Good evening. Welcome to the Candidate Forum. This program is part of a series presented by the Bridge and Orca Media to help voters get to know the candidates better. Before going on, I want to note that because of redistricting, these are the towns that are represented by tonight's round table. Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington, and Buells Gore. Glad you're here tonight. And forums are unique in that we have invited all the candidates who are on the November 8th ballot here, not even if they're not a major party. So first we're going to start off with introductory statements, which you have two minutes, and introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your affiliation, and just talk about yourself. We're going to start with Thomas Stevens. Thank you, Linda, and thanks to the Bridge and to Orca Media for having the forums. It's been really nice to see how total you've been covering these races. I'm a Democrat and I'm running for a reelection to my eighth term to the House of Representatives, and I live in downtown Waterbury and have since 1996. Since my first election, I have served on the General Housing and Military Affairs Committee and have been chair of that committee for the last two biennium. The portfolio in my committee is broad, going backwards in the name of the committee. Military Affairs means mostly veterans work and working with the National Guard, which is our primary military organization in Vermont. Our work is recently focused on providing the Guard with more tools to recruit members through enhanced tuition programs to local colleges and improving our licensing programs through the Department of Fire Safety and the Secretary of State's office, so that veterans who have been certificated in particular trades can transfer that certificate more easily when they come back to Vermont, as well as making it easier for spouses of families who serve in the Guard to transfer any licenses they have, be it in a trade or as a teacher, for instance. In housing, we've worked to provide more affordable housing for Vermonters in need of it, and we've worked to mitigate the effects of homelessness or impending homelessness with the help of federal dollars throughout the pandemic. We've worked with the executive branch to distribute tens of millions of dollars to tenants and landlords for rental assistance, and we've allocated tens of millions of dollars more to property owners to rehabilitate or build new units. Under general, under the general category, we deal with the myriad issues ranging from oversight of the Department of Liquor and Lottery to labor issues like minimum wage and paid family leave from abinac-y recognition to a formal apology from the General Assembly for the wrongs that we did during the eugenics survey in the early 20th century. We've also worked on discrimination cases and things like equal pay, so it's a pretty broad committee for us to work on. This is the work we do, and the work outside includes constituent work throughout the year. While I'm proud of the work I've been able to accomplish, it's a real privilege to have served this long. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Teresa Wood. Thank you, Linda, and thank you to Orca and the Bridge for sponsoring this. Really appreciate it. As I said, my name is Teresa Wood. I'm from Waterbury. I've lived my whole life in Vermont. I've just finished my seventh year in the legislature. I was appointed by then-Governor Shumlin to fill an unexpired term of then-sitting representative Rebecca Ellis. I'm a Democrat running for re-election, and I currently sit on the House Human Services Committee where I am vice chair. As a member of that committee, we work diligently to help Vermonters in need. We look at issues from housing to poverty to assisting individuals with disabilities to have safe services provided by our designated and other designated agencies and other private organizations, such as home health agencies. We work on oversight issues for three major departments, the health department, the Department for Children and Families, and the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living all fall under our committee's jurisdiction. In the last few years, we have made major steps forward in providing assistance to working families for child care support and to expand the availability of child care. We still have a long ways to go on that, but we've made substantial investments in that. We've also worked to expand the opportunities for Vermonters with developmental disabilities to have safe, appropriate housing and the ability for them to receive supportive services in the communities where they would like to. And likewise, older Vermonters. We've expanded the supports and services for older Vermonters and are working now on the first ever broad state plan to help Vermont age well. And I look forward to being able to continue to represent the people in our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Next in our candidate forum, we have William McGory from Bolton Valley. Yes. Thank you again, Orca. My name is William McGory and I'm a 20 year resident of Bolton Valley. And I probably two years before that, I was running, I was not a property owner there. But during that time, my experience of 20 years, I worked in the hospitality industry in both Washington, the Waterbury area and also Chittenden in Burlington. And presently, I'm a 10 year old of a small business. I own a building which has a laundromat in it. And I run out to a dance studio and also a hairdresser who was left because of COVID. And that's one of the things I want to focus on as a business environment that we're having right now. My experience legislative, this is the first run for me for a state representative, but I was a four year member of the town council in Westport, Connecticut, which is a legislative body. It's a local body, but it's doing the same duties as a state. But you're dealing with matters locally, not state. It was also two years as a clerk of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee in Connecticut State General Assembly. So I know the process and it's the same process up in Montpelier rather. My goals, I see so much infighting between Republicans and Democrats. I'm an independent. Each one of them steadfastly not wanting to compromise so that they won't give a victory to either side. And it's us, the people. There's a disconnect between what they're doing and the people's agenda. That's one of the main reasons I'm wanting. Other reasons are state agencies. I believe the state agencies, they're not entities in themselves. We the people give them power and I'd like to see all those agencies be educated in our system of government. That's my goal. I'd like to get more community involvement with all the agencies and with all the police department and all the other agencies. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Macquarie. Ms. Tenet. I moved to Vermont about 30 years ago. Thank you for having me, by the way. And as a world-class musician, since COVID, a lot of other families, a sense of community and to be able to raise a family and relative safety and comfort is really important. And they should be able to maintain their sense of values. I think that's been disrupted with everything that's been happening in recent years. Many community members have expressed disappointment, whether it be a lack of affordable childcare, housing taxes, mandates, pushing someone else's ideology or political agenda onto them. I know this because I listen while canvassing out there. It's become apparent we need better representation and that inspired me to run as a mom, a single mom, to boot. And I want to imagine a better future for our kids so that they can grow and wisdom and knowledge as to what constitutes we the people. You're welcome. The candidates forum will begin now with one and a half minutes to answer a question. I'll pose to all of you. I'll do a different order every time. And you'll have one and a half minutes. And then at the end of the forum, you'll have one minute to sort of close it and give a final statement. I guess I'll start with the way your names are on the ballot. And we'll begin with Tom Stevens. Here we go, question. When you are in the state house, how are you going to use this role to improve your district? And what is the one important issue in your district? Our district is pretty broad. Waterbury is quite different from Bolton, which is quite different from Huntington. So one thing or another is harder to pin down. But again, I work on the housing committee. And we've been very clear since I've been in office about the dire need for housing that's affordable and which is slightly different than affordable housing in my mind. And what we're seeing across the state, across the country, but in our district, especially because it's in right in our faces, is the lack of vacancies for rental units. It's the lack of accessibility to affordable housing for families who don't make that much money in Vermont. We tend to pay people less than in other places. And we have 144,000 income tax payers who make less than $27,000 a year. And so having housing available for that demographic of people is really important, as it is for a middle class person who's now trying to move into the area. We've had a big business leave in Waterbury because for a stated reason of there's not enough housing nearby. And that's really important to get straight. And we're going to focus on that as much as we possibly can. Thank you. We'll move to Mr. McGory with the same question. What is important in your district? And how will you work in the state house to achieve that? What's important in our district, like Thomas said, certainly I've heard all about the lack of affordability of housing. That is, I've never seen, I've never seen this environment where it used to be one week's pay would pay your rent. Now it could be, most of your income was going through your rent. How can we address that? I'm looking at some type of rebate program, I guess it is, that will give more affordability to people searching for housing. That seems to be probably one of the most important things happening in this district. I said before I do own a building, but up in the St. Albanser area, there's certainly different problems there. There's an opioid problem, which I don't see terribly much in the Waterbury district, but we do have to be vigilant in the way our drugs, the way the drug problem is especially here. Thank you. And the same question for Teresa Wood. Thank you. I think that the first thing that we learn as legislators is that you're there for the needs of your constituents.  