Do you guys remember when Bitcoin absolutely destroyed PC gaming? Prices on parts increased like 300% or more and it pissed off everybody including me. So why am I bringing this up now? Because in this video, I'm going to show you guys how I get revenge on those people who ruined it for the rest of us. Every dragon has a weak spot. Says who? Honestly, that's what you get for being cocky. This is Raid Shadow Legends and it's actually one of the most immersive games I've ever played on a smartphone and it is completely free. It's an RPG styled game and it has all of the elements of an RGB game that you can expect. An amazing storyline, great graphics, boss fights, PvP battles and hundreds of champions. So yes, if you're looking for another waifu, she's here. And Raid's special launch tournament is actually going on right now so if you go to the download link in my description, you will get 50,000 silver immediately and you will be entered into the tournament. The prizes include a lot of in-game bonuses as well as physical prize packs. There's t-shirts and all other kinds of stuff so make sure you download the game. For those of you that don't know or don't remember, there was a period of time where all you had to do to get your hands on some Bitcoin was download some software, buy a graphics card and set it up to mine some Bitcoin. Everybody wanted to do it and for good reason, Bitcoin is worth an obscene amount of money. Now the process was a little bit more complicated than I just made it out to be but truth be told, a complete beginner who had no idea on how to even build a computer could have set up their own Bitcoin mining rig if they really wanted to in like one to two days. So what were the consequences of that? Well obviously there was an insanely high demand for all of the parts that could create these Bitcoin mining rigs which in turn drove up the prices of parts by a lot. Graphics cards that retailed for $200 started to cost over $600 and there were even some graphics cards that started to cost over $1,000. Like I said before, everybody including myself was pissed.  It didn't even matter if you tried to buy used on Krexos because everyone started charging a premium for anything that even resembled a graphics card. So now you might be asking, how do we get revenge on these people? Well if you know anything about Bitcoin mining today, then you would know that it's pretty much impossible to turn a profit while doing it. So it's pretty common to see people selling their now inactive mining rigs to try and make some money off of it. And me being the grudge holding person that I am, I wait. I wait, look through all the ads until I smell desperation. I wait for that raw desire that drives someone to sell their parts at an ungodly low rate. And today on OfferUp we found our target. I found an ad for some RX580, RX480 and R9390 graphics cards. Now how do I know this is a mining listing? Well when the whole mining apocalypse first started, these were the most popular go-to cards to start getting into it. So the fact that this guy has so many of them is a dead giveaway. He didn't have an exact price on this listing, so when I asked him what he was looking for, he gave me a number way under retail and even lower under the usual used asking rate. So I have a feeling that if I can look this dude in the eye, I'm going to get it for even lower. So, now that we're caught up to speed, let's make some moves. I don't know if you've got plans to do like mining or over. No, no, mining. Potentially second hand systems for gaming. Okay, cool. Wow. So these, so this isn't a 580. This is a 580. Right. Okay, let me see the, and then which ones are the 480s? These are the 480s, the white ones. Okay. Yeah, so this one. Okay. Here, I'll set this. Everything over there, yeah. Okay, so I'm definitely interested in those, the 580s. Okay. And then that's a 480, and there are six of these in total, okay. Okay. All right. Okay. So what are your prices on the 580s? I'd go like 40 bucks on each one of these. Okay. And then these ones, I was wanting to get like, I'd go down to like 80 bucks on those. Okay, so 80 bucks for the two of those. What's your prices on the 390s? Are they all the same for all three? Yeah, yeah. So then what would your price be on these, the 390s? 40 bucks, yeah, I'm not. 40 bucks? Yeah, I'd give you the 390s, I'd give you 100 bucks for those. 100 bucks for the 390s? Yeah.  Okay, so 100 on these, 80 on that, so 180, let's see. If you can do two of them at 60 each, I'll take two. Okay. All right, so let's see, so 80, 100, 300. Cool. 100 bucks? Yeah. Okay, sick. One, two, perfect, easy. Cool. Good deal. Awesome. Appreciate it. Well, sick. I look forward to playing with them. I'll mess with them as soon as I get home. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. So, now that we have all the cards, let me show you exactly how good of a deal this is. Two MSI Armor RX 480s, retailing at $160 each. R9 390s of varying brands, now it's hard to find a good retail price for these cards because they are quite a bit older and they're not usually sold and the pricing online is very different if you check it out for yourself, but an appropriate price considering the performance of these cards is similar to a GTX 1060 would be $100 at retail price. And then lastly, we have two Red Devil RX 580s, both retailing at $205 each. So, the total retail value of this purchase is $1,030. Not bad considering we only paid $300. Now, obviously, these cards are not going to go anywhere near their retail value of over $1,000 and if I had to give an honest evaluation, these cards would probably sell closer to $620 if I got rid of all of them. So, assuming that everything works, we have made easily over double our money. Now, the keyword there is if and there is definitely one thing we really need to be scared of if the guy we bought these cards from really was a hardcore minor. I don't explain it really well so I'm going to let my friend Chris from Coalition Gaming learn you really quickly. Hey everyone, so most electronic devices have a chip that controls the basic functionality of how that device works. Most people know this from motherboards known as the BIOS. On the graphics card, we call it the VBIOS, which makes sense. When it comes to cryptocurrency mining though, minors would alter the VBIOS in a way that maximizes crypto profitability but lowers gaming performance and in some cases prevents the card from working altogether. And in those cases, to fix a mining card, the default VBIOS needs to be reset back to factory stock. So, in order to do that, you'll need to make use of a tool called ATI Wind Flash if you have an AMD card or NV Flash if you have an Nvidia card. It's a simple process when all is said and done and information on what you need to get this done along with step-by-step guides will be linked in the description below. There are also helpful video guides all over YouTube so if you run into any roadblocks a quick search will get you on your way. Again, that is Chris from Coalition Gaming and if you're not already subscribed to him you should be, he is literally the nicest guy that I know. Anyways, so now that we are aware of the risks when it comes to buying these cards let's test them and see how we did. I just played Domino's with f***ing graphics cards. Okay. Alright, so we have our testing area set up now and for those of you guys that remember this is actually the don't buy a computer from Best Buy Computer that was shown in a previous video and the card that is actually in there is an MSI Armor RX 580 which I did not mention in that previous video was also a mining card and I did actually have to flash the VBIOS to get this card to work again. So I feel like this of all computers is going to be the most appropriate one to simulate this test for us. So first card we're testing is one of the RX 580s. I'll be lucky. The lights are lighting up. That's a good sign. If the LEDs work. Yes, okay. Let's see it. Okay, so good news at the very least this card works. So now we're going to see what kind of VBIOS is on the card. Hopefully it's the default one. Okay, so to confirm what VBIOS we have on this card, we're actually going to be using a software called CPUZ. I mentioned in a previous video and just by name dropping it, people all of a sudden started accusing me of being sponsored. Now what this software does is actually just tells you the name of the parts you have in your computer. And if this BIOS is correct, then it should tell us in the software that we're using an RX 580. Go to the graphics tab. All right, it says right here, we are using a Radeon RX 580. I know you guys can't see it, so I'm going to try to take a little picture here on my phone. But so far, we're looking good. One of the cards works. It's one of our more expensive cards. Retails were 205. I think I can sell it for 120 as a part of that whole $620 estimate. So off to a great start. All right, next up is our second RX 580. And if both of them work, I will be extremely happy because those are our biggest, most expensive priced cards. LED light comes on. Fan spin. Okay, so far it looks like we're 242. Okay, and according to CPUZ, this is also an RX 580. So we are looking good so far. All right, so next up is one of our first R9 390s. Now, for those of you that don't know too much about this card, these are actually really powerful. And if you ever find any, you'll see that their heat sinks are super thick. I'm talking with like five C's. The reason I say that is because these cards, while they are powerful, despite their old age, they're also really, really hot. If you've ever seen any of those videos on like cooking an egg on my graphics card, this would be one of the candidates to do that. These things get super, super, super toasty, but they at least put out some decent performance. So if this thing works, used, I'm pretty sure I can get it for 80 bucks. Yeah, I would safely say 80 bucks for something like this. Lights are on, fans are spinning. Let's go, dude. I'm so... Oh man, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. I was almost hoping to get scammed a little bit here, but things are doing out really well. According to CPUZ, this is a... Yes, R9 390. Everything is good. We are 343. All right, up next is our second R9 390. Fans spinning. It's so easy. Yep, R9 390, 444. By the way, if you're wondering why the screen will occasionally flash black when I put in a new graphics card, it's because the computer is trying to find the right drivers for the graphics card. So I don't need to be alarmed if the cards do work. Besides, if anything, I should be alarmed. It's my money. And this is our last R9 390. Fans spinning. Yes. I think this one's probably gonna do the same. Oh, it's not. No, it just went in right away. Cool. CPUZ says R9 390. Let's go. Okay, so we are 5 for 5. And as we stand, I believe we're looking at $480 easily. 