I recently spoke with my friend, John O'Donnell, on his Financial Talk radio show, and our discussion about negative interest rates turned into a much deeper conversation about the cultural and moral destruction caused by the Fed and other central banks. And really, there is no greater force than central banks for creating moral hazards, degrading culture, destroying the marketplace, and turning all of us into what I like to call high-time preference economic hedonists. A topic I'll be discussing at our Mises Circle event coming up next Saturday in Seattle. So if you can, and you're in the Seattle area, please join us Saturday morning. If not, please consider listening online at Mises.org. In the meantime, here's a great discussion with John O'Donnell on his Power Trading radio show. Jeff, there seems to be something going on that certainly I've never heard of or certainly experienced in my lifetime, which is the fact that somewhere in the vicinity of $7 trillion of government bonds that are outstanding in the world today across the developed world have negative yields. And I just have to get the Mises Institute's opinion on A, as something like this ever happened before, to my knowledge, this is unprecedented to have negative yields like this. And what is the objective that these institutions must have? And what in the heck would a Mises said about something like this? Well, it is absolutely bizarre. And we're talking about European government debt that has either an actual negative yield or even a nominal negative yield. So that is definitely unprecedented. But if you think about it, it's not just unprecedented as a matter of fiscal or monetary policy. It makes no sense conceptually, right? In other words, there's no universe in which you would accept an arrangement where I say, John, loan me $1,000 and a year or two from now, I'll pay you back $900, right? There's no normal circumstances in which you would take that deal. So I think what Mises would say is that there is no such thing as a natural rate of interest below zero. In other words, interest represents the lender's willingness to give up some consumption now, save some money and give it to someone to be repaid at a later date with interest, but also in the process take some risk of not being repaid, perhaps in full. That's what interest represents. It's a price that one pays for borrowing money from someone who's willing to lend it. So there's no reason conceptually that anyone would ever lend money at negative interest rates. So what we have here is not anything that would naturally arise in the marketplace. What we have here is something that has been engineered by central banks. And really, it's just the latest in another round of endless, I guess, what we might call, not to be sloppy, but what we might call neo-Keynesianism. In other words, the entire view of Keynes as currently interpreted by the economic mainstream is that the role of government policy, meaning fiscal policy, the role of monetary policy is to stimulate demand. Ever and always, we have to get people to buy stuff. We have to get people to consume whether that's retail goods, houses, cars, or companies buying other goods, whatever it is, consumption drives the economy. And from that perspective and that perspective only, the idea of a negative interest rate, whether that's on a bank deposit on a government bond, in a bizarre way, starts to make sense because we have to stimulate people and businesses and families and households to spend money. And that is what is really at the root of all this, is monomaniacal drive to stimulate demand rather than stimulating what Austrians would say creates a truly healthy economy, which is capital accumulation, saving money, and investing money. So we're in a period where central banks don't know what else to do to shock the economy into some kind of growth. And so this is what they've come up with. And I certainly don't think it's going to work. I certainly think it's very scary and we'll see. We shall see what this means for Europe and hopefully God help us, not the U.S. Well, you know, so far the anecdotal information, of course, is rather new, this particular policy, but it is not working. It's not like people are just pulling their money out of the bank or not putting their money in the bank and rushing down to consume because, in fact, prices of goods and services are falling, which is good. Austrians are not afraid of deflation as the Keynesians are. But at the end of the day, there's no suggestion whatsoever that this is going to work. As a matter of fact, I assume since we have a war on cash across the developed world, is this just another methodology to cause us to not put our money in the bank, hide it under the mattress, or use other methodologies, perhaps buy some precious metals to avoid this negative interest rate? Well, you know, that's what people are going to have to do. People are not going to put money in the bank and lose it. So by instituting capital controls or restricting currency, it's going to be very hard to go get fiscal cash out of the bank. In other words, if you go to a bank branch in Irvine today and say, I need $10,000 to buy a used card, they're going to tell you to come back tomorrow because they're not going to have it. So everybody can't go to the bank and get their money out physically in cash. There's only a very small amount of cash available. So what this means is that out of fear of losing your electronic money, your balance and let's say a second, you're going to have a strong incentive to spend it. That's what negative interest rates is all about. And again, it's an express form of engineering. This idea that we have to create demand. Well, in fact, humans already have demand. The question is whether they have capacity. We all want stuff. We all want more stuff. That's a natural human instinct. Because what brought us up out of caves, right? The desire to have more and more material goods and material comfort. But just creating demand amongst people who do not have the economic means, either cash or credit, to buy things, at least in the rational world, is a very bad idea and a very dangerous idea. All of human history has been based on putting something away for a rainy day. In other words, generation after generation has saved more than it consumed. And the three of us are beneficiaries. That we walk out the door and we see this glorious material world all around us because all of our ancestors have done this. And for the first time in human history, we're saying that what humans ought to do is consume. And so apart from the economics of it, apart from the complicated government policies, if you just step back and look at it conceptually, it's almost heartbreaking. And it creates a worse society morally. It's not just an economic matter. When you turn savers into chumps, when you treat people who save money badly, you create a nation of people who just spend. You create a nation of people with high-time preferences who say, you know, why should I wait until tomorrow to have that car or that vacation or whatever? Why should I try to put money away from my kids when it's being eaten up either by inflation or negative interest rates?  I mean, there's a million manifestations of how a high-time preference society, people who prefer stuff today instead of saving for tomorrow, that when government and central banks encourage that, there are all kinds of ways that that brings us down morally.  