Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference and will now report on the outcome of today's meeting of the Governing Council. Based on our regular economic and monetary analysis, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. We continue to expect them to remain at their present levels, at least through the end of 2019, and in any case for as long as necessary to ensure the continued sustained convergence of inflation, two levels that are below but close to 2% over the medium term. We intend to continue reinvesting in full the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase program for an extended period of time past the date when we start raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favorable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. The Governing Council stands ready to adjust all of its instruments as appropriate to ensure that inflation continues to move towards the Governing Council's inflation aim in a sustained manner. Details on the precise terms of the new series of targeted longer-term refinancing operations will be communicated at one of our forthcoming meetings. In particular, the pricing of the new Teltro III operations will take into account a thorough assessment of the bank-based transmission channel of monetary policy as well as further developments in the economic outlook. In the context of our regular assessment, we will also consider whether the preservation of the favorable implications of negative interest rates for the economy requires the mitigation of their possible side effects, if any, on bank intermediation. The information has become available since our last Governing Council meeting in early March confirms slower growth momentum, extending into the current year, while there are signs that some of the idiosyncratic domestic factors dampening growth are fading. Global headwinds continue to weigh on euro area growth developments. The persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets are leaving marks on economic sentiment. At the same time, further employment gains and rising wages continue to underpin the resilience of the domestic economy and gradually rise in inflation pressures. However, an ample degree of monetary accommodation remains necessary to safeguard favorable financing conditions and support the economic expansion, and thus to ensure that inflation remains on a sustained path towards levels that are below but close to 2 percent over the medium term. Significant monetary policy stimulus is being provided by our forward guidance on the key ECB interest rates, reinforced by the reinvestments of the sizable stock of acquired assets and the new series of TELTROS. Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis. Euro area real GDP rose by 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2018, following an increase of 0.1 percent in the third quarter. Main data continued to be weak, especially for the manufacturing sector, mainly on account of the slowdown in external demand, which has been compounded by some country and sector-specific factors. As the impact of these factors is turning out to be somewhat longer lasting, the slower growth momentum is expected to extend into the current year. Looking ahead, the effect of these adverse factors is expected to unwind. The Euro-ear expansion will continue to be supported by favorable financing conditions, further employment gains and rising wages, and the ongoing, albeit somewhat slower expansion in global activity. The risks around in Euro-era growth outlook remain tilted to the downside on account of the persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets. According to Eurostart's flash estimate, Euro area annual HICP inflation was 1.4 percent in March 2019, after 1.5 percent in February, reflecting mainly a decline in food, services and unknown energy industrial goods price inflation. On the basis of current futures prices for oil, headline inflation is likely to decline over the coming months. Measures of underlying inflation remain generally muted, but labor cost pressures have strengthened and broadened amid high levels of capacity utilization and tightening labor markets. In ahead, underlying inflation is expected to increase over the medium term, supported by our monetary policy measures, the ongoing economic expansion and rising wage growth. Turning to the monetary analysis, broad money M3 growth increased to 4.3 percent in February from 3.8 in January. Going through some volatility monthly flows, M3 growth continues to be backed by bank credit creation, notwithstanding a recent moderation in credit dynamics. The narrow monetary aggregate M1 remained the main contributor to broad money growth. The annual growth rate of loans to non-financial corporations rebounded to 3.7 percent in February from 3.4 percent in January, reflecting mainly a base effect. Looking through short-term volatility, the annual growth rate of loans to non-financial corporations has moderated in recent months, reflecting the typical lagged reaction to the slowdown in economic growth. At the same time, the annual growth rate of loans to households remained broadly unchanged at 3.3 percent in February. The Euro Area Banklanding Survey for the first quarter of 2019 suggests that overall, banklanding conditions remained favorable. Our monetary policy measures, including the new series of TELTROS that we announced in March, will help to safeguard favorable banklanding conditions and will continue to support access to financing, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises. To sum up, a cross-check of the outcome of the economic analysis with signals coming from the monetary analysis confirmed that an ample degree of monetary accommodation is still necessary for the continued sustained convergence of inflation to levels that are below but close to 2 percent over the medium term. In order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute more decisively to raising the longer-term growth potential and reducing vulnerabilities. The implementation of structural reforms in Euro Area countries needs to be substantially stepped up to increase resilience, reduce structural employment, and boost Euro Area productivity and growth potential. Regarding fiscal policies, the mildly expansionary Euro Area fiscal stance and the operation of automatic stabilizers are providing support to economic activity. At the same time, countries where government debt is high need to continue rebuilding fiscal buffers. All countries should reinforce their efforts to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of public finances. Likewise, the transparent and consistent implementation of the European Union's fiscal and economic governance framework over time and across countries remains essential to bolster the resilience of the Euro Area economy. Improving the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union remains a priority. The Governing Council welcomes the ongoing work and urges further specific and decisive steps to complete the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union. We are now at your disposal for questions. Mr. President, one question, first of all. You mentioned that in the context of regular assessment you will consider whether the preservation of favourable implications requires mitigation of possible side effects on bank intermediation from, understand from negative rates. You made comments to similar effect at the watchers conference recently and it sparked a lot of speculation that you might be on the cusp of introducing a tiering system. So I would like to know from you whether that's something that's on the menu, that's something that you are considering. That's my first question. And the second is you also mentioned that we'll get the pricing of Teltros in the forthcoming meetings. We saw the Banklanding Survey yesterday in your assessment in terms of the loan growth and loan demand. Does it give any indication of the conditions that could underpin the incentive scheme for the next Teltros? Well, I would say the second question I would answer is too early. Just too early. So if you did the statement I just gave, there is the, we in a sense give the, the Governing Council gives the criteria upon which this assessment, both the Teltros 2, Teltros 3 and the mitigation of possible side effects would take place. The conditions under which the analysis would be carried out. And it's two conditions. We'll take into account a thorough assessment of the bank-based transmission channel monetary policy as well as further developments in the economic outlook. So we are looking at that, both things. And right now it's too early to decide about both. I would say the Governing Council was pretty, I would say, within vote. So it's not unanimous or anything. But it was just consensus on the need for further analysis on both issues. And that is in a sense includes the first question, because this language echoes what I did say in the ECB Watches pitch. And that's it. We've got to look at that. With Jones? The way we look is well specified here. We look at the functioning of the financial intermediation channel, as I said, the assessment of the bank-based transmission channel monetary policy as well as further developments in the economic outlook. So we have to see how the economic outlook will turn out between now and the next monetary policy meeting. I'm sorry, we're, by the way, we're also will be having the new projections. Thank you. Thank you. Claire Jones, Financial Times. There seems to be sort of beings over recent months quite a marked deterioration in the five year on five year inflation swap rate that suggests markets are becoming more concerned about your ability to hit. The inflation target. In the past, the fall in this measure was a trigger for the expansion of QE, the beginning and the expansion of the QE program. So how concerned are you about this, this time around? And how would you intend to react if this fall continues? And the second topic, we've had some remarks from the US president yesterday saying that he's going to impose tariffs on some European goods. So what extent are you concerned by these remarks? And does it represent a serious risk to the Eurozone economy if this comes about and there's an intensification of the trade relations between Europe and the US? Thank you. Now, your first question points out to the continued deterioration of inflation expectations over the last several months. And we had quite a substantial analysis of why this is so. It's quite clear that the sliding of the five year inflation expectations corresponds to a deterioration of the economic outlook. It's also quite clear that as the economic outlook, especially the economic activity slows down, also the markets expect lesser of a pressure in the labor market. But we haven't seen that yet. So we have underlined strength in the economy. And so we analyzed why this is so. The answer is that the inflation expectations have deteriorated predominantly because of risk premium or negative risk premium. And which is a big difference with 2016. You may remember that in the early part of 2016, we had a similar deterioration inflation expectations. That was different at that time. It was not because of not so much because of risk premium, but it was a real danger of the anchoring. So this is good news in the sense that it says that expectations are responding to the economic outlook but are not the anchoring. However, this increase in the negative risk premium might reflect either