that and if there's enough interest in this video. I will make a follow-up but For now, I just wanted to explain Yes, you can focus on one thing in a dream and then you can peripherally be aware of what's around it You can also zoom in on one thing in the far distance and you can also train yourself to take in all of the details Around you at the same time. So that's what you can do in terms of practicality Okay, in terms of what you will see that is entirely down to you And some people will have different levels of detail than others This comes down to two things your dream recall and your practice You're the amount of experience you have in lucid dream, you know How clear you are if you're on a lower layer or level of lucidity You will obviously see less detail than somebody on layer 5 lucid dream So like I said, it's a spectrum you can see less detail on the lower levels more detail on the higher levels But what it can look like is a very detailed vivid world Where you can notice Individual details of tiny things that you wouldn't be able to pick up on in waking life Because like I said, you're not using your eyes, right? You're using your mind and your mind is able to zoom in on tiny minuscule details And comprehend them in a way that your eyes never could Because your eyes in waking life, although they're incredible and they're an amazing creation You can't really zoom in like a telescope You can't be aware of everything at the same time all of those Trillions and trillions of bits of information. You can't be aware of all of them at the same time That's why your brain uses certain tricks like I guess you could say tunnel vision Or it sort of fills in the blanks with the blueprint and a peripheral idea of the context of what you're looking at But in a lucid dream, it's limitless. You can do whatever you want Obviously you need to practice and you can Get to this level eventually, but that's all I've got time for today. So done