And so we respond on a frequent basis to outreach from whether it's an individual constituent, or it could be a town clerk asking for clarification of a bill that's come up, or we in turn also seek their input on things that we see coming up on the calendar and asking, you know, what's your thoughts about how this might impact business, the business that you do every day? So constituent services is a big deal, and it's something that means a lot to me as a legislator, because it helps me to connect with the real issues that people have in our communities. One of the big things that municipalities are interested in is bridges and roads, and the state assistance for that in the transportation bill, and so making sure that we can link our communities to the appropriate resources is important. And I do want to mention the child care services and the ability for people to return to the workforce who aren't currently now in the workforce because having left due to COVID, we need to have people return to the workforce if they want to, and child care is one of the keys for that. So I'll continue to work on appropriate low-cost, high-quality child care for Vermonters. Thank you. Kathy Tenet, same question. I'm sorry, the question again, specifically. Sure. When you're in the state house, how are you going to use your role to improve things in your district, and what's the most important issue in your district? I will continue to speak to people. I'm a working person. I'm still working, and I talk to community members, and I'm a part of groups within the community. So the communication is definitely on that level of the working for monitor. I think the carbon tax is highly unnecessary. We're already dealing with quite an increase in gas and heating fuel. I was shocked to get my heating bill this fall, early this fall. There's people that are very comfortable, and they can afford to pay that sort of thing. There's a lot of people in our community that cannot. So to put a tax on top of that, to me, that's some kind of ideology that's going on that's interfering with our government process. I think the importance of law enforcement and properly funding them. I have a friend that lives in the Wasefield area. I know that's outside of our district, but that's an example. There is not one police officer in that whole area, Wasefield Warren, that's been assigned to that area. That's problematic, and I'm hearing about more police that are dropping out of the profession, and more people are not going to be interested in joining the profession if the pay is not comparable to the job description and responsibilities, expectations. Our property taxes, when I owned a home in Fiston, the property taxes tripled within a 12-year period. We need to honor the school board and the superintendent's request to not place more expensive mandates via new programs onto our school systems. Thank you. Thank you. Now here's the candidate forum here is our second question. Do you believe the Vermont legislature needs to focus more attention on election security? And if so, what actions do you propose? And we'll start with Ms. Wood. Thank you. The legislature is continually interested in election security, and Vermont has been cited, in fact, on a national level for its very high level of election security. And so I believe, yeah, we're going to have a new Secretary of State. That person will certainly focus on election security. The legislature will continue to do that. We've made voting more accessible to more Vermonters than ever. We've continued that, and we will also continue to look at election security. However, like I said, I want to repeat that Vermont has been cited as being one of the most effective states in running its voting process. Thank you. Next, I'd like to hear from Ms. Tennant. My estimation is that voting by mail is very susceptible to fraud. I have two friends that moved from the residences, one actually out of state, received a ballot in the mail. She reported it, and it was kind of a fuzzy answer that she got. If she were to vote in her state of residence now in Ohio and didn't know about what was going on with the mail-in ballots, I mean, that would fall back on her, and she would be held libel. It's the whole thing with cleaning up the voter rolls. So she's going to be mailing that back. So who's to say where that ballot is going to get mailed back to? Is that secure enough to get that mailed back? And what person is receiving it on that end? Who's to say that that person on the other end is not going to use that ballot? Harvest it, I guess that's the term. Another friend around the corner from me left her job and her residence, and she received a ballot at her new address, or at her old address, I'm sorry, at her old address. And the person that she was taken care of received a ballot who has since passed. So there you're talking about two ballots in mailboxes right around the corner from where I live. What's going to happen to these ballots? Who's to say that somebody's not going to come along and grab them and mail them? That's a deep concern. Thank you. Just mailing ballots and in the way that it was done, that it automatically went out without us requesting a mail-in ballot, I think that's a little erroneous. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McGory. I'm not sure. I know I vote at the Smiley School and they use paper ballots there. I don't know what they do in Burlington. They probably do have machines. It's certainly a bigger area. I know and for example, my brother just came back from Brazil to see his wife. They vote with paper ballots, all right? They can wait a couple more hours. I don't have to have my instantaneous result. I want the result to be the right result, not one that can be fudged with. And actually, she says, he told me that night, they do get all the ballots counted and there's no centralized position where any type of fraud can take place. This is one of the most important things in our government. Our vote is one of the most important things in our government. If you go into a liquor store, you've got a show ID. You get on welfare, you have to show ID. Everywhere you have to show ID except at the ballot box. I think it's certainly warrants matching a person to a ballot. Thank you. Mr. Stevens. I've been very comfortable with the way that the Secretary of State's office has been handling vote by mail both through the pandemic and this year. If you remember during the pandemic, even the primaries, which are party related elections, they're not state elections, they're held by the parties at hand. They both went off fairly smoothly. They reacted to the pandemic in a way that was incredibly thoughtful and they focused on making sure that the roles were clean. They made sure that the town clerks were up to date on what the processes were and any hiccups that came up were straightened out either through legislative action if needed or through the work of the town clerks. The town clerks did a phenomenal job across the state in making the system work. I'm totally happy with the way that they've done it. The Secretary of State's office has been very forceful in protecting any kind of attacks online from overseas sources. They have been, as Representative Wood said, they have been recognized as one of the most secure voting systems in the country. As we heard, yes, the vote is the most important at a time when there are states across the country that are trying to deny people the right to vote. I'm really proud that Vermont is getting out there and is getting away for us to vote at a higher level than we ever have in the past and to do it securely. Thank you. This is a candidate forum for Washington and Chittenden. We have four candidates here and I'm Linda Radke. We're going in different order every time. We have some questions and then also the people from home can make sure you put your questions in as well. We'll have those as well. This is a question that has already been mentioned is housing. Do you think the Vermont legislature should do more to support affordable housing as well as housing from the missing middle, the moderate income for monitors? And if so, what should they do? Let's start with Ms. Tern. I used to own a home and I'm a renter now and my rent has gone up two years in a row pretty exorbitantly. I'm not sure if that's, well, of course it's probably somewhat related to inflation, but I believe there are some new regs or something that's going on for landlords. I don't know the specifics right now. I'd be willing to research that some more. I feel the pressure that she, this is my land lady, that she is experiencing. She won't share them, like I said, the specifics, but there's definitely some things that are going on. It's just a lot of inspectors coming in and out. It just seems like a whirlwind. She's trying to make a living too. Between the increase in rent two years in a row and a doubling of the oil bill, heating plus gas for the car, you add this stuff up after a while and it's concerning. I'm a working person and there's a lot of other people out there that are working and they're experiencing this. What can we do about it? Like I said, I will do whatever research is needed and required and necessary to get to the bottom of why this is such a problem in Vermont. It's very expensive to live here. I moved here 30 years ago. To think that what was going on with the administration around that time, that the tax, the property tax tripled and it was less than 12 years. Thank you. I'm going to have to cut you off now over time, but we'll return to those later. Same question for Mr. Stevens. What specific actions should the Vermont legislature take to support affordable housing as well as housing for moderate income for Monters? This past session we passed a bill that allowed for private developers to have access to some of the federal money that we received through the ARPA funding, through the emergency funding, which is the first time we've really tried to allow private developers that opportunity with some restrictions on it. What we've seen since the pandemic started was at first we saw that everybody was holed up in their homes and then we saw this incredible increase in the price of homes and in the price of rents going up. And our statutes do not have any protections for tenants when it comes to no cause evictions, which means that a landlord can evict someone for no reason whatsoever. We do have just causes if it's non-payment of rent, of destruction of property, and so on, and there are legal processes that go along with that. But during the pandemic we also through federal funding instituted a rental assistance program where close to 160 million dollars has been distributed through tenants to landlords to make sure that people are making ends meet both as tenants and landlords. But it's a real it's a really sticky wicked. It's been very difficult in all the time that I've been here to try to figure out that way to get more affordable housing. We need more investment. We have a mechanism to do that with called the property transfer tax and some of that money is supposed to go to help with affordable housing. But matching that up with available funds for the so-called missing middle has been a struggle because most private developers don't want to have any strings attached to money that they're that they're receiving in order to build housing and if the state or the feds are going to give money then there are going to be some strings attached. But this past session we passed we passed legislation that starts that process and we'll see how it goes in the near future. Okay, question about affordable housing for Mr. McGory. Yes, I certainly see have seen the rents go up in my time or Vermont. I own a house. I own a house actually in Canada also and what they're doing I'm not a big this Reggie DeLongement allows I'm not 100% for rent control but if the problem gets that far out of hand the Reggie DeLongement up there they say you can increase your rent by 2% maybe 3%. Whatever it is they decided that at that point. That to me would be a last ditch solution. In our economy our supply and demand if you're experiencing super profits in one area that's going to attract more business to that area and it's going to take away your profits just like if your rent is getting so high and you're making so much money people are going to build new houses and all of a sudden there's a glut of houses so it's somewhat self-regulating but I say everyone's experience is problems with gas problems with electricity and so they're having to have to charge those rents so it's not an easy solution but like I said there could be rent control that would be a last ditch effort that I think you could explore. Thank you Ms. Wood the question on housing and specific things that the legislature can do. Great thank you. I think it's important to understand the depth and breadth of the housing issue. In Vermont most likely we would need an additional 10,000 units of housing to meet what is the current demand for housing. We've made big steps big strides as Representative Stevens said in the last three years we've appropriated more than $375 million towards housing and that's housing for middle income Vermonters it's housing for low income Vermonters it's housing support to rehabilitate current units that are offline in order to bring them up to code those are forgivable loans to landlords