The next item of business is a debate on motion 2937 in the name of Bruce Crawford, on behalf of the Finance and Constitution Committee, on a written agreement between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. May I ask those who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons, and I call on Bruce Crawford to speak to and move the motion on behalf of the committee. Around five minutes, please, Mr Crawford. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's a pleasure to open this debate today on behalf of the Finance and Constitution Committee. Now, although it might not be the most exciting debate, nevertheless, this short debate is a very important debate. The origins of the agreement that we're considering today relates back to the work of the Devolution Further Powers Committee, of which I was also the convener in the last session of Parliament. The Devolution Further Powers Committee undertook a wide range of work on the issue of intergovernmental relations, which I'll call IGR from now on in, drawing upon the comments that the Smith Commission made in regards to this issue in its report. It's worth recalling what Lord Smith himself had to say. Throughout the course of the commission, the issue of weak intergovernmental working was repeatedly raised as a problem. That current situation, coupled with what will be a stronger Scottish Parliament and a more complex devolution settlement, means that the problem needs to be fixed. Both Governments need to work together to create a more productive, robust, visible and transparent relationship. The Devolution Further Powers Committee's report on the subject made a range of recommendations, including that a new written agreement on parliamentary oversight of IGR between the Scottish Parliament and Government should be developed. In particular, the committee recommended that the information provided by the Scottish Government with regard to IGR must enable parliamentary scrutiny of formal interministerial meetings before and after such meetings. In March 2016, the Deputy First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government and the Devolution Further Powers Committee reached an agreement on the written agreement on IGR. However, due to the proximity of dissolution, unfortunately there was not time for the Parliament as a whole to consider this agreement. In a nutshell, the written agreement establishes three principles for governing the relationship between Parliament and the Government. Those are transparency, accountability and, importantly, the respect of confidentiality of discussions between Governments. In particular, the agreement requires the Scottish Government to provide the Scottish Parliament with information regarding the Scottish Government's participation in formal and ministerial intergovernmental meetings, as well as regards to any concordats, agreements and memorandums of understanding that the Scottish Government enters into. In addition, the agreement requires the Scottish Government to prepare an annual report on IGR and to provide that to the relevant committee of the Parliament. The report is intended to summarise IGR activity. The Scottish Government is undertaken in the previous year and also provides information on issues that are likely to emerge in the forthcoming year. On the extension of the Finance Committee's remit to include constitutional issues earlier this year, the Finance and Constitution Committee then considered the agreement and agreed to its contents as a successor committee in this session of Parliament. However, the Scottish Government's IGR activity is clearly wider in scope than the remit of the Finance and Constitution Committee. Accordingly, as a result of that, the committee also agreed to seek a debate, as had been the original intention of the Devolution for the Powers Committee whereby Parliament could consider the agreement given the broader scope of its reach. It is very interesting to note that in its report into institutional relations in the UK published this morning—hard to get your tongue round that one—the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee made comment about the agreement that we are discussing today. In short, it welcomed the agreement as a model of good practice that other jurisdictions can learn from, and it has recommended that the UK Government provides the House of Commons and Lords with the similar transparency that we intend in Scotland. With that by the way of background, the agreement is intended to improve the ability of Parliament to scrutinise the formal intergovernmental relations of the Scottish Government in the new era of devolution that we are entering into with an increased range of powers being shared between the Scottish and UK Governments, as well as the negotiations that will be on-going with regard to Brexit. It is imperative that this Parliament can effectively scrutinise intergovernmental relations. The agreement is intended to provide a mechanism via which scrutiny of intergovernmental relations can be undertaken more effectively. I will not go so far as to suggest that the agreement is any way historic, but it is nevertheless an important statement of intent, and I therefore move the motion in the name of the Finance and Constitution Committee. I thank the Finance and Constitution Committee for bringing this debate on the written agreement on parliamentary oversight of intergovernmental relations to the chamber this afternoon. I thank the convener for his thoughtful opening remarks. Through his experience, having said that, as he has described as a Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for intergovernmental relations and his role as convener of the Devolution Further Powers Committee, Mr Crawford brings a valuable insight to the debate. Following on from the Smith commission, the report from the Devolution Further Powers Committee changing relationships parliamentary scrutiny of intergovernmental relations, which I have read with renewed interest in taking on overall portfolio responsibility within the Scottish Government, led directly to the production in March of this year of the written agreement that we are discussing today. That report highlighted the importance of establishing clear and effective processes within which formal intergovernmental mechanisms to ensure the role of parliamentary scrutiny is facilitated. I believe that the written agreement, which was developed jointly between Government and Parliament officials demonstrates the value of us working together effectively to achieve our common goals. The agreement sets a clear framework that signals the willingness of the Scottish Government to respond to the valid demands of the Scottish Parliament for stronger and more transparent scrutiny of our formal engagement with the UK Government and, indeed, the other devolved administrations. As the Smith commission recognised, successful devolution of further powers to this Parliament requires the intergovernmental machinery between the Scottish and the UK Governments, including the joint ministerial committee structures, to be reformed and scaled up significantly. As you know, the October meeting of the JMC plenary did not sign off a new memorandum of understanding as planned. Given the overriding need to focus on developing a UK approach and objectives for negotiations before article 50 is invoked, in line with the commitment that the Prime Minister Theresa May gave to the First Minister at the meeting in July, the strength of the current intergovernmental mechanisms will be demonstrated by the effectiveness or otherwise of the JMCEN that has been established to take that forward. As the minister for UK negotiations on Scotland's place in Europe stated during our evidence session on 16 November, we have entered the discussions in good faith and will endeavour to make good progress. We expect the terms of reference for the JMCEN to be honoured and we will see in time whether we believe that that is happening, although progress today has been slower than we would have wished. Mr Tomkins sometimes says that this Government does not have full diplomatic capability in the Scottish Government. That is all the diplomacy that I can bring. In terms of that statement, in terms of progress on our intergovernmental relations on this subject, which is being discussed elsewhere. Very briefly, of course. I am sure that the cabinet secretary is intimately familiar with the report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee published today, in which evidence from both Leslie Evans, the permanent secretary of the Scottish Government and John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, is recorded that the Scottish Government is positive about the United Kingdom's intergovernmental machinery. That is very timely, because I was going to go on to welcome some of the commentary around that, but also to reflect on the fact that the UK Government and the Westminster Parliament also needs to fully respect the agreements that have been reached in that regard. As the First Minister has made clear, the Scottish Government recognises that proper parliamentary scrutiny is a key element of the Brexit process. I am aware that the Minister for UK Negotiation in Scotland's place in Europe has been keeping relevant committees informed of the meetings. Similarly, I have been doing the same as the Finance Minister to ensure that all relevant joint checker committee meetings, called LASROS, are also informed of the relevant committee. We are not complacent so much so that our officials are working with Parliament's clerks to develop guidance material to raise awareness across the Scottish Government of the need to comply with a written agreement and to encourage Scottish Government officials to consider any implications of their day-to-day work. We look forward to continuing our work with Parliament. I now call Murdo Fraser up to four minutes, please. The background to the debate that was set out by the convener a few months ago is the written agreement that is established between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government on intergovernmental relations. Intergovernmental relations between the UK Government and the Scottish Government are now more important than ever. Further devolution has created what is in effect a quasi-federal state within the UK. Scotland has two Governments, one Government here in Edinburgh and the Government in London, each with different competencies at different levels. There will be a whole range of issues on which it is important that both of Scotland's Governments work closely together and there needs to be high-quality engagement between them. In addition to that, there needs to be effective scrutiny of the intergovernmental relations at a parliamentary level, both at Westminster and here in the Scottish Parliament. As we have heard, that point was recognised by the Devolution Further Powers Committee, which produced a very helpful report on those issues in October last year. When taking evidence for its report, that committee heard from a number of experts about the weakness of parliamentary scrutiny in those areas. For example, Professor Michael Keating of Edinburgh University Centre for Constitutional Change said, We have a very poor parliamentary scrutiny of intergovernmental relations. A research card out for that committee showed that, in the whole range of other federal or quasi-federal states, the role of parliaments in scrutinising intergovernmental relations was greater than in the UK. The House of Lords Constitution Committee, which also considered those issues, stated that effective scrutiny of intergovernmental relations requires greater transparency than currently exists and the necessary structures and desire in Parliament and devolved legislators to scrutinise those relationships. It was in response to those concerns that the written agreement between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government was entered into. The agreement requires the Scottish Government to provide to the relevant committee of Parliament, as far as practical, advanced written notice of at least one month prior to the schedule of relevant meetings, enabling the relevant committee to express a view on the topic and, if appropriate, to invite the responsible minister to attend the committee meeting to address the issue and answer questions. That reflects the conclusion of the devolution for their powers committee. The view of the Scottish Parliament needs to be taken into account before any intergovernment agreement is entered into by the Scottish Government. The key to that, Presiding Officer, is transparency. In the engagement with which the Parliament's Finance and Constitution Committee has had with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, we have so far established what I think is a positive working relationship with the Cabinet Secretary, being prepared to engage with the