The policy makers out there kind of feel like drug makers. So, pointy and I were out at lunch today and I'm an insomniac. So, I have serious issues sleeping. I don't like to take any medication for it, but I went to the doctor the day. I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to try Ambio. Let's give it a shot, see what it is. So, I went home and I'm reading this. And yes, it's going to cure my sleep patterns or potentially help me get some good sleep. But I'm reading some of the side effects of this. And it's like one of them in there, and I'm not kidding. It just says, you may wake up to have done things that you don't remember doing, you know, like driving a vehicle. I'm thinking, what the hell? The whole point of this is so I can get to sleep. So, the remedy here of negative, you know, sorry, I go to Ambio and I'm thinking that they know these side effects. Okay, maybe some guy out of a thousand people, four or five are going to kill themselves while driving their cars. And then you remember doing it. It's okay because, you know, the 996 are okay. Was there this sort of forethought with these negative interest rates? Because as you mentioned, we've been taught for centuries to save. And I'm not worried about it. Personally, I could care less. This doesn't bother me. My money's not sitting in a savings account. I'm investing in the marketplace because that's what I do. I'm trying to build my wealth so I don't have to worry about any of this stuff going forward. But for those that are 70, 80, and they've been taught all along, look, you better save. You better have a big nest egg to support yourself through retirement and medical expenses that are coming. You know, save, save, save. I can't help but to feel very sympathetic for someone who's retired who's thinking, I've done everything that I'm supposed to do. I'm saving. I've got my nest egg. And now you're telling me, if I just leave it there, I'm going to lose a percent or two percent or who knows what it's going to get to. It doesn't seem like there was much forethought to the all spectrums of impact here. Well, no, there wasn't much forethought. This has been a slow and steady drip really since the crash of 2008 where we've entered into this new period of unprecedented monetary policy. If they had known in 2008 that this is what it would take, I think that they would be quite shocked in other words, they've tried both in Europe and the US. They've tried quantitative easing. They've tried keeping interest rates very low or effectively close to zero. They've tried all kinds of liquidity measures. None of it has worked in really stimulating any real growth. I mean, it can pump some more money in the economy. It can raise certain asset prices. It can raise housing prices in overheated markets. It can raise equity prices. But what it can't do is make people and companies more productive. Right? There's more money in the system. Doesn't mean more stuff, more goods or services are produced. So it really has been, you've heard the expression pushing on a string. But I don't think anyone could have guessed in 2008 that it would come to this. And I don't necessarily think all of the people involved are malevolent by any stretch. I think they're just groping in the dark. But here's the thing, there's nothing magical about going from a plus one real percent real rate of interest to a minus one real rate of interest. That's no different than going from a 7% to a 5%. I mean, we shouldn't put too much emphasis on the fact that an interest rate tips negative other than for the conceptual bizarro factor. It really is all just about, do we want a society where people accumulate capital and deploy it by saving or investing it? Or do we want an economy based on consumption? Well, we all want to consume, but something has to be produced in order for us to consume. So it really gets down to two totally different and incompatible mindsets that it was the same 100 years ago, it's the same today. I don't know if it's the way people, I don't know if it's a genetic thing, I don't know if it's nature inertia, but there's two different ways of seeing the world that keep seeming to pop up. And one is sort of the Keynesian consumption way, and one is the Austrian capital accumulation way. And we're still fighting this, we're still fighting this battle, almost 100 years after Keynes' general theory. Jeff, there's another challenge here. I've always felt, and we've talked on this show about we think credit is in fact the mother's milk of capitalism. There's equity finance, there's savings that's intermediated by the financial intermediaries to give entrepreneurs capital in credit instruments. That being said, we haven't talked much on the moral hazard of these extreme monetary policies that we've seen. What's the Mesian approach on the danger of the moral hazard and the unintended consequences from these extreme actions by central bankers? Well, the moral hazard was all around us in housing prior to the crash of 08. There's a great blog you may be familiar with called Irvine Housing Blog, which chronicled the whole run-up and really continuing run-up in the housing prices in Irvine. And we see that in an era, especially prior to the crash, let's say from about 2001 or 2002 at the dot-com bubble burst, right up to about 2008, we saw an era where money in effect became so cheap that both businesses in the M&A world and individuals buying houses, et cetera, went on a buying spree that they never would have if they were paying five or 10 or 15 or 20% interest on their purchases. So as a result of all this, in a certain way, businesses and individuals acted rationally. The Fed wants to make the cost of borrowing money very, very cheap. Well, people are gonna take you up on that. And they're gonna go out and do things that make economic sense on paper, only in an environment where borrowing money is really cheap. And all sorts of shenanigans surrounded that. In other words, people were getting loans based strictly on their statements, unsupported statements about their income, no credit checks. So we had all the subprime lending going on. And we had things like taxi cab drivers and cocktail waitresses in Las Vegas buying six, seven, eight houses and flipping them. Because you could make $30,000 on flipping a condo in six months. But that wasn't adding any value. They weren't going in there and remodeling it or something. So you created this moral hazard in the sense that everyone thought that they had sort of more juice than they did. Everyone fancy themselves an entrepreneur because a lot of ideas make sense on paper when the cost of borrowing money is really, really cheap. But when that cost rises, a lot of people go bust. And that's what happened in Las Vegas, which is still, which is still hurting me. It has adjusted and has not happened to the same extent in Southern California. But if you're asking me, we could. Jeff, did you see the movie The Big Short? I have. Well, you might recall that there were two primary culprits in that movie that were not addressed very clearly at all, hardly even mentioned, which was the role of Fannie and Freddie and the role of the Federal Reserve System. And Merlin and I had on this show, on part trading radio, one of the members of the presidential panel that studied why the real estate crisis happened, ex post facto, of course. And basically what he said, he was a lone dissenting opinion. They had like five Republicans, five Democrats. I forget the gentleman's name or at this moment. Peter J. Wallace. Okay, Peter J. Wallace. And he was a lone dissenting opinion that said the primary reason, the primary culprit was Fannie and Freddie and the Federal Reserve System. Fannie and Freddie specifically created demand for those subprime mortgages and the banks and the mortgage brokers would have not have gone out and created them, unless they had a market to sell that paper to, which was Fannie and Freddie, which turned around and helped package it or send it to Wall Street to be packaged, which ultimately sent it on to its ultimate destination of a bunch of pension plans. And of course, the Fed manipulated interest rates lower but we don't ever seem to wanna talk the point the finger at the root cause of that challenge. And his point was, if there was no demand for that toxic paper, the toxic paper would not have been created. Well, that's absolutely correct. Not only did Fannie and Freddie create artificial marketplace for people along with the Fed who would not be able to borrow the sums they did in a rational lending environment in terms of credit scores, income, down payment. But they also created a moral hazard in that taxpayers provided a backstop for lenders against the loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie. In other words, they were quasi-private, quasi-governmental agencies that were implicitly backed up by taxpayers. So it's a lot nicer to make a loan when you have the US taxpayer ready to step into the breach if the actual lender goes into default. So it was a terrible situation. And you have to understand it's a story that's never gonna be completely told because it doesn't fit a particular narrative. And I hate the idea that this becomes an issue of left or right or Democrat or Republican. It really shouldn't. It ought to be, you know, humorous versus common sense. It ought to be practicality versus mania because that's what it was. And there's so many layers to the onion. Did you say, well, Bush did this and then Obama didn't do this? And you know, all of us pair some responsibility, right? We all have to look in the mirror at this and say, this has come to pass under our watch.


