When I chose this topic demonetization was very much in the air and people were wondering what the effects of demonetization would be but by now that is an issue on which they can scarcely be any doubt. By now it is clear that the purported claim of demonetization which was actually to attack and cripple the black economy has been completely this it's it's it's something which has been completely and totally been proved to be wrong that you know that that it has simply been a complete failure. This is quite obvious and in fact it's obvious to the government itself. The government's argument was that if you demonetize currency notes in that case honest people who are not part of the black economy would come and either exchange or deposit those notes with the banks while those who belong to the black economy for fear of being exposed would not come to banks. As a result the notes in their position would simply get extinguished because they would not come by a certain deadline and that extinction is would be powerful enough as a blow against the black economy so that it would get substantially crippled. Now even at that time critics had argued first that the amount of notes relative to the size of the black economy which the black economy holds is really quite small that it is really as a proportion for instance the government's own estimate was that about three and a half lakh crores of notes are in the black economy which may get extinguished and if you look at the size of the black economy it varies between a World Bank estimate of about 25% of the GDP of the country to an estimate by my colleague in JNU Arun Kumar who says about 60% of the GDP in the country which means it varies between 45 lakh to 85 lakh crores in which case three and a half lakh crores of rupees getting extinguished is really no more than a pinprick as far as this economy is concerned it's certainly not going to be anything like a major blow to this economy. Critics at that time had also argued that the black operators have ways of getting around this problem so that actually even the three and a half lakh crores which was the government's estimate would not actually be extinguished as the government was thinking. As a matter of fact now we know that the critics were right that as a matter of fact the amount of notes which have come back either as deposits or as exchange for exchange against new notes which of course the government stopped after a certain date that amount of notes about 97% of the total value of demonetized currency and since the remaining 3% do not necessarily belong to the black economy they belong to all kinds of people who could not make it to the banks by the deadline it follows that the amount of extinction is negligible. Consequently the talk of this being a blow against the black economy is something which has been proved to be completely wrong. The government itself is so embarrassed by this that they have thrown doubts on the 97% they have said that we are going to come out with a final figure but December 30th was as you know the last date since then more than a month has passed and the government is still counting which only shows that as a matter of fact this figure some people say that it might even have exceeded 100% because of the fact that a certain amount of counterfeit notes might also have come into the banking system over and above that which was demonetized. Anyway so the upshot is that as a matter of fact this is not a blow at all to the black economy in any sense and therefore the question arises that why was all this done when it actually quite palpably has resulted in a blow to the informal sector it has resulted in a recession in the economy it has resulted in job losses it has resulted in a shaking of people's faith in the entire banking system it has also resulted in the Reserve Bank of India governor reneging on his promise which is written on every note that I promise to pay the bearer so much and so much and and obviously he has not kept up that promise so why was all this done it's not as if people did not know that it would be a failure I have mentioned the critics who are already anticipating this as a matter of fact virtually any known economist across the ideological spectrum had taken this position that this is no way of tackling the black economy and this is not even the first time even when the small amount of demonetization was carried out by the Muradji Desai government even at that time the governor of the Reserve Bank I.G. Patel had actually written that look demonetization is no way of attacking the black economy it's in fact a completely wrong way of attacking the black economy you're just going to inconvenience people now that discussion that note that kind of assertion was obviously available to the government so it's not as if the government had a certain perception but based on wrong assumptions or assumptions that happens to go wrong but it is something where you would say that the government embarked upon this entire scheme without adequate thought it's not as if in other words that there was a certain thought but it so happened that the thought was erected in assumptions which happened to go wrong but as a matter of fact there was very little thought that actually went into it now this actually raises a question that how can you have a government that can have this kind of a thoughtless action of such enormous magnitude now there is a view which has been put forward for instance this so reminiscent of fascism a view for instance that Umberto Eco had put forward which says that that fascism he gave 14 points which are characteristics of fascism and one of the points characteristic of fascism is that it believes in action for its own sake because it believes that thinking is emasculating the thinking is something which actually is symptomatic of a certain kind of state of emasculation and as a matter of fact therefore it is important to act now once you see that action informed by thought is something which is a symptom of a kind of weakness then it follows that the action to be a sign of weakness must be strong action it must be action which is on a scale that is large enough to produce shock and awe and as a matter of fact when you look at it that way then it turns out that 86 percent of the currency being demonetized and being demonetized at four hours notice is something which is really more a shock and awe rather than any having any economic rational of any kind when I say that it is something which is a failure has no economic rational I'm aware of the fact that this would be contested even within the left there is a view that while it may have failed in achieving its purported objective its actual objective was different from the stated objective that his actual objective was for instance to actually destroy the informal sector for the benefit of the large formal big capitalist sector there is no doubt that for quite some time now in India there has been a process of decimation of petty production including peasant agriculture which has been going on for for really quite some time and it is actually a part of the entire neoliberal economic strategy which has entailed a withdrawal of state support from that particular sector support which had sustained it during the Nehruvian era by Nehruvian era I don't mean only Nehru zone period but the entire pre neoliberal era so there is a view that this is a tendency that was taking place anyway and what is now happened is really an acceleration and an acute acceleration of that tendency and that itself is something which was the real objective no matter how much they talked about black economy and so on now I take that argument with a certain pinch of salt there may be something in it but you know I take it for this from with a certain pinch of salt for two very obvious reasons because while it is true that a decimation of petty production is something which is always in the interest of big capital which normally does it it would certainly prefer to do it in quotes through the so called operations of the market rather than through a sledgehammer attack of this kind because a sledgehammer attack of this kind is something which is even politically more difficult to sustain and consequently big capital always prefers decimation of petty production through the silent operations of the so-called free market the second reason why I take it with a pinch of salt is that the whole purpose of attacking petty production is for big capital to supplant petty production to in fact place itself in the space occupied by petty production as a matter of fact one of the consequences of demonetization has been that to the extent that there is this sledgehammer attack on petty production and therefore job losses reduction of output and so on this also has an effect on demand as far as the formal sector is concerned consequently even though the attack begins in the small petty production sector it gets generalized as a recession in the economy as a whole and it therefore also affects big capital and the idea that big capital might be interested in a mode of attack on petty production that is going to rebound upon itself is really not a proposition worth entertaining that is a second line which of course emphasizes and to an extent importantly the fact that this may be carried out in the interests of certain international financial agencies which stand to gain by the so-called move to a cashless economy I'll discuss the move to a cashless economy later on but this is this has been a proposition which has been put forward and I believe put forward not without some reason but even if one accepts it surely the scale of the attack 86% of currency getting demonetized overnight cannot be explained only as something happening at the behest of some international financial companies I think the very scale of the attack requires an explanation as well as the very fact of an attack on this particular scale and consequently I get back to the proposition which I was trying to advance namely that the rationale of this move lay in its irrationality that to the extent that you actually have shock and awe as the objective of a government that wishes to impress people that it is acting you see action based on reason is necessarily quite often incremental you know rational action economists are fond of saying consists of maximizing some kind of an objective function subject to certain constraints and therefore you make changes but these changes tend to be instrumental when you have action on an enormous scale action on an enormous scale where the scale is so big that even the criteria of distinguishing between whether is right or wrong fail you in a situation like this you obviously have to go beyond the bounds of reason therefore such action tends to be one which always tends to be irrational therefore large scale irrational action of this kind which is as I said part of a shock and or tactics which typically characterizes fascism is one which I believe to a very significant extent underlies the kind of the demonetization measure and particularly the scale on which it was done and particularly for instance the the the kind of you know fact that it was done so suddenly can perhaps be explained in this particular way otherwise there is absolutely no economic rationale it's not as if the government did not know what was happening it's not as if people had not worn the government what would happen and consequently the fact that it nonetheless went ahead with it was to show the boldness of the leader who can actually take such an action and this boldness can be established only with a scale of action that is large enough and if it is a large enough it has to go beyond the bounds of reason it has to be irrational in quotes in other words it has to be really as Umberto Eco has said action for action's sake now if that is the case then of course it actually sets up a dynamics which is quite powerful and which is quite important and which is quite disturbing