committee in relation to the intergovernmental dealings with Westminster. I hope that that is the case for all Cabinet secretaries. Although it is just worth noting in passing that concern has been raised in other quarters about the lack of information that has been provided, for example, about the transfer of welfare powers to this Parliament, an issue that surely falls under the definition of intergovernment relations. We also know that Scottish Government ministers will often use these intergovernmental meetings to raise issues of concern that they have about UK Government policy in reserve matters. I did ask the Cabinet Secretary for Finance at a recent committee meeting whether that process ever happened in reverse. It does not seem to be in the case that I under either the current or indeed the previous UK Government that that happened. Although I was told by Michael Russell that when Jim Murphy was Scottish Secretary in the previous Labour Government, he was not shy in using such meetings to berate the SNP Administration at Holyrood for what he saw as their policy failures, but clearly Conservatives and Government are more courteous. There is one other point that I want to make before closing, Deputy Presiding Officer. The Devolution Further Powers Committee recommended that greater inter-parliamentary co-operation in scrutinising intergovernmental relations would be beneficial. I look forward to seeing a stream of work developed whereby committees of this Parliament can work with committees in Westminster and elsewhere on a closer basis than has been the case in the past. I suspect that the debate will not make tomorrow's front pages, but it has been a useful opportunity to air important points about the machinery of government, and I am very pleased to support the motion in the convener's name. I welcome the opportunity to take part in this short but important debate on intergovernmental relations and the written agreement between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. Although it seems quite a dry debate, the subject matter is quite important. If you look at the journey of devolution, the journey of this Parliament, how it has matured and how more powers have been transferred from Westminster to Holyrood, we therefore take on greater responsibility. At the heart of that, when powers have been transferred, and indeed some of the powers are shared, or at least the interests are also shared, one of the key things in that is the importance of relationships between the UK and the Scottish Government and also between the Government and this Parliament. Clearly that can become a challenge when you have Governments of different political parties. You might say that it was a challenge when the Labour Party was in power both at Holyrood and at Westminster, but it is important that those relationships are able to work constructively and intergovernmental relationships. That agreement is fundamental to achieving that. I think that what is key to it are the principles as outlined in the agreement of transparency and scrutiny. From that point of view, it is important that the meetings that the Cabinet Secretary holds with her UK counterparts, that records of them are fully documented. Also, as the Cabinet Secretary has been good at doing, Cabinet Secretaries are available to come to relevant committees and also before Parliament to give an update on on-going issues. It is important because of the importance of some of the issues that are considered between Governments. You just need to look at the number of discussions that have been around Brexit since the June vote and the number of debates that have been in this chamber. Clearly that is something where there is a lot of contention but there is a lot of interest in this Parliament and also in the UK Parliament. On the finance committee, we have had no shortage of analysts come before us in recent weeks to give us their take on the potential implications of Brexit. It is very clear that there are serious implications ahead for Scotland and the UK. From that point of view, the discussions that take place are very important. Next week, we are going to see the publication of the draft budget. That comes with more financial powers than I have ever been devolved before. As part of that, we will get to view the block grant adjustment when it is eventually published. That is an issue that is crucial because there are forecasting elements and there has been prior negotiation between the UK and Scottish Governments. That will be one of the true first tests of the intergovernmental relations and the written agreement. I think that the final point that I would make is that this is important for Parliament and also for parliamentarians because ultimately the decisions that are taken in terms of the transfer of powers, it is not just about the laws that this Parliament has or the money that the Parliament has, it is the impact that that has on people out in the constituencies and regions that we represent. From that point of view, it is important that there is proper accountability in place for discussions and agreements that impact people. From that point of view, I welcome the agreement that has been put in place by the finance committee. John Mason, followed by Patrick Harvie, has no more than three minutes. I thank you for the opportunity to take part in this brief debate. The three principles in paragraph 8 are inherently fine. That is transparency, accountability and confidentiality. However, I think that they can be difficult to reconcile and practice. That probably applies in all walks of life. For example, all committees in this Parliament want to be in public but do take some items in private. Previously, when I was in the finance committee, the block grant adjustment was a major issue around the time that we took over control of stamp duty and landfill tax. The negotiations dragged on and John Swinney was very limited in what he could say to the committee. Eventually, we understood that the cabinet secretary and the Treasury split the difference on their disagreement over a phone call. Another negotiation between the two Governments concerned the Scottish Fiscal Commission and who would make the forecasts. This was a subject that we had debated in the chamber and committee many times. There was clear disagreement between the two Governments. On that occasion, the Scottish Government conceded the point in order to get a wider, more beneficial agreement on the whole range of issues under discussion. We got hints on the finance committee about how negotiations were going along the way but no real detail despite committee questioning. I totally accept. I would not have expected John Swinney to be able to advertise ahead that he was willing to concede a particular point in the negotiations. One of the key aims is to allow committees to express a view before the intergovernmental meeting takes place. Going back to the example of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, clearly the committee had expressed two different views. The Government certainly knew what reaction it would be getting. On that point, I was interested that, for the meeting of the GMC yesterday, 7 December, the letter from Mike Russell to Bruce Crawford was dated 5 December. That is just two days ahead. That may have been because he himself did not know about the meeting but that clearly would not be enough time for a committee to express a view on a subject if it had not previously considered it. In the matters on yesterday's agenda, what the letter says is, although I am unable to provide a detailed agenda for the meeting, I expect the agenda to include substantive discussion on justice, security and home affairs issues. Again, I would hope that that is not typical of the detail of the agenda. There are so many caveats in the agreement. It uses words like where appropriate, need for shared private space, respect for confidentiality and the fact that other Governments can refuse to release information. However, we have to see how that develops as it goes forward. For example, if agendas and minutes are not forthcoming, that would have to be looked at again. Overall, any formalisation of the process has to be welcomed and is a step forward and a lot better than no step at all. I think that those of us on the back benches expect as much transparency and accountability as possible. Those two principles should be the assumed starting point. The first line of the agreement says that the Smith commission agreement considered the issue of inter-governmental relations in some detail. Whoever wrote this could give Sir Humphrey Appleby lessons in constructive ambiguity. As you are happily neutral in the chair, Deputy Presiding Officer, and as Professor Tomkins is closing on behalf of the committee, perhaps I am the only person who feels really free to say that the Smith commission did not have the time to consider any issues in adequate detail in my view. That was at a time when we were constructing a more complex relationship between the two Governments, between the two Parliaments than had ever been the case before. Since then we see additional levels, additional dimensions of complexity arising. If I thought that the Smith commission was a chaotic mess, I did not know the meaning of that phrase until I saw Brexit. I am now having to try to understand how inter-governmental scrutiny is going to take place in the context of this profoundly new world. James Kelly is right that this is not fundamentally a new challenge. It has evolved since the Parliament began, and it may be that at a time when the single party was in charge of the Government, or at least the dominant party in the Government in both Scotland and London, it may well be that the inter-governmental relationships were more constructive, more constructive but perhaps less transparent to the rest of us and to wider society. At a time when relationships might go through their rocky patches, merely adding more transparency is not necessarily going to make matters more constructive. Those are both very difficult challenges to overcome. In that relationship it is important that both Parliament and Government in reaching this agreement remember that that is not a relationship of equals. The relationship between Parliament and Government is not a relationship of equals, and that the Government is always accountable to Parliament in everything that it does. The commitment to engage actively with parliamentary committees is important, and certainly the minimum that we would expect. I am sure that all of us would agree that we would hope to see the same level of engagement with committees from UK ministers that we expect from Scottish ministers. It is not only SNP members who I hope will agree with that, because when only the Scottish Government ministers put their case in front of committees it may be that we do not hear the full picture as we should. I hope that Conservative party members will also argue that ministers in the UK Government should engage actively more so than they have done in the past with Scottish Parliament committees. Finally, a plea that when we do further changes in future—for example, when the fiscal framework comes due for review—we do it in a more calm, reflective, open and detailed manner than we have made changes to date. Adam Tomkins, to wind up the debate on behalf of the committee, please. I rise to make this short speech with reluctance and a heavy heart, not because I think that the subject matter is unimportant, quite the contrary, but because it should not be me making it. I am the deputy convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee only because my friend and mentor, Alex Johnstone, is no longer with us. There will be time for much fuller reflection on his unique contribution to Scottish politics in due course, but I could not make this speech this afternoon without first paying tribute to him. To business, Presiding Officer, as AJ would surely have wanted, intergovernmental machinery is a phrase designed to put even the most dedicated politics student to sleep. Even if our short debate this evening somehow escapes the attention of tomorrow's front pages, this is more a reflection of the peculiar priorities of the press than it is of the merits of the matter. For the truth is, intergovernmental machinery is now core to the success of devolution itself. Hitherto in the devolved era, we have done as if a power is either reserved to Westminster or devolved to us, one or the other. Even if we did not quite realise it at the time, in those heady days that Patrick Harvie just referred to of the Smith commission two years ago, we created something new, devolution 2.0. There are still reserved powers and there are still devolved powers, but there are also shared powers, areas of government that are the joint responsibility in Scotland of both the UK and the Scottish governments. Welfare and some elements of taxation are only