to be able to bring those housing units back up to code and to get them back in the housing market. We have been able to provide assistance as Representative Stevens said on rental. We have also looked at increasing the availability of what are called accessory dwelling units which are essentially trying to increase the density of housing in our downtowns and so I have to say I think the legislature is on the right track and but we will continue to need to focus on this area. Another question coming up but everybody take a little bit of water. We're going to start with Mr. McGory next for this question about climate change. The effects of climate change are already being felt across the world. Do you believe Vermont should take additional steps to limit carbon emissions in the state? My personal feeling is I'm green I think I'm looking to move towards electric cars etc but there's people get carried up in a green wave that's what's happened in Germany for example they cut their nuclear which I'm I don't want nuclear at all they cut their coal now since there's a natural gas crisis over in Germany they've been advised to take one shower a week and they've been advised how to use a washcloth that that's not a responsible pursuit not a responsible pursuit at all there's no plan B I don't want to get carried off in a green wave also I want to do things responsibly slowly check their effects and there was a nice age 10 000 years ago and there was I don't know how that was certainly a climate change there was a in 1816 there was a Mount Tambora went off there was no summer that that year that was certainly climate change I don't under I don't think climate change is as I think I do believe in it but I don't believe in it at the extreme that I see other people believe it thank you Mr. Aaron yeah I think there's a lot of scare tactics when it comes to the green issue and I think there's a lot of people trying to make money from it quite honestly and the way that they're setting it up here in Vermont with credits with a you know it's it's really going to hurt the businesses that are supplying us with energy as well um boy there's so many things about this issue it's just I think it needs to be reframed actually the information that we're being given by major media outlets is I I don't want to go so far as to say it's incorrect but from a personal standpoint I would say that it needs to be reframed what causes climate change has to do with the moon and the sun and the interaction there's something that happened 135 years ago I believe that was quite dramatic something that you had mentioned as well I'm similar to that and it had to do it's something with the waning of the moon and the the sun and the interaction and uh this is not being discussed things like this are not being discussed and I think we need to open up this it's a very big issue that we need to open it up and discuss more fully than it has been thank you very much thank you let's go to miss wood well I guess the first thing that I want to say that climate change is real if you lived anywhere in Vermont in 2011 and experienced tropical storm Irene or like in Huntington in a couple of years ago with the Huntington with the halloween flooding that happened there we are seeing more and more severe weather circumstances and the legislature has a role in helping our communities to be more resilient and we've provided significant funding to support towns and their infrastructure to respond to those crises we've also passed legislation that deals with the fragmentation of our forest to our forest or one of our largest responses in Vermont to the climate issue in terms of carbon and I want to say unequivocally that the legislature has not passed a carbon tax uh the clean heat standard which uh is maybe being referred to did not have a carbon tax in it and required uh it required the legislature to take further action on any recommendations that were made and I think that it's important to understand that it's going to be a multifaceted approach over many years this is there is no quick solution to this and we have to be open to multiple input on those solutions thank you mr Stevens um thank you also unequivocally climate change is real it's been affecting in Vermont for a very long time many years ago I picked up a national geographic from 1975 and there is an advertisement from an oil company that said that we're running out of oil we're at peak oil and that oil has contributed to the warming of the planet so this is something that's been known for a very long time we've actually been very slow in addressing this and what the legislature has been able to do some of the work has been vetoed by the administration by the governor is to look at this very clearly and relying on the existing science as much as possible we don't need to look too far to look at pakistan recently and to look at what just happened in florida the the storms that are happening are happening in a way that hasn't really happened on a regular basis prior to this period of time and every month we see that this was the warmest month ever it's been going on for years in vermont we have the biggest energy carbon creation right now is transportation we don't have great public transportation it's very difficult to build a rail system in in the way that our state is built and so until we can figure make these investments and first of all accept the fact that these changes are happening and and get a little bit more nervous about them then we'll find the answers to them we we know where the answers lie they but they're all out there we just need to have the will to pass that bill and and to start working on this thank you going from sort of a global thing to something very specific to vermont i'm going to ask for your your stance on article 22 and just to uh review it finalizes a four-year process of amending the state constitution to reflect um guarantee actually a reproductive autonomy for pregnant people so where do you stand an act of 22 and we'll start with miss terrant 90 of vermonters do not agree and these are pro-choice people by the way they do not think that article 22 is a good idea they don't believe in an abortion at nine months you're talking about a fully formed viable baby and this would be entered into the constitution in vermont so 90 um it's it's a lot more extreme than road versus weight i think that you know the supreme court ruling in the way that they did it again it's scare tactics you know uh i hope you know it's going to happen here in vermont and we need to do whatever we possibly can to make sure that it doesn't um road versus weight was i think the first trimester you're talking nine months and again it's it's 90 percent of vermonters do not agree with this article 22 um and why should the taxpayers have to pay for somebody's abortion i i just have a problem with that i don't want to pay for somebody's abortion i work hard i pay taxes that's that's a personal choice and that's something that should be between the woman and her doctor and article 22 means it's going to be in public it's it's it's written it's not good legislation the way that it's written it's it's uh it's lawyer talk it's not very clear it's vague a woman is not even mentioned the the word woman it's something a person individual thank you very much you're welcome tom stevens i totally support proposition 22 or article 22 um i have to push back against some of the numbers that were just mentioned um recent poll just show that 70 of vermonters support article 22 um that's been the case since this was started over four years ago uh it is not about nine month abortion of vermont does not there are no abortion clinics in the state of vermont that do abortions at that time um so this miss it's misinformation essentially um it is putting into the constitution the right of this choice to be between an individual and their doctor and that the that the legislature which changes every two years it will prevent the legislature from easily passing anything that denies that right of those individuals that's all article 22 does and this idea that um 70 percent of vermonters support it has been has been pretty regular throughout this period of time of contemplating this changing the constitution is not a simple fact it's not a simple thing to do it takes two bienniums plus a public vote to get this across it's been studied it's been there's been plenty of testimony taken and the support remains and so i'm looking forward to seeing it pass in november thank you miss wood thank you uh i voted in favor of sending article 22 or proposition five however you want to refer to it to the voters um and the voters have a right in this state to um and an obligation to to vote on a constitutional amendment as representative steven says this has been a long process i want to keep this very simple what what proposition five or um article 22 does is to indicate to all individuals not just pregnant women to all individuals that um government should not have the right to interfere in your personal health care decisions period mr mcgory uh i'm not a hundred percent sure on article 22 uh as far as uh abortions are concerned i'm a male i'm not a female i don't have sensibilities of what that would do to a female for example uh how would we change their life etc i would i'm against personally against abortion but i don't think i have the right to tell anyone what to do with their body and i probably would abstain from any type of uh any type of telling people that they can't do this or that with their body but i i certainly don't like the idea of a third trimester abortion or whatever but like i said i probably would abstain from that or at least not uh i think an individual has a right to their own body and their own decision just as i think people have the right to choose a vaccine or not be vaccinated the government should not tell you that that that is their duty that's my that's my feeling we're going to move on to the cannabis question what should we do with the unallocated revenue collected from the 14 percent excise tax tax on retail cannabis sales mr wood thank you um um well whether we in fact earn that through sales is yet to be seen um uh legal sales just recently started um serving on the house human services committee we spend a great deal of time on prevention and education around substance use and we have a priority for investing a significant amount of resources that come from that in substance education and treatment was mentioned earlier about the opioid crisis that we have in vermont last year a record number of 210 people died from overdoses in our state and we uh while we have a hub and spoke system that provides treatment to people with substance use disorder it is not sufficient we need to do we need to do more and we need to explore other alternatives so investing any resources that we might get from that into related substance use issues i think would be would be what i would look to do thank you this is the candidates forum here on orca media also sponsored by the bridge and linda radkey this is not a debate it's a sort of a round table so we're giving each of the four candidates a minute and a half to answer some questions that are pertinent we also may have some questions from our audience who will call in the questions let's turn to schools do we need to change the way we fund education less property tax more income tax vermont is consistently ranked among states with the highest per pupil spending more than 20 000 per student the question is how are we getting a good a good return on our investment so talking about school funding let's begin with teresa wood well thank you i didn't know if the other candidates were going to get to answer the question i just answered thank you i just thought i might i mean i'm happy to answer two questions in a row but there you are there you are yes sorry i'm going to keep myself straight on that so we'll just go down to mr mr maguri so the question we're going to back what was the question yeah we're going