that market perception that either we don't have instruments and I think we've shown that we have plenty of instruments. If anything, the market reaction to my ECB Watch and Speech last time shows that we have plenty of instruments. And of course, that market reaction demonstrated that markets have fully understood our reaction function. Now the second possibility is that we may well... I mean, the markets may think that the governing council would tolerate a low inflation, too low inflation without being the anchored but low. Now let me just dispel any such impression. We, of course, remain fully committed to return inflation to 2% without a new delay. But also, let me also point out another aspect of this. Our inflation aim doesn't imply a ceiling at 2%. Inflation can deviate from our objective in both directions so long as the path of inflation converges to our medium term objective. Now the second question is about this threat of tariffs from President Trump to the Europeans. Of course, we listed the threat of protection as one of the potential factors dampening growth in the Euro area and elsewhere in the world as a matter of fact, so this is not different from this viewpoint. It would certainly... Well, we have to see first of all what happens because as you've seen in the past, between words and deeds, there is often a big gulf. But certainly, even the fact that these threats are being invented with some frequency is certainly undermined, undermined general confidence. And there is no question about the fact that one of the reasons for the general weakness in the Eurozone, I believe also elsewhere in the world, is due to the confidence weakening that has come from various threats, various vulnerabilities, a combination of effects, but certainly also from these threats of further protections measures. Mr. Simms? Hi, Tom Simms from Reuters. So am I correct to assume that and understand that you did discuss the precise terms of the teltro at today's meeting? The reason I ask is because the June meeting would come just days after you have a new chief economist on board, meaning much of the preparatory work would have to have been done by a predecessor. So do you see the governing council putting off any decision on teltro until Mr. Lane comes and that would be in July, at the July meeting, I guess. And a second question on the tiered rate deposit issue. Did you discuss the merits of this at today's meeting? And might we see this on the agenda of the governing council during your tenure? Thank you. I mean, we certainly welcome Philip Lane. It's a great addition to our team. But it's not that we actually sort of put in our calendar our decision making depending on who's going to be on board or not. So let me just separate the two things. You asked me whether we discussed the teltro deal? No, we didn't. And I said this in the beginning. We will discuss it on, does say, will be details on the precise terms of new series of target long term refinancing operations will be communicated at one of our forthcoming meetings. So the pricing of new telros will take into account. And I gave the two criteria before, but we haven't discussed that today. On the second question, no, either. It's that we haven't discussed the merits or the cons of mitigating measures. I don't want to identify that with a specific word. And I never did. So we started a process where we will analyze all measures, and specifically the two that I mentioned in the introductory statement. This analysis is based on these two criteria. And that's it. We need further information. We need further information that will come to us between now and June. And in a sense, the projections that we'll have in June by the staff of DCB will be an important part of this information set. Mr. Plikat? Having said that, Philip Lane is a fantastic addition to our team. Thank you. Mr. Draghi, another question for me on the issue of deposit rates. Perhaps you can comment on the claims or the numbers which have been given by the head of the German Banking Association. He claimed that the European banks are at a disadvantage of even 50 billion vis-à-vis the American banks. It's well known that the European banks, they pay around 7.5 billion on the negative deposit rate. And he claimed, and when looking to the US, you see they even get a positive rate for their deposits of about 40 billion. So he calculated like a 50 billion difference, and that's a big disadvantage. And this is a drag on the European banking system. What's your reply on this? Well, I take note of the fact. It's a fact. And by the way, so we asked ourselves, how much is overall profitability of banks being affected by the negative deposit rate? And we are actually in the process of carrying out this analysis, but if you compare profitability of our banks, I mean Eurozone banks, by the way, we're talking about large aggregates to the point of being meaningless. Because the way this negative deposit rate affects different banking institutions is very different. Banks are profoundly different between them, their business models. But in the aggregate, we see that profitability of Eurozone banks is by and large, like the ones in Japan, higher than in the UK, where there is no negative rate, and of course lower than in the United States. And then, of course, but I did say in my ECB Watcher speech that, so we look at this, we'll look as it says here, we'll also consider whether the preservation of the favorable implications of the negative rates, because we want these implications. The market reaction to that, to my ECB Watcher speech, basically made clear that markets understood our reaction function. And it says favorable implications of the economy requires the mitigation of their possible side effects if any on bank intermediation. So we'll look at that. Ms. Laird? Laurie Laird, MT Newswires. Mr. Draghi, your forward guidance has been very clear, but it hasn't had any conditions. You've never articulated any conditions that would imply a change in that forward guidance. Can you give us any clarification on that, please, particularly on the downside? And also, have there been any discussions, even in a theoretical sense, about whether, if there's a resumption of QE, could equities or would equities have to be part of that program given the limits on bond buying? Well, really, the second question we haven't discussed yet, we, what the governing council did today was to assess the outlook, which is a weakening picture, a weakening growth, to reiterate confidence in the convergence of the inflation path based on a series of factors, and then reassert, reiterate the readiness to use all the possible and necessary, all the instruments that are necessary to cope with the contingencies that come ahead. And this was, I would say, unanimous. And this deliberation to use all the instruments, it was not the time, I did say something at the beginning, this time is not the right time to say, to be sort of, I don't like this instrument, or I'd rather prefer another one, we are not yet there. And once we will be approaching that point with the information coming from about the economy and the inflation, we will be better positioned to see where the first, where the further action is needed. Beyond, by the way, let's not forget, there are four guidance has indeed in the past few months automatically responded to the weakening economic conditions. And let's not forget also that this follow guidance is chained with the horizon over which we'll carry out the repurchases of the bonds. As you see, it says, we intend to continue reinvesting in full the principal payments for mature insecurities purchased under the asset purchase program for an extended period of time, past the date when we start raising the key CB interest rates. So whenever the date when we raise the CB interest rates moves forward, so does the horizon over which we'll actually undertake the purchases. And in any case, for as long as necessary to maintain favorable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. So you see that in the existing toolbox, in the existing and in acting toolbox, we already have optionality to extend the existing instruments. But with the statement today, the Governing Council also said that it's plainly open to use all instruments that would be required by the needed contingency as we gather further and further information. Ms Weisbach. Annette Weisbach, CNBC. I have a question in the minutes, or the minutes actually, are suggesting that some Governing Council members were not really happy to adjust the forward guidance on rates according to what the market thinks. And some analysts call it backward guidance. You can't be happy with that. So could we get an update on the rates forward guidance as soon as June? And the second question. What is the question? The question is that the minutes, the last minutes. Sorry, the accounts. They are suggesting that some members of the Governing Council are not happy to align the forward guidance on rates with what the market expectations are. So to extend it further in the future, my question is they call it backward guidance, which can't be what you would like them to think. So do you think it's realistic to assume that we get some more of an alignment in the forward guidance on rates as soon as June, or perhaps in the forthcoming meetings? And the second question would be, how much do you, or how big is the risk of a recession for the Eurozone? Thank you. As you've probably seen, it must have seen from the accounts there were other members that actually wished much more extended forward guidance. So this is part of natural discussions we have. And again, like for the other instruments that we briefly mentioned before, we didn't discuss this. It was not, in a sense that if I have to characterize this meeting, it was not an operational meeting. It was more of a meeting that would characterize the stance of the Governing Council towards further action. In other words, people are acknowledging, Governing Council members are acknowledging the weakening of the cycle, the weakening of the economy, the fact that this weakening will extend into the rest of the year, the weakening of inflation. In fact, I just said that the inflation would probably bottom in September. They acknowledged this lighting of inflation expectations. At the same time, they acknowledge also the underlying strength of the economy, the fact that some of these temporary factors are unwinding. And so it was just a meeting where the main goal of which was to reassert the readiness to act if the contingencies would warrant so. And again, as we move towards June, where the new projections will be available, we'll be gathering more and more information. Now, the estimated probabilities of recession remain low. Remain low. Again, there is a difference with 2016. And so that's what we see now. It's still a relatively low probability. You may remember, no, I don't think you would, but just in my ECB Watcher speech, I gave a number of, I think there have been 50, 56 soft patches in the last 60 years, 50 years of the Eurozone, and only four recessions. So for what it's worth, really, because that's historical evidence looking at the past. But overall, probabilities of recession also implied financial probabilities of recession remain on the low side. And certainly less than the same probabilities would look like in past recessions. In other words, in the previous episodes of recession, we would have seen much higher probability of an oncoming recession than what