Okay, very good morning in is Monday the 10th of May. I hope you had a fantastic weekend a couple things then to get you up To speed to start the week and really condensing the overnight weekend news flow, which was predominantly Dominated by the colonial pipeline Strategically important for gasoline in North America. So we'll have a look at that. What's happened? What does it mean? How is price reacted? We're also going to talk about the pound outperforming so far this morning We'd have had the results out of UK local elections very positive for the conservatives and also update on the Scottish elections As I said sterling this morning outperforming that of its European counterpart Otherwise updates elsewhere on the likes of COVID particularly in India And then having a look ahead for this week Particularly emphasis on the US economic data with inflation still at the forefront of investors attention You've got US CPI on Wednesday the US retail sales on Friday but look, let's get straight to it and talk about market sentiment for the open this morning and first of all, I guess we've got to start where we left off which was Somewhere I hid behind that screen I just had up which was a note that's come out of JP Morgan at the end of last week post payrolls and obviously If you were there, you will know payrolls was a shocker on Friday and it just Reignited that kind of trade Mentality of the Fed are not going to move quickly Given the fact of their job-centric focus Irrespective inflation concerns and what JP Morgan note was saying over the weekend was that the same thing that we have been seeing they think it's going to continue for the time being as Essentially the disappointing jobs print justifies the ultra easy policy that obviously some Investors have been questioning the Fed are they right particularly with CPI expected to rise up to 4% Later on this week to hold fire and continue to be cautious and accommodative and the jobs data really validated that stance if anything in the near term JP Morgan suggesting that tech cyclical stocks rally in tandem After April's jobs with and there's kind of talking about this idea that the stock Ball run will continue to just go on basically and they were looking at some of the breakdowns as well in terms of To JP Morgan strategists now is the time to not doubt equities as long as Powell and Biden are in charge of the economy And they were talking about the idea as well that any efforts to heal the economy are likely to drive up Inflation meaning that banks and airlines will also benefit so in a sense kind of uniform in a way We saw the nasdaq respond quite quickly after payrolls came out given the nasdaq 100 generally and and tech and grow stocks What underperforming for the majority of last week? So they kind of bolted higher but longer term here JP Noting about this kind of reflation view and that's obviously going to keep inflation up But also the Fed will make a commentative given the view of it being transit tree and all around and that kind of lifts The equity market so this morning. I mean Asia followed suit generally broader higher as a region The S&P 500 as you can see here is now tracking up at 42 32 in the futures market Having hit a high of 38 and a quarter overnight So you can see this move here that we had through The US non-farm parallel data breaking above the previous all-time high and on the daily chart You can see after we had what was last Tuesday that kind of wobble where Yellen came out started inferring about potential need for rate hikes Which obviously she walked back a few other things that are happening a technical breakdown in price through the range Support of 41 66 saw us move down and that 41 10 and a half still going forward is a really Strong area of support on the higher time frame But as you can see on Friday closing above that previous all-time high and we continue to have made fairly elevated this morning Or be it futures change It's moderate So in the sense just holding on to the gains that were seen into close on on Friday, and that's fairly uniform elsewhere Otherwise a quick look at the the other charts then and that will lead us into the the oil one Well, we'll bring them in one by one and let's look at oil Not so much oil our Bob gasoline It gapped up at the recommencement of trade on Sunday night about four percent Looking at the chart here, and it has settled since and we're up only You know about quarter to a third of that gain now from that initial price spike at the open Faded that pretty quickly, but still slightly elevated and it did feed through in sympathy to a certain degree But much lesser extent given that colonial pipelines are critical critical source of gasoline diesel and jet fuel To the East Coast and so therefore oil pops up about one and a half But if it repaired that fairly quickly, we're still trading up though from around a sub 65 to 65 27 The moment up 37 cents So what exactly is the colonial pipeline because I'm conscious of the fact that some traders Some of you watching this will have to have no idea what that is So let me walk you through a few different things and I'll show you some maps of the system and Give you some context to quantify its importance in the US. So the colonial The nation's biggest fuel pipeline was halted all operations On its system late Friday after suffering a cyber attack That affected some of its IT systems and the thing that made markets a little bit apprehensive last night It still is to a certain degree is the fact that they've said they're working to restore operations But I don't have a specific timeline as yet for when a restart is going to happen And the longer that goes on obviously the more impact underlying that it could have The US government as you can see from these headlines here enacted an emergency power Ruling on Sunday in the bid to keep fuel supply lines open as fears of shortages rose flying the shutdown of that essential pipeline What that that means essentially from enacting the emergency powers is to circumvent then the use of the pipeline We'll talk about alternative pipeline routes that could be used But what it means then is they've lifted various limits on transportation of fuels by road to ease the fallout The colonial is a is a critical source of gasoline diesel and jet fuel to the east coast following the nation's Refining belt along the US Gulf Coast. So down here in the bottom left hand corner And you can see my mouse moving that is texas and you can see houston And her book and buimont lake charles baton rouge as we go through louisiana These are all the really key facilities that sit just within the gulf coast and actually the the distance from Let's say west to east go from texas up to all new jersey and linden in pennsylvania as well That total distance would be around 5500 miles So it transports more than two and a half million barrels of fuel every single day And that's about 45 percent of all fuel consumed on what is obviously one of the most Populous areas in north america, which is the east coast So going through likes of texas louisiana mississippi alabama georgia south north carolina virginia So on and so forth The line also supplies jet fuel Importantly to major airports across the u.s. And prolonged outage could lead to disruptions in air traffic If supplied disruptions become even more severe it's like to be aware of going forward An alternate here I haven't got the pipeline up, but it's something called the the plantation pipeline operated by kinder morgan It's smaller but serves some of the same regions that the colonial does and may act as a possible and potential alternative The plantation is is capable of delivering around 720,000 barrels per day of similar products through its approximately just over 3,000 mile pipeline network, which originates in louisiana essentially and ends up up in washington dc area um But again comparatively 720,000 against the colonial's two and a half million Will give you an idea of the proportion of the cover But that in combination then with the government Inacting its emergency powers to move greater amount of transportation via road That's how they're looking to address this and fill the gap in the short term The reason why this is quite important as well is we gasoline infantry's fairly ample the price of the pump wasn't actually expected to Tick much higher until memorial day memorial day happens at the end of may so a few weeks time That is traditionally viewed as the start of the us summer driving season And that's particularly important for consumption Given the fact that in north america a lot of domestic state-to-state travel and so the summer driving season is particularly key If the pipeline doesn't restart soon It's only going to accelerate and that move higher because we've already got that seasonal impact to come in In the short period ahead See that's what's going on at the moment. So overall Things that i'd look out for i mean definitely this is much more for our bob gasoline futures the oil move I would say is much to a lesser extent But somewhat a sympathy play So it could see some volatility upon headlines that we get updates on this Timing is key, you know, is it going to be a day? Is it going to be three days a week longer? The longer the more bullish it's going to be for gasoline prices and then also How quickly and how much are they using these alternate methods like the plantation pipeline by kinder morgan How much then do they quantify that it's going via road route? So on and so forth. That's how what i'd be doing to try and Judge the impact or longevity of that type of move that we've seen already from overnight And obviously if the company comes out and says all things are rectified And all systems are back up and running XYZ the pipeline is up and running functioning again Well, then you'd expect a pretty quick normalization of prices. I would say going forward all right a few other things then I mentioned the pound And the pound rises after the