80 for each of the R9 390s and 120 for the RX 580s. And that is a modest, a humble selling point. Okay, so I just checked the last two pieces of footage and realized that the camera corrupted two of the files. So let me fill you in on what you missed really quickly. There's no big deal. It's something small. It's just one of the graphics cards caught fire. And I don't have that to put in the video now. There is a little bit of proof, but this is the card, one of the RX 480s. As you saw in the previous shot, there were two here. We actually have one in the system now. It works. One of the fans don't spin on it. I will show you that right now in a close-up. I don't know how that's going to affect the performance of this card. Obviously, it'll get hotter, but I could probably take one of the fans off here and replace it. But this is the card that caught fire. It shot sparks right out through this little heat sink pipe right there. And there is a little bit of proof. There are some black sparks or dirt, whatever, that came out of this graphics card. After it caught fire in the computer, I'll show you that right now. It's not the best for it. But here, look, you see that this black stuff right here? That's all from the graphics card. Kind of shitty. So we didn't end up going seven for seven on all the graphics cards. But you know what? Most of them work. We're going to turn a profit. And I got to figure out what I'm going to do with this card. Because like I said before, only one of the fanspin. So right there on the right, that one's doing its job. This one over here is about as stubborn as my little sister. All in all, we have a pretty good deal. I would say $480 plus this halfway working RX 480. I would say we are easily going to make a little over $500 for this whole thing. So definitely worth it. A great, great investment, I think. And you know what? It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the gamble of this. Sorry that the footage got corrupted for the on-fire graphics card. I wish you guys could have seen it. I'm not happy with it either. Would I advise that you guys do something like this? You know, maybe. It's fun. It's definitely a little bit of a gamble. And the odds are typically I found with buying used mining cards. Because this is not the first time I've done this. Is that for the most part they work. Now, like I said before, and like Chris touched on in the video, you will more than likely have to reflash some cards.  But honestly, once you learn it, it's really, really simple. I hope that you guys found a new way to make some money. If you're interested in doing this kind of thing, I know people sell mining cards for really cheap. So if you're hungry, the opportunity is out there. Anyways, I hope you guys found this video entertaining, creative or informative in any way, shape or form. And as always, have a great day.


I welcome you all to the Hindu Newspaper Analysis brought to you by the Shankara IAS Academy. Today's date is 10th November 2023. Before entering our discussion, I have an important announcement to make. This is regarding preliminary test series. Batch 3 of the Shankara IAS Academy's pre-stamming is about to begin. The orientation session of the Batch 3 will be conducted on 16th November and the first test will be on the same date. It includes 48 tests including the mock test and CSAR test. The test will be conducted in both online and offline mode. So, go and register and enrich your problem score. Here are the list of articles which we are going to discuss today. So, without wasting time, let us get into discussion. Look at this economic article. RBI Governor says that the headline inflation will decline from 6.7% in 2022-23 to 5.4% in 2023-24. However, the governor highlights the vulnerability of inflation to potential food price shocks. Additionally, he notes that the challenges for global economy have increased in recent times. This is particularly due to the various geopolitical tensions in West Asia. See, this is the crux of the article. So, in this context, we will briefly learn about the various core economic topics like inflation, consumer price index and wholesale price index. First, let us see about inflation. Inflation refers to the increase in the price of goods and services. In other words, we can say that inflation is the condition where the purchasing power of money decreases and the value of goods and services increases. You would have seen in news about the rate of interest. What does it mean? The inflation rate simply means the rate at which the prices have been increasing and often it is expressed as a percentage value. CPA and WPA are among the few indices used to measure the inflation rate. Now, let us see about CPA and WPA. First, we will look at CPA. CPA refers to the inflation at retail level and the data about CPA is compiled by National Statistics Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation. The value of CPA is calculated from the increase in the price of goods which includes food and beverages, clothing, footwear and housing etc. Note that the highest weightage among these goods is given to the food and beverages which accounts for 45.86% of the total weightage. Moving on, let us see about WPA. WPA generally refers to the inflation at wholesale market and the data about WPA is compiled by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, DPIIT under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The value of WPA is calculated from the increase in the price of goods of some basket of commodity which includes primary article, fuel and power and manufactured products. The highest weightage among these goods is given to the manufactured products which accounts for 64.23% of the total weightage. Guys, know that the base here for the calculation of both CPA and WPA is 2011-12 and know that they are released on a monthly basis. Here, one important point to be noted is that the changes in the price of services like health care and banking transaction are taken into account while calculating the consumer price index and know that they will not be included in the calculation of WPA. This is about this news discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the basis of inflation and we also saw about the two commonly used indices that is CPA and WPA. With this learned points, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article for our analysis. Take a look at this news article. Yesterday, the Supreme Court directed the Chief Justice of all high courts to form a special bench in their respective high courts. The purpose of the special bench is to monitor the criminal trials of people representatives that is MPs and MLAs. This will ensure that the justice is delivered in those cases. Know that this step has been taken by the judiciary to expedite the disposal of cases against the MPs and MLAs. As per this news article which is given, nearly 40% of MPs and MLAs have criminal backgrounds. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us quickly go through what is criminalization of politics and their impacts Indian democracy using our mains answer rating approach. Let me read out a question for you. Indian democracy faces various challenges due to the criminalization of politics. Examine the reasons, challenges and step taken in this regard. See, this is the question which is asked for 15 marks and you have to write within 250 words. This question can be asked in the GS paper 2 under the syllabus of parliament and state legislatures, structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers and privileges and issue arising thereof. Now, moving on to answer. Now, let us see how to approach this question. The only keyword in this question is Examine. We know that when the keyword Examine is given, we are expected to present the clarity about various perspective of the issue. And in the conclusion, you have to take a balanced answer. This is how we are going to approach this question. Now, in the introduction part, you can write what is criminalization of politics and provide suitable data to substantiate your answer. For example, you can write like this. The criminalization of politics refers to the phenomenon where individuals with criminal backgrounds or those who are charged or convicted of criminal offenses actively participate in the politics. Let us see a data to understand it better. According to the report by Association of Democratic Reforms or ADR and National Election Watch NEW in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 43% of the winners had declared criminal cases against themselves. And know that 29% of them had serious criminal offenses like murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and crime against women. This increasing number of members with criminal antecedents threatens the survival of true democracy in India. You can write like this in your introduction part. Now, moving on to the main part of the answer, here you can split the body part into three parts. In the first part, you can list the reasons for increasing the criminalization of politics. In the second part, you can write about the challenges posed by it. And in the third part, you should write about the steps which are taken to combat the criminalization of politics. Okay, now let us start with the first part of the body. Here, what are all the reasons for increasing the criminalization of politics? Guys, you can write like firstly, the reasons is the nexus between politicians and criminal elements. See, politicians seek support from the individuals who are generally involved in criminal activities for many reasons. The reasons like buying of votes and other illegitimate practices in exchange of the political pattern which can be given by the politician. This connection often leads to backing of candidates with criminal backgrounds during the elections. Secondly, use of money and muscle power. Candidates with serious record seems to do well despite the public image. This is largely due to the ability to finance their own elections and bring substantive resource to the respective parties. And sometimes, voters are left with no option as all the competing candidates have criminal records against them. Thirdly, vested interest. People generally vote through a narrow prism of community interest and neglect the criminal background of politicians. This can lead to a situation where politicians with criminal backgrounds are elected simply because they are the members of their particular community. To put it simply, according to the old saying, Indians don't cast their vote, they cast their votes. Now, let us go to the fourth point. Slow judicial process provides opportunity for politicians to thrive even though with the criminal background. For example, in the Lily Thomas v Union of India case, Supreme Court declared that any MP or MLA who is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison for a term of two years or more would be disqualified from holding office. The court also declared that a convicted lawmaker could not contest an election or continue as a member of legislature while the appeal was pending. But as we all know, the slow judicial process gives enough time and immunity to the accused MP or MLA until she or he completes his office. The fifth important reason is the absence of proper laws and rules for governing the procedure of election. We know that there is only model code of conduct or MCC, which