and that dynamics consists in the fact that the more people suffer because of this action the more it tends to get lauded why because if a leader can take action that is so bold that it even inconveniences people then look what a bold leader he is in other words people suffering then actually becomes a testimony to the boldness of the action and if that is the case then we actually have a very remarkable inversion of perspective typically we have in a democracy and that's where I get on to this topic of democracy because I feel it's strong only about it typically what we have in a democracy is that the leaders are supposed to act political parties are supposed to act in order to improve the conditions of material life or in order to improve the conditions of life of the people that large it is the people who constitute the objective in a democracy for any particular action that they must be in a position where they they they they are better off as a result of this action so that you know the essence of democracy is that the people should get should become better off but here we have a peculiar inversion where the ability of a leader is judged not by the degree to which he has improved the conditions of the people but by the degree to which he has actually regressed the conditions of the people because the boldness is thereby established you have therefore an inversion in the relation between the people and the leaders that that instead of the leader being judged by the degree to which the people have benefited you have a situation where the leader is in the foreground it is the dynamic it is it is the boldness of the leader which is in the foreground and this boldness has to be established and even though the distress of the people may not be intentional nonetheless to the extent there's a distress among people that distress goes to establish the boldness of the leader look at this leader who I mean obviously the people are being distressed it is presumed because as I said the scale of the action is such that right or wrong cannot be established so easily then then then what happens is that because of the scale of the action the boldness of the leader is in fact established and justified as seeking some higher good destruction of the black economy that if it is the case that action on this scale can be taken then it must be for some higher good and therefore to the extent that there is distress among the people it seeks to establish that this distress has been you know thrust on the people because of this higher good so the leader must be totally committed to this higher good in order to even have the temerity to take an action that distresses people but when the action does not actually achieve the higher good then naturally in such a situation the leader does not say sorry I was wrong the leader then takes some other action and even larger scale action in order to complement the first one and therefore you have a certain dialectic of this kind of an action each of which being thoughtless each of which can bring great distress as far as the people are concerned and therefore this is not only an inversion of the typical inversion of the perspective that informs democracy but it's an inversion with the leader being in the forefront the people's role being that to applaud the leader and to be as it were impressed by the shock and awe-inspiring actions of the leader then you find that there is a tendency to move from one kind of shock and awe action to another kind of shock and action as the first fails then you move to something else and something else and something else now this of course can have extremely disastrous consequences and this is exactly what we are witnessing because once it was clear that there was not any kind of an even pinprick on the black economy the government then moved to other ways of justifying this action and one such way of justifying the action was that we are going into a cashless economy why India should go to a cashless economy is not clear the argument for cashlessness typically is that then you have transactions which are recorded but on the other hand against that argument it is also the case that it exposes the people to cyber crimes against which even our legal system has not really come up with adequate safeguards additionally it will also expose people to snooping to private snooping by all kinds of agencies including foreign agencies and this is something which has been made clear in the German article which has been which has been much in circulation that essentially therefore the even if we assume that having transactions recorded is a benefit against it you actually find that it can really expose people to fairly serious consequences if even at the end of it all it is assumed that on the whole moving to a cashless cashless economy is a good idea there are practical problems in India where you have problems of connectivity problems of digital illiteracy problems of digital unpreparedness in such a case to think in terms of the economy moving to a cashless one is obviously not only I mean it is it is yet another of those shock and awe methods shock and awe actions and the government however is persisting with it precisely because as a part of this dialectic I was talking about for instance it was mentioned by Mukul Rohatgi to the Supreme Court it has been mentioned time and again by the finance minister it has been mentioned by Modi that they are not going to print notes of an equal value to what has been demonetised they're going to have a reduction of one and a half to two lakh crores as far as new notes are concerned in order to push people towards cashlessness therefore this cashlessness is being thrust down the throats of the people irrespective of the rational of the reasonableness of the move not only is the reasonableness of the move questionable but also the ethics of it the ethics of it is very seriously questionable because cash transactions are costless transactions while cashless transactions typically involve the intermediation or one of these financial companies who are not there for the fun of it they are not there for charity they are there to make a profit and consequently cashless transactions necessarily entail a cost as far as the people are concerned while cash transactions do not therefore to push people from costless transactions to transactions that entail a cost in which there would be a shift of resources from their pockets to those to the profits of financial firms is an utterly unethical act is completely unacceptable in a democracy particularly when it is done in a coercive manner the way it is actually being done the fact that this is happening however is to my mind symptomatic of the need on the part of the government to keep coming with all kinds of shock and awe-inspiring measures on which it is currently launched there is a view which is not very applicable in the Indian context but but this view has been put forward for instance by Kenneth Rogoff who has written this book the curse of cash in which the argument is that really cashlessness is something that should be encouraged in future because in a cashless economy you can have negative interest rates in a cash economy you have a lower to the interest rate which is zero because if i put my money in a bank and the bank gives me an interest rate that is anything less than zero then i wouldn't put my money into the bank therefore holding cash implies that there has to be a non-zero zero or above interest that has to be paid to make me part with the cash i hold but on the other hand if it is the case there is a cashless economy then people really nearly would be holding bank deposits and the banks can give whatever interest rates say you know i mean they would give because of monetary policy and therefore monetary policy can drive down interest rates to negative levels the argument is that in the united states despite zero interest rates you have the recession persisting and because of that if you want to come out of the recession then you would have to have negative interest rates in many european countries you have negative interest rates in the sense that banks get loans from the central bank at negative interest rates and those kinds of resources they can therefore distribute at negative interest rates but they do not get deposits from the public at negative interest rates and the idea would be to have a generalization of negative interest rates where not only finance that is made available from the central bank but also deposits of the public that can be made available at negative interest rates if it is the case that the public is forced to hold deposits and the economy has no cash whatsoever now that's an argument which really has not been given in the indian context and besides i think that kind of negative interest rate and and think of the despotic nature of an economy that actually traps people into having negative interest rates by abolishing cash and that then is actually an argument advanced by economists as being necessary the same economist who could have instead advocated not monetary policy but fiscal policy for a revival of the economy that nobody does but on the other hand they're willing to hit people with negative interest rates as a means of inducing capitalists to make investments instead of that as i said the state had made investments through through its fiscal measures then of course the need for all this would not have a reason it's a symptom of economics as a subject at this moment the degree to which it is hegemonized by the interest of capital big capital that many economists including very well known economists are ones who actually frown upon fiscal policy but on the other hand want monetary policy with negative interest rates which hurts people as the only way of reviving the capitalist economy currently stuck in crisis so but but but that's an argument which has not been put forward in india that's an argument which is not even relevant here we are far from being at zero interest rates anyway our interest rates are are strictly positive and you know we cannot even have zero interest rates because if we had zero interest rates and the united states also had zero interest rates there'd be enormous flight of capital from india to the united states the reason why we have positive interest rates when the us has zero interest rates is to prevent such a capital flight because capitalists would rather hold their wealth in america than hold it in india so if you want to make them hold it in india then you would have to give them some inducement in the form of an interest rate higher than what prevails in the us so the us has zero interest rates we of course have positive interest rates so the question of our moving to negative interest rates simply does not arise so that argument is one which is much invoked these days in economics circles but that argument is completely relevant in our case therefore in our case the point i'm trying to make is that moving towards cashlessness is not only ethically wrong it's not only despotic enforcing people to part with a part of their resources to go as profits of financial companies it interferes with their asset preference which is fundamentally undemocratic but above all it is something which is not even in the current state of digital literacy and connectivity and so on anywhere in the cards but the fact that the government is thinking of or is planning not to print new money of an exactly equal value to the old money is really symptomatic of moving to another shock and or measure and this is something which is also going to make the recession permanent because until now you had a shortage of cash but the idea was all right in the shortage of cash is for six months maybe after six months the informal sector would bounce back but if the shortage of cash is more or less permanent then of course you'd find that it would spell the death knell of it'll sound the death knell of the informal sector so then