s&p misses out on outright majority in polls So let's have a let's have a look. I've kind of highlighted here The the bullet point which really summarizes that investor relief Felt from the s&p result wasn't more emphatic So actually the Scottish National Party who want to press as you well know for another referendum going back to that one that I saw in 2014 on independence Felt one seat short of an outright majority after the election and this comes in combination as well With labour just having a really poor performance in the uk on a local election front And so what we've seen is the pound is out performing this morning Cables up about 53 comparative to euro dollar up about 10 pips You can see here a big breakout in sterling going through the release of payrolls with the dollar weakness that we have now Surprisingly weak u.s jobs data If we put cable on a 90 minute and I'll shuffle this sterling chart along a little bit So you can see what I'm looking at you can see here On friday's move. We broke above a strategic point, which is really this 140 handle looking at sterling futures here And we broke above that on friday We've actually come back down close to a test in the asia pack session Really nice support area now in that zone for then the continuation of the push higher So that would be strategically important not just for the interdater for the week to keep price above that point We'll be Keeping the the balls kind of satisfied that sterling potentially could see further push on and Hard to see the dollar really staging a dramatic comeback with the jobs data. So weak Irrespective of the inflation data, which is going to be moving quite sharply higher going forward on a daily chart you can see here perhaps a different kind of Look on the same setup, which is that importance of the 140 handle you could see here It was really restrictive of price for the majority of of 2021 So through mid-feb up to the current date until we broke out on friday And as you can see here on the upside There really is not a great deal of meaningful resistance in the near term After we put in that initial year to date high at 140 to 45 There's a few stops on the way If you were looking at the chart here on the on the daily that low for the days range on the 23rd It's just about where we're trading some short term resistance at the moment after the move higher Move moving up. I'd say a good target there was the high on the 22nd and the low on the 24th That would come up at around 140 90 I'd say that's probably a nearer stronger area of resistance than that current one on the 23rd looking on the daily charts So sterling seeing a decent reaction to those political events, but also There is the matter of the Lockdown roadmap and the cabinet today in the UK Will sign off on the third stage of lifting the COVID-19 lockdown in England Most businesses in all but the highest risk Sectors will be able to reopen Including indoor servicing and pubs and restaurants hotels cinemas will reopen indoor sport and exercise will be able to resume Individuals can do one night stays things of that nature So that as well probably just underlying just helping support things that are so far in the UK touch wood all things going as planned and so I'm sure Boris will be banging the drum on that front when he speaks later on Quick run through some of the other things that have been going on over the weekend India still Really confronting a challenging situation. Of course with COVID India's capital extending its lockdown for another week and adopting stricter Restrictions to control the new wave of the COVID-19 outbreak India on Sunday Had just over 400,000 new virus cases reporting more than 4,000 deaths for a second consecutive day Moving on to something a little bit more light hearted Was dodge coin This was definitely garnering a lot of attention because it was just ramping aggressively higher last week And people were looking to Saturday night live of all things And the reason for that was that Elon Musk was going to appear and he's obviously being a big proponent of dodge coin right from the beginning And people were building up in anticipation that he was going to give it the classic pump Which he has done on so many times before via twitter and things like that But he was part of a sketch Essentially and he came out and he called it in in that sketch dodge coin hustle And dodge coin didn't like it didn't like it one bit Just looking at coin based look at the dodge coin price And this was the move that we saw when his appearance happened and dodge coin fell down to about 30 Which looking at sterling price here 30, which was a loss of about 30 plus percent. I think it was down about 33 35 percent at the worst However, we'd now by the end of Sunday. We'd pretty much reversed that to a loss of only around 12 or 13 percent So yeah, a lot of headlines pertaining to dodge coin at the weekend Probably there's a lot of people who are uneducated in the space feeling a bit of pain But ultimately Well with an asset I was kind of tweeting a few things about this yesterday when it was dumping And I was kind of of the view that you know when it comes to something like dodge coin It's heavily behavioral and it's one of those Kind of stick it to the man trades if you like given What it represents and as such All I thought was looking at twitter seeing the lights of dodge dodge coin to one dollar trending Dodge coin to the moon was trending. This was all as it was going down 20 25 30 The more aggressive those tweets were becoming And I was just thinking it's the perfect storm to kind of galvanize the troops to just start defending The dodge coin and this is Completely out of the realms of anything I've ever done in my career, which is trying to fundamentally analyze The value of an asset base it on rationale I'm just purely doing it on a behavioral perception of what I feel then these kind of dodge coin die hard crypto fans will be reacting To the haters as the price is going down and you know sure enough the price came back and trimmed the entire move by about two thirds And going forward, you know, is is is what that weekend kind of volatility does that mean anything for dodge coin? Who knows? I mean ultimately if dodge coin at the end of today in fact is printing up at new highs Wouldn't surprise me one bit to be quite honest, but Yeah, it was interesting to watch over the weekend final article back Back to planet earth for a second Is about the ECB And the reason why I just wanted to point this out is this chap is called ollie ren is the finish Council member at the ECB and he made some comments and ft interview at the weekend where essentially You know, he was just talking about the the ECB should follow the lead of the US federal reserve by accepting and overshooting Of its inflation target to make up of years of basically below target inflation And the ECB is widely expected To change its inflation target this autumn when it has its first strategy review come due for 18 years So it's just another idea here of moving to a more flexible Mandate when it comes to the subject matter of inflation I think the ECB are kind of rising up to what we're going to see this week, which is I you know, kind of really fast acceleration in inflation And the ECB Would you know one of the things I think the the fed were quite quick to do was adopt this average inflation targeting a it strategy quite early on Given the idea that they knew upon reopening that prices were going to surge I guess the question point at this point is that As the reopening has happened kind of supply if you like can't quite keep up at the moment with demand And so we're seeing a lot of bottlenecks, particularly a lot of natural resources like we were seeing last week from everything from Platinum to copper to lumber and so on and so forth and the idea then on how transit tree or not inflation is going to be and if you didn't get a chance to listen to it Strongly encourage you to check out the market watch podcast Just search for a Spotify app order Is a conversation at me and peers the head of trading had on Friday Where we go through that conversation is transit tree argument and I'll fed right or is the market right in regards to the standoff between inflation is going to be a more long lasting or temporary of nature and so I'll leave that to the podcast but taking us to the calendar then that really takes us to to to Key releases coming out of America and this week overall is is fairly quiet comparative terms to last week from a set economic data point of view So we're going to jump us over to wednesday And wednesday reason why i'm jumping there is because we get us cpi now core cpi Which I do think is it is of the two even though the preferred metric at the ecb at the fed is the pce number Is the core to extrapolate out then the fact that a lot of the inflation pressures has been Exassivated by energy prices. So xing that out the core reading Irrespective of taking out the energy component for april in the u.s. And wednesday that's coming out is expected to rise To 2.3 percent year-on-year. That's a meaningful impact Or pick up from 1.6 percent last month But the overall take with that is as much as there's going to be a lot of media fanfare around the inflation The year-on-year figure could be up at 4 percent. Let's say people are going to be Really pumping that drum Of you know inflation concerns and so on but ultimately with the job situation as per friday in the labor report being so bad I just can't see the fed moving off their their seat of accommodative policy as yet And I think that irrespective of a very high pick up in inflation I think this is all part of the perceived plan that they foresee in this transitory journey of inflation going forward It might be more long-lasting because of the bottlenecks we're seeing But it's not going to stay up at those levels going forward over the medium term. So Yeah, that that's good. That was how I'd read it as a week as a whole