Okay, good morning, everyone. So this conference is about the future of central banking. Yesterday we had sessions on the future of macroeconomics, the future of monetary policy, which of course are topics which would be on the program Anywhere in the World where there was a conference about the future of central banking. But of course here in Europe, it's necessary to have a third conversation which is relating to the unique nature of the European Monetary Union, where we have a single monetary policy, a single central bank, but of course 19 member countries. And of course, this is a much broader conversation than the role of the central bank, but the central bank ECB, the EUR system of course, has to be super aware of the nature of a monetary union and the constraints associated with the architecture at a given point in time. So I think in discussing the future of EMU, it's especially helpful to people who have been involved in this debate even before the euro was launched. So I think the design of this panel is very appropriate given the lineup of speakers. I should say also, I just went back and I checked to see what VTOR had written on this topic before. I wouldn't claim to have searched the full Portuguese archives from the 1990s, but I did find in the 2004 ECB Central Banking Conference, VTOR wrote a very interesting essay on the experience of Portugal so far. And I would encourage you to actually go back and read that. It's very much consistent with the dinner speech from Jean-Claude Trichet last night. A lot of concern about imbalances. A lot of concern about the absence of self-correcting mechanisms within the euro area. And of course, everyone looking back in time, rerunning history while we knew then, while we know now. It's a really an ongoing conversation. So this morning, let me first turn to the first presentation, which is from Barry Ockengreen. So Barry, over to you. Thank you, Phillip, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Management, which means both the organizing team and VTOR, Constancio, have asked me to talk about new developments in the theory of monetary unions or optimum currency area theory. So this could in principle be a very short talk. One way of viewing the literature is that there has been remarkably little new theorizing about the nature of monetary unions since the advent of the euro. One could make a stronger statement that there's been relatively little new theorizing since Mandel, 1961. But I think there is an important new strand in the literature which emphasizes financial factors, cross-border financial flows within the monetary union and financial fragility, issues that were sadly neglected by the fathers and mothers of optimum currency area theory and could have attracted more attention as well. I think in the run-up to the euro in 1999. And VTOR has been a significant figure, I think, in contributing to that discussion about the role of finance, the role of imbalances within the eurozone and those new developments. So when I think about this topic, I am a naturally drawn, I am a prisoner of my own earlier work as many of us are, I think this article may be my most widely cited in economics closing in on 2000 citations. Last time I looked which is testimony to the intellectual heft of my co-author, Tam Bayoumi, at the International Monetary Fund. The conclusion of that piece, which was published happily exactly 25 years ago in 1993, was that proceeding with a large monetary union encompassing not only the European core or the Northern European countries, but also Southern Europe or peripheral Europe or the club-med countries, as they were sometimes called at the time, was problematic. So we built directly on the theory of optimum currency areas, such as it was, it is, which looks at a number of preconditions for the existence of a smoothly functioning monetary union, where in this paper we looked both at the nature of business cycle disturbances and how correlated or not they were across potential constituent states of the monetary union. We looked also at some aspects of the adjustment mechanism, whether the adjustment mechanism indicated faster adjustment, reflecting greater labor mobility, for example, in some cases than others, but it was really the symmetry or asymmetry of disturbances across the constituent member states that we focused on. The basic framework could not be simpler. It was a straightforward aggregate supply, aggregate demand setup in which aggregate demand shocks raise output temporarily as you shift the downward-soaping aggregate demand curve to the right and prices, but over time the system rotates back toward the unchanged vertical long-run aggregate supply curve where there is no long-run or permanent impact on the level of output, but there is an impact on the level of prices. Contrasting, contrasted with an aggregate supply shock where you shift both the short-run and the long-run aggregate supply curves to the right, meaning that both output rises and prices decline permanently in the long-run. So we estimated these two relationships using time series on prices and output country by country, actually the percentage changes in prices and output. We distinguished two shocks or disturbances, one that was constrained to affect output only temporarily, but prices permanently, the aggregate so-called aggregate demand shock, and a second shock that was allowed to affect both output and prices permanently, the permanent or so-called aggregate supply shock. So we estimated this by variant vector auto regression in prices and output with these structural restrictions. Imposed, we looked at how correlated, how symmetric or asymmetric the estimated shocks were across countries, and we compared the situation in different candidate member states in Europe with that in the United States where we distinguished a dozen or so census regions where the thought