Okay, are we ready to start? Please, everybody come, take your seats. I'm Boaz Arad and I'm the manager of the Iron Run Center in Israel and I'm honored to open the Free Market Roadshow 2022 in Tel Aviv, which is the second station of a new tour, a worldwide tour. And we are honored to have the team of Free Market Roadshow in Israel. And today we are coupling this event with the celebration of a new publication of We The Living. Thank you to anybody who put it here, I forgot. Thank you for you, Sharon, yeah. Okay, so I'm proud to open this special event, which express cooperation between forces of liberty and enlightenment. We are celebrating both the production of the new book, New Translation, by famous translator Sharon Ferminger. I know that she is following us and Sharon, thank you. And this was Iron Run's first novel that was published in 1936 and we are collaborating with the Free Market Roadshow 2022, which is a project of the Austrian Economic Center and many affiliate organizations. And we have with us today leading speakers for the cause of freedom and individual liberty among them, member of the Knesset, Sharon Eskel, that honor us with her presence and Yaron Brooke, the chairman of the board of the Iron Run Institute, Gia Giandieri, high Gia, founder of the New Economic School in Georgia, ברברה קולום, VP at the Austrian Central Bank and manager at the Austrian Economic Center, will join us through the internet, through a video link and Hans Unterdorfer, who is a CEO of Tiroler Sparkastre, which is a bank in Austria. The organization we are collaborating with for this event is the Free Market Roadshow that managed by the Austrian Economic Center, the Israeli Freedom Movement that promoting individual freedom and free market in Israel, the Iron Run Institute in USA that promoting and advancing the philosophy of Iron Run and the Iron Run Center in Israel. And we have a packed program today in which we will address most crucial aspect of freedom and it is my pleasure and honor to invite member of the Knesset Sharon Eskel to the stage, few words about Sharon. Sharon is a member of New Hope, תקווה חדשה, party in the 24th Knesset. She serves as the chair of the Knesset Education, Culture and Sport Committee and chair of the Special Committee on the Bill of Regulate the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purpose. Difficult name, which means it's a complicated issue. Sharon has been member of the Knesset since 2015 when she became the youngest Likud member of the Israeli Parliament. She is the unchallenged winner of the Israeli Freedom Movement Liberty Index and we honor her for her and thank you Sharon for coming. Please come in. Thank you very much and thank you to everybody who came here today. I'm very proud of that title of leading the scale of freedom amongst the Knesset, among the Knesset member and I guess now that we finished another seat you're probably going to publish another one and that's going to be interesting because it's been a very, very challenging seat in the Knesset. We have, whoever's watching us maybe internationally, we have a very complicated government in that sense as well where we're actually working together with a number of socialists, I would say even more towards communist party and there's a lot of arguments and fights to do about the economy. So it is extremely challenging. So I'll be very interested in seeing the results of the last seats in the Knesset in that scale as well. But maybe it will be the first time since I entered the Knesset that they will be someone who is actually advancing and voting and promoting legislation, a liberal legislation. And you know what? I hope so. I hope there's more Knesset members who are capable of fighting and pushing through bills who expand our individual liberties and our economic freedom. So I wrote on my first maybe point as basically some of the challenging issues that we're facing in recent day. Specifically, we had a horrific attack yesterday in the south of Israel where four Israeli citizens were murdered by a terrorist who was actually previously until 2015, a teacher in Israel, in the south. And those horrific attacks and the challenging that we have in recent years about the safety and security of the citizens of Israel raise a lot of questions and a lot of challenges that we're facing here in the state of Israel. And obviously, I mean, there's sort of an agreement between the citizens and the government that the government is meant to keep our life and the safety of its citizens. And in exchange for that, we actually limit our freedoms and liberties here in the country. And in a country like Israel, this is actually being faced and challenged time after time. Personally, I feel like during my military service, I served as a combat soldier and I feel like I received there the proper training to be able to guard my safety and my family safety. I have a private license for a gun as well that I know I'm capable of keeping myself safe and my family safe. But as a country, we have to address this issue and we are trying now in the recent months to bring more legislation in order to make sure that we bring back, we'll call it law and order as much as possible in communities, mainly Arab communities around our country, not to even start explaining and talking about terrorist attack that we're facing throughout the years. Israel is not an easy place. And with, you know, we were celebrating today the new, עוצה, publishing of the book, We the Living of En Ronde. And the book mainly speaks about the life and the safety and liberties and the ownership, property and all the individual liberty. And for me, I feel like that is my main mission and my main goal in the Knesset as a representative. It's been, for the past seven years since I'm in the Knesset, I've been