Welcome to the 2015 NCHA Great American Insurance Group Summer Spectacular. We've just had the unlimited amateur derby and Blakely Colgrove was the winner on Paradox Cat with a 220. Well done Blakely. Thank you. How did that run go? Talk us through it. It went very well. I kept my first cali and it was really good and my second cali, it was really good. What was the game plan going into that event? Just to get really slow and calm, at least get there clean run and try to do my best. Now you've had a fairly busy day. You've had three events that you've competed in. That's been busy for you, but I think it's been even busier for your trainer. Austin, hasn't it? It has. Coming back and forth, but it all worked out I guess. The Horus Paradox Cat, tell us about it. He is a four-year-old and I got to show him for the first time at the fraternity because Austin didn't do any good on him. He's just been a really good horse for me. He was a stud and now we cut him last year or this year at some point in the time. But now since we cut him, he's gotten a little better. He's getting better. So have you had more success on him since you cut him? Yes, a lot more. I showed him in Vegas and he was really good and after that we decided that I'd enter him here and show him. But now I guess he has been good. The Finals had a lot of competitors in it. You were in the first herd. How did you feel watching everybody else go through? Nothing really. I get a little nervous when I'm watching cows, but they don't really bother me that much. If I do bad, I do bad. Do good, do good. How good are you at watching cows and choosing them? Not very well. I usually sit down there. I'm either talking or just doing nothing easily. I don't watch them very good. Do you think that's a large part of your success is having good help and getting their good advice about the cows? Yes, it is. Thank you, Blakely. Okay, thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you.


bagels from Myers, many thanks to Myers Bagels for feeding us this morning. We've got cream cheese and all kinds of good stuff. And coffee in the back. I'm Ann Galloway. I'm the founder of BT Digger and welcome. Thank you so much for coming on such a cold morning. It couldn't be colder. Well, it could be colder, but you don't want to think about that. It's bad enough, right? I wanted to let you know that we have 48 questions for Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ash, and I'm grateful to our readers. 48? Don't worry. We're not going to ask them all. Talk fast. I'm so delighted that Tim agreed to be with us today. Tim's been in the Senate for a long time now. Ten years? A decade? Just at the same time I started Digger. He started at the State House. So, Ann, with no more ado, I will start asking some questions, unless you want to say something to start with. Well, I just say good morning. I'm glad you've all braved being here. The record low today for me on the drive down was negative 13 in Richmond, so that's according to my car thermometer. Oh, well, that's about what it was in Hartford this morning, so interesting. Okay, so we have a question from Jim Coates of Swanson Rock and Winifred McCarthy of Burlington. They want to know, would you support a two-tier wage that would allow employers to pay a lower minimum wage to students? Well, it's an interesting question. One that is often overlooked by the public when they think of the minimum wage. We already do have a separate minimum wage under Vermont law for students during the summer breaks. And so many employers, particularly those who might operate a seasonal summer business, are able to offer a wage which is lower than Vermont's conventional minimum wage. So, to me, that system has been working for decades, and so I would stand by that. I guess I would reaffirm our current policy. While we're talking about minimum wage, could you broadly and briefly outline where you think a minimum wage bill would go? I mean, how it would work, the mechanics of it? Well, last year, as your readers will no doubt remember, the legislature passed a minimum wage increase to $15 that would have been by 2024. So a six-year rolling phase in of an increase in the minimum wage. The status quo, if we do not vote to raise the minimum wage, is that the minimum wage is targeted to an inflationary amount. So the minimum wage is going to go up whether we increase the minimum wage in a new law or not. We believe that it should accelerate the growth by passage of the new law. Right now, there are literally tens of thousands of people who would benefit if we raise the minimum wage despite common misconceptions. Most of those individuals are adult full-time workers. These are not college kids or high school kids. They're not all starter jobs. So the challenge this year, we come back after the Governor vetoed that legislation to decide what to do now. My feeling is that the Senate ought to and will vote to increase the minimum wage once again. But we do have five new faces in the Senate and to respect their participation, two new members of our Economic Development Committee where that bill would originate. The precise details of the bill would let the committee discussion and play out. Obviously, having lost one year in that time frame that was envisioned last year in the legislation means we have to revisit. Do we keep on the exact same schedule, which would actually be a little bit more compressed, or do we go up to 2025 now? And those are all things that the committee process will hash out. Thanks for explaining, Wynton. The next question is from Allison Anand from Richmond and she asks, in the light of controversies and lawsuits regarding Act 46, would you support appointing a committee to research the status of existing mergers regarding fulfillment of their promised better education at less cost? In other words, would you be evaluating whether the mergers have saved any money? Well, I guess I would say that the formation of a new special committee is probably premature. For those of you who don't know the creation, the passage of Act 46, which those of us in Montpelier we use terms like Act 46, but outside the building it might be more commonly known as the school district reorganization law, is now in year four or five of implementation where the lawsuit that you is referenced in the question is an indication that we're at the tail end of the reorganization of districts. When we passed that law, it was pretty well understood that it would take perhaps years to be able to fully evaluate both the educational quality differences, if any, and the financial savings, if any. So the legislative committees should of course themselves, the ones we already have, be evaluating how things are going. But I think it's too soon to do a how did the law work analysis. My feeling is that we will probably best be positioned to do that in about five years. In the meantime, we have to make sure that the law is rolling out the way it was intended. We do know that in some districts where they've merged in my own community, Essex and Westford, there have been organizational and operational changes as a result. So we can probably do some case by case presentations, but just like the districts who are currently suing the state would articulate, every single merged set of districts is different. Some of them would probably see the financial savings sooner than others. Some of them would see the kind of educational opportunities expand sooner than others. So a few years from now, I think, will be a better time to create a more comprehensive analysis of the law's results. So that would be some kind of study. It could be a study. It could be the agency of education doing its job and doing an evaluation of how it's been working. But again, I think we're a few years out. One of the problems with the legislature in general is we pass a law and then we expect to come back the next year. And the world has completely changed and everything has been rolled out. Changing major policies, reorganizing dozens and dozens of school districts is not something where you see the full results of implementation overnight. So I think we're really a few years away. Another question along these lines from Andy Davis of Brattleboro. He says, I'm not anti-act 46 but I'm appalled at the way the law has been implemented. Do you believe that the legislature has a role in relieving problems caused by forced mergers? Of the 23 towns and women counties, seven