you'll have a permanent recession in the economy with that sector really going under if it is the case that measures of this kind which as i said are symptomatic of an inversion of perspectives where you actually are much more interested in making people applaud the so called boldness of the measures than actually improving the conditions of the people the question which immediately arises is that why is it that why is it that the people are not protesting i should say that that that if you look at any spokesman of the government or of the ruling party and you ask them about the how the defending monetization they say look at the boldness of our leader in fact this is exactly what they say i mean look at the boldness of have you come across any leader in the last so many years who had the audacity to do such a big measure like like this man has done so that obviously shock and awe becomes the objective per se and likewise the justification of this is provided in terms of fact that where are the people protesting if people are not protesting then who are you to say that there's something wrong with and i think this raises the question why are people not protesting the fact that people have been distressed the fact that they have been inconvenienced is absolutely indubitable you just see it i mean we all saw it we ourselves were inconvenienced so that is not the point at issue but why is there no protest i think that's very i mean to that there is a simple answer and a deeper answer the simple answer is that the people themselves become as it were subject to this shock and awe because they they themselves internalize this inversion where then the feeling is that listen a measure like this which is so important could not have been undertaken unless it was serving some higher good and if it's serving some higher good then all right some inconvenience is all right because after all if we are being inconvenienced and then the higher good it is serving must indeed be very high so there is a certain in internalization of this inversion of perspectives but i think there is a deeper reason as well and and and just like to discuss a little bit of that to my mind the deeper reason lies with the fact that over a long period of time this does not begin with Modi doesn't begin with BJP over a very long period of time there has been a certain shift in the Indian polity and that shift is visible okay let's let's look at the example of that shift not i mean i'm old enough to have seen it many of you may not have there used to be enormous rallies on the boat club i have seen rallies of left parties with red flags stretching for kilometers in all the way for stretching all the way to india gate and so on the enormous rallies of workers enormous rallies of peasants there was a sense of empowerment as far as the people were concerned and this empowerment came from the fact that mass struggles were taking place they were trade union struggles they were kisan struggles and so on mass struggles were taking place today when you see there is hardly any mass struggle there's hardly been a strike action of the working class other than the one day two-day kind of general strike which though impressive is really a specifically token action you have three lack peasants committing suicide over the last kind of you know few few few months but on the other hand there's hardly been a peasant struggle you have even as a consequence of demonetization migrant workers going back to their villages but there's hardly been a movement on the part of migrant workers not even a demonstration outside whatever parliament or anything of that kind in other words i think the tradition of mass struggles is something which has receded in the course of the last several years i think the reason it has receded is partly to do with the weakening of the position of classes like the workers in peasants and so on and partly it has to do with the you know with with the kind of possibilities which are available in a neoliberal economy let me just explain you find for instance that in this period one of the aspects of neoliberalism is as i mentioned earlier the decimation of petty production i think i think you know one aspect which is just not sufficiently discussed is the fact that while in the pre-neoliberal period the the state supported petty production in numerous ways much of that support is now withdrawn you had for instance a situation where peasant agriculture let us say was protected from international competition it was protected through tariffs and quantitative restrictions you had subsidized inputs including credit after bank nationalization going to the agricultural sector you had assured prices not just for food grains but also for cash crops and you had all these commodity boards like tea board coffee board coir board rubber board and so on all of which had market interventions to ensure that the peasantry growing commercial crops got a certain assured remunerative price you had a research and development which was done in public institutions and the benefits of this research and development were actually disseminated through the peasantry to peasant agriculture through a mass of public extension activities you had of course public investment in irrigation and such like all these have virtually been bound up earlier the state interposed itself between the peasantry on the one hand and big business including multinational corporations on the other you did not have agribusiness entering the Indian village it is true that from within Indian village there was a tendency towards capitalism that was developing there was much debate in the 70s about development of capitalism in Indian agriculture some of the landlords were becoming capitalists some of the rich peasants were becoming capitalists but there was no big capitalists from outside the ambanis were not going to agriculture monsanto was not going to agriculture so you had a situation where the state interposed itself between big business on the one hand and petty production on the other hand and in fact defended and supported it whose beneficiaries of course were not all of them i mean obviously there was uneven development of the benefits of this state support but nonetheless there was this state support that prevented petty production from going under this was of course in contrast to what had happened in the pre-independence period whereas you know there had been a tendency towards acute distress as far as agriculture is concerned during the depression and warriors and so on which is which is a part of virtually the literature of that period creative literature novels and so on in every Indian language the the sufferings of the peasantry anyway so so so the point is that with neoliberalism all that goes the marketing function of all these commodity boards is done away with they exist the boards exist but they don't do any market intervention there is a reduction i mean withdrawal of subsidies on inputs of various kinds and of course everybody knows that as far as credit itself is concerned now there's a new class of money lenders which have come up because the banks even the nationalized banks are not particularly interested in actually giving loans to the agricultural sector anymore because they have to make profits in the new dispensation then you have obviously agriculture now being exposed to international price fluctuations because tariff protection has been brought down in most cases tariffs are below even the bounds allowed by the WTO quantitative restriction on trade has gone the extension services the the the the the entire public extension services have been completely done away with and therefore now you have Monsanto and agribusiness entering the Indian agricultural sector so you have through a variety of ways of this kind you have a situation where the petty production sector is no longer viable in fact you know when i was in kerala in the planning board we once did an exercise the exercise was the following that suppose you assume that every fisherman was actually getting the statutory minimum wage that is the law in the state what would happen to the sector and you find the sector as a whole would actually be running a deficit in other words the sector survived only because the fishermen were getting a return for labor day that was lower than the statutory minimum wage so obviously therefore petty production has become unviable and many of them therefore migrate to the cities in search of jobs and their non-existent jobs as a result you have a swelling of the reserve army of labor which takes the form of casual employment part-time employment and so on in other words the swelling of unemployment under-employment is one which is disguised in various ways as casual employment in this and that all this strikes strongly at the bargaining strength of the trade unions privatization likewise also of public sector enterprises public sector activities weakens the trade unions dramatically as a matter of fact all over the world you find that workers are more unionized in the public sector than they are in the private sector in the united states for instance about a third of the total employees in the public sector and i'm including education here are unionized while the corresponding proportion in the private sector is just about seven percent one of the reasons why the french unions are so powerful is because in france a public sector still exists which is reasonably strong so for all these reasons there has been a weakening in the strength of the trade unions with the weakening in the strength of trade unions you obviously find that their striking capacity has gone down and likewise the capacity of the other segments of petty production which have been subject to this kind of an economic threat has also gone down there is a second reason which is quite important the second reason is that that in a neoliberal economy we have a hegemony of finance in the sense that you have nation states but you have globalized finance and consequently if any nation state government in a nation state does not do what finance wants it to do in that case finance simply leaves the country so as long as you're part of this globalization syndrome you perforce willy nilly you have to do what finance wants you to do therefore unless you have a political formation that is willing to delink the country from globalization and very few of them are willing to do it you have no matter which political formation comes to power you have virtually the same set of economic policies being pursued in Greece even sireza came to power which was a left-wing formation but sireza admittedly you can see Greece the small country and all that but fundamentally sireza too had to pursue roughly the same kinds of policies which all preceding governments in Greece were following therefore you have a situation where you have a closure of politics that you know that that that politics as a way of having alternative agendas really disappears now if politics is a way of having alternative agendas disappears then it implies that no matter who the people vote for no matter how active they are really very little is achieved within the bounds of traditional politics this of course creates conditions for the emergence of all kinds of adventurers who then come and say that okay i mean we are going to put 15 000 rupees in your bank balance and so on in in other words this opens up the way when when traditional political formations more or less pursue the same set of policies then it opens the way for for all kinds of upstarts and adventurers to come and make promises to people and thereby gain a certain amount of credibility in this kind of situation which is true of trump as well because obviously there was so much of disillusionment with the traditional politics of that country that people thought that here is this man coming from outside saying something different and they listened to him and i think this is something which produces the