the two best known examples. In a parliamentary democracy such as the UK or Scotland, parliaments have two jobs to do. They make laws, yes, from time to time they are supposed to make laws, and they hold the government of the day to account by scrutinising the government's policies, decisions and actions. In a parliamentary democracy we do not elect the government directly, we elect a parliament out of which the government emerges and to which the government is accountable. This is the essential constitutional framework within which the written agreement must be understood. It is an agreement, a written component of our famously unwritten constitution that sets out the framework under which this parliament can hold Scottish ministers accountable for the policies, decisions and actions that they develop jointly with UK ministers in Britain's intergovernmental machinery. Sometimes that machinery is bilateral, as in the joint ministerial working group on welfare and sometimes it's quadrilateral, as in the joint ministerial committee. But regardless, it is essential that this parliament is able effectively and robustly to hold Scottish ministers to account for what they get up to and indeed what they propose to get up to in these meetings. There can be no hiding behind the veil of executive secrecy. That's the very opposite of the openness and accountability that we rightly demand. The Smith commission generally and our chairman Lord Smith in particular were acutely conscious that all the UK's legislatures needed to do better in this regard. I commend the devolution further powers committee for taking this forward and indeed I commend the Scottish government for agreeing to that committee's proposals as to how to ensure that we in this parliament are able to do our job properly and hold ministers to account. It is enlightened of Scottish ministers to have understood that this is not only in the parliament's best interests, it's also in their own interests. Ministers who are open with the parliament and its committees are likely to find it easier to explain themselves than ministers who are not. As Murdo Fraser mentioned a few moments ago, the row we had a few weeks ago about shared competence in the welfare field could perhaps have been avoided had ministers been more upfront in complying with the requirements of the written agreement. This written agreement is an excellent piece of work. It is fitting that Alex Johnstone was a member of the committee that developed it in the last parliament and it is fitting that the convener of that committee is in this parliament the convener of the Finance and Constitution Committee. It's a privilege to serve with him and a particular pleasure to support him and indeed the entire committee in formally commending this written agreement to the parliament. That concludes our debate on a written agreement between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. I also thank our signers for signing—for the British Sign Language—this afternoon's proceedings. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 3019, in the name of Jo Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revised business programme for the next week. I ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press their request-to-speak button now. I call on Jo Fitzpatrick to move motion 3019. Formally moved. Thank you very much. No member has asked to speak against the motion. I therefore put the question to the chamber. The question is that we agree motion 3019. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. There are four questions to be put. As a result of today's business, the first question is that amendment 2948.2, in the name of Adam Tomkins, which seeks to amend motion 2948 in the name of Jean Freeman on creating a fairer Scotland, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We're not agreed. We'll move to a vote and members will cast the votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 2948.2, in the name of Adam Tomkins, is yes, 30, no, 88. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 2948.1, in the name of Mark Griffin, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Jean Freeman, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We're not agreed. We'll move to a vote again and members will cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 2948.1, in the name of Mark Griffin, is yes, 87, no, 30. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. The next question is that motion 2948, in the name of Jean Freeman, as amended on creating a fairer Scotland, our disability delivery plan, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We're not agreed. We'll move to a vote and members will cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 2948 is yes, 88, no, 30. There were no abstentions. The motion as amended is therefore agreed. The final question is that motion 2937, in the name of Bruce Crawford, on a written agreement between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting of Parliament.


Hi everybody, it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft and thank you for watching my tutorial today. This is project number two for my creative card series 2018 and it's also a hobby-based kit tutorial so I've used just the flowers for this one because I basically started off doing this and then I thought actually I could combine this with my hobby-based kit so the one I'm going to be showing you is using products from the kit. Basically this is a double stair stepper card so you open it up and it stands like so and if I bring it to the side you can see there you've got the stair kind of fold on that side and again on this side so it's a double stair stepper card. I've made stepper cards in the past and I'll share those links but this one I just thought was just really really nice and then you just open up like a normal card and inside you can write your message and it fits in a 5 by 7 envelope so very very convenient and yeah absolutely love this one. So this one here I was using this is the Let's Celebrate first edition papers on the back here but like I said these are the little dinky dies that we received in the kit these fasted gems we received in previous kits. The bumblebee is in the kit and then the sentiments my own with the butterfly. So you are going to need let me just bring in so this is this month's I say this month's we're in July now the July kit has just gone out literally people are receiving it now you've got until the 21st of this month to get the August kit and this is the June kit that I'm using so this is the Be Happy themed kit so these are the papers that I've used here which I've cut down. I've also cut down some silver because I'm not sure how I want to put this one together but basically I use the embossing folder that we received and if I just bring in something where have I got oh yeah if I just use this green there we go you can see this is the 6 by 6 embossing folder we've got with all the bees on it and when you cut and emboss it if I bring in these here it's really really lovely look at the effect that's with the green so again I might cut this down and use this I'm not sure yet but it's just I love it really really nice you know some embossing folders you do and you just think not so sure but I just they've come out really really well so I thought I'd try it on the Miri card and again you just get a really nice effect so really really like the embossing folder that we received so yeah so I've cut a few bits and pieces but basically and then the bumblebees so I've die cut again three of each because I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them and then there the flowers that we got so that's the dinky dyes but again I just think when you use the Miri card you really get all the impressions that come out with them so you see you really get to see the detail I use these in last week's card now I distress that one you didn't see all of this detail as much but there you can really pick it up so yeah again really like it on those on the Miri card these are silver of the busted gems that we got this is again from another kit so you know I am combining kits here but it's just to show you you know how much you get and they get used you know obviously time and time again so for the main car base you need a piece of 7 by 10 and then for mats so this is the main mat on the front this is two and three quarters by three and seven eighths of an inch and then you need two that are two inches by one and three quarters and two that are one and three quarters by one and a half okay so I do them both no that one doesn't seem like the right measurement hold on a second well maybe it is why do I feel like I've got the wrong measurement I think it's that way isn't it now I did do them right I'm just ignore me and then you need this strip which goes along the bottom which is six and three quarters by three quarters of an inch then my little sentiment that I'm putting on top is this one here which is let's say I mean it's cut from a die set so it's two and a quarter squared and then the white one on top is I think anything up today again two by two okay now we did get stamps and I use these in last week's card they're the stamps that we received so it's part of that be happy set by Dovecraft which matches the papers but I do I did want to do these as birthday cards and they don't worry be happy I've used in last week's and I've used these here and so on so check that one out I'll share the links to that if you want to see okay so let's get into it so first of all keep your scoreboard out but you just want to do a bit of a mark with a pencil first we just grab my pencil so with the 10 inch side facing you okay you just want to pop a little pencil mark at one inch and one inch from there and then coming in here so it'd be nine inches and on your ruler it will be nine inches okay actually we don't need to worry about that one ignore that one it's just the one end you need to do it so I'm just gonna get this out the way for the minute but my really crappy template here that you can see where I've folded and I'm wrong and folded again finally got it how I wanted it so what you want to do now is just lightly just do a pencil mark just joining that up okay and then what we want to do is grab your scoreboard again and you are going to with your stylus you want to score but only to now I need to do another pencil mark so you need to do a pencil mark that comes in at your two inches from each side so from two inch marker just pop your ruler in there and just draw a pencil mark just slightly and then again at five inches just slightly like so okay you can just kind of just make out my two pencil marks as long as you can see them that's all that matters then pop your piece of 10 by 7 and you want the 10 inch side okay I'll just bring it so we're all in there okay and then what you're gonna do is you're going to do a score line first of all at the one inch and sorry at one and a half inches so one and a half inches but just to that pencil line okay and then if it's easier to use your ruler I'm just gonna eyeball this and then I can just pick up and do the next score line there now if you want pop your ruler in and you can do like so then miss the middle section and carry on scoring so basically all you're doing is just scoring so that's that one and a half just that pencil mark miss the middle and then carry on again so the next score line that you're gonna do is three and a quarter so again just down to the pencil I'll bring in my ruler and then miss the set the middle section and carry on scoring okay so again you can see now what we've got then the next score line is four and three eighths of an inch so one two three four and three eighths and then again miss that middle section carry on then the next one is the five and a half I'm sorry is the five inch score line because it's half of the 10 inch length here and this one you're doing in the middle only so again with your ruler and just kind of hover it down so just so you're in there and then you'll feel the groove a little kind of track your stylist wants to sit in and that one's at five inches okay then the next one is going to be six and five eighths of an inch so again with my ruler six and five eighths and that's the last one that we're doing okay so that's all the scoring done now what we want to do is some cutting so you'll need your trimmer for this I'm just gonna bring mine in here and what you want to do is with that pencil mark that you drew right across you want that facing you pop this in your trimmer okay and line up your trimmer your kind of track here with the pencil mark that you've drawn down here okay so that will be at two inches okay so it'd be two inches in from the right hand side okay you can just see two inches there alright okay and then you want to drop your blade down now I've slightly gone over my scoring but that won't matter because you won't see it but you want