I told you, we're intimidating. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Bloomberg's annual Davos debate, where we bring together leading figures in the world of politics, government, and finance. I'm Francine Lacquenau. Today, our topic has many, many names, the rise of populism, the crisis of the middle class, the politics of rage, whatever you want to call it. It's the movement that's been sweeping across our developed world. Now, this was the big surprise in 2016. And as we enter this year, well, the establishment braces for what's next. So this is what we'll be discussing today. Allow me to introduce my panel. Central to the issue today, of course, is what some have called the new normal. And my first panelist has called the new mediocre. She is the managing director of the IMF, Christine Nagarde. Italy has had 64 governments since the end of the Second World War. And these days, its only constant seems to be a man named Pierre-Carlo Paduan. He's his title, the Minister of Economy and Finance of Italy, but he's much more also an economist. Now, if you watch Bloomberg TV and we sincerely hope you do, you will have heard him talk about secular stagnation. You know Larry Summers from the World Bank, US Treasury, Harvard University, and the National Economic Council. And Bridgewater Associates is the world's largest hedge fund. It's more than $150 billion are scattered across the globe, spanning virtually every sector. It was founded and is chaired by Ray Dalio and still reading from a stunning impeachment. The road ahead for Brazil for the moment is unclear, but Enrique Mireas is the nation's finance minister. His project is to help close a huge wealth gap in Latin America's biggest economy. So thank you all for joining us today, and I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Madame Lagalma, let's kick it off with you. Is the middle class in crisis? Yes and no, the economist would say. First of all, I would like to try to identify the middle class. And I would say that the middle class is both growing and shrinking. The middle class is growing on a global basis. If you look at numbers, the middle class over the last 40 years has gone up. But it has gone up by seven to about 13% today on a global basis. And middle class has generally defined as somebody with an income between $10 and $20 per day. The middle class is also shrinking. If you look at the US numbers, for instance, the middle class in the United States has shrunk from the 60-ish to the 50-ish. And that is as a result of more wealth accumulating at the top and people moving down below as well. As a result, the middle class has been shrinking. If you combine that, and I think we are in this panel focusing more on the advanced economies, where clearly the middle class has shrunk and where there have been signs of lack of trust, lack of hope, disenchantment with many of the principles and vision that people had for their future. With lower growth, more inequality, and much more transparency, I think you have the good ingredients of what is identified now as a crisis of the middle class in the advanced economies. I think we need to distinguish between what is actually structuring some of the low-income countries and the emerging market economies and the advanced economies where there is clearly a crisis. Minister Padong, can we really say that the developed world isn't a crisis and it stems from the middle class? Well, of course, there are many ways you can define a crisis. And there's one possible way, which is an economist, I would say, it's politics. I'm thinking about advanced countries, but also I'm thinking especially about Europe, where hardly you can find a country where according to the polls or according to recent election results, there is dissatisfaction with what has been going on for some time. And I think that Christine made it very clear that it's about objective change in wealth and income distribution, but also, and maybe increasingly so, about expectations. The middle class is disillusioned about the future. It's disappointed about the job perspective for their kids. It's disappointed about the security that they can get out of welfare system that may become unsustainable. And it's expressing this disillusionment in terms of saying no to whatever the policy leaders suggest. And of course, we all know very well that it's much more difficult to build up a solution, to design it and implement it than it is to say no. The fact is that no's are now dominating the political landscape. And this is a sign of a crisis because it calls for rethinking about what leadership means and what it means to have a credible long-term project that can bring back the middle class, not only the middle class, by the way, back into achieving consensus and supporting reforms, which are badly needed. Professor Summers, if we have a middle class which is disillusioned, how do you change that? How do you get them back? I don't think there's any single bullet. There's obviously elements of the middle class looking up and seeing how well an elite has lived and seeing all the various benefits that have gone to people at the top of the income distribution. I think it's a mistake not to recognize that the middle class in my country and I think in others is also very concerned that people do not feel that the government is fighting for it, that the government is fighting for people who live in developing countries, that the government is fighting for people who have recently come into the country from other countries, that the government is fighting for various minority groups who have legitimate concerns about past discrimination, but the sense of the people at the center of a country as being looked out for by the government, they feel that everybody else is being looked out for. The wealthy who can look out for themselves, others who are poor, and they feel that they are not being heard, and they have expressed they're not being heard in the Brexit vote, in the Italian referendum, and of course in the US presidential election. And they're obviously important economic elements, but it would be a mistake to neglect that there are social elements as well. Ray, do you believe that actually a lot of people feel like they've been left out? And when did politicians start having that disconnect with their voters? Is it a communication problem or were they really not looked after? I think you're talking about a phenomenon of populism. So there is a middle class, and then there is the whole phenomenon of populism, which is part of that. I think if you look at history, the 1930s, I'd say studying the 1930s to understand what the wealth gap was in the 1930s, it rhymes. And populism is not just the belief that there's a wealth gap, although the wealth gap today is the highest since the 30s. But it's also a sense that they don't represent me. It's a matter of nationalism. It's a matter of gaining greater control. It's a matter of increased polarity. The left becomes more left. The right becomes more right. And that particular dynamic, I'd say this is the first year where populism is the most important issue globally. Protectionism is part of that mix. So I would say before it used to be central banks. Central banks don't matter as much. Now we're the number one issue economically as a market participant is how populism manifests itself over the next year or two. But is populism the same thing as anti-globalization? Yes. Populism, by definition, if you particularly, as I say, in the 30s, every government that existed practically was populist. And particularly in the so populism, by definition, is nationalistic and protectionist. And it's also a matter of values. In other words, there's a sense of a threat that my country is losing its values to internationalism. It's the combination of those things that makes populism. Minister Mereyes, you've been part of the efforts, of course, to stabilize Brazil's economy. But in that, and this is because of the trauma of impeachment, but a portion of your agenda requires even more sacrifice from working families. How do you get them on board? Yeah, I think that in economies like the one I come from, which is Brazil, the dynamic is different in the sense that there is no history of growing middle class or large population or large share of the population being part of the middle class, et cetera, as in the developed countries. That's a recent phenomenon. For instance, in a country like Brazil, we had, during the last 15 years, actually, the middle class doubling as a percentage of the population. But that happened throughout the last decade. And as a result of deep recession, which took place during the last years, that dynamic has reversed. And that is the problem. But that's a much short-term problem. And in my vision, it's directly related to a specific situation of the Brazilian economy, which means the fact that the Brazilian economy got into a recession. And evidently, that is affecting everyone, particularly the middle class, but also the lower level income, particularly the lower level income classes as well. In summary, the way out for an economy like Brazil is to start growing again, creating jobs again, and actually to modernize the economy, and opening up, et cetera, in a way to become more efficient, which what I would gather is at the end of the day, we are in a different cycle compared to the developed economies. We are at the moment of establishing the middle class, heavy, groovy, opening up the economy. Yeah, and I imagine a lot of the emerging markets don't want to be left out of a possible globalization effort, but Madame Lagarde, why did we not see this coming? You came here at the World Economic Forum in 2013.  And actually, at the time, you didn't get much traction. Well, I hope people will listen now. You're quite right, actually, because not only did it not get much traction, and at the time we were producing research focusing particularly on the excessive inequality and the relationship to sustainable growth. And our point was that if there is excessive inequality, then it is counterproductive for the sustainable growth that the G20 members and many people aspire to, which is, that's a little parenthesis, if we want larger share of the pie for all, we just need a larger pie altogether. And for that pie to be sustainable, we were demonstrating, I think rightly so, that excessive inequalities were putting a break on that sustainable growth. Now, why did people not listen? I don't know, but certainly I got strong backlash from economists in particular saying that it was not really of their business to worry about these things, including in my own institutions, which has now been very much converted to the importance of inequality and studying it and providing policies in response to that. But I would say that we now, probably, and I hope, have a very, very opportune time to put in place the policies that we know will help. And I would completely agree with Larry that there is no silver bullet response to that. But there is clearly a sense, in my view, and minister, you just indicated that, that when you have a real crisis, or when you have very strong signals, as we have received from the voters, from people who say, no, it's really time to say, what policies do we have in place? What more can we do? What kind of measures do we take to reduce inequalities? What kind of safety net do we have for people? What education training do we have in place in order to respond not necessarily to globalization, but to the technologies that are going to completely disrupt and change the working place for a long time? So if policymakers do not get the signal now, I don't know when they, you know, that they don't listen to my opening speech back in 2013, it's okay. But if they receive the feedback from the voters who say no, then they really have to think it through and see what can be done. And there are things that can be done, fiscal, structural reforms, and the monetary policies that Pierre-Carlo alluded to. But it needs to be granular, it needs to be regional, it needs to be focused on what will people get out of it. And it probably means more redistribution that we have in place at the moment. Larry? I'm half in agreement with Christine and half in disagreement. Let's have half of disagreement. Christine has made a huge contribution to the global dialogue in the way that she has given the IMF face of concern about human issues in a way that it didn't before, of which equality is won. And that's been a huge contribution for which I salute her. I think it is important to distinguish though between redistributionism and populism. Look, the United States has just elected the world's most visible symbol of conspicuous consumption. That is a bizarre manifestation of a concern about inequality. I think you have to think about that in analyzing what it is. And I think the answer lies in some of the things that Ray talked about in his initial remarks and that I tried to touch on having to do with the middle class. When you say inequality, the first thing you think about and it's a very important issue is the poor and what you're gonna do to support the poor. But a lot of the people who voted against Brexit and a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump think too much is being done to help the poor, not that too little is being done to help the poor. And so I think this sense of what I've called responsible