closure of politics produces conditions for the development of all kinds of fascist and adventurers and an authoritarian and right wing forces to come up with all kinds of promises now this has the effect in in in other words this closure of politics together with a weakening of the institutions of the workers and peasants and so on has the effect of an objectification of the people you know in other words from becoming subjects when when they were in the boat club in lax asserting their rights asserting themselves one could say that they're playing the role of being subjects in a certain political process then they increasingly become objects in other words i believe that the hegemony of finance creates the conditions in which people really move from becoming subjects of the political process to becoming objects of the political process this has many implications one implication of course is a fragmentation of the people you know in other words since collective action for improving the material conditions of their lives is something which is really ruled out is is is is infructuous then you find that there is greater fragmentation the second thing it does is that it actually creates a kind of fear because after all an individual is alienated and afraid it's only when you're in a collective that you can actually overcome that kind of a fear and so you have a certain pervasive fear my friend Gopal Gandhi says that what rules India today is fear I mean so so so this pervasive fear is also something which cannot be ignored now it is it is in this kind of a context that therefore you have a situation where people's ability to assert themselves against the material conditions of their lives which are deteriorating tends to get kind of you know this ability gets subverted this is not to say that there are no struggles there are obviously struggles there were there are individual struggles as the post-co-struggle or the Kudam Kulam struggles but they're localized struggles where people are very actively involved but that is really not a mass movement for changing the conditions of life like a trade union or a peasant struggle would be they're very localized you also have you you you also have for instance the kind of thing which which the Anahazare movement represented where you have substantial support for an anti-corruption movement led by but on the other hand that is one where actually messianism takes over and the people are not the age people don't have the agency where thereby they themselves are not really engaging enforcing a chain they're simply supporting a messiah who's going on a strike in order to bring about this change so so so that does not really overcome the the objectification that actually takes place in this period you have of course the other struggle the the other kind of mobilization which is obviously the fascist mobilization who building a temple and things of that kind you have at the same time a certain kind of mobilization that may arise for instance the jarts demanding quotas you know the demanding reservations but but again that is not an action which really involves the people as a whole so so you have this fragmentation and this fragmentation on the one hand creates fear and on the other hand creates conditions for the emergence of fascism I would say that this dialectic of the people versus the leader where where the people are silent and applaud the leader who then goes from one outlandish measure to another outlandish measure each being an occasion to proclaim his boldness it's something which really comes as a consequence of a very long period during which there has been an objectification of the people during which there has been a dilution in their agency role of the sort that existed immediately after independence and existed for a very long period of time but i think neoliberalism is one that actually tends to subvert it to say this is not to say that this is inevitable I mean you know in in other words it is something which of course is what we observe it is something which actually has been happening in front of us and it is something which represents a diminution and an attenuation of democracy it is something which has to be fought against but it is not inevitable the fact that it it has the fact remain that it has to be fought against and I believe that fighting against it of course would imply that progressive opinion must not I mean the typical argument which is put forward let's say by the ruling party and the ruling government who are you to be shouting when people are not in fact we have to turn that argument around that it is extremely important for us to shout because of the fact that there has been over a period of time this kind of an attenuation of democracy where the people have become increasingly objectified so it become very important for progressive opinion to express itself on the truth irrespective of whether people themselves join you or not you know in other words the truth about the people the other thing of course is as I said a revival you know the hegemony of global finance is associated as it's opposite in my view with the objectification of the people with with a with with a with a diminution in their role as political subjects I think if that role is to be revived then of course to start with one has to prevent a slide towards a fascist state that we have to do but we also have to be clear that this this disclosure of politics has to end in other words against Donald Trump it's not enough that we all support Hillary Clinton but we also must make sure that the Hillary Clinton that we support pursues a trajectory of development which is not the typical trajectory of development that the Clintons of the world have been pursuing in other words I think to revive the subject role of the people we have to break this closure of politics which requires in my view a delinking from the process of globalization by delinking people get sometimes frightened when I say delinking I mean just the following things I mean that there has to be a control on capital flows to make sure that our policy is not dictated by the caprices and wins of finance if there's a control on capital flows there'll have to be some control on trade as well trump is is is is introducing these controls which are going to hurt us the least we can do is to defend ourselves by also introducing some degree of control instead of turning our the cheek to trump and and and certainly this of course would mean that you would have the elbow room for the state to be able to enlarge demands to be able to enlarge aggregate demand and employment to be able to enlarge welfare measures and so on in other words you would get some space where the state the nation state as nation state can still act because it has to an extent insulated itself from the caprices of global finance that kind of delinking is of course essential but of course that kind of delinking does not mean that we simply stand on top of houses and and and shout that we're going to delink from globalization that has to be a fallout of some fairly concrete agenda of of of of improving the people's lives that has to be set before them if we want to fight fascism then you have to have a certain agenda of concrete you know possibilities which are placed before the people and on these agendas I have been talking for some time for instance about the people being assured a set of economic rights a quite a part in the political rights which they have a set of economic rights right to employment right to food right to quality publicly funded education right to quality publicly funded healthcare and right to let's say disability benefits I mean you know yeah disability benefits given by the state and old age pension you you can you can enlarge this but but but fundamentally it has to be the case that there is an alternative agenda that breaks this closure of politics and I think what we are finding I mean demonetization in a sense is an allegory that many of the things which are happening in the economy and in society suddenly become clear because of the motivations behind as well as the responses to this measure of demonetization I think if we see it as an allegory and see what exactly is the direction of our movement then it is a very dangerous direction of movement and I think against this progressive opinion must assert itself and must do so in a way which actually carries credibility with the people by breaking the closure of politics thank you very much


I've moved in and out of creative phases in my life, often pushing it aside for more practical matters, children, moving, working, existing. In the last couple of years, through writing and photography, I have tapped into my buried creative soul. While I constantly fight feelings of doubt, unimportance, and the fear of letting people really see me, I've realized I have to lose that dead self in order to find life.


Recognize people around you for the best that you have seen in them. In recognizing the best instead of the worst, you will kindle, nurture and receive the best of everyone. Whatever you pay attention to will naturally grow, at least for you. Every human being that you meet, there's a good side to them, there is a nasty side to them. If you pay attention to the nasty side, your mind will be preoccupied with the nastiness. Somebody else's nastiness will become yours, and because of that, you will receive more and more of that from all around you. If you pay attention to the best, even though in some people it may be a minuscule, if you pay attention to the best, it will grow, at least in your mind, in your experience it will grow. There is a good chance it will grow in them also. Well, when you live in this world, when you're active, so many people will say and do variety of nasty things to you. But if you pay attention to that, you will stop in your tracks. If you pay attention to that, that may exist even in those people who are continuously spooing venom. One thing is, your mind shall never become nasty. Another thing is, there is always a possibility even they will turn around. I've conducted programs in the prisons, both in India and United States. I've met some of the criminals or convicts who have done terrible things in their life. But many of them have transformed themselves because of simple forms of yoga. Above all, when they were with me, they were absolutely wonderful people. This is what you can do. You've heard of an Angulimala turning into a sage. You have heard of Valmiki turning into a great sage. Like this, there are many stories, only a few became famous. Many others are there who have transformed their nastiness to their wonderful nature, simply because somebody paid attention to their wonderful nature. So please, wherever you meet, whatever the best you see in them, you don't have to imagine something. Whatever the best you see in them, pay attention to that. Hold that as a standard for those people to rise to, rather than holding their nastiness in your mind and allowing them to descend to their worst. This is a possibility that you have an opportunity to exercise every moment of your life. Let's make it happen.


Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's Planning Commission meeting. Today's date is February 9th, 2022, and the time is 931 a.m. And today's meeting is completely remote via Zoom. And let's see, there are a couple of different ways to follow the meeting or participate in the public hearing. To both you and participate, I recommend using the Planning Commission Zoom meeting link which is posted on the Planning Department's homepage at sccoplanning.com. Alternatively, if your computer is not equipped with a microphone, you may provide comment by telephone. Please dial 1-669-900-6833 to call in. When prompted, the collaboration code number is 843-2858-7177. Again, this information is posted on the Planning Department webpage. If you forget the phone number or have last minute questions on how to connect. All right.