trying to fight in order to make sure that we expand those liberties. And in a country like Israel, where I think I can say that when we start sort of the foundation of Israel, it was very difficult, a lot of Communist Party and you know, what maybe it was needed in the beginning of building a country, building an economy, building everything, you know, from basically nothing. And maybe it was needed, we have a beautiful country, but what we see today is dragging that and not eliminating all of those restrictions and extreme bureaucracy and putting that power of everything in the hands of clerks, of people who work in ministries. This is the main barrier for our generation today, not the founding generation, but for our generation who is such a creative and thriving generation who wants to own business and develop the country and develop the economy and push Israel through the boundaries, international boundaries as further as possible. Those things that may be assisted to the founding generation are our main barriers today. And so my mission is really to try and eliminate as much as possible from that regulations, from these bureaucracy. It's not easy. It wasn't easy with the last government, we had my own forkness, it's with this government, the coalition as well, but slowly we are making progress. I think some of the reforms that the Ministry of Treasury is now pushing are things that should have been done years and years ago and we are pushing through all of our forces in order to try and actually push them through. It's not easy because there's a lot of challenges with other parties who are collaborating with us in this coalition. So the economical issues are more challenging but there's still quite a lot of progress. At the same time, there's still a lot of progress that we have to do. Maybe I can sort of enlighten a little bit of today that was the Minister's Cabinet of... חברתי כלכלי. And I know we have some people here from the banks around the world, the Bank of Israel actually showed to the Minister's research that prove that Israel is as competitive in the economical market as other countries around the world. A lot of this information that was given by the Bank of Israel is actually twisted information. Israel is far behind in whatever is with competitiveness in the market, in the economical market. There is so much regulation. There is so much concentration of power in very few companies. And it was very disturbing and for me, I know I'm trying to sort of change that that the Bank of Israel is actually showing sort of twisted information. They pick and choose a few things. I won't go into too much details, but I think they are actually the one who are meant to push the Ministers of Israel to create reforms that will create more competition in Israel because that will make a better economy that will give more opportunities for the younger generation. And so on that side, there's still a lot to do. A lot to do. On individual liberties, as Boaz said, there's obviously my, I'll call it flagship of individual liberties where we see it as one of the, like the cannabis regulations here in Israel. I've been working quite a few years on a reform to legalize cannabis here in Israel, on a reform of the medical cannabis here in Israel. And many people ask me, what is this thing? Like why do you deal all the time with cannabis? And I keep on telling them that for our generation, this is a flag of individual liberties. What I do in my home with my body, I'm not harming my environment. I'm not harming other people. I didn't steal, I didn't murder. Why is there a reason to label me as a criminal? What kind of power is being given to the state to try and dictate what I can do with my body and with my future? And I think sort of, in recent years, it sort of trickled down and people more and more understand that. But I do think this is sort of a flag for me, for those individual liberties. There's quite a lot of reforms that we are promoting as well, a foundation law, חוקסוד, לדיבר. It's a base law, which is very important. It's a base law, it's similar to a constitutional law. It's something similar to that, that sort of keep the rights of people who are suspected or being interrogated by the police or being charged with a criminal offense around court because there's a lot of problems and issues today with the law system and with the court system, the judicial system as well, that we have to fix. So this will actually start and sort of build and give the proper rights for citizens who are facing the system and the system is abusing their power in a lot of the cases. So I'll conclude in saying, first of all, Boaz, thank you so much for all the work that you do for the liberal community here in Israel. I think that in the recent years, the liberal movement here in Israel have made revolutionary steps in anything to do with the perspective of how citizens view legislation, how they address the economy. There's a different conversation even in the media throughout communities and we can really sense it. There is a change. There's still a long way to go, but the work that you do among communities and in the media is extremely valuable. So I would like to thank you and thank you so much for inviting me all the time for your conferences and for your event, and I'm really, really proud to take part in all of your activities. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Sharon. And our next speaker is Dr. Jaron Brooke. He is the chairman of the board of the Einwand Institute. He wears many hats and travels extensively as the Einwand Institute spokesman and on behalf of the cause of freedom. Brooke represents a very rare voice of objective thinking and is consistent, clear and important in his position. You don't hear it so often. This is why I urge you all to follow his podcast, your own Brooke Show. He wrote and co-authored many works and papers and some of his books are positions there on the counter. So in the intermission you may pick a copy and ask Jaron to sign it and you have an opportunity to do it. So Jaron will talk about the new publication of We The Living. So please, Jaron, take the stand. Can I do this? I don't like podiums. Thanks everybody. Thanks for inviting me, Boaz, and thank you for the free Margaret Roche for inviting me, and thank you all for being here. I just want to start by seconding what the member of the Knesset just said about Boaz. I mean, I don't know how many of you appreciate how different Israel is today than it was in terms of these ideas that it was 30 and 40 years ago when I was sitting in Yorche watching somebody talk about Ayn Rand and talking about this stuff here in Tel Aviv actually just around the corner near the Cinematheque. That was a long time ago and the difference in the visibility that Ayn Rand has that little ideas generally free market ideas have in Israel today visibility in politics but also the visibility just broadly in culture is night and day as compared to what it was back then and much of that if not all of it is due to the work Boaz has done over the last 40 years so thank you, Boaz. Good job. So I've been asked to talk about Ayn Rand's novel We the Living. We're publishing it, as you can see in Hebrew. It's exciting to see as Ayn Rand's books come out in print in Hebrew it's always exciting to see and I think this is just one more step in getting Ayn Rand's ideas out there into the Israeli public and primarily among young people and getting people excited about her ideas and about her as a novelist as well. We the Living has I think a very unique place among Ayn Rand's novels because of all of them it is the most autobiographical it is the closest Ayn Rand ever came to writing about her own life she lived We the Living now I don't want to give any plot spoilers but We the Living is about a young woman who grows up under the Soviet boot under Soviet culture under Soviet rules under Soviet ideas during that period and what happens to her and I won't get into the one difference between real life and the difference in the novel because I don't want to give the ending of the novel away I want you to feel when you read it the full emotional impact that it has because it is an incredibly powerful ending but much of what happens in We the Living is very similar to what happened in Rand's life importantly I think what We the Living does is it really provides this with a picture a story of what it was like to live under the Soviet Union but more broadly what it's like to live under authoritarianism what it's like to live in a world where your choices don't matter where your values don't matter where your opinions don't matter but at the end of the day life doesn't matter to anybody We the Living depicts that world and what happens to good people in that world people who are trying to live trying to survive trying to succeed at the task not an easy one of living living with a capital L really living not just surviving and of course authoritarianism as the book illustrates I think brilliantly authoritarianism kills one's ability to live and if you think about that in a sense as the theme of the novel everything in the novel is around centered around that authoritarianism kills life because life life requires making choices for yourself life requires the freedom to use your mind to use reason to choose your values and to choose and to initiate the actions necessary to achieve those values and to use your mind and to pursue your values requires that you be free requires that you be free from coercion that you be free from force that you be free from authority and I think of all Iron Man's books We the Living illustrates that the best because it illustrates what happens not only materially to the heroes to the people who are trying to live but what it does to their spirit what it does to them psychologically how it eviscerates their soul how difficult it is to hold on to survive to keep the spirit of living alive in you the heroine in the story of course does but she's alone all the other characters in one way or another are destroyed by the authoritarianism not just physically because one of them at least survives physically they are nothing they are living death they are dead, they are zombies they might look alive but inside they are completely dead and that's what authoritarianism does that's what having somebody else make choices for you having somebody else choose your values for you having somebody else dictate to you how you can and cannot live how you can and cannot do and what you can and cannot think that's what it does to your soul so I think it's really important and I think this is a book that is incredibly timely right now it's really important to figure out what causes authoritarianism what brings it about to avoid it at pretty much all costs because the consequences are so horrific to our individual lives that fighting for it is not an option it's a necessity fighting against authoritarianism it's not an option it is a necessity so what are the causes of authoritarianism how do we get to a position when the Soviet Union a small group of people got to make decisions for everybody got to make decisions for everybody in every aspect that was important to life how do we get to such a condition well the only way for authoritarianism to rise up and if you look at communism and if you look at Nazism and if you look at fascism and if you look at I don't know what they call it today Putinism or whatever you want to call it although he's not yet quite as totalitarian some of these others but he certainly seems to be striving in that direction you see a common