nationalism, a way of bringing greater cohesion to countries and having more of a sense of governments as standing up for the broad center of the population is very much at the heart of it. And I think framing this in terms of inequality captures some of what's going on, but I don't think there is as much of an element of envy and I think there is more of a desire for national unity and strength than the emphasis on inequality suggests. So that would be the nuance of difference that I would highlight. So Ray, do you agree with that? And was it the same fear that led to Brexit and Trump and was it actually just taking control back? I think it's a phenomenon that has happened through history that we've seen repeatedly. And so I think we just look at it. It is most obviously in the 30s. So it is, as Larry's saying, partially it's a matter of the differences in income, but partially it's a fed-upness with like they're not on good control. Partially it's a lack of what Davos represents, which Stapros represents the inclusiveness of speaking, but this is a group of elites essentially. So it's an anti-Davos way of operating. I'm not represented. And I'm saying in the 1930s, if you look, every country in the 30s ended up becoming more extreme. Like Bernie Sanders was Huey Long. So if you look at the repeat and you say what was those elements, they've repeated over time, right? And so I think you have to have an iconic vision of what that is. And I think it's living itself out now globally. It's not just income. And Minister Paduan was referendum a warning sign. And what can Italian politicians do to reconnect with their voters? Well, before I go to the Italian politics, let me remind that there is another problem in Europe. And the problem in Europe is Europe. The fact is that a specific manifestation of populism and disaffection with the current state of situation is Europe. In many, if not all European countries, there is a strong term to say, our problems are generated in Brussels or sometimes in Frankfurt, depends where you live. This is a problem because Europe used to be the solution to many of the problems of the left out of the laggards in European integration project. And now this is being turned around completely. So Europeans have an additional duty when they set up a policy which is hopefully convincingly dealing with the issues with sometimes the right issues raised by populism because they're raising the right issues. They're not giving answers, but they're raising the right issues. So this is one of the aspects. The other aspect is that, let's face it, anyone who is involved in policy making knows that we can design beautiful strategies, solutions, bringing in all the tools in the pot. And then we know that before these things generate visible benefits to the population and therefore we have a hope to raise consensus on those policies, time goes by. And maybe we don't have enough time today because we need to respond to immediate crisis and to immediate pressures. As far as Italy is concerned, let me reassure everybody that we are continuing our reform strategy in spite of what I often read and hear. One nice thing about structural reforms is that they have a public affair aspect where you vote a reform and it gets the headlines, but then the next day the hard work begins because you have to implement the reforms. And of course the media, sorry, are not interested in implementation which is actually what makes the difference and which with a lag a few years maybe will hopefully be recognized in terms of political support. Mr. Mereyes, we're central banks, part of the problem. With all this cheap money out there? I missed your question. The first part? The central banks because of the cheap money. Wow, they do. Evidently, in different ways in different times. For instance, after the crisis of 2007, 2008, evidently they amounted much more because we had a credit crisis. As a result of that, they have evidently at that moment a central role in the recovery of the economy. Evidently that is over now. And evidently their role now is much less important than it was during that period after the crisis. And evidently today we don't also have the kind of problem we had before the crisis when we had some risk of inflation, et cetera, because the economy was moving well. Now it's a completely different question. We don't have a liquidity crisis. We don't have a credit crisis anymore. And inflation is low. Then evidently that's a moment for the central banks to be quieter in this scenario. But evidently time will come. I would like also to add something about the question of populism versus inequality or et cetera. Or what's the reason for that? I think that we have local phenomena and some global phenomena. The local ones is yes, indeed, you created a welfare state. It took care of the lower level income, et cetera, and actually created a society which was happy and as it was pointed out, it was a solution. But the problem now is a very specific one. There are immigrants coming. And now, in a similar way as Larry pointed out to the US, the center, as we call it, say, well, maybe government is taking too much care of these newcomers in a different way in the US. And that's a specific phenomena which it's not the same, but it comes together with globalization where there are winners and there are losers in the globalization process. And those two things come together. Ray, if the Donald Trump policies get implemented and executed, what does that mean for the middle class in America? Will they be better off than they are now? That's a very complicated question. I think, and I get on the theme of what is the phenomenon? You will see more protectionism. You will see perhaps the reversal of the trend that began in the 1990s, which was with trade agreements and globalization, which, by the way, created a narrowing of the wealth gap, the narrowing of the wealth gap between rich countries and poor countries. In other words, if you look at it, the poor countries rose relative to the rich countries right now. We've, by 15% of GDP, well, income now used to be 25%. Now it's 40% for the wealth countries. So this has brought countries up, and so there's been a narrowing of the wealth gap internationally. While within countries, there's been a separating of the wealth gap. A lot of that was fostered by globalization in the 90s when we had all the trade agreements and so on. So we may be at the end of that. We may be at a point where globalization is ending, and that provincialization and nationalization is taking hold. I think that there's a significant risk of that. Larry. Ray said it was a complicated question, what the impact of the proposed policies would be on the people they're supposed to help. I actually don't think it is so complicated. The lesson of history is overwhelming. That classic populism is invariably counterproductive for those in whose name it is offered as a policy regime. It will ultimately not hurt Ray who will find ways to position himself in markets no matter what happens. The people who will be the victims of populist policies are the lower income and middle class people in whose name the policy is offered. Let me give just one example. Yes, our president-elect has made four or five phone calls to four or five companies largely suspending the rule of law and extorting them into relocating dozens or perhaps even a few hundred jobs into plants in the United States. At the same time, the consequence of his rhetoric and announced policies has been a 15% decline in the value of the Mexican peso relative to the dollar. That decline in the peso is a dagger at Ohio. It is a major change in the relative attractiveness of locating production activity in Mexico versus locating it in the American heartland. And the consequence of that is measured not in the dozens or hundreds, but in the thousands or 10,000s or even hundreds of thousands of jobs. The same can be said about a variety of other aspects of populist policies, whether it is tax cuts that are in the name of populism somehow ending up going in vast disproportion to those in the top 1% or top tenth of a percent of the population, or whether when you take a classic broad national objective like strengthening public investment, like responding to the fact that Americans pay the equivalent of a 75 cent gasoline tax each year because of extra potholes in our roads. And you respond to that not by fixing the roads directly, but by offering an 82% tax credit, the highest in history, to private contractors who build pipelines that they were going to build anyway. And so it is the experience of Juan Perón in Argentina. It is the experience of populist leaders all around the world that while the argument is made in the political season in favor of the middle class, they are ultimately the ones who pay the highest price for the policies that are pursued. So it's not complicated at all. Larry and I have liked each other for a long time and Larry is prone to see things in that way. It is more complicated I think than Larry makes it because for example, if you create a pro-business environment, in other words, an environment in which it is hospitable to make money, make things happen, you're creating an environment in which you're actually attracting capital in a lot of places. If you think of how capital moves, just the slightest inclination of something going bad in a place, being anti-wealth or being in favor of wealth will cause money to move between countries very strongly and you create an environment in which making money and making business is a good thing. And it changes the nature of capital flows. The United States is in many ways unique. If it's a favorable environment for making money, if it has rule of law, if it has property protections, I know entities that consider, should I be better off in China? Should I be better off in the United States? So money moves in that way. There's such a thing as animal spirits. Animal spirits is when you deregulate some things, it has pros and cons. Deregulation has cons. I'm not arguing that. But it also has pros in terms of getting things going. A sense that you can take cash where there's a lot of cash around and there's a lot of cheap money. And then all of a sudden a sense that you can make things happen can actually invigorate the economy. If you take that element of the wealth gap and let's say imports, one of the elements of the imports has been trade and because elements of trade, the percentage of the population, the big differences in wealth, the spending is in the lower income groups, not in the higher income groups because when you give more money to rich people, they're not inclined to spend it as much. If you put more money into the hands of people who have less, their propensity to spend it is greater and it'll have a greater pass-through for economic activity. So I'm saying that it's a complicated question. In other words, there are pros to this as well as cons to this. I don't think it's as simple as Larry's making it. Christine Lagar. Yeah. To your question, I don't want to comment on the possible outcome of the policies by President-elect because we don't really know what the policies are going to be and we have very little by way of detailed information as to what the plan will be if there is such a thing as a plan. But I want to respond to Ray. You said that maybe this is the end of globalization. I think that if policymakers are concerned about flow of migrants, about flow of refugees, if they're concerned about massive inequalities between the 3.6 billion people relative to the eight, and everybody knows what I'm talking about here, it's 50% of humanity relative to the eight wealthiest people in the world, which might be a very bad way to compare, but still there are 3.6 billion people around the world who are aspiring to better income, food on the table twice a day and sometimes once a day. To turn our back to globalization, to turn our back to helping development is exactly the wrong approach. That globalization should take a new term, that the asymmetry in certain cases be explored and rectified if it is excessive. But to actually say that globalization is bad because it destroys jobs, I think that's a very short cut to something that needs far more analytical work, far more understanding of how much is actually attributable to technology breakthrough, and we will see more of it. And then I conclude with a point that Pierre Carlo made about policies, which concerned me a lot. You said, Pierre Carlo, that maybe we don't have time for policies. That's a concern because if there is no time for policies because there is urgency, because there is instant news, because there is Twitter all over the place, then what are policymakers going to do? They are there to identify the policies that will serve improving the world, improving the fate of the people as well. So I hope that we will find time for policies and those policies will apply to the better being of people. Minister Paduan, and then I'll go back to Larry. Two things. First of all, policymakers need time to see the results of their policies develop and be hopefully transformed into consensus for those policies. They can do it. They have to do it. They are facing additional constraints. One point. Second point on globalization. I don't think we are exiting globalization. I think we are entering a new stage of international global relations