experiment for Europe was how correlated were these temporary and permanent aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks in different countries, how correlated were they with those in Germany, in the case of the United States, the center or anchor region that we mostly work with was the middle Atlantic states. This is what we found when we had data up through 1988. We found that the correlation of shocks with those in the anchor country or region were lower in Europe than in the United States. So in principle, you wanna be in the upper right-hand corner of these boxes where you have a high correlation of demand shocks on the vertical axis and supply shocks on the horizontal, and you can see there's more such clustering in the case of US regions than there is in the case of European countries. And you can see in the top panel as well that there was a clear distinction between two groups of European countries, a European core where the correlation of shocks was quite similar in some sense to that evident among US regions and then a second group of countries where everybody now knows who they were, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain and the UK, where the correlation was noticeably lower. So that was the basis for our conclusion that a subset of European countries did not obviously fail to meet this precondition for a smoothly operating monetary union along US lines, but proceeding with a large monetary union including these peripheral, so-called peripheral European countries would be much more problematic. So here's the update using data now basically from 1994 through 2014. European countries obviously in red and US regions in blue. The red dots are still further from the upper right-hand corner of the quasi box. Europe still looks less like an optimum currency area than does the United States, judged on this particular criterion the red dots for Europe tend to be lower and further to the left. The US data points do not look very different from before. There are some small differences in the correlation with mid-Atlantic reflecting I think changes in the geography of manufacturing activity in the United States over the last couple of decades, but the results for the US and I'll show you some further results for the US in a moment are quite similar to what we found a quarter of a century ago. Europe looks a little bit more like an optimum currency area today than it did using the pre-1989 data. So in this figure the blue dots are European correlations with Germany in the period up through 1988 and the red dots are the correlations with Germany for the same countries using the data from 1994. The red dots are a little bit further to the right, reflecting mainly a stronger correlation of aggregate demand shocks, which some might say is a logical implication of the fact that the monetary disturbances affecting these economies are now more similar. What's unexpected in this figure is that the correlation of disturbances, the correlation of demand shocks especially, but supply shocks as well, has grown more symmetric with those in Germany, not in the Northern European countries, but in the crisis countries. It's in Greece, in Ireland, in Spain, in that group of countries where the correlation with Germany has gone up and is greatest. So that was the big surprise of our update. We went back and checked our code four times to be sure this was not a programming error and we are very confident at this point that it's not. So something else is going on here that needs to be understood. Our interpretation of what's going on is that this correlation reflects capital flows between Northern and Southern Europe on a scale that tied these economies together, on a scale that did not exist prior to the Euro. So to put it in simple terms, large capital flows from Germany to the South led those economies to boom together between 2001 and 2008, and then Germany slows down after the global financial crisis and the capital flow reverses direction, the peripheral European economies slow down as well. So we then went on to look at how these correlations were affected by introducing financial factors into the model, into the vector auto regression. So we introduced real interest rates, we introduced real credit growth and we introduced the change in real housing prices to link back to the discussions that we had yesterday afternoon. And when you do that, the correlation of disturbances between Germany and the peripheral European countries goes down to much, much lower levels. So we interpret that as being consistent with the idea that it is financial factors and financial flows that are driving this new pattern. There is in addition another twist. If you have a simple two bivariate vector auto regression, you can shock it and look at the impulse response functions. In our earlier study, the impulse response functions were well behaved when you subject the system to an aggregate supply shock. In the US, as I show you here, but in Europe as well, you get the predicted increase in output and decline in prices. The red line there shows you the impulse response and when you subject the system to an aggregate demand shock, prices and output rise in the short run and then by constraint, output falls back to its initial level. Nothing in the way we estimate this model dictates which way prices ought to move and we found it quite reassuring earlier that prices moved in the theoretically correct, expected direction in response to the temporary and permanent shocks. That gave us confidence that we could loosely refer to these as aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks. And in other words, there's a correspondence between the model and the impulse responses as you see here. Now we continue to find exactly the same thing for the United States, but the impulse responses for Europe look peculiar. Now positive supply shocks raise output but also raise prices where the textbook aggregate supply demand model suggests prices ought to go down. Positive demand shocks reduce prices where the textbook aggregate supply aggregate demand model says they should raise them. So these are our well-behaved impulse responses for the United States. Here are our initially horrifying to the authors impulse responses for Europe in the period since 1994 where the permanent shock is in red and the temporary shock by construction is in blue. So how might we understand this?  