is in being operation during elections. And we also know that they are not enforced by any statute. These are the reasons or factors which are contribute to the increase in the criminalization of politics. Moving on to the second part, here you have to write about the challenges which are posed by the criminalization of politics. The first two challenges, it causes threat to democracy. When politicians with criminal background holding the office, they can use their power to subvert the various systems including judicial system. And this will create a culture of impunity. This poses a serious threat to democracy as it undermines the rule of law and democratic institutions. The second challenges, it limits the voter to elect a suitable candidate. So, it is against the ethos of free and fair elections, which is a bedrock of democracy. Thirdly, it creates governance issues. When the politicians with criminal backgrounds when they are holding office means, they are more likely to be interested in serving their own interest rather than the interest of people. This can lead to the lack of good governance and failure to address important issues which are hinging our country. In the fourth challenges, it leads to a situation where corrupt practices are getting normalized in the society and becomes part of the political system. This makes it difficult for honest people to work efficiently and it will ultimately erode the public trust in the government institutions. Fifthly, it causes social disharmony by introducing a culture of violence in the society and sets a bad precedent for the youths to follow. This again reduces the people's faith in democracy as a system of governance. Guys, you can write these points as the challenges posted by the criminalization of politics. Okay, now moving on to the third part. Here, you have to list the steps which are being taken to combat the criminalization of politics. Firstly, you can write about the legal steps which are taken. The first step is section 8 of the Representation of People Act 1951. See, this act provides further disqualification and being convicted for certain offenses. According to this act, an individual punished with a jail term of more than two years cannot stand in the election for the next six years after his or her jail term gets over. But sadly, the law does not bar individuals who have criminal cases pending against them for contesting elections. So, this disqualification of candidates depends on their conviction in their cases. Secondly, you can write about the government initiatives. See, in 2017, the union government started a scheme to establish 12 special courts to fast track the trial of criminal cases against MPs and MLAs. Third, you can write about Supreme Court judgments. In 2002, in the case of ADR or Association of Democratic Reforms versus Union of India, the Supreme Court directed the election commission to issue guidelines to ensure that the candidates with criminal records were not given tickets to contest in the election. The court also ordered that the candidates must disclose their criminal records in the nomination papers. Moving on to the second judgment, in 2018, in Public Interest Foundation versus Union of India, the Supreme Court directed political parties to publish the criminal records of their respective candidates on the websites, social media handles and newspapers. The court also directed the election commission to create a framework to ensure that the information on candidates' criminal records were disseminated effectively. Thirdly, in 2019, Mahipal Singh Rana versus the State of UP, the Supreme Court directed the central government to set up special courts to expel the cases against politicians. See, these are some of the steps taken to combat the criminalization of politics. Finally, in the conclusion part, you can write that addressing the criminalization of politics in India requires a multifaceted approach through legal, electoral and social reforms. It demands a collective effort from political parties, civil society and judiciary to strengthen the democratic institutions and restore the public faith in political process. See, that's all about this news discussion. In this discussion, we saw about what is criminalization of politics, we saw about the reasons for increase in the criminalization, we also saw about the challenges which are posed by the phenomenon, we also saw about the challenges posed by those phenomenon and finally we saw about the steps taken to combat the criminalization of politics. See, with these learned points, we shall complete this discussion and take up the next news article for our analysis. Look at this news article, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon J. Astin visited India for the 2 plus 2 ministerial dialogue on Friday. He told that there will be discussions about the rising tensions in West Asia. Moreover, know that there are two significant defense deals which are in progress between India and U.S. These deals will also be discussed in the 2 plus 2 summit. The first deal involves the purchase of 31MQ-9B High Altitude Long Endurance Drones. The second deal is about manufacturing General Electric of 414 jet engines in India. See, these engines will power the indigenous light combat aircraft LCA-MK-2. The ongoing process for these deals is expected to be completed next year. This is all about the news which is given here. In this context, let us see about 2 plus 2 dialogue and various defense agreements between India and U.S. First of all, what is 2 plus 2 dialogue? The 2 plus 2 dialogue refers to a diplomatic and strategic meeting which is usually held between the top defense and foreign officials of two countries. In this dialogue format, the defense minister and foreign minister of one country meet with their counterparts of another country. They will discuss and coordinate on various bilateral, regional and global issues. The name 2 plus 2 signifies the two key areas which is involved in this discussion. They are foreign and defense affairs. This format allows for comprehensive discussion on security, defense cooperation and diplomatic matters. And thereby, these discussions will enhance the strategic communication between the two nations. The U.S. often conducts 2 plus 2 dialogue with the key partners. This includes India. See, U.S. is India's oldest and most important 2 plus 2 talk partner. The first 2 plus 2 dialogue between the two countries were held during Trump administration in 2018. With these dialogues, India and U.S. have signed 3 foundational packs for deep military and strategic cooperation between the two countries. These foundational packs are Logistic Exchange Memorandum of Agreement or LEMOA in 2016, Communication Compatibility and Security Agreement, COMCASA in 2018, Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement, BECCA in 2020. Besides USA, India also has 2 plus 2 dialogues with other 3 strategic partners. They are Australia, Japan and Russia. See, this is all about the discussion on 2 plus 2 dialogue. With these learned points, let us move on to the next news article for our discussion. Look at this news article. The Supreme Court of India has given the government a four-week deadline to finalize a menstrual hygiene policy of India. This policy will be focusing on the distribution of sanitary napkins. The CJA directed the government to establish a national model for the number of girls' toilets in government aided and residential schools. See, despite many advancements, affordability and access hurdles to menstrual health still affects many women. This is evident in semi-urban and rural areas of India. See, let us see the data to understand it better. The National Family Health Survey 5 indicates that 73% of rural women and 90% of urban women use hygienic method of menstrual protection. This shows that there has been an improvement in menstrual hygiene practices. But still, Lakune exists in rural and semi-urban areas. This is the crux of the article. In our discussion, we are going to see various initiatives taken by the government to ensure women's health. Before that, first look at the status of reproductive health of women in India. At the adolescent age, 70% of the girls are anemic and their problems related to menstrual health and hygiene often go unaddressed. Also, more than 70% of women are suffering from reproductive tract infections which may lead to infertility, abortions, etc. As per the National Family Health Survey 5, Tripura recorded the highest AFR or adult fertility rate with 69 births per 1000 women. The lowest adolescent AFR was recorded in Goa with 14 births per 1000 women. Here, the adolescent fertility rate or AFR means annual number of births to a woman who is aged between 15 to 19 years for every 1001 population in India. Let us put the data into perspective. See, in India, 1 in 3 women are undernourished and 1 in 2 women are anemic. In addition to this, due to poor economic background, many women in India work up to the last days of their pregnancy. This also adds to their undernourishment. Know that an undernourished mother almost inevitably gives birth to a low birth weight baby. That is, undernourishment is intergenerational. To address these issues, the government launched various initiatives. Let us see them one by one. The first initiative is Laxia. It means Labour Room Quality Improvement Initiative. The aim is to improve the quality of care in the labour room and maternity operation theatres. Know that the Laxia program will be implemented by all medical college hospitals, district hospitals, first referral units, and community health centres. The second initiative is Janani Suraksha Yojana. It is a safe motherhood intervention under the National Health Mission. See, JSY is a 100% centrally sponsored scheme and it integrates the CAS assistance with delivery and post delivery care. The aim of Janani Suraksha Yojana is to reduce the maternal and neonatal mortality among pregnant women, especially from the marginalised section of the society. See the third initiative. It is Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yojana or PMMYY or PMMVY. See, Matruvandana Yojana is a maternity benefit program. It is also a centrally sponsored scheme which is implemented by Ministry of Women and Child Development. See the scheme has two objectives. The first objective is to improve the health-seeking behaviour of the pregnant and lactating mothers. Here, the health-seeking behaviour means the actions people take to look after their health. The second objective is to provide partial compensation for the wage loss which are faced by mothers during their pregnancy. Both these objectives will in turn aims to address the undernourishment in pregnant and lactating women. See, the fourth initiative is Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Matrita Abhyan. See, this initiative provides pregnant women a free of cost quality, anti-natal checkup by a specialist or medical officer on the ninth of every month. See, this is about the news discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the data regarding the reproductive health of women of India. And in the second part, we saw about the various steps taken by government to improve the reproductive health and maternity health of Indian women. See, with these learned points, let us take up the next news article for our discussion. Take a look at this news article. Yesterday, the Union government climbed in the Supreme Court that the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBA has its own boss. And the government has no say in the registration, investigation and prosecution of cases. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us quickly go through the basics of CBA and its independence. Before that, let us see a historical background about CBA. See, during the period of World War II, a special police establishment or SPE was constituted in 1941. It was established in the Department of War of British India to inquire into the allegations of bribery and corruption related to war-related procurements. After independence, later on based on the recommendation of the Sandhanam Committee on the Prevention of Corruption, the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 was enacted. Based on this act only, CBA was formalised as an agency of the Government of India. See, the mandate of CBA is to investigate the allegation of corruption in various wings of government. So, in this juncture, let us see an important fact that the CBA is not a statutory body but derives its power from Delhi's Special Police Establishment Act 1946. On moving on our discussion, currently the CBA is functioning under the Department of Personnel, under Ministry of Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances. Know that it is the premier investigation police agency of India. In functioning its duty, it also provides assistance to other investigation agencies like Central Vigilance Commission, Lokpal, in doing their respective duties. Know that it is also the nodal police agency of India which coordinates investigation on behalf of the Interpol member countries. See, this is all about the basics of CBA. Now, let us see the type of cases which are handled by CBA. First is anti-corruption cases. See, CBA investigates cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988. Under this act, CBA will investigate against the public officials and the employees of the central government. It also investigates the employees of various central public sector undertakings. Other corporations or bodies won't or controlled by the government of India. Secondly, with respect to economic crimes. See, CBA investigates major financial scams and economic frauds of India which includes crimes related to fake Indian currency, bank frauds, cyber crimes, large-scale smuggling of narcotics and antics, etc. Thirdly, CBA investigates special crimes which includes serious and organized crimes under IPC or other related acts. Know that this will be based on the request of state governments or on the orders of high courts or supreme courts. Let us see the Paris example to understand better. See, the special crimes including the cases of terrorism, bomb blast, kidnapping for ransom and other crimes which are committed by the Mafias. Finally, let us see the next function of CBA with respect to Suomoto powers. See, CBA can Suomoto take up investigation for offenses which are happening only in union territories. In cases of states, the central government can authorize CBA to investigate a crime in the state. But note that it will be based on only with the consent of the concerned state government. But there is also an exception. If there is a supreme court or high court orders, then the CBA can investigate the crime anywhere in the country even without the consent of the state. Now, let us move on to the next part of discussion that is about the independence of CBA. See, the agency is completely independent with respect to the own cases where CBA is the only investigating agency. But the problem is that the agency is dependent on home ministry for staffing and it also relies on ministry of law for lawyers. And moreover, CBA does not have functional autonomy to some extent in various cases. Moreover, the CBA acts as per the procedure prescribed by code of criminal procedure which makes it as a police agency. Because of this reason only, the CBA needs the consent of various state governments before it can make a present in that state. This loophole can lead to a certain cases not being investigated at all and those cases seeing a silent deadlock. Moreover, it is not financially independent as administrative and financial control of CBA rests with the ministry of personnel. This is all about the discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the genesis of CBA and we saw about the functions of CBA. That is all about the news discussion. With this, let us move on to the next part of your video that is to discuss the preliminary practice questions. Today, we are having four questions. Let us solve them one by one. Look at the first question. It is a previous SIR Prelims question which appeared in 2020 Prelims. The question is, consider the following statements. The first statement, the weightage of food in CBA is higher than that of in WPA. See, the first statement is right because from our discussion, we know that the food holds the highest weightage in the calculation of consumer price index. See the second statement. This WPA does not capture the changes in the price of services which the CBA does. See, from our discussion, we also know that the second statement is also right because the changes in the price are taken into account only in CBA. See the third statement. Reserve Bank of India or RBI has now adopted WPA as a key measure of inflation and to decide on the key policy rate changes. See, the third statement is wrong because RBI adopted consumer price index or CPI as a key measure of inflation. See, this is taken as per the recommendation of Urjit Patel committee. So, we can say that the third statement is wrong. So, by eliminating the third statement, we know that the correct option is option A. Let us see the second question. What is the primary focus of basic exchange and cooperation agreement, BECCA, which is often seen in the international news? See, out of the four options, from our discussion, we know that BECCA stands for Defense and Security Collaboration between India and United States. See, we also know that this is one of the foundational agreements between India and US. So, the correct option is option C. See the third statement. Consider the following schemes. Janani Swaroksha Yojana, Janani Sishu Swaroksha Karyakam, and the third one is Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. The question is which of the above schemes provide cash incentives to pregnant women? Look at the first statement. Option one is correct because statement one is correct because Janani Swaroksha Yojana is a safe motherhood intervention under national health mission. Know that it provides cash assistance with delivery and post delivery care. So, the first statement is correct. See, the second statement is wrong because JSSK was launched to assure free and cashless services to pregnant women for deliveries like normal or caesarean operations. See, JSSK also provides treatment for newborns up to 30 days after birth. We have to be aware that this scheme does not carry cash assistance programming. So, the second statement is wrong. As we have already discussed, statement three is correct as it also provides cash assistance. So, by eliminating statement two, we know that both one and three are correct. So, the correct option is option B. Look at the final question of the day. The question is who among the following is consulted on the appointment of director of CBI? See, the four options are given. We know that the director is appointed by the central government on the recommendation of committee. This committee consists of prime minister as a chairperson and leader of a portion of Lok Sabha and the chief justice of India or judge of supreme court as nominated by CJI. See, this does not carry union home minister as one of the member. So, by eliminating the statements three and four, we know that the correct option is option D. If you like today's video, like, comment and share with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to Shankar IIS Academy. Thank you for listening. Thank you.


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Okay, hello and welcome to episode 44 of the market maker podcast where I'm joined by co-founder of amplified peers current and we're going to talk over quite a few things this week to give you a bit of an idea. It's a busy one to unpack we've had Biden's infrastructure bill got signed into law. Cryptocurrencies have had a pretty terrible week from the record high I think it was nine 10 days ago in in bitcoins down about 20% profit taking regulatory developments happening that were actually tied into that bill passage early this week. I've been pointed out as reasons oil prices and some some significant declines have been seen there comes in the US and China talking about tapping reserves apparently the administration US has been tapping up India and Japan to to get involved. I've talked about this plenty of times before, about how he needs to look like he's doing as much as he can, as much as analysts I think are pretty much of the thought that it ain't going to happen. But nonetheless, Biden and she had a virtual date, first time in a while seem to go off without a much of a hitch not that we're expecting a great deal to happen. But of course, it's pantomime season or soon to be. And so Brexit still going, not a lot has changed.  