where national policies, especially in important countries, will shape how globalization eventually develops because even if there are policies that say, I'm closing down the markets because I'm turning protectionist on the one hand, on the other hand I'm deregulating, so I'm going the opposite direction. This basically means that there are new ways to interpret how nation states used to be that name once, shape globalization. So we have to be prepared on how to deal with that and since I'm concerned about Europe, I'm concerned that Europe does not have a strategy about how to deal with the new phase of globalization. It's reacting. It's inward looking. It's not facing big challenges in globalization such as the migration flows in a coherent way. Professor Mereyes, when you look at globalization, are the emerging markets, if there's a new globalization, will it automatically hurt emerging markets more than developed countries? If we go back to Christine's point, I think that if you take a look on the world, evidently that globalization is allowing for a massive number of people to get out of poverty, to go to get into the middle class, et cetera, and then as a whole, it's working, definitely. And if you take the whole globe evidently, that the net effect is extremely positive. Evidently, what we are talking about here is some specific group of people, particularly in the developed countries, in which on one hand they are feeling to be left out or not to be looked upon, et cetera, et cetera, because they think they are losing. In spite of the fact that the economy as a whole is working better, there are cheaper goods to be consumed by everyone, particularly the lower-level income, et cetera, et cetera, but definitely I think we are talking about some specific policies to basically to address that question of the developed economies, particularly of those who are in a way or another losing. Particularly here is a question probably of training, of education in terms of allowing those people to get higher-paid jobs or jobs which create more value, added products which is again a net result of the globalization. The question is how to make that group to take advantage of that. But if we look at the world as a whole, there is no doubt that hundreds of millions of people are getting out of poverty, which would not be the case if the markets were closed. Ray, how do you see globalization playing out in the next five years? And then Larry? I think just the essence, Christine, of the difference maybe between us, is what we hope for versus what is most likely. So when you talk about we policy makers doing those things, I don't know, first of all, who the we is. That we will change is changing in a way that those policy makers themselves have different agendas. And so I think that as we look forward, we have to say, will in five years we be more collective in our approaches? Would we be more international and embracing that? Or will we, or the policy makers, be more nationalistic? I think that the trends are clear in terms of the pressures. The question of who will the battle be? So who will that we be? Because they will determine whether we're going to have protectionism or whether we're going to have things that we want, which is globalization. So I think that that becomes the question. I think there's the question of can the middle be cohesive enough so that the extremes are not in control? Because populism takes two forms. It's extreme left or it's extreme right. And so that kind of polarity. I think that the challenge is can a Mario Draghi and a Shoibla come together in a certain way of moderates, let's say. Can the middle be cohesive enough and strong enough and do those things? I think the question is what is do those things? When you look at what is causing this, the forces behind this are things that we would like. In other words, technology is causing this. Globalization is causing this. These are forces that we don't want to do away with. So if we're saying the root cause, what are you going to do? Are you going to lessen technology which is creating a polarity and income? Are you going to lessen globalization which has these effects? So you have to get at the root cause. What are those root causes? And then you have to deal with it. And then the question is who is you and how will you deal with it? I think that's, I'm just trying to be realistic. Larry. And then Madame Lagal. Three things. One, we're having yesterday's debate in a way because globalization has changed profoundly. It used to be that countries imported and exported products. Today they are one part of global supply chains. And that changes profoundly the dynamics and makes interference with globalization more difficult. Two, what should global integration policies be like? I would like to live in a world where the global policy community had devoted 10% as much energy to preventing tax arbitrage through escape of capital to tax havens and regulatory arbitrage through taking advantage of low regulation jurisdictions as it had to protecting the intellectual property rights of multinational corporations. And in such a world, it would be easier to persuade middle class people that they should be interested in the project of global integration. And we have not lived in such a world. And that is a failure of the political process in every country. Third, Ray and I do not really disagree very much. I do not yield to him in my enthusiasm for the idea that business confidence is central to national economic success. And that is indeed why I resisted the notion that our principal problem was a lack of redistributionism. I do think that one needs to be very cautious about temporary increases in animal spirits brought about by a reversion to extremely ad hoc policymaking. And I would inquire of my friend Ray what he thought of the decision to make a few remarks about pharmaceutical companies in a way that within 45 minutes took $25 billion off their equity value and whether he saw that as the kind of positive contribution to increasing business confidence that he was highlighting. All of our new administration. I think we're talking about different things. First of all, I think we're talking about what we want. In other words, Larry's describing policies that he would want. And I'm talking about things that are likely to happen. And if you ask me that question, I think that that's really problematic. I think that the spontaneous decisions, do you want to have a border tax? Do you not want to have a border tax? And all of that is not good. And that improvisation or that spontaneity or the issues being the complexities, these are challenges. We agree on those things. I was just responding to the question of is this all negative or is it all positive? And then when we get back to the future. Just to check. I think you and I agree that the populist elements are almost all negative. And I think your real point was that some of the elements in what we're seeing aren't populist and that you like those. In terms of populist policy, I didn't hear you say anything that was supportive of traditional populist policy. No, populism scares me. I want to be loud and clear. Populism scares me. It is the extremes. And it goes to more extreme. And I'm just saying what is likely? Where are we headed? And what does that look like? Define it. Define its left version. Define its right version. We know what they're like. This has been enacted before and it will likely continue in a slow way in the next year in Europe, in the next year in Europe. There is the risks of that greater. And it's a matter of impatience. So is it likely is my question. I think it's more likely than not. We're literally flew by. So I'm going to ask for a quick comment from Madame Lagarde from Minister Paduan. And then just think about this and this will be your closing remarks. Think of a three-point plan. If populist policies don't work, a three-point plan to make the middle class feel a little bit better. I was trying to reconcile Ray and Larry, but they have reconciled by themselves. Thank you. But I was also thinking that whatever outcome from the additional 10% spent on fighting tax evasion, fighting corruption, having a common solid platform of regulation, particularly concerning the financial world, all of that could actually be used to address the point made by Ray, which is we're not going to fight technology. We're not going to disrupt completely the global supply chain. Hopefully the private sector will be able to sustain the intimations that be done. And as a result, whatever comes out of what Larry has identified, could actually be spent on addressing the middle class anxiety which is out there, which is how am I going to adjust to this new technological world? What future is there for my children? What safety net is there if everything falls apart and I don't have anything to hang on to? And I think that that's where policies actually can insert themselves and can do so with courageous leaders who, like Pierre Paolo, say it will take time, it's going to be difficult, implementation will not be glamorous, will not interest Bloomberg and others, but we need to go through it in order to get to a better place. So that's what I really wanted to say. And I don't think that we should be resigned to taking the situation as it is without doing something. But is there a problem with Timeline? Can we reconnect with the population in time for dealing with all the European elections? I think the truth and the courage of identifying the landscape as it will be is critical to that. If you look at the Global Shapers Survey that has just been conducted by Davos, by the way, it's interesting to see that the key concern is about corruption, is about transparency, is about accountability. So those can be addressed through the policies that Larry has identified and that Pierre Paolo has alluded to. Minister Paduan, you have a three-point plan? Well, I don't know where it's a plan. It's a three-point statement. The first statement is we have to take populist seriously, meaning that not all populists, all those who vote for populist ideas, are the bad guys. In most cases, they are the good guys. They are fellow citizens and they have real concerns about, as Christine was mentioning, the future of their children, job opportunities, concerns about security. And these are real concerns. So policymakers have to take that very, very seriously. Second point, there is no silver bullet. There is no shortcut. The solutions are complicated and they take time to develop. However, third point, we as policymakers don't need to provide a vision which has been lacking. You need a vision to generate animal spirits that translates into action in the private sector. And especially in Europe, we are lacking that vision. In some other places, there is a vision. You may agree or disagree with that vision, but that is the challenge that Brexit is posing and that Trump is posing. They have a vision. We don't have a vision in Europe, not a vision which is comparable in terms of powerful message. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but that's the case. I need a minute each. Minister Mideas. Okay. I think that we have a very interesting point here and we should be very clear about the difference between, number one, the problems and some reactions which are coming as a result of globalization and the policies which are needed to address those questions versus the populist reaction to the same problem. If we go back, for instance, to the 30s and the problems in Europe, et cetera, we can clearly see that difference. There were the real problems, the post-first war treaties and the economic consequences for some areas of Europe and the popular reaction to that. This is one thing. The other thing is how leaders took advantage of that problem and that dissatisfaction to create very negative populist measures and evidently go much beyond that. I think that's the difference that we should draw in terms of what the populist reaction and how populist leaders take advantage of that and what the real problem is. Right. I think it will be very important. Over the next 90 days, we'll start to learn more about whether we're invigorating the economy in certain ways prudently. I think Donald Trump is aggressive. Is he aggressive and thoughtful? Or is he aggressive and reckless? And we're going to find that out with time and I think that that'll have a very important implication. The people that he hired in his administration are quite often thoughtful people and so I think we should step back and see how it all plays out. Larry? I'll answer your three-point plan question in an American context. Our broad objective should be to make America greater than ever before. That's very different from making it great again. There are three major steps. One, public investment on an adequate scale starting from infrastructure at a time when ours is in a shambles but also embracing technology and embracing education. Two, a global strategy focused on making global integration work for ordinary people starting with the issues of capital mobility and its control that I referred to. And third, enabling the dreams of every young American which goes to issues of education, goes to issues of supporting the transition from school to work for those who don't go to college, goes to the ability to purchase a home, and much else. Thank you so much for a great panel.