but don't don't get me wrong I'm sure that wednesday 130 release of uscpi will be a meaningful event for any day trader Also on wednesday just sticking with wednesday. You do get the march GDP figures out in the uk That is expected to come in at 1.3 per cent month or month That's a pick up from the previous 0.4 percent partly as a result of a boost from the education sector as scores have reopened Quarterly data. However, it's forecast to show a decline of 1.6 percent As a reminder, we obviously had the bank of england meeting quite recently Last week in fact to be upgraded its growth forecast for 2021 If you remember those growth forecasts what they said Bringing forward to the point of which it expects the economy to recover to its pre pandemic state By the final quarter of this year So we're really researching the uk economy through the next two quarters into year end and so What does the inflation reading what does the GDP meeting reading mean for the one coming up on wednesday for march? It's an improvement against previous But it's going to get way better in the uk all things remaining equal and on the political side Obviously with the covid situation at the moment the roadmap remains on track And so therefore do those growth forecasts as well. So I don't really think that's going to be a massive Isolated factor, but it certainly helps that sterling bid keep a floor on that price of 140 to carry us higher In the context of the the germany softer dollar at the moment The other two things I just wanted to mention were on tuesday when we come in in the morning We do have a chinese cpi for april A particular emphasis might be on ppi data As that's forecast to climb six and a half percent That would be the fastest pace of growth since 2017 if that happens So on the manufacturing side again talking about this kind of bottleneck idea Ppi prices up at six and a half percent consumer price inflation china are by the one percent And then going ahead to friday You've got university michigan sentiment, but you've also got us retail sales for april The other kind of major set event from the data perspective Um expected to post a decent gain after jumping nine point eight percent month a month if you remember for march This is the april report and that was because of the back of the 1400 dollar stimulus checks that were coming out Importantly analysts at i and g say the cash deposits from those stimulus checks were made in the second half Of the month of the month of march And this could mean that there's a bit of a carryover of that spending into april And the reopening of the economy also means there's lots more options to be able to spend that money as well So we could see another robust print for for that reading All right guys, it's going to leave it at that And let you get on with the session. So hopefully that was useful. If you're watching this on youtube Remember to like and subscribe and don't forget to go to amplify live com because you can now access this briefing For free by using the free subscription There's other subscription levels to get your access to other premium content So do check that out and i wish you a great week ahead.


And a joint Labour Congress comprising the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC Trade Union Congress, TUC, and other affiliate unions in Kuala States have issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Kuala State Governor, Abdul Rahman Abdul Razak, to implement the memorandum of understanding reached last year on the 35,000-ira wage award for all categories of workers. And to domesticate, implement the 40% peculiar allowance as approved by the federal government with workers to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidiary mobile and other grievances. The Government of India states has revealed to honour and implement all written and gentleman agreements it enter into with Labour. Among these are one, non-implementation of 35,000-ira wage award. For all categories of workers in Kuala States, following the fuel subsidy remover, revusers to domesticate and implement 40% peculiar allowance as approved and provided by the federal government. The workers have issued a 14-day ultimatum to the State Governor, Abdul Rahman Abdul Razak, to resolve all pending issues and implement the agreement accordingly, a risk-industrial action come 26 January 2024. In view of the above, Congress of Kuala Workers has revealed un-pollutable disposition of Kuala's government towards Kuala Workers, therefore giving State Government 14-day ultimatum with effect from the today 9 January 2024 to address all these issues raised before now. 14 days ultimatum and which elapsed by 26 of this month, if nothing is done between now and that time, we have said it, the industrial piece in the state, the labour movement should not be responsible for whatever happens because we have followed the law and we have done the needsful. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Okay, thanks. We're back on streaming live on YouTube and continuing our morning, the morning committee meeting of the house appropriations committee. So, we've had the language walkthrough we've also gone through where we left off in in March with our base budget and as well as where we are with CRF funding. So, for the committee, what I would like to do toward the end. Let's let me go in order here one of the first things that we need to do. If you would go through all of your budgets, not all of them are scheduled some of them have no change or very minimal change. And so if you see some small changes like I'm not going to call VHCB and unless we want to know the status of their their CRF funding but I would ask Dave. The administration had made it very clear that they asked about the 3% and VHC be agreed but that should be a conversation that you should also have with VHC be and if you feel that if we need to bring that budget back in. It's the same with the Arts Council, the Human Rights Commission, several of those budgets that may have seen 3% reduction if you could just check in with them. Many of them received CRF funding and so we're able to continue operations with help of the CRF funds to backfill or to pay for expenses that that COVID delayed or interrupted. So if everyone would check those budgets and if you feel you can come in and explain and we can move on with that budget that that's the direction we should go if there is some more hardship and things that they wish to bring before the committee be sure to tell Teresa so we can get them scheduled. Linda. I just want to let you know that the new director of the Ramon Symphony Orchestra started today. So, so already contacted her, and we're going to chat this afternoon so hopefully, I'll just be able to, she does she knows nothing about the budget process so I will be discussing that with her at center and seeing what she's received, because all along in touch with the president of the board of directors so anyway I just wanted you to know that we have a new director, her name is Elise Brunel. Oh, well welcome and we look forward to meeting her and what a challenge stepping into that position in the middle of this pandemic where she can for conferences and have rehearsals imagine having zoom rehearsals again. I can't even imagine. So if you could know today's Monday if you could check in and tell Teresa by Wednesday if we need to have any other budgets in that would be great because we're moving pretty quickly on Thursday and Friday. We have the public hearings, but I would like to see through the language and closing out as many sections of the language as we can, and identifying which is what's left open and exactly what the issues are with those pieces that are left open. And so if you would walk through your sections of the language. See, clarification. Seek out any clarification that would be great I need to mute Bob. Bob are you. So who do we need to mute. Okay, you. Sorry, guys, I'm sorry, I thought it was muted. I'd like to start walking through the language and then also the web report and whatever decisions that we have made, if there's no disruption from coven. It's really important that we stick with those decisions unless there is a valid reason to open those budgets back up otherwise we will never get done. One time money if individuals come up with areas where one time money was not addressed, either through CRF money that was able to cover CRF expenses. If there's a list list of those that are on the table for discussion. We need to bring those forth that to the committee as well. And I think that's all so we're going to start shelving these budgets as quickly as we can if you have an open questions work with your committee of jurisdiction they're coming back tomorrow. As quickly as you can, and I'm trying to think if there's any other pieces as far as CRF funding committees of jurisdiction are just coming back tomorrow. And so give me a couple of days to work out a schedule and a format of how we're going to address CRF funding. Understanding what dollars have gone out what issues there are. If there's dollars that need to be re appropriated or moved around, and, and then what our plan is for the remaining CRF dollars. Any questions, thoughts, anything you'd like to share with committee members. Any surprises in your budgets. I wish the ups and downs had been, it would have been much more difficult I know the language was is just so clear to work with that. It gives us more time for the ups and downs I guess Marty. I just want to share a very general comment that I suspect it won't be popular but my gut feeling is that we are not cutting enough in this current version of the budget. I'm very, we have $100 million cushion that we brought over from last year which of course is helping us tremendously to not have to make you know any what appear to be any big cuts so far this year. But I'm worried that we will not have a cushion to carry over to FY 22, and that will make FY 22 that much more