The Dark Milner descends to his throne of thought to answer your question as the Magnicide movement marches forward to one million subscribers. Eighty-five thousand strong I think keeps going up all the time let me say my eighty-five eighty-six thousand strong all right some of my bitches so young Magnicide writes me and this is what he says if you make a bid on this please keep my name anonymous all right look Miguel we all family here okay you ain't got to worry about nobody knowing your name because I ain't gonna say it I now says you're top wrong how are you doing I'm a student during year 11 over the past two years I've hung with a bunch of guys who I get along with but aren't that socially confident in school around others I would say I'm the alpha male of the group saying as I'm what some would call a job however I hang around with them then I started hanging around with another group of students fellow jocks and we got along pretty good at times the nerdy group makes me feel held back because they won't talk much with everyone unlike me and so my question is what do you think I should do should I stay in the nerdy group be loyal to my old friends yet held back or hang around the jocks new friends who don't hold me back you might say why not both but that's because they both pretty much hate each other and so I feel like I can only hang with one thanks Tyrone by the way your videos still kick ass and I love the new Magnus react centros woman subscribers who so you want to know what to do jock or nerd why not be the bridge between the two species so that you can both form one group one family I'm gonna tell you what I would tell a little brother don't pick a side hang with who you want to hang with if you feel a loyalty to a good few friends then I don't see anything wrong with being loyal to them as long as you do not allow them to hold you back okay I understand what you mean if you're more outgoing you like to talk to people you'd like to have fun when you have guys that may not be very confident in themselves you know they would feel like that they hold you back and I get what you're saying you as an adult I hang more with people that I feel are going somewhere in life or more positive and confident about themselves who just want more out of life who just don't want to sit around and drink and fucking smoke and I know guys like that that I'm still cool with but we don't hang as much anymore understand that so that's what I would do if I were you if the jocks really are a positive influence on you you feel really comfortable around them they're confident you're having a great time you feel built up okay then you may have to choose one side more than the other but you don't have to totally abandon your other friends okay it's funny because the email almost sounds like you know a TV you know like a special or a movie you know where the nerds don't like the jocks and jocks don't like the nerds you know where the you know the hot girls don't like the nerdy girls and nerdy girls don't like the hot girls you know I mean that's what it sounds like to me and like you got to pick a side and you can't have those friends you can't it's just you're just gonna have to try to get the right word you're just gonna have to you know divide your time in a different way I mean you gotta do what makes you happy and seriously I mean if the athletes are really who you feel better around if I mean you know if they really are a positive influence and it's not like on TV where they're all arrogant conceited assholes picking on the nerds and beating them up and making fun of them they're not like that and they really are a cool group of people then why not hang more with them since they make you feel better you know I was just talking to someone on the phone earlier and she was telling me about how negative one of her friends is and how she always feels like she drags her down and she always sees the negative side of things and she just like man you know but they've been friends since high school and she's been they both work for a state both do a similar job and other ones been fired fired by four times in their industry and in less than a year she's like I don't know what to do because I feel like I'm a bad friend but I don't want to be around her okay so totally understand like I said as I started I tell you as I started to get older there are certain friends that I am still friends with who I would give their shirt off my back for they would do the same for me but they're very negative and even though I'm a positive person I haven't been able to help them or influence them so I don't see them as much as I used to but I still see them I still love them this of my friends and they always will be but there are other friends that I have now who are much more positive who I'd much rather be around and have a conversation with you know me because they only build me you know I'm saying I saw a meme online the other day and said something about like if my crew doesn't look like this then I don't want to have a crew or I don't want to hang with you and with a pack of lions you get what I'm saying so if you know you're used to I don't know hanging with the wildebeest who maybe have no direction and they're always getting preyed upon by life you want to be on the top of the food chain you don't found the jocks the lions okay and maybe they are the ones who are you feel more in the pack it's like yeah you know I mean it's like we're all roaming together not feel good I feel strong I feel confident with these guys but the other ones is just like what the fuck I'm always scared I think something's gonna happen don't feel confident maybe you feel like a gazelle about to get choked out by a lion you know I mean and so I understand I totally understand if I were you I'd go with the group that makes you feel happy but I wouldn't totally alienate my other friends because if they are true friends if they are true friends you true friends are really hard to find and you want to keep them but sometimes through your own actions and influence you can bring your friends up you can make you can you know influence them to become more positive and confident like you and that could be the reason why you're even in that group they may have brought you into the fold because you're the guy that has that X factor that they just don't have they look to you for direction they look to you as their leader the alpha because you're confident you're the jock maybe you get more girls than them and maybe there's something about them that you gravitate to remember they're your friends first so apparently a part of you sinks in with them okay connects with them so that's why I say no I mean I got I got a couple of geeked out like some people call me geeked for where I at I mean I got people that I'm cool with that you'd be like why the fuck do you hang with him you know what cuz he's a good guy and they're on a certain level we do connect I don't I mean I hang with him as much trust me it is this one guy oh my god I told him over no he used to call me for advice all the time cuz he wasn't confident you always put on a facade he was a guy that chicks caught thought was good looking but he couldn't get one to stick with him he it was just he was just complete mess but I could be his friend I could talk to him time to time I can hang with him from time to time but I couldn't hang with him the majority of the time because eventually he would bring me down so I was just a good friend to him and did what I could and that's what you have to do so if you have to hang with the jocks hang with the jocks be happy be confident be outgoing do your thing but when your other friends need you or you're feeling you need to talk to them or hang with them go ahead and do it but don't alienate either one don't get rid of you on just because they don't like each other I'm friends of certain people that don't like other people and I don't care because that's your beef not mine understand what my subscribers who may now subscribe


Now that you've edited function blocks, it's time to create a new function block from scratch. It's really simple. You'll see the toolbox has a category called function. If you click on this, you'll see an orange button called create a function. Clicking on this brings up the function editor that you've already used to edit existing function blocks. Just like before, you started by naming your function, writing down a description for what the function is supposed to do. For instance, it's supposed to draw a square or draw a triangle and then drag blocks from the toolbox into the white workspace below. Remember to drag these blocks inside the green wrapping block for the function. Once you're done, click on save and exit. This will take you back to the main puzzle workspace. The new function you've created will show up as a green block in the functions category in your toolbox. Drag and drop this into the main workspace and use it just like any other block to solve the puzzle.