thread and the common thread is an ideology a philosophy that unfortunately was at the founding of the state of Israel so it's something we have to watch for and be very very careful of and certainly is all over Israel today and that is the philosophy of collectivism that is the idea that what matters what matters morally is the group is the collective is some kind of well-being of the proletarian the Aryan race the society the state whatever group you want to fill in and the individual is nothing but a tool to achieve the well-being of the group that the individual is nothing he's meaningless outside of the group and indeed his life should be and can be sacrificed for the group now this is an idea that permeates the world it's around us everywhere and it really is an idea that dominates human history for the last I don't know where civilization started 5000 years there have been very few periods in history where that idea was not the dominant idea individuals didn't matter they didn't matter in ancient times who did your life belong to some group some tribe some collective some country some god it certainly didn't belong to you you didn't matter you were just there to be sacrificed for this greater good the public interest the common welfare tribalism has dominated the human experience for the last 5000 years and before that but before that doesn't really matter it's very rare that we recognize the value of an individual mind the value of an individual life as the essence and the essence of our politics maybe some individuals in Greece maybe some individuals in Rome but beyond that western history the individual matters little until until the renaissance and then the enlightenment in western history until the idea of human reason the efficacy of human reason our ability to know the world discover the world and understand the world as individuals using our reason in a sense was rediscovered from the writings of the Greeks rediscovered by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and suddenly you get a shift, a change a dramatic change in everything, in every aspect of life every aspect of life on planet earth at least in the west changed in the 18th century we got political freedom we got individual liberties hey you got to choose who to marry for that nobody chose who they married it was all arranged marriages you got to choose what profession you got to do what did you do before that what profession did you have in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries whatever your father did and if you were a woman you had no profession who had professions and suddenly because we started looking at people as individuals with minds who could think for themselves and take care of themselves the world opened up if I can think for myself I want to choose my profession if I can think for myself I want to choose my political leaders if I can think for myself leave me alone, protect me help me protect my rights but otherwise leave me alone and that's America and that's the west since that period but the struggle between that which I believe is the core of western civilization it's the core of what it means to be civilized that has had to struggle against the forces of collectivism the forces of collectivism have constantly pushed back against it from the beginning Kant and Hegel Marks and all of them were forces of collectivism fighting against the enlightenment fighting against individual liberty fighting against the sanctity of the individual and they manifested themselves in communism in socialism in Nazism, in fascism in all of these ideas all these ideas to place the group and why is collectivism have to be authoritarian in one way or another that has to be because the fact is there's no such thing as the common good what's good for the Aryan people I don't know and the fact is no particular Aryan knows so what do they need somebody to commune with the spirit of Aryans somebody to commune with the spirit of proletarians something to commute the spirit of the nation the spirit of the Jews whatever but somebody has to commune with the spirits to be able to guide you to be able to tell you what is right and what is just you as an individual are meaningless cog in this collective so somebody has to guide they're always reluctant but what can you do somebody has to lead so collectivism necessitates authoritarianism of one sort or another some of it might be milder where it's just experts and sometimes it's full blown authoritarian where every aspect of your life is determined by a leader by political elites we need to fight this we need to stop it from happening and I think we the living is a great illustration of what how bad it can get and of course another manifestation of how bad it can get you can see right now in the war between Russia and Ukraine that we'll be talking about later but here's an authoritarian with a dream a dream, I mean I take Putin at his word he has a dream for a greater Russia a Russian empire I mean he said it so and he's representing the Russian people this is good for the Russian people not for any individual Russian what do they care and they're asked to die for his dream but he's communing with the spirit of Russia he talks about the Ukrainians and the Russians having the same soul and the same spirit it doesn't look that way right now he seems to disagree he has a dream for a greater Russia and that's he's willing to sacrifice as many people as it takes on both sides his people don't matter to him what matters is the dream he said not that many years ago he said that the biggest tragedy of the 20th century was not I don't know World War I where tens of millions of people died or World War II or the Holocaust the biggest tragedy of the 20th century was the Soviet Union and now he's just remedying that but why is the