to pop your blade at nine inches so along the side of this Fiskars trimmer that I've got I've got one inch you know increments running all the way down the side here so at nine inches is where I want to pop my blade down because ten inches is the width of the card but remember we drew that pencil mark one inch in and that's where you want to start cutting and then you're going to cut all the way down to let me just check what it was on here so that pencil mark so you want it then cut up to that last score line here this score line okay and then you'll have nothing so that was that five inch half way then there was that score line that last one that you done on the two outside pieces that's where you want to cut up to so if I pop it on the side here so I'm starting at nine inches which is at the bottom here of my trimmer and then I'm going to go all the way along to there and that should be on here coming down it is three and one two three and three eighths of an inch from the top okay but that wherever that score line is that's what you want to cut to okay then you want to turn your card around and do the same so this time pop it in and again make sure it's all lined up and I'm going to start my blade this time at one inch okay from the top so again that's where that pencil mark came down so just make sure it's lined up and then you're going to cut all the way down to that last score line on the right hand side which now in this case is going to be on your side of your trimmer here it will be six and five eighths of an inch okay so now if I take that out remove that this is what you should have okay then the easiest way now is to fold it always just first of all just rub out those pencil marks because you don't need any of that anymore it was just our guide and I just remember there was one more score line I didn't think I had to add it in but you do but that's fine we can just quickly bring in our scoreboard and it is that one right at the very bottom because we're going to be scoring down first so you just want to score it one inch just to that cut line okay and then again miss the middle section and again do your one inch just to your cut line okay just that one right at the bottom there okay then you want to do some folding so this middle five inch one you want to fold up okay just do that one first to help all the rest come together then the very bottom one you want to fold down so you want to do a mountain fold then the next one is going to be a valley fold so you're going to fold that one up then the next one mountain and then valley and then the last one is going to be a mountain fold and then when that all folds flat it will give you your 5x7 card so I'm just going to grab my bone folder and then just go along and just burnish all of those score lines all into place like so and now when you stand it up that is your double stair stepper card so it's much easier to show when it's not decorated you can really see now how cool that looks and yeah I think it's brilliant so now it's just time to decorate so this is where I wasn't sure how and what I wanted to use so I've cut these pieces here so I didn't know whether to put these bits on and then have my large piece in the middle like so and then I've got my butterflies or do I just have the silver butterflies and then carry on doing this so I'm going to have a play around now but your smaller squares will fit behind here in these smaller sections like so your bigger squares will go behind and you can see there how you get that nice little frame with the green there all the way around and then that strip will go right along the very bottom like so again giving you all those nice borders and then I've got my sentiment that's going to go in the middle like so and already now you can see just how that's transforming and then obviously I'll give you the measurements for the inside piece as well but I'm going to play around now get all your mats stuck down like I've done there and then I'm going to see what I decide to do just a quick one as well when you are sticking them all down fold it flat and then stick each one into its section it's much much easier okay so that's all my mats laid down and you can just see it really does bring it together you get to see the frame and the real shape of that card and again I just think it looks rather spectacular I think it's a great fun fold card so now like I said I'm going to decide what I might do is cut just little bits of the bumblebee down I do want to add this in somewhere I think what I'm going to do is that green this green embossed piece here I'm going to frame I actually might remove this and cut it just so I have some of that there I know you're not really going to see it but I mean you can see there just how great it is but I just I don't know I don't know what to do with it I might might actually do it on the back mind you that's the wrong orientation I'd have to redo it again or do something with it in the middle maybe that would be good leave it with me I will show you what I end up doing with it okay so there is everything stuck down so I've done the flowers just bring in the other one so I've done it exactly the same terms of positioning so just like that layout I've just with my heat gun just popped a little bow at the top there as well and I've laid up all the butterflies so the silver is underneath so again it does really give it a lots of dimension which you can see now the embossing bit I'm going to pop inside so I'm just going to open up the card that little obviously you won't open out like this the person who gets it won't open out like that I'm just going to open up and then I've got this piece that's going to go here so I can write my message and you could stamp something there if you want and then these two embossed pieces I'm going to put either side now although they're not really being picked up that well in the video but I just think it's just a nice little touch I really like it it just continues that kind of bee theme into the inside of the card as well now if you didn't want to do that setup then just the plain piece of card which I put in here this piece here measures six and five eighths of an inch by three and one eighth or three should be fine but I'm just going to go ahead and quickly stick these pieces down okay so that's all that's stuck down you can really see now how that picks up and I just thought I didn't give you the measurements for these pieces so you need two pieces that measure one and seven eighths of an inch by three and one eighth and then the middle piece here is four and three quarters by two and three quarters okay and then again just fold it all down once it's all in place we'll obviously stay like that now but like I said that fits in your five by seven envelope if you don't have that size you can make it on your envelope punch board and yeah I think it looks really cool just bring it up again see I finished with the gems those flowers over in the kit and I just think that is a really cool guard so just bring both of them in there keeping down flat just so you can see what they look like and again this will all be in my blog once sorry once like I said you've got until the 21st of this month to get August box they're always a surprise we never know what's going to be coming in them and like I said we've just started receiving our July boxes and they are really good so if you want to find out more about all those all the links will be in the description box below and I'll share at the end of this video more unboxing videos just so you can get a feel about the kind of things that we receive but also I hope you've enjoyed this double step double stair stepper guard as project number two of my creative card series so that's it for today I hope you enjoyed it please give me a thumbs up if you have and subscribe to my channel to see more thanks for watching


ThinkTek Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a collaboration of the Small Business Administration, Hawaii District Office, and its resource partners, where we showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and their businesses. Hi, my name is Dennis Kwok, and before we invite our guests, I'd like to talk about National Veteran Small Business Week, which is from November 5th to November 9th. It is really a great week where we celebrate and we do great events for veterans and veteran small businesses. One of the first events we're actually going to do is the Money Moxie class, which will be held on November 9th in the morning, and it will be held at 500 Alamona at the SBA Hawaii District Office. It'll be for like an hour and a half, and we'll invite bankers, the Downtown Uncorked event, which is a salute to our veterans. It's going to be held also on November 9th, and it will be held at 6 o'clock at the YWCA, and you can purchase your tickets by visiting their website at www.minkcenterforbusinessandleadership.org. And we're going to be actually celebrating the veteran owned small businesses and their achievements, and one of the award winners for the 2018 New Veteran Owned Small Business is our guest today, Ms. Kenyatta McCoy. Kenyatta, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and Kenyatta is the proprietor of my personal CPA and financial planner, LLC. And Kenyatta is also, she does a lot of great work in the community. She does a mentoring for veteran owned small businesses and other businesses alike. So Kenyatta, maybe you can talk a little bit about your personal history and then we'll talk a little bit more about some tips for small business owners, for small business bookkeeping and accounting. Absolutely. Yeah. So my history, I've spent time in the military. I'm currently still involved and heavily involved in the military as my husband is still at their duty and such, and my military service has truly impacted, you know, everything I did thereafter. Spent some time in the corporate sector, and now I am an entrepreneur where I own my own CPA firm. Okay. Did you do bookkeeping or accounting services in the military? I did. I was a finance officer in the military. So I was assisting other service members and such with pay. I did some unique type of activities and such in the military as well, but all surrounding finances. Okay.  Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. My time in the military, really that sense of duty to, you know, a bigger purpose than yourself, that really becomes engraved and engraved in your personality and what you are and so forth that leads to selfless service as well as, you know, personal courage. So that sense of duty carried on throughout, you know, once I left the military and now it's an involvement in our community with other small business owners and like. Yeah.  She does a lot of outreach. She does a lot of pro bono work working with small businesses and we really do appreciate you and as a mentor in one of our programs as well as a community resource partner for the SBA and the Veteran Small Business Outreach Center. So let's talk about how you came and to start your own business. I mean, when you were separating from the army, did you just say, hey, you know what? I'm going to start my own CPA firm.  Absolutely not. Okay. Yeah, it's never like that. I started from the military. I went corporate. Okay. Spent a lot of time working for Fortune 100 companies and such and really was sitting close with CFOs and, and I like doing worldwide accounting for different statues in different countries and so forth. When I came here to Hawaii, I started in 2015, I started to just volunteer. There were so many people in our community saying that they needed assistance and I started to volunteer and I started volunteering at the small business center. So I would do my corporate job from 4 a.m. to noon and then I would volunteer for the rest of the day just helping small business owners and taxpayers alike. And from volunteering, that's when that sense of duty to the community and, you know, just that desire to serve really started to motivate me to then look beyond myself and start my business, start my own CPA firm. And your own CPA, and your CPA firms, could you talk a little bit about the services that my personal CPAs and financial services? Absolutely. Yeah. So at my personal CPA, what really differentiates us from any other CPA firm is that I take that corporate experience and I then help small, small business owners to incorporate it in their day-to-day strategic planning, cash flow management and other activities to drive forward with what their vision is for their company. And so because we get up close and personal with our accountants, it helped them to, you know, see how their operations and what they do so well align with the data and what can the data then tell them as far as to improve their overall profitability. Oh, okay. I see.  