we see today. But as I said, the governing council stands ready to adjust all of its instruments as appropriate in that, if that contingency were to materialize. Mr. Bufaki? It's a bella Bufaki, it's only 24 hours. Mr. President, I have two questions. One question is on the mitigation of side effects of negative rates, if any. Are you comfortable with the markets that might read into this, whether there is any measure, a signal on forward guidance in the sense that if there are less side effects for banks, then negative interest rates might stay for longer. And so are you comfortable with the market maybe reading into it too much? And on the fact that you are looking at two measures on banks, one on tiered system for deposits on negative rates, and the other on teltrose, does this indicate somehow that there is a risk that the excess liquidity is somehow trapped into the national banking systems and that there is not enough cross-border landing and that because these two measures are good for some banks in one case and for some other banks in another case. Thank you. Well, I start with the second question. Clearly, we would wish to have much more cross-border landing than we have, but this is also a part of the ongoing discussion on finishing with the banking union and creating the capital markets union. It doesn't come out naturally. However, what we are observing is that in some countries where credit growth is especially significant, part of this growth can be explained by the participation of banks, especially large banks to syndicated loans that actually get used in other parts other than their countries where these banks are established. So we see some cross-border landing. And in relation to the teltrono, I don't think the liquidity gets necessarily trapped in the countries. Now, the other question was whether one would associate the presence of mitigating measures with the lengthening of the period during which interest rates remain negative or not. I have the sense that you are right that markets perceive this this way. I don't know what to say really because it's a fact that we had negative rates now for many years and there were no mitigating measures. It's also a fact that the impact of negative rates, it's very different when they start and then when they've been in place for a long period of time. So we also have to assess that. So it's not necessarily, well, that's what I want to say. It's, I don't have other things to add to that. Mr. Ferles. Thank you. Tom Ferles from Wall Street Journal. I had a follow-up question on what you were just saying. You talked about the market reaction function to your speech at the Watchers conference. I mean, does this mean that mitigating negative rates would open the door to a rate cut? Would you be able to cut rates deeper because if such a system were in place and by how much do you think? And how much would the lower bound fall? And the second question is on what you said about the 2% inflation ceiling, how 2% isn't a ceiling. Does that mean that you'd be happy to overshoot or aim to overshoot? Thanks. Well, on your second question, I will answer saying exactly the same thing. We don't tolerate too low inflation. We remain fully committed to using all necessary instruments to return inflation to 2% without undue delay. Likewise, our inflation aim doesn't imply a ceiling at 2%. Inflation can deviate from our objective in both directions, so long as the path of inflation converges towards our medium term objective. And I believe I've said, I must have said something close to this or something to this extent a few other times in the past few years. On the other question is this. I mean, many of your questions could be captured by the following question. If you are to introduce mitigating measures for banks for the side effects of negative interest rates on banks profitability, would this imply low rates for longer or lower negative rates? Well, we haven't discussed that. We haven't discussed the introduction of mitigating measures. We said that we want to analyze the side effects and possibly the mitigating measures. So we are not even discussing the first stage of this reasoning, not to mention what this would imply. Philippe Lacour. Philippe Lacour, Agence France Press. Oh, yes. Let me just restate one thing, that the market reaction to the ECB Watcher speech, whether it was linked to this part or to another part, showed that markets understand a reaction function. Please. The President so. Agence France Press and Philippe Lacour. One question on the Brexit, if I may. Since there are signs in favor of longer Brexit today, if so, European Council decide this direction, could you maybe cautiously say something or welcome this possible solution? And I want to remind you a sub question to this. What you said here in January is that the Brexit thing will not affect the EU economy that much. Would you state the same thing today? That is my question to Brexit. And the second one is more on the European elections coming and the end of May, with the possibility of nationalism or populist parties rising. So it is the capacity or ability of the ECB or the national central banks to intervene somewhat in the debate and promote the idea of Europe, which is embodied in Europe. So in the coming weeks. Thank you. Thank you for answering the second question. First, the central banks usually don't intervene in the political debate. Central banks can on occasion, and especially the ECB, can certainly defend the European framework and point out to the ways to improve on it, to complete on it, to remedy to the weaknesses that the recent experience and not so recent have shown. But I don't think central bankers would be right to intervene in that political debate, either in the European context or in the national context. I think I gave two speeches of recent, one in Bologna and the other one in Pisa, both focusing on the one in Bologna, especially focusing on the fact that in this globalized world where challenges are global, we got to be together to be truly sovereign, to be truly masters of our own destinies. Because on our own, we would have no way to cope with these global challenges.  And in Pisa, the speech was more oriented to explain why the euro has been a very positive experience and at the same time to identify the weaknesses of the present situation and what we should do to make sure that the benefits of the euro and Europe in general are distributed to everybody. On the Brexit thing, I think the consequence of a Brexit are different, whether it's a hard disorderly Brexit or whether it's properly managed and with an adequate transition period. So for me, again, two days, whatever, before the vote date, I mean, they're having vote every day. But just it would not be right to anticipate one thing or another. What it's clear, however, is that the whole discussion on Brexit, which is lasted now many years, really, is part and parcel of the overall uncertainty that is hanging over our continent and I think is hanging over the UK as well. It's probably unavoidable of any very important political discussion, but that's a fact for our economies. Also to be looked with attention on the real implications of the Brexit on the real economy. As I've said many times, in the aggregate, if you take aggregate numbers, you don't see. You wouldn't expect much of an impact, given the relative size of the two entities. But there are two important caveats to that. One is that certain countries are especially exposed to the UK economy. And of course, they will have consequences. And the consequences may be serious. And their serious consequences are bound to reverberate on the rest of the continent. The second caution is that the value chains are very extensive and the ramifications of value chains are also quite broad. So if we are to reach a point where these value chains, which is not at all to be taken for granted, by the way, but if we are to reach a point where these value chains were to be broken, then we can have lots of local and possibly serious effects. But again, I'm still hopeful. Ms. Wackett? Julia Wackett, Bresen Zeitung. I have a question regarding your home country, Italy, because yesterday they cut, again, the growth for our forecasts. And a lot of economists are very worried about Italy, that in the next recession, Italy will face serious troubles, because they will probably have to save and don't have the fiscal capacity to counteract in a recession. So how worried are you about Italy? And also, again, about the decision from yesterday to appoint Yves Mesh for the supervisory mechanism, is there already who will replace Yves Mesh in his position at the ECB? So will Ms. Lautenschläger take over Yves Mesh's role? Thank you. Thank you. The data on the Italian economy didn't come as a surprise. There had been already downgrades in the forecast, in the growth forecast for Italy and for the rest of the eurozone as a matter of fact. And so from this viewpoint, it's not a surprise. It's quite clear that the priority there is to restore growth and employment. And Italy knows how to do it. It's very important that these priorities are being pursued without causing an increase in interest rates, because increases in interest rates are contractionary. So I think it's in simple words that should be the aim of economic policy now there. On your second point is, yes, Mr. Mesh has been appointed by the governing council, vice chair of the SSM. It's, again, another great addition to the SSM team. And the governing council was pleased by that choice. And so we have now a different, you asked me about who's what, who's doing all the portfolios. Mr. Mesh will remain responsible for legal. And the distribution of portfolios will be given, I think, immediately after the press conference on our website. But I can anticipate that some of the, the rest of Mr. Mesh portfolios and some of Mr. Curry's portfolio will go to Miss Lauter Schlegger. So it's a different, it's a rearrangement of different combinations. Thank you. Mr. Heitner. Luke Heitner, Market News. Mr. Draghi, Oli Ren has called for a re-examination of the monetary policy framework, something the Fed is already doing. Would price level targeting be one possible measure the ECB could adopt? And my second question was, according to the account, rather than the minutes of last month's monetary policy meeting, it was highlighted that growth might not be mean reverting, as typically assumed in projections. Do you think this reinforces the need for such a re-evaluation? A reinforce what? Reinforces the need for such a re-evaluation. As suggested by Mr. Ren. Hi, you're asking me a very difficult question, which has not been addressed by the council, and we have to see exactly what it means, where it's driving, whether it's justified or not. So we have to see. It's just one statement. But having said that, I mean, the Fed is embarking on a re-visitation of the monetary policy framework. And again, we have to see what's going to come out of that. These are not processes that can be discussed in one or two meetings. So it may take several months. Mrs. Ewing? Jack Ewing, New York Times. Mr. Draghi, you mentioned a couple of minutes ago the benefits of cross-border banking. As you know, there's a discussion about a big banking consolidation here in Frankfurt. I'm sure you don't want to speak about specific banks, but as a general principle, would it perhaps be more beneficial for banks to be looking for mergers across-border rather than creating bigger domestic banks? And