difficult to vote. According to the forecast, the income will not be down as much, but nevertheless, we don't have $100 million cushion carrying over I think we'll have to make more difficult decisions in the 22 budget and if we can start some of those changes or modifications in this budget, I think it would be for far more helpful. And certainly if we have some extra CRF money. I think we need to be very careful to direct it to areas that, although it has to be spent by December can help move us more into the future. I think we need to be considering that and looking at each of our departments as as tightly as we can, because if we could save a little bit this year, it will help us a lot next year. A general comment that I think we need to keep in mind. Okay, and I appreciate those concerns as you know fiscal year 22 is going to be really difficult. It would be a little easier if the federal government had acted and we, and we knew, you know, what assistance or what the plan was going to be that would at least identify areas that were going to be more difficult for us in areas that would be covered but we, we can't, you know, we can't count on that funding, and it's pretty likely it won't happen until after we're done with the budget cycle so you know planning for that, that money is is is creating a challenge where as it would have been a large help. Any other thoughts. I think, I think, I'll put on the table that I'm, you know, I mean I come from the, the transportation committee and it's one of my, you know, we only because I'm more not that I'm concerned about the $6 million move from the general fund to the general fund at a time when, you know, Marty makes a really good point that we're, we're not going to be flush, not now or in 22. And so how we use those funds is going to be critical for helping Vermonters. And I know they care about the lawn mowing, but in the big picture I do have, I do have concerns with with that use. So, you know, I just wanted to put that out there that that's, that's, we didn't talk about that today, or not that we had it on our agenda but you know with Matt or the administration or in our updating of, of where we are with the budget. So with transportation and I meant to bring it up to Matt and then I forgot at the end maybe Adam you're on you could chime in the transportation language was that is at the end. Was there, is there a T bill that you're is this is a T bill within the budget, Adam or is there a separate T bill that is that will be presented. Adam are you there. Adam is calling me I think he. I'm guessing that Adam may have may not be here either. So maybe that's a question who's got what's Bob who has transportation so he's not here to ask.  I'm going to try his link again I thought was here but he's not. And so, the transportation committee is going to look at the language at the end of the bill and provide a recommendation. And the $6 million, you know, we have to talk about setting a precedent, you know we just cleaned up the ed fund and kept the ed fund and general fund separately. If you remember when representative piece Lee was here, there was always concern about rating the transportation fund and we have separated that back out so that, you know that blend of fund is not happening and so, you know, do we want to set the precedent of start moving general fund to T funds or, or using T funds in the future for general funds or education funds and. And so we need to think about that carefully. What the governor is recommend to use that $6 million for. You know, that's 6 million. Those identified areas don't have to be the identified areas there can be project delays, there can be other ways to find the $6 million within the T fund and so conversations with the trans transportation committee. And it's not just the 6 million but somewhere else there's a line item of a little over a million for it at work at DMV. Pay attention to their proposing for it out of GF that right 1.2 is that usually paid for Mary with that typically be paid for who has DMV Diane or Bob. I did Kenny but I don't know if that was a capital bill thing but I think you're right. Yeah it projects. Those typically paid for from fees or T bill money and deal with typically from within their own funds. I mean, all they do is pass their profits if you will through to transportation, but not until after they've taken out their funds to do business now I've, I've seen them ask for money before and I think we've given them money before on major big projects, but. So you're going to do a deeper dig on that 1.2 million for the it project at DMV and how those should be funded. Any big concerns. BCF has a lot of moving pieces and Kimberly I think you have those pretty much under control it. I mean at least you know what your, your feed what feedback looking for that from the committee of jurisdiction. Yeah, I mean I think there's some things that were more controversial in the past, so to speak, that like the housing the emergency housing which is now I think moving forward in a more integrated way is kind of a silver lining of what we're doing with CRF funds being used for services in terms of setting the table. So that kind of coming together, I think is potentially a very positive story. I think there's a lot of pressure and others to that to that extent as we prepare for the public hearings this week. Some people have asked me about how what are they supposed to speak on or what are we looking at and, and correct me if I'm wrong but because we're looking at the whole budget the whole year. Everything we had before those public hearings all that documentation of what we heard is still on the table. I don't think they have to repeat themselves we have that unless unless some of those were were were were addressed with CRF money. Some of those some of the holes may have been addressed, you know, filling them in with expenses that were covered related. I would, and I would agree with you on that but like I think Kimberly had brought up it doesn't go beyond December so like the budget is different than, you know, you got money for PPE but that doesn't mean your base budgets. It's going to be right. Yeah. Thanks Chip. Chip, make sure you found out from the Department of Education or the Agency of Education. The COVID related expenses to open up schools. There was $50 million but that went for summer meals and it went to HVAC systems and we know the HVAC systems are going to be hugely expensive we have one in Daniel. So when you're thinking statewide the $50 million is going very fast when you when you think of what we identified already, but as schools open up and they need safe places for kids and transporting kids. Will you see if they have a new updated dollar what what our public schools need to be prepared for opening. I will. And my money that there's been a couple requests Kimberly you had a request that's still on the table because we're starting. Right. Because you'll hear much about this week in the media this year marks the 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote the 19th amendment. And there was a very extraordinary effort that had gone into putting together this alliance of all sorts of folks and it was done by the non partisan League of Women voters and they have delayed but are still requesting $20,000 in one time funding to go forward with parade and any festival and some other events that would take place in 2021. And so that is something that I would like to advocate for. And again, I think you'll, you'll learn a lot more about it this week because it'll be in the news. You'll bring us that information and chip you're following up on a computer breach at legal aid will bring more information to the table. Was that yours or Peters. No. Sorry, I was, I took myself off mute just to be able to say goodbye I've got a designated agency in like 30 seconds so I will see everyone next time we get together. And I think we're we're finished we just got, we have a lot of independence with our budgets. Dave. Katie. Yes, I did raise my hand I'm sorry. I get confused sometime. Am I unmuted. Yes, I hear you. Are we doing a separate. Are we doing a separate CRF bill. I'm not sure at this point Dave it looks like we're going to put out one large bill and whether the T bill you know all the transportation might blend in with it the CRF might blend in it. There may be an earlier CRF bill for things to be expedited to have to get out right away. And that it's looking like we may be doing one large bill. Which just fine. I just wanted to share for what it's worth. The, what I call the base budget, the governor's recommend. I didn't see anything in there that gave me great pause. I'm always concerned with things. But, but in the CRF section, the 133 million that I call is more commerce related or economic development. I have a number of different questions concerns in that area that that I need to, I will need some convincing on if I may word it that way. We just haven't got to that yet. I imagine we'll, we'll have somebody come in and with the committee of commerce and at the same time, somebody will walk us through that. Correct. So I just, I just wanted to, I just wanted to share with you. That's an area where I may have more, more questions. It will be a very similar process to what we did in June with CRF where the policy committees will be working on the policy and we will then go to those committees. And so some of you may be in and out of committees as as you're in the committee of jurisdiction to either work on the budget or to work on CRF. And so these are just recommendations from the administration and the legislature will will work off those recommendations and and find their own priorities. And so we'll really have three pieces working at once we'll have our typical budget pieces that we're working on, will be working on CRF adjustments and the remaining CRF dollars that must be appropriated so they're, they have to be spent by, you know, and, and really spend by December 30. And then there will be a small transportation bill that usually travels alone that will probably drop back into the budget. So there'll be those, those three pieces that should converge in the end and be one that looks like at this time it will be one bill. So you'll have one if I may just one more quick follow up if I make it. Are you imagining when we report the big bill. We'll do it the way we traditionally do and we'll, we'll do our sections or you imagining a different, a different truncated process. So really imagining a bill where we do all the CRF, all the budget and all the transportation pieces we would be there for hours. So I need to think about, I need to think about that because we need to get the information out and we haven't reported out a full bill we reported out a quarter year bill. So we need to, we need to think about how we do that because so much of it is boilerplate.  