Oh, absolutely. But, you know, a lot of small business owners, they have, when it comes to finances and doing bookkeeping and filing taxes, it's always a different language. Absolutely. And everybody's level of understanding of, you know, laws as well as, you know, local laws as well as federal laws are different. So with that in mind, you know, key things every small business owner should know about bookkeeping as well as accounting. Absolutely. So the key things is to recognize and understand that accounting is the lifeblood of the company. Cash flow is absolutely critical and as well as planning.  Okay.  What is, I mean, what is, you know, I guess the timeline here? Planning should be done throughout the year. Throughout the year. Absolutely. It is imperative that, you know, for our clients, we sit down multiple times throughout the year to see are we on track to the goals that we set at the beginning of the year? What actions do we need to take in order for us to shift and make sure that we achieve those goals as well as tax planning is very imperative so that we're not overpaying taxes and we're in the best tax position that we can be by the end of the year. So right now, starting in November, we kick off our tax season planning. And for our clients, we're doing forecasting right now to say right now, if we were to file your taxes, what would your position be? And we have 60 days to take any other actions to put us in the best position to maximize our overall tax position and lower our tax liability. Oh, wow. Okay. So tax season actually, actually, I guess it starts today. Absolutely. No, everyone first. Okay. So biggest mistakes, you would say that small business owners make.  Absolutely. And I've experienced this myself. Okay. It's a do-it-yourself attitude where we see, you know, different tasks or activities being done and we want to take on the mentality that we can do it ourselves. We know that we specialize in what the specialty of the business is as a business owner of what have you, but because you're a business owner, you're required to wear so many other hats in the business. And then you start to try to venture out and do things yourself. Learning is one of those areas that you don't want to run that risk because the penalties, the fines, and the impact, the financial impacts that can happen if it's done incorrectly can be, again, catastrophic to the business. But just learning that, you know, you have to get to a point where you recognize when to bring on a professional to be a part of your team. And then you have that CEO, CFO type of collaboration that goes forward with your business. And would you recommend that to any small business size? I mean, we're talking about small businesses that have just one person. Would you still recommend that they actually work with the CPA firm and? Absolutely. Absolutely. There, as you mentioned before, we do pro bono services. So even when you don't have the budget, you don't have, it's still imperative and it's so important for us to serve the community. That's why we continue to offer the free services so that, you know, any small business can afford with just your time to come in and get that guidance and assistance. Okay, so biggest mistakes is not looking for help or not asking advisement from the experts. Absolutely. What do you see when you talk to small business owners, the biggest challenges for them in terms of, I guess, you know, financial planning or whether it's accounting services? What do you see as a biggest, you know, challenge for small business owners in this climate? Absolutely. I think the biggest challenge, especially here in Hawaii, is the fact that you have to manage cash flow in a way that, you know, you may have a little bit more flexibility on the mainland and such, but here with some of the tax requirements and so forth, regardless of whether you're, you know, yielding a profit or not, you still have tax liabilities that you have to take care of. So here, cash flow management is absolutely key because ultimately you still have compliance requirements that you have to adhere to and without doing so it can definitely be, you know, a challenge thereafter. So to mitigate some of the risks for cash flow challenges for small business owners, what can they do? Plan. Plan. We're going back to what we were talking about. Planning is essential. Absolutely. You plan and you put timelines around when you have cash outflow happening as well as your cash inflow and you stretch that out to a point where you know that you can hit critical times and make sure that you can plan that cash flow accordingly. Okay. All right. And if you were working with a client, do you recommend a certain kind of tool or software that you work with that you're comfortable with or can they just come in with a notebook and their PNLs and, I mean, you must have seen, you know, the gamut, right? Absolutely. There's always an array of different accounting resources and tools and such. What I encourage small business owners to do is recognize that you're not, you don't want to incorporate something and spend the resources on a system or a tool now for something that's not going to, you know, assist you in the future. Okay. So look for, you know, resources and tools and systems that's, you know, going to help you grow in the future and ultimately you're going to be able to manage that future growth. But if you get something that's just catered to your ramping phase or your beginning time period, then once you start to ramp up and grow, then you have to look at replacing it and things of that nature. So always look ahead, look futuristic and plan to incorporate something that can grow with you. You actually, last time I saw you, we were doing a class called the 2018 tax reform class. Yes. And, you know, you were a great speaker. We had some, we had you and some attorneys, tax attorneys there. And can you kind of, you know, talk a little bit more of the impact that the tax reform is going to have, not only personally, but ask to small businesses as well? Absolutely. So this 2018 Incorporated Tax Reform is the biggest in history. So it's the biggest I've been in this field for going on 20 years now. This is the biggest that we've ever seen. This is the one that's going to impact everybody regardless of who you are. So if you are a taxpayer in the United States, you will be impacted in one way or another.  And so that qualified business income deduction can be up to 20 percent of your net profit that you can deduct on your taxes. But the key is you want to make sure that you're within the parameters to maximize on that 20 percent. If you fall outside of those parameters, then you're going to limit what that deduction then can be incorporating your tax return. So it's, again, critical that you plan so that you know ahead that, okay, am I getting close to those parameters and if so, what actions do I need to make now so that I can be sure to maximize that 20 percent deduction? That's the planning, right? Absolutely. That is the planning. That is the planning. That's a great example of it. Sure. And could you talk a little bit more about the parameters? I mean, does it depend on the size of the company as well as how you're incorporated? It depends on the type of company, whether your service company or what have your personal service. It also depends on, it's really going to get down to the pass-through business owners and what their taxable income is. The taxable income based on their filing status is what the parameter is set on. And so you want to make sure that there is calculation and forecast done to see where your taxable income can land based on those results and then make those adjustments to be able to maximize on that 20 percent deduction. Right. So, planning is a key? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So, Kenyatta, we're going to take a short break and we'll come back in a few minutes. Wonderful. Thanks. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaii Ana all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm going to keep on doing it. So, join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime, at noon, on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So, we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Welcome back to Adventures in Small Business with our guest, Miss Kenyatta McCoy. So, Kenyatta, we were talking really about the 2018 tax reform and how that affects small businesses. In your opinion, I know there's a lot of moving pieces for different kinds of businesses as well as personal taxpayers. Is this good or is this bad? I know it's a very, very generic question to a very complex problem or solution. So, overall, there are some very good elements to it because this is the first time we're small businesses that are passed through entities, which is defined by SOAP or PRIDER, an LLC, partnership, or an S corporation. These passed through entities having that 20% qualified business income deduction is significant because this is the first time we've seen something like that. It can be huge in tax savings for small business owners. The other component is just as a taxpayer in general, your overall, the tax brackets have changed. And we see about a two and a half percent, two to two and a half percent savings in each bracket versus the last bracket. However, here are the, you know, there's pros and cons to both. So, here are the cons. We no longer have our personal exemptions that, you know, would have reduced our taxable income and such. However, the child tax credit has doubled this, you know, coming into 2018. So there's a lot of pros and cons. It all depends on the combination of your particular tax situation. For a lot of my taxpayers here in Hawaii, some of the other concerns is now there's a limit on, you know, the, when you purchase a home and such and that limit now being for the mortgage is 750,000. So you know, a lot of homes here tend to be well over that 750. So that poses an additional challenge for my taxpayers that itemize their deductions. So for itemization, your state and local taxes are now limited to only $10,000 for married filing joint. And so absolutely, when your higher earnings have, you know, state taxes and such, now we have limitations that combine both your real estate taxes and your state income taxes to only be 10,000 tax deductible. So on our schedule A, there are a lot of changes that's minimizing the deductions, but overall the balance there is that, you know, standard deductions have doubled and, you know, over. So it's a bunch of ins and outs for each of our taxpayers. What we did is we actually took their 2017 data and we applied the 2018 new laws and we showed them an apples to apples comparison on what the bottom line looks like. And that helped them to be able to plan throughout this year to be able to make adjustments as needed based on what their individual household, how the individual household was gonna be impacted. And you know, because you work with small businesses and through pass through entities, that must small business, I guess filings, must bleed a lot into personal. Absolutely.  Yes. Is there a natural progression I guess? We have to focus on both because when we're planning and when we're forecasting such, we have to see how the business is performing. And then based on the business performance, what's gonna pass through to that individual taxpayer and then their overall tax position. So we have to take both components to be able to recognize what's gonna be the best tax move and what's gonna put you in the best position to minimize your tax liability.  And, you know, it's been a great, it's challenging at times, but it's been a great service for me because I really do appreciate working with these small businesses and it's very, very gratifying. Absolutely. Helping businesses. So maybe you can talk a little bit more about your role in the community and what you do, but also maybe talk about some of the success stories that you encountered through your work with small business owners. Absolutely.  So as they continue to leverage those services through the small business development center, then we're able to start positioning them where they need to go to be able to grow their business. Once they start growing and ramping up and such, then they start to see cash flow impacts and they start to see, you know, where the train is going in the right direction. And at that point, once they see the impacts, they're able to make those adjustments to say, okay, does my budget now afford for me to have monthly accounting services or do we need to continue to ramp up and eventually get there. So a great example is in volunteering at the Small Business Development Center, there was a particular client that came in and they were starting off as a food truck. And so it was very challenging for them to, you know, great concept. The operations were superb and such, but it was very challenging in the accounting arena and so forth for them. So they started working with us and we went in intensely to help them turn it around. And in less than two years, they grew from just that food truck location to now six location and franchising outside into a different country. So it's been tremendous to see how those very strategies and those very tactics that are used in Fortune 500 companies to bring it down to the small business level and see how just successful it makes them. It must be very gratifying to see your client, you know, flourish that much. Absolutely. But you must also see some clients, do you encounter some clients where it's almost impossible for them to get out of the red and do you sometimes encourage them not to continue on with the business?   