Bonds are debt securities issued to multiple lenders. The lenders are known as bondholders. They purchase bonds, usually in $1,000 denominations. The issuer of corporate bonds is usually a large corporation like Apple. In exchange for cash from the bondholders, they promise to repay the principal amount of the bond, known as the face value, and interest over the bond term. There are advantages for companies that can afford bonds as a form of debt financing. Most notable is that they can borrow large sums of money like millions or billions of dollars with less risk because the debt is spread out over hundreds of thousands of bondholders instead of one bank. Additionally, bondholders are not like stockholders, so they have no ownership interest in a company. Debt financing is cheaper than equity financing because interest expense is tax deductible for a business. And there are often favorable impact on earnings per share, which could cause the stock prices to rise. For more information on stocks and equity financing, I would encourage you to watch the upcoming playlist videos on stockholders' equity. A bond certificate contains contractual information. For example, the company's name, the principal amount, the maturity date, the stated annual interest rate, and the interest payment dates, which are usually every six months. There are many types of bonds and not all bonds are corporate bonds. Governments and municipalities also issue bonds, but that's not the focus of this discussion. Corporate bonds can be sold as term bonds, which means all the bonds mature at the same time. Or they can be sold as serial bonds, which means the bonds mature in installments. Additionally, some bonds are secured bonds, which means they are secured by a specific asset in the case of bankruptcy. Most bonds, however, are unsecured bonds and they are known as debentures. They are backed only by the good name and credit of a company. Finally, the last two terms related to types of bonds are convertible bonds and callable bonds. Some bonds are convertible bonds, which means they can be converted into stocks. When converted, the bondholders become stockholders and the company no longer plays interest on the bonds. Bondholders might want to do this if a company's stock price is really high. Conversion occurs only when the bondholders want to convert. A company usually cannot make them convert to stockholders. Most bonds are callable bonds. This means that a company can pay off the bonds earlier than their term. Usually a company has to pay extra to do this.  The bondholders cannot require this. There are two very important interest rates to consider when learning about bonds. I would strongly encourage you to understand the two and their purpose. The first is the stated interest rate. This is the interest rate stated on the face of the bond. It is only used to determine the amount of interest payment. And it is sometimes called the coupon rate or the nominal rate. The other important interest rate is the market rate. The market interest rate is used to determine a bond's market price. It is also used to determine interest expense in amortization tables. It is sometimes called the effective rate or the real rate. Bonds are always sold at their market price which can change daily because interest rates change daily. Technically, the market price is the present value of the bond's cash flows. The price is the present value of the interest payments plus the present value of the face value. If you would like to see the specifics on bond pricing, I would encourage you to watch an upcoming video on how to use Excel to calculate the price of a bond. Although bonds are priced at their present value, rarely would a bondholder need to calculate this. Normally, bond prices are published and quoted as a percentage of their face value. For example, a quote of 102 means 102% of the face value. Likewise, a quote of 95 means 95% of the face value. Let's look at this straightforward example. What is the market price of a bond with a market quote of 104? Well, we would take 104% times the $1,000 face value since most bonds are sold in $1,000 increments to get $1,040. And that brings us to our last important concept related to bond characteristics. Since market interest rates change regularly, bond prices change just as frequently and the price of the bond is likely to be different than the face value of the bond. When the market price of the bond is greater than the face value, the bond sells at a premium. When the market price of the bond is less than the face value, the bond sells at a discount. For example, let's assume the stated rate of the bond, which cannot change, is 10%. In the first scenario, the market rate is 8%. This means that my bond pays a higher rate of interest than the market. Everyone wants to buy my bonds so I can charge a higher price. Thus my bonds sell at a premium. When the interest rates are the same, the bond sells at their face value. Finally, when the market rate is higher than the stated rate of my bonds, no one wants to buy my bonds so I need to lower the price. Thus my bonds would sell at a discount in the final scenario.


Merry Christmas everybody. It's midnight here on the west coast We're here doing 2019 2020 flawless two-box case pick your team number four random number block randomizer For the Miami Heats and the San Antonio spur 10 spots in this format Just like any other random number block every spot you get Random number from zero to nine if you number three you'll get any cards for those two teams But with three being the first number next to the slash on the left side of the slash So for example the card is two forty three out of two ninety nine Thirteen out of ninety nine three out of twenty five forty three out of forty nine ninety three out of ninety nine and so on The three will get the card all redemption cards go to the zero spot Even if it is a known one-of-one redemption it will still go to the zero spot Any non numbered cards randomize the group flawless doesn't have none numbered cards. I think everything's numbered 25 or less Let's see how it goes. Here is the list of customers from Travis Abraham down to Michael Scalfani with the last spot mojo And the numbers from zero down to nine dice roll Two and a two four times Good luck one two three and fourth and final time from young and new in down to Kevin Mendoza and Two and a two four times on the numbers one two Three and fourth and final time from nine down to six There we go Young new in with nine Breonna Trunzo with three Travis Abramson with eight Kevin Mendoza with one Eric do with zero Greg the lackey with two Breonna Trunzo with five Travis Abramson with four Michael Scalfani with Seven and Kevin Mendoza with six sort that by number So Eric zoo with zero will get any and all redemptions for the heat and the spurs while Kevin even known one-of-one Redemptions while Kevin Mendoza would get any and all in person one-of-ones. So there you go That's the random number block randomizer for the San Antonio spurs and the Miami heat for Flawless basketball two box case break pick your team number four. I'm Sean Jaspy's case breaks calm Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you for the break coming up right neck


The following is a presentation of TFNN. Trade what you see with Larry Pezzavento. Call now toll free at 1-877-927-6648 or internationally at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Now, Larry Pezzavento. Okay, looking good. Billy Ray feeling good, Lewis. Let's take a look here at the German Dax. But before we do that, we're going to have Norm, who calls it to the minute, Winsky. We'll be on at 9.30 as usual from Astro Trend down there in beautiful Naples, Florida. And now we'll move on to the Dax. You'll notice that we made a new high up there and then reversed a little bit. Folks, the reason why that chart is important is because the gentleman that sends that to me each morning is an expert tape reader. He watches the markets, how they attack certain support and resistance points. And if they don't go through, he immediately will put an order in knowing that there's not a lot of by stops there. And then it gives him a very, very low risk entry point. Now, if it goes through there and really blasts through like we did in some of these other things, like the bonds and a few of the others, then that's totally different. You can't do that. But if it just gets above those levels and doesn't do anything, that just means that the, you know, the market just hit that area and then it turned around. Also, folks, I've had questions about stops that, you know, these markets should go to those stops. Believe me, they're not looking for your stops on 100 shares of Procter and Gamble or something like that. That just doesn't happen. It just happens to be the normal flutter of the market if you're going to get filled there. Stops are placed for protection. You should use them because if you don't use a stop, you're telling the market that I know more than you and we know how that ends. So just make sure that you have to protect yourself. Now, some people can do this, and I do this myself sometimes, is you don't have to have a stop in the market itself. You can have a desktop, but boy, you have to have the discipline to execute that desktop because if you don't, you're going to be trapped in these things and then you get in the situation where you're going to be wishing you were in a market or out of a market instead of being in. So you've got to be really careful there if you're going to use a desktop. New traders should never do that, in my opinion, but experienced people that have read the tape and what I mean by reading the tape is watch how markets move around highs and lows. See if there's any buying or selling there because if there's buying, the market's going to go through there very, very quickly and that's really what you're trying to do. If you're interested more about that, the really good book for it is Reminisances of a Stock Operator by Edwin LaFever, written many, many years ago, 60, 70 years ago, I've read that book 50 times, but he talks about that, that you see these prices and they go up there and there's just no buying there. If you remember that, let's just do that right now since we're talking about that, dollar index, if you'll recall, is right here, you'll be able to see the same situation. This is when the euro was down there trading down at the 112 level. Notice the, if you look at it really closely, you'll see that 61% retracement or if you go to the left of that just a little bit, you'll see it hit it three times and we went