Shifting the two curves around arbitrarily as I show you in the right-hand panels is sufficient to generate a pattern that looks like this. What might the underlying economics be? Our interpretation is in terms of hysteresis and the financial cycle, by financial cycle we mean that positive supply shock set off a financial response that also affects demand and that positive demand shock is permanent absent another disturbance to the system hence the hysteresis. Consider the left-hand panel here the story would go as follows. A positive supply shock first raises output because plausibly consistent with arguments about the benefits of monetary union a more stable policy environment due to the euro increases aggregate supply that boosts productivity and profitability that in turn raises asset prices and sets off a lending boom the lending boom increases aggregate demand in the case we depict here even more than aggregate supply and the result of that large boost to aggregate demand is that you get higher prices in conjunction with this increase in aggregate supply. So we interpret that as the pre-2008 case when peripheral European countries experienced a positive supply shock, a lending boom and higher output together with higher prices i.e. loss of competitiveness and shock but not coming from here, all right. All right, so where was I? You can run the same thought experiment in reverse post-2008 think of a negative supply shock due to impairment of the European financial system. Lower prices also mean an asset price slump and therefore less lending demand falls along with supply the demand curve shifts to the left the result is recession and deflation and hysteresis implies that the result is permanent. So what conclusions do I draw from this exercise? First, it's no surprise that the euro area continues to experience difficulties. It remains further than the benchmark represented by the United States from satisfying the preconditions for an optimum currency area. Shocks are still asymmetric adjustment to those shocks not shown here but shown elsewhere remains difficult. No fiscal federalism, lower levels of labor mobility. Moreover, the evidence suggests that while the euro had positive efficiency effects the associated positive supply shock unleashed large capital flows between northern and southern Europe inflating asset prices in the south. The resulting lending boom boosted demand in southern Europe that created the mirage of prosperity but also led to a permanent loss of competitiveness suggesting obviously enough the need to do something about this capital flow problem and its effects. It's all about financial markets. In other words, as people like Vitor Constancio have repeatedly reminded us. Thank you. Thank you Barry and thank you also for being inside the time limit which is I think a first for this event. So Lucrezio over to you. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here to discuss this paper because it reminds me of my youth. It was 1993 and we were innocent at the time and that we were looking at optimal currency areas. That was a long time ago. It's also a pleasure to be here for Vitor who is my favorite member of the executive board and I can't say that because there is nobody else. Okay, good to be here. Barry's has two green conclusions. So at 20 years from the establishment of the European Monetary Union, the eurozone is still further from the optimal currency area than the US is. So shocks are still asymmetric. And the second conclusion is that the euro area has some efficiency effects but these efficiency effects were exactly the factors that led to large capital flows from the north to the south and loss of competitiveness. And I will call that the perils of financial integration. Now that story has been told before so I'm not going to bother you with my version of the story and what I'm going to try to do in this discussion is to look at the data from a much more brutal perspective to try to understand what have been the big fact about the kind of synchronization of business cycles in the before the inception of the euro in the euro sample and then post-crisis. And actually the facts that I want to dig out are basically two that is very important to distinguish between pre-crisis and post-crisis. And I think that pre-crisis so by pre-crisis I mean the sample of the euro from 1999 to 2008 there were two big things nominal convergence and then of course business cycle features that according to my analysis were not significantly different than in the pre-crisis sample. Now once the crisis hits and the emu or your face the first large shock of his existence actually things change and the real asymmetries actually showed up much more forcefully than before. And there are many stories that one can say about that factor, financial frictions leading to asymmetries, post-crisis fiscal policy, lack of crisis management tools and so on. But before telling the stories let me just point to the fact. So that is my first fact, okay? So this is just a measure of asymmetries. So it's the distance between the growth or potential output in each country with respect to the European average. So this is what I call real asymmetries and on the right hand side you have nominal asymmetries which is the same measure but for inflation. And so this is my first fact and you can see that it's very important