U.S. seeks Russian military equipment in South America for transfer to Ukraine. Nine countries in South America possess Russian military equipment, which the U.S. could potentially transfer to Ukraine according to Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Southern Command. According to her, nine countries in South America have Russian military equipment. The U.S. proposes to exchange this equipment for use in Ukraine and replace it with American equipment, which is much better than Russian-made equipment. The American general did not name the countries in question, but Argentina, Guyana, Venezuela, and Haiti are mentioned in the text. There is also information that Uruguay, Ecuador, Cuba, and Nicaragua have Soviet equipment in their armed forces. Argentina has transferred two multi-purpose MI-171E helicopters to Ukraine, which were previously purchased in Russia. Also in January of last year, Laura Richardson already stated that the U.S. was seeking Soviet weapons in Central and Southern American countries. Recently, Greece has also reportedly decided to arm Ukraine with Soviet origin S-300, surface-to-air missile systems. The military transfer, according to reports, could eventually include other Soviet-origin military equipment, including prototypes of the Z-U-232 anti-aircraft gun and the TAR and OSSA short-range mobile air defense systems. The Pentagon documents that were leaked in February last year revealed that the stockpiles of missiles for Ukraine's S-300 and Buk-Sams were expected to be completely depleted by early May. Although a predecessor of the highly advanced Russian S-400, this missile system is still deemed capable of countering ballistic and cruise missiles. The several variants of the S-300 deployed in the current battle have co-played as Ukraine's primary armor and an indelible part of its layered missile defense system against Russian attacks. According to local reports in the Greek media, the country approved the delivery of S-300s only after the U.S. approved the sale of F-35A stealth fighters to Athens, establishing a direct link between the two decisions. The U.S. approved the sale of 40 F-35 aircraft to Greece, estimated to cost $8.6 billion.


Hi guys, welcome to Monnaie Cafe. Today I'm going to be giving a lesson that was inspired by a lot of your questions. So many people are asking about the different types of pastels, different hardness, softness, also about the different types of papers and surfaces you can use with pastels. And these were some of the same questions that I asked when I first got started. It took me a lot of research to finally get answers and to explore the different mediums and pastels that I could use. So I thought it would be very beneficial to go ahead and make a video about this that should help a lot of you guys. So anyway, we're going to get to it and I think you're going to learn a lot. Let's go. All right, so now we're going to get started. First, talking about the different types of pastel surfaces. I have not exhausted all of them by any means, but I do have a pretty good sample that is pretty representative of some of the common ones that people use. First, I just have a regular piece of newsprint here. This is going to represent how not to do your pastel paintings. I do know people who have done some pastel paintings that on surfaces that do not have a sanded surface and they've done some beautiful work. But typically, this is not the best surface. The pastels will just fall right off and you can't get any layers. I'm going to be doing an example of some pastels on each one of these. So after we get through talking about the basic papers, this paper right here has a really good grit, a very coarse surface to it. I actually have a real piece of sandpaper here that you would just buy at the hardware store. And this is a fine grit, but just kind of to compare it, you can you can hear how rough that is. This is very rough. I think you'd probably wear out your pastels very quickly if you did it on regular hardware store sandpaper. But you notice you can hear the grit on this one too. Not as rough as that, but this type is considered a pretty coarse pastel paper. And what this is, is La Carte pastel paper. It's made by the company and I think I'm even saying this name wrong. I think it's a French name. Senniliers have always said it. I love their pastels as well. I have some of them that I will show you. But this particular pad here comes with various shades. Okay, so you've got a variety. It's not cheap. I can't remember how much it is. I'll try to research that and put it in the video. But oh, I love that. That kind of a gray green blue there. Really pretty. But anyway, I happen to really like this pastel surface. Some people think it's a little too rough. But if you like an impressionistic style, this one lends itself towards that. The next one that I have up here, this is the Me Tiente's Touch. It's made by Kansen. And it also comes in a pad. This has 12 sheets in this pad. Me Tiente's Touch. And it is, I'm almost out of this. I wanted to experiment and play around with it because I was curious about this. Because I typically was not a fan of Kansen. Kansen used to make a pastel paper, I think they still do, that they sell in most, I would say crafty stores. And they don't have a tooth to them at all. They have a little texture to the paper. But it was not my favorite pastel surface. So they came out with this new type. And it does, this is a black piece out of that pad, have a little bit of a sandy surface to it. Not as much as this one. It's a little bit smoother. And this is a nice surface as well. Now I'm going to move up to my favorite surface right here, other than I like my homemade. I'm going in order of my preferences, I think. This is close to the top of my preference, if not tied with this one. But this right here is UART paper. I think I have a little bit on the back of it here that shows the grit. Yeah, it's 400 grit. I have a bigger piece of it here. You can buy it in smaller sheets. I actually buy it in really big sheets and cut it up myself. So this is the 400 grit. And this is also pretty sanded, but it's not as coarse as this one. The great thing about this is you can get down a lot of layers with it. You can use water with it. You can use watercolor. Fixative works very well on it. If I recall, I'm not quite sure. I'll have to check. I'm not sure if you can add water to the LaCarte paper or not. I'm thinking you can't, but I'll try to put that in the video, my answer after I research it. So anyway, we've got these in order of my favorites. And then this is the ones that many of you may have seen the videos where I make my own surface. This is just a piece of mat board. I did a little teeny one as a sample. And it's where I make my own pastel surface and apply to the board. Again, I buy these boards big and I cut them to standard sizes. And then I mix up my concoction here and I'll put a link right up here to link to the video of how to make your own pastel surface. It's just mixed one to one ratio. I won't go into all the detail of the names of these products because you can click the video to find out. And when you do that, you can apply that to this whatever surface, whether it's Gator board or mat board, and create your own pastel surface. This one only has one coating on it, so it's not quite as sanded. Disadvantage to this is you can't get quite as many layers on this as you can on the UART. So that's why I'm kind of tied with these two because sometimes I just really love the UART. So there's a little bit of an example of some of the different paper types. Oh, actually, I have one more to show you here. This is Ampersand Pastel Board. I actually really like this. And when I was going through making this video, I was like, why don't I use this more because I've done some paintings that I really loved on this. And it too will come in different colors and different sizes. Now, what's an advantage on this one is it's already on a board, okay? It's a hard board. And sometimes when you're doing your paintings on these papers, you know, they're flimsy or they're a little bit, you have to protect them a little bit more from getting bent or damaged.  Sometimes even after I'll do a painting, I like to just sit it up on a little stand before I frame it. And you can do that with the boards. You can't always do that with these because they'll, in time, they'll kind of bend and warp. So that's the advantage of these two. They're actually on a sturdy surface, okay? So now we've got an example of some of the different types of pastel papers and surfaces. So now what we're going to do is we're going to talk a little bit about the different pastels, the absolutely beautiful medium that I love so much. And I can tell I have a lot of pastel fans that visit my channel. So let's get started and learn some about these beautiful pastels. Okay, before I actually apply some of the pastels and show how they behave, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the different varieties. I have a few here that I have accumulated over the years. And there are so many different types of pastels that I surely won't be able to talk about them all, but I can break it down a little bit. And I'm actually going to provide a link in the about section that will give you more information about different pastels. First of all, we are dealing on my channel anyway with soft pastels. I don't deal with oil pastels. I know a lot of artists do some beautiful work with them, but I've never, I've never been a fan. So I am specifically talking about soft pastels. And also we've got within the soft pastel family, we have a range from hard to soft with some that are medium in between as far as their hardness and their softness. And the difference between hard and soft pastels is how they behave on the paper. Because we're working with a sanded surface, hard pastels, because they're hard, won't get into the deeper grooves of the surface as easily as the soft ones will. So soft ones, this is a soft pastel here, they very quickly fill up the tooth or the depth of the paper. So you can't get as many layers with soft pastel as you can hard pastel. Well, that would sound like, wow, why don't we just use hard pastels all the time? Well, another thing they're not, you'll see when we apply some of these, they're just not as brilliant. And they don't cover the same way that a soft pastel does. So this little fine balance about how to use them. And it's something that just gets easier in time the more you work with them. That's why typically, though, you will see some artists when they'll do an initial sketch to do a layout or just the composition sketch, they typically will use a harder pastel because they're not in danger of filling up that tooth that they're later going to cover over. So that's just a little difference between the hard and the soft pastels. Now also we have different, within soft pastels, we have different things that we can use. We have the actual sticks that we can use. We also have pastel pencils. They make sets of pencils that are good for fine detail work. Now if you're into more impressionistic art, you don't do a whole lot of fine detail work, you can get a lot done with just a harder pastel and you don't need that. Sometimes these are handy to have, but not always. And I find that in general, these are not really soft. They are, I would say, a medium to a hard pastel in the pencil. The other challenge with pencils and hard pastels is that once you have gotten, say, your painting almost complete, if you go back to try to apply a hard pastel or a pencil over top, they sometimes won't even show up very well because you've already filled up the tooth of the painting. So that's again something that comes with experience. So I thought I would, oh I wanted to show one other little set that I have here. I'll go through my different sets before I show them here. I'll show them in the actual boxes. I've saved some of the boxes that I've used.  