So hey guys welcome to come again if you're new make sure you hit the subscribe button and a little bell Count below hit the like button. I mean even share with your friends Good job. We have cookies and milk Might be seeming not sure All right guys welcome back to come again, I'm Shannon and this week We're gonna go over a couple comic book reviews. We have here April 2017 edition Batman detective comics Rise of the Batman number one from DC universe rebirth. It is listed as Detective comics rise of the Batman number one. Mm-hmm. So it it came in a three-pack from Walmart of DC universe comics, so let's get started. So we open up with what appears to be red Robin orphan spoiler and a humanized clay face Facing off against a horde of jokers, but what it actually is is a training scenario inside the Belfrey using clay faces own material to create the jokers That woman is watching Batman does not want this new team taken to the streets until he feels they're ready So bat it's bat woman's job To run them through the ringer and she basically maxes out this new training facility Testing them And yes clay face is a hero now So I'm not sure what's going on with that red Robin Tim Drake meets up with Batman talks to him about how he doesn't think the team is ready and all this other stuff and how Azrael John Paul Valley is in a coma or not really a coma but just very very injured from an attack and Batman is like, you know red Robin You know or you know Tim. Yeah, you may have thought you were You always said that you weren't a Robin But that's why I put you in this new uniform because to me you were always a Robin and That's not a bad thing and of course Leslie Thompson Thompson Tomkins, sorry is taking care of John Paul Valley See Tim and Stephanie Brown Trying to share a night together in her apartment orphan comes in Even though Batman set her up with her own place. She kind of much rather prefers staying with people So Stephanie asks her for the night for for the apartment to herself for the night So she can have some time alone Catherine Kane with her father Again discussing about Bruce Wayne and Batman because they both know his identity and they're related their cousins Catherine Kane's father was Martha Wayne's brother that man then becomes attacked by a group of soldiers in Bat stylized uniforms. So this is part one of Rise of the Batman. It looks pretty interesting. I'll give this Story probably a seven out of ten moving on we have Batman Trinity number one from DC universe rebirth and Batman and like I said, it is listed as Batman Trinity number one from April 2017 This shows the first time Batman and Wonder Woman actually have a sit-down with the pre new 52 Superman Lois Lane invites them To dinner and of course, you know Batman and Wonder Woman agree because they need to They need to find out who this new Superman is and of course Wonder Woman brings a board of dinner They take off their costumes and they're dressed up, you know in regular ordinary dress clothing and young Jonathan He goes to answer the door but before he opens that he uses x-ray vision to see who it is and He peers through there to Scott or their clothing see a bat symbol and Wonder Woman's bracelets as well as a bore He's a little startled by this and about that time Superman's arriving home and Upon using his x-ray vision he act Jonathan accidentally uses his heat vision to blast Bruce all the way back to the barn and Diana has to deflect with her bracers We do see that Clark has to give Bruce One of his flannel shirts to since Jonathan kind of destroyed Bruce's dress shirt and Bruce just looks extremely uncomfortable and Clark is just like don't let him intimidate you John believe me Bruce has worn worse things than Plaid and as much as he talks about working alone. I've always associated Batman with a Robin I don't necessarily agree with dragging a child into the line of fire, but I'll be honest Bruce But I'll be honest Bruce When Dick's identity was in danger of being found out after he broke his arm You really stepped up to the plate in protecting him Wearing a rainbow suit to draw attention away from Robin brilliant when Dick told me the story I just about lost it. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard And Bruce is just like I have no recollection of this basically Clark is talking about the pre new 52 Batman but I'm sure that This Batman has also done similar things and Lois the entire time. She's kind of quiet and Offset by Wonder Woman because Wonder Woman and The new 52 Superman were an item. So Lois. She's kind of She knows what? Wonder Woman is feeling because before Clark and Lois got married they were engaged and at the time of their Engagement Superman was killed by doomsday. So she knows exactly what she's feeling. Then we see a little heart-to-heart with Clark and Bruce and a heart-to-heart with Diana and Lois. They realize that you know Maybe they could become friends and you know it Pretty good read not a lot of action in it, but there doesn't always need to be action in these stories I'll give this I'll give it an 8 out of 10 really good read up next. We've got Sinestro number one one-shot the new 52 futures and in this it's set Several years in the future A universal martial force has arrested Sinestro and brought him to this prison planet to serve life in Serve a life sentence no power ring his head has been shaved as much as that has been shaved off and They're they have no names no numbers. They're just known as inmates here he and a former Indigo Lantern develop a plan Where the Indigo Lantern Develops him a homemade Yellow power ring. It's more or less just like finger armor that gives him a Lower amount of power of the Emotion fear and it's not gonna last them long but long enough to get them away and They travel to new Kargar where Sinestros had set up his Sinestro Corps And apparently after Sinestro was captured the parallax entity broke free from the planet's core and Destroyed everybody so the Sinestro goes Sinestro goes there to Get Lissa Drax's skull and with that skull He destroys it opening up a black power ring He states that but only one can build my army once more only one will help me reclaim my name Only one shall be known from this day forward as the color of the new Sinestro Corps So Sinestro pretty much takes over the Black Lanterns and turns them into his new Sinestro Corps Like I said, this was a one-shot futures and it takes place several years in the future an alternate future. I believe From before convergence occurred so this is no longer Continuity It's pretty much just an Elseworld's title now, I guess I'll give that I'll give it a seven out of ten as well Up next we've got Grayson new 52 futures end one shot number one we open up the story with Grayson being hung to death and Then we get a series of flashbacks throughout the rest of the story how him and Helena fell in love and How he managed to break ropes and what basically everything that led to the point of him being hung he ended up killing KG beast Which is revealed that Batman didn't kill him as was thought In an earlier story, he is now the new president of your Russia Which because of apocalypse invading from earth to all of Europe gave or authorized Emergency power to KG beast To rule Contemporarily in order to defeat dark side. He did not relinquish his power as originally thought he would similar to Star Wars, you know blah blah blah blah blah And they're just a number of events which led to spiral working for the right your your Russian government and Then Grayson eventually Killing KG beast and then being hung we get a nice shot in this of Dick Grayson as Robin Completely different uniform than a Pre new 52 style, but this is the style of the new 52 So it really works. I really like it It doesn't tell us whether or not he He survives and manages to escape it's kind of hinted at that he's gonna use acid that was used on his Parents wires But that was used on their wires by Tony Zuko to escape like this But it doesn't actually reveal if he does escape or not Kind of slow-moving I wish they would have written it in a different manner. I'll give it I'll give it a five out of ten. It could have been better if they would have Told the story rather than in reverse in actual order beginning with the last flashback of of The Grayson's being killed then moving up to through Dick and Bruce Or Bruce giving dick the acid that Tony Zuko used and Big as Robin if they would have did it that way it would probably have been a better story But it just it read backwards. It was interesting though. Like I said five out of ten Up next we've got Batman Superman the final days of Superman number five The Trinity go to China where they are met by the They find it the great ten who are basically China's version of the Justice League The Trinity go to China in order to find this false Superman Which shows right here They end up discovering China's version of Superman being created By scientists who siphoned off excess Energy released by Superman during his supernovas It's very interesting the two teams team up briefly and then The great ten send the Trinity on their way because China's a closed state and You know the Trinity don't want an international incident But it was a good read I believe this was the first appearance of the The super hyphen man, which is now part of DC rebirth But off to double-check on that I'll give this a seven out of ten up next we have Batman eternal This is Batman number 22. It starts off with Alfred's daughter trying to get ahold of Bruce someone broke in and Injected something directly into Alfred's brain And he's been taken to the hospital and it's not looking good Bruce's Trout or Batman's trying to stop the architect from destroying a building killing hundreds of people in the process and then Alfred's daughter remembers what Alfred told her right before He went unconscious he said grandfather clock and He said he said grandfather clock 1048 She's like, I don't understand and then she sees the grandfather clock son of a bitch And then she discovers the Batcave of course she has to tell Bruce what happened to her father and he's Stomach, she's like he needs you now but Batman Can't go now. He's got to stop the architect, which is very disappointing to Alfred's daughter Who he finally calls penny, too Now Alfred was penny one. That was his codename. He finally convinces her to help him Once he's able to stop the architect. That's when he's gonna go Try and help Alfred because that's what Alfred would want him to do It is revealed that the architect is actually working for Hush, so not a bad read But overall not a bad read see yeah, it's Batman eternal number 22 Came out in November of 2014. This is one of those comics that came in the Walmart three pack I kind of liked it It was a nice read. I'll give it an eight out of ten Pretty decent. So that does it for this week's comic book review I will be back with a Nether review from the Ghostbusters omnibus volume one and it is going to be a review of Ghostbusters the other side From IDW publishing So make sure you come back and check that out. So once again the comics for this week wore Batman eternal number 22 Batman Superman number 32 the final days of Superman number five New 52 futures and grace in one shot New 52 futures in Sinestro one shot Batman Trinity number one and Rise of the Batman number one.