to distinguish which samples you're talking about because otherwise you're mixing quite different things. So we had the periods of the great moderation which is there in the middle where there are very little asymmetries because there was very little volatility. So low volatilities, low asymmetries and then big shocks, the crisis and again asymmetries manifested themselves. Now it's quite different stories for nominal because one of the main driving force pre-euro and then in the euro has been nominal convergence. Inflation rates are very similar across countries. And there is kind of a forceful international element but there is also the credibility of monetary policy behind those facts which is one of the things that actually was absent in the old optimal currency area. Literature, so the role of monetary policy as a forceful inducing credibility and so on. We know that there are other factors but in terms of nominal convergence this is important and it's also a fact that maybe would help us to interpret some of Barry's results on which are in terms of real output and prices mixing these two samples. Now the second point I would like to make is that real correlation across country did not change in the first 10 years of the euros with respect to the past. And here I also want to revisit a paper that I wrote to celebrate the first 10 years of the euros before Lehman Brothers saying fantastically we are an optimal currency area. So this is the GDP per head 1970 to 1999 for the average and these are up to 1999 the rate of growth of what I call the blue countries. The blue countries are not the core because in the blue country I also put Italy. Italy has also always been very much synchronized with the euro area average. So countries that in the 1970 had a very similar income per capita level have also countries which have moved very much in sync through the sample. And now this is I add up a few years so this includes the euro area sample and this is the average and here again are the blue countries. So very much synchronized not much has changed. This is not econometrics, okay? This is just a chart. Now what about the red countries? The red countries are not just the periphery but I put in the red country Finland for example, Luxembourg and so on small open economy which had very different starting condition in 1970. These are the red countries. So historically the red countries have been always very volatile. So this is in the sample preceding the euro and in the euro so there is this larger volatility boom and bust which characterize the real cycles in these countries. So now you can put this, you can do a formal exercise. You know I have, I'm an econometrician by background so I like to put standard errors around stuff. And then one way of putting the standard errors around this correlation is to do the following exercise. Suppose you were in 1999, okay? And you knew the euro area path of real GDP growth, okay, from 1999 to, you know, to 2017. Could have you anticipated, you know, the behavior of GDP of each country on the basis of the past correlations so the historical regularities and your knowledge of the future. So your knowledge of the euro area, you know, kind of realization of output. So the answer is yes but the uncertainty for the red countries is so large that it's very difficult, I mean, one of the reasons why the answer is yes, that, you know, that the conditional path is not significantly different from what you observe. The reason is that there is so much uncertainty because of the red countries are so volatile that these differences are not significant. And okay, this is my country factor. The red countries are in the circles. You have there the actual path which is in black, that conditional path which is in red is like what output would have been like if I knew the future, if I had known, you know, the average realization of GDP. If you focus on the left or that line which is the euro area, I mean, the big, the great recession, you can see that the difference between the conditional path and the actual path is not significant. So, but there is a lot of uncertainty. Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, Greece, Finland, they're all countries which historically have had very weak association with the euro area, with the euro area, while Italy is in the other camp. So I think the story is much more complicated. These countries where countries have started with different initial conditions so they were converging against something absent for the optimal currency area literature that these issues of convergence growth is completely out of that model. So that's another thing, no monetary policy, no convergence. So without those factors is very difficult to match that theory with the data because you know that there are all these things going on. Now, you can do another formal exercise to say now, instead of putting myself at the beginning of the euro and putting myself in 2008, just before the great recession, I'm going to ask the same questions. Could have anticipated such heterogeneity? Well, the answer unfortunately is no. Now the heterogeneity has been much larger than could have anticipated. And here, I think now this is in level because I think it's clear, but I mean, I don't know if these charts are visible, but let me just tell you the story. Again, you have the bands, so if you see that a black line gets out of those colorful bands, that means that there is something significantly large going on. And you see that there are two countries, actually there are three countries that stand out where the black line is outside. One is Italy, which has done much worse than could have been anticipated with the pre-euro history. The other one is Germany, which has done much, much better than could have been anticipated. And the other one is Greece, but we know the story about Greece. All the other