to back up the question the effects of climate change no no cannabis cannabis how would you use the she i forgot um yeah what should we do with the unallocated funds collected from a possible 14 percent excise tax on retail cannabis sales uh i i do i i i agree there's an opiate problem and i think some some of that uh money should be spent uh directly towards the the opiate crisis you were talking about school funding that's going to be an opportunity to fund schools uh i know you said the the pupil cost is per pupil cost is very high but you know cannabis uh revenue might come in handy with that so it's it's either school funding or attacking the opiate crisis that's kathy tenet turret thank you um a representative from colorado came to speak i think it was around a couple of years ago and i decided to attend and he mentioned that it's not a good idea to legalize marijuana to the point that it's commercialized um and and he said the tax that you get back does not offset the cost basically because it there's a lot of social cost involved in in the increased use of cannabis um i think it's fine if you want to grow your own and if you want to share it with your friends and that sort of thing but this whole idea of mass producing and then you're attracting nefarious elements because then it's a big money making thing um i'm concerned about that uh based on my own experience as a mother and also from one of my children living in colorado and what i've heard that is happening out there thank you tom stevens what to do with uh the 14 sales tax is still i think a question that hasn't been answered because we don't know how much it's going to be from the lottery we we net probably close to 30 million dollars for education um through spirits the sale of spirits we probably around 28 to 30 million dollars um both of those are considered controlled substances as as marijuana is and so when we have another year of seeing or a year of seeing what kind of income we're going to make we'll have a better idea of where that money can be invested and it should be invested in in something that's going to help mitigate any social problems that come up from it um marijuana is generally speaking um safer than alcohol it is generally speaking much safer than fentanyl or any opioids the problems that come from it will come from um from a personal use issue i'm of the school that it's already illegal it's already illicit except for homegrown now and well now it's now it's not for recreational but the idea that it has been a public safety thing for all these years has really the prohibition against marijuana has created more problems than um than legalizing it will and as long as we can invest in the social the social programs that will help mitigate the problems with any person who has a problem with it then i think that that would be sufficient thank you so with act 22 with cannabis uh now we're going to schools we'll go to the the one i was going to ask anybody else um this is about funding education so should we change the way we fund education in the state as you mentioned 20 000 per pupil cost are we getting a good return on that and do we need to change the funding for education start miss deterrent i uh i moved to vermont in the fall of 92 and had my son uh shortly thereafter i was at home with my children i had a daughter a year and a half after that and they entered the local community school uh just as act 60 came in my my son i think he made it through kindergarten and then my daughter was right behind him they're just really close in age and how it impacted our community and and our family um two-thirds of the staff quit they were it was just an uproar and that that you know it was a wonderfully rated school up until that point actually you know people raved about the kindergarten teacher won awards um and what ended up happening yeah this just imagine two-thirds of the staff quit the money a third of the funding was taken out of that school and sent who knows where and that that whole thing with act 60 was just like i i checked it out a little bit more recently because i felt like i needed to for this time that we're in now um yeah it was like rushed through this is what happens with these these bills sometimes you know so people get together in in legislature and they they had these agendas and they're going to do this and and there was really little input discussion from the community that was allowed thank you very much you're welcome we're hitting all the topics today from cannabis to schools and now guns what are your thoughts on an assault weapons ban do you believe it should have people should have ar-15s without regulation and what about a ban on non-standard devices such as bump stocks that increase the capacity or firing speed of non-automatic weapons it's a complicated question several parts to it but assault weapons ban and regulation of ar-15s and also modification we'd like to start with mr. mcgory i i'm not a big hunter but i i'm an advocate of a second amendment i don't see any real reason to have a magazine of 50 rounds to go out and hunt deer so i in some respects the size of the magazine would uh i think could be limited as far as rifles etc i think it's our second amendment right it's written in the constitution and it wasn't written because uh they wanted to make sure people could hunt it was written as as a prohibition against uh a tyrannical government uh so i i do understand a ar-15 is a 22 it's not a huge round uh my my like i said my feeling is i i would compromise on some uh the size of the magazine and some assault weapons but as far as guns go i certainly want uh people to enjoy their second amendment right thank you mr. stevens i think we did some legislation on bump stocks i'm not sure whether it passed or whether it was or whether it was vetoed in the end but um bump stocks are unnecessary for hunting um ar-15s are unnecessary for hunting and so whether they get banned or not i think as a federal is primarily a federal issue but i do think that we should be licensing gun owners um we license for automobiles we license for um cosmeticians um there should be some responsibility uh when you are exercising your second amendment right to um to the rest of society to say to say that you know how to use this tool um this weapon and that people should be able to be responsible for that and i think that we ignore that responsibility um i was brought up at a house with with guns and that was the first thing i was taught they're very powerful weapons they're very powerful tools and that you should have you should have a responsibility for how that tool is used and i think we ignore that when we get into this um simple simplistic conversation of what the constitution may say about ownership i don't have a problem with people owning guns on a whole but i would like to see it so that it's safer uh and that it's done in a way that is respectful to those of us who don't own guns thank you next to Teresa Wood thank you um i'm going to skip back just for a moment to the school question um having served 12 years on a school board uh and uh most of them as chairs our schools have become social institutions that deal with the whole myriad of issues of children and families and um yes $20,000 per student is a high amount and um vermont relies on a diversity of different funding sources even though people just highlight the property taxes not the only source of funding for schools and we uh in the last couple of years have diversified that even further so i just wanted to point that out and that we pay for property taxes based upon our income in vermont so they are income sensitive when it comes to um weapons i wholeheartedly support the second amendment and i wholeheartedly support commonsense gun legislation um and i don't think that um i think that those two things can live together um in vermont laws and we have passed commonsense gun legislation and we need to be aware of the fact of how guns are used in our society today and the impact on domestic violence and the victims of of domestic violence and uh guns are used in that way a lot the impact on people um who die by suicide uh and the use of guns during that so um i support the second amendment and i also support commonsense gun legislation thank you now kathy tarant i support the second amendment wholeheartedly um as a woman i should be able to protect myself and for somebody to tell me that i can't or how i can or cannot do that i don't think that's really their place um that that's uh i think i think there's a lot again i keep saying fear tactics there's all these fear tactics out there um what constitutes an assault weapon it could be a knife there's more knife deaths per year than than guns you know so uh it's it's there it's there's more to the story here um again as a woman i should be able to protect myself in whatever ways that i deem necessary thank you thank you now we've come to our sort of lightning round thank you so much for respecting the time and now take a minute take a trip of water but this is um one minute and we'll go in the original order that you chose when you sat there one minute to sort of give us closing statement and do try to keep it to one minute mr stevens thank you and thank you again for hosting us tonight um i would just ask our our constituents our our voters for their vote coming up starting last week fill out you can fill out your ballot now um what i think i bring to this position is experience it's leadership it's um commitment to doing the work that's in front of us um in the best way i know how the stuff the material that comes through our committee is diverse it does deal with everyday vermont issues it does deal with the important parts that we've talked about tonight including housing including affordability wages and the ability to make it here in vermont and i would just ask people for their support thank you um for hosting and for moderating this evening i appreciate it i think that um the one of the things that i want to say is that on behalf of vermonters working in the legislature is an honor um it's a responsibility i take very seriously but it's also an honor to be able to represent your constituents and your communities and to do that in a way that's respectful of the diversity of opinions that there are we represent everyone in our communities not just the people who agree with us and on a particular issue and so we try to the best of our abilities to listen to our constituents about the myriad of issues that come our way and i do want to say that we work across the aisle you know uh republicans independence progressives democrats we are all working there for the same thing and that's to improve the lives of vermonters and to make vermont a continue to be and improve uh it as a state that we all want to live in thank you william migori yes uh i i do think the environment is a problem but i like i said i don't want to get caught up on a green wave i want to do things responsibly i want to have a plan b uh like i said the uh the germans they cut down everything the coal now they're now they can't even take a shower of electricity costs are now in uh uh england are way way up because they they stop their co-production let's do things responsibly and have a plan b and all these things as far as uh i'm running as an independent and it is because democrats and republicans are at each other's throats uh i've seen it especially in federal but it in vermont it also is there uh like i said let's be responsible have uh an alternative plan and uh you know that that's that's pretty much what i'd like to say thank you kathy tyrant one minute one minute thank you um as a 30-year vermont resident single mom and musician working musician i have seen our state become a harder place for vermonters to live to support themselves and their families this has largely been the result of the politicians we've been sending to mom peolier making our lives more complicated and more expensive through increased regs higher taxes and mandates based on ideological agendas they're disconnected from the day-to-day needs of their constituents vermonters deserve better representation at the state house that is more reflective of their wants and needs and not based on the parlance of special interest groups or lobbyists i'm kathy tyrant and i'm asking for your vote thank you and thanks to our candidates today for this forum on orca media also co-sponsored by the bridge the mont pilier bridge and uh also telling telling everyone to remember to vote i'm linda radkey thanks so much for listening thank you