Germany provides another military assistance package to Ukraine. As part of the new military assistance package provided by Germany, Ukraine will receive mine clearing tanks, how it says drones and other military equipment units. The relevant statement was made by the German federal government. The updated list indicates that Ukraine received two Wisnet 1 mine clearing tanks, two Wisnet 1 mine clearing tanks in the last week in addition to the four transferred earlier and 11 mine plows for T-72 tanks. Also among the military aid are five SurveySpire mobile reconnaissance systems. Their provision was reported on back in February. Three vector reconnaissance drones, five mobile antenna masked systems, and nine vehicles for border protection. The German government also announced the transfer of two Zuzana 2 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine as part of a project financed jointly with Denmark and Norway. In addition Berlin updated the list of planned assistance. Among them are 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, six more Berge Panzer II armored recovery and evacuation vehicles, seven mobile remote controlled and protected demining complexes, five mobile SurveySpire reconnaissance systems, and another 18,000 portable anti-tank missile complexes. A reminder that Germany is the second biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States.


Hi, I'm Jason Johnston, senior content developer with the Outlook Ecosystems team. Today I'm going to show you how to authenticate your Node.js web app to call the calendar API, to access your calendar in Office 365. So let's get started. To start with, I've got this very basic Node.js website that uses the Express framework. It doesn't really do a whole lot yet, but we're going to change that in this session. The code that I'm starting with is available on GitHub. The link will be available in the comments below. We have a clean slate branch on this repo that will correspond to what I'm starting with here today. So let's switch over to the code and get started. In order to implement OAuth, we're going to use an open source library called Simple OAuth2. So the first thing that we need to do is install that using NPM. Now that we have that installed, we can go ahead and make use of it. So we're going to add a file to our project here to hold all of our authentication methods called authhelper.js. So what I've done here is implemented all the functions that we need for authentication through the magic of code snippets. We'll go over each one as we get to them. The first thing that you might notice is that we have these values here at the top that are currently empty. We need to get values for those. And the way that we do that is we register our application in the Microsoft app portal. This is the application registration portal. I've already signed in using my Office 365 user account. And I can go ahead and create an app registration here. So I click the add app and I'll give it a name. Once this is done, we will have an application ID which we'll use for the client ID value in our code. So I'll just copy the application ID here and put it in for my client ID. The next thing that we need to do is get a client secret. We can do this here by generating a new password. Now, pay close attention to this dialogue. This is the only time that you'll be able to see this password. So you do need to copy it now. If you come back, you can only see the first three characters. So be sure to copy it when you generate it. The last thing is our redirect URI. This is where the Azure authentication process will redirect back into our web app after authentication is completed. So we're going to go ahead and set this to the authorized route in our app. Now, we do need to also specify that in our application registration. The authentication process will only redirect to URLs that we have preconfigured in our registration. So to do that, we will come to the platform section in the registration and click add platform. We're a web app, so we're going to click web. And here we can enter our redirect URI. We'll go ahead and click save to finalize that registration. We'll switch back to the code while that's saving. The next thing you might notice is the scopes array. This is where we specify what permissions our application needs in order to function. I've only included three here.  We will use that later, so we'll include that here. Offline access is important if you want to be able to have continuous access to the user's data after that initial logon process. That's accomplished by getting a refresh token as part of the authentication process, which you can then silently acquire new access tokens as they expire. And finally, we have this calendars.read scope, which will allow us to read the user's calendar. And we'll see that in action. Now the first export that we have in this auth helper module is the git auth URL. All this does is use the simple auth to library to generate the sign on URL back to our Azure authentication endpoint. This is the first function that we're going to make use of. So we'll switch back over to our app.js and find our home page. Currently, we are just setting a hash URL for the logon button. So we'll replace that by using that git auth URL function. First, we do need to require our new module. Okay, so now our button should have a valid link when we rerun the app. But before we do that, let's go ahead and implement some of the rest of it. We set our redirect URI to go to an authorized route in our app, which we currently don't have implemented. So let's go ahead and add that. So if we take a quick look at this, we check the query parameters of the incoming request for a code parameter. This is how the Azure auth process gives us back the authorization code that we need to exchange for a token. So we take that code and we are passing it to the git token from code function also in our auth helper. We'll take a quick look at that one. All this is doing here is using the simple auth to library again to get the token. It passes in the authorization code and again our redirect URI, which matches what we used in the auth request. And we include all of our scopes. This is going to call back into a callback function, which we specified in app.js, token received. Again, we haven't implemented that yet, so let's go ahead and do that so we can get this up and running. In the token callback, we are going to just get the access token and refresh token from the result that was returned to us and save it in our session. And finally, we will redirect to a login complete page. Let's go ahead and add that and then we should be able to actually see this in action. So in the login complete, we read the access token and refresh token back out of the session and we simply dump it to the screen. That should be enough for us to see this working and verify that everything is working. So let's go ahead and run the app and see it in action. Okay, now if we rerun the app, we will see that clicking the sign in button actually takes us to the login page. I'm going to log in with my Office 365 user and once the authentication process is complete and we're redirected back into the app, I can see that I have my access token. So great, everything is working. So now that we're logged in, we can do some things, some interesting things with the data. The first thing that we want to do is actually get some information about the user themselves. And the way that we're going to do that is by using the ID token. We already have a function in authelper.js that can extract the user's email address from the ID token. The ID token is returned to us along with the access token and refresh token as part of the authentication process. So let's add a function in our token received to call this getEmail function and save it in our session. And then in login complete, we'll get that email address back out of the session. And instead of just dumping into the screen, we'll pass that email address to our login completed page template. Now if we restart the app, sign in again, this time we actually get something a little nicer. So you can see that we have the user's email address that we got from the ID token and we have a few buttons here. Sync calendar, refresh tokens and log out. So the sync calendar will cover in the next session, but refreshing tokens and logging out is still part of the authentication process. So let's go ahead and take a look at those. So refreshing tokens is something that your app will need to do every once in a while. When you get an access token, it's good for an hour. After that hour's up, you've got to get a new one. Using a refresh token is the way to do that without any user interaction. So let's implement the refresh tokens. I'm going to start by adding a refresh token route to our app. So as you can see, we get the refresh token out of the session. And then we pass that to get token from refresh token and our auth helper. We also reuse our token received callback here because it does exactly what we needed to do. Let's take a look at the get token from refresh token function in auth helper very quickly. Again, simple OAuth 2 makes this super easy for us. We just need to create a token object from the refresh token and then call refresh on it. It's important to note that when you use the refresh token to get a new access token, you also get a new refresh token. So it's a best practice to always update your refresh token with the new one. Refresh tokens are pretty long lived, but they can expire, so it's always best to get the freshest one possible. Okay, so before we rerun the app and see refresh token at work, let's go ahead and implement logout. Logout for us will be very easy. Since we're storing the tokens in our session, all we'll do is destroy the session and go back to the home page. Easy enough. So now let's restart the app one last time and see it all at work. Okay, and if we sign in, now we can refresh the token. Now it didn't really do anything that we could see, but if we take a look at our console output, we can verify that we got a new token. And then finally, if we logout, we're right back to where we started. And that's it. That's all we need to do to implement the authentication piece, which is really the hard part of connecting your node app to Office 365. In the next session, we'll go ahead and take a look at implementing CalendarSync. If you want to compare your source with what we did in this session, if you go back to the GitHub repo and look at the session one branch, that should match what we've done in this session. And that's it. We've implemented authentication and connected our app to Office 365. We've gotten past the hard part, so in the next session, we'll go ahead and take a look at implementing basic CalendarSync. That's pretty much all that I wanted to show you in this session. If you'd like to learn more, be sure to check out dev.outlook.com or dev.office.com for more getting started materials and information on node and other platforms. Thanks for watching.