I actually use it for my art student. It's called Neo Color Water-Soluble Color Wax Pastels. Now these are not, I wouldn't say, artist quality, but they're kind of fun to play around with sometimes. The other neat thing about these is that you can add water to them. You can actually use them on watercolor paper. So this is more of a fun thing. I don't usually use these for any professional paintings I'm doing, but it's just another product that some say is in the pastel family. Okay, but again, I don't use these a lot for serious pieces. Okay, so now I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the different pastels I'll show you that I actually have sets of. And I'll try to give you a few other name brands of ones that are well known. My favorite by far, I don't have the box for it, but I'll share an image, is Terry Ludwig's. Terry Ludwig's are, I think some artists that love them like I do call it their workhorse. They use a lot of them because they are so brilliant with color. They're soft and buttery, and their application is just beautiful. And again, or let me stress here, that if you're getting started for the first time, it's like, it's overwhelming. What do I buy? Do I buy soft? Do I buy hard? Do I pencil? What do I do? And I would suggest getting a good, probably medium brand, I'll talk more about it when I get to it, in a set. A set that has a decent range of values of darks and lights and colors. And just play around with that one for a little while. I wouldn't go out and spend a fortune until you find out that this is something you're going to love. And then over time, it's like anything else. You accumulate and you add more, and you eventually get to where you know what are your personal favorites. It's a little different for every artist. So again, Terry Ludwig, I would say is probably my favorite. And then next, I also like that Terry Ludwig is a very soft pastel in the range from soft to hard. That's one of the softers. Also, unison pastels. This was an 18 piece set that I had bought, and it was a good set of various values as well. And oh, actually, I take that back. This was a dark value set. I needed some darker values and you can also buy sets of pastels that aren't just an array of colors. You can buy landscape sets and seascape sets. But sometimes if you just need more darks or you just need more lights, you can buy different sets of pastels. Again, the variety is just endless. But this was a set of darks I bought. Unison is another soft pastel that I really like a lot. It applies. I use a lot of their blues for my skies. Okay, so I love this one too. Another soft pastel that I like is this one is again, it's like the La Carte paper here. It's made by the company Cinelear. And again, I really know I'm butchering that name. And here's the thing. The reason why sometimes I don't have the lingo or the verbiage is I like to stress again that I have never, ever had a pastel class in person. I've never had a watercolor class in person like that. Again, back in my graphic design days, I had some drawing classes and things that went with that major. But I am an example of how you can truly learn so much online by videos. And that's again why I like to give back. So that's why sometimes I don't have the jargon. But I think that's kind of neat. You don't have to. But anyway, this brand I do like a lot. Again, you can get a set. This was a set that I got, a really good assortment set. And it was 80. And you'll have to check the prices because I bought this years ago. But I bought it in what's called half pastels. Let me see if I still have my little insert in here. Yes, I do. It was in a set of half pastels. So then you're getting a bigger variety of colors and values without having to buy the whole stick. You get more bang for your buck, so to speak. But I took them out and I'll do another video sometime on how to organize your pastels. Again, there's lots of different ways to do that as well. But that's just another good education. So again, this was a great set on the side of the box. It shows all of the different colors and the different numbers of each color on this, this variety of pastel. This one too is a pretty soft pastel. I would say it's not as soft as the Unison or the Terry Ludwigs, but it's also a pretty soft pastel. All right, now I'm going to move into, let me think if I can think of some of the other names. Oh, there's one that I don't have the box to find a picture, is Geralt Pastels. This is an artist that I love named Elizabeth Mowry. She uses these. I don't have a big supply of them. I've been waiting until I could afford to buy a big full set. That I just can't wait to get. I would say it's a little bit more in the not quite as soft. It's not a hard by any means, but it's a little bit more medium softness than some of the others that I have spoken of already. So these are gorgeous pastels and I really like them. Another, some of the other names of soft pastels are Mount Vision. I think there's a Great American. So again, so many, but these are just a few of the ones that I really like. Now, going on to one I don't have the box for, but I'll show, find a picture, is Rembrandt Pastels. This was probably one of the first sets that I bought and it is a nice medium type of pastel. It is good for all kinds of different things. So I would suggest Rembrandt's if you're getting started to get a little starter set and kind of play around with that for a while. Now I'm going to move into some of the harder pastels. There are, this is one that I prefer as a hard pastel. It's Prismacolor New Pastel. I have a little supply of these here and they are harder. And again, these are going to be the ones that you would do an initial sketch because they're not going to fill up the tooth of the pastel surface. And another variety of a hard pastel is this Derwent. Hope I'm saying that name correctly too. This is another set of hard pastels that came in a little variety pack here that I sometimes use for initial sketches. And just to lay down a concept drawing, you know, just general things like that. There are other brands of hard pastels out there too, Faber Castell. That's a medium to a hard. But I'd like to point out that there are some that are cheaper. You can get pastels that are cheaper than some of the ones that I've mentioned. But you're going to, you get what you pay for. You're going to not get the vibrancy and color as what I like to call artist quality pastels. The ones that I've shown you thus far are artist quality. And what that means is they have a high ratio of pigment color to the binder. The binder is what holds them together. Otherwise the color would just fall all apart. So they have a mostly color and not a lot of binder.  And most pastel artists just go eek when you say that because it's absolutely not chalk. Chalk has a whole lot of binder, things that bind it together over color. That's why chalk, if you draw on a chalkboard, it doesn't have a lot of vibrance to your color. It's not a lot of color in it. So that's really what distinguishes the artist's quality from the beginner quality. The beginner quality is not only going to have less color or pigment, it's going to have cheaper pigment as well, not the expensive, really vibrant and beautiful colors that you can get with pastel work. Okay, so that's a general little education about pastels, softness, hardness, quality. And now I'm going to actually apply some of the pastels to the paper so you can get an example of how they behave without having to go out and buy all the stuff. See, that's one of the things I found a challenge when I was first getting started. And one of the reasons that I had to learn online was I couldn't really afford to go to all these classes to learn.  I had kids. I had a job. And so I had to learn all of these things without spending the extra money that some people have. Thus, I couldn't go out and experiment with all the different pastel types. I didn't have the budget to do that. So that's why I'm wanting to do this video here and show you right here on this video so you can get that education without having to spend the money or be frustrated because you can't see the difference between these. So I'm going to get started with actually putting down some marks on these different surfaces. And then I'll actually do a little bit of a painting to give you an idea of how hard and soft pastels work together. Okay, so this should be fun. All right, so I thought I'd go ahead and point out some of the different pastels I've already talked about. These are the Terry Ludwigs. They have their kind of signature square or rectangular shape to them. And some people are curious about how do I use them? You can use them in a variety of ways. You can use them just to the whole flat surface. You can use corners of them. I often break my pastels to use smaller pieces. And again, this is something that you just learn to feel and things that become custom to you once you figure out how you like to work. So those things just come in time. But these are the Terry Ludwigs. And I've got a variety of some shape or values here. I've got some really dark darks. I love the Terry Ludwigs dark darks. And the next ones over here, I think that we spoke of are unisons. This one popped over here. Unisons have more of a round shape to them. But again, they are also very soft. And notice I've peeled all the labels off of most of them, except a couple of these new pastels. And then I've got, I believe these were the Sennelier. Like again, I'm not sure if I'm even saying that right. I had some more of those I thought. Oh no, these are them over here. And it was that set that I had the little half pastels. This one may not be that one. But they are also the ones that I really, really love a lot. And again, they're not quite as soft as the Ludwigs and the Unisons. And I think these belong over there. The other ones are, this is a brand of pastel that I got early on. And I was trying to remember the names of these. It might have been a Faber-Castell again. I'm not even sure if I'm saying that one right. It was a set that had a big variety. And I actually still have a residue of these left over too. And they actually have a