Soviet Union a value to whom to Mother Russia to some collective, some spiritual value some spirit existence some mystical realm that he is the only one who can commune with and let us know what is needed and we must take it back we're seeing this collectivism we're seeing this collectivism all over we're seeing it in the west America and the tribalism that we've experienced over the last decade or so in American politics, in American culture you're seeing it here in Israel it is something we need to fight and the only way to fight it the only way to fight bad ideas is with good ideas and the idea that you need to fight against collectivism and the greatest champion of individualism I believe ever was Iron Man and so I encourage you all to read her books study her ideas promote them get them out there let them inspire you and go out fight the collectivists we need to do it every day if we want to hold back this historical wave that seems to be coming towards us in the form of authoritarianism and collectivism so it really is fantastic to see another one of Iron Man's books in Hebrew it will sell well in this country of books among the people of the book and I look forward every year to coming back to Israel and seeing more growth, more books more readers is even more important thank you everybody אה אה יאלי אה רעתי לה אה אה אה אה אוקיי, We will continue at 6.20. אגבי, אגבי, לסתק יוסי, רון אבני, אני קורא אותך לסדר, כמו בקנסת, כן, להתראות, תודה, כן. אוקיי, רבותיי, בבקשה להשבת, עובדי מרכז העינרן בבקשים להבאו שבת האנשים. עכשיו, יונתן, אל תעשיק אותי, תעזור להשיף את האנשים עכשיו. בבקשה, ליבית, התחיפה שלך נדרשת. עכשיו, בשעה 6.20, We will continue in a minute. Please come forward, we're waiting for you. אוקיי, Our next panel title is elitism and the suppression of the masses. We will have a free panelist from the free market road show. First of them is Barbara Kulm. Dr. Barbara Kulm is a leader libertarian in Europe. She is the vice president of the Austrian Central Bank, director of the Austrian Economic Center, which is number one independent think tank in Austria, and position as among the top ones in the world. She is president of the IAC Institute and professor of Austrian Economics at the University of Dondja, Grosja, I hope I pronounce it right, in Montenegro. Barbara will join us live on video from Austria, and we are grateful to all the inventors, developers, investors that made all of this possible and especially to Ellie that sits on the technical here. With Barbara, we will also have, after Barbara will give us her talk, Mr. Hans Unterdurfer. Hans will join us also by video from Austria. Mr. Unterdurfer is a banker with a broad experience in financing and investment strategy. Since 2011, he is the CEO of Tiroler Sparkasse in Innsburg, Austria. And with the video panel, we will have a real live friend that came all the way to Israel, Mr. Gia Giandieri from the New Economic School in Georgia. And Gia is an economist, graduate from two universities in Georgia. He worked at the State Audit Office, Central Election Commission, very important, at the Parliament of Georgia, and the Anti-Corruption Agency. In 2001, Mr. Giandieri, co-founded and since that time, has been the vice president of the New Economic School in Georgia. So please, Barbara, you can take the lead. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Boas, and this distinguished member of Knesset, Mrs. Sharon Haskell. Thank you very much for your inspiring speech, dear Boas. It's a pleasure and thank you to collaborate again with you, with the NRAN Center Israel, but also with the NRAN Institute, and of course the Israeli Freedom Movement. Apologies for not being with you live. Unfortunately, I have a positive PCR test and could not travel to Israel, but hope to be out of prison very soon again. It's been a pleasure to work with you all for the past years, and to finally have a life event again, not only in Tel Aviv, but also the one on Monday at Bashiwa, and we hope to have many more. Yaron, for joining the Rocho and for presenting the books and NRAN's work so lively. Presenting via video screen, as you know, is a little bit boring, but the topic of the less elitism and suppression of the masses is definitely more important than ever. So there are three interlocking themes these days. One is COVID-19, of course, another is energy politics and the Russian-Ukraine issue that we see these days. And in each of these areas, elites have claimed to act in the name of people, yet in each of these areas, actions have produced outcomes that harm people. Elites and apologies to the president politicians, both in politics, but also experts in medicine, have taken a variety of measures and changed their narrative multiple times in order to deal with the virus. So a similar moving of the goalposts phenomenon can be observed when it comes to changing the narrative on inflation recently. You might recall that first it was that we would not see inflation. Then it was conceded that we are seeing inflation, but it would only be transitory. And then it was argued that inflation would actually be good, but it has also been argued that inflation is actually bad. So inflation has also been blamed on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though it predates the invasion. So we have to be very careful of how we frame the terminology. So for example, no reliable study proves that lockdowns have had a substantial positive effect. However, what is certain is that they have produced unemployment, disrupted supply chains, harmed the economy and most importantly enterprises, and led to increased rates of depression and domestic abuse. Any country respecting freedom should have declared that people are free to do as they wish as the member of the Knesset has pointed out with regards to the use of marijuana. So