Welcome to the city considers. My name is Brett Lee and I'm the mayor of Davis and today I'll be talking with the former mayor of Davis, Rob Davis. Welcome Rob. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Brett. It's good to see you again. Yeah, so you've been retired from being mayor for the past three or four months. Yeah, and so looking back What are some of the things that you're most proud of achieving while on the city council and as mayor? Yeah, well, I mean it's interesting. I've been giving it some thought because periodically people, you know, ask me to speak to different groups. In a next week, I'll be speaking to a group of Afghani visitors, Fulbright sponsored about local governance issues and particularly transparency. And I think, you know, kind of you know, maybe underlying everything we do as a council, I think what I saw in the council that I, the two councils that I was involved in this was really just this attempt to really make sure we were hearing the community and that we were creating as many layers of transparency and accountability as we could. I know that's not maybe a new accomplishment. We were building on a lot of what was there commissions, but I think that we number one, when there was a new challenge, whether it was community choice energy or broadband issues, we created, you know, more opportunities through, you know, working groups committees to hear the community. So I think we continued to build on that. The other thing about transparency that I would say that I think, you know, our council did that I'm actually really proud of is in the area of financial transparency.  Most people are not at our budget meetings. For example, we kind of joke about that. But, you know, the fiscal model that we put into place to really help people understand both the fiscal challenges of the city and also, you know, sort of the trajectory of where we think things are going. That to me created a sense of, okay, shared understanding. And so, you know, those issues of transparency, sitting and listening to people, creating opportunities for people to speak, making sure that we're listening to varieties of perspectives. We also did a number of community forums, as you know, on everything from cannabis to turkeys to, you know, to police oversight. Right. I mean, those are ways to garner, in a participatory way, community input. So, whereas I think that's in the DNA, perhaps, of the city, I'm glad that we continued and furthered it. And we, you know, we didn't we didn't just use the Brown Act as a means to, you know, follow the law, but we went beyond it to create more layers of transparency. So that's an area that I think, you know, what I say it's the top thing, no, but when you consider that all of local government, really all of government, really rests on this basis of trust. And we've seen nationally and even internationally and even more than that locally how trust is so important. The more we can do and the more that I think the last council did to create and look after trust, I think that's so important in this time. So I'm really thankful that we had that ethos as a group. And I know that continues, you know, now. And so you mentioned trust. I mean, what has sort of, or what did surprise you about your interactions with the community around the areas of trust? Well, I think, honestly, I think trust has to, in a sense, has to be earned each on almost every issue. It's like sometimes it felt like we were starting over on each issue. So why should we trust you on this one? Right. And all, you know, what we would try to do or what I would try to do is point back and say, well, this is the way we work. But I think I always was surprised like almost like, what have you done for me lately? Like, why should I trust you now? And so it was hard work. I mean, it was hard work. And I felt maybe I'm looking back maybe a little more defensive than I needed to be. But it was it was the sense that every time every morning when you wake up, you've not really accomplished it, you need to continue to work on it. And I thought that there might be a point at which people say, you know, this Council, they've shown us. And so we can trust them. But on any given issue, it was like we had to maybe partly because we're dealing with new people who haven't been involved before, and they needed to see it and they needed to experience it in the way the others had. But that was a surprise to me, I think a little bit. And did you notice a change from when you first got elected to when you left office? No, I mean, I think we maybe I don't know if I've talked to you a lot about it, I think we probably have talked to a lot of people about it. I mean, I, you know, without wanting to get political, I mean, what happened in the 2016 election really did change the dynamic in the community. And part of it was the November 2016 election, November 2016 election, not your election 2016, which actually went very well. But yeah, the November 2016, it was almost immediately, there was a sense of angst of uncertainty. And again, we're in a very liberal city. And so obviously people were upset, but it went beyond that. I mean, it was a sense that things were changing in ways that were unpredictable. New standards were being set. There was a tone of discourse that whether people agreed with the current president and thought that was the right way to go or not, it was, I would use the word infecting. I mean, it was infecting a lot of the discourse locally. And it made for a more sort of not rigid is not the word I want, it's a more brittle kind of discourse where you were kind of feeling like things were on edge. And it was hard not to respond in kind. I think it's really incumbent upon the city council to really set a tone of discourse. And I think we all struggled at times with the kind of communication that was happening and how to step into it and be fruitful. And I know I did and I'm sure others have, you know, we've had to apologize at times for things we've said, or left unsaid or ways that we acted. And part of it is because we want to model a good way of being, but we're also caught up in an environment where there's a lot of hostility, and there's a lot of discourse that's really not very, you know, very civil. And that was a challenge, I think. And that definitely, from the first two years that I was on Council. So, you know, you're, what is it, your fourth year, your third and fourth year. And then when you got reelected as mayor pro tem, and when I became mayor, there was a big difference. I don't I don't know if you saw it. Yeah, what I kind of how I describe it is, before November 2016, if somebody heard, like something a little crazy, I don't mean crazy in a negative way, but just just something that didn't doesn't make sense. They would ask, is it true, Rob, that you're closing all the parks? Yeah. But after it was sort of, I can't believe they're closing all the parks. What's wrong with you? Yeah. And it was, I think before that, people would hear something that didn't really make sense. And they would at least ask, is it true that the city is going to close all the parks? And, you know, obviously, we're not going to close all the parks. But, but they would just sort of, I can't believe it, you know, and just, it's an accusatory tone. Yeah. I mean, I struggled with that. And again, it's not everybody. And it's not even, I don't even think the people that are engaging in it, I don't believe them. And I'm not angry at them. It was something that was happening at a macro level that was causing people to doubt and causing people to be afraid. And I saw a lot of responses coming from those places. Yeah. What's interesting is the national narrative has sort of changed the local interactions. And it's also pretty interesting that, you know, as we learn more about kind of the past few years at the national level, how there were outside entities purposely raising the agitation level, getting people to be more at odds with each other and more distrustful and angry. And it's, it's, but that's why I, but that's, I mean, that's, I'll go back to what I said a few minutes ago. That's why the careful construction of trust, you know, these layers of accountability, being extra careful about, you know, very public decision making, keeping an open mind, you know, listening, creating those extra venues, that was my, I don't think it was just mine. I think that was our response to that is to try to react not in a negative way and sort of pull in, you know, our defenses and huddle, but to say, all right, well, what is it, what's going on? What do we need to talk about? And, and that takes time. Yeah. And I think we all experienced that we were putting more time into the work of, of, of city business and a lot of us spending time with people responding to those types of questions that, or those kind of accusations that came forward. I don't, I don't regret anything that we did. But I do, I am cognizant that the amount of time I spent in my first two years was qualitatively different than the amount of time. And it's not just attributable to being the mayor. I mean, it's just people needed more time. Yeah, I found that I spend a lot of time talking to people about the challenges and explaining that there are challenges, but we can tackle them and solve them. I think people are kind of surprised as you kind of, you talked about the fiscal model, the Leyland model and some of these other things, that the city has been thoughtfully approaching these challenges. And, and actually we do have the tools to be successful in addressing them. And I think that surprises people because they get a narrow piece of information. And then when you're able to sit down and talk with them and talk about, you know, how we're bringing three or four different sort of resources to bear on the, the problem. And you know, this idea that we actually can achieve what we're hoping to achieve. Yeah. Well, and a key to that, and that's why I think I'm really like and believe so deeply in the importance of local government is that we can do that in a face-to-face way, right? So we're, you know, when people have questions, they can approach you. They do. They approached me. We can connect them with the appropriate staff. We can take the time to respond, you know, thoughtfully. We can also, and I noticed some of my colleagues, you know, when I was on council, were really good at this, taking questions that they had heard that were not being voiced maybe in the space and bringing them into the discussion. Things they'd read in the paper that represented