So I don't, I think it's going to be more of a more pertinent information at this point on zoom it could be a four five hour presentation, if we did all three components together. Okay. You know, I don't know how many you know who would follow it the whole time but you know, we'll work on that presentation. So it's meaningful. Okay, I like your, your definition of our presentation. Okay, any other final thoughts will be in tomorrow morning at at nine o'clock. No, at 830 and we start tomorrow morning with agriculture. And, and then we will move on at 130 with a CCD. And Teresa, I don't know if Mike Marcot has finally gotten those emails or where they're going. Yeah, I sent him a new one this morning and he actually found the old one. Okay, oh good. And he sent it on to his committee to make sure they all saw. And then we do have VHCB coming in tomorrow. They, they have a lot of project updates to share with us and Dave we can discuss the 3% tomorrow while they're in committee. I'm meeting with Ted this afternoon. So, a Ted Brady. Yeah, so I'll get a forward. Yep. Okay, I think that's it the Joint Fiscal Committees meeting this afternoon so you I don't know if anyone wants to join in and pay and watch to see which CRF funds are granted they will be the emergency ones that that really can't wait for the legislative process. And other than that, things that need to come before the legislature, we will make sure that opportunity happens so that all voices get to weigh in. What time are they meeting? One o'clock. One o'clock. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do enjoy watching only because like there's that whole other process for the CRF funds that tracking that committee's work is so helpful when it comes back to us. All right, thank you. I think that we, I think our, we're done. See you later. We're going off live now. Thank you.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, the community matters here. Next week. Sorry I'm not there. Three, two, one. We're live! Live! Lou Plierisi in Washington, the CEO of Eprink, and me, Jay Fidel here on Think Tech, here on Energy in America. We are so excited to be together with Lou again to investigate all these fantastic trends that are happening. So many changes. If you thought things were changing in general, they're also changing in energy. And why not? They're changing on both sides of it. They're changing on the renewable side and on the fossil fuel side, believe it or not. And so we have to keep track of this, especially, especially in Hawaii. Lou, welcome back to the show. It's always nice to have you here. Great to be here, Jay. Great to be here. So let's look at your slides first, so to get warmed up on this. Right. I was going to take you. I think it's an interesting thing to think about. So I thought about it before we start off with this, look at what's happening to you. Particularly utility. You know, the voltage and so on and so on. Look at the first slide. It shows you what we call the utility scale over PZ historical span. Right. You can see there's either two kinds of pictures here in this slide. On the left is the what we call picture. Right. And on the right is one axis. One axis follows the picture where you are. Okay. Now you're going to have to explain all that to our audience so they know what it's all going to be about. You can have it sit out there on a kind of picture, maybe move, move, you know, the tilt can be changed a little bit. Okay. And you just captured the sun as the earth moved about. Right. The so-called factor, one axis factor moves with the sun so you can observe the picture. And it's more focused on for a longer period of time. Mm-hmm. During the day. And I think the thing I wanted to say about this slide is this picture you can see that the cost of, you know, to deal with the subpartum requires a lot of different things. There's so-called softback. Softback. The land, sales, taxes overhead. There's the labor cost, the hardware, the inverters, and the modules. And the modules are the yellow part, right? Mm-hmm. The modules are not everything. Mm-hmm. You know, in fact, modules are less than they have to cost now. But we have a long battle with the Chinese on the cost of the low cost, the subsidized actions they take, and it's been hurting the production of modules for the U.S. Company. Mm-hmm. And in fact, on January 23rd, the Trump administration issued a proclamation of the new character on imported sulfur cells and modules. And this is in response to a trade so-called 201 petition. And this is an outcome of two companies meetup later joined by a company called Solar World. They took their case before the International Trade Commission in act 2017, alleging that Asian companies unfairly build the price of solar cells in the module to an understandable level. I think today with the global community on this, right? Mm-hmm. Some people say, look, the real issue is getting these- The real thing deployed. And the real payoff is getting them in the field. Not so much making them. Yeah, the Chinese did a lot of subsidies and government intervention, but this is just going to make it more expensive for us to deploy it. So, and, you know, so I think that the president decided to do this. And I don't think it's going to kill those three. It's going to take some time, let them sort of pass out the impact. But so I thought I thought this would be a good fine conducting point to go ahead and talk about, you know, how do we kind of measure the role of the solar against all the other fields going forward? Absolutely. But before we leave this slide, though, I have a couple of questions about it. Sure, sure. The one on the left is a fixed solar panel. The one on the right is a tracker. Okay, so it sounds like- And the number at the top, the top of each is what? The cost of the amount of energy generated. What is that? So that's the cost for 100 megawatt. Okay.   And we're down to where did he use a fixed tilt or an axis? About a dollar. Okay. So it looks to me, if you follow this chart, it looks to me like we're actually spending less, I guess that's per kilowatt hour, less per kilowatt hour in 2017 using the fixed tilt. Then using the $1.15 tracker. Neither one of these deal with the question of availability or how much of this capacity is available to you at one point in time. And I'm going to get to that a bit later. Okay, let's move forward and talk about the comparison of photovoltaics and other fuels, especially in light of the tariff. So we can get off this slide and look directly at you. Yeah, let's move to the next slide. I just want to show you that this slide is kind of just a document that we need growth in its old and old age. It's growing rapidly. And we expect it to grow through 2020. And the cumulative forecast from 2016 to 2020 is going to be about 387 gigawatt. That's a lot of power. It's not a lot of power. But remember, it's only when the sun is shining. That power is not available to you. We talked about this before. You need some way to stir energy that's not available after the sun goes down. What is the blue line on this chart? There's a blue line and some blue legend there. The average annual growth rate in about 9% to 4 to 20%. I think if you talk to people in the environmental community, they're excited. Fantastic. The plus mean, we can get off a fossil fuel site. The plus mean, we're not going to need them so much for the future. Well, that's demand though. You're not cranking supply into this chart. There's only demand, yeah? Right. Right. Only demand. Only demand. This demand is going to be met. Okay. Let's go to the next slide. Because I think the next slide is very interesting. This was just released today. Okay. And this is the energy consumption forecast. The so-called reference data. But the U.S. Department of Energy independent agency. All the energy information agency. The U.S. Very respected data collection and analysis agency of the Department of Energy. It was created in the mid-70s after the Arab oil embargo. It produces lots of data and analysis. And I think if you look at there, and what we're going to look at today is what we call the reference case, right? Okay. And the reference case is kind of their best guess. Everything else being equal. This is kind of how it's likely to play out. Given current policy. No major change in current policy. And current policy is continue subsidies for a few years on solar and wind. Renewable so-called renewable portfolio standards are feeding tariffs by the state. So this embeds in this forecast. All the things the federal government doing and all the things the states are doing to encourage the use of renewable fuel. So I will start first with the, on the left, the consumption by sector, right? Okay. And you can see, and this is done in what we call quadrillion British thermal units or quads in the business, right? Okay. That's a lot of power. And I can, next time we talk, I can give you that number in equivalence of barrels of oil and gas. But, you know, the U.S. will, you know, if you take the today, which is where