we actually should be free to do as we wish and we should make our own choices as long as we do not harm others. This is what Hayek has so importantly pointed out that we are self-responsible and should make our own decisions again as long as we do not harm others and we should be allowed to make those decisions. And we have seen countries that were respecting freedom, for example in Sweden and we have seen countries that have not. We have seen different outcomes in Sweden for example everybody was bashing them at the beginning and then it turned out that their numbers, of course they had death tolls unfortunately, but they were not that high as many other countries that locked their people in like Austria or Germany 24-7. And then of course we have seen very positive effects, one of the positive effects where bear the vaccines. So they appear to have had an effect but remain uncertain how effective they are in the long run not to mention how many boosters will be required.  By contrast, the COVID vaccine was unique in being the only vaccine that's still required everyone to comply with lockdowns, mask mandates and other ineffective measures. And in light of all these uncertainties, vaccine mandates appear excessive and their enforceability is questionable. And Austria for example forced vaccination and now they had to change the law again and so did Germany. So it would be better to exercise restraint and remember Hayek's warning about the pretense of knowledge. Remember his Nobel Prize speech that he gave in Stockholm when he reminded us that we do not know everything, that there is no such thing as full information even in modern times with AI and all that is going on in technology. So there is no such thing as full information and that we should stay humble. So it would be better to exercise restraint and keep that in mind. And with so many uncertainties it is both safer and more just to allow as much freedom and individual choices possible.  But in numerous countries they have employed this very same rhetoric as a means of separating the good obedient vaccinated people from the evil incorrigible unvaccinated people. Canada's freedom convoy is a perfect example of how even in a country with reputation of niceness and stability normal citizens are fed up with arrogant elites. So we need to be very careful of what to wish for. Energy policies have also been a part of this very dramatic topic in the past. And I would just like to present a couple of numbers before I close and we can open to the next speaker and have a discussion on that. If we look at what has happened to reaching net zero emissions in the EU by 2050 would require the EU to reach per capita emissions of India, you heard me right, per capita GDP of the EU is by now $37,000. In India it's $2,000. So imagine the step back that we would have just in order to safeguard this thing.  And the importance of the automobile industry to the country as well as the need the night to run solar panels, cooling towers has meant that Germany has not seen the level of reduction of CO2 emissions that they desired. Actually in contrast, the contrast between France and Germany is instructive. Nuclear makes up the largest source of electricity in France. Guess how much? It's 70.6% and it's the highest percentage in the world. It manages to spend a little more than half as much of electricity while producing attempts of the electricity generated carbon emissions of its German neighbor. 34% of German electricity source from wind and solar natural gas serving as a necessary backup. As of 2019, German electricity prices were 45%, you heard me right, 45% higher than the European average. So renewables have played their part in the price rises and in the case of Germany, they have contributed to electricity prices rising 50% since 2007 and all told the cost is substantial by 2025. Germany will have spent $580 billion US on renewables. The nuclear phase out costing their citizens more than $12 billion per year. And from 1965 to 2018, the world has spent $2 trillion on nuclear and $2.3 trillion on solar and wind and that yet nuclear has produced twice as much electricity as solar and wind. So if you look at the logic of this policies, it is rather questionable, especially what you see when the different outcomes in the various capitals or I'm just saying Brussels and the shifts and the regulations that we see there. So nuclear would be a way forward for Europe ensuring energy security, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, therefore a boon to the people of Europe. But again, Germany has dropped out, is now importing this very expensive source of energy from France and by that doing harm to their industries. So green policies also harm developing countries and we have to be careful because there is a myth of leaf frogging. Developing countries today have more energy intensive industries as well as more energy intensive consumption behavior compared to industrialized countries at the same level as in the past. So moving from wood or coal to solar and wind is feasible only if the latter can provide the same level of growth as conventional fossil fuels. And this tends to be forgotten in many of the panels where we only look into the future without taking action. And that's something that we need to consider. People, at least politicians, of course, want to be re-elected. We all know what Jill told us about the desire to do what the electorate wants them to do right now and by paying with their own paying all those expensive bills with the taxpayers' money. But we also need to look into the future and take action now and plan. Seen over the past couple of weeks with whether it's the energy dependency on certain countries or whether it's the green deal and other things, we need to price those things