opinions and what it showed as a consideration. But also that's the power of local government, right? The face-to-face nature of it and that people can not just get a pat answer but can get a deeper explanation. And, and, and those explanations, I thought you were going to take it in a slightly different direction but those explanations to me are also about trade-offs, right? I found myself a lot of times saying, okay, so this is what you want. Now let me talk about what I think we can achieve and what some of the challenges are to doing that and the trade-offs that are involved. And a lot of times that's budgetary or time. Sure. You know, we make decisions based on, on budgetary constraints or we make decisions based on the amount of time staff has, you know, to engage in certain things. So it's not as if the answer is a black and white, yes, no, we will, we won't. It's yes, we are moving. Here are some of the challenges to get there. This is how long it's going to take. And, and that more reasoned discourse is possible, I think, at the local level. It's one of the things I really enjoyed about being involved in the local government here. Yeah, you mentioned trade-offs. You know, the council recently has had a lot of development proposals. Yeah. And that's a good example of, you know, the trade-offs. Absolutely. It's sort of a balancing act and at some point it becomes a little bit subjective. And, you know, we're hoping to, you know, add some apartments to help address some of the student issues and work with the university to have them house students. And at the same time, you know, Davis is a nice place. So how do we keep it as a nice place? And some of the concerns about traffic are very valid. And, you know, we have sort of these competing interests and, you know, how do we, you know, what concessions do we make to achieve some of our goals? Yeah.  I mean, these are not, a lot of issues like that are not, there's not a narrow technical solution, right? There are multiple factors. And when we're, I think when we're making, when you're making, when we were making decisions about those types of things, yeah, I mean, you try to, I think we're, you know, in a representative democracy, I think one of the reasons we get elected is because people value our ability to weigh evidence and the way different factors in a decision making. But, you know, I think any of us would say, you know, after any given decision of a magnitude of, you know, building a thousand new units or something, you don't walk away from that and say, I was absolutely right to have no doubts about that decision. I mean, you, it's not wrong to acknowledge that there is, there's, there are unknowns in that. And that's the way most decisions are, right? I mean, we don't know the full impact of even a street redesign, which is a fairly narrow technical thing. You follow the rules. But do we know exactly what might happen? No. There might be some unintended consequence we can't see. We always live with that. And I think as long as we're humble at acknowledging that, then we, we can move forward. But I think the key is, you know, and I said this a lot when I was on council, and I think the last several have done, councils have done a good job. I know you all are doing the same as, what are the ends we're trying to achieve? Let's, can we stay focused on how this is helping us accomplish that? If it's not, okay, well, let's talk about that. But this is what we're trying to do here. So let's talk about what we want to do and what are the ends that we want to achieve. Yeah. I know, I always tried to steer the conversation back to, okay, well, let's make sure we're staying focused on what it is we're trying to do here. Yeah. I appreciated the way you ran the meetings because I think it encouraged more transparency, you know, asking about the reasons or, you know, where people were on a matter, not just simply sort of yes or no, but just sort of, you know, can you explain, can you elaborate? And I think that helped build a consensus. And I think mistakenly, some have thought our consensus was we were just, just so agreeable. I think upon close watching of the council meetings, you can see, you know, there is some, you know, we have different opinions and views, but we sort of reach a compromise. So there, there is movement in terms of what's originally proposed versus actually what we ultimately vote on. You know, and that's a, Brett, that's, and I'm glad you're saying that because it's a fairly nuanced thing, right? I mean, we come in, we listen, we talk and we make a decision and it's five oh, and we had a lot of five ohs. But those five ohs, I could take many examples of where I came in with a general sense, but there are details that need to be worked out within that. And that working out of the details was done after careful listening. And so on any given issue, I know I moved on things. And I know my colleagues did. And part of it was just our ability to take the time to listen to each other. I felt the role of the mayor in a case like that. And what I tried to do was to listen carefully enough and do us and do that kind of summarizing. You know, so this is what I'm hearing. So based on that, where are we going, right? You know, and I think if, if someone that's chairing a meeting can faithfully capture and the people in the meeting are saying, yeah, that, that represents, I don't feel like my voice is being excluded. Rob's not just picking out what he wants and putting it in my mouth. He's actually summarizing. Then I think that builds confidence in the group to say, you know, my voice isn't going to be excluded. This is not a railroad, you know, I'm not being forced into a position I don't want. And we did move. I mean, on many issues, just sitting there listening, I'd be like, yeah, I like that approach.  But there are lots of details within that. And there, there are things that maybe I would at any given point say, I'm not totally happy with that. But it's not a deal breaker for me. And I appreciate the perspective that's putting that on the table. So I think that's important. Those are dynamics that are difficult to pick up unless you're really paying attention over a long period of time. But one of the things I valued in our council was that willingness, people were forthcoming about, you know, where they were on issues. I felt that every night. I think what I really appreciate, appreciate being on the council with you, and the recent councils is the ability to disagree on an item and perhaps vote against the majority. And then on the next item, being able to work, you know, create partnerships with colleagues to, you know, come up with a better proposal. You know, I don't think there was sort of any personal antagonism, right? So we understood that sometimes people would not see it our way, and they would vote a different way. But on the next item, you know, they might be part of the and that can hurt. I mean, it can hurt. It can make you upset. That's where ego kind of comes in. I didn't I didn't see a lot of big egos of people that needed to be right. I think there was a respectful, okay, you're not there.  You don't want to be alone. You don't want to be on the losing side of a two, three. And also, if you vote, you would also like to bring everybody along with you. So I mean, those are dynamics that I think again, I'm not sure it's easy to pick them up unless you've really observed a group of people work together for a long time. And and I think two years is is is is a good period to really get that sense. I mean, what I what the other thing I would say is I really appreciate I came to expect certain not not perspectives, but ways of approaching problem solving from different people.  Brett's also going to be logical. Lucas is going to be able, for example, to provide a broader context of how this fits in with the state and what some of the challenges and constraints are to moving. Rachelle, it would be too easy to say she's just a business perspective. But as a, you know, as a person, business owner, she and will would would help understand those things. And on any given issue, you had people approaching it with their sort of background and collect and wisdom that they accumulated. And and you can lean on that, right? I know I know I don't have to carry all the weight on this type of analysis that Brett's going to help with, for example. Sure. So that's the dynamic of the group. Yeah. So what about being mayor surprised you, right? So it's kind of interesting. So you're on the council for two years, you sort of look over to your side and there's the person chairing the meeting who kind of wears the mayor's hat. And then suddenly, you know, there's this transition, you know, one week you're not the mayor and the next week you are the mayor. What were there any surprises that things that you thought, oh, I didn't realize that. Well, you know, in this form of government, and we say it over and over, right? It's a weak mayor form of government. You are not setting the policy for the city. I wasn't setting the policy. You don't get an extra vote. I didn't get an extra vote. We say that. And yet I think the reality is away from the dais and perhaps even on the dais, there is some additional weight given to the word of a mayor. First of all, the mayor is asked to speak on policy issues, to various groups, much more than any council member. Yeah. And so right there is an authority and I would call it a power, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but an ability to be the one sort of articulating, this is where I am. And even if I was careful, and if you were careful to say, and this is just my perspective, and I'm just one among five, people listen to that differently. You write something in the paper, it comes from the mayor. That is sort of the unofficial role, and I think there's importance to it, especially in, I would say in two areas, in times of ferment and times of change, people are going to look to the mayor to sort of set a tone, whether we want it that way or not. Right. Come down and speak at this event. There was a hate crime, we want the mayor. All right, I wasn't expecting that. Right. You know, how do I respond to that? How do I, what is my role in that? That was really not expected. I would say the other is when we have a contentious policy issue or something that's challenging for the city to solve, like homelessness. Sure. And sort of trying to frame, or you know, student housing or issues related to the elderly, or crime, police. You know, being, being able to carefully frame an issue in a way that