above it and what we do, we went above it by one tick and then the market reversed. That told you pretty much that there was not much buying there, there was no buy stops, no one was afraid of that. In contrast, go back and look at the period of 2014 when the market took out those highs at the 82-50 level, it went straight up and also when it made its final high where you see the head of the head and shoulders pattern, you see how it blasted those highs, that's what you're looking for. So you don't have to, you're not going to get the high tick, you forget about that, but at least you'll know that there's not a lot of buy orders or sell orders at that point. So that's the key to looking at this from using stop placement. So I hope that helps as it was a hard lesson for me to learn but by golly, it's been okay. Let's talk about the gold market. No, we have a question this morning about Bitcoin. If you'll bear with me, we want to answer all of the questions that we get. If you'll hold on here, we'll put this up here. You'll see here that we have Bitcoin has held those levels. We're still really having gone anywhere. We really need to get above 4300 and then we could head up to 8500, but I don't think we're going to see a runaway thing to 19,000 in this right away, but that's I'm very good at guessing. So let's pay attention to that. If you have an interest in the Bitcoin, I follow it each week. Never trade it but follow it. That's basically it. David White is telling us that the Deutsche Bank is up 3% today. They're in negotiation with Commerce Bank. That's like two arsonists being handed gasoline because Commerce Bank is only selling for about $7 a year and Deutsche Bank is about $8 a year, but they both need help. Hopefully they'll put it together and there'll be enough mandates in the room so the stocks will go okay, but Deutsche Bank has got some real serious problems folks and that's a key thing to remember. Folks, if you don't remember anything about what we do here at TFNN, especially on my show, I want you to remember one thing and this is so important because this is a rule to forget. Hold on one second and I'll get it up here because every time I look at this Deutsche Bank chart I have to laugh because I thought it was incredibly funny and we'll get it up here so we can see it. If you go back to January two years ago, let's get this up here, they had a post-Christmas day present for all of the people in Deutsche Bank. It came out right at the end of January and they were going to offer to Deutsche Bank stock for a 35% discount. It wasn't that nice. It's 20. They gave you a 35% discount so you're going to buy that thing at what? A 14 and look at it. We went through there like it didn't even exist. Look at the left-hand side where the high was in March folks. Look at the high in January. You see how it just went above it about 20 cents or even less in a $20 stock and then look what happened. There was a perfect example there where there was nothing there at that point. That's a key thing to remember. Anyway, when it looks like it's too good to be true, you can bet your last penny that it is too good to be true. Pay attention to that. We're trading around 888 right now. We're going to be buying that stock because 888 is the magical numbers in China. It's held. We've had a few higher bottoms now in Deutsche Bank so we could easily get a rally up to 12 or 13 without any trouble at all. That would be nothing more than a 382 retracement much like what we saw in General Electric. Like always my grandma used to say when she used to feed me the oatmeal in the morning when I was sitting in my high chair and she said, remember to find the easy ones. The tough ones are around everywhere. Try to find the easy ones and that's what we're trying to do here at TFNN. We're going to have a little break coming up in a minute and a few minutes after that at the half hour we'll have Norm Winsky in to talk to us about some of the markets that he's looking at. When we get back from the break and when we get back from the break we want to cover two markets the gold and the second one is the Euro. We'll start out with the gold when we get up here after this break so live every day in an attitude of gratitude and may God bless with you right back. The Taz Profile Scanner is the most revolutionary piece of trading software that you will ever try. Wouldn't you like to approach the markets with confidence? As you begin your trading day it's likely that you'll be faced with lots of decisions. In order to make the best decision the first thing you'll need is a strategy that will help you minimize your risks. Whether we're in a bull or bear market a good strategy is to have the tools needed to help you scan and analyze the markets before you trade. The Taz Profile Scanner instantly scans and filters over 2,500 global financial markets such as stocks ETFs, commodity futures and forex. 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See for yourself how you can harness the full power of the Taz Profile Scanner by visiting the front page of TFNN.com today and you'll find the Taz Profile Scanner under the Services section. Remember with a 30 day money back guarantee you have nothing to lose. Don't let another day pass you by without trying out this amazing piece of software that will revolutionize how you look at the market and how you place trades. Sign up today. Many of our new listeners have heard about the Tigers Den The Tigers Den is a lively community where professional traders and investors can meet exchange ideas and information in a comfortable moderated atmosphere. Hear all the TFNN shows plus see all the charts as they happen live and have access to archives of all of those charts. You can test drive the Tigers Den absolutely free for 30 days and greatly enrich your knowledge of these markets and how to make your money work for you. Details on the Tigers Den are on the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN has launched our brand new website you can still visit us at the same TFNN.com URL. But when you do you'll see a new and improved homepage with a much simpler navigation whether you're watching Tiger TV live in high definition or just accessing your newsletter subscriptions. We even have new pricing in six months and yearly options. Check out the new TFNN.com now and experience all the upgrades. TFNN.com educating investors. We'll be right back. We're taking a look at the Gold Market and here again is an example of stop placement. If you'll notice the high on the day and gold in the April gold on Friday was 13 0 5 80 and the high today was 13 0 6 10 30 cents in a contract that's worth 130,000 dollars. I told you there was not a whole lot of buying there. We'll be right back. There was not a whole lot of buying there that buying might come in a little bit later, but it didn't come in at yesterday's highs. So that means something. I mean there was nothing there. One of the reasons why well it was the main reason why I went to Chicago to trade on the floor of the exchange in April of 1982 was the fact that I wanted to see that these stops were actually really placed so that you were fair and that you know they weren't going to stop. So that's what the stops were and folks. I was there two and a half years and I didn't see anything that was hanky panky. If it happened, I didn't see it, but I was watching for it all the time Byron Tucker showed me a few instances of a few games that were being played. But those decks that those brokers held were worth a lot of money. And if they flash what stops were they had the danger of losing money. They had the risk of electronic trading, but it's certainly because of electronic trading. I'm sure there's ways of seeing whether you can do something like that. But your stops are there for protection. You know, that's really what they're there for, and it's protective from yourself folks. And that's the that's the most important. The most important thing at all. But as long as gold can stay below that level, that's a good thing. You know, that's the previous swing breaking through that takes you up to that ABCD structure at 13. 15 still substantially below the high at 13 51. So we're we're still working through some bear market dynamics here, and that would be a major Gartley pattern. If we got that up there around that 13 15 13 17 if we if we do that, but we don't want to go on here to the next one. We want to cover now, folks. Mr. Z's asking me when did I start at Drexel Burnham Lombard started there in August of 1976 right after the the big crop report.  I said I had no idea that I wanted to be a broker. I had no idea that I wanted to be a broker. I had no idea that I wanted to be in the Godfather and they made me an offer. I couldn't refuse. And that's it. I started at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I bought a seat at the IMM. I didn't buy a full CME seat because they were 250 and IMM seat was 110. And that's what I that's what I did. Actually, I bought a seat and since I did so much business with Barry Lynn during my time at Drexel in the meats, Barry treated me very, very nicely. We lost Barry a couple of years ago in Palm Springs, California. He was there helping his son open a restaurant and he was helping a woman that was stranded on the on the road there. Palm Desert Highway and he was helping her change her life. He was killed by a drunk driver from illegal from Mexico and he was killed instantly and very young. He was I think he was well, he was my age. See that was that was about but he's about 75 three, four years ago. Anyway, great guy. Anyway, that's what I did. I stayed there until July of 85.  