a related question. I wonder if you can tell us anything about what role the ECB as banking supervisor might play when there's a major banking consolidation in terms of oversight. For example, would you be seeking perhaps require banks to raise more capital or even try to block a merger if you thought it was unwise? I wonder if you can tell us generally what the ECB's approach will be. Thank you. Thank you. The role of a supervisor, second question. The role of a supervisor when witnessing mergers is one where you want to make sure that the transaction is successful. And to be successful means that not only pleases the shareholders, but actually it creates an entity which is strong and capable of coping with the various challenges. I think that's the role of the supervisor is not necessarily one where it wants to address or the agents towards a certain direction. But just unless the direction they've chosen is leading to a suboptimal outcome. The first question was about cross-border mergers. I don't think there is a clear preference to, I don't think that's my own view. There isn't a clear preference towards having one or the other. What is pretty clear, however, is that the banking system in Europe is overcrowded. The need for consolidation is very, very significant. And part of the structural weakness of the banking system in Europe is caused by this over-capacity in banking, which is not over-capacity in the sense that it is a little production of credit. It's over-capacity in terms of number of people, number of branches, costs. We're talking about countries where there are banks that have a cost-income ratio of over 80, 90%. And they even quarrel about negative deposit rates as being one of the causes of their lack of profitability. I think I'd rather think about this. I'd rather think about a low level of digitalization. And I think there are a series of actions that improve the business model, rationalize the business model that can be achieved, however, only through consolidation. So there is an issue about, there is an issue about, there is a relationship between scale and the capacity to undertake the investments that are needed to improve technology and be competitive, especially in certain business models. I wouldn't argue that all business models are like that, but certainly in some of them, this is the situation. Mr. Smith? Good afternoon. Jeffrey Smith from investing.com.  You're still not at 2%, you're still not even really close to it. If anything, your core inflation rate is still trending downward slightly. What makes you think that the same toolkit will get you to 2% in the future? Aren't you going to need something that you haven't even yet dreamt up? Well, let me just say that it's not 10 years first. It's several years we've been having this in place and we've changed instruments. And frankly, the outcome, the results of our monetary policy action is in front of our eyes. 10 more million jobs. You may remember how the situation was in 2015, 2014, 2012. So we had to cope with a series of crisis really produced by the great and part of the great financial crisis. The improved conditions all across the board are a testimony that our action has been quite effective. The issue that you are mentioning is that we don't see inflation going to our objective as fast as we had expected. And there are reasons for that. We mentioned what the reasons are and we mentioned that the risks are tilted on the downside. Does it mean that we ought to raise interest rates in the meantime since our rates so far have not produced any outcome? Of course, the answer is no. Our monetary policy has been quite effective. As a matter of fact, there's one of the reasons why we are confident that the inflation rate will converge to our objectives. If we didn't have that monetary policy, we would certainly be less confident. If we are to raise interest rates, we would become less confident of such an outcome. So we've done, the ECB has done a lot to that. The environment proved much more challenging than was expected, say, three years ago. In 2017, world growth was more buoyant exports, especially the external component is what's weighing on growth now. And that is not going to be lost. Actually, we see signs of stabilization. So that's the way I would answer your point. The final question today to Mr. Fidler from Galileo. Hello, my name is Matthias Fidler from Proziben Galileo. How does the ECB's financial policy effect on my life, on the life of our viewers? Well, I think what the outcome of our discussions, this basically determines how cheap or how expensive is to borrow money. And nowadays, interest rates are very low, which means that borrowing is cheap, which means that you can borrow money to buy a house or a car or other consumption goods more easily. Same thing for companies. Companies, they can borrow more easily to buy machines, equipment. This means that they will create jobs and in due time, this means, and we are seeing it, that wages will go up. And when wages are actually going up and going up finally and well-deservedly in all countries, but of course, especially in Germany. And this in due time will produce also price increase and prices will go up. That's what we do. That's what we look at. Thank you. Oh, before we say goodbye, I wish to acknowledge the one thing. This was the last monetary policy meeting for Peter Pratt. Peter, usually what happens is that Peter comes in and the day before he presents a vast ample and quite detailed explanation of the economic outlook going from the rest of the world and then zeroing on Europe gradually. And then the day after he presents his views on what sort of monetary policy action we should consider and take and analyze or anything like that. Much of what I say in the press conferences and what I read in the introductory statement has been based on his work, on the work that he and his staff and the team and the rest of the ECB does with him. And so I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest thanks to him. Thank you.


Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel today. I'm going to be talking about left WM now a month ago or so I made a video about this it's claiming that I was going to switch full-time and And I'll be honest with you. I did not switch full-time. I tried I stayed on it for about three days and I Just didn't care for it. So I've been using off and on now for a month Every time I think about making this video I just said I'm gonna go back and use it for a little while And I always end up going back to my lovely DWM and being happy there for a little while and then coming back and being miserable And left WM and there are a few reasons why I'm miserable and miserable is the wrong way wrong thing to say Love WM is fine. It's just not for me. And I'm gonna talk about the reasons why it's not for me that Today and before I do I just want to say I know the camera is horrible I'm not sure what the hell is going on.  I'm pretty sure I'm not this pale in real life I mean, I know I shaved the the neck beard off, but It's a I'm definitely not this pasty white.  I mean I need a new camera desperately. Anyways, let's go ahead and jump in And talk about left WM So this is what my left WM looks like right now. Now. This is my second install left WM I had to uninstall it because I corrupted it in some way I'm not exactly sure I messed up the configuration file in some way even replacing the configuration file wouldn't fix it So it just wouldn't load So I had to reinstall it and this is actually just the default Dracula rounded theme that you can download off the internet. I'm not done very much customization to it at all and If you know me You know that that's very unusual because when I get into a new window manager I highly enjoy racing it as long as I can figure out how to do so And I did figure out how to rice and change in theme left WM It's just that after I lost my rice before I didn't really feel like going through and doing it again So the way left WM does things is that it's based around a set of themes So if I actually go ahead and quit out of this we can go through and Go up a level. This is the themes folder and right now I just have this one theme But there are other themes that you can download and basically what you do Is that each of these themes have a couple scripts and one of them is the up script now? This right here is my first big problem with left WM Anything that you want to auto start has to be in that up script So if you want to have something like x clip or clip menu d Or xx hkd, whatever if you want to have any of those things auto start you have to have them in your upflot your up script The problem comes in is that every single theme you have has its own up script. They're completely separate So you'd have to go through and edit every single up script in order to get your Programs up and running, you know in an auto start way. There's no separate auto start file at least as far as I could find and that's a huge thing because I don't If your idea is to have a window manager that's based around themes You don't want to have to go through and edit each theme to do the regular computing stuff like having an auto start file or doing the Keybindings like I mean the key bindings are separate from this. So why isn't there a separate auto start file? I can't understand the reasoning behind that But more with this up file. So if I've been into the up file thing again if you see if you edit this thing because everything here is in an if then statement or some kind of if statement Because of that if you edit things in the wrong way If you edit thing if you put something in here that is in the wrong order Or if you you know make any kind of mistakes Left wm just completely fails to work. I can't get over the fact that If you mess this up script that it left wm just becomes unusable and also I can't get over the fact that There's not an easier way just if I go through And cd and show you my i3 auto start script, right? So I can just do cd.dwm Auto start and then them out into my auto start thing from my dwm. This is what my auto start file for dwm looks like. There's no if then statements not really It's just a list of things that it's going to start at the beginning This is what an auto start file really should look like and there's no problems with the way A Left wm really does it. It's just that it complicates things Kind of unnecessarily because some of the stuff in there is duplicate Every theme that they have right now calls pika every single one of them Every single one of them calls Dunst, okay, so those things are redundant in every single up script Why not have a separate auto start file where those things are just living And then call the specific theme needed things in an up script That would make ton more sense to me and it would allow you to go through and edit the auto start file So that you don't have to you know Mess around with those up scripts and potentially make a mistake So that was my first problem When I first installed left wm, I actually couldn't get the up script to run at startup I had to actually go through and Go go into This file here And create a dot desktop entry For that up script in order to get to work now the second time that I've installed left wm It actually went through and did it fine. I don't know what I did wrong the first time I think I messed around with that left wm-themed thing that they have It's some kind of auto thaming thing. I really don't understand it So the second time has done fine