good medium to soft quality about them. These are the Rembrandt's and they have their rounded size. And again, I break them up a lot to do different things that I'm trying to accomplish with them. These are the new pastel, the harder pastels, the ones that I like for a harder pastel. And then these are the Derwent pastels here. They're a little bit too hard for me. I don't like these as much as these. And so now we're just going to apply a little bit. Oh, that's my husband out there on the saw right now. So hopefully you can hear over me. He's a creative fellow himself. And he should have a YouTube channel for all of the projects that he does. Okay, so I'm going to start applying first to the news print. All right, first I'll just go ahead and apply some hard pastels to it. Let me get a color that you can actually see. This is going to be the Derwent right here. Okay. And I'm just going to rub it on here. Get an idea of this. Okay, now I'm also going to do, I don't know if I should do them all at once and then move over. Yeah, I'll stick to one first. Okay, now I'm going to take the other hard pastel that I like better. That is the new pastel. Let me do that one under here. See how that one's already softer? All right, I had to pause for a second because my husband was louder than my voice was with his creative building project outside. This is the new pastel. And you see, this is the reason why I like this one more than the Derwent pastel. And now let's move on to some of the, I went from hard here. Let's go to the medium. These are, I'd say the next in softness or hardness would be the Rembrandt's. Okay, so we'll get some Rembrandt's in here. Get some different colors in here. Okay, so we've got hard, we've got medium. I think I'm just going to do hard, medium and soft on each one because this could take a while. And let's do another Rembrandt. Okay, and now let's go ahead and move into some of the softer ones. I'll do a unison here. Okay, you can already see how much buttery this one looks than that. And I'll do one of these. This is the Geralt, the one that I said I want a whole set out. This is kind of, this actually is between a medium and a soft. That's pretty soft though. And this is the Sennelier. Let me get another one of those, this one. I should really like this one. Okay, you see how pretty these are? While pastels, you can't mix them like acrylics or oils.  That's really pretty. I'm such a color freak. Okay, so now let me go on to some of the softest softs. I did the unison up here. That's a soft, but I'm going to grab one of these Terry Ludwigs. Let me get one of the, let me get this red shade, Terry Ludwigs. And again, one of the main things I use this new print, newsprint for is not for painting on, but to put behind my easel for cleaning them. You see how this one is really dirty? So usually it is on the outsides here and I'll just clean it. But in this case, I'll just go ahead and apply this color. Okay, so these are the really beautiful pastels. You see how bright that is? Now I'm going to move to the La carte paper and I will apply them in the same basic order. So we can kind of compare them. So first of all, with a stirwent, oh wait, I want to go back on this one and show why you don't want to use the newsprint. Let me just show you how, with some soft pastel, let me just try to actually paint something here. I will go into basically painting like a poppy flower or something here. I'll just give them a general shape to a flower. Okay, and let me give it a dark center here. Give it a really dark center. Try to do this quickly. It might not be the best poppy. Already, what has happened here, and this is what I wanted to demonstrate, is that red that I just put down, I want to give it a dark center. It's not letting me. You see, that's not even applying on there. I'm rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. You can't get any darker on there. So there's the example of why you don't want to use newsprint or notebook paper or any kind of drawing paper like that. Okay, next. Now we'll move on and we'll go in with the stirwent and then we'll do the new pastel, and I'll go kind of in the same order. I think we did a rembrandt, maybe another rembrandt. Then over here we did a unison. Which color did I do? I did this one. And you can't really appreciate these until you go back and layer them like we were doing. So that's why it'll be good to kind of, oh, look at this. See these scurral pastels? They're just really beautiful. Okay, now let me do one of the cinneliers or the lecarte, whatever it's called, cinnelier. Oh yeah, gorgeous, love that. And then let me also go ahead and do the terry Ludwigs. Ooh, look at that brightness. Isn't that gorgeous? Okay, so we got hard to medium to soft. Now I'll go in and try to do the same thing. Let's get a little idea of a poppy flower in here. And I'll do a center, same thing, the dark. Should be down here more actually. Give it a little purple in there for interest. And now when I go in to add the other layer, you see how you can immediately see that color there. Now I got a lot of colors falling and flying around in here. That's okay. Overlapping the other. We're getting the idea here. Let me see. I gotta resist the urge to just have a lot of fun here. I kind of need like a nice orange or something in here somewhere. But we get the idea. And this would be like a darker red under here. I have one. And maybe even some cooler. Yeah, there we go. Cooler reds in here like that. Okay, so we get the idea of how the colors behave on this. Now we're going to do the same thing on the Kansan Metian Taste Touch. Trying to work quickly here. Okay, we got a Rembrandt over here. Another Rembrandt. Unison. Grawl. It's in there. And you see how this texture, because it's more coarse, it actually doesn't show the spaces in it. You know, it's not as broken up as the other one. Okay, and now a Terry Ludwig. Okay, and now we'll do a quick idea for a poppy again. I'll try to do these faster. But you see this is actually on black paper. It really looks kind of brilliant right here. So I don't even really need to do the black metal. I can just do some purple there. And then again it will also take the darker color. But it didn't go on as smoothly as this paper over here. Okay, and see how that it's a little bit more muted. The layers are not as good as on this paper. It's actually kind of a good little example for me or study for me to do as well. Okay, and I know I had like some oranges on the outsides. But see this is still a pretty good paper. But see this is just why I love that paper a lot. Again, it's more for... I know some artists who just don't like this paper at all. So it might just be a personal thing with me. Okay, now we're going to move over to the UART paper. Again, this is kind of like a workhorse paper. You can get a lot done with UART paper. And oh, see how beautifully that went on? I got it out of order. Get the blue one first. And see that one too? Versus how spacious it is there and how choppy it is there. UART just, man, it is just such a great surface. Okay, and now we'll do a Rembrandt. Let's do this pink one, kind of like the order that we did. Oh, gorgeous. It just fills up that tooth. It looks so pretty. Same thing. I'll do another Rembrandt just to keep it kind of consistent. We'll do a Geralt. And we'll do the Cineleer. And we'll do a Terry Ludwig. I'll do the Terry Ludwig over here with a lot of order. Do you see how brilliant that is? It's just beautiful. Okay, and now I will also go in there and do another idea for a Poppy. Get the darker, and we'll see how the layers work here. Okay. Oh yeah, that just layers so beautifully. I just love that. It's gorgeous. It's pretty obvious why people like the Terry Ludwigs. They're just great, great color. Also like this color a little bit too. Again, I got to resist the urge to just paint and have fun. Use orange up here to kind of be consistent so you can get an idea. Okay, now we'll move on to this over here is the prepared surface. Same thing. Now again, this one is not going to have the tooth that the other ones do, and it has a rough surface. And actually, I meant to mention on my mat board, I used the rougher surface. Sometimes I like the way that looks versus the smooth surface that's on the other side. So that's a personal preference. This will come out looking much more artistic and loose than using the smooth surface. But this has that beautiful glow underneath as well. Okay, again, moving on to the Rembrandt. That's another Rembrandt. You see the spaces in between it? Some people like it. Some people don't. Here's the Geralt. Beautiful. Purple's my favorite color. I just can't help it. Okay, now we'll move on to the Centa Lear one. And again, I only did one coat of this. So it's not really got as much tooth to it as the other ones. And then let's see. Now we'll do the Terry Ludwig here. Okay. But still, if we want to do a like a poppy flower, these are all really fast, you'll see that it still does take it really well. And it's really pretty. But it has more of the blended, I mean, the rougher look, the more artistic, impressionistic look. Purple, purple. Oh, it's already got orange. That's one thing I find when I'm working with this. There's a lot of times I like to add orange for punch. And it's hard to do because it's already orange. All right. So now we're getting an idea of the differences. This has that loose artistic look. This has that smooth, buttery, pretty look. This one, it takes more layers, but not as many layers. This again, has a really, it takes the pastels really well, the LeCart paper. And then the newsprint, everything's just, you see, that's already just all falling off of it. So now you've got a little bit of an idea of what you might want to play with. If I had to make a suggestion, again, I've mentioned with the pastels, get a set, maybe a Rembrandt, maybe a Unison, and get a variety colors and values. And if I had to recommend the paper, maybe start with UART or maybe the Canson, just to play around with a little bit. Don't buy massive quantities until you know what you like. But got a little dusty here again, which I love. Some people don't like that about pastels. That doesn't bother me one bit. It's kind of fun.  And so that is basically the lesson for today. I really hope this helped you guys to not have to go out and spend a lot of money to experiment on these things by yourself. Feel free to ask a lot of questions. If you have any, I try so hard to answer all of your questions. And I'm just getting so excited. By the way, we just got over a thousand subscribers on this channel here. And that may not sound like a lot to some people because there are some channels that have, oh, 80,000 subscribers. And but that's a big milestone for me. And I want to give all the thanks to you guys. Thank you so much for liking the efforts that I'm giving here. And it's truly, it's for me and it's for you guys. And I'm truly in love loving doing this. So thanks guys. And come back again. Please subscribe if you want to learn more about these pastel tips. Thanks so much.