So I always say when you go into a venture, you wanna have barriers there to where you have an exit plan just like you had an entrance plan. And the reason being is because at the end of the day, you have to maintain some sort of protection for your personal household and your own personal liabilities. And so with that being said, you absolutely need an exit plan just in case things are not going according to the way that you initially vision. Right, okay. So some advisement to small business owners. How do you know you've chosen the right account? Except for you. I mean, if they were shopping for a CPA, I mean, what kind of questions should they ask or what should they look for? I suggest that you interview, do a face-to-face interview with anyone that you wanna bring in as a business partner that's gonna support your vision and such. And you wanna know how much involvement are they willing to have and how can they help you get to the next level? Because where you're at right now, you got there on your own. And so if you're trying to plan for the future and you wanna advance and get to the next level, you need a team that's gonna be surrounded, surround you to help you catapult to that next level. So with interviewing them, you wanna make sure that you have plenty of this insight on how they're willing to get involved. I say again, when you model your small business after Fortune 500, 100 companies and such, there are two names that are well-known in corporations. You tend to know the CEO's name? Sure. And you tend to know the CFO name. You know that Chief Financial Officer name. Those are the two people, the two brains that really drive that company to the future. And so as the CEO of any small business, you wanna make sure that your accounting team is bringing in those CFO elements to help you elevate your business and not just keep you where you're at. Just doing the books, doing the data entry, doing those elements is not gonna take you to the next level. You need someone to help you really strategize and come out with actionable items to say, this quarter, this is what we need to do to accomplish that goal. And then we go back and look at it and see, okay, did we accomplish it? What tweaks do we need to make? What should we be doing on the ground in order to hit our goals for the data? So it must be challenging for you because this requires a lot of face-to-face time with clients. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. That's a lot of talking and a lot of explaining to do. Absolutely, it does require a lot of face-time with clients. But again, that's what it's about. That's what differentiates us. That's what our duty to serve is all about and it all comes down to selfless service and personal courage. Are you willing to step outside yourself and do what it takes for the benefit of others? And ultimately, everybody gets a sense of satisfaction at the end. That's a great thing. That's a great mission for a company, I think. And we're about to wrap up. Do you find, just one question, do you find some business owners have a hard time opening up? And because finances is a very, very personal topic, do you feel like some business owners are kind of shy of opening up and how do you encourage them to trust and open up to their CPAs or their financial partners? Absolutely. It's a very scary area. It's a very scary event. And there are plenty of small business owners that have been, had unfortunate bad experiences and such. And so where we look at and we try to work with them is we say, you know what? That first year is all about relationship building. It's all about getting to know each other. You understanding us, we understanding you and really building on that relationship. From that relationship, once we set those foundations, everything else will be set on a strong foundation and pillars and so forth. So it's all about relationship building in the beginning, building that trust, building that just overall strategies and so forth. And talk about building. I mean, you've only been in business a couple of years. That's the qualified for the 2018 new small business award winner. So congratulations once again. And we really do appreciate all you do for all the small businesses in our community. And we hope to work together very soon. Absolutely. And I'd like to thank Miss Kenyanya McCoy for being here today. And thank you for joining us for Adventures in Small Business. We hope to see you next week. Thank you.


the problem of inflation. The students, we discussed unemployment in the last module. Today, we will talk about inflation. First of all, we will see what the cost of inflation will be. Two types. First, we will talk about the cost of anticipated inflation and then about unanticipated inflation. So, if inflation is perfectly anticipated, it will not affect any prices and wages because prices and wages will be adjusted according to the anticipated inflation and wages will be adjusted according to that. So, it will not affect. Even returns on assets may rise exactly with inflation. The returns on assets, you know that the nominal interest rate will be adjusted according to the expected inflation. Because it is expected, we are saying that if it is anticipated inflation, then the nominal inflation will also be adjusted accordingly. But, what is its cost? I mean, is it not because the prices are increasing and it is anticipated and we are assuming that all the prices are increasing. I mean, the general price level is increasing and there are no changes in the relative prices that it is not that one is increasing and the other is increasing. We are assuming the sake of simplicity that all the prices are increasing, one is increasing. So, prices will also be increasing and wages will also be increasing. If we want to spend more, then our interest rate is also increasing accordingly. So, it means that there will be no real effect in that context. But, what can be the impact of this cost? We use the shool-eather cost. This means that people spend resources to economize on currency holding. Shool-eather cost means that since inflation is happening and the purchasing power is decreasing, people will like to hold less money with themselves. They will want to keep less money because their value is decreasing. They will want to invest somewhere. So, it is obvious that when they will need to pay for their transactions, then they will have to take money from the bank again and again. So, we say that this is shool-eather cost. So, this is an ordinary matter but the impact of this is that it is estimated that if 10% inflation is in the economy, then the shool-eather cost is about 0.3% of GDP. So, obviously 0.3% of GDP is not insignificant. This is important. So, apart from this, we have talked about the menu cost in the Indian model. The cost of changing prices. The menu cost means that when the prices of restaurants are changed, then they have to reprint their menu. So, we call it the menu cost. The cost of changing prices but technology may mitigate this somewhat. So, it is obvious that printing is not such a thing. It is technological, it is online. All the prices are there. After changing, the cost will be less. Okay. But important is that if inflation is unanticipated inflation, then what is the cost of that? This is the actual, by actual inflation and expected inflation. We call the difference of these two. Unanticipated inflation. What will happen in this? Realized real returns differ from expected real returns. Since expected or actual inflation is different, in this regard, the returns on your assets that you were expecting will differ from that. Expected real return. This is really a symbol. We use it for real interest rate. We use it for nominal interest. We use it for expected inflation. So, what is expected real interest? Nominal interest minus expected inflation. What will happen in real return? When we do actual inflation minus, then it will be different. Expected real return. Expected real return is when we do actual inflation minus, then it will be real return and when we do expected minus, then it will be expected real return. So, actual real return differs from the expected by the same amount as the expected inflation differs from the actual inflation. That means, the difference between the expected and the actual returns will determine that difference. Numerical examples. We understand this. For example, nominal interest rate is 6%. Expected inflation is 4%. So, expected real will be 6 minus 4%. 2% will be the expected real return. But, if actual inflation is 6%, then nominal 6% nominal interest rate is 6%. If actual inflation is 6%, then real interest rate will be 0. Right? How did you calculate? Nominal interest rate minus actual inflation rate. So, 6 minus 6 is 0. And if expected actual inflation rate becomes 2%, then from 6 to 2 minus, then actual real interest rate will be 4%. So, this is the purpose of telling that when you were expecting something and it is different from the actual returns, then your nominal returns will be less. And if actual returns are less, then your real returns will be more. So, unanticipated inflation, similar effect on wages and sales. And the way it affects returns, similarly, wages and salaries will be affected in the same way. People expected 10% inflation. According to that, they had made the contract of their wages. Now, if inflation is more than that, then the salient class will remain in losses. And if it is less, expected inflation will be less, then it will benefit them. So, the benefit of all this is that unanticipated inflation is actually transfer of wealth. How? For example, if actual inflation is more than expected, expect people to do 4%, actual 6%, then what will be the benefit of this? What will be the benefit of this and what will be the loss of this? The benefit of this will be those who are taking the actual, expected inflation, those who took the first cuts, will be paid for the unanticipated inflation. This means that wealth will be transferred from lander to borrower. And if people take the unanticipated inflation, then the unanticipated inflation will be paid. So, people want to avoid risk of unanticipated inflation. So, unanticipated inflation will involve risk in everything. Any agreement, any contact, expected inflation will involve risk. So, people obviously risk averse, to avoid risk. For example, they want to avoid inflation by forecasting time, energy and resources. So, this will be the cost of inflation. So, loss of value is one more important thing, loss of value is provided by the prices. Prices are basically in the course of basic economics where they do the work of signals. For allocation of resources there is an indicator that the price of the item means that the demand of the item is higher, the resources will be shifted and the price of the item will be reduced. But if the prices of inflation are very high and the prices are changing rapidly, like traffic lights, if they are changing very rapidly, then obviously the purpose of the item cannot be served. Similarly, when prices are changing very rapidly, then in the economy allocation of resources and the signals of the item will be greatly affected. So, this will create a confusion about changes in the aggregate prices versus changes in the relative prices. Okay? So, the changes in the aggregate prices then the overall price level is changing or the relative price is changing. This means that the price of the item is increasing more and the relative price will be changing. And if both the items are increasing then the impact will be different. So, people expand resources to extract the correct signals from prices. Obviously, to understand this we will spend the energy resources. One solution of this is that people could use indexed contacts to avoid the risk of transferring wealth because of unanticipated inflation. Indexed contacts means the government or the US labor contacts are indexed by COL. COLA stands for cost of living adjustment. It is mentioned in the adjustment that the inflation rate will change according to the rate of inflation. Indexed contacts are more prevalent in countries with high inflation. Especially in countries where inflation is high then the context is linked with inflation. In other words, the inflation rate increases or decreases. Thank you very much.