the up so the up script was One of the my was my probably my biggest problem with left wm is just because the auto start Script or auto start file that I always have is something that's really important to the way I do my computing Because I have certain things that always have to start like I just showed you the script that I have for dwm I always have clip menu. I always have mpd You know, I always have dunce. I always have sxh kd because a lot of my key binding and stuff are in sxh kd and I like having That one sxh kd file, which I can take with me to whatever window manager I'm in and I can't do that here because Every time I tried to add sxh kd to the up script things went wrong, you know, either the script went run or left wm went star or You know, something was always going wrong and now some of that is going to be my inability to Understand what was going on in the up script because you have to have things in a certain order and it You know, it's just overly complicated so I'm 100% willing to admit that most of my problems with the up thing is One laziness and that I don't want to have to go through and edit every single up script of everything Every single theme that I use in order to start the programs that I want to have started and second my inability to actually understand The necessary order of things in that script I'm like, I'm not sure why things have to go in that order like for example Polybar has to for whatever reason be at the end of that script always Right, you can't start that at the beginning now I understand that the reason why is because polybar is a something that's consistently running in the background, right? so um I really can't show you this but if you if you notice that that File that I was on before every single entry had an and after it Polybar can't really have that and at at the end. So it's I I might be completely wrong with I don't know I don't even know. I just know that the poly bar thing has to be at the end So the up thing was In the auto start problems were was my first big problem. The second one is multi monitor support. So I have two monitors. I have two 27 inch monitors in front of me and I desperately need a third one But I don't have room for it. So I suspect that's one of the reasons why I have a burning need to have more than nine workspaces and I'm not even sure if left WM can handle more than nine workspaces. I didn't try I was trying to Get into not using so many workspaces when I was in this one, but you know, whatever My biggest problem is that because I use so many workspaces and I switch between the monitors so often Because like right now I have the terminals on you know screen one and I have obs and audacity on another workspace And if I switch, you know between them, this is six and I think this was four three You know, I switch between them and left WM is very much like q-tile in that the nine workspaces are shared between them and if you switch between Six and four they actually switch between monitors and that's fine. I got used to that in q-tile I could get used to it and left left WM. It's not a big deal. It's something that you just have to get used to It's not like it's it's not a big deal. My biggest problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to move applications from one tag or Workspace or whatever they call I think you call them tags in left WM There's no way to move them from one tag That's on one monitor to the tag on another the other monitor without actually just moving them to a different tag so right right now I have A workspace four and workspace six up. I couldn't move The things that are on workspace six to workspace four Without them switching I couldn't move. Okay, so this is really this is very complicated what I want to do I what I want to do is keep both six and four on the same monitors and move the applications between them now What I could do is just do mod shift four and that would move The application to that Workspace but in every other window manager, there's a way to move Things between workspaces. So if I wanted just to move modacity back over to Workspace six I could just do in say like DWM or something I could just do super shift and then either the arrow keys or the vim keys And you can't do that in left WM. You just have to go super shift six and that takes it back to where you know It was before But that's kind of annoying because I just would much rather just use the key bindings. I'm used to And normally what you'd do is say You know just go through and in the command or in the uh config file Which is this here Just create a key binding for that The problem is that the callouts to to move to An application from one monitor to the other don't exist as far as I can tell now I've been through their their documentation. There doesn't seem to be anything there that moves from one monitor to the other There also doesn't seem to be a way to move focus between one monitor and the other so That's the uh The moving thing is there's a workaround right so you I could go through and just move them to whatever tag is Active on that monitor so right now workspace three and workspace six are active if I wanted to move things around I could just move them around using mod shift Works three and six, you know that would work But moving focus is actually much different because I want if I don't want to use my mouse to actually move focus And I just want to move focus from Three to six, but I want to keep the monitors exactly the same. There doesn't appear to be a way to do that now there's a Key binding mod w which will allow you to change the focus to the last Workspace you are on and that kind of works It's kind of a hacky way of doing it But it's not really because if your last workspace was also on the same monitor That's the one you changed to not the monitor that's over here. I just want to change focus I don't want to go through and change Uh, the where the monitor the layout of the apps on the monitors right now I just want to change focus from monitor one to monitor two and there doesn't seem to be a way of doing that Now in every other window manager, there is xmonad has it q tile has it i3 has it dwm has it It's a basic functionality that you need if you're going to support multiple monitors So now I'm going to just put this out there left wm as a new Ciling window manager hasn't been around for all that long. I don't think yeah, so it's only a couple years old It's hasn't been around for very long And that's a thing, you know, that's not a huge deal not everyone has multiple monitors There maybe the developers don't have multiple multiple monitors themselves. So this is not necessary So maybe like I said, maybe the developers don't have multiple monitors Maybe it's just something that hasn't been a focus for them and that's not a big deal There's a ton of window managers out there that don't even have Any multiple monitor support at all like franken wm doesn't support multiple monitors at all You just have one gigantic thing that's spread across both your monitors and that's how it works It's just completely unusable and that's just the way it is because it's a it's a small project And that's what left wm is the fact that it supports it even as much as it does is really good It's not right and it's not you know the way you should do it, but the fact that it's as good as it is is respectable so Those are my two biggest scrubs with left wm It reminds me a lot of q-tile in terms of the way things are laid out and the way things move around And I got used to q-tile using it for quite a while about a year ago So I was you know, I enjoy q-tile and I could find myself enjoying left wm at times But the the inability to focus between monitors is a huge deal because I switch between monitors all the time and I Don't want to grab my mouse and switch it all over to the other monitor in order to change the focus Now I could just go through and switch them, you know The workspaces so that the workspace of the other monitors not on the main monitor That's what I ended up doing and that's not that's not really that Removes the greatness of having two monitors, you know because that means I'm always focused on this monitor I might as well just only have one monitor So that's The focus thing was really truly the biggest problem I had with left wm and the Focusing was really the biggest problem I had and it was the biggest reason why I Couldn't stay in left wm full-time when I said I was going to a month ago The up script thing and the auto start You know the way it does auto start Was kind of a minor thing because really that was just laziness I didn't want to go through I wanted the ability to change themes right and the ability to create my own themes And what really what that would mean is going through and editing each of those up scripts in order to properly work and The amount of times I went through and made a you know error in one of those and corrupted the theme It has to number more than Five and that's not okay. That's just not a great thing. I wish if I'm going to create a theme You know, I don't want to have to go through and you know Making mistakes is is part of the process But it just seemed too hard especially for when I just wanted to go through and you know Make sure that every single theme would automatically start, you know Clip menu or and start uh, you know My bookmarks script You know, those are the things that I want. You just want start, you know Want to start at the beginning or at the at the start up and There's a way to do that, but it's overly complicated. So those are my thoughts on left wm I'm going to uninstall it now I'm not going to there's no reason for me to keep it installed. I'm never going to use it again You know, maybe I'll check it out like a year and a half or two or years or something like that and see if it's, you know made any progress, but My thoughts on it are really that it's If you just have one monitor and you're not going to be switching themes all the time Left wm is great. I mean, it's fast. It's fluid, you know, it's highly customizable for the most part um I mean, obviously there are exceptions, but It's just really good But it's those Pain points are those two things that I talked about that would just not make it for me So when so back at the beginning of the video, I said I was miserable in left wm and And I said that that wasn't really the right word and mostly what it is is left wm is just not for me And that's a shame because it's you know, it's kind of good Uh, it it is it's kind of good. It's just Like I said, there's just two things for me and I can't use it. So anyways, thanks for watching You can follow us on twitter at the linux cast you can follow on facebook at At the linux cast you can also support us on patreon at patreon.com Slash linux cast and with that in mind, I'd like to take a moment to thank our current patrons Devon marcus maklin donnie brand new patron. Thank you for support Merrick camp michael. Thanks everybody for your support. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time