I hope it was a useful course, I hope you got exposed to many new things, possibly conceptually not very difficult, but the skills getting used to new things, I think these are something quite different. When I started using these new technologies, I found that the students actually know more than you, the technology, that is the first thing that we have to be ready. You are telling me how to do, I think that is first thing that we should remove, first thing because we know the kids can play computer game better than us. This is almost like playing games and figuring out how to play, there is a game, how did the child find out what press, what button to press, how do they do that? Because the children, the next generation people are lot more amenable to this technology, they actually can understand this lot better. In fact, Professor Geithunde was talking about Spokane tutorial, I will tell a small incident. So, Spokane tutorial is a self-learning method to teach IT, C programming, Java programming, late take and all kinds of things. If you just type Spokane tutorial on any search engine like Google, you will get it. So, it is very popular one, we have been offering workshops using that. In fact, these workshops can be offered in your schools also, we dub them into all 22 Indian languages also, the Spokane part. So, we had given this to a college in Maharashtra and then the person, a college teacher from Maharashtra asked me, we need advanced level tutorials in Sylab, Sylab is a computing, numerical computing software. So, I said, well, we have taught the basic thing, why don't you ask the students to learn from, you know, Google, do a Google search, you will get all the PDF file documents you can see. Then the teacher wrote to me saying that, the students want only video tutorials, they don't want to see PDF files. Because if it is video tutorial, they can download it on their mobile phone, they can listen to it while travelling. So, what I am saying is, if you look at the new generation, the children are actually attuned to this, they actually like this. So, it is actually easy to teach that, easy to, as a matter of fact, it is more difficult for us. And there is no harm, if a child, if somebody loves all that you have to do is, maybe I am making a mistake, please come and explain how to do it better, that's it, then they become your friends. That is one thing that we need to do. The other interesting thing in this is, yesterday we had a session called Ask a Question, 175th event of Ask a Question, that means 175 weeks are over. So, this program is one in which our electrical engineering faculty members have been answering questions that students post from various parts of the country, all engineering colleges. Once a week, one hour a week, our people come online through a software called Aview and answer the questions and the students come, connect from various parts of the country, they come, they ask questions and our people answer.  So, once we started doing this, it is questions, questions, questions, only questions, because everything is there, all the data are there, all the material, learning material, everything is there and in fact, our motto is every question matters, every question matters, you must ask questions. So, I am just telling some of the things that, you know, that, you know, we, our perception that may have to, we may have to change or I had difficulty in when I started doing these things. But fortunately, I found that this methodology allows you to become a better teacher because you have the opportunity to practice, keep improving the way you speak and then record yourself and the people do not see what all you did before that. For example, we do not know when we see a movie, we do not know how many takes they had taken to get the final picture. When you say, hey, this is a great movie. So, we have the opportunity, all of us to become very good teachers. In other words, a person who is normally a great teacher in front of the students live need not necessarily be the best teacher in this mode because in this mode, there is, actually, I should put it the other way around. I should say, even a person who is not very good in speaking extempore can become a great teacher, can, using the method that Dr. Sharma suggested, you record it, you listen to it and say, I am making this mistake. So, the students are laughing, go and improve it, modify it, keep practicing. And so, and the benefit is, instead of 50 people, you are going to teach 50,000 people if it comes out well. So, I think there is a potential in this for even an ordinary teacher because of sheer perseverance and hard work to become a very good teacher because there is nothing life. Life thing may be there at the most to answer questions, but I think that is okay. And this methodology here is here to stay because that is the only way we are going to reach out to so many because we have a big shortage of teachers and there is no way we are going to be able to train teachers what they call brick and mortar model. Through that model to develop to train good teachers is not going to, it is going to be very difficult for us. If you want to become as good as the West, if you want to provide a similar kind of potential, for example, in a place like US, you go to any state university, you are guaranteed of some minimal standard of education. We are unable to do that in India. And this I am talking about universities. If you go to schools, it is going to be even worse. So, the only way we can leapfrog is to use this methodology. And all that I would like to say is it is not rocket science. It is not at all rocket science. Everybody can become good. And it is just the, if you are motivated, if you are interested, you can certainly find out how to do it given that you could interact with the people who are here.  You would have found out. And one of the reasons is some of us have taken into a point that the culture in our projects has to be quite different from a typical Sarkari department. So, for example, in my office, the other day, I called my phone, office phone. And there was this casual worker, of course. He answered the phone. And there is, of course, a standing instruction that anybody who answers our phone has to tell hello, I am so and so. This is TCS building. Can I help you? And I have told them if anybody doesn't do that, there is going to be a punishment, because we are a service department. Service department means we are actual people. So, the first thing that I, I mean, so they can, they cannot say hello. What is this? You should say, can I help you? That, so, if you look at the culture in our, these projects, this extension projects or outreach projects of this MOOC course, our T10KT, teacher, 10,000 teacher program in that, that activity, I don't know, you are probably exposed to that. That is also run by Professor Fartek. And Mukta is here. She is the one who is the manager of that project. You look at Spokane tutorial project, you look at Fosse project, E Yantra. All these projects have been created with the outreach in mind and with the culture of a service department, that our people will be very friendly, ready to help you if you have any questions. And because that's how our people have been groomed. In fact, you would have noticed that the PI of this project is Professor Fartek. Professor Fartek isn't here for two days, but nothing stopped. Professor Gaithand did it. If Professor Gaithand were not there, even if he were not there, somebody else would have done it. So, that kind of thing is from top to bottom, you talk to any of our staff members, they would be ready to help. So, in this new paradigm, there are some differences, there are some benefits and there is some learning to happen. And I'm glad to say that we are fortunate, we are happy to be endowed with financial assistance by the National Mission on Education through ICT to establish all these resources. In fact, I would like to also acknowledge the first director of this mission, Mr. N. K. Sinha, who thought of all of these and who gave us funding and then encouragement. And this missionary approach has really helped. And we are talking about the work that we did for five years. We started in 2009, I think May we got the first branch of money. So, it's more than five years. So, we are working and it is continuing because the government has realized that this is an important activity. It should be sustained. As a matter of fact, in the first phase of this mission, it was available only to the Department of Higher Education, that is colleges. In fact, many people had asked us why Akash is not being used in schools. But it came out of Department of Higher Education activity in MEI city. But now, there is an effort to make this, in fact, this MOOC itself is an initiative in that direction, that here is something successful at the higher level. It should be made available to the schools. As a matter of fact, schools are a lot more important because if you don't produce children of the right kind, if the initial conditions are not good, then any amount of work that you would do later may not really help. So, we have, I think, all the resources, we have the right kind of trained people here who are ready to help. And we are already committed to doing this MOOC support, use the resources we have for the entire MOOC activity, including the schools. And there are also other players like the Tatas and Tis and so on, who want to come in a big way to bring this kind of methodology to schools. So, the future looks, I would say, reasonably bright because one can always say, look, how, you know, what is happening to the education system? I mean, and so on and so forth. And here seems to be a potential weapon to work against it, to destroy whatever shortcomings that we have. So, with that, I would like to conclude. I want to congratulate all of you for having participated in this. And you are all our alums because you did a certificate course here. And we would like to be in touch with you. And then, do not hesitate to get in touch with our staff members for anything that is not clear. Thank you. Goodbye. Now, a feedback session. Okay, so the floor is open. From the last three days, I just forgot all the thoughts, sir. So, given a choice to use Facebook or WhatsApp or social networking sites for 20 hours, or I am given a chance to study a particular chapter for even half an hour, what would I choose? Sir, surely the social networking sites or even the gaming, because I have an interest in it, because the textbook or any activities, any other activity other than that will be not that much interesting for me. So, definitely I will go there. What I learned here that if at any point of time I am able to make my MOOC so interesting and so tempting to the student that he will leave everything outside. Okay, no, no, no. I want to do MOOC. And it is far more interesting. So, then I think, sir, that will be the true homage to what we are doing here. If I can make my MOOC so that all the students, if more students pay more attention to MOOC, instead of doing anything else, then maybe our efforts will come a long way. This is what I would like to share. Most respected professors, all my colleagues and friends here. This has been a good exposure and it is my privilege to be a part of the