are involved in the appeal against the state board of education. The legislature created this law. Does it bear any responsibility for easing the current problems? Well, the legislature passed the law so it has responsibility for its entire implementation in partnership with local school districts. Two years ago our education committees as a result of better appreciating the implementation challenges felt at the local level basically put out a call to every school district in the state that was seeking to merge or in the process of merging and said, if you're having unique challenges, challenges unique to your set of school districts, come to us so that we can consider whether we can adjust the Act 46 law so that your community can successfully fulfill the goals of Act 46. The legislation which I believe was called Act 49, all the acts get a little confused in my head, provided accommodations to many districts throughout the state to ease their transitions. We now have the last batch of districts who are going through their unique challenges. And so I would say that if there are accommodations that are needed to allow them to successfully fulfill the vision of Act 46, the legislature is all ears. I do know that some districts have asked for a delay in the timeframe by which they would have to have articles of agreement and new operating procedures locally. The legislature is debating that right now. We've got some districts who say we must have a delay, otherwise things will be very bad at the local level. We have other districts emailing me all weekend. I received emails from superintendents and school board members and others saying, you must not delay because that's going to throw other districts into turmoil who are more ready. So the legislature has to figure out under what circumstances it delays the actual law itself. But in terms of accommodations to ease the transition, we were all ears. I was wondering what TIN stands on criminal justice reform is. Specifically, how he feels about the use of out-of-state private-for-profit prisons to house our overflow. And if it's possible, that good time might be reinstated to reduce our overflow to thereby eliminating the need for out-of-state warehouses. Well, the question is a very good one. And in terms of criminal justice reform, the good news is that Vermont's not faced with the question of whether we should embark on criminal justice reform or not. It's whether we should continue on the journey of criminal justice reform. When I arrived at the Senate in 2009, we had about 675 inmates who were out-of-state in privately owned prisons. Today that number is down to about 215. So we have more work to do per the question, but we have made significant strides in reducing our inmate population. We have a few initiatives that are underway which they're not going to steal headlines, but they aren't exactly the type of thing that drives down the long-term inmate population. One of them is juvenile justice reform. Juvenile justice reform basically means that instead of treating younger people who commit a crime like hardened adult criminals by putting them through the adult courts, that we would put them through the family court where they receive a broader array of opportunities for restorative practices and restorative justice and allow them to get on with their life without an open criminal record. This is something that we are in year two of the unfolding of that law. It puts us on the fan guard nationally when it comes to the way we treat young offenders. There are going to be implementation issues here too, which we have to work through. But to me that's a tremendous opportunity. Another area in recent years is medication assisted treatment in our facilities. One of the things we know is people, whether they're serving short or medium term sentences, if they had addiction issues prior to being incarcerated, that they were being basically forced to go cold turkey once they got into prison. The moment they're sentenced and they get out, they're back to the old habits. And one of the gravest problems of that, one of the worst outcomes of the failure to treat people while they were in prison, is that the tolerance for drugs that the individual had built up outside the facility makes them go back and try the same volume at the same strength when they get out, leading to a greater likelihood of overdoses. So by providing medication assisted treatment, which is now finally after months of pushing the administration to fulfill the law as it was intended, we have hundreds of people receiving treatment who previously were not. That will help also reduce the recidivism levels. In terms of the very basic question, should we have people out of state? Our goal should be no, we're on a path to get there. But I don't think people want to build additional prison capacity at this moment in Vermont. So I think our goal should be to reduce that 215 individuals who are currently out of state rather than be building new facilities here in Vermont. Are you comfortable with inmates in Mississippi? And how long will it take to basically eliminate the out of state population? Well, so this is an interesting one. Currently, the 215 Vermont inmates who are housed out of state are in Mississippi, not a state known for very forward-thinking correctional facilities. And it's privately owned by one of a company that has been pretty shady and has helped lead to large rates of incarceration around the country by encouraging laws which like mandatory minimums and things like that. The inmates themselves were more concerned when they were at a Pennsylvania state-owned facility where there were fewer job opportunities, there were not classes and other kinds of programming where they had to pay co-pays to go to see the doctor at the infirmary. So the irony is by housing them in a state with not a great record on these issues and in a prison operated by a company with a pretty bad track record, at a minimum at least we can dictate the terms of the contract we're in Pennsylvania. We had to take the terms that Pennsylvania dictated to us which were very unfavorable to our inmates. So I don't know how long it will take to drive down that out of state population to zero. It will not happen overnight. I think if we were able to have a structural number of inmates that was down into the 1,500 range in the next five years, it would eliminate the use of out-of-state prisons. So I would say we're probably looking at a five-year horizon. Jeff Blow of Barrie wants to know if you believe that Vermont businesses can afford more directives from the Vermont legislature, i.e. mandated wages, mandated pay-to-pay time, etc. Well it's a tricky question because of course the legislature has to be sensitive to all of its actions and the impact it has not just on businesses but households. The legislature does some things which certainly add administrative and sometimes cost burdens on businesses. This has been the case not only in Vermont but around the country. When it comes to increasing the minimum wage, I would push back a little bit on the question. One of the consequences of Vermont's very low minimum wage at about $10.78 now is that many of the individuals earning today's minimum wage wind up on public benefits programs which requires taxpayers to pick up the tab for their health care sometimes for food and other nutrition programs programs like your income tax credit. So by virtue of a very low minimum wage and many thousands of people who earn that low amount some businesses are subsidizing the practices of low-paying businesses. So to me increasing the earned income of tens of thousands of people not only will stimulate our local economy helping small businesses but also reduces the amount of cross-subsidization by those who choose to pay less which is being picked up frankly by those who are really striving to do everything they can to pay a fair wage to their employees. Now there are some businesses who it is absolutely true are not choosing to pay a low wage there in ultra-competitive industries and we have to be sensitive to the way an increase in the minimum wage law would impact them. In my opinion and the research across the country has suggested that in areas where the minimum wage has been increased there have not been the doom and gloom scenarios that conservative economists like to suggest there would be instead there is usually fairly negligible employment