Yeah, thank you. About Nuristani, the only problem is, I don't know very much about this group of languages yet, we are just in the process of initiating a research project about Nuristani languages at the University of Cologne, so I will talk about what we would like to know about the Nuristani languages, I will provide some background information about them and especially I would like to talk about the problems with affiliating the Nuristani languages within the Indo-Aryanian group of languages. So the structure of the talk will be the following. I will first speak about the geography where the languages are spoken and the background information about the speakers. Then I will talk about the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European and it will become apparent why this is necessary. I will say some words about how we discriminate between Indo-Aryan and Iranian within Indo-Iranian and sketch the situation in the Hindu-Kushu region now. Then I will turn to the Nuristani languages themselves and the features of the Nuristani languages and subsequently I will try to situate the Nuristani languages within Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian and try to introduce how we are going to proceed at the University of Cologne in the years to come. This will be the last point. Geography. The Nuristani languages are spoken in just one province of Afghanistan and in just one valley in Pakistan near the border to Afghanistan. Here you see the map of Afghanistan and the Hindu-Kushu region. The circle, the insert region corresponds roughly to the province of Nuristan which was previously called Kaferistan because it was inhabited by tribes who had a special tribal religion until the end of the 19th century. This religion encouraged people living in what is now Nuristan to live in a state of permanent war against any other tribe, any tribe with a different religion to kill people to steal cattle to make slaves and so on. In the years 1895 and 1996 the region was conquered by the government of Kabul in a war and stopped the unpleasant activities. You see how the region is geographically formed. Nuristani languages are spoken by tribes living in river Vellis cut by rivers into the mountain. We have only five of them. The language names are Kati, Prasun, Weigeli and Ashkun and the languages are spoken by some 30,000 persons were spoken by some 30,000 persons found out by a German expedition in the year 1935 but later estimations confirm the numbers of speakers for the 60s and 70s for the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. We have some 20,000 speakers of Kati, some 2,000 speakers of Prasun, then some 5,000 speakers of Weigeli and 7,000 Ashkuns. The social linguistic situation is very different Kati is a kind of Limba Franca of region and for this reason some Kati is usually learned by Prasun and Weigeli less by Ashkun. Prasun is not learned by anyone leaving outside the Prasun valley and so Weigeli is also not learned by speakers of Kati and so on. The Nuristani languages are surrounded by Indo-Iranian languages and now I lost my map, sorry sorry, I cannot locate my map. This is a map made by an American linguist who used to live for some 20 years in the vicinity. The colored regions are the habitats of the Nuristani languages so the blue region here and here, this is Kati then in between is Prasun the green region is Weigeli and this here is Ashkun. I also, the stars representing Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the region and the half moons Iranian languages here Mungi and Vahi in the Badakhshan and here is Pashto which is spreading for some two generations in the region so we see the Nuristani languages are surrounded by Indo-Iranian languages and they are generally also believed to belong to Indo-Iranian too. The next point which has to be addressed is what are the Indo-Iranian languages? Indo-Iranian is actually a branch of Indo-European they are related to Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic and so on and Indo-Iranian languages consist of two sub-branches the Indo-Aryan branch which is represented basically by Sanskrit which is attested since the late 13th century and Iranian languages are Western and Old Persian the attestation starts a little bit later Why do we actually believe that Indo-Iranian languages are related to Celtic, Latin, Greek and so on? We have actually two criteria to establish this We have numerous matches with Greek, Latin, Celtic and so on and the lexicon and we also have inflection patterns which are very similar to those found in the Indo-European languages spoken in Europe If you use a handbook you would probably first find for the lexicon something like a virus in Sanskrit, a virus in Lithuanian I just took Lithuanian but I could easily have taken a different language a variety of languages spoken in Europe such as Old Irish and Freak and Latin and so on Then we have ghost, or god, sweet wine, wool, otter and so on but lexims with designating such concepts as men are usually not very significant for establishing genetic relationship between languages because they are easily borrowed Neal is the same or partly the same lexims and a language which is usually not considered to belong to Indo-European at all it's a Uralic language which is called Komi and spoken at the Uralic mountains is a member of the Uralic family You see we also have some matches between Sanskrit and Komi in lexims such as Marta's, Mord, Men, Human and so on More significant for establishing that actually, and in the European branch of languages are etiological matches and words with more abstract meanings such as pronouns, local and temporal alphabets and here we find plenty of evidence which is pretty unequivocal but then we also have inflectional similarities between the Iranian and the other Indo-European languages spoken all over the Old World For instance, such as given in 3a it's a part of the inflection of the verb to be in Sanskrit, Yankavestan, one of the most ancient Iranian languages and Old Latin and Gothic You see the inflection functions very similarly and we have clear matches in the suffixes used in the different languages but also in the personal indexes and verbs such as T in Sanskrit, T in Yankavestan and T in Latin, T in Gothic and also in the overall structure of the paradigm we can clearly see that for instance in the indicative mood in the singular we have the root consisting of a vowel and an S in Sanskrit and also in Yankavestan and Old Latin and in Gothic in the indicative mood we have by contrast the root morpheme consisting of just the consonant the vowel is not here in the subjunctive mood the vowel appears again and we have this in Sanskrit again in Sanskrit, Yankavestan but also in Old Latin and Gothic and so on This means that Indo-Iranian languages clearly belong to the Indo-European language family Indo-Iranian languages constitute a separate branch of Indo-European because of again, non-trivial some innovations in them we have non-trivial phonological innovations and we have exclusive morphological innovations for the phonology the most silent innovation is probably the merger of the liquids in Proto-Indo-Iranian we see Lithuanian is clearly distinguishing between two liquids and Sanskrit, Old Western do not a more interesting innovation is the merger of R and O which are distinguished by the languages of Europe such as Greek in Proto-Indo-Iranian playing R but the short R turns out as long R in Opal-Medial syllables it's a very characteristic innovation of Indo-Iranian as for morphological innovation we can consider the innovation given in 5 it's a special form of middle voice, second singular imperative based of the active voice, second singular imperative recently univobated with a pronoun with the so-called Indo-European reflexive pronoun in the accusative singular so we have a secondary imperative something like carry yourself based on yourself and carry how do we distinguish between the two sub branches of Indo-Iranian, between Indo-Iranian and Iranian we also use phonological innovations such as A, the loss of aspirated stops in Proto-Iranian and B, the development of Proto-Indo-European S into H were not preceded or followed by a stop here we can see in Sanskrit two series of stops of voiced stops are distinguished plain voiced stops and aspirated voiced stops this contrast is lost in Avestan and Old Persian in the Iranian languages similarly the S when followed by a vowel is preserved in Sanskrit but turned into H in Young Avestan and Old Persian now we have to make a jump for approximately 3 millennia because we don't have old texts from the Indokush region in the region of Indokush we only found languages since late 19th century which means roughly 3 millennia later than Sanskrit and Avestan and so on and this makes the distinction between Iranian and Indo-Iranian a little bit tricky here we see a range of Indo-Iranian languages which means basically descendants of Sanskrit and if we compare the voiced stops in Sanskrit with their reflexes for instance in Pashai we see that it happened but in some of the languages the distinction the contrast is secondarily abundant this must be a very recent development but nevertheless we cannot use this feature for distinguishing Indo-Iranian from Iranian in the Indokush region as far as the situation today is concerned the development of Proto-Indo-Iranian S into H languages can be used we see in the area languages spoken in the descendants of Sanskrit spoken in the region nothing happened to the inherited as I said we also find some clearly Iranian languages in the region and what is nice about them that they have