countries have done more or less in line with this. Well, except for Ireland had a very bad crisis, but now it's back on track. It has been the kind of had a deeper crisis that could have been anticipated. So that means that, first of all, that the big shocks are different than business as usual. The optimal currency area is a theory for shocks in normal times, while this is a chart that tells you that in facing big shocks, this is where the euro area did badly in terms of heterogeneity. But it is not about the pigs. It's not about the core and the periphery. It's much more complex. I mean, the countries that actually did differently than could have anticipated are Italy and Germany, beside, of course, Greece, which is an outlier in these stories. So I think this is a, I mean, I think that Barry's story is about the boom and bust and financial integration. It's a very powerful story has been, and I'm sure that it's a big part of the explanation, but there is another story here. And this is not a story about boom and bust. It is a story about countries with very kind of long-term stagnations, which Italy and the countries that benefit very much from the way in which the crisis unfold itself. Now, the fourth point, he's here. How did we do with respect to the US? Now, I mean, I'm conditioning the euro area average with respect to the US. The black line is the actual GDP per capita. The blue line is what we could have expected conditionally on US realization and pre-crisis correlations. We have done much, much worse than expected, but by a significant magnitude. So overall, we didn't do very well. And the heterogeneity is there, but the big fact is that overall, we did badly. So why are the big shocks different? I mean, I can tell you a lot of stories, and I mean, the stories have been told also yesterday. Recession with financial crisis are nasties. They lead to asymmetries. This is true everywhere, not only in the currency areas. It has been true in the US. In the euro area, this is compounded by poor crisis management capacity, pro-cyclical fiscal policy, whatever. So I don't have to explain to this audience what went wrong. Let me just tell you, give you another chart. This is just description, is an index. I'm out of time. I have one minute. On the left-hand side, you have deficit over GDP. On the right-hand side, you have debt over GDP. For the euro area as a whole, you have three recessions. The comparison of three recessions is an index. So I put equal to 100, the beginning of the recession. And the green is the last recession. So as a result of the crisis, we had a huge deficit. And from the third quarter on 2009, we started a huge consolidation, which had never been seen in the history of the euro area. Look at how huge is the order of magnitude, is the comparison with the other two big recessions that we have experienced in the last 30 years. So this must be part of the story. So what does this say about optimum currency area? I mean, I'm not sure that AUKUS is a very useful model of the euro area crisis, of the euro area adjustment. It does not take into account the role of monetary policy gradability. I show you the nominal convergence as a sign of a powerful thing that went on. Does not deal with countries growing at different rates, the red and the blue countries. Does not deal with financial disruption, at least not formally. And these asymmetries have been the result of this big financial 2008 shock. So conclusions. It might be that the euro area is dysfunctional. But for reasons which were not anticipated by the AUKUS literature to function, we need to strengthen the governance. I agree with Barry. A lot might be about finance. Thank you. Thank you, Lucre.


Welcome to the show. Here we are once again. Okay, so for today's show, I have some songs that have been going crazy like non-stop in my head. So before I even do my PSA stuff, here go the songs because I need them out of my head and like to whoever they're meant for. So if you're not familiar with my show, welcome to the show. If you are familiar with my show, welcome back to the show. Spirit or loved ones on the other side will bring songs in. Now, one song can be for like 50 different people for 50 different reasons. The song, if I sing the lyrics because I don't know the words, but if I do the lyrics and you know this song and it either answers a question. It was a song that a loved one on the other side loved or it's just something that means something in your life or you associate this song with somebody on the other side. The songs for you and there's no limit to how or why a song could be for you. Okay, if it's just a song you like and somebody on the other side is sending it through, it's for you from somebody on the other side or it's their song that they like. It's for you from somebody on the other side. So the first song is a Marvin Gaye song and there were actually two Marvin Gaye songs, but the other song I can't. Maybe it will come through as I'm doing this, but the song is when I get that feeling I need sexual healing. Okay, so that's the first song. So whoever that's for and why ever it's for you, it's yours now.  