we are here, right? Let me just hang on a second. I don't know what's going on all of a sudden. So if you take where we are here, we're going to continue to see growth in electric power. Yes. A lot of that is, that's projection now. But by respect to the organization. Yeah. It's pretty good. You know, it's not a crazy number if they show kind of modest growth. Yeah. Industrial use is going to grow. Industrial use of energy. Yeah. And transportation can grow that much, right? Right. This is kind of kind of declined or gasoline consumption is going to decline more fuel efficient. But eventually it turns around. Okay. Just to be clear, though, you're talking about energy in general, not any specific sources. So we're going to go to the fuel types in a second. And we're talking about the country, the national numbers. The whole United States. So this is for the whole United States. Including Hawaii. Including Hawaii. There you go. Awesome. Wow. If you move to the right side, the energy consumption by fuel, which is really the more sort of interesting area for us, you can see the petroleum and other liquids. So this would be gasoline, diesel fuel, ethanol, probably, well, maybe some of the ethanol is down to renewable. But mostly gasoline and diesel, liquid petroleum gas, LPG, stuff you use for the Tiki lights in Hawaii, all that stuff. So that actually, they show that declining and then slowly recovering to, you know, almost where it is now by 2050. So we don't see a lot of demand in what we call the liquid piece in the U.S., right? That's the top line. Petroleum declining at first and then ascending again. So this is gasoline, diesel fuel, liquid petroleum gas, probably condensate, petrochemical feedstock. Yeah. I don't see any renewables on the right-hand side of this chart. Well, you haven't seen them yet. We're going to get to them. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see. I see. It's down below. It says other renewable energy. Okay. There it is. Natural gas grows substantially, right? Yes. Largely. Part of this is exports. Part of this is, well, this is an industrial sector and the utility sector. Well, so you need a lot of gas to back up the renewables. Yes. And then you see, we have a decline. Coal continues to decline and kind of flattens off. Yeah. And then we have something called other renewable energy. Yes. And the reason they call it other renewable energy is they don't put hydroelectric power in there. Often people want to show a big increase or a big percentage of renewable power. They bury the hydro power in there. Hydro power really isn't that new. Yeah. That dams for a long time. So the EIA has separated out hydro power from other renewable energy. This is largely wind and solar. Okay. Yes. And that wind and solar grow. But it's out of the total, you know, it's only going to account for about 14 quadrillion BTUs, 14 quads. Okay. It'll be about equivalent to coal in 2050. Nuclear decline and hydroelectric power kind of remains constant. And that does what we call liquid bottom fuel. Okay. This is ethanol and whatever you guys do in Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. We're having a program about that next hour. Yeah. Yeah. So you can talk, you can kind of wring your hands over the tariffs. You can talk a lot about solar and stuff. But these are official forecasts from the U.S. government. Okay. So on that note, Lou, we're going to take a very short break. We're going to sort of integrate this. I'm going to come back and we're going to talk about the implications of it and the intersection of these numbers that you've given us, these charts and policy. We'll be right back, Lou. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Good afternoon. My name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at three o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. In the Chinese department. Okay. That's Lou Puliarisi. He's talking about his son who has a scholarship to the University of Washington, Nanjing, did you say? These are Minoa students. Minoa students. See what happens, you know. Hawaii does have a connection by way of Washington to Nanjing. So you have some more slides that you want to present to round the picture up. The first slide is, the next slide we have is, I call this, this is actually the courtesy of a good friend of mine, a brilliant physicist by the name of Mark Mill. He's a venture capitalist, also works as a scholar at the Manhattan Institute. And this follows the title of this slide is Doing Chemistries, right? And here's the interesting question. How much, if you think about an automobile, you want to know how far you can go for a pound of something, right? How far will a pound of fuel, a diesel fuel, a gasoline take you? And how far will a pound of a lithium battery take you? And if you look at this data and you get all we know about physics in the known universe, or at least in our current universe, you know, not an alternative universe, but in our universe, and you double the lithium battery. And this is really the extension of what we can do with the chemistry and the physics. We can probably go a mile a pound over time. But for a pound of diesel or gasoline, we can go seven times more. And the gasoline engines are also getting more efficient. So the first thing, we still have this problem with battery technology, right? It's just not as efficient, not as cost effective, and just doesn't take you as far as a pound. And remember, if we're going to do all this electric battery, we're going to have to mine lots of lithium around the world. We're going to have to accept those environmental costs from that. So I think that's something we should keep in mind. We still have to fix this problem. The second part, the last slide I want to talk to you about, why might the EIA numbers be correct? You know, what is it about the EIA numbers? If you think about the EIA forecast, it's basically a cost-based model. You know, the government policy is in there, but it has certain limits. So when they run their big NEMS model, this monster model of the U.S. economy, they put the cost in here. And this chart is very interesting. If you look at, on the left side, you have, what can you get for a million dollars of capital expenditures? That's what the cap acts like. So if I put a million dollars into a shale well, right, I can probably get 400 barrels of oil equivalent production over time. I can get in a wind turbine if I put that much money, 90, and a lot less than a solar, right? But that's one story. So right now, capital expenditures yield more energy output for a million dollars in the shale field. But let me ask you though, if you put a million dollars into shale, you're processing the shale, and then you've spent the million dollars and you've processed the shale, you have the bottles of oil, 400 of them, whatever, and it's gone. The money's gone. There are no assets left because the million dollars doesn't include the assets. It's talking about the processing. But if you have wind, then the cost of building a wind turbine leaves you with a wind turbine. You still have it. And the cost of putting photovoltaic up, yes, you have the photovoltaic energy, but you also have the panels left over, no? Is it ready to depreciation? Mm-hmm. Okay. You get depreciation in the shale well, eventually a decline, but you also keep that in, you have to repair and fix these wind turbines, they don't last forever, and even the photovoltaic way out. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that the million dollars is being to, includes depreciated and asset-based. But the right side is the more interesting point. Okay. The solar and wind are probably now reaching, if you look at this decline in the cost reduction, right? Mm-hmm. For solar and wind, you see by 2030, you're kind of, you're already in 2010, 2015, on the flat end of the cost curve. That is, the asymptote is coming down as close to zero as you go. There is no more improvement in this technology in front of us. Mm-hmm. So these numbers on the left reflect where we are in the terms of the improvement in this technology. Oddly enough, the shale well probably has still a few iterative technology at dances in front of it. Mm-hmm. It's not on its slope. So one of the dilemmas we face is we get a higher return for cattle action shale, and it's likely to improve, you know, maybe another 100% over the next 20 years. For the shale and wind, we're kind of done. And so we have to figure out what we do about that. Yes. Yeah. So, okay, that takes us to the next part of our discussion. How does this all, you know, you're talking about projections on, you know, on factors that are not necessarily linked to or a function of government policy. And I guess the question is, you know, what kind of government policy is inherent in this and what kind of changes might take place and how would those changes affect these numbers? We do know that, of course, we're going to need all the improvement we can get in batteries and solar and wind. But we're not going to get these kind of colossal transformations unless we're willing to pay a lot more. That's the conclusion I would take. Well, suppose I threw, how much is the wall supposed to cost? $18 billion? Suppose I threw $18 billion at getting, you know, better batteries. Or for just a small example, the cost of a military parade, you know, through the center of Washington. I know you're looking forward to that. So the cost of that, what, a couple hundred million, whatever it is. If you asked me what to do with that money at the margin, I would send it back to you as I put it in the article. But I believe that low return. That's just a good question, you know, how should we spend our money on public money? And probably the big return is invested in human capital. We kind of have plenty of dough invested in solar and wind. We're at the end of the cost and it's unclear the government has a lot more to add there. Yeah, we probably may be able to do, get some efficiencies in better management of the grid that are, you know, we should have a decent research program but at the margin that's just to be. Okay, I mean, but theoretically though, theoretically, I mean, if you put all the other issues aside and you make a decision that you want you want energy to be renewable why because of carbon emissions because of, may I say COP 23 and the Paris Accord. So if you make that decision what do you do? So if you decided that you wanted strategy to reduce emissions you probably should not be spending $1,800 a ton for zero emission vehicles as California does.  