And we're pretty much at the same point, I won't go into the details but not a lot has changed as you can imagine so for this week, I wanted to focus on three things, kind of like we always do. So if you look at this explosion that we're seeing in the electric vehicle market, these EV pure plays, as they're being named. So I want to talk with peers about that. We're also going to have a chat about policy divergence we touched on this I think a week or two ago where we're talking about what's happening in Europe compared to US UK, but it came it materialized in market prices this week. The euro's got really badly hurt by what is this divergence of timing of when their policies kind of tied to essentially. So we'll delve into that and then we'll finish with a bit of a conversation on a single stock perspective on Netflix, because they made an announcement about changing of strategy that I think actually is very much needed. And I'll explain kind of why but before I get into the first question. I want to get we're on the mission to 100 and that is 100 Apple ratings and reviews. We're on 90 peers at the moment. Okay. We're closing in. 10 to go. 10 to go. So if you're listening if you have not yet rated this podcast and you enjoy it. Thank you. So go one step further for us and leave that rating and review because we just our target has been for the last couple of weeks to get it to 100 by year and then we're well on track but everyone counts so go and do it. All right. First question then. Let me give you peers a bit of what's been going on. You know, I mean we talked about Tesla a lot. I'm probably not going to talk about Tesla much. Actually, however, Tesla obviously is the key ingredient you could probably say of why everyone's obsessed at the moment by these EV moves but kind of to that I want to talk about and then we'll bring in some of the more traditional auto manufacturers Lucid Lucid group market value moved past Ford motor earlier this week Lucid was one of those SPAC deals. There's been many you can't lose count, but so context. So they went past Ford motor in their value to 89.9 billion following a 24% run up in their stock price, after executives are told investors at reservations reservations. Ford's first vehicles had jumped and that its production plans for 2020 were still on track. Of course, the company is not yet profitable. Still very much in the early days are generating revenue. In fact, it's Q3 revenues. What do you reckon? Q3 actual revenue. A quarter revenue yet for Lucid. It's fairly new company. You might need to revise that down a little bit. $232,000 US dollars. Whole quarter whole Q3 revenues 232,000 bucks and they're worth 90 billion. Okay, it goes further. Where did they get that from? Well, they're not selling any cars. Of course, they have made one yet. So where's that coming from? Formula E electric racing league is coming with the deal that they struck with them. They actually reported a net loss of 1.5 billion for the first nine months, including a loss of a half a billion for the quarter. So that was, this is again reignited it this week, but it comes after Rivian company with no revenues, big losses meant public exceeded. It's bigger of course, as we know, 100 billion. There are things there that I heard on a really good podcast I was listening to from the, you know, the FT huge organization they have specialists in these areas so I'm going to lean on him for some facts I think they're good ones as to a couple of things of Rivian, which was deep links with Amazon. So Amazon owns 20%. Yeah. So that's a big chunk. Well, and they ordered pre-ordered 100,000 trucks, wasn't it? Right, so they got 100k trucks and obviously getting into bed with the biggest logistical company in the planet that's growing and growing all of the time has amazing potential of course. One of the things this this analyst was highlighting was something called execution risk. Right. Which I think was just a good way of putting in he was talking about the ramping up of customer services, increasing production, he was talking about managing supply chains. You know, that was an extension of other things I started reading about okay so like lithium batteries like what's the key components of that and all of these car companies keep pumping out these numbers. Surely there's not enough of the material to meet these insane targets that they're putting out. I mean that that was the kind of context and he kind of bookended it with Volvo who listed very recently and Volvo have a electric sub-brand called Polestar. And when that lists, it's going to be bigger than the parent group. Yeah. What do you reckon? I think that we're in. Yeah, we're in insanity world. I think we finally arrived. And I think this EV kind of price or kind of valuation and kind of price behavior is ridiculous. But it's happening and so it's kind of I think the key kind of questions are why is it happening?  And then more importantly, I think, you know, what happens next with regards to price? I think I think, you know, we're definitely in an EV bubble. Definitely put Tesla right in that category as well. But it is ridiculous that companies that haven't even generated any revenue yet are getting valued like 100 billion or whatever Lucid was nearly there, right? And Rivian more than 100 billion. And I think it's crazy. I think partially it's to do with kind of if you missed out on the Tesla trade. And it's like, right, I'm not going to miss this next one. You know, it's so I think actually it's a it's quite a lot of psychology in here where investors missed out on the Tesla story and they want to get in early on this one because well they're going to be trillion plus businesses as well because they're going to be like Tesla. I think it's entirely irrational that thought process because a Tesla being over a trillion dollars in my humble opinion is not fair valuation. And I think that's way way overinflated. And number two, I mean at least Tesla are way down the track or way down the road here with regards to actually becoming a car manufacturing company.  And it's not easy. And I was, I was reading an article, like when the when the kind of when cars first became a thing, you know, industrial revolution and turn of the kind of 90th century and they were actually in 1910. They were 250 American car manufacturing companies. Wow. Okay. And that's because this new thing came out and now I write everyone scrambling to try and make one try cash in on this this great opportunity and 250 companies. And that's where it peaked about by the end of that century. Kind of basically and I'm going to simplify here but basically went down to three. Ford General Motors Chrysler, the big three US giants. Okay, so you had 250 to three. We're getting another kind of mini episode of that again, with now electric vehicles, and it's like everyone scrambling to get to market it's such a huge sort of opportunity and obviously Tesla has got the first mover advantage on that front and fine that's partially their valuation so high.   Yeah, so there's actually quite, there's quite a few out there and as from an investor's point of view, I guess, you've got to understand that it's about trying to pick the right one or the right ones. And there are many out there. I mean, I know we've been hearing a lot about Rivian and Lucid recently but there's actually, you know, you could say the Chinese. You know, kind of EV manufacturers, possibly have a better advantage than maybe some of these US ones that are just coming to market. And that's just because I think China a bit more. I think it's 50% of electric vehicle cars are sold in China. At the moment, they've been a little bit more progressive from a government policy point of view in pushing that transition to electric vehicles. So you've got some big Chinese players like Iways and Lee Auto and Neo and WM Motor and these lot. You've got some European ones as well like RIMAC in Croatia, Spain you've got Hispano, SUSE, here in the UK there's a company called Arrival, manufacturing electric vans. But, but yeah, I mean, look, basically that in terms of execution risk, you know, is Lucid worth 100 billion? No. Why not? Well, actually, they might not make it. This execution risk, I mean, obviously, firstly, you know, they've got to actually start to produce cars. And so this is the biggest risk of all it's that production really difficult kind of thing. Tesla nearly failed, by the way, when they were going through that what they described as their production hell.  But then you mentioned service centers and you know, it's like it's not just being able to build these cars, it's then actually selling and maintaining them. And that distribution and service network, which just on its own is an absolute minefield and a nightmare to execute and get right. And Tesla aren't even there yet. Do you know how many Tesla servicing centers there are in the US? What do you reckon? 50. 113. Big guns have like 10,000. Yeah. Right. So Tesla got 113. So there's still execution risk on Tesla side as well, by the way. So, yeah, I think that we're in a bubble. I think a lot of it's doing investors missing out on Tesla and wanting, wanting to make up for that. I think obviously these companies, they're not being valued as autos. They're being valued as tech firms. It's like tech and it's like software driven, you know, software defined sort of businesses and that's how they're being valued. And yeah, I think we're in a bubble. And I think it's dangerous because it doesn't mean we can't see these prices carry on going up, by the way. And we may well do. But yeah, I just think in the end the valuations that they are today, I think they will never get. They'll never justify them. And I'm not touching it with a barge pole. Well, one thing that came out overnight was Jim Farley, who's the CEO Ford. Yeah. And he came out and outlined then, I mean, you can imagine the board meetings at Ford and GM and the others crisis at the moment. I mean, they must be thinking that what have we got to do, and somehow they've started plucking numbers out and the CEOs come out with some again unachievable, I will go as far as saying targets, but almost like to try and keep pace, I guess, with what's going on. Well, and again, the medium used, what do you reckon to communicate this to the market that Jim Farley used to talk about its new targets? Well, social media. Yep. Twitter. Yep. As to as has the VW boss Herbert dace or dice. He's also been using Twitter more frequently as well. I mean, it's borderline slightly tragic. But yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I think you're not actually Elon Musk and you will never be Elon Musk stop trying to be. Yeah, it is. I don't know who does the strategy but equally so I don't know who designs these these US trucks like Rivian and that they need speaking to as well but that aside. The other thing I was, you know, for numbers then for Ford, they expect to produce 600,000 battery vehicles a year globally by the end of 2023, which is double their current target. So he's just come out to double that. That number though would still lag Tesla's expected sales volume by 2023, which is to be above a million. So there's still be only about half of Tesla if all forecasting is is met. Ford has gone from selling basically nothing in EV space last year. And they've sold about 19,000 is the figure 18,900 in the first three quarters of this year to give you an idea of where they're at at the moment so they're all right in the infancy of this for this point in time. So my other point that I started looking at when all this is happening earlier this week was there was an EU funded report that was talking about critical raw materials, regarding then different components, Bucksite cobalt lithium natural graphite. I started thinking okay so how do we play this. I don't want to touch these these EV stocks they're just insane. I know a lot of people have been talking about like lithium batteries and how do we get commodity exposure to that I just started looking at geographically. Okay, where do these components kind of these ingredients come from. And so for lithium main global producers, chili, China, Argentina, right. Other top ones chili dominates in China. Yeah, I usually, but yeah Argentina in there interesting. Yeah, we're talking about 85% all coming from Chile and China. If you're looking looking at the EU sourcing, because this then starts in my mind because you know I'm into geopolitics and so on. Like okay so who are the EU dependent on and for their own, their own industries, and actually there's 78% reliant on chili. Right. So the numbers start to skew a little bit in that sense. So yes, it was quite