And the second song I don't even know all of the words to it. I can tell you I can barely barely get the the lyrics I'm supposed to be getting. And I'm going to mess up the lyrics and I know I am and if you're watching on YouTube you can correct me if you know this song. Something like something on my knob, like corn on the cob. I don't really know that song. I keep hearing that verse over and over again. I'm not really sure about that song, what it means and I mean we can all kind of try to guess what that means but yeah, there's that okay. Maybe it's slob on my knob, like corn on the cob. Not really sure if you know. Let me know. Okay, the next song is. Oh my goodness it was just there and it's gone as as the show goes on if songs come through. I will give them to you. Okay. And then I have somebody Brian on the other side reaching out saying hey hey. I think Brian, Brian, it is Brian for sure. I think the person name, like sometimes when I get a name that's somebody here, sometimes it's somebody there. I think Brian's there because he's saying hey says hey says hey says. So if you have a brother named Brian on the other side that would be for you. Okay, now to my PSAs. I'm sure there will be many more songs throughout the song is the show so please. Here we go. First and foremost, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me for this hour. We are going to try to have an amazing time during this show. Who I want to thank everybody that has called in please, I will try to get to every single caller and or every person that asks a question on line. And if you're watching me on YouTube right now live, you can put your question in to the YouTube thing and chat and I will try to get to it. If you are watching me on one of the many television stations or listening to the replay of the podcast, you can join us live every Monday and Wednesday at noon central time. Yeah. Please I will never reach out to you for a reading or anything like that. If you want an appointment, you reach out to me. I do not reach out to people. So don't get scammed is my whole thing on any social media do not get scammed. Okay, don't do it. Don't do it. I tried to put my website on everything so you can go directly to my website and get information about me if you would like a private appointment are writing now. Here we go. I want to say hi to everybody on YouTube with me this morning.  So we have Aaron. Hey, Mo, Amy, Genevieve, Heather, Estella, Caroline. Hi, Caroline. Caroline. I think it's Caroline. Caroline, Caroline. I'm pretty sure it's Caroline. Fawn. Hey, Fawn. Genevieve, Terry. I just love you guys so much, Sal. Oh, Patrick. Hey, Patrick. And then Heather, Terry, Genevieve. Yeah, you guys, you're the best. I just love I'm so I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for you guys being here with me on this journey growing with, you know, we're all growing and we're learning together and, you know, connecting with spirits together. That's like so freaking amazing. I know that on in this world, the one thing we have is time. That's irreplaceable. We can never get time back. So when somebody takes even two minutes of their day to join me on the show or just have a conversation with me when people spend their time with you, that's the only asset that they cannot get back. Like we can't add that later on. Like, that's why people make the joke.  I'll never get back. So thank you so much for spending that time with me and being here with this show and adding your good energy and love to it. And we're going to get going now. Question time. So on this show, I will answer one question or help you connect with a loved one on the other side. If you want to connect with a loved one on the other side, please have their name and their relationship ready for me. It means like Judy, my mom, Bill, my uncle, Al, my dad. And then if there's a specific question and or conversation or closure that you need from them, ask that so that I can get you what you want from the jump right away. Boom, boom, boom. Second, if you have a question about your life, something you want to know about your life, excuse me, work, career, not always the same thing. Finance is money, not always the same thing. What is going on with you guys today? Like, okay, love, career, finance, money, any aspect of your life at all. Oh my goodness. Any aspect of your life at all. You can ask that question, have that question like teed up and ready to go. And I'll be happy to answer that question for you. Okay. If you ask a question like what does spirit want me to know, that's going to just take a little bit longer and you might not like the answer because spirit doesn't always come through with, oh, your rainbow and butterflies.  It's not what the spirit is going to tell you if you just ask, oh spirit, tell me, tell me something. They're going to say get your poop in a group and let's get going. Let's get going. Like, you're doing good, but let's do better.  Watch your spending. Don't sleep so much.  That's what spirit is. Always going to say to us, you drink too much caffeine, alcohol or coffee. I mean, come on, could you be more specific spirit? I'm trying to be funny, you guys. I hope you are laughing with me. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Yes. Okay. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to go through and read the messages that people have loved and I'm sorry that I can't right now because I have to get to callers. If you are on YouTube with me right now and you asked a question, please put it on the, please put the question in again so I can get your question. And Amy Hu, Amy my girl, answered my song, it's Slab on my knob. Did you guys see that hit me all the while? Slab on my knob, like corn on the cob. Oh my God. That is master lyrical. Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Okay, so, okay, so listen, I'm going to go to the first caller and the first caller. When I say your area code, please tell me your name and where you're calling from 417, 417. What's your name? Where are you calling from? My name is Linda. I'm calling from North Carolina. And I wanted to see what my mom or brother, they passed around the same time, maybe a couple weeks from each other. So I wanted to see if they had anything to tell me. Yeah, okay. So I always like to, and real quick, Linda, I'm really sorry I'm going to do this right now. My youngest brother, Stevie just called and reminded me, hey, Stevie, I love you enough for those of you who watch the show on a regular, you know, who Stevie is. Stevie is my youngest little brother who has Down syndrome and he, he, he loves when I give him a shout out and he was just calling. So I want to acknowledge him because otherwise I will forget. Okay, so please tell me the name of your brother and your mom because I love to address spirit by their name, even though they're both right here, like they're like right here. Do you see that? No. No, okay. So what's their name, please? My brother, my brother's name is Frank and my mom is Rosina. Rosina, okay. So, okay, so they're right here and you're, they, they switched sides. So first your brother was, was on like, what would be the right and your mom was on the left and now they switched sides. So your brother stepped in closer. So that means to me, all that means is that when they came in, your brother had like his left arm around your mom and now they switched sides. And the only reason they would do that is to let me know that your brother is going to be giving the first message. So when, for me folks, when people give a message, I don't hear a male or female voice and actually, I don't hear a voice because, because then I might need a doctor because like I would be hearing voices outside of my head. What it is, is it's, it's, I'm, I'm literally a channel where the words they say kind of come through me and come out of my mouth. And sometimes I know what the words are going to be. I can have a feeling. I might hear one or two of the words.  So don't hold me accountable for it. I'm just saying, let her fly, let her fly. So the first thing that your brother wants to say is, he knows. Okay, so, and sometimes folks, and I'm sorry, and sweetie, I'm going to get, I'm going to get to this. I love this, because I get to explain a lot to people. The messages are meant for the caller, and the caller should know what it means. And as much as I want to get into it to and ask them, what did you do? How'd you do it? Why'd you do it? I can't. It's for the caller. It's for the caller. We all want to get the tea. We all want to know what happened, why it happened, but we don't get to sometimes. So the first thing that your brother is saying, and when I say this, everybody's going to understand why I just said what I said. I'm sorry I did what I did. I'm sorry I did what I did.  This can be something, this can be something that was associated with a choice he made. Something with his passing, something, or something he did like five years ago. You will know what this means. It could be something he did to somebody else or to himself. I don't know. You should know what this means. His statement is, I'm sorry I did what I did. Now, if you don't know what that means, we can find out. But at this point, that's his first statement to you. The next thing he would want to say is he didn't know what the ramifications would be. He didn't understand the consequences of his choice. And I have goosebumps all up and down my legs. Do you know what he's talking about love? It's probably like he's had some issues of his life. So he probably made bad choices rather than accepting the help that was trying to be given to him. So we kind of make choices and he kind of has the outcome. I'm going to tell you, and again, it was really important for him to even speak before your mom did. Because when we leave our body and everybody who's known me for more than a minute knows I've had three near death experiences. And I know that when we leave our body and we're out of our body, we have such pure and true understanding. And we can see the way everything is. We're in our body. We're so conflicted.  Yeah, exactly. And you let him know that I love him. Oh, he does. He knows. He sees you cry. He's saying, I saw you cry. I see you cry. I saw you cry. I see you cry. He's like, you know, the funny thing is, and I think this is for everybody, the funny thing is, he thought once he was gone, he would stop everybody suffering for him. And those are his words, not mine. Meaning the torment that he thought he was putting people through. He thought once he was gone, that would be over. That's never true. We know that as humans, but they realize once because we think as humans, like, oh, they don't really care. They're just saying, you know what I mean? Sometimes we think that people don't genuinely care about us. They're just saying what they say. We can't see and or feel the love because our energy is so distorted. So the first healing and clearing we are going to do right here right now. And I want everybody to know this is at the 18 minute mark of the show.  And then once a week, once you're there, our energy is distorted. I get a yes. I'm asking the angels to go to each and every person that hears this sees this plays this knows about this or every person that you love that you send this to heal our energy clear our energy undistorted. Sure. That's a word. Angels know what I mean. So we're going to ask that this gets done right now.  She's like, has this little sweetness about her right now. She just says as well, sweetness about her right now. Oh, my goodness. I love you so much. Please know I love you. It was in their contracts, their agreements before they came in to go so close in time, because their souls are bound, like not bound the way we think here. But they, it was just an agreement they made, even though they knew it would, it would like really compromise the hearts of people here. They made this agreement to do this way before they ever stepped into their flesh. Okay. So the next thing I want to say, or the next thing that they want to say is they want to let you know you're doing amazing, you're doing much better than you think you are. I just want to, again, and I know everyone here, we are so hard on ourselves, right? We're so hard on ourselves. We're always like thinking, yeah, you know what? Everybody could get up and poop rainbows every day. No. But we think we should, right? We think we should jump out of bed and be like, hey, world, I'm coming to get you. Oh