provides not just some comfort, everything's going to be okay. I don't mean that, but a sense, like you said earlier, that hey, we are working on this. That role of being confident in articulating a path forward, I think is something I was, I was never expecting to have, I don't know why, but I just never expected to be given that sort of responsibility. And I think it's given. I think the community sort of gives it to you because you are the mayor. And, and we all have to find the best way to respond to that given our background and who we are and what we believe in our values. But that was, that was a surprise. Yeah, it was a surprise. Every day. I mean, there was, there was, not every day, but it seemed like there was something happening all the time. I'm sure you're experiencing that as well. Being the mayor, right? Playing the role of the mayor, beyond just leading a meeting, right? And so as you sort of reflect upon your experiences, and I'm sure you have, what are some of the things that you wished you would have had a little more time to either see through to fruition or just get a little further along the path? Yeah, well, there are many. I mean, I think the fiscal challenges, I kind of wish, I mean a lot of them go beyond the city, but I kind of wish I had been able to do a little bit more around employee compensation and cost containment. And those aren't necessarily the same thing. I mean employees, you know, our, our negotiation with employees is a challenging thing. Getting their buy-in to really own the challenges themselves. I think I wish we could have done more. Obviously on social issues such as homelessness, there's always going to be more to do, right? So in one sense I feel good about the progress we did make, but really the challenges are still there. And so I don't know.  Yeah. You're just, you're just tired and you wake up after a couple weeks and you're like I didn't move that forward in the way I wanted. So those two, I mean, I think there's a certain sense in which, you know, the housing issue, maybe like the financial, the fiscal issue, feels so, you know, so much like that's a broader California, maybe even national issue. Right. How do we rein in in here? But I think, as you said earlier, you know, there are things we can do locally. And so I always felt like what more should have we been able to do in relation to housing, in relation to the, our relationship with the university, with the fiscal, with social challenges like homelessness. Again, I had some sense of ends that I wanted to achieve, but I'm not really sure any of them have exact endpoints. And so you're always kind of working on them and so it's always a challenge to say should I have gone further. My default would be to say on all of those things I wish, I wish we had, but, you know, we had to leave something for you guys to work on.  Well, you have a child at home, you have a full-time job, the meetings go late, you know, you're out every weekend doing something for the city. Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah, quite a bit. And so, are you open to the idea of kind of helping the city, either being a commission member or unofficial sort of person, to help kind of some of the challenges? Well, I've already met with the homeless outreach coordinator and the consultant, you know, working on homeless issues and we're working on a curriculum for, you know, public, sort of to engage the public in issues related to homeless. So, my answer is the question is, I am moving back into that. Because, and then the other thing is the area where I expect to do some work is the area of youth restorative justice. In one sense, I'm going back to the kind of things I was doing before I was on council. So, I was on a commission. That's one way to serve. But I think these areas where I can get involved in training or maybe do direct service delivery, you know, through like mediation, which I'd like to get more into, are also a way of serving in the community. So, I'm real interested in continuing in those things. Okay. If there are other things, I'm happy to be involved. I'm not sure right now. I've given myself a year to take off from any formal board engagement of any kind. That would include commissions. Well, actually, this is a perfect stopping point for our discussion this evening. And, you know, I hope you'll be willing to come back and talk about some of the specifics of the things that you're working on. Yeah. And join the City Consider's program here on Davis Media Access. I wish you the best because I know you're what you're doing and I think you're doing a great job and I just hope you'll continue it and see it through for two years. Well, thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. And thank you for watching and listening.


Personal Finance PowerPoint Presentation, Mutual Fund Part 2. Prepare to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia Mutual Funds, which you can find online. Take a look at the references, resources, continue your research from there. This by Adam Hayes updated March 7th, 2022. In prior presentations, we've been taking a look at investment goals, investment strategies, what corporations are, and then discussing and starting to discuss what mutual funds are. Quick recap here. Corporations are going to be separate legal entities. So we as human beings gave basically corporations rights that we typically think of as human rights from a natural rights perspective, such as the right to own property, allowing us as shareholders to own shares then of the corporation of this separate legal entity. From an investment perspective, oftentimes we think of that corporation being on an exchange. Larger corporations often participating in being on exchanges so that they can try to generate more capital to be on the exchange. The exchange usually requires that a corporation show some transparency and the way they're going to report the information so that investors have that transparency and that dependability that trust in order to invest in the corporations that are on, say, the exchanges. However, individual investors then still have an issue or a problem investing in individual stocks because it's difficult to have a diversified portfolio when you have to invest basically in the stocks individually that can be costly as well. So then the concept of mutual funds comes into play where basically investors can put money into a pooled fund for the mutual fund and then the mutual fund has promised to make an allocation between financial investments, typically stocks, but stocks and bonds, for example, other types of financial investments according to the terms of the mutual fund, allowing investors then to have the ability to have a diversified portfolio even if they have a fairly small amount of investments. That's where we went last time. Now we're continuing on with the concept of the mutual fund. So now we've got the fixed income funds. So we're talking about different types of mutual funds. Now note, we might talk more about this in the future, but just realize when we get down into the weeds, it could be a little bit more overwhelming to think about all the different kinds of mutual funds. In other words, if you think about stocks in and of themselves, even stocks that are just publicly traded stocks that are on the exchanges, clearly that's a whole lot of stuff that can be overwhelming. So we can start to categorize these stocks and think about them in categories. And that's what we do when we think about indexes and averages and so on. And then when we get into the mutual funds, even just looking at mutual funds, which is now a pooling of stocks, there's still like an endless amount of ways you can pool stocks. You can think of infinite ways to basically pool stocks together in different ways. But so then we want to take these concepts into consideration in alignment with our overall investment strategy and our goals and our time horizons. For example, we might from a more basic kind of strategy use a mutual fund that has a targeted index fund that basically has a different mix that is accordance to our time horizon. And that's one way that we can really kind of simplify things if you want kind of a basic approach to still get a diversified portfolio. People will argue whether that's the best or ideal strategy or not. Obviously, no matter what you do, people will argue with it because everybody's going to have their own opinion about it. Or you can take a look at different kinds of mutual funds in order to diversify. Looking at mutual funds that have different mixes that you think fit best into your portfolio. So another big group is the fixed income category. A fixed income mutual fund focuses on investments that pay a set rate of return, such as government bonds, corporate bonds or other debt instruments. The idea is that the fund portfolio generates interest income, which is then passed to the shareholders. So if they're investing, if you have a fund that's investing in the bonds, and therefore they're investing in types of investments that have set types of returns like interest for the bonds, then that's a way to get some interest on it. And that's something that you might be looking for possibly towards the end, like at retirement, for example, when maybe you want that income to be living on the income as opposed to when you're in the younger years where you might be investing in things more so, where they're going to reinvest in looking for the value of the stock to go up, not looking so much to be living on the income from it. So sometimes referred to as bond funds, these funds are often actively managed and seek to buy relatively undervalued bonds in order to sell them at a profit. So these mutual funds are likely to pay higher returns than certificates of deposit and money market investment, but bond funds aren't without risk. So note that when you're thinking about bonds, sometimes like if you're thinking about really kind of secure bonds, it could seem like a little bit more boring when you have a bull market or a market that's going well because the equities could have that potential for the greater growth. But obviously they also have the potential to fall. So if you go into like a downturn, the bonds could be a safeguard. Notice that historically, from this point, we've had historically low rates for quite some time. So you might look at the bonds and the other types of investments that have interest like certificates of deposits and savings accounts and whatnot and say, wow, I'm getting like nothing in terms of returns, but the inflation rate