That is probably only like 50 bucks a ton. And that's the problem. It's not a local air pollution problem in the Los Angeles Basin. It's a global problem. And US policy is on the high end of the cost curve. Yes. I mean, I know the US administration is not particularly interested in environment nor are they interested in renewables looking at that coal line and the chart you showed one of those first slides and saying to myself, well, do we really need to have that much? If we were concerned about fossil fuel concerned about carbon emissions we would take the coal off not incentivizing it, but de-incentivizing it. Well, we could do that but I think the EIA numbers are very instrumental in that are suggesting that the existing policies which are largely what was in place when Obama left, right? The amount of changes the administration made are much more modest than you should believe reading them. The local newspaper, okay. But clean air most of the utility sector is driven by state policy anyway. Yes, you might be able to drive the coal down a bit more. You probably are having a little bit of a kind of expensive play on the nuclear side. Actually, that's one of the big dilemma. We are disincentivizing nuclear power or if you like we've created a regulatory framework that makes it very difficult to build out and extend our nuclear power plants which are emission free. Well, why he has a provision against it in the Constitution? It's been firmly invented. The Constitution prohibits nuclear power? No, it requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature. I think a special vote, a special percent. I think it would be a mistake for Hawaii to use nuclear power as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, but you know where does this fit? Because I think the demand and the expectations the charts the projections on those charts very valuable. But it also raises the question of what do we do to massage those numbers? What do we do to... Legislative approach. We've tried to ram and shoehorn all this climate stuff into something called the Clean Air Act. It doesn't really fit in it. The Clean Air Act was aimed at getting soot out of the atmosphere and local jurisdictions getting lead out of the fuel, things like that. This is a kind of global issue and it may also suggest that we should have a hard think about where to allocate our money between adaption and mitigation. And my view when I look at those numbers, I say, well, wow, the U.S. can probably alter those a little bit. We could put a lot of money and maybe drop the coal down a bit. You know, some people suggest you could buy out the whole coal industry 50 to 100 billion. 50 to 100 billion. Build a lot of schools, pay a lot of welfare, write a lot of social security checks. You've got to ask yourself, is it worth it? Maybe we need to rethink... That's an interesting question. ...some mitigation and less on... I mean, more into adaption and less on mitigation. I think it's a big problem. And right now we're kind of stuck. We're stuck. Yes, we probably should get them down. But this is the reality what's going to happen. Well, one of the things you mentioned in our preliminary discussions was the Exxon initiative around shale. Can you talk about that? They were going to invest in the United States $50 billion to produce oil and gas in the domestic economy. And my question is, well, why would they do that? But then you look at the EIA numbers and you say, well, they're doing that because EIA said the demand for gas is going to grow enormously in the U.S. And the Exxon is part of the world market. The U.S. is exporting a lot of oil to the world market. And we're going to continue to do so. Well, you know, this home raises the ultimate question which I would like to ask you here at the end of our show. And that is Hawaii. We're going to use these numbers. And let's assume that the common policy remains pretty much the same. The direction is pretty much the same. And so those numbers, those projections actually play out. So the question is, what is Hawaii or any state which has a certain interest in renewables? And we have a very enthusiastic interest in renewables. But what do we do to fold all those projections into our planning here in the economics? It is an island. The natural resources it has are largely renewable. And so the question that policymakers should ask themselves is why are they pursuing this policy as opposed to that policy? Is the intent of the policymakers in Hawaii to provide the lowest possible cost of power to the citizens of the state of Hawaii? Or is the policy to provide 100% renewable so people can be good when they go to an international company? I mean this is really. And the question is, that second alternative if you're realistic might be very, very expensive. And so probably you want to get on a path that kind of preserves the option of keeping the cost under control. But moves along and makes some progress on renewables. That makes sense. That's a great approach to it. Lou, this is a great discussion. We have to continue this. We have to discuss these various priorities and options and see how they affect Hawaii of course. Thank you so much for coming around for a show. We'll see you in two weeks I hope and I'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Aloha. Thank you so much.


A table completes most rooms, whether it is a classroom, a dining room, an office, or a work desk, or my personal favorite, a creativity zone. During the pandemic, I had a gigantic IKEA-inspired mahogany table and Alex Drover made to order. As a person obsessed with cleanliness and furniture, I have made dozens of videos about my desk setup on the channel throughout the years, and I'll leave links to them in the video description.  So for years, I've found myself daydreaming what it would be like to have a desk which could adjust itself at my own will. Stance Philippines reached out to us and sent us over this dual motor standing desk for us to try out. This video is not sponsored in any way, and we will be returning the desk after this review period. I knew early on that I needed to answer two things for you guys. Number one, can a regular consumer justify the price for this desk? And two, how reliable and practical is it to use? I'm Rafael from Hardware Sugar and this is my two week review of the Stance Executive Dual Motor Standing Desk. In its simplest form, the table is a motorized extendable steel platform which is bolted into a single plank of laminated wood. The most delicate thing about the desk does not seem to be the motor at all, but rather the tabletop. I chose this maple wood theme which is pleasing to the eye. However, I can already tell you that over time, you will see dings on the edges which would remove the laminate if you're not extremely careful with the tabletop when you place things on top of it. You therefore must be extremely careful when placing things on top of the table, even more so than usual. Even my 100% thick mahogany desktop has not been spared scuffs over the years. The maximum height of the desk is 129 centimeters or 4.2 feet. While the lowest height it can go is 64 centimeters or 2.09 feet. The number on the control panel corresponds to centimeters and you can go as low or as high as one centimeter each time. There is definitely a motorized sound, however it is not very loud and actually makes the experience of switching heights much more enjoyable. You also don't need to worry about placing a heavy computer setup or the weight of anyone leaning on the table. The desk can support a maximum weight of 120 kilograms or 264 pounds. This is a very important thing to take into consideration if you are interested in getting a standing desk as I noticed that cheaper desks handle less weight which could be a deal breaker depending on what sort of setup you're looking for. You can choose to order this table fully assembled or unassembled. This particular one was delivered to my room fully assembled and with the wire conveniently ready for an outlet. If you live in Manila, I highly recommend this option instead of assembling it yourself. One thing you need to keep in mind is that you must angle your table towards an outlet in order to minimize the amount of cables lag you leave behind. One of the features which most motorized desks do not have are wheels. Not only does this table have wheels but it has soft rubber padded ones which are wood friendly. If you have watched any of my chair videos you know how much I recommend these rubber casters for everyone's chairs because of how it prevents damage to flooring. Wheels on this desk however opens up so many possibilities when it comes to its use. Well a lot of people will probably use this as their workstation in which you won't be able to move it around with a computer on it. Another option is to use it as a creativity study desk which can also substitute as a bar table and even a dining table. If you live in a small apartment I see that this single table can replace several other tables because of its wheels and the fact that the height is so greatly adjustable. The frame is tastefully crafted. Jet black steel with some subtle curves at the bottom make it not only elegant but feels and looks very premium. Stance made sure that everything about this desk especially the parts you don't usually see at the bottom have been carefully molded