So how I found out about MedSmarter was I actually googled it because I was looking for programs that would have like a Week intensive or you know four or five days intensive study for step two clinical skills Because that's what I need to work on and I read that they had individualized attention They did offer some discounts So it was nice to be able to find a program that fit my financial needs Once I got here to Atlanta. I was able to find a nice place to stay close to the test center, which worked out well For students coming in I'd suggest Airbnb if they want a cheaper place to stay than some hotels It's been a really good schedule come in at nine stay till one or two They're flexible where if something came up you can start a little later in the day or something for them came up You could start later in the day. So the flexibility has been nice. Everyone works together I've had individualized attention here, which has benefited me greatly because I wanted to know what my weaknesses are specifically and what parts of the patient note I needed to work on what parts of the physical exam I needed to work on and The feedback right then and there when I make a mistake or I need to change something has been the most helpful I would suggest that to anybody who needs more confidence or needs Correcting in any part of their physical exam or patient note. That's where MedSmarter will help you It will tell you what you do wrong what you need to change and what you can even make better I would recommend MedSmarter to my friends for the individualized attention that to me is the Greatest opportunity this program provides since step two CS. You're being graded individually You need to know what your weaknesses and strengths are and that's what MedSmarter will give you It will tell you what you need to work on and what you are doing well


This shoe was a hundred and eighty dollars yesterday, but what is it today? I just checked men's and women's sizes. Here we go. Here we go. Diving right in today in the studio for my first impressions of the Adidas Ultra Boost PB. All right. Who's a boost fan out there? Let me know down in the comments. Are you a fan of the boost midsole lineup? All right. And let me just grab it right here off the shelf. So I must say, kind of like an A6 earlier in 2019. Even this year, I would say like maybe a little bit of Soccany, but I just haven't had a lot of time in the Adidas running shoe lineup, which we'll connect to the question of the day here in a minute. So here's the Adidas Audios 4. And listen, I've got nothing against Adidas, but for some reason it just has not worked its way. The company has not worked its way into my running shoe rotation. And I wish I would have kept it, but I had the Ultra Boost 19 or was it the 18? Oh man. Anyway, from like 18 months ago, maybe 24 months ago. No, about 18 months ago. And I wish I would have kept it so I could compare the differences between the Ultra Boost PB and the 18 or 19. And as I was pulling the shoe out of the box, I was thinking to myself, okay, remember the running shoe rotation that we're always talking about, building it up, easy day, tempo day, long run, where will this shoe work into my running shoe rotation and potentially your running shoe rotation? All right. And I do have an answer for you. I'll get that to you in a minute. But coming out of the box, I must say, I didn't know. But by the end of the run, I think I'm dialed in as to where this will fit into that rotation. Okay, today's run 10 miles. Okay, I'm still recovering from the 23-miler on Wednesday. It was a doozy. Still got some doms going on. That delayed onset muscle soreness. We're working through it. And therefore, it took it easy in this shoe, 850 a mile for 10 miles in the Ultra Boost PB. In the, I will say, ice, snow, mud, and the continental rubber. All right. So Adidas has a partnership with the Continental Tire Company. Somehow. I don't know all the, I don't know the details, but I think it's amazing how they partner. And so they've got this continental rubber on the outsole, which did great in those conditions out there. Now let's dive into a few stats. 10-millimeter drop. Okay, so pretty high on the daily trainer scale. 22. 22-millimeter stack height in the heel. 12-millimeter in the forefoot. That is a pretty, so that falls into the low category for midsole stack heights. Fascinating. I haven't really trained that much in stack heights. That is that low. I'm trying to think if the Skechers Horizon Vanish falls into that category, it's close. But anyway, so 22 and 12 for that stack height. For men size nine, we're looking at 10.5 ounces. And there it is on your screen in grams. And then for women size eight, we're looking at 9.7 ounces. And once again, there it is on your screen in grams. And then on the scale for my size, you see it there on the scale. So a little heavier, yeah, a little heavier for let's say a typical daily trainer, all right? And I'll get to that back to that weight here in a minute. And moving on to that brand new upper on the Ultra Boost PB. Very exciting as far as the breathability. It's called Seller Mesh. There it is on your screen. I wish it was summertime. I wish it was hot out because I think this shoe would do great in hot conditions. However, if you live in an area with a lot of rain, my feet did get very soaking wet today, very wet today. So if you don't like your feet getting wet, just keep that in mind. It did not keep any water out today for that heel counter. So do you recognize this heel counter? And it's very, very reminiscent. Where is it? Oh man, do I have it out here? Well, it's very reminiscent of the New Balance Beacon V2, the New Balance 1080 V10. Even the New Balance, or sorry, the Nike Vamaro 14. So it has that flare. And I must say it treated my blisters very well today. So it has that flare, but it is very nimble. Look at that. Can collapse very easily. They did add some, I'm going to call them roll bars, these plastic roll bars on either side of the heel counter. It helps a little bit. I'll come back to the heel counter here in a minute. But overall, I will say one little drawback for the upper is that the, I think there's too much material through the vamp and the toe box. So the side of the shoe, right here, that vamp, it's just a little too much material, a little too loosey-goosey for my liking. And for that tongue, it is a gusseted tongue. Oh yeah. We love those gusseted tongues. All right. So the tongue was amazing. And they did add a little extra padding at the top of the tongue just to get a nice lockdown feel on the top of your foot. And again, I'll come back to the collar here in a minute. Moving on to that boost midsole. Let's do the twist test here. Pretty loosey-goosey. Definitely neutral. Oh yeah, a very, very neutral running shoe. Absolutely. It's a TPU midsole material. And I will say, and again, this goes back, if you are an Adidas fan, let me know down in the comments because I struggle just a little bit with boost midsole.  That's the word that comes to mind when I'm out there running. Just a little mushy. I will say though that as far as protection from the pavement and the pounding, for that amount of stack height, which is pretty low, 22 and 12, that's pretty low on the scale, you do get pretty good protection. Like I didn't feel like I was pounding into the pavement at all today, but it didn't feel really responsive in my books or definitely not snappy, responsive, or snappy. Did I already say that snappy? So anyway, that's my thoughts on the midsole. And moving on to the outsole, again, that continental rubber that we already talked about, and they did add a footbridge. But let's do another, instead of the twist test, let's do the bend test. Look at this, everybody. Whoa, that shoe. Okay, so this shoe is very, very nimble through the midsole, through the outsole. There's not much structure to the overall shoe. So without that footbridge, I'm glad that footbridge is there through that midfoot in the outsole for my positives and drawbacks. So for the positive, I'll go with the outsole rubber, getting good tacky feel on the pavement. So I could see this outsole rubber doing really well in wet conditions. Now for the drawbacks. Oh boy, there's sadly everyone, a lot of them. My heel was slipping, so heel slipping, not good. Again, toes were swimming way too much through the toe box. Let's see what else. Oh yeah, the mushy feel through the midsole. And for the weight, it's just for a daily trainer and or for, let's say, the potential that it could be a tempo day shoe. Like it's just a little too heavy for that for my liking. Now for a durability prediction, I'm gonna say that this shoe could go the distance. I'm gonna say at least 450 or 500 miles. Again, it's just a prediction but based on the outsole and I do think even though I'm not loving the midsole, I think that the midsole will be resilient. Like I don't think it's gonna break down too, too quickly. So that is good. I think you could get a lot of miles and kilometers out there in the streets wherever you might live. Now how will I use this shoe moving forward or who is this shoe best for? Listen everyone, I'm not. In fact, it breaks my heart. It's over, it's over. At mile two, I almost turned around because I was not, the fit was not right. It just didn't, it wasn't feeling good out there. I almost turned around and came back. But I must say, by the end of the run, I was enjoying the ride a little bit better but overall the upper is just a little too, a little too loosey-goosey. Maybe I'm too used to Asics by now where I have a nice, nice lockdown through that heel. Where's an Asics? Let me just grab this glide ride like the pocket. We're always, I'm always talking about the pocket in the Asics heel counter. So your heel is just like really locked into that pocket. Just like your shooting pool, like a good pocket in there. All right everyone, that is not happening in the Ultra Boost PB sadly. Now who is this shoe potentially good for? Someone, all right, all right. I know there's Adidas fans out there but someone who loves the Boost Midsole and is looking for an upper that is way more breathable than the other Ultra Boost shoes out there, okay? This upper, again, very breathable. I like it a lot but it's just not quite, it's just not doing it for me, okay? But again, if you like the Boost Midsole, this could work for you and here's what's exciting everyone, the price point. And I don't know what just happened. I think yesterday on Running Warehouse, this shoe was $180 yesterday. But what is it today? I just checked, men's and women's sizes, $116. I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's everything happening around the world with the coronavirus. Maybe they realize like they ordered too many, I don't know what's going on. But at that price point, I would say the shoe is much more attractive to me, okay? But $180, no way, Jose. Don't buy it for $180. $116, that's not too, too bad, all right?  I know you're out there. Let us know down in the comments, what is your favorite Adidas shoe right now or from the last, let's say, 18 months, okay? And explain why. Again, I would love to give Adidas more opportunities to work their way into the running shoe rotation. But right now, I am struggling and I need your help. I need your help, Adidas fans, okay? So that's the question of the day, shine down below. Thanks for being here on a Saturday. Now I guess it's Sunday when you're watching this. Thanks for watching. And I hope you had a great weekend. We'll be back tomorrow and rocking and rolling, all right? All right, stay safe out there. Watch out for each other and we're in upward. All right, we'll toss it back to, we'll go way back. We'll go way back to the Adios 4. I know I made a vlog about this shoe from 2019, way back to the Adios 4. That'll be right there. Check it out, check it out. All right, everyone, thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. Sick beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.