Hey everyone, this is Dan with another episode of my Moderna and BioNTech video. The stock prices of Moderna and BioNTech dropped quite a bit in the last few days from the all-time highs. Is it a time to sell to protect your profit or maybe you should now buy on the dip? I'll tell you, I spent the last few days analyzing the facts and data about the recent developments related to COVID-19. And lo and behold, I found a few things that have not been identified by any of the professional analysts. As a result, I bought Moderna and BioNTech shares today. Let me tell you why. First of all, let me review my price forecast from my last video that was posted on June 22nd, 2021. At the time, I predicted Moderna to be $220 BioNTech at $250 before the end of September, 2021. And the day before June 22nd, Moderna closed at 208 and BioNTech at 226, quite a distance from my targets. And also today, Moderna already exceeded my target and BioNTech came down and I was saying why. Also a few days ago, I increased my price target for Moderna to $250 a share by the end of September, 2021. Will I be forecasting new targets for these two stocks? I will talk about it in the next few minutes. Stay tuned. Let's go into the details. In the next few minutes, I'll be talking about different types of COVID vaccines. This approach is very different from my previous videos because as I look more into the detail data and facts, I realized that it does make a difference as to what type of vaccine we're looking at. And I will explain more. It's a very important concept. The next thing I'll be looking at is the different vaccines, how they line up against a new Delta variant. And then we're looking at data for the US, UK, Israel, UAE, Portugal, China, Russia, and last but not the least, Singapore is going to be very interesting. And then we'll look at the analyst ratings and my own valuation of the two companies. And finally, I'll be talking about my new price targets. This is a slide that I've been using in my previous videos. This is a list of the major vaccines available in the world today. There are 10 different major vaccines. And most recently, I added co-vaccine, which has been used in India and also approved by eight or nine different other countries. And it's a two-dose vaccine and it's supposed to be 81% effective. The last one, which is not really in production yet is Novavax, but it's proven to be very promising. And they will probably get approval from the US and the EU during the fourth quarter of 2021. I will talk more about that later. Novavax might threaten the market share of Moderna and BioNTech. So we need to pay a lot of attention to Novavax. There are four types of COVID vaccines. They are the whole virus vaccines, the nucleic acid vaccines, the viral vector vaccines, and finally, the protein subunit vaccines. Let's get into the details. The whole virus vaccine are made of weakened or inactivated virus that they can trigger immunity responses from our bodies, but they cannot replicate and therefore they cannot harm us. Examples are Sinovac, Sinoform, both of them are made in China, and co-vaccines made in India and primarily used in India. A recent development about the whole virus type of vaccines is that UAE and Bahrain recently made Pfizer BioNTech shot available to those who got the Sinoform vaccine previously. And also Turkey started to offer COVID-19 booster shot after earlier using the Chinese vaccine, which are the whole virus vaccine and primarily Turkey will be using the BioNTech vaccine as a booster shot. And also they will offer Sinovac vaccine as a choice to the citizens. This is the newspaper from Thailand, Bangkok Post. Thailand recently approved 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccine and also additional doses of Sinovac as booster shots and they are also talking with Moderna to try and get more Moderna vaccines. Now this is the original number of doses ordered by Thailand as of March 1st of 2021. As you can see back then, they did not offer either Moderna or BioNTech, but now seeing the results from other countries, they realize that they now want to order BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. So that's positive development for Moderna and BioNTech. If you like what you've seen so far, I'd like to encourage you to click the like, subscribe and notification button. That'll encourage me to make more videos like this and it will help YouTube to direct more viewers to my channel. Thank you very much. Let's continue. The second type of vaccine is the nucleic acid vaccine or what we know as the mRNA vaccines. They use genetic material, either the RNA or DNA to trigger the immunity responses from our bodies. And usually they use the viral spike protein for that purpose. This type of vaccines include Moderna, BioNTech and also curavac. Although curavac has not been approved yet, actually the trial of curavac has not been very successful. I'll talk more about that later on. Just on July 5th, a few days ago, Israel said that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant and it's only 64% effective compared to 94.3% effective against the original version of the virus. The good news is that the BioNTech vaccine is still 93% effective against serious symptoms and hospitalization, although the vaccine is 98.2% effective against the original version of the virus. So the effectiveness is definitely diminished, although 93% is still pretty high. And because of this piece of news, BioNTech dropped quite a bit in the last few days. Just today, Pfizer announced that they would be developing a booster shot and they will be applying for authorization to commence with the trials in August of this year. And they emphasize that the latest developments with regard to the Delta variant emphasize the fact that we do need to have a booster shot or the third dose within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. It's unfortunate that we have a very contagious variant now, the Delta variant, but from a commercial perspective, it is that boost to Moderna and BioNTech. And since we know both Moderna and BioNTech were the first to have viable vaccines approved by major countries such as the US and EU. And after this news is announced around 6 p.m. tonight, the stock price of BioNTech jumped up during aftermarket and that's the point when I bought additional shares of BioNTech. June 17, it was announced that the curavag failed in pivotal COVID-19 trial with only 47% effectiveness. Curavag uses the same technology as BioNTech and Moderna and how come curavag failed but BioNTech and Moderna are so successful. According to some of the scientists, they're saying that maybe because curavag use a dosage that's too low and also the way they process the messenger RNA is probably not as good as the way they do it at Moderna and BioNTech. That means this is less competition for Moderna and BioNTech from an investor's perspective. The next type of COVID vaccine is a viral vector type and with this type of vaccine, the genetic instructions are delivered to our bodies by way of a harmless virus that's injected to our bodies. This type of vaccine includes AstraZeneca, which is primarily using UK and many, many other countries worldwide. And Johnson and Johnson and also Sputnik V, which is developed by Russia and used in Russia as well as in many other countries. Johnson and Johnson has been approved by the United States but the usage has been very low at this point because of production constraint and also it's not as effective as BioNTech and Moderna. And then Cancino, that's a newer vaccine from China. It hasn't been widely used yet. And then the last type of vaccine is the protein subunit type. This type of vaccine uses pieces of the pathogen to trigger an immunity response. Novavax is a type of protein subunit vaccine. News about Novavax, the manufacturer said it's supposed to be 90% effective and they will submit data to FDA in the US during the third quarter of 2021. So far, they have signed a contract with Covax which is a consortium of countries that Covax already ordered 1.1 billion doses of Novavax. So once it's approved, it'll be a formidable challenge to BioNTech and Moderna. I have been watching this very closely. Let's talk about a Delta variant which is supposed to be a lot more contagious than any other variants we've seen so far. This is a table from Statista.com. It shows the countries where we see the most number of infections from the Delta variant. In UK, for example, 96.1% of the new cases belong to the Delta variant. In the US, 38.8% of cases. In Portugal, 71.8% and so on. Let's look at some of these countries. From there, we can actually see which vaccine is better, which vaccine is not. First of all, let's look at Israel. In Israel, 62.8% of the population already received the first dose and 57.3% of the population have been fully vaccinated. The Delta variant is 90% of the newly identified cases. That's pretty high. And so far they've been using mostly the BioNTech vaccine with some Moderna vaccine. If you look at that daily new cases, basically since April, it's almost at zero. Although this is very small uptake lately. So even though we saw that article from Israel saying that BioNTech is less effective against the Delta variant, but if you look at the chart, yeah, compared to here, which was almost zero, it's probably almost doubling the daily cases according to the article. But from the overall perspective, it's only very few cases from day to day. And now I'd like to use these data to set up a comparison table here. What I'm doing is that because it's apparently shown that the BioNTech vaccine or the mRNA vaccine has been very effective in Israel, that's why I'm giving the mRNA vaccine one point. Now I'm not trying to make light of this situation and try to run a beauty contest among the different vaccines. From the perspective of an investor, it's very important for us to be able to identify whether we are investing in the right places, especially like myself, I have substantial amount of money investing both Moderna and BioNTech. These countries, they are basically doing the same analysis, except they don't tell us that. Why? Because people want to be politically correct. Each of these vaccines is made by a country or maybe sometimes joined between two countries, like Pfizer, BioNTech. And some people might not feel comfortable to say, well, the vaccine from this country has been a vaccine from that country, but they do the analysis themselves and that's why we see certain countries starting to order more BioNTech and Moderna vaccine when they started out using a different type of vaccine. So I'm just doing what a lot of people are doing to make an intelligent decision about what is better and what is not. So let's continue with our comparison. At this point, because of the data from Israel, the mRNA type of vaccine got one point, whereas the other three vaccines I have not scored any point yet. Next country, United Kingdom. Well, we see quite an uptake here. That's not very good news. And 68.1% of the country received the first dose and 50.9% of the country have been fully vaccinated. Percentage wise about as high as Israel, but the situation is substantially worse than Israel. And of course, a percentage of Delta variant is 96.1% whereas in Israel is about 90%. That's kind of equivalent, but they are being hit a little bit more seriously by Delta variant than in Israel. Primarily they're using the AstraZeneca vaccine which make up, I would say probably more than 