effects sometimes slightly negative sometimes slightly positive but we know that in the meantime tens of thousands of people have more money in their pocket. Thank you Tim. Christine Stark of Holland and Reverend Lanker Techie of Derby Line ask us some questions about health care. They want to know why we're not exploring a regional health insurance network including New England and New York states that would be a Medicare for all people before profit systems. Well it's an interesting concept that my suspicion is that when we have had governors who have explored the universal health care program and really Governor Dean back in the 90's Governor Sheldon of course most recently in this decade my suspicion is the reason that as administrations who wanted to guarantee health care to every individual that they did not pursue such a regional approach is the tremendous difficulty in entangling the unique characteristics of each state's current health plans and health requirements. It's something that our committees can explore obviously a state like New York or Massachusetts are much more in line with Vermont in terms of providing a broad range of health services I'm not sure that I want to create a regional plan with New Hampshire on health care. Abby Ninkin of Brattleboro asks what is your plan for bold climate action in this legislative session? Specifically will you push for a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure in Vermont? Will you push for carbon pollution pricing? Well I think it's no secret to anyone in this room that the future of our climate is in peril. Right now I think the most promising thing in terms of meaningful reductions in harmful emissions is the regional transportation compact being negotiated by our administration with eight other states and I believe Washington D.C. The collective economic might of these states that are looking at this combined regional approach to transportation related reductions I believe would make us like the fifth largest economy in the world. So the great advantage is that one has the tremendous power to cap transportation related emissions it also spreads the risk throughout a number of other states including some very big ones like New York and Virginia. So to me it's unsatisfying in some ways to those who want action next month because it's something that's being negotiated for the next year and it's a necessarily complicated negotiation that our agencies are working on. But to me that is the single most impactful thing that we can do. In the legislature this year it is my hope that our transportation committees will look at other strategies around smarter transportation whether it is finding some kind of Vermont scalable public transit models or building on what we have. It's a rural state which has always made it very challenging but we have to continue to see what opportunities we can pursue to get people out of their cars. The irony is as I speak Green Mountain Transit is worried about being able to continue to operate some of its shuttles here in Central Vermont especially the ones that bring workers to some of the ski areas or other large employers so we have to make sure we maintain what we have in addition to thinking about new strategies. So transportation sector to me is the primary objective. The specific issue of our carbon tax or carbon fee or carbon pricing all those things to me I would prefer the regional approach that I described which is an expansion of the Reggie program I don't mean to geek out but the regional greenhouse gas initiative which has been a real success story for emissions reductions and has been good for our economy extending that to transportation to me is a no brainer. So no carbon tax? I'm sure it'll be proposed by some. As I said I support a regional approach which I think is in the best interest of the state. We spend about $25 million a year on public transportation as I recall. Do you think we should be spending more? I think we should before I say we should be spending more we probably should be spending more but the first thing we have to do is find out we have to develop realistic strategies for how we would use those dollars. To me the biggest opportunities is connecting larger employers to where the workers are actually coming from. So I was without a car for a couple months this fall and I was taking the Green Mountain Transit Shuttle down from Burlington to Montpelier. Obviously it's from one population center to a place where there are a lot of jobs. I wish and I hope that we will work on trying to find more opportunities like that which yes will take more money. Thanks I'm going to jump to one of Sandra's questions as Sandra's our political reporter, Sandra Wanda. In his inaugural address the governor said he wants to collaborate with legislators to reverse the state's demographic issues. Where do you see the greatest potential for compromise between the legislature and the Scott administration this session? Well that's a bit of a combined statement slash question because it started with demographics and then said will you work well with the governor? The short story is we will work well, how embarrassing. We will, that was Anne's phone, not mine. It's actually called. So we will work well with the governor every opportunity we get. When the governor, I would characterize what he said as saying that he hopes for a reset with the legislature and kind of restarting the relationship so that it is off on a positive note from day one and certainly that's very welcome. The real test will be if the administration unlike the last two years actually sits in committee rooms and engages with legislators from all the different political parties trying to work on the big problems. That's what we did not see the last two years and I think helps explain why things were brought to tipping points at the end of the session. One of the advantages, and I've served now under three governors, under the Douglas and the Shumlin administrations, the agency commissioners, secretaries and staff, they'd be in the committee room. So no matter what the issue was over the course of the year, even if they didn't like what you were doing, they were trying to work with you to make sure that whatever past could be implemented and would advance broadly shared goals. What that does is by the end, when emotions are fraught and people are stressed out and everyone's trying to adjourn, you've been practicing compromise every step of the way and then those last changes that have to be made to reach the finish line are much easier because you've got the muscle memory you're used to compromising. If there's no engagement until that moment, what happens is you haven't rehearsed compromise and you get to the brinksmanship that the administration brought to the table in the past. Regarding demographic trends, I think there's interestingly the day of the speech, the Wall Street Journal had an article about demographic trends throughout the United States and governors from every state in the Northeast and large swaths of the Northern United States could have all been delivering the exact same address about population issues, particularly young people leaving for cities and things like that. What I hope we will focus on is not just trying to signal that Vermont is a welcoming place to people who don't live here today but I want us to redouble our efforts on people who already live here and who are falling through the cracks. Frank Coffey, who runs an organization called GBIC which is, it's like the Economic Development Corporation for Chittenden County, has looked at a lot of the demographic trends. What he articulates is that each year several thousand young people, especially young men, they get out of high school and they don't go on to any education and they are not attached to any employment. They just sort of fall off the map. In my opinion, the most successful strategies that we can and should deploy would to revisit that demographic that already lives here, that already falls through the cracks and winds up either on different government programs or just off the radar to reconnect to those individuals and say, Vermont is going to be a place where you can succeed. The legislature and governors especially with two year terms are always thinking about new shiny objects and new programs and initiatives that will serve two people here and five people there. I think we need to focus on the thousands of people