Hi, and welcome to today's webinar on the topic of RAID's Research Activity Identifiers. So let's get started. So my name's Natasha Simons from the Australian National Data Service, or ANS, and I'm your host for the webinar today. And my colleague, Cezanne Sabine, is behind the scenes co-hosting the webinar with me. So this webinar will introduce you to RAID, a new addition to the world of persistent identifiers, or PIDs, PIDs. RAID stands for Research Activity Identifier, and is an ID for Research Activities, which places the project at the centre of the data management life cycle. Our two speakers for today, Dr Andrew Janky and Shabon McCafferty, are from the Data Life Cycle Framework Project, or DLCF for short. And RAID is the first of the DLCF-enabling technologies to be developed. So this webinar is the fourth in a series examining persistent identifiers and their use in research. The first webinar looked at citing grey literature using DOIs, and the second introduced the international geosample number for physical samples, and the third explored the global initiative called SCOLICS, which is linking data and publications. And you can find the recordings of these webinars on the ANS YouTube channel. So I'd also like to acknowledge the Commonwealth Government for their support of ANS Research Data Services and NECTA under the INPRESS program. And now to introduce our speakers for today, Dr Andrew Janky, who is a software architect for the DLCF project, and Research Data Services based at the University of Queensland. And Shabon McCafferty, who is the project manager for the DLCF project, and works for the Australian Access Federation in Brisbane. So I'll now hand over to Andrew and Sean. I'm going to start with a few horror stories because that's always fun. Some of the things the DLCF project tried to solve or had a look at when we talked to universities at the start was, what are some of the problems you were having? And there were people who expressed multiple things, a lot of things were about lost data, people couldn't access data, and what it came down to in the end is that universities had no great way of identifying what a project was. There was a good notion of what a project was within an institution, but the best research is done collaboratively. So people wanted to be able to get around this problem somewhere, and what came out of that is that we knew we needed a project ID. We looked around to see what was available internationally, we couldn't find much. We talked to the Auckland group and their advice to us was have a go, so we did. And we came up with the notion of RAID, which is a research activity ID. We actually started with project IDs, but what it was semantically associated with project was a problem, so we backed off to research IDs. One of the things we also knew from the start is that researchers do a lot of things. Some of the things are on the screen there, and unfortunately often doing research is the small component. And we knew that researchers also, from their feedback, had a lot of what they call black holes, so they were reporting into a lot of systems already, so in grants and finance and publications, and the last thing we wanted to do was develop yet another system around RAIDs where researchers had to report information into it without getting any benefit. We know there's a number of systems around already for recording what projects are about, and typically around the outputs only. And we sort of took this view of research is that what we tend to publish is the nice shiny vision, that what happens in the basement is probably only half the story of the working data, what actually goes on underneath that. Often who really knows what goes on in the project, so we knew we had to keep all these things in mind. I'm going to get up my soapbox now and say from the start of this project we were very keen to say the research data is associated with projects and not people, and this is because we're in a situation where institutions are responsible for the outputs of research beyond the time when the researchers are left, so we knew we had to structure the RAID identified around that idea. If I look at my very simple diagram, we all tend to draw a draw of how the research lifecycle works is we have it in our heads that people are going to fill out a data management plan at the start of their research and then they're going to do something, they're going to put some data somewhere, they're going to produce outputs. We know this doesn't necessarily work, but if you look at the existing tools out there like DMP Tool, ThinkShare and DMP Online, who we could use as a project ID, we recognize that these tools were starting to work on the data really towards the publication and output stage. They're trying to change this now with a lot of these tools around where they actually interact with researchers, but for the moment I would put them in the outreach side. The problem is research probably looks more like this, and it meant that we weren't really covering or looking for IDs and issues around research data. That happened at the start of the process, so I've drawn a little black cloud over here of the part we're probably not capturing well. We knew we had to change the language a little bit when we go out and talk to people about research activities, IDs, and that is we're not talking about approaching repository or repository software tool like ThinkShare and one of these. We're talking about research life-sort management, and we're talking about attaching identifiers throughout this process. It's about attaching the idea to a RAID identifier at the start when a researcher has an idea or wants to get some storage in their institution and they use a DMR system, a data management record system, to provision some storage to their project or the project they're associated with. And the idea is if we can get this, get the RAID identifier attached to all parts of the lifecycle, we can't necessarily join everything up here, but at least we can find it. So we're about attacking the F and the A part of FAIR. I think IR will come in time, but if we can just attack findable and accessible, I think we'll have done very well. Another thing we knew we had to do is that change some of the language around what people say a project is. The existing view of a lot of projects like ORCID is that a project is a noun, it's a thing describing something that's that happened. For us in RAID or in DLCF, project is a verb, it's a continually evolving project which RAID continues to associate it with and the various touch points that researchers interact with with things that helps them get their research done. So we knew we had to build a system that was essentially transparent to researchers and that would just happen via the infrastructure in the background. So I'll now let Siobhan take that up. So following from identifying a lot of these these issues, the data lifecycle framework started to come up with what we call the enabling technologies. So the DLCF has a little bit of background, it's a national strategy to connect research infrastructure through some of the increased science capabilities. We've got five stakeholders who'll be easily recognizable, RDS, AF, ARNET, NICTA and ANZ and all of these groups do different things. So those capacities, sorry, influenced what the DLCF decided to focus on. So our enabling technologies are cloud-based connectors and identifies for research data tools, storage and outputs. The first of those was identified as a project ID which became RAID, the second a group ID and group management service and the third a metadata store and APIs. So today we're talking about RAID mainly but the need for these persistent identifiers was because we needed a really simple tool. We needed something that connected things up without being heavy, heavy software or being very taxi for researchers or for the institutions themselves and it had to be something that could be quite responsive, semi-automated. So we wanted a PID and the benefits are standardization metadata, mechanism for creating a persistent chain of provenance, supports fair principles, lightweight flexible tool and facilitates rich data linkage. RAID is simply put to handle as minted via ANZ and attached to it is what we call the DMR which is the RAID metadata manifest. So the manifest contains other persistent IDs related to the project. So DOIs, orchids, other RAIDs, potentially group IDs, tools and service IDs and any other rich metadata that the service provider as the point at which the RAID is created wants to include in there. So I'll show you what a RAID looks like on a conceptual level. You can see on the left here we've got the RAID number, it's really simple. Service point, day, month and year that that's minted. Attached to it we have these potential spaces. So space for the group ID which can include orchids or email, DOI, grids or ISNIs, tools, services and other RAIDs. And further kind of abstracted out you can see what could go in there, what they can do with it and here's an example. So the RAID being a simple handle has attached to it actually a lot of information. It doesn't hold any of the information. We don't hold any data, it's just metadata at the bag of pointers that gives you a timeline of what's happened during the project as process. And what we hope is by the use of simple things like persistent IDs that we can link up all of this pre-existing infrastructure, semi-automated things, make research easier and make tracking research easier. For institutions that gives you improved visibility and research activity components, so the people, the tools, processes, storage and outputs involved in each project gives you an audit trail for research processes and improves the visibility of collaborations across institutions. But infrastructure, you get metrics for use and connections, can automate storage and provisioning, you can also automate allocations, storage and compute and you can access authorization, you can automate access and authorization. Cool, so that's me. Thanks very much. So I'll just ask, you both have been talking a lot about RAIDs at conferences and events for a little while now. What sort of feedback have you had from people on RAIDs? What sort of questions do you get asked? Yeah, so I can answer that from a technical point of view. People are interested in how long it takes to integrate with with the RAID system because it obviously means changes in how they do policy at their institution and it needs institutional uptake. When it gets down to the actual technical implementation because we've designed RAID to be more machine to machine rather than a manual service, the feedback we get is that the integration time is very short. It's not a hard thing to do. What is always hard is getting the policy and the agreement in place that this is a good thing. With respect to the feedback we've got from institutions around is RAID a good idea? I think the answer is a resounding yes, in that they know they need something to identify projects across institutions but again, implementation and all the things around a inertia of large organisations. We've actually gained even pauper in your own country. We've gained a lot better uptake and feedback in some ways from New Zealand than we have from Australia. This is probably because of their different approaches to things. In New Zealand many may know that the uptake of orchid was driven by the department rather than by the institutions. The department said MBIE said this is a good idea. We will help all our institutions go forward with this. We're looking as to whether we can do the same thing around RAID. We know that the New Zealand Department of Education is interested in developing a project idea across organisations. They see this as perhaps a good way to do that. We get many and varied feedback. We get even some researchers who say they're really, I wouldn't say the clever ones, but the ones who are the converters, they want to do this stuff and they say, how do we integrate? For the moment we really can't help them much because we're not aiming the service and researchers right now. This is something that should happen in the background without them having to put any effort into it and it should just make their life easier. That was the goal of it, but that means that in order to provide a level of trust around the RAID providers and the RAIDs, it means we must have agreements in place with the service providers who are linking to RAID. That doesn't exclude researchers, but it gives them a different level of access to what they might have expected. Well, follow-up question. I think you've probably answered this, but are RAIDs only for projects at Australian institutions? No. At the moment we're starting the iZone process for RAIDs. It will be an international standard, a B&A and Z standard and then an international standard. So it was begun with the intent that it was international because researchers work internationally, they're not just working in Australia. So yeah, it's international. Okay, thank you. The next question, accessing the RAID API, will it be publicly available? That's the first part of the question. Yes, definitely. If there's a chat thing in here I'll type it in right now where you can go have a look. It's api.ray.org.au api.ray.org.au. I think people can get that. And we can also send that link around anyway with the follow-up recording. If you are interested in looking at that a bit more, if you add ui.api.ray.org.au, there's a pretty version of the API which allows you to interact with it and see interactively what you're doing. Now to get beyond the initial part, you will need a key. And if you need that, contact us. Through the RAID website. Through the RAID website. And we'll provide you with a trial key which doesn't require anything beyond it's a trial system. Yeah. Okay, so at the moment people don't need to register to have a look at that. They can just, they can actually access the API as it is. Yes, but if they can contact you. Yeah. Okay, so next part of that question is, are you aware of how many systems have integrated with RAID so far? And do you have any exemplars? We're very aware of that. So RAID was launched in April and it has a small amount of people who are integrated with it so far. Probably the best example is UQ's new IDN system which Andrew is involved with. So the DMP kind of tool for UQ has been updated and has integrated RAID and storage provisioning which comes out of there. So that's a pretty good example. Also probably Redbox RAP which is, Redbox have made for us a very lightweight version of Redbox, the Resergic Training Portal which has integrated RAID and kind of ability that's available. Anyone can go. Anyone with an AI credential can use Redbox RAP. So that's a minimal DMR system that will allow you to put in the minimal information so a project title and maybe an institution and a few people. And that will generate a RAID for your project around that DMR so that's accessible as well. Okay so if somebody wanted now to mentor RAID or start metting RAIDs, how would they go about doing that? Well if you're an individual it's something that your institution or research group should do for you. So we talk about service providers or service points and that can mean any platform with integrated RAID capability. So if I as a researcher saw that it was useful to have a RAID, I would go and hopefully talk to my data management planning team or talk to whoever runs my Singatron and have them integrate RAID into their management processes and have a RAID mentor via that. It's not something you do yourself. It should be through your institution because we need that really rich metadata that comes out of I'm a researcher from here. I'm using this piece of machinery. These are the people involved with my projects. They're not intended to be this is my project. It's intended to be this is a project I've worked on. Okay and so RAID at its basis is a handle. So when you click on the handle what page does that, how does that resolve? What does that resolve to? I guess the magical content provider string is required by hands for people who need to handle. Yes so the handles will resolve. Now they resolve to a page on the RAID website which essentially said this RAID is valid or not. Now it's a decision by the service providers or the institutions that in time we model the underlying data structure of the information about a project on the RIFCS service activity. RIFCS schema sorry. This means that in time if a institution chooses to make information about a project public then that handle will resolve to the service record within RDA and we will update it. And obviously we'll migrate the information into the service record in the public section of research site or a string. Okay is there anything further you'd like to add? We've come to the end of questions. Is there anything? No but we're keen to hear from anyone who'd like to have a go at integrating the RAID API into their institutional or research groups workflows. The more people that use it the more useful it becomes. So we're looking at the moment at improving uptake in Australia and in the rest of the world. So if you're interested drop us a line and no cost to you. In fact we sometimes give people money so we want more people to use it. It's federally backed. It's not going anywhere. It's a really useful little thing. Have a go. Okay and it's raid.org.au. Is that the website address? Yes. Okay fantastic. Well thank you everyone for attending today's webinar and just a reminder that this is one as part of the Persistent Identifiers webinar series. You can look out in the ANNs online news or on our website for an announcement of the next webinar in the series but that will not be until next year now. And thank you again to Andrew and Siobhan for making the time to give their webinar today. Thanks.