50% of the injections they've given so far. And then much fewer BioNTech doses and some Moderna doses. So it's primarily AstraZeneca. And from this data, I would say the vector type of vaccine which is AstraZeneca get a negative one point because of the situation in UK, Portugal. There's a little bit of uptake, but not serious. And their first dose 56.8% fully vaccinated, 35.1%. Fairly high percentage of the people have been vaccinated. Delta variant 71.8% that's pretty high percentage wise. Now the thing is that because Portugal is part of EU and the mixing EU is that most of the vaccines they have administered are BioNTech and Moderna and a little bit AstraZeneca and very few J&J shots. What's that telling me is that BioNTech and Moderna have been very effective compared to, for example, the situation in UK. In UK where mostly they use AstraZeneca vaccine and that's why for Portugal, I give mRNA another credit point. Let's look at China. It's very impressive. The case count has been almost zero every day since March of 2020. They administered enough doses for 47.6% of the people, not extremely high. And they primarily use a Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccine. In China they also have very stringent quarantine procedures for places where they have outbreak of cases and they use very rigorous contact tracing as well. The preventive measures also help a lot in addition to the vaccines. Because at this point they have so few cases we really cannot tell what percentage of cases are the Delta variant. I would say the whole virus vaccine which is Sinovac and Sinopharm get one credit point from the China data. Let's look at Russia. Unfortunately, not good here. First dose, 15.7%, fully vaccinated, 10.2%. So very few people have been receiving the vaccines. And the Delta variant now is at 89% of the new cases, pretty high. And they've been using primarily the Sputnik 5 vaccine. And looking at that, I will say it's not very good news. But you cannot just say because Sputnik is not effective, maybe the reason why so many people are infected is because they have not received any vaccine whatsoever. Therefore, instead of deducting one point from the Sputnik vaccine, which is a vector vaccine, I'll just deduct half a point just because so few people have received vaccination at this point. And then UAE, one dose, 68.8%, fully vaccinated, 59.5%. Delta variant is only 33.9%. And then if you look at the data, not very good either. Although recently there's been a slight decrease. And remember earlier, we read the news that UAE is now offering the BioNTech vaccine as a booster shot. And maybe that has to do with that dip here. And primarily they've been using Sinopharm. And recently they started using BioNTech and they also use a Sputnik vaccine as well as AstraZeneca. But mostly in the beginning, around like two, three months ago, they were giving people the Sinopharm vaccines mostly. Based on the data from UAE, I will say the whole virus vaccine, which is Sinopharm, gets a negative half a point at deduction, unfortunately. Let's look at Singapore. It looks pretty good. The day-to-day count is almost zero. And first dose, 65.4%, fully vaccinated, 38.6%. That's pretty high percentage. And Delta variants are whooping 90.8%. That means they are very effective in fending off the Delta variant. And so far they've been primarily using the BioNTech vaccine together with some Adrenal vaccine and some Sinovac. And with the data from Singapore, I will give an mRNA vaccine another credit point. And up until now, the whole virus vaccine got half a point. The messenger RNA vaccine, three points and vector type of vaccine is negative 1.5 point in the subunit because it really has not been used in any country yet, represented by Novavax. There's not enough information available yet for subunit type of vaccine. Now, if you look at the United States, the case count has been pretty good. Reduction, although it's flattening out a little bit, but it's not bad. Although the Delta variant is only 38.8% of the new cases, first dose, 55.1%, fully vaccinated, 47.6%, fairly high. And so far, primarily BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been used in the US and with some small number of J&J vaccines. And with the United States there, I would say mRNA should get maybe another half a credit point. So that gives the mRNA in a total of 3.5, which is the highest score compared to the other three types of vaccines. As an investor, I got to make my best judgment. And this is how I do it. You might not agree with it. And if you don't agree with it, I appreciate any comments or suggestions or questions from you. You can enter your comments on the bottom of this video or you can send me your comments by way of my Twitter account. Let's continue. Worldwide, the most recent daily cases are 345,000. That's really still very high. And also so far, 3.3 billion doses have been given worldwide. But the world population is 7.9 billion. And most of the vaccines require two shots. So we need at least about 12 to 16 billion doses to cover the entire world. And only 3.3 billion doses have been given. So definitely the whole world needs a lot more doses of vaccines, effective doses of vaccines. Hopefully they will be from Moderna and BioNTech from my perspective because I invest in those two companies. Let's look at the analyst's opinions. First, let's look at Moderna. I'm comparing today's ratings with the ratings from my last video, which was published on June 22. Today's closing price from Moderna is $232. And my target, I'll talk about that later, Yahoo Business gives them a high rating of $246, which is higher than today's price. And that's good. And the average rating went up from 181 to 184. It's lower than today's price. And the low rating is only $83. And Navillier gives them an overall A rating. TipsRanks.com is moderate buy, high rating of $246. Again, higher than today's price. The average rating went down just a little bit, 194 to 192, and the low rating is 100. C&M Money is a buy rating, high rating of $246. Again, it's higher than today's price. Medium rating, 190, and low rating of 83. Now, if you look at BioNTech, today's closing price is $207. And Yahoo high rating went up just a little bit to 238. Lose Navillier is still an overall A rating. TipsRanks.com, moderate buy. The average rating went up just a little bit. And C&M Money unchanged. And if you look at this, the high ratings are all higher than today's closing price. So that's bullish for BioNTech. That means BioNTech was oversold as of market closing today. And indeed, after the announcement came out that Pfizer BioNTech will be applying for approval to conduct the trial on the booster shot, the stock price jumped up already. Actually, as of now, which is around 10 p.m., the aftermarket price of BioNTech already jumped up to 214. That's a very bullish sign. I have revised my valuation quite a bit for both Moderna and BioNTech. Now this part is the same as what I showed before. I took the leading pharmaceutical companies and looked at their PE ratio and I decided that I'm going to use the average PE ratio of 12.4, which is a very conservative number. And I assume a net margin of 33%. And that's a net margin for Regeneron. But in fact, if you look at the first quarter reports from Moderna and BioNTech, their net margin actually had been greater than 50%. And the second quarter, if the second quarter net margins are also greater than 50% for both companies, I will revise this up and that will also boost my price forecast. Applying these assumptions and the number of doses that are being proven by way of the press releases, I read from the West side from Moderna, which is almost a billion doses. I estimate that by the time you wrap up 2021, they can sell at least one billion doses. And for 2022, I estimate a sell of two billion doses, even though the company planned for three billion doses. I want to be conservative at this point, say a billion doses or two billion doses of 2022. And then for 2023, because not that many people would need to receive both shots. And maybe if people want to receive boost a shot, just one shot per person, I at this point assume that it will go down to just 1.5 billion doses. Again, that's a very conservative assumption. And from that, and from the sales price, which also I predict a decrease in sales price because of competitive pressure, that'll decrease from $30 a dose of $20 to $15 a dose. And from these assumptions that arrive at a stop price for 2021, 2022 and 23. As you can see, they're all pretty high. And I just want to be conservative for now. I want to be ahead of the professional analyst, but not too much it has. So I'm saying I'm setting a forecast of $260 a share based on my calculations. One very important point is that the net margin, as I mentioned, instead of 33%, in my next video, I might increase it to 50% that's proven by the second quarter earnings report from Moderna. For BioNTech, I use a similar assumption for dosage for 2021 because they already have 1.6 billion doses in your press releases, although some of the sales have not been recorded in the press releases. And that's why I believe they can easily sell 2 billion doses in 2021. And then for 2022, the company plan for 4 billion doses, I want to be conservative and only assume 3 billion doses. And there's a reduction that I assume for 2023. I also assume the reduction of sale prices because of competitive pressure. And from that, I arrive at the stock prices here for the three years. And again, I want to be conservative. So I set a forecast price of $250 a share. Again, this 33% net margin assumption could be increased to 50% after the second quarter earnings report. Let's look at my targets and see how they compare to the analyst targets. For Moderna, my latest target is $260. It's actually higher than the high targets from Yahoo or from TipRanks or CNMoney. And BioNTech, my target is $250, also higher than the targets from Yahoo, TipRanks and CNMoney. You might say, hey, Daniel, crazy. I would say, no, I'm not crazy because I have been ahead of the professional analyst ever since earlier this year. For example, back on April 16th of this year, BioNTech, for example, I predicted 210. Yahoo only predicted 126, much lower than my target. TipRanks predicted 130. I was way ahead of these two groups of analysts. And sure enough, BioNTech eventually exceeded 210. That's why I'm not worried that I'm ahead of the analysts and my targets are higher than the analyst targets. Let me recap. My prediction is that Moderna will be a $260, BioNTech a $250 by the end of September, 2021. These are the closing prices today. Usually I also look into the charts in my video doing a technical analysis. But because this video already has a lot of new information and it's running pretty long already, I will not include a technical analysis. I will most likely publish a video on technical analysis from Moderna and BioNTech in the next couple of days. So stay tuned. I'd like to suggest that you also subscribe to my Twitter account because if there's any major developments, I will send out information to my subscribers by way of Twitter messages. And also I will share with my subscribers when I buy or sell Moderna or BioNTech shares just like what I did today. I will welcome your comments, suggestions and questions that you can send by way of my Twitter account as well as my YouTube channel. Thank you for watching all the way to here. I'd like to suggest that if you like what you've seen so far, please click the like, subscribe and notification button. I just want to remind you that I'm not a financial analyst. I share my stock trading strategies and my analysis for educational purpose only. If you want to buy or sell stocks, you should make your own decision and you should definitely consult with your financial advisors before you do so. That's about wraps up my video for now. I will chat with you again in the next few days. In the meanwhile, I'd like to wish you the very best of luck with your financial investments.