who are already here but who are not for whatever reason being able to fulfill successful life. Thanks. You mentioned two-state voluntary paid family leave plan with New Hampshire's Governor Chris Sinner here. You've said you don't support a voluntary paid leave program that you don't think it will attract the participation needed to keep paid leave insurance affordable. But now that he's put a proposal on the table, do you plan on working with him on a paid leave plan that reaches some sort of middle ground? Well, I actually want to say that the fact that the governor brought forward this plan is actually a very good sign. Not only is it a good sign because he appreciates the need for the type of benefits that the legislation that we passed last year would bring to people, whether it's to be home during after childbirth or with a loved one who's sick or dying. But it also shows that the governor is stepping up to try to engage on policies that he knows the legislature has prioritized. So in terms of working with the governor on this, I hope we can find some kind of compromise and finish line on that just as I do on the minimum wage. The issue of a voluntary social program is one that once the administration puts out the need of their proposal will perhaps have a better sense of its strengths and weaknesses, but just in general, social benefit programs that are voluntary in terms of participation historically are very unlikely to have enough people voluntarily making the payment so that when the individual needs to actually receive the benefit that the money is there for it. And that is why, whether it's Social Security or Medicare, these are programs which everyone pays into and everyone benefits from. So the idea that we would leave it to the select group who decides to voluntarily make the contribution to fill the coffers of this program so that anyone can get the benefit, it just doesn't seem like it could work, but we will reserve judgment until the details are out and I do want to recognize that this is a good first step for the governor to be at the table. Thank you. Senator Baruth has proposed legislation to create a mandated waiting period for gun purchases and establish new storage requirements. House Judiciary Chair Maxine Gratt has proposed another that would create mandatory gun seizures when relief from abuse orders are issued. Senator has said he doesn't want to see any additional gun laws past this session. Which of these measures do you think can pass? Well, the issue of waiting periods is one that I know the Senate will be discussing this session. I don't know what the ultimate disposition will be, but we will be discussing that. And the interesting dynamic is the Fairhaven case, which really did change the history of gun laws in the state of Vermont, focused on the potential for someone to commit a large shooting. One of the areas that had been neglected for too long, but I think really bubbled to the surface as a result of this, was the issue of suicides by firearm. And I think one of the reasons that the waiting period concept might get traction this year is precisely because of the impulsivity for some people when they're going through very difficult times. And right now can easily access a firearm. A waiting period would certainly provide some buffer between what the person's going through and being able to purchase that first firearm with which they might commit suicide. So that one we will be discussing in the Senate, as I said, don't quite know where we'll head. The relief from abuse order, it sounds rather technical to those courtroom regulars. But in current practice, courts usually often will require that the firearms be relinquished. What this law would do is require that the courts do it. So it's effectively formalizing a practice, which is already frequently used. So I think knowing the house prioritization of that proposal, I'm sure that we'll see some movement there. I've heard less certainty at this point about the so-called safe storage piece, about the ability to enforce and other concerns that have been raised. So the waiting period issue is the one that I would see as most likely to advance. Thank you. So you think you have the political capital then and the legislature to continue with more reforms regarding gun laws? Yeah, I think that the merits of the waiting period issue will determine whether it moves forward. I think that what we've seen in the last couple of years is the timidity, the historical timidity to take on gun safety legislation has been broken through, if you will. So I'm not sure if political capital is the right word, but I believe if on the merits it should advance, it has a good chance to do something. Great, thank you. We have, we're just about done I'm getting the hand signals from Python in about 10 minutes. Okay, so we have more questions, but I wanted to see if anyone here has a question or two for Tim. I heard in the paper that you're intending to advocate for a four-year governor's term and I'd like to understand a little more what the pluses and negatives of that are. So for those of you who couldn't hear, the question is what are the pluses and minuses of a four-year term for governor, which is something that I've supported historically and would be advocating for this year. So right now there are only two states in America that have two-year term for governors, and that's Vermont and the Hampshire. My belief is that a four-year term for governor, instead of the two-year term we have now, would allow governors of any party to come in to make bigger, transformative bulls, whether it's cleaning up the environment, whether it's reforming our education system, whether it's healthcare, you name the issue. And think about it the way it is today. Governor gets elected, within a few months they're already preparing an agenda to get re-elected two years later. And we talk about two-year terms, but because of the election two years later, it's actually more like a one-and-a-half-year term because by the end of the second year of a biennium it's already go time for the campaign. So we spend 25% of our time now with gubernatorial campaigns. Governors come in, they typically offer relatively marginal changes to the status quo in large part because they fear, I think, proposing something that could go sour. Doing minor things, if it doesn't happen, the public doesn't care, maybe he doesn't even notice. So to me a four-year term would allow a governor to propose more bold, transformative ideas, allow them to work with the legislature if there's resistance to try to find some common ground, actually implement the law, go through some of those implementation transitions, bumps, rough patches, and then get to the other side of it so that voters can then decide whether they like what the governor has been proposing and doing with his or her administration. The minuses, since I'm an advocate for four-year terms, I'll be generous here, the minuses are some people believe that the voters want to have elections every two years and keep weighing it. And there is some merit to that, right? If a governor does something that's particularly toxic and voter attitudes swing really heavily, the question is should they have that opportunity within two years to send the person packing? That's for others to decide. In my opinion, the welfare of the state is aided more greatly by a four-year term. One of the hold-ups in the past is that if you extend a four-year term for the governor, that's a lot of leverage over the legislature. So the question is should there be four-year terms for at least some legislators and historically the view has been the state senate. Now I am a state senator, but the moment we propose four-year terms for state senators, 150 people who happen to be members of the Vermont House of Representatives say, what about us? And that's usually what does in proposals like this. So as introduced, the proposal just focuses on the governor because I think that's where Vermonters should first, you know, discuss whether our current system of two-year terms is adequate. I am certainly open to the issue of all the other statewide officials plus the state senate. Thank you. Do we have time for one more question or are we done, Peter? We're done. Okay. Well, thank you so much everyone for coming and thank you, Tim, for joining us this morning. Thank you. It's a great pleasure to have you all here and thanks for bringing the weather.