experienced some more innovations which make them easily detectable it is actually an easy task to distinguish Vahi an Iranian language from for instance Pashai which is a descendant of Sanskrit in the Indokush area now what is the position of the Nouristani languages within Indo-Iranian or within Indo-European and before we can talk about this I would like just to give a little more information about what we actually know about the Nouristani languages we don't know very much because it is very difficult to make research into Nouristani for political circumstances at the moment fieldwork is out of the question it is too dangerous there we just have a grammar of one Cati dialect written by a Russian language Trunberg and published in 1980 we have a collection of texts for Prasun and a grammatical sketch written by Butrus and Dagonov and based of fieldwork by Georg Butrus during the 50s and 70s in Afghanistan for Waigali we just have a grammar of just one sub dialect of the Kalashun dialect of Waigali written by Dagonov which is also based on fieldnotes by Butrus and for Ashgun the last Nouristani language we just have a grammatical sketch and some recorded text and also a little bit also a world list by Georg Morganstiania who made research into the Nouristani languages during the 20s and 30s so not very much now what we know for sure about the Nouristani languages is that these languages belong to Indo-European we know this again because of the lexicon and because of the grammar here is just some lexemes from Sanskrit and their counterparts in West Cati, Kalashun Waigali and Prasun as for the grammar it is still possible to detect some very archaic features in the Nouristani languages for instance the well-known Indo-European supplation in the inflection of the demonstrative pronoun it is still found in a dialect of Waigali just approximately in the same form it is found in Sanskrit and in Gothic and in Greek and phrases of this system are found in Prasun which in a different Nouristani language so we know for sure Nouristani languages belong to Indo-European what is our reason to believe that Nouristani languages constitute a unit geographically they look like a unit but we actually don't know this we assume this because of some similarities in grammar and we assume this because of peculiar reflexes of series of Proto-Indo-European stops in Nouristani first for the grammar here is the inflection of just one verb to eat in West Cati you see the inflection is a little bit unusual we have to distinguish between two genders we have different forms for masculine for the masculine gender and feminine in West Cati the distinction is encoded by the palatalization in the feminine form and we have just the same in Cati Waigali where the palatalization in the feminine gender is actually not cannot be directly observed but we see the palatalization of the following vowel so this system is actually the inflected forms of the future tense in West Cati and actually a combination of the verbal noun an agent noun either one who eats or eating in Cati which is preserved in West Cati but has been abandoned in Waigali so between several languages we find very clear several Nouristani languages share very clear inflection of foraging and the other this is a typological parallel for the development of taken from Sanskrit an agent noun combined with included copula yields future tense the other reason to believe that Nouristani languages probably constitute a branch a group of all the related languages is the development of the situation with the palatal tectals in the Nouristani languages Proto-Indo-European possesses a series of stops which are not preserved as such in any language but have to be reconstructed because of their reflexes in the individual languages the so-called palatal tectals ki, gi and gi with aspiration in Waigali these phonemes are reflected just as plain V-Law stops but in many languages they turned secondaryly into affricates and subsequently into fricatives such as in Sanskrit and Avestan we see the palatal q in Sanskrit the reflex is sh in Avestan s for the palatal q the reflex is in Sanskrit the affricate j and in Avestan the fricative z and so on in detail we can see what we have to reconstruct for the immediate prehistory of Sanskrit we have to reconstruct a series of affricates as a q, j and j and for the Iranian languages for Proto-Iranian we have to reconstruct similar affricates now what is so interesting about the Nuristani languages is the following as it seems Nuristani cannot descend from Sanskrit and cannot descend from Iranian but they preserve the affricates roughly in the same way they are reconstructed for the Proto-Iranian so the Proto in the European palatal q is reflected as an affricate z in Khati and Waigali spelled differently but the pronunciation is the same the Proto-Indo-European palatalized j is reflected as affricate z in West Khati and subsequently developed into z in Waigali and so on we see a clear contrast to Sanskrit and also to languages descending from Sanskrit such as Shina and Pashai the so-called Dadic languages descendants of Sanskrit spoken in the Hindu-Push region Strangely enough we also find other reflexes of Proto-Indo-European palatal tectiles in Nuristani such as sh which is more similar to Sanskrit sh and nearly the same we find for instance in Pashai reflexes of Sanskrit words such as Shala but these words might easily be recent borrowings from the so-called Dadic languages which means descendants of Sanskrit. Now what does it tell us about the position of Nuristani within the Iranian? We now understand that Nuristani languages cannot belong to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch of Indo-Iranian they also cannot descend from Proto-Iranian because as is preserved in them but if Nuristani is neither Indo-Aryan nor Iranian it must constitute a separate sub-branch of Iranian. This is a conclusion which is usually drawn in the literature but we now for sure that Nuristani is Indo-European because of the evidence provided by the inflection but do we actually know that Nuristani languages participated in the Proto-Indo-Iranian innovations such as the merger of Ur and Ur and the merger of RAE or INTO-R. If we don't know this why not to assume that we are dealing with a different branch of Indo-European. The Indo-Iranian languages are not the only languages which turned the Proto-Indo not only languages in which the Proto-Indo-European palatal tectos turned into africates. We also have languages as Lithuanian, as Baltic languages and also Russian Slavic languages and so on. It is even possible to play with this idea and to try to compare the Nuristani languages for instance with Slavonic. We already had a look at the future tense in West Karate and Kalashunvaikali. Now we have a very similar construction in some Slavonic language in all of Slavonic. The semantics is a little bit different. We have a resultative perfect but it is made out of a noun with the same or nearly the same suffix and so on. The difference in the semantics can be bridged if we pay attention to the lexicalized formations in Slavonic. So why don't we assume that the Nuristani languages are actually a sub-dialect of Slavonic? I don't know. I certainly don't believe that. But I think the task for the future would be first to extend our knowledge of Nuristani languages and dialects by systematically collecting and describing the evidence, especially for those dialects which have not been yet systematically investigated. And the second point we would like to start at the University of Kolovan is to develop a Nuristani historical phonology and morphology step by step by comparing dialects of Nuristani languages with other dialects of Nuristani languages and so on. And this seems to be very promising because of, first, why do we need more information about Nuristani? Have a look at the present tense affliction of to-do in Kati, in Western Kati kunum kunish kuni, in Eastern Kati kunum kunish kuni. We don't know very much about Eastern Kati. What is it? Is it a difference of fix? Is it a sound change during and into term? It's very difficult to believe this. Within one and the same Nuristani language. So we have to collect more information. And if this is done then we can learn more about the immediate pro-history, about the more recent sound changes which must have been operative in the Nuristani languages and to understand a little bit more about them and about the configuration of the Nuristani language group. For instance, we already know that the in Kati and Kalashan Waigali has a counterpart in Ashkun. This helps to understand a very strange situation with sound like themes. In Kati and Waigali we have a retroflex affliction. It is corresponding to Ashkun's story. What is it? But if we consider that in Ashkun the africate Tsur preserved in Protanuristani turned into S, we understand the situation. Protanuristani Tsur seemed to have developed into a retroflex affliction in Kati, Waigali and Protoprasun but not in Ashkun. In Ashkun we have an intrusive term between sound and word. This means that we have a sound change shared by Western Kati, Kati Waigali and Prasun but not shared by Ashkun. It's spectacular because until very recently everybody believed that Prasun constitutes some sub-branch of Nuristani where all the other Nuristani languages have to be grouped together. So we are going to do it step by step and collect information about the most recent prehistory of the languages to be able to make informed guesses about their more and more prehistory and some they understand more about their position within into Iranian and in New York. Thank you.