What's up everybody, Jason here for Jasper's casebricks.com 2021 upper-deck skybox meta universe champions one box break number three just sold out the member This is a random first name first letter break. Yeah guys 17 total spots again Examples if we pull a tiger woods card, it'll go to letter T for Tiger Woods We go by the name on the card insurers some letters may not have any auto possibilities But of course a lot of inserts including PNGs and jambalias that people love and of course other big names on this checklist as well Um Here's a dice roller customer names and letters. We do have a combo at the bottom, too That's all other letters not represented in any non-sport That we pull There we go roll it Two and a two four times. Good luck one two three Four row will down a Logan two and a two four One two Three four Yeah, T down to N All right, so Ro you have letter T and you with a Logan with L Chino with S Sean you have HV combo Kevin crouch with P Chino with J John with M Raymond with letter D Ro will with K as well as C Chino with EG combo Brian with letter W Edward with letter B Don't young with the Z plus all other non-sports letter combos Justin Martin with R and Logan with N So not sure if anyone's in a trade. I haven't really seen any more Twitter a trade chatter, but Give you guys a quick minute just to look over your teams Here we go guys try one of clothes then so again We have five boxes remaining or six boxes say one two three four five six Let's see we can generate a box number here for one of these One through six and it's gonna generate box three One two three So we got four left here in or five left here in this case Still a lot of big hits though hiding guys, you know, it is It is eight boxes in an inner 16 boxes total on a master. So they do give you some nice stuff guys I think a lot of places I think a lot of things now is separating them and enters is great because obviously You can always sell each inner on its own instead of having no, you know purchase a 16 box whole case and You know kind of does help out some people so even though You know potentially pulled a nice little Jordan here doesn't mean they can't be more No, I remember last year Diego when they introduced when they brought back like Merlin for the first time Or I think it was the first time they use it the Merlin cards are nice. It was really popular Here we go Sabrina and that's good fresh So like even these PMG is like these are just straight up just just base cards But these are even sent for like 10 $15 Naomi Osaka Let her down with that one Get it LeBron nation intimidation Our intimidation nation. That's a Matthew Wolf and a little Devonte Smith. We'll have you King little Scotty Barnes Little Devonte Smith there To go bricks with bench warmers Gilo You want to see more of that stuff on the Jordan and the autograph is Pat Perez Gilo knows what I'm talking about Gilo's shop there once or twice Justin Fields Tony All right, the PMG is coming out. It looks like it's a red PMG Jalen Green and we got vinted It's a bit figure skater PMG. So that would be a letter V is beyond there. Yeah, he's under the HV combo So again, even though that is non-sport it still goes to V because it's on the letter Check that's on the letter checklist there But if it was not part of any other letter then it would go to the young young Since it would be all of the letters slash non-sports that are not in the list And there you go party guys there you go box three in the books There's your autograph in your PMG and a couple nice inserts all around there a couple Jordans, too So I appreciate you guys. I like I said bring number four is in the store If you guys want to run that back job piece case breaks out how guys. Thanks


Dear Secretary-General, dear President, dear colleagues, and esteemed guests, first of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. Jawa, and the entire ITU team, for your every effort and leadership in fostering digital connectivity in the world. Last year's have starkly reminded the global community of how critical it is for everyone to be part of the digital world, and it has just been emphasized by my colleague from Switzerland. Our vision on ensuring digital connectivity is based on synergy of all market players, as well as synergy of technologies. The role of governments, in my view, is quite simple. That is to ensure an effective legal and regulatory ecosystem. Dear colleagues, as the Lithuanian and EU candidate, Mr. Thomas Lamanauskas is campaigning for the position of the Deputy Secretary-General, he also echoes this vision and strives to build broad, impact-oriented partnerships. To prove it works in practice, allow me to mention several examples. For the past 15 years, Lithuanian government invested backbone infrastructure in remote areas where business has no interest. Meanwhile, business ensures last mile access. This international acclaimed collaboration model enabled us to successfully connect 99% of our territory. Moreover, it enabled the rollout of 5G technology, which today already connects 80% of Lithuanian population. We are also building partnerships with neighboring countries to roll out an international 5G Baltic corridor. This corridor will bring the future closer by enabling automated driving and intelligent transport services across borders. Colleagues, my team has probably met most of you these days, and we hear your main concern, that is cyber security. I'm delighted that the Lithuanian private sector has extensive experience in offering on-site training opportunities. Our key business representatives are here, and you can contact them. My final point, the integration of satellite and terrestrial systems is key to providing better quality and coverage of users. However, the war in Ukraine has shown the importance of having an alternative. The infrastructure supporting terrestrial communications is destroyed. Satellite communication is likely the only means to connect with the rest of the world in these circumstances. I'm proud and happy that Lithuania has come forward to become a partner for Ukraine with a partner to connect program. An evaluation report on the damages of the Ukraine's telecommunications sector has been recently finalized, and we must all stand ready to offer further contribution in repairing and reconstruction Ukraine's telecommunications sector. I'm convinced that the ITU member states are ready to strengthen and broaden partnerships in order to bring digital future to everyone and everywhere. I'm sure that Thomas extensive knowledge will help us all in this journey. Thank you very much, and I'm looking forward to continuing our discussions at the Lithuanian reception later today. Thank you.


Personal Finance PowerPoint Presentation. Indexed, Universal Life Insurance, I-U-L. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Insurance is part of our long-term risk mitigation strategy where we follow the adage of measure twice, cut once, put in a formal process in place, look in something like set the goal, develop a plan to reach them, put the plan in action, review the results and repeat the process periodically. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia, Indexed, Universal Life Insurance, I-U-L, which you can find online. Take a look at the references, resources, continue your research from there. This by Stephanie Powers, updated May 27, 2022. In prior presentations, we've been looking at insurance in general. Now moving to the life insurance, we looked at the two major categories of life insurance. We always wanna keep in mind the term or peer life insurance versus the permanent life insurance. The universal life being in category two, part of the permanent life insurance. And I would always compare and contrast it to the peer or term life insurance, looking at the adage often used by people that sell the term life insurance of invest in the term life or purchase term life and then invest the difference because the term is usually cheaper as you are purchasing just insurance. And then if you're looking at more complex instruments, asking the question, why wouldn't I do that? Why wouldn't I take that adage? What added complexity or what benefits am I trying to achieve with the more complex life insurance structures such as tax strategies or different kind of covered strategies or estate planning strategies? Keeping that in mind, what is universal life insurance? So universal life, that's the UL insurance comes in many different flavors from fixed rate models to variable ones where you select various equity accounts to invest in. Indexed universal life IUL insurance allows the owner to allocate cash value amounts to either a fixed or equity index account. So now we've got this cash value component. So you got this investment component to it and the index funds are like these average, like kind of like the average types of funds when they're trying to get an idea of certain account categories within the full stock market such as the S&P 500 being a common type of index fund. So possibly then having the ability to tie that kind of cash value, that investment component to say an index fund giving you a little bit more flexibility. So policies offer a variety of well-known indexes such as the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500. So the IUL insurance policies are more volatile than fixed ULs, but they are less risky than the variable UL insurance policies because no money is invested in equity positions. The IUL insurance policies offer tax deferred tax accumulation for retirement while maintaining a death benefit. So now you got the investment component which could have tax benefit components to it. But again, you would want to be asking the question of why wouldn't I buy the cheaper term policy possibly and then invest the difference in say like an IRA or a 401K plan where I could have kind of tax benefits as well. So you want to dig a little bit deeper in terms of what your exact goals are with relation to a more complex life insurance strategy. So people who would need permanent life insurance protection but wish to take advantage of possible cash accumulation via an equity index might use IULs to as critical person insurance for business owners, premium financing plans or state planning vehicles. So IULs are considered advanced life insurance products in that they can be challenged to adequately explain and understand. So clearly you've got more going on here. You've got the life insurance component. You've got kind of an investment type of component. And now you're tying that investment to basically a stock market or index kind of structure which does add some levels of complication. And the only reason you want to add levels of complication instead of just buying simple term life insurance and then investing straightforward into the market is that if you had some more complex goals you're looking for complex goals possibly for larger or more high income individuals which could be more advanced tax planning strategies and possibly estate planning strategies. So how does indexed universal life IUL insurance work? When you take out an indexed universal life insurance policy your insurer will help you select the index to use for the cash value account part of your policy and your death benefit. When a premium is paid on the account a portion pays the cost of insurance based on the insured's life. Any fees are paid and the rest is added to the cash value. The total cash value is credited with interest based on increases in an equity index but it is not directly invested in the stock market. If you own an indexed universal life policy you can likely borrow against the cash value issued in the policy. So we talked about this cash value in prior presentations with some of the permanent life insurance and the possibility of borrowing against it in the event that you have kind of a need or emergency for it which might give you a little bit more access to it than if it was locked under the umbrella of like a 401k plan or an IRA. However, if you do not pay back your loans they are deducted from the death benefit. So some policy allow the policy holder to select multiple indexes. IULs usually offer a guaranteed minimum fixed interest rate and a choice of indexes. Policy holders can decide the percentage allocated to the fixed and indexed accounts. The selected index value is recorded at the beginning of the month and compared with the value at the end of the month if the index increases during the month the interest is added to the cash value. So in other words, they're kind of pegging it to the index but your funds that are actually within the insurance policy are not actually invested in the market. They're basically using a system to try to peg the returns to the fluctuations in the market. So the index gains are credited back to the policy either on a monthly or an annual basis. Example of universal life insurance IUL. For example, if the index gained 6% from the beginning of June to the end of June the 6% is multiplied by the cash value. The resulting interest is added to the cash value. Some policies calculate the index gains on the sum of the changes for the period while other policies take an average of the daily gains for a month. So no interest is credited to the cash account if the index goes down instead of up. The gains from the index are credited to the policy based on a percentage rate referred to as the participation rate. The rate is set by the insurance company and can be anywhere from 25% to more than 100%. For example, if the gain is 6% the participation rate is 50% and the current cash value total is $10,000. $300 is added to the cash value that's a 6% times 50% times the $10,000 that's equaling the $300. The IUL policies typically credit the index interest to cash accumulations either once a year or once every five years. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of the index universal, the IUL insurance? Well, not for everyone.  This type of life insurance is more expensive than term life insurance. So you always wanna be going back to that adage on the term comparing to the term and investing the difference. Why are you not doing that? What added advantage are you getting? What are the goals you're looking for? But you get permanent coverage. That's one of the things.  The policy may even increase in value due to the cash value component and you may be able to borrow from your account. So advantages, there's a low price. The policy holder bears the risk so the premiums are low because if you're the policy holder if there's less risk to the insurance company then that could lower the premiums as you're taking on more of the risk. Cash value accumulation amounts credited to the cash value grow tax deferred. So you got that tax component to it which is nice but again you wanna be comparing that to why don't I buy the term insurance where it might be cheaper and then invest into like a tax savings account like an IRA or a 401K plan so that you would wanna be comparing those options and seeing what your goals are. The cash value can pay the insurance premiums allowing the policy holder to reduce or stop making out of pocket premium payments. Flexibility, the policy holder controls the amount risked in indexed accounts and the death benefit amounts can be adjusted as needed. Most IUL insurance policies offer a host of optional writers from death benefit guarantees to no lapse guarantees. Death benefit, this benefit is permanent not subject to income or death taxes and not required to go through probate. Less risk, the policy is not directly invested in the stock market thus reducing risk as so that's one kind of benefit as opposed to if you took the money and invested in a permanent or regular life insurance term insurance and invested the difference in the market you might be taking on a little bit more risk although again you'd also have more potential for gain because it's probably gonna have less fees as you basically invest directly in the market. Easier distribution, the cash value in IUL insurance policies can be accessed at any time without penalty regardless of a person's age unlimited contribution. IUL insurance policies have no limitations on annual contributions. What are the disadvantages? Caps on accumulation percentages. Insurance companies sometimes set a maximum participation rate that is less than 100%. Better for large face amounts. Smaller face values don't offer much advantage over regular UL insurance policies based on equity index. If the index goes down, no interest is credited to the cash value. Some policies offer a low guaranteed rate over a longer period. Investment vehicles use market indexes as a benchmark for performance. Their goal is normally to outperform the index. With IUL the goal is to profit from upward movements in the index. These indexed universal life insurance IUL, a good investment. I expect a yes or no answer here. Yes or no, here we go. And IUL can be a good way to save money in a cash value account connected to a market index. It may earn modest interest but it is first and foremost a life insurance policy not an investment vehicle. You kind of evaded the question here. I was expecting a yes or no there. It looks like it depends answer. Can you lose money in an index universal life insurance policy in IUL? It is unlikely you will lose money in IUL because insurance agencies set a guarantee to your principal to protect it against losses in the market. However, there is often a cap on the maximum amount you can earn. Is indexed universal life insurance IUL better than a 401K plan? For most people, no. IUL is not better than a 401K plan in terms of saving for retirement. So this is when you always are going back to the old adage of why don't I buy just to term life insurance and then invest the difference possibly still gaining some tax benefits such as putting it under the umbrella of a 401K plan on IRA for example. So oftentimes you might be making out more from an investment standpoint to do that. And then the question would be, do you have some more complex strategy that is in play, other goals that you are seeking that make it more worthwhile to use these more complex life insurance instruments? So most IULs are best for high net worth individuals looking for ways to reduce their taxable income. So oftentimes you have more complex tax strategies taking place often necessary when income is higher. A 401K is a better investment vehicle because it does usually come with the high fees and premiums of an IUL. So the IUL in other words is the one that typically has the high fees and premiums because it's a more complex kind of instrument that it's taking place rather than just investing directly into the market which is under just like an umbrella of a 401K plan or an IRA or something like that. Plus there's not a cap on the amount you may earn unlike an IUL policy. What are the cons of an indexed universal life, an IUL? Indexed universal life policies have a cap set on how much money you can accumulate often less than 100% and they are based on an equity index. Well, you may not lose any money in the account if the index goes down, you won't earn interest. If the market turns bullish, the earnings on your IUL will not be as high as a typical investment account. The high cost of premiums and fees make IULs expensive and considerably less affordable than term life. So is IUL better than whole life than not necessarily IUL insurance policies have an investment element which can grow and earn interest connected to an equity index. Whole life insurance is a more straightforward form of permanent life insurance with a death benefit and cash value component that acts like a savings vehicle rather than an investment account.


Hi, I'm Urcan Bastuk. I came from Turkey. I won the single-board challenge in young innovators' competition. Basically, we are doing a smartphone just used by visually impaired. And it's really nice to be in here at the moment. We met a lot of people from Intel, Huawei, and it's really a good place for networking. And I will be presenting my idea today.


Didn't what just happened Justin Bieber and Chance Rapper came together to make a worship song. Let's go. This is amazing Let's play at church next week. Wait a second. Oh wait One minute. I don't know if this is actually a worship song guys Okay, somebody sent me this song and it's the trending topic right now Everybody's posting about it and I listen to the song and it's a catchy song, but the thing is guys This is not a worship song. I don't know what kind of way if we're listening the same song Or I'm missing a big point here. There's not a worship song. It's a fine song But let's break down some of the lyrics and I'll tell you what I mean. So JB starts. I love said JB I sound so cool JB. No, I just sound like an old guy. Yo, so JB says it like this I hear a lot about sinners don't think I'll be a saint But I might go down the river because the way that the sky opens up when we touch Yeah, it's making me say that the way you hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me feel so holy Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy on God. Okay, so To me this is not a worship song at all because especially as you read further down. He's talking about His girl thing. He's talking about his wife. Okay, but actually in the in the video His wife isn't actually in it whatever they're being acting whatever But but it's like, okay, you're not actually talking about God here You're talking about your girlfriend, which a lot of you know modern Christian music could be confused that way But you're talking about your girlfriend with that's fine But in some ways, I don't know man Like it doesn't feel good to me when you're taking those, you know The song a holy, holy, holy or whatever and you want to kind of change it to mean, you know Your girlfriend touching you and and and all that like it doesn't feel good. It doesn't Maybe it's not nice for Christians to to kind of have that You know going on like I mean in the context of the song This isn't something like we're like, oh, we got to play this a church or like, you know, man I just you know, but no, this is actually just a love song which kind of Manipulate some terminology that we'd want to use for God and brings it to the level of Spells or girlfriend or whatever and so that doesn't make me feel too good But let's keep going here So I don't do well with drama and no I can't stand being fake. No no no no I don't believe in Nirvana. Well, that's a good thing. Don't believe in that But the way that we love in the night gave me life, baby I can't explain like guys we got to settle down I don't know who the people are passing this around that chance to rapper and Justin Bieber came out with this Christian record that is just phenomenal and you know, it's gonna be at Hillsong next week Or it's gonna be a transformation church next week, which it may be I don't know. Maybe they'll perform there, but guys, this is not a this is not a worship song This is like I'm sorry. If anything, it's a little bit, you know It's a little iffy, especially when you're talking about your girlfriend calling the way they hold you hold you hold you hold you Is so holy, holy, holy, like I'm I don't know. I haven't made up my mind Maybe you talk to me tomorrow, and I'm like that's bad. That's really bad. But right now. I'm just like I don't feel good about that So if anything let's say it's a whatever song by Justin Bieber and chance to rapper that has an iffy kind of Church language in it. Okay, like honestly, the only holy person is is God if we're talking about real Theology here for talking about reality. God's the only holy one. I know what they mean I don't feel too good about it that they're taking that and applying it to your girlfriend It's it's a little weird to me I get it I get it supposed to be nice and like sweet and all that and churchy But I don't okay. We'll keep going here this part. I literally don't understand They say we're too young and the pimps and the players don't go cruising Wise men say right fools rush in but I don't know They say we're too young and they keep going. Okay. I don't I Don't know what that's about That that might be is that the part when you know at the the front of the church They're like that's sing that part again church. I hope not I hope not I hope you know Look, don't get me wrong I'm not making an accusation about JB or chance to rappers faith or all that. I don't know. I don't know what their what their Part is in that. Okay, but what I would say is for us Let's not jump too quickly about saying declaring this maybe the greatest worship song of all time Especially when he's talking about how nice it is to touch his girl at night And how that makes him feel holy holy holy like that's kind of weird to me That's I mean, and that's pretty weird in general Let's settle down with that stuff. He talks about the I'm going to the altar like a track star. That's good That's good. That's good. Um, but You know, let's see it reflected in some of the other music. I think maybe some will argue. Oh, no He's not talking about just his girlfriend. He's talking about God, too You know how God holds us and and God kind of, you know loves on us and it feels so holy holy holy Okay, I kind of understand what you're saying there, but obviously when you read the song lyrics, that's not the context whatsoever So this definitely is not a theological masterpiece and this is definitely not a Kanye West 2.0 ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly not that I know some of you got on me when I kind of jumped on the Kanye bandwagon You're like settle down Isaac. We don't know what's going on and look, you know, we still don't know the state of his heart I'm honestly not I'm not Too displeased with what what he's doing. I mean he he's still speaking about, you know, the evils of abortion He's still declaring his faith in some way in the public sphere And so I don't know but look the difference between Justin Bieber song and Chance the Rapper song holy and like Kanye West's West song Sela or something like that are eons apart. There's really no comparison So, I mean let's settle down before we start declaring this the next Christian music revolution and keep our heads on straight Anyway, I hope that you found this video helpful and maybe enjoyable in some way Subscribe because I'm putting out new videos all the time and I will see you next time. God bless guys