my gosh, look at everything. You know what, sometimes just getting up and going to the bathroom and getting back in bed, that's a win. Sometimes that's a win for the day. We are so... Yeah, exactly. You know, and social media has made it so difficult for people because we see these people do these little time slots where their life looks so perfect. They're like, oh, I wish I could hold it together like that. They are not holding it together. They don't. No, right? They're not, and they get help and everything. Yes, I understand that. And even if they're freezing, and here's the thing, even if they're not getting help, that's like 30 seconds of their life. That's a snapshot. That's an hour of their life. You don't know what the other 23 hours, they might be sitting in a tub of ice cream crying. We don't know what goes on, but the only thing we can do is just be who we were genuinely sent down here to be. And that has nothing to do with anything other than what our heart tells us and not what anybody else tells us.  They want you to know there's a gift coming to you. There's a gift coming to you. You're going to receive this gift. Now I see snow and I see a Christmas tree, so I'm going to tell you... But the Christmas tree is outside. It's like a pine tree. Christmas tree is not decorated and it has snow on it. So they want you to know, I feel like this winter you are going to get a gift from them. Now I want to reiterate for everybody listening, when loved ones on the other side bring you a gift, it doesn't mean they're dropping the lottery up in your lap. I wish. I really wish. Personally, can we get that going? But sometimes the gift is right. Sometimes the gift is the most amazing prophetic dream. Sometimes the gift is hearing or smelling their scent just to know they're still around you.  Somebody gives you something that reminds you of them or was an heirloom of them or, you know, something. And it doesn't necessarily have to be like a gift that is under the tree at Christmas or wrapped. Somebody could say, hey, you know what, and I don't know why I'm getting this example for you, sweetie. But it's just an example for anybody listening. An old friend could say, hey, you know what, your brother left this hoodie or shirt or flannel in my car, and I wanted to give it back to you and you grab it and you smell it. It smells just like them. What a gift, right? What an amazing gift. So the gift can be different no matter who or what is coming through. But whatever it is this winter, you're going to get a gift from the both of them. They're putting it together to roll out to you. That's funny because they actually started singing a song that I think I have not heard in like a million and one years. Roll out. I can't even, I can't even get the beat of it, but they started to sing. Okay. And then the next thing they want to say is that you are going to have a turn around or turn the corner and everything just like that. It's all going to be good again.  Just hold on and they're going to be, they're going to be riding this ride with you now, helping you to fly rather than drive through mud. Okay. I love it. Oh my gosh. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you so much. And thank you love for calling in. Thank you for being the first caller and that is a freaking amazing. I love this today. Thank you so much. Okay. Would I ask my mom or I probably would be my mom a question about something that's going on now? Go, sure. Go right ahead love. Does she see something, anything that is, what does she see happening with our granddaughter, her great-granddaughter? Ooh. Does she see something going on there? She's little. She's... There's so much. Yes. No. Yes. No. Okay. Part of what I'm getting, I can't, I cannot say. Or do I need to call another time? No. Well, I'm just not allowed. Like, I'll get flagged or banned or the show will get taken down if I say a part of what I need to say. What I would say, however, is minerals and a light. Now, pay attention when I use these words, especially for somebody who's a year and a half old, a very, very light detox, a heavy metal detox. And I think, if I remember correctly, do your research on your own. Okay. They have liquid, black seed oil, which is a natural, very, very natural product. Sea moss, burdock root, very little, small amounts. And then the other thing I'm hearing is there's a product called chlorophyll, which helps to, you know, take anything out of the body that doesn't belong in the body. Let me just put it that way. But there are some other... And they're all natural. These things are all natural. And I'm not saying do a heavy, like, let's, um, let's, like, bombard... No, no, no, no, no. Very small amount. Is this a change of her or her mom and dad, you think? Um, you know, all of them would benefit. The first three things I mentioned are, I believe all mineral, like, uh, sea moss is all the minerals we need. And the second two things are for the body to build inside of the body. They're not to take out of. Here's what I'm going to say. You know, they're not giving me the full picture on this for a lot of reasons. And what I'll say for you, and for this whole situation with the child, the one and a half year old, is it's very touchy is the statement. And what I would recommend is this. If there is... This is something that there's... It's a longer answer, and I've already... I would recommend start there. If you want to go into the whole mom and dad and child thing, that's not, that's maybe something that is better suited for a private session than me trying to dance around it. On air. So, so please consider that. I think I'll do that. Excellent. Remember, you are valuable. And you are needed. Even if people don't say it every single day or ever, you are valuable, you are needed, and you are loved. Okay. I will see you Wednesday at noon. Until then, have an amazing rest. Bye.