Okay, welcome back to the outlook for the week ahead and I'm going to give you an update on where we finish in US equities last week, a chart here of the S&P 500, a couple of key levels to look out for going through the next couple of sessions. Then we're going to talk about Brexit on an update. We've got Eurozone inflation and ECB minutes coming out this week and US and Chinese manufacturing and service PMI data as well as earnings coming out from big giant US retailers. So let's start with this, the S&P 500 and the reason why is because the major US stock index is coming off its worst week since December 9th. We had that hot on inflation or hot on an expected inflation reading in the preferred measure for the Fed, the PCE number at the end of last week. And that has got people speculating once again that the Fed are not only going to have to increase rates further, that's very much expected, but even starting to price in and upshifting from how they downshifted to 25 back to 50. The pricing split at the moment in the short term interest rate futures market is about a 70-30 split between 25 is the base case, but now pricing a minority looking for a move back up to 50 basis points. There's obviously a little way to go yet. So we've got, I think it's 22nd of March the next meeting, so plenty of incoming data developments I'm sure to come between now and then. However, it's more about the prospect of higher rates for longer. And particularly, we saw the lights of those interest rates, sensitive growth stocks get hit, the NASDAQ, of course, underperforming last week. But as you can see here for the S&P 500, from the peak that we saw right at the beginning of the year, this trend line is really in play. It's acted well as resistance areas back in March. Also retest in the summer of last year. So this is going back to the beginning of 2022, I should say. And then March, the summer, and then at the end of last year, we did break through that. And you can see acted as a bit of a catalyst, technically for the push-up that we saw to 4,200 before. Now we started to see the market pull back and fairly aggressively. So we've come back down to that trend line. It's going to be quite key on the weekly performance. Anything below this area really opens up and becomes vulnerable somewhat to a deeper pullback down to around 3,800. And of course, plenty of Wall Street banks calling for lower equity prices at the moment in valuations to compress further, given the inbound economic slowdown that we're set to experience, despite some of the more positive economic data points that we've had. The point being is that any bright spots that we see in a decent labor market or in terms of price pressure still being eminent in the lights of PCE, the more likely rates are going to have to stay higher for longer and stocks don't like that. That's the general summary. But let's jump into some of the news flow. Not too much really to be to update you more of an outlook for the week. And Brexit, here they are. She's Sonak, the UK Prime Minister, of course, and Ursula van der Leyen. They're going to meet in the UK on Monday, speculation, building of an imminent announcement on a post-Brexit settlement for Northern Ireland. The deal would seek to soften trade and regulatory barriers that emerged within the UK as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol. So still quite a bit of work to be done here politically. As you would expect, the lights of the DUP, the more right-minded conservative MPs still to satisfy. So definitely not a done deal at this point, although lots of smoke, if you like, lingering in the air in UK press this weekend that a deal is imminent at this point in time. Would it move to pound? Not really, I don't think. But at the moment, I think the major currency pairs are more driven by dollar dynamics, as we saw last week on the back of that data. Eurodollar and Cable, both lower on the week and that predominant selling pressure came towards the back end of the week on the prevailing dollar strength that we saw on that renewed rate expectation coming out from the market. That also, of course, meant we had higher US yields, which pushed the 10 year down as well as the US equity market. It's all very much US influenced at the moment. Then a quick look elsewhere. Talking about inflation, the eurozone is going to be quite interesting, particularly on Thursday. Economists expect headline eurozone inflation to drop to close to a year low in February, but the core reading, of course, is going to be particularly of interest and likely to remain somewhat still quite sticky at this point. The headline reading is expected to slow, so continuation of this trend we've seen really since the autumn of last year when we peaked at 10.6%. The previous reading was at 8.6 in Jan. We are expecting that to decrease once again to 8.1% is the median consensus, predominantly lower driven by decreasing energy prices. The core reading, though, if I just jump over here, it is problematically, at least for the perception of markets about what's going to happen with an ongoing tightening cycle from the ECB, is that analysts are expecting the core reading to remain at 5.3%, which, of course, is the highest on record. Now, the reason why Thursday is going to be quite interesting is just a few hours after that eurozone inflation print, we're going to get the ECB publishing their minutes of the account of the February monetary policy meeting where they concluded that a half a percentage point increase was appropriate at the time. So investors will monitor that in case of any details about the planned path for rates beyond March. However, as is always the case with minutes, they could be somewhat outdated in the context of if we get an outlying inflation reading earlier in the morning, that will by far dominate proceedings for the euro currency and euro-denominated assets. Looking elsewhere, I did briefly mention earnings. So earnings season very much coming to the tail end of things at the moment, but retail giants like the company names such as Costco, Target, Home Improvement Store, Lowe's, Budget Friendly Dollar Tree, among others are all reporting this week. We also get big oil names like Occidental Petroleum. You can see aftermarket Wednesday, you get the lights of the tech firm Sales Force. In terms of what we're expecting, of course, we had the largest retailer last week, Walmart, they reported strong fourth-courter earnings, but issued a cautious outlook for the second half of the year when it expects sales to fall. So whether or not we'll see similar is what we're going to look out for. Meanwhile, jumping geographically elsewhere to the far east, looking at China, we get the official and independent manufacturing PMIs for February. They're both going to be released on Wednesday. So economists polled by Bloomberg expect the former. So this is the official reading to, well, first of all, what is the difference, I guess, between the official and independent readings? So let's just go through this. This is the China NBS. So the official kind of Bureau of Statistics reading that we get. So this is classified as the official one. It concentrates largely on large, state-owned enterprises. It is expected to come in at 50.7. So you can see here that would at the last 12 readings, Mark, the highest that we've had over that period, meaning then that further expansion into or further movement into expansion territory above that key threshold of 50, as far as the PMIs are measured on the K-Shin manufacturing PMI. That looks at coverage of mid-sized private companies that make up the majority of the sector. And it's tipped to exit contraction with a reading of 51.3. So, yeah, both positive developments, really. And as you can see from this Chinese number, we exploded higher back in Jan. Obviously, the NBS one, people are a little bit of a skeptical eye, just given it's more government state-owned enterprises and a big jump. And a lot of that was on the positivity of the reopening. So the government just looking to reaffirm this idea of more positivity coming in, dropping of the zero, tolerance procedures. But the other figure, the K-Shin one, is expected to move up into positive expansion territory, which will be quite key. So kind of a not an immediate tradeable event, but something of a more positive force for the overall global picture and the idea about more of a soft rather than hard landing on a global perspective. Finally, just taking a quick look on the US from what it is, quite a few things out, but I'm just going to focus on the ISM manufacturing service reports for February. They drew out on Wednesday and Friday, respectively. On the service side, analysts expect to pull back as weather related impacts of the last two months subside. You can see here, we had a particularly cold in the States. So impeding the ability for consumers to get out there and really utilize a number of the service main industries that compile of this number. So we had the press figure in December and a really strong figure with really great weather, quite the opposite in January. So looking that to just just balance off a little bit and probably likely to pull back just a touch. Meanwhile, durable goods, they also going to come out in the US on Monday. It should fall quite a lot, analysts at IG, though, say you shouldn't be alarmed by that. It's entirely due to volatility in Boeing aircraft orders. The company received 55 orders for aircraft in January. And that's down from 250 in December. So outside of transportation, orders more likely to be flat at this point. So that's it. So thanks very much for listening. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel and have yourself a good week ahead. All right, take care.