Okay, let's move on to the next one here. Let's take a look at one that this is going to be a real interesting one today for they're all interesting but this is really on the on the watch the list today. Here is the the crude oil market because we're reaching up here to some really strong support here folks but let's try that and then we'll move down into January. Remember that 43 was a 61 percent retracement coming off of $30 a barrel. So that was a major, major support there. You'll notice that we rallied pretty strongly from 42 all the way up to 46 and then we went sideways for two weeks and then we came out of that consolidation area and away it went but look where we are now. You see here, we're going to take six of these bars to make a eight of these bars to make a six times four 24. Yeah, six of these bars to make a day. So we've been up here for a couple days here at this area 5900. So here's a perfect example today is if you if you get about 5900 and you don't go blasting through that could be the completion of that 1.27 expansion. But if you go through there quickly, you know there's going to be another expansion here because there's another ABCD structure setting in that way and it hasn't shown any signs of backing off off as of yet. So watch that one. That's going to be that's on my watch list for today. So we'll just, you know, see what's going on with that now. We had another question about one of the fang stocks. They asked which was the most bullish of all fang stocks in Google. Google has been the one that is the most bullish here. You'll see that we're almost at the 78% level with the market strong today. We could easily get there at 12. Well, that's only up about 30 bucks. We could easily get there at 12 10 in Google, but that's the strongest. The weakest of the fang stocks hands down without any trouble at all is the book. Facebook is the one that is by far in fact, it gapped down Friday and didn't do anything and it's down again today too. So this stock has got a lot of trouble if he gets below 160. But we're trading around 166 this morning. But if we get below 160 in Facebook, then it's got some real serious problems. So we'll see the question about is Mr. Z is asking about softy Microsoft. Is it ever going to work? Let's take a quick look here at softy for Mr Z and see what we've got here. This M is with Mickey mouse. They kept that the New York Stock Exchange kept M open on the on their letters, you know, single letters for Microsoft all those years and Bill Gates never left Nasdaq. So anyway, let's take a look here. It's actually, oh, hey, there's a good one here. Here's here's a real interesting one. Let's take a second. Here's that situation again, where you notice we made a double top from October at the 116 level. We've taken that out and it never went anywhere. Didn't even go a dollar higher folks. So watch softy here because it's trading at 116 10. The high yesterday was 117 58. So, you know, if you're interested in, uh, you know, selling Microsoft products, you know, if you're interested in selling Microsoft products, you need to tape and that's one of those things there was no buying there at the at that new level. So that also happened to be a 1.618 expansion of the move from February down into early March. So there's a possibility there that that could be a double top in Microsoft. I'm not saying that is, but I'm just saying it's a double top. So I don't know. We'll see. Hey, we got Norm Winsky coming up in about four minutes,<PHONE_NUMBER> Larry Pezzavento has just started his brand new service Fibonacci 24 seven and he's already delivering content to his subscribers on a daily basis when the markets opened and even on weekends. Each Monday, you'll receive Larry's written report that provides information and throughout the week when warranted, Larry will send out via charts or videos or both the key markets that he is watching during the day. This will be up to the date active trading information that will help you in your daily trading in Larry's first week alone. He sent out 25 charts, six videos and a full report to his subscribers in just one week. If you're a technical trader that uses patterns and patterns, right now, new subscribers can get a full 30 day money back guarantee with nothing to risk. Sign up now to Larry Pezzavento's Fibonacci 24 seven by visiting the front page of TFN dot com under trading newsletters. The path of least resistance is David White's daily trading newsletter. And if you're looking for active trading ideas, then now is a perfect time for a 30 day free trial to this powerful daily trading newsletter. David White's daily trading newsletter offers his subscribers his trading ideas each morning in his path of least resistance newsletter using a combination of equity trades along with options. David keeps his subscribers up to date with all pertinent market information with intraday afternoon updates when warranted. Don't miss out on this great chance to get a 30 day free trial to David's Facebook page. If you'd like to see the type of newsletter he delivers every morning, then visit the front page of TFNN and you'll find the path of least resistance under trading newsletters for all the details and to start your 30 day free trial today, log on to TFNN dot com now TFNN is excited about our new software charting program, the art of timing the trade charts in collaboration with Tom and David White for Ultimate Trading Mastery System. David White has programmed an outstanding piece of software that will complement any trader's methodology. Using this first of its kind program, the art of timing the trade charts allows you to scan thousands of stocks for Fibonacci formation setups, including guardleafs, ABCs, butterflies and much more. The art of timing the trade charts is designed to help you when scouring the markets for stocks for months, searching to find. And right now we're offering licenses available at only $79 a month. We are so confident that you're going to love this new charting software that will even give you a 30 day unconditional money back guarantee. Don't miss out on this incredible new piece of software. Get your copy of the art of timing the trade charts today by visiting TFNN dot com. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information just click the Think or Swim page on the front page of TFNN dot com. Well evidently technical problems are keeping us from reaching Norm Winsky, so we're going to move on here and talk about soybeans here. I put up a long term monthly chart here going back over the last 20 years. You can see we've had some incredible moves here like in 2003, 2008 and in 2012. You can see that there was a three drive to a top pattern and look where we are now folks. We're setting at the 78% level of the low from 2006. It's made a beautiful butterfly bottom and we've been this a monthly chart and we've been higher now for eight months in a row. It hasn't moved down considering all the problems we've had with China and the tariffs. That's a possibility of a very, very strong formation. The one thing that we've got going here in the soybeans and in the corn and wheat is that it is universally bearish. With that crop report that we had last week, it tells us that we've got enough grain to last us through the next millennial which is usually three weeks when the weather gets really hot, but you know they're saying that there's just nothing out there and the demand could be weakening if the China tariffs don't go through. So all I'm saying is keep an eye on this because if that El Nino current comes in, it can cause havoc with the crop and you can lose 20-30%. We've never really had a crop failure in these things folks. We've come close a few times but we haven't had one and if we do and if we do then when you're looking at some really really serious really really serious things to look at. You're right Mr. Bill Microsoft did complete that nice little ABCD up at that double top so that's another reason to possibly take a look at it. The fact that it took out that high at $1.1678 in October by 20 cents and didn't go anywhere I mean you're talking about a very very popular stock that didn't do too much so we'll see what's going on with these things but anyway those are the ones that we're really sort of watching really closely remember last week we were talking about the one of the futures up we have questions for one of our futures traders which we have a lot of them there in the room but we were looking at the we were looking at the wheat and what we did is because the market was cascading down so much what we decided to do was to go in and see what was happening with wheat and as you can see from the 20th of February into the 1st of March down to the 12th of March and this is a four hour chart excuse me hourly chart so you've got four days what six six days in between each you see the highs and lows you see the low made there on the 20th the 3rd of March and again on the 12th of March that's a ABCD down you can see the symmetry there and that tells you where you're going one of the tricks for finding a three drive pattern is if you have to force it in other words you have to think whether it's a three drive pattern or not it's not a three drive pattern it's got to be very very symmetrical now we came in today with the market trading it around the 460 level I believe around 458 right now the ideal situation here in May wheat is if we could get a nice three day correction 18th 19th 20th of March 20th of March is the full moon that we have coming in and the following day we have the these equinox we got the spring equinox coming in so this could be very interesting the spring equinox was very very important this was featured on clay tablets from Sumeria wheat traders and Babylonian wheat traders that was highlighted in Dr. Andrews Low's book the evolution of technical analysis and the first 50 pages he talked about the first technicians were astrologers and you know whether that was true or not I don't know but when you're looking at these charts and you're looking at a bar chart the only thing you're watching is the sum total of all the buying and all the selling if there's more buyers prices are going up if there's more sellers prices are going down that's the whole thing to watch now since we're talking about wheat here I think it's worthy to get up to see the long-term picture in the wheat here because you'll be able to see here in the long-term picture you can see the big ABCD coming down and then we've highlighted that full moon where it says March the 20th and then it's also the first day of spring is the following day and that's another one that looks pretty interesting you'll notice that the if you go back into December of last year you can see the market making an ABCD pattern at the $54 $5.44 a bushel level we then dropped $1.20 a bushel into that ABCD structure that we just hit how much more of a rally we're going to know but the ideal setup is to we've had a really nice three-day rally coming off the bottom now if we could get the market to come down into the full moon with just maybe a 61 or 78% retracement that would really be an interesting one from the long side because it would certainly be very very interesting my goodness Mr. Z are the hogs up again today limit up oh dear that one a little bit too soon you talk about leaving money on the table shut the front door and raise the rent let's look at that because sometimes you think you know these markets and you don't but I'll just bring this up here we'll show you the June hogs oh my goodness shut the front door and raise the