and the interest rates, inflation has also been low as well. So if things change and we have a period of a downturn in the market or higher inflation, then of course these funds that pay interest, for example, look more appealing or you could see the return on them. But because there are many different types of bonds, bond funds can vary dramatically depending on where they invest. For example, a fund specializing in high yield junk bonds is much riskier than a fund that invests in government securities. So we don't want to think just basically the idea that bonds are going to be just safe in and of themselves. If you go into the world of bonds, there's a whole lot of different kind of bonds that you can go into. Most of the time when people think of bonds, they're thinking about bonds for like big corporate. If you're just a general investor, you might have like large corporate bonds and then you might have to have like government bonds like treasury bills and whatnot. And those are generally thought of to be quite secure. But if you get into like junk bonds, then you've got a more risk scenario as well. And usually you're talking to people that are more skilled investors that are trying to invest in that area there. So the average investor might not be in junk bonds as often. So furthermore, nearly all bond funds are subject to interest rate risk, which means that if rates go up, the value of the fund goes down. So clearly if the bonds are locked into these term bonds that are investing that are getting interest, if interest rates go up, then the bonds that are in the funds have these locked rates. And so that would mean that would be bad for the holdings of the bonds making the price go down. So index funds. So this is another key group, which I think is really important to be aware of because now we've got the idea of investing in stocks and bonds. We've got the idea of mutual funds, which might have a manager, but then you're looking index funds. Now the index funds are really nice because you would think it would take less of basically a manager that's kind of picking and choosing individual stocks. You're taking that out of the hands of the manager and saying just basically tie it to some kind of index. Index is being something that we often look at just to value the market basically in general to see if the market's going up or down. We try to get a pool of certain stocks that represents a certain segment of the market and then use that. And so instead of giving the leeway to a professional to do whatever they want or have more leeway to do what they want, you might just say, hey, just tie it to the index and then you would think that would take less management time or decision-making and cost you less in that way. So another group, which has become extremely popular in the last few years, falls under the moniker, quote, index funds, end quote. Their investment strategy is based on the belief that it is very hard and often expensive to try to meet the market consistently. So in other words, if you're with an investor, even professional investors, they might have a good track record for a while, but then you really don't know how good their track record is until you look at it after they're done to see what their average was over the full time frame. So a lot of times a lot of people argue you might be better off just picking the indexes that are geared to give you the average of different sectors of the market instead of betting on an individual or a company that thinks that they can beat the averages of the market. That's a huge debate that you're going to see when you look at stock channels that are played on TV. Obviously, half the people that they're investing are professional paid investors that they would have the perspective, I can beat the market. That's what you're being paid to do. And other people are going to say, well, I don't know if you can. Let's take a look at your track record. And again, everybody might have a good track record when times are good, right? You got to take a look at the track record over a fairly extended period of time to see if someone has actually proven that they have a return over and above the market and so on. So the index fund manager buys stocks that correspond with a major market index such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. So these strategies requires less research from analysts and advisors. So there are fewer expenses to eat up returns before they are passed to the shareholders. So in other words, you're not doing the stock picking at this time. You're not trying to beat the market. You're just tying it to the index. So we shouldn't have to be paying as much to do that. So these funds are often designed with cost-sensitive investors in mind. Balance funds invest in a hybrid of asset classes, whether stock, bonds, money market instruments, or alternative investments. So now we're looking at indexes or funds that aren't just invested in stocks or just bonds, for example, but they have a hybrid. So now they're trying to balance across multiple investment types. So the objective is to reduce the risk of exposure across asset classes. This kind of fund is also known as asset allocation fund. There are two variations of such funds designed to cater to investors' objectives. Some funds are defined with a specific allocation strategy that is fixed so the investor can have a predictable exposure to various asset classes. So they might say, hey, look, I'm going to try to invest so much in stocks, bonds, and so on. And I'm going to keep that the same. Other funds allow a strategy for dynamic allocation percentages to meet various investor objectives. These may include responding to market conditions, business cycle changes, or changing phases of the investor's own life. So the most common one there might be the one that for most individuals, you might be looking at the one that's going to change with your own life. So meaning your retirement age is coming up. So typically you might choose one fund now. And this would be the most simplified type of thing to try to get an investor that wants to just invest in a diversified portfolio without getting way too complicated at it. They might just say, I'm going to look for a fund that has an appropriate mix. And this, of course, would be according to the fund, right? It has an appropriate mix according to my expectations in terms of when I'm going to basically reach retirement and then it will shift as I get closer to retirement, hopefully doing so in such a way that it's an optimal mix for my age and how close I am to retirement. So that's one way, you know, you can kind of simplify things and still hopefully be basically diversified and try to say, I'm just going to put my money all in that one place. If you have multiple different, you might try to expand your strategy by having index funds that have different fixed mixes, and then you can try to invest in the index funds as you get closer to retirement in such a way and adjust your own mix that you think is most appropriate given your age and time frame and time horizons. That gets, of course, a little bit more complicated. If you use tools online these days, like the Personal Capital Tool, they could try to take some of these funds that are grouped together and show you what your overall asset allocation is, which might help you to do your own kind of asset allocation which you and customize it a bit more. Obviously, if you use a target fund, then you're kind of dependent on whatever the target fund thinks is the ideal asset allocation, which you may or may not completely agree with. There could be some leeway with it, but an engineer. While the objectives are similar to those of a balanced fund, dynamic allocation funds do not have to hold a specific percentage of any asset class. So the portfolio manager is therefore given freedom to switch ratio of asset classes as needed to maintain the integrity of the funds stated strategy. Now, notice as you give the fund manager more freedom to do things, then you're taking out a little bit more risk because now that depends on the quality of the fund manager depending on what kind of freedom they have. And so it might cost more to do that, of course, because now they're making their own decisions as opposed to just tying it to an index fund. So money market funds. The money market consists of safe, risk-free, short-term debt instruments, mostly government treasury bills. So this is a safe place to park your money. So you're not going to see a lot of, you would think, you wouldn't see a lot of ups and downs on this one as you would in like equity funds. And so it's a little boring to look at them and when the market's doing good, you're going to go, man, this is why I'm not even getting my inflation. I'm not even covering, but when the market goes down and you're getting killed on your equity investments, you can at least say, well, at least the money market funds are not, so that's why you want the diversification.  A typical return is a little more than the amount you would earn in a regular checking or saving account and a little less than the average certificate of deposit. Again, you might be saying, hey, I earn almost nothing in my checking or savings account, even the certificate of deposit at this point in time. And that's because the interest rates have been kind of historically low for a long time, but if we hit a period of inflation, then you're going to see interest is going to be playing, you know, a bigger factor if that takes place. So while money market funds invest in ultra safe assets during the 2008 financial crisis, some money market funds did experience these losses after the share price of these funds typically pegged to a dollar fell below the level and broke the buck. But income funds, so income funds are named for their purpose to provide current income on the steady basis. These funds invest primarily in government and high quality corporate debt holding these bonds until maturity in order to provide interest streams. So notice that you might then be investing typically later on in life. So now you're in retirement possibly and you're living off your investments. You're saying, I got my money in my investments. I got my money off the earnings of that money. Therefore, I can't invest all my money, perhaps, in things that are still growing because they are not going to pay dividends if I put my money into growth stocks. Those stocks are putting the money back into the company hoping to increase the share price as opposed to giving dividends. And so rather I need to put my