interesting looking at this in different ways and how this could be played and and so on but yeah they're going to have to scale I mean like thinking about numbers in terms of expected electric kind of vehicle sales I mean, like to give you an idea about I think it's about 95. So pre COVID actually because obviously car sales got hammered in code pre COVID. I think it was about 95 million cars per year. Sorry in that one year was sold. Okay, so that's like your, let's call it your run rate right and we're expected by 2025 to get back to that 95 million this is all cars right not not obviously not not EV here. So in 2018 of the 95 million you know you're, you're talking, you know, over 90 million of those are petrol or diesel right and obviously the trend is going to shift we're expecting car sales to go up total but also the EV portion of that to steadily build. So by 2030, for example, they're expecting the total car sales to break through 100 million and they're expecting of that. They're expecting about 25 million of those to be EV. So we're going to go like from 5 million to 25 million. Then by 2035, they're expecting that EV market to be more like 50 million. Okay, 50 million EV car built and sold in 2035. That's the forecast according to the economists. Now, that's given how difficult it is to manufacture these things and just look at Tesla, and they're only now just getting up to a million and I know Elon has ambitions to hit 10 million by, I'm not sure what his date was but you know in the next decade I think. But if Tesla get to 10 million, let's say by 2035 that's another 40 million units that's got to come from somewhere else and given their further down the road here. Just kind of questioning some of these sort of forecasts but like given, you know, talking about execution risk with the likes of Lucid and Rivian and all these players that have no revenue and I haven't really built any cars on scale that these factories. I mean, that's like a million that's a billion dollars a pop right Tesla's building one in Germany the building one in Texas, these are going a billion dollars a piece. So, I mean, I guess given the amount of capital they've raised by going public I guess at the moment, funding is there and fine they and it's cheap. Fine, I guess they can set about this project with a large amount of cash. But it doesn't mean they're going to be successful. Yeah. I won't mention where cobalt, which is in nearly almost every commercial lithium cathode chemistry, what country that comes from, because good luck trying to get consistent supply coming out of there. North Korea, which is no, you know, no, no attempt to have a driver at the Congo it's just an unstable place. And so that is definitely not what you want when there's high demand and dependency as a key product to facilitate the manufacturing process but let's move on let's talk about the shift it to the policy divergence and this was something we were talking about. So, I just really wanted to provide a bit of understanding here of two things, what's happening now so perhaps I can get everyone up to speed. And then perhaps you can talk about then the implication and how to structure then, I guess, a way to think how to structure an investment decision and timing is obviously key to any investment. So, for painting a bit of a picture of what's going on, going to talk about Europe. First, and our conversations this segment is about the divergence of policy emerging between Europe and elsewhere us namely, and the UK. So in Europe what's going on at the moment, well the main thing is covered. So covered cases are heading in the wrong direction, and rapidly so at this moment in time, Austria is the latest this morning, they're going to go into sports. Full lockdown right, Austria lockdown, yep hard lockdown from Monday, 20 day lockdown for everyone. This is one of those. We won't talk about it here because I know it's a political divisive point. Europe have been very much taking a strategy of locking down unvaccinated people they're segregating the two and treating them differently now which is obviously very divisive from the societal level but that aside. So, Austria are going to enact a full lockdown 20 days for everyone. Absolutely. The lockdown will continue though for the unvaccinated to an unspecified time right point in time. The other one then is Germany. Germany is applying pressure on citizens to get their shots they're restricting certain mobility and so on in unvaccinated areas across pretty much the whole country where that's apparent. So what we're going to do next with Germany is it's less than 70% of it fully immunized at this point, and that puts them quite a bit behind Spain, Italy, Portugal, so on on vaccine uptake Germany's actually lagged a little bit, and they could be deemed to be a little bit slow, because of the political environment on the coalition side at the moment, making decision making quickly quite difficult. Ireland has had quite a big uptick as well, increasing pressure on the infrastructure bars restaurants got a close by midnight, cinemas, theaters. This is very different from Britain which I know there'd be anarchy if this happened. But in Ireland, cinemas and theaters you got to prove that you've had a vaccination. And also, people are being advised in Ireland now to work from home is one of the things and then we could go into Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia, it's not looking good. So that's Europe. At the other side, the UK. Now the UK has seen an uptick in COVID cases we had almost like a such a great run of declining cases it was inevitable to end probably at some point. It has happened it started to move a little bit higher again once more, but the main things with the UK economy as drivers for this divergence theme is they didn't pull the trigger earlier this month as we discussed with the rate hike big shock, because they were kind of using forward guidance that was leading markets to believe they pulled the trigger and they didn't. Now, one of the main points that they were awaiting was the impact at the end of furlough was going to have on the labor market. In the week, we've had labor data, and we've had also CPI data. Now, the number of workers on UK company payrolls rose sharply last month it came evident, despite the end of the furlough scheme. After record increase in people moving from unemployment and into work ahead of the closure. So they kind of jumped back in before the end has happened and said smoothed out and if anything is actually a little bit lower than people were expecting and coupled that then CPI came in at a 10 year high. People know inflation is going higher. Bank of England telegraph this it's going to go even higher than where it is at the moment, but the point is, it's going higher faster than what markets are expecting, which is what's spooking people a little bit. That's about 0.2% analysts looking for 3.9. Now, the final piece of the puzzle here is the states and obviously the main one because talking about the Federal Reserve US economy. So yesterday, arguably one of the more reliable policy doves, if I can call him that Charlie Evans came out and said, and this is again the nuance of central bank comms. I'm quote more open minded is now what he's saying to raising interest rates next year than I was six months ago. Follow that with the comment the day before by the New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams and he said inflation increases are becoming broader based, which they are I mean that's a fact but the fact that they're saying it. And both these guys sit in a more center slightly leaning dovish way. And so saying these things is, you know, getting markets to pay attention and we've had JP Morgan. This week, they've brought forward their rate hike call, not going to wait, they're going to do it next year. They joined city MSGS. So all the banks are realigning themselves now to a more aggressive timeline. But that's the context. Yeah. I mean, I think that while starting with the last one first, the Fed and the US I mean I think that, you know, I think maybe we talked about something a few weeks back and it was that idea or maybe it was even last week where Tim Goldman's actually was saying that they would expect. I know it was your Fed watcher. What was his name. Tim do you right he and he was saying that the fed can really in terms of then getting more hawkish. It's about not touching that tapering. So it's not accelerating tapering. It's starting to talk about maybe hiking rates sooner and bringing that rate hike expectation into the into 2022 end of 2022 and he said that actually they could wait until March, until they start to even talk about that. Right. But, and so I think that's why this is a slightly you know it is a hawkish pivot here because we're thinking well, it is likely, given the current situation that a rate hike by the end of next year. We don't see that happening. But if they're already talking now, then you know often it takes six months to kind of just get the market teed up and prepped and ready. So, I mean, these doves talking like that could bring that rate hike, maybe into the middle of next year. So I think it is hawkish. Obviously here in the UK, you're getting over that that furlough fear, if you want to call it that in terms of the risk that that or the unknown that that kind of unknown risk that presented towards the kind of economic momentum and so on and so that's reduced so yeah fine maybe maybe we should be looking at the Bank of England making a move but December. Additionally, they like to wait till the quarterly they have a meeting, which also brings, not only are we changing policy but it's also then refreshing all of their economic models and forecasts and normally they like to change interest rates, alongside those updates to their models, which is why the last meeting was such a shock, because that was that meeting. So that's right to wait till February. Yeah, and so we don't have to wait until February obviously they do have a meeting in December and it is a chance to maybe change policy but you know I think I still can't see it I don't know what your thoughts are but I'm a I'm a February, not a December for a Bank of England rate hike where are you on this now I know you called it well last time. I was just trying to bring up to refresh my memory of what Bailey has been saying this week. I'm not sure we should listen to that. He said this week that he was very uneasy about the inflation outlook, and that his vote to keep interest rates on hold early this month, which would have shocked markets had been a very close call. He's kind of doing that whole thing where he's like, he's not resisting the market movement to price more aggressively so again he's kind of shooing in that he's going to do it I guess. I guess it comes down to the COVID situation for me now and how bad that gets over the winter period. Yeah, right. What's happening in Europe does not scare me on that side. We talked about this before the pattern development where it tends to happen in the UK first like the Alpha Kent variation then Europe catch it and we've kind of led