So that when you wake up in the morning your day may be successful You wew till that you are feeling tired It's Monday, you have just you have not enough sleep You agreed with Jeff Bezos He needs 8 hours of sleep this is the richest man in the world na watu tu nambiwa painge tulale 5 hours 4 hours if you want to be successful so what do you make of that? for me I agree with Jeff Bezos you need enough rest so that when you wake up you will fulfill your day will be productive ukwa na productivity so tamka na psych na guvu kwa strong ukwa sour so what do you make of it? should you sleep 8 hours or less if you want to be successful kwa na benga teacher nambiwa na usilale sana usilale sana ukilala the early bird catches the warm in my life by 5 I am awake whether I am going to school or not I am awake by 5 it has become as my routine and I will not really necessarily insist that everybody to take my direction and it only depends on what you are doing because one for example maybe you have worked late hours and you have to wake up for the following day so it is upon you now to program yourself that since I have an extra work to do I have either to go to sleep early and wake up early you getting it so that is a common norm and everybody should practice it you getting it so sleep early wake up early so that you know when assume that you slept late probably around 2 then you want to wake up at 4 you only have around 12 hours to sleep so the level of your productivity in the following day will be somehow low because of the fatigue so we need enough time you need enough rest so that the following day you are more energised okay to you so what do you think of Jeff Pezzos says that Jeff Pezzos together with some other successful people wanna say mother don't sleep with an alarm because the alarm is too alarming it's too shocking so kia muka ina kushtua then it just ruins your pattern ina kudisiri end so what do you think of this kusia muka ina alarm for me I agree with them because actually when you set your alarm most of the time you will tend to hit the snooze button maramingi, iyon i weakness you are doing you are to wake up at 7 if you set your alarm maybe at 7 when it rings even it spoils your mood so you snooze it you snooze it until so I agree with Jeff Pezzos you don't need to set an alarm it just needs to be your daily routine even if you are going to work or not just wake up maybe for your routine you do your things in the morning no need to set an alarm how practical is it you know come up to me a good sleeper so how do you work through it before your routine when you wake up at 6 when you wake up at 7 to work through it almost when you sleep you have something in mind you know I want to wake up do this do this but if you just sleep having nothing you know you will sleep the whole day you wake up even at 1 so you need to sleep with a plan something which will make you wake up to do okay I tend to disagree because I can see it has got two falls one our body is just like something if you condition it by 10 I am asleep by 4 or 5 you are awake that is how the body will be working so it is automatic then another thing so are you agreeing with partly and I don't see making an alarm to wake you up manasama it is the shop when the alarm is clear it just changes your mood it is mind of morning where is the problem it is your mood immediately you wake up but when you set yourself maybe you have put the alarm for a month so you are already conditioned your mind is conditioned at this time I am awake when it gets at 4 you are automatically awake you check the time it is 4 there is no sound there is no sound there is no sound as bad as that of the alarm I don't know if it is just me with me I am used to it because my phone is always at exactly 5 when I am going to work it is on I am used to it has come part and parcel over of my life in fact sometimes when I go to up country I find myself awake at 5 and you wonder what are you going to do at 5 in the rural setup because I have conditioned myself to wake up at that time so I don't see a problem either putting alarm or not because one your body will be conditioned but at a particular time the body is awake the mind is awake you have spoken of that it has reminded me of consistency do you think that being consistent with your morning routine come on Najwa I am waking up at 5 so every time I am supposed to wake up at 5 the first thing I do when I wake up is read a book some people read books in the morning as Ram said earlier on so do I need to always read a book when I wake up do I always need to pray when I wake up how do you think consistency works out in getting success at times you need to change the consistency in the rural setup when you go to the rural setup so you find yourself that you are awake by 5 so what will you do at 5 like when I wake up at rural setup where you mostly spend your time before I go to the rural area maybe you have a job it will take months and months before you go to the rural area so you need to go home do you need that consistency in the morning you need that consistency because actually you have something to do there is something which is waiting for you to push it so that it can work out so actually I think you need that consistency so that will help in your success that will help you I think as I said earlier the one principle for you to become successful one you must have your priority set upright and the moment that you set up the priorities and you keep on checking them have you attained the target have you made the requisition the cerebral outcome that you have set so it will bring the level of the perfection so the consistency the one is very unfair to anybody who is not persistent so you have to you have to keep the persistence even if you have not we normally set the targets but how many times do we set them immediately the ear begin everybody has got his goal to achieve at the end of the ear but the moment that you don't achieve them you have to go back to the drawing but I'm saying what happened where did I miss what are the challenges that I cut on the way so you have to keep on pressing that is why in our practitioners area we have to insist that keep on trying and what is the place of meditation some people say when you wake up some people like I don't know if it's opera or I'm confusing with someone else so Ian when you wake up you need to meditate maybe you've prayed or something so you stay in your bed and meditate what do I want to achieve how am I just checking up on yourself meditation is good it gives you plan what will be your next move even this series this money heist you know actually the person was behind that actually he didn't just come out like let's go he had some meditation and actually meditation are good early in the morning because people are quiet the environment is cool conducive so you can think well plan plan actually if you are planning for the month at the end you will know that by this day I must have achieved this and