in. There is a supply and demand side to everything. And this also means that we need to look into the cost of the policies that we take, that we make, that we act on right now. And I would kind of leave it with that and focus a little bit on Russia and Ukraine and just to sum up that the trap Europe is in right now is definitely self-produced. We did not look into certain things long enough. And I would say the present Russia-Ukraine war is the only most classic example of elite suppression of the masses. Wars are never good for the average general who has to fight them. News reports of Russian soldiers who genuinely have no idea what they are doing in Ukraine instances of defection indicate that this offensive war was wanted by Putin. Sanctions against Russia have caused the ruble to plummet and firms to abandon the country on mass. Needless to say, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are experiencing the worst of it in displacement and death. And the war is therefore harming not only Putin's soldiers but also the people of Russia. And we have seen that, that sanctions have actually hardly worked in the long run. They harmed the wrong people and it's again short noted. And this is why I think we need to be more humble and also look into the consequences of what we do. It's not only on the climate change topic, it's not only on trade wars, it's not on the energy dependency, it is true for and also of course on the health front. It is true for everything. And there, let me just quote in the end the old road, the old Roman wisdom. See these parts of Parabellum, which means if you look for peace, you don't need the war. In other words, thank you very much. Looking forward to our conversation, these were just three examples where we could talk about elitism and suppression of information. And despite the fact that we have not only top-down but also bottom-up information these days with all the nice sketches and tools, we need to be careful that not fake news are spread but facts and figures. Again, let me remind you of Friedrich August von Hayek, who back then mentioned in the 70s that only the elites will change society because back then it was only possible top-down, but now we have the advantage of spreading information, especially facts, bottom-up, and we should take the advantage of doing that and the roadshow and an event like that. Thank you again, Boas, it's one of the אופortunities we have to make individuals more responsible and look into their own and look into and make them aware of the power the individual has. Thank you very much. Ellie, can you please move to Hans? Yeah, okay. So hello everybody. I think I can start. I didn't see a sign and I can see the screen. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me. Same excuse as Barbara, so I'm also infected with coronavirus. I was really looking forward to come to Israel and it's the highlight of the week that I can be with you this hour and discuss it via videoconference because I'm also in quarantine now. Thank you very much and thank you also, Ellie, for the technical support. It was not so easy but we made it and I'm happy that I made it to you. Thank you, Boas, also for introducing myself and I want to a little bit elaborate before I start my self-introduction. I started my studies with politics and the main issue of my work was political bias and the constitutional court of Austria and then I continued and finished my law studies by banking regulation and then I did an MBA which there was dealing about the question of market failure. Market failure based on state intervening and state guarantees and banks. It was too early, it was 2003, the bomb exploded in 2008. It was the financial crisis then where state-aided banks had a big portion in the crisis and then I finished my studies with a PhD working on financing of hospitals based on public-private partnership concepts and we were able to show or realize 1000 rehab beds here in the region and we could show that we make it faster and better than maybe if it's only run by a state construction company. So I come then to the issue, the question of elite and I will continue with Barbara, she said it's time for action. I was asking myself, when we were preparing and discussing the title, is there, how can you explain that there is something like, or is there something like a good or bad elite, is this a good or bad thing to have an elite and you come around the thesis and theories of Wilfredo Pareto who was initially dealing with the question of elites and he was distinguishing it in ruling or governing elites and non-governing elites but in my opinion his theory was a little bit, it was not holistic enough, it was too short because I think you should or I used a more systemic approach and I was thinking about what distinguishes good elites from bad elites if there is something like good and bad elites and it's interesting if you then look for books about elites you easily can find it with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, so it's in his communistic manifest it's the bourgeoisie which has to be overcome by the masses for example and that leads you to the question and it's very close related to what Barbara said in her examples there and I found out so there's I think there's one distinction this is you have to look, is it an ethnicistic system so determined by the part of the state influence and the portion of market which is occupied by the state or is it the free market system with the least influence of the state so in my opinion it's the most important distinction if there is a concept like an elite concept working and there was also a question raised up by honorable member of Knesset Sharon Haskell, she was telling about security the thing you have also distinguished and between there is a market sphere