that so I think what Europe is seeing experiencing obviously can have an impact but I think it's less impactful. I also think that the booster rollout has been decreasing in terms of those people who are going to receive it as we know now it's people of your stature and wise years now are available for a jab soon. And, and also they're talking about a double shot then for what was a single shot for under 1816 17 year olds. It's like a pizza strategy on both ends, bring it in. And so, yeah, from what I read from people who are way more intelligent on this stuff than me in the scientific community is that they don't foresee anywhere near the same type of situation as what we've had before. But I do think it warrants caution. Yeah, and actually if you're going to believe of which they're all kind of so scared of the immediacy of the inflation pressures now they're all still saying it's transitory. Yeah. And so, yeah. I mean how does baby come back from not delivering now in December I mean it'll be an utter disaster. But how I mean what's going to push him aside, let's say the market continues to price him back and he doesn't do it. He gets out voted. I mean what is the pushback I mean markets might like it but yeah. I do think, I do think they do want to get at least, they want to get back to rates at 0.5, which was the pre COVID. You know, it was the kind of post financial crisis, low, they've obviously cut to 0.15 so I think they do want to get back there but I think that. It's coming I mean it's, I know we kind of splitting hairs here and markets are obsessed about it. It actually doesn't really matter in the long term to do the Bank of England hike in December do they hike in February. What about the Fed are they going to hike at the end of next year is it going to be in quarter three of next year, you know, in the end that they're going to hike. You know we are on, we're at the start of the hawkish, you know cycle right so it's a monetary tightening cycle, and it started and sure the speed of it is important but but it's not as important as it's starting. We're on that hawkish trajectory now with Europe and kind of going back to the, the point about divergence, you know Europe have not started their kind of hawkish tightening trajectory. And I think that's the key difference and now people are speculating actually, not only if they not started but actually we don't think they're going to start anytime soon and obviously the COVID situation is certainly, you know, making that belief, you know, all the things are likely. And you know economically they haven't recovered from COVID as well. And so I think that from a from a sort of policy divergence point of view, you know it's been relatively easy to predict things like the euro weakening against the dollar. So coming back to the point about you know how do you start to develop sort of investment themes and ideas and strategies.  They're pricing in what we think is going to happen in the future. And no better example than the Rivian valuation right so it's about pricing in our future expectations. So, you know you can't come to the table now and go, ah, what hang on the Fed tapering and hang on Europe. I'm not doing anything. Oh right, I'm going to now short the euro dollar, because a lot of the moves happened already. So it's about understanding the main themes that provide the big influences on price. It's then being an expert on those themes. You know you're lacking those themes, you know, as you go along to identify when changes in direction are going to occur or are likely to occur. And then you know it's about spotting doesn't happen often when you get divergence and that's why this opportunity, you know of the last few months and probably ongoing into next year is an unusual situation where you get central to the size of the ECB and the Fed or the Bank of England actually going in opposite directions hardly ever happens. So when it does, this is when you get big swings in those currency pairs. What happened back in kind of 20, well what was it 2014-2015 when euro dollar kind of really kind of opened up to the downside and almost got to parity and got down to 104 in the end. And that was again another moment where the Fed started to hike. And actually the ECB were cutting at the same time. They were literally going, not only talking about going in opposite directions, they actually were. And that's the only time that's ever happened in my entire career was to see the ECB and the Fed literally changing policy in opposite directions simultaneously. So now it's about the Fed are moving they're tapering but the ECB stood still. So you still got that divergence it's not quite as dramatic as both going in opposite directions but yeah in terms of, you know, it's bad. You've got to be on top of these major macro themes understand them really well, and then start to predict and build in, you know, a thesis in your head about how it's going to play out and then right if I'm right how will prices move between now and that moment in the future. And right then I'm going to position myself accordingly. And again from an investment strategy point of view going back to what we talked about with EVs, then it's about okay so what's the risk profile of this view that I have and how do I express that view in as low risk way as possible. So I can have a directional bias but quantify and manage that risk and so like thinking about okay not outright position in an EV like Lucid. And I play this in a different way to play the same investment theme. Right, and you're looking into those commodities that are key to that kind of EV battery manufacturing is definitely one way I mean, other ways you know it's about and diversification is really really important, really important, especially in this case, as I said, not all these companies going to make it, I don't care what valuation they've been given, some of these aren't going to make it so they might be worth 100 billion, some of them will be worth zero in five 10 years time. So you've got to kind of spread it around you know and it's investing in in an around that space like I've been invested for well well over a year in a lot of EV charging businesses. And because the infrastructure there is woefully inadequate and is gonna, you know, has to kind of build and so you know it's kind of there's plenty of ways to play the EV space, I mean I wouldn't be punting around buying Lucid. But you know, making sure that, yeah just kind of second and third sort of derivatives away from the actual vehicle, and then making sure you're getting nice and diversified by, you know, investing in lots of different things in that area. Well, let's let's move on and talk about the final installment if you like which is Netflix and Netflix the reason to speak about them is they'll begin regularly reporting viewership numbers for its top programs and films. And that's quite a distinct shift in their strategy and bit of context here as well so streaming, generally watching television online obviously change the industry and immense amount over the last decade. But the problem that Netflix is facing at the moment is the fact that signups are drying up, they're coming off this monumental pump in their subs, their subscriber rate because of the pandemic. Someone was forced at home at 2020 hugely shot up. And it's not the investors don't know that that is never going to be sustained. It's just the fact that they've seen the company achieve such lofty heights. It kind of anchors now to, okay that's success, even though we know that that's not kind of able to contain that kind of momentum market saturation increase competition. There's a lot of reason for strategic change, I guess. And before I kind of talk more about what I think this means and why they would have done that. I mean I was looking at Apple. I know we talked many, many episodes ago about Apple at length but one of the things I was looking at with Apple is about how it tried to maneuver itself away from kind of its Achilles Hill which is a dependency on iPhone sale revenues. And I was reading about pull push strategies which in simple terms was talking about using set products like your Apple laptop for example. And then using that as an avenue then to hook people in as a pull strategy to then seldom subsequent add on types of products and services. But it was all channeled to a singular products, whereas now they've moved to a push strategy, which is that every unique element of the business now has its own strategy to push out the products as their own products in their outright. So wearables, app stores, subscriptions, TV, laptops, iPads, all the rest of it. I would have done a successful job at doing this and you know it's a component of why, again diverse, we go back to diversification, diversification of a corporation to offset, and this then leads us back as a hook to Netflix. Because if you ever watch Netflix, when they release their quarterly earnings. I mean, could go up 10% could go down 10%. Down 10% might sound, you know, I guess if you're trading penny stocks or or meme stocks, you might think 10% that's nothing. But, you know, for matured businesses, this is not a sustainable kind of approach. You don't, you don't shareholders don't want to see that type of price volatility. They've got to kind of think about, okay, so how do we address declining signups, saturated market. And what, what can we do and now one of the things I was talking about in the piece I put out earlier this week is about fighting a battle that you know you can win and creating a distraction that starts to then take away the community's obsession with a singular metric of your firm, kind of like Apple people used to go screw everything. What's the iPhone number, and I'll try and the stock will move accordingly with Netflix is the same with the subscription and that's unhealthy place to be so hence the rationale to try and to try and shift. So, yeah, finding a battle that you can win what I mean by that statement is, start reporting your, your numbers you've just come on the back of squid game, which was an insane success. Like the second one isn't even a country mile like a far apart it's it's crazy. So, when you actually think of the Netflix originals, squid game, Bridget and Richard, these sorts of things. And then you think about firepower that Netflix has, because don't forget Disney plus and things like that big companies but they're fairly new arms and divisions of those businesses. And so, Netflix is set to spend 17 billion on content, 17 billion on content. And during the third quarter alone. How many Netflix programs do you think they released in the third quarter alone. I'm going to say Netflix episodes of Netflix originals. So it's from a Netflix originals within one quarter. 