this this and this goal so meditation is okay because in the morning you are still fresh you can think well and everything the environment is quiet you can be able nobody is that's why I disagree with the social media when you just wake up and go to the social media don't think think of what your day will be just hang in the social media waste your time procrastinate your events and actually not be successful I think okay so we need to have meditation social media need destruction in the morning we push it further kido go morning kumbalimbali so Claxton what do you think about exercising in the morning okay yes yes yes I think after setting up goals that is one goal number one keys for successful setting up the goals number two is having good health now for you to carry out your activities throughout the day you must be healthy in mind physical and also you have got the ability to carry out yourself throughout the day so assume we normally tell people that work without exercise mix someone down and it is true because exercise it depends on the time frame that you have after benedictions you just have got some around 15 minutes you jog around within the house it is useful and so as it makes your body become active as you proceed in the subsequent activities the body and the mind is set up and in readiness to the set up activities of the day so you open up your mind okay and you drink some water of course so as we come to a close what do you think are some of the bad habits morning habits bad morning habits first the social media one the social media one is a bad habit because it tends to waste your time first the social media one second we can have the you wake up to a loud music you bang a loud music in the house those are not good habits because you will not think well you will not have the time to think the third one is you wake up to noise just you wake up and start noise so you will not have the music you will not have the sound you just wake up and start rolling with your neighbors you will not have that your day will just be destroyed like that in the morning okay so what do you think I may not be fixed down to one point of view because it also depends with the individuality for example like the youths as he said you get someone waking up on loud music which is interfering with the neighbors and also you get someone having quarrel with the family so all these traits what we are just saying we are trying to encourage less have what we call morals good morals as much as you want to enjoy your music also ensure that others also want to enjoy their space you getting it they have to let me ask you something an example someone wakes up at 6am prepares for 3 hours so 6 7 8 9 leaves home at 9am and there is someone who wakes up at 8am and leaves the home at 9am so which one is more different opinion waking up maybe at 6 you leave the house at 9 will be maybe effective I think that's good because you will have prepared well maybe you have taken a bath eat something before you leave maybe spread where you are sleeping prepare your place well so that even evening when you come back in the evening your place is good when you decide to rest you will rest in a conducive environment so it's the preparation for you so what if the person who is waking up in that one hour is able to do the same thing to me time does not matter why time is influenced by the set of activities that you have set so if the activities, if the goals demand that you have to go early you will have to wake up early you are getting it and it will also determine on how more times that you need for preparation for example in my case I am on the way 7 am in my working place so what do I need 3 hours for preparation I don't need I only need 1 hour 1 hour exactly so what if someone is taking that 3 hours to meditate to do exercise so you are doing more in that 3 hours I think that is now because one unless you are in a church why do you need 3 hours or 2 hours for meditation but you know you can't copy what someone do because you will notice that you will copy maybe you wake up you prepare for 3 hours because so and so does and then you realize that later you had a different question paper so you are copying once actually just believe maybe if you think for your view you can prepare for 3 hours maybe you want to bed slowly hot shower cold shower again you want to prepare slowly so that you can start up your day so do what works for you works best for you because you and also it also depends on what you are doing activity will determine the time of time frame that you need for preparation if the activity is prolonged you need more time yes you need more time you need more time so what are your final remarks what we should do the first thing we should do in the morning in regards to developing habits of the successful actually I will say that first you need to have enough rest before you wake up for the day when you wake up check your emails make your to-do list maybe take a notebook say by the end of this day you want to have achieved this set your goals for the day and meditate before and now just bumping into the day okay thank you and you capture why your final remarks not be very far from him but the first thing is meditation then you have a few exercises that you have to do for healthy healthy being then the third one is which will now usher in the set of activities that you are going to do for the day so the moment that you do all these it is one after the other and they are inter trained they are closer to each other yes they are closer closer to each other yes alright thank you you have been a great panel we have surely gotten insights in this so thank you for coming onto the show we appreciate you you have any social handle people can get you in you can find me on instagram at iyan underscore mello iyan underscore mello and tell you klaxon i have the two the three actually but the most one common is twitter twitter that is klaxon karan one klaxon karan one then on facebook there is a klaxon okaj let's see what you guys are saying on the social platforms peter minas says pray razi king says na angol moja 45 degrees aje then na nyombasa na wuna chungulia kakuna na kwauna na wuna smile nasu kope kako nituang prince anasa na changam kia kiporo then others follow kingsupamontilist na kwauna danismo nasama you pray rismesh nasama good morning thanking him for another day meja nasama prayer yang saint nasama check new whatsapp messages social media gang annos mutungi nasama opening my eyes bombo ru nasama smoke weeds in the morning ok kelvin esta nasama i open my eyes yo ni ridu masiga asama say hi to god well that has been it thank you guys for being engaging in our social platforms we continue with this conversation if you'd like to try to fight for channel that is on facebook instagram and twitter that has been today's conversation bring a wrap to today's why in the morning show it's been me Stephanie Ayeta and Ramagoko see you tomorrow have a great day ahead adios