money in types of investments that give me a return like interest and dividends that I live on. While funds holdings may appreciate and value the primary objective of these funds is to provide steady cash flow to investors. As such, the audience for these funds consists of conservative investors and retirees. Because they produce regular income, tax-conscious investors may want to avoid these funds. So in other words, the interest that you're getting, dividends, and if you get dividends and interest, for example, there could trigger tax consequences for it. So if on the other hand, you're investing in companies that reinvest the dividends and interest, then you're getting an increase in the value of the stock which should increase your stock price. And you might think, well, isn't there a tax consequence on that? There will be when you sell the stock, but you get to defer the tax consequence and have some control over when it will happen by determining when you sell the stock. And then you'll have capital gains. So international global funds and international fund or foreign fund invest only in assets located outside your home country. Global funds, meanwhile, can invest anywhere around the world including within your home country. So now you might start thinking, I would like to get some exposure to places outside of the United States, if you're in the United States or wherever your country is. But if you're in the United States, you might say, I want access to funds that are outside of the United States specifically. And you can try to determine what percentage you would want outside. So if you have all of your holdings within the United States, you might then pick a fund that has withholding specifically outside of the United States in some way to get that kind of diversity. Or you might try to pick a fund in general that has a mix most likely weighted heavily in the US and then have some outside. And again, why would you want US stocks and outside stocks? One of the reasons a lot of the capital comes into the US is not because the potential for growth is the maximum potential. You would think just like with small companies, you would think the biggest potential for growth would be the countries that are catching up in terms of industrialization and whatnot because they have the biggest growth potential. But they don't have as much transparency and so on and they might not do well in the short term and so on. Whereas in the US, we're kind of like the company already at the top like the electric company like an Edison or something like that. You wouldn't expect growth to jump up possibly all the time. But you might say that there's good transparency in the markets and the exchanges are quite transparent and so on. So you kind of have trust in the returns which is one of the reasons we're able to kind of draw in a significant amount of capital. One of the reasons you want a significant amount in trustworthy exchanges and so on. So in any case, it's tough to classify these funds as either riskier or safer than domestic investments but they have tended to be more volatile and have unique count country and political risks. So obviously the risks in other countries are going to be different and diverse, possibly larger, but again, you might have exposure to larger gains and you might have some diversification that could be useful because of some parts of the country go down and you have some diversification other parts of the country then that could give you that same kind of protection possibly as other types of diversity does. So on the flip side, they can as part of a well-balanced portfolio actually reduce risk by increasing diversification since the returns in foreign countries may be uncorrelated with returns at home. So although the world's economies are becoming more interrelated, it is still likely that another economy somewhere is outperforming the economy of your home country. So in other words, you would think that there's interdependence on a lot of the world stage these days but again, at this point in time, it looks like the supply change and so on are going in reverse at a less global economy kind of thing and people are kind of being a little bit more self-independent at this point, so interesting dynamics. Specialty funds, this classification of mutual funds is more for an all-encompassing category that consists of funds that have provided that have proved to be popular but don't necessarily belong to the more rigid categories we've described so far. These types of mutual funds for go-broad diversification to concentrate on a certain segment of the economy or targeted strategy. Sector funds are targeted strategy funds aimed at specific sectors of the economy such as financial, technology, health, or so on. So now you're looking at the funds by sector. So sector funds can therefore be extremely volatile since the stocks in a given sector tend to be highly correlated with each other. There is a greater possibility for large gains but a sector may also collapse for example, the financial sector in 2008 and 2009. So if you're investing by sector you probably might have your own diversification strategy so you're trying to say I'm going to invest in these different sectors specifically possibly as part of your own diversification strategy you probably wouldn't want to invest all your money in one particular sector because although you're somewhat diversified within the sector if something happens for that entire sector like the financial sectors went down after 2008 then you're exposed to that downturn. Make it easier to focus on special geographic area in the world this can mean focusing on broader region say Latin America or on individual country for example only Brazil and advantage of these funds is that they make it easier to buy stock in foreign countries which can otherwise be difficult and expensive just like for sector funds you have to accept the high risk of loss which occurs if region goes to a bad recession. So socially responsible funds or ethical funds invest only in companies that meet the criteria of certain guidelines or beliefs for example some socially responsible funds do not invest in sin industries such as tobacco alcohol beverages weapons or nuclear power. So these have kind of been more popular in the current in the current time series to say well what is the company actually investing in? I don't want my mutual fund to be investing in things that I personally don't like and so you could try to and if you just invested in a mutual fund that can be kind of difficult to do because again the mutual funds can be investing you might give them leeway to invest in whatever they want you might look at it and say they're investing in some stuff that I don't think is a beneficial thing to do so you could start looking into that in terms of setting your investment goals as well. The idea is to get competitive performance while still maintaining a healthy conscience other such fund invests primarily in green technology such as solar and wind power or recycling. So exchange traded funds the ETFs a twist on the mutual fund is the exchange traded fund the ETF these ever more popular investment vehicles pool investment employee strategies consistent with mutual funds but they are structured as investment trusts that are traded on stock exchanges and have the added benefit of the features of stock. So for example ETFs can be bought and sold at any point throughout the trading day ETFs can also be sold short or purchased on margin ETFs also typically carry lower fees than the equivalent mutual fund many ETFs also benefit from active option markets where investors can hedge or leverage their position. ETFs also enjoy tax advantages from mutual funds compared to mutual funds ETFs tend to be more cost effective and more liquid. The popularity of ETFs speaks to their versatility and convenience so notice a lot of these kind of activities here are geared possibly towards people that are doing more active kind of trading so some of those kind of things if you're in the market for the long term might not be things that are going to sway your opinion between the ETFs and the mutual funds if you're doing more active day to day types of trading trading kind of on the short term then you got some more some of those components might be more appealing. So mutual fund fees and mutual fund will classify expenses into either annual operating fees or shareholder fees are an annual percent of the funds under management usually ranging from 1 to 3 percent so the fees are going to be an important thing to be comparing when you're looking at different investment options annual operating fees are collectively known as expense ratio a funds expense ratio is the summation of the advisory or management fee and its administrative costs so shareholder fees which come in the form of sales charges commissions redemption fees are paid directly by investors when purchasing or selling the funds sales charges or commissions are known as quote the load or of a mutual fund when a mutual fund has a front end load fees are assessed when shares are purchased for a back end load mutual fund fees are assessed when an investor sells his shares sometimes however the investment company offers a no load mutual fund which doesn't carry any commission or sales charge these funds are distributed directly by an investment company rather than through a secondary market some funds also charge fees and penalties for early withdrawal or selling the holding before a specific time has elapsed also the rise of exchange traded funds which have much lower fees thanks to their passive management structure have been giving mutual funds considerable competition for investors dollars articles from financial media outlets regarding how fund expense ratios and fluids can eat into rates of returns have also stirred negative feelings about mutual funds


I think it should be abundantly clear to all of us by now that safe and ordered immigration is unlikely to happen spontaneously. If more evidence was required, the last few months have also made clear that we are still very poorly equipped to address the extreme vulnerabilities of many people on the move. Meanwhile, our consultations over the same period of time have brought to light the enormous opportunities that migration represents and how increased international cooperation will actually allow millions of people in origin as well as in destination countries to harvest its benefits. Hence the importance of this process and the responsibility we all share to bring it to a successful conclusion.