100. That's a good guess. And that's actually what Disney plus did. They did about 150 right HBO Max did 200 Netflix did 824 original content. And so to counter at this is they're only going to report, and this is where the massaging comes in. They're only going to report on the top 10 programming right because you don't need to know about the rubbish ones of course. And so, I mean, the top 10 is probably going to smash nearly everything the other competitors have even got as their best performing. Just given the gap that exists so it's kind of like they're not going to lose reporting on these metrics. And if you're first I think to market to really push the narrative in that direction. I think you control that conversation and Disney and the rest of them will have to report these numbers and they will look rubbish. And thus you have first to market advantage in, as I've described about you're not going to lose, you know, I like it. I mean, what I would say is that I'm looking at their subscriber numbers the chart now and you know obviously the strategy is to to mask the fact those the number of growths, slowing as you were saying and there's 213 million paying streaming subscribers. That's as of the end of quarter three 2021 so 213 million that's up from 2020s number of 203 million so they've added 10 million this year. Last year, I mean, it's hard because obviously COVID I'm not even going to talk about the growth last year. Well, I'll say it was what was it 30 36 million were added in 2020 versus 2019. 2019 growth from 2018 they went from 139 to 167. So that's 28 million. So yeah 10 million growth this year is slowing decelerating growth rates and when these tech stocks trade at crazy multiple valuations. It's based on the idea that you've got an exponentially growing business and that's how these tech firms get these inflated valuations right but when you're having declining growth rates unfortunately that's not exponential anymore and so you know clearly from a share poison of a valuation point of view that's bad news so deflecting that is a good strategy. I mean what I would say with Apple. You know, I, people still do look at the iPhone number, it is still the most important. It's not the be all and end all, but it's definitely still the most important so I think Netflix strategy here is a good one but it's not it doesn't mean that we're no longer going to be interested at all in subscriber numbers because in the end that's what pays them the money and can they afford to pay all those billions in producing content well yes, as long as obviously their subscriber numbers are strong and they can afford that and I think in the end and look with all these rivians and all the rest of it, you know, in the end, they all kind of all get bundled together and they get these crazy prices but look long term, they've got a product that they're selling to the end user and unless the product's good, the company's not going to do very well. And I think Netflix have done the right thing in big time investing in content investing in their product and squid games, you know, 2021 is just a phenomenal example of that paying off 1.6 billion. That's the viewing hours of squid squid games 1.6 billion hours of viewing time. The next most popular was Bridgeton. I don't know I didn't really like Bridgeton anyway Bridgeton. I didn't bother 625 million. That's number two on the list. So Bridgeton got 625 million viewing hours squid games 1.6 billion. Now that's the kind of stuff by the way that draws subscribers so it'll be interesting to see next year if all this investment into content. If they can pull off some more squid games then actually you may well see that that subscriber number reaccelerate but so therein lies your your downside. So like with anything I don't want to sound like uber ball on Netflix because there is a definite downside I think it was on LinkedIn where I was engaging with someone who interacted with my post. And yeah the degradation of quality programming that will definitely happen. Yeah, the producer director squid game I think as a script first came about could be wrong. But I think it was about a decade ago got shot down not interested. The guy brought it back and it just became a mega hit. Of course this guy just say he wrote the script and he's really passionate. This is my script. It's such a great script. Hence the success the global phenomenon comes around every now and again. Yeah this is a unique moment in cinema some would say. Now what's going to happen is like you can't just pull these out of thin air but what will happen is Netflix will say okay we've got 17 billion for content for the year. How about I give you one piece current how about I give you scriptwriter a billion because worth it for us makes business and I'm going to give you a billion write me write me a second series and don't make it an eight part series. Make it a 10 part one because I calculated it early in the week to more episodes. Well you do the math right of 1.6 billion over eight and so you're talking multiple hundreds more hours spent and people downloading these episodes. So it makes business sense. The problem is there. You haven't even conceptually thought of script yet, and you're already getting the business directing you to tell you how to how to do that. That's a surefire way of disaster as far as the quality of programming so for sure. I think that this might not have a degree of longevity, but it is a necessity to be doing it and I think they will win they'll be best in class for a foreseeable future. But yeah, what will happen as well is that I mean the algorithm already updated for me I don't know about you but I watched Squid Game I smashed it the day after it came out I just literally flipped it for a couple of days and done it. And so, all of a sudden the algo updated, and I start seeing Korean about this Korean movies here. So I can imagine what the content. Count the rates who would have done it Netflix got right just go out to career bang spend 100 million buy them all. Plug them in the algo and start pushing it all because people will start clicking around. Yeah, the other thing here is that as much as Far East cinema makes movies at a rapid pace compared to say an expensive and timely Netflix original, they will gobble up all of that industry. But the problem you have there is that I think a UK European market is more open to the prospect of foreign film. Yeah, that that that goes down like a lead balloon in the US I mean Squid Game is unique. But I would say it's a you it is unique by case and can they get foreign film into the US main market. I don't think so not anytime soon. Well, I don't know about that. I think they did such a good. I don't know how you watched Squid Games whether you watched it. Did you have it the dubbing on so it was in English dubbed or did you go for some time.  I mean who does that. I mean who watches like a foreign movie in dubbed English.  My point is though, turn it on go and have a look turn on the dub the dubbing for Squid Games was unbelievably well done. To the point where I know someone who watched the whole series and thought they were speaking in English. Okay, define well done for me. The Korean dialect. Yeah, very nuanced and obviously the shape of the mouth movements don't map across to the sound that's coming out. But I think what is acting as well right the person doing the dubbing. They're an actor and they need to make sure that the expression in the voice and the you know is perfect and on point to match the the imagery as it's moving and I think the way they did that was phenomenally good. Hence why it's so popular by the way, and by the way, money heist is the is number two, so it's number three on the list. That's a Spanish film right so you're saying it's not working in America but it is. The numbers are there money heist is actually, it's the season four was the third most popular season three was like the fifth most popular or something anyway. So I think it's like, if I was Netflix, I'd be hunting around Asian, you know, movie theaters and finding what are low budget movies that are super slick scripts great. Actually this is amazing and then basically plucking that throwing a load of money at it and making it visually. And then putting some budget behind it and then parking on Netflix I think that's a great strategy and there's got to be plenty of little gems out there that can be plucked already is the departed Leonardo DiCaprio you remember that one. Yeah, that's a Hong Kong movie. What's that right came out 15 years before the party it's way better than the departed, but that doesn't matter as long as people go to cinema and you stick Leo's name on the badge. Yeah, people people get involved but and I guess the other thing I was going to say about Netflix is it's it's it's cheap. It's like cheap enough that you just don't think about it I did I probably didn't watch Netflix for probably six months, then squid games. And then after squid games I've watched more on Netflix than any other channel for the last three months. But while enjoying that six month period where I'm not watching it I'm not thinking I need to cancel that need to cancel that it's just not in my mind at all because it doesn't because the price of so I'm wondering. You know those subscriber numbers, you know how many of those are actual active subscribers and they're actually watching content and what I would be reporting files Netflix is reporting on the convert, you know active subscriber viewers. You know because that's surely gone up now. Well I mean I think I think it's the same thing right the viewership numbers. They would have seen them massively strike post squid game. Yeah, serves the same purpose I guess that's good point away so they're just like yeah we need this is like insane we need to report this. And I guess they're comfortable with as I said the content that they're doing. It's good and the key and the key the beauty of the strategy, as you said, the most important point here is that it's going to force others to follow suit. And that's where they're going to really shine. You know it's their ace card. And if others are forced to follow up competitors are forced to follow with issuing their kind of viewer hours figures then then yeah this is where Netflix have pulled a pulled a smart one. Yeah. And for any like movie buffs. I sympathize. The foreign language is a very complex dialects are very confusing. And the Korean people I talked to say the dubbing was horrendous, and actually you miss a huge proportion of the nuance of the narrative the story, because it's, you cannot translate it into English. Without giving an overly expressive then long dialogue to explain simple feelings but anyhow, we're not movie buffs, we had to talk about markets and strategy but just saying. You shouldn't watch it in dubs. Anyhow, we'll conclude the episode. And yeah, well we'll be back next week as per usual. I'm still doing the career hack series with my colleagues out. We've had great conversations we've had so far so we've got two more and then that's it microseries is done. So stay tuned because next week we're going to be talking about how do you tackle different types of interviewer kind of personalities so he's got ones called like incredible Hulk, the king and queen, the yes man the no man like he's got some funny stories so worth tuning in for if you're a student to get you best prepared for any interviews coming up. If that appears thank you as ever, and have a great weekend everyone. Cheers. See you.