team. This is a new program, what we are exposed to, and I think it is useful for all kinds of children. When we say all kinds of children, children are staying in the remote areas where they are devoid of good schools and good teachers, as well as the students who are staying in the remote areas, where they have a schooling proper, but they may not be liking the schools, they may not be liking the teacher. For such children also it can be good. Now, presently the children are spending time after school for tuitions and other things. So, in such cases, those children can go to MOOC, refer to that lessons, and if it is more interesting, they can go through that and then be perfect with that. So, it can be helpful for all kinds of children, but for a school education we need to have a little more modifications to make it more interesting for the child. So, it can be more interactive at any time of the day. Like, if a child wants to answer that time, it should be available. If a child wants to interact at that time, it should be available. So, if we can make little more changes, it can be very much helpful. That's what I think. Thank you everybody. Thank you for all the team members. I've been very, very helpful at all times. In all our words, thank you to everybody. I have already shared some of my personal views regarding this. First of all, this is a great initiative, collaboration between NCRT and IITV. I think we are the first batch of school teachers getting incorporated in this new platform. So, my experience being into this program is that we expected a little bit of more exposure regarding this particular platform on the very first day. Actually, what is this and how is this? Because it's a general experience of us all that we are stuck somewhere in between, what is this about? So, I think in the future workshops like this, if this thing is taken into consideration, it will be a great, I think it will be an improvement in the running of the courses. Secondly, three days, two tight scheduled and yes, the back of team is really has to be thanked. In fact, yesterday also after dinner, we stayed back in the lab till 11.30. Unfortunately, he is not here. So, he was staying with us there in the lab. So, it's a great help and definitely the motivations and the encouragement we have got from Eumentus is awesome. And on the whole, it was a great experience and I would like to extend this in future also so that we can be a part of the team whose designed courses are run in the schools, not only in the medium of instruction of English in Hindi and other vernacular mediums also. Thank you. So, we all know that our previous situation is not very good, especially in the government schools. So, let's think about it. Like, in June, I went to Karkam in NRE in June, I made a few videos there, I mean, I gave a presentation there. I liked it because it was ours. But how did you feel about it? You will see and you will tell it. I felt that I might have gone too crazy in IIT. Like, I might have gone too crazy in IIT. I mean, I met the people I met. First of all, I had a chance to meet Mr. Asif Brahma in IIT. He also went crazy from 8am till 9-10am in the morning. He himself made us crazy. And yesterday, I felt it. He said, I was tired till 10am. I ran away from home. But some people went crazy till 11.30pm. So, the second thing I saw here is that IIT is in Kanpur. And IIT is in Bombay. So, I can understand. You said that everyone is there. So, I agree. We will also try. We are also crazy in this way. So that we can get some children. Thank you. Thank you one and all. So, I have one suggestion for that. Because students like more attractive things. No doubt whatever contents providing videos, etc. But whatever the page layout, if you make that default, what you are getting, at least the toolbar, that icons are coming. So, instead of icons, if you add a text in the form of a colored text, so that may become more attractive to their pages. So, again, the students can attract it more to see that things. That is the only thing. Thank you, sir. Let me thank all of you for the nice cooperation at any time of the day. Secondly, one thing I wanted to add is the main problem I'm feeling in the school education is the practical part in the science, specifically in science. Most of the time, whether it's 12, 30, 9, 30, 11, practical part is being ignored over there. And that is what we are understanding. The conceptualization of the child is lacking over there. Can we interpret something or add something in over this platform so that some simulated experiment, some where there is no material over there, at least child can understand that, from that simulated experiment of particular subject. If that can be added, that will be a more thing. Thank you. Good afternoon. One and all project here. So, first of all, I would like to thank Kendra Jalesangatan. KBS has selected me, one of the participants to attend this three-day workshop on MOOC. So, before this, I was attended five-day training, training to prepare the e-content on the Moodle platform. So, in last year, I was attended this, say, Moodle course, RIE Mysore. So, after taking the training, we have conducted two courses for the cool teachers, TGTs and PGTs in our institute, journal Institute of Education and Training, in the last month. So, what I experienced there, most of the teachers are expressed there best, because definitely this e-content, it helps the quite lot to the students to interact and as well as it gives a more effective teaching, on the teaching learning and definitely it affected in the performance of the also. So, similar way, here also, I got a lot of experience while attending this course, three days workshop on the MOOC, and all the staff members, they are helped a lot and assisted us without any hesitation and they are looked at very nicely. So, thank you one and all. We were talking like this, that when it is 4.30 pm, 5.30 pm, the finish time, the participants start doing something from 4.30 pm, that now it is 5.30 pm, when it will be 5.30 pm. Here, it was so much fun, that yesterday, it was about 13-14 hours of work. So, it was a different feeling, it was a different experience. No one tied it here, everyone tied it to themselves. Feedback? Sir, how do you deal with the students? Sir, it is not here, it is outside. The students you deal with, you are mad at them, the students you deal with, we are mad at them. Second thing is, whatever we have created, if we get feedback on it, that it is enough, we can improve it, the 6 courses that we have created, it will be better for everyone. Another thing is, the timing selected for this training, that is also good, because there are vacations everywhere, so no one can come freely, their responsibilities are not there. Another thing is that, for Mook, this training was given to us. If it is not on a platform like Mook, but in a simple form, if its training videos are available, then the people outside who are not here, or are hesitating, they will benefit from it. And a forum will probably start, by itself, that everyone will participate in it. But it is a good platform, and I would like to thank everyone for such a good experience. Thank you. Good evening all. Patan, I should not say all this, but I would like to add one thing, this is a matter of artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence, especially of artificial intelligence, and what I experience at the school level, the emotions of the students or the teachers or the community have taken a lot, as we are using this technology. So somewhere we have to think on, whatever we are creating, as Sir also said, that NCF-2005 is called. So somewhere the ethics or moral values or emotional values are getting down, so we have to think on it, whenever we are creating such kind of digital content, like that. Thank you very much. I think all these things have come, but I would like to share with you that the first thing that I felt here, that somewhere we have to work culture of the IIT, Mumbai. Because the time frame that we came from, we were thinking that it will end at 5 o'clock, then we will think again. So, in Sidhu, I should have said that it should have been a topic, it should have been a session, and it should have been when it will end, when it will start, there shouldn't have been any timing. It should have been comfortable, it should have started. The second thing that I liked the most is that wherever we go, the material, the procedural material is not given. Some content is all, the delivery part is something else. But here, I was given the documentation that if we are forgetting to upload something, then I have that documentation and after looking at that page, I can go and revive it again. I liked it a lot. So, thank you all for the cooperation given to us. Thank you. So, what you got as a booklet that was prepared with the help of Brinda and Gayatri, she just left. So, all this was done in a very short time in less than a week. So, we thought we have to start somewhere and the edX documentation is very big. It's more than 300 pages. So, we just prepared the document for your workshop. So, I hope that was just the first draft. So, we will modify that and we will give it to you maybe in another week's time. So, that is one thing which I just want to tell you. Brinda and Urmila have been working on this platform for last six, seven months. Each and every component very well. So, they could explain each and every part to you very well and but the main problem is they are not very comfortable in talking to people. So, that is so, I hope you all enjoyed and if you have any questions, you can always ask us. So, I suppose it's time for me to start handing out the certificates. Sanjay Deukar Amit Kumar Mai Rajinder Kumar Shaunish Goa Rakesh Kumar Devkaran Singh Ekesh Rivasthav Ramesh Prasad Badoni Manoj Kaushik M. Gopal Reddy Dinesh Chandra Bhatt Gupta Dr. Hariharanath Jha M. Srinivasan Yogesh Puneer Dr. Yashpal Sharma Jamshedur Rahman Pramod Kumar Sahu Mr. Manoj S. Goyal Asaram Borude Mahesh Prasad Singh Gopal Chopra S.B. Dhanraj Annamaneni Rohit You announced this. Mr. Raja Ram Sharma Your technology is slow. So, thank you all.


We know that it's hard to stay up to date on USIP's latest publications, so we've challenged our teams to summarize their latest research in less than a minute. This is Briefly. Southern Asia is the only region of the world where three nuclear armed states, China, India, and Pakistan, share contested borders. In 2019, India and Pakistan traded airstrikes on each other's territories and in 2020, Indian and Chinese troops fought their bloodiest battles in over 40 years. To consider how Washington should respond to these developments, the US Institute of Peace convened a group of experts. The group's report recommends that US officials should seize even modest opportunities to reduce regional tensions and encourage strategic stability talks, deepen defense cooperation with India to enhance its resilience and territorial defenses, improve capabilities for crisis communication and information sharing with and between China, India, and Pakistan, and conduct gaming exercises and other preparations for US policymakers who will need to manage complex crisis diplomacy in Southern Asia. You can read the full report on our website at usip.org.