into a product which looks good from all the angles. A cheaper furniture maker would undoubtedly care very little if the bottom part of the desk had imperfections such as rusty nails, scratches on the paint, or even uneven surfaces. This desk has none of that even the tabletop which isn't as strong and as thick as the mahogany of my personal desk although it is laminate and probably fadrile seems to be well assembled nevertheless. Finally we get to the controls which are located on the right side of the desk. How it works is that after plugging in the desk you select the up and down arrow keys to adjust the height. A number corresponding to the height the desk is currently on shows up on the left side. This is smart that way you don't need to keep on guessing what height you like the table to be at. What makes it more convenient is that you can save three height presets. For me the two most important ones are when I wish to sit down and when I wish to work standing up. You just need to tap the number and the table will adjust accordingly without you having to hold it down. As a bonus there is a type A port for device charging located on the sign. It is quite high and it adds and attracts quickly and efficiently. I'll get into why this is important later in the video. Let's talk stability. I noticed that the table moves when I am typing or hand writing on the desk. It is slightly more susceptible to movement the higher the desk is. This is a minor annoyance for me and after several hours of use I have never felt dizzy when using a monitor which moves a little during rigorous typing sessions. If however you are more sensitive to this you need to take this into consideration. I believe that this is due to the dense and light nature of the tabletop itself. I would recommend that an option for a stronger and thicker tabletop be provided for those who wish to spend on it. The subtle shaking of the monitor as I type the tracks from the otherwise premium nature of the product as a whole. The following personal problems that have plagued me for years have been solved. First it is essential that one's arms are leveled without the desk so that unnecessary strain is not placed on the wrists or elbows. This is a constant problem for me with my desk which I designed myself. If I could get it one or two inches lower it would be perfect for the height of my chair but alas the only option for me to get this right would be to shave off an inch quite literally off of these drawers including my extension cabinet. The compatibility between a table and your chair is essential for optimal comfort and productivity. Each time you change one of them whether it is a table but keeps the chair or vice versa there is a chance that the other is no longer as good a fit. The adjustability of the desk obviously solves this. Secondly because of my first issue I constantly have my air on chair adjusted to its maximum height thus forcing me to buy a foot support to make sure that my legs remain straight on the ground. Without my foot support my legs are dangling by just a little and thus cause discomfort in my hamstrings. Again a quick push of a button and a problem that I've agonized over about are quickly forgotten and I now no longer need the foot support. One of the best parts of a reclining chair is to be able to put one's feet up and being able to do so at various angles. This has nothing to do with productivity but just good old fashioned it feels good because I can. Most would assume that a standing desk is meant entirely for people who intend to permanently fix a monitor or some form of computer setup on top of it. This isn't true. A standing desk can be used for so much more than just a computer station. The other uses I outline are in fact the main reasons why I would endorse this standing desk despite its price tag. The first is how easily this desk doubles as a dining table. If you live in a small apartment a dining table and a work table are sometimes the same thing. The problem with a dining table is that you usually need to have dining chairs if you are occasionally hosting a large group of people. Bringing the table to an appropriate height now converts it into a bar style counter. Thus friends and family can choose to dine and drink while leaning on the table for support. Of course this may not suit everyone's preference but for me at least I really enjoy drinking a steaming cup of coffee or matcha green tea while looking out at the sunset or sunrise while reading a book. Part of incorporating a standing desk reminded me of the romance involved in leaning on a desk while standing. In a way it makes me more engaged with the material I'm reading or working on. If you've ever been to a conference or a networking event one usually enjoys a drink with a few finger foods while jumping from standing table to table. As someone who usually played host to various parties growing up from high school all the way up until college I definitely see the appeal of using the standing desk as a way to keep the momentum of the party going. I've lost track of how quickly people got too comfortable on the couch with a beer and they just simply drift off. Note that the fact that this particular desk from stands has wheels means you can move it from room to room as needed. It does conserve as a dining table as well as a creativity desk. Another practical use is to use the desk as a creativity zone. I dislike how even in my own desk which I purposely made wide I have to first move my keyboard mouse stream deck and mouse pad away from me if I want to use a desk for other things such as brainstorming or even studying a pdf on my ipad and even with the stuff out of the way I am easily distracted by the allure of what is on my computer monitor which stands to taunt me when I really just want to work while being disconnected.  One of the best things I like about the Herman Miller Aeron chair is that it gives you so much versatility when it comes to how far you lean back and how much tension is required to do so. The purpose of this is to make one feel less tired. The same thing can be said about ditching a chair all together and do the same work while standing. Essentially switching up how you're working definitely improves your productivity. The major drawbacks of this desk are twofold. First it is easy to quickly clutter the desk if you do not have drawer space elsewhere. As you can see you don't get any drawers at all here. This would mean you may need to spend on a cabinet of sort and worry about where to store that in addition to your desk. Next you need to worry about getting things from there and bringing it back to your desk all the time which can get really irritating. Lastly because of how narrow the depth is your option for cable management is limited. Personally I dislike seeing wires or even cable management tools if I see it underneath the desk. The latter however is a minor thing compared to the benefits a desk provides overall. Now we get to the most daunting thing of all price at 19,990 pesos this isn't the cheapest desk in the market. If you want to have a standing desk but can live without the motorized system and don't want to be bothered about finding an outlet I suggest you look into a chaos trotten desk which is priced at 10,890 pesos and it has a manual crank lever rather than an automated system. You get around the same measurements with a similar shape thus you can therefore use it for everything I mentioned above except for the fact that it does not come with these really nice wheels. The latter is so important when it comes to considering it as an additional piece of useful furniture. We are less likely to like the idea of using one piece of furniture for two purposes if it requires us to exert a lot of effort to get ready to switch from mode to mode. Thus the wheels are super super handy. According to Stance Philippines the desk comes with a six-year warranty and that includes both the frame and the motor. Should anything break down within this period and such was not caused by our own abuse then the parts will be replaced for free. You do however need to pick it up or ship it to their service center at your own expense. In conclusion the Stance Executive Dual Monitor Standing Desk has surprised me. I originally wanted to try out a desk for the purpose of experiencing the novelty of it. I had no intention of actually wanting one because of the limited cable management options and drawer space provided. What really got me hooked on the desk however was the concept of converting it into a creativity zone where I could work on projects which require me to disconnect just writing essays and short stories and even this script. I also genuinely like the option to watch TV while sipping steaming hot matcha after a work day. No matter how good a chair I've invested in my back always feels better when I have stood up completely and I'm away from my sofa bed and chair. I'll leave you with this thought. If we change our cell phones once every three years, upgrade our computers every four or five years, how often do we upgrade our desks and our chairs? Up until the pandemic I hadn't upgraded my chair in eight years and my own childhood table since I was seven years old. It is okay to treat yourself to good furniture which makes you more productive and enjoy life differently as opposed to just binging on the latest gadgets all the time. Sometimes people ask if we know a computer shop that is trusted by those who are not crazy. Actually, we do. Full-service PC store and hardware sugar. We sell PC components. We also sell fully assembled rigs. We clean computers. Our excellent cable management and CPU cooler repasting in cleaning. We also clean and repaste GPUs. In our physical store and you can also buy from our site, www.hwsugar.ph, which is 100% up-to-date inventory. If the item is in stock, it is available on the site. We also ship nationwide. Thanks for watching and maybe one of these days, we'll see you at the shop.