rent it was up two days in a row here and we'll be able to see here we exploded now when we went through that one and change level which was we bought it at 73 we bought June hogs at 73 and we got out of them at 80-55 we made seven points and then the next two days limit up each day three points left six points on the table and hey you know you have a choice that you can take part of your position off or you can take it all off all I was doing was looking at what we had made in a very very short period of time and I had to make a decision of whether to keep my position or to take profits or raise the stop and I have to make that decision and I did that one was wrong but you know it still made good money but look at the money that I left on the table remember those four fears that everybody works about those fears that are not even fears you know the fear of losing money you do that all the time that's what trading is all about the fear of missing out and then the last one the fear of leaving money on the table that's the silliest fear of all folks because the only person that doesn't leave money on the table is the person that gets the absolute low or high tick and his name is Tom O'Brien I don't know who does that but very few people you know get the higher low tick but it doesn't mean anything when you look at your equity run you know they don't even have those anymore but when you look at your equity you can see that oh gee it doesn't have an asterisk there say wow this is the high of the day this is the low of the day it doesn't mean anything so it's all about the risk control it's not about the money you make it's about the money you don't lose and once you do that you're going to be far better off than if you try to figure out where you're going to get the warm son of a gun I'm a little worried about him because he's never off track so we'll see alright we're going to come up here we've got another break I wanted to cover another one of the futures markets that we're looking at because it's another idea of the things that are interesting and that is in the heating oil market I wanted to bring this up to you and I'll show you the daily heating oil here at the 50% retracement level but when we get back I think you're right I think he's been abducted by aliens probably from the planet Venus Maria you're right welcome 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investment newsletters will the S&P 500 continue to climb gold trades on U.S. large-cap stocks in either direction trade SPXL SPUU or SPXS directions daily S&P 500, bull and bear leveraged ETFs direction leveraged ETFs an investor should carefully consider a fund's investment objective risks, charges and expenses before investing a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and other information about direction shares to obtain a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus call<PHONE_NUMBER> or visit directioninvestments.com a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing an investment in the funds is subject to risk including the possible loss of principal the funds are designed to be utilized only by sophisticated investors such as traders and active investors distributor for side fund services LLC and level C ok i'm back folks i posted the chart of the heating oil which is one of the components of the crude oil cracking of the crude oil into products of heating oil and gasoline and you'll notice the heating oil has been going down and the crude oil has been going up heating oil has been going down that brings to the you want to sell the weakest contract and buy the strongest. That's out of Livermore's book, Reminisces of a Stock Operator. But if you'll take a look at this here, you'll be able to see here that you see the 3 drive, the 135 pattern, lower tops. Now remember we're making higher tops in the crude oil. So that's why we need to watch that 95 level very, very closely in the crude oil. Because if it takes that out and doesn't go anywhere, that's an extremely low risk trade because you're dealing with a contract that's worth $59,000 and you can trade it for just, you know, probably around 400 bucks. So that's the ideal situation if we get that. We've had a request to take a look at Copper and we will, but I need to do the Euro because I said I was going to and I haven't been able to do it. Let's get this up here to take a quick look at it. Here's where we were Friday. Okay, I'll do that Mr. Z. You'll notice here in the Euro, we got up to 13, 113.55 last night and we took out the highs of Friday by a little bit. We're now trading at 113.44. Haven't really done anything. I'm watching for a 382 pullback in here because this has got a real chance to have something really big happen. You need to know what that first retracement is, folks. And because if it only is a 382 retracement, which would at this point would be down 80 pips from the high, that would really be an interesting one because you right out of 382, really strong possibility that that three drive to a bottom pattern from January through March is very, very important. And especially since you'll look at that low price down there, 111.75, that was the exact to the tick 61% retracement from several years ago. And here again, you took out those lows by seven or eight pips and the market went nowhere. And then look at snapback and it's rallied over 170 pips without hardly any trouble at all. So watch that very closely here in the crude. We get down to that real key level at 112.80. Anything below 112.80, the jury is still going to be out. They're going to have to have more time to consider what's going to happen. But right now, watch that closely. That'll be a 382 retracement. And if it does it, and if it does it in ABCD format, then you'll be able to look at it. Okay. Okay, someone here says, if Norm does not show up, would you be okay to post his page with the upcoming events? Yeah, I think I could do that. I can do that. I'll do that right after the, I'll do that. I'll post that upcoming events page for you folks. This is highly, we've had Norm on now for four years. This is the first curtain call that he's missed. So let's let's hope that he's okay. I chatted with him this morning by Skype, so I know he's all right. Well, he was at the time, but as we know, things change in the world of this and that. All right, let's get this copper up and we'll take a quick look at it here. Here's another situation where copper has had a two week correction and can't even make a 382 move down, folks. So this is a, it's very, very interesting here in the copper. Let's get this up here. Take a quick look at this here. Alrighty, there's the copper. You'll see we made a 50% retracement here two weeks ago. We're now down two weeks. We've not been able to correct anymore from 297 down to 288. We've made that double bottom there. We're trading at 292 right now. There will be some pretty strong resistance, I believe, up around the 61% retracement, which is around $3 a pound. So that's an interesting one to watch too, but we did have a beautiful double bottom. Here again, folks, if you know, this is just one example after another. Look at this example here. We make a low in August of 255, right? Then we make a ABCD pattern and make a new low at what, 253.5? Are you kidding me? A contract that's worth, what, $20,000 and it makes a lower low by $100? I mean, there was no selling there at all. Look what happened. The market exploded. It rallied 10 cents a pound before you even had a chance to get in. So watch those old highs and lows. They're there for a reason. It's just supply and demand, but that's what you're looking at when you're watching some of these things. So, you know, this has been a 10-day correction and copper hasn't gone anywhere. That's certainly not a bearish pattern, folks. There's no, I mean, it's downtrend, of course, but has no sell-off. I mean, it really hasn't given the fact that it had that, you know, big move up from 254 up to 297. It's backed off very, very little. The 382 on that brings you down to around 282. So there's 10 cents support lower in copper from where it's trading right now, which is 292. So I hope that helps. We'll keep a close eye on it, if nothing else, as we always do with these things. So we'll watch it here. We've got a brand new high, recovery high. We're not in a new high ground yet, but we just made a new recovery high up here at 2838 here in the E-mini S&P. It's acting relatively well. Gold continues to move down. We got down to 1304. In the gold, the high's been 130610. And then we'll see what's going on here with that. The bonds, we have a lot of resistance at 14618, but that's pretty much what we're looking at right here. We've got Mr. Z on the line. What can I help you with, my friend? Mr. Pezzavento, I thought I would ask you a question about real-time markets and draw upon and ask you to draw upon some historical experience you have had dating back into the 80s, be it 82 and 83. Specifically, Larry, I wanted to ask if you would comment on the live hog futures contracts. As you showed in your daily chart just posted, the June hog contract has surged over, I guess, even the last nine trading days. And just to put some meat on the bones, the prior contract high for that June contract was 85.5 cents. And that was made last Thanksgiving or so. And the rally that has occurred the past three days came from well under that level, extended over that for the first time on a closing basis just Friday, which was limit up at 86.5. And then this morning, as is not unusual with a limit up market, this morning's open at 9.30 a.m. was higher. But after opening higher and the high up at 88.8 cents occurring in the first minutes, we are now three cents under. So clearly, there's some group of players were ready there to sell. And I've heard you comment, Larry, over the years listening to you here on TFNN. I've heard you talk of situations you were intimately involved with, whether it was soybeans or pork bellies or something, where markets had gone up and up and up and the news was bullish and then the price action didn't respond to the bullish news. So my question is, can you just share with us, I'd like to listen to you, just kind of freewheel it regarding this opening high and now down three cents on the June hogs and what that might more tend. I will bring that up right after the break,<PHONE_NUMBER>. I'll teach you the exact set of tools that I use that has transformed me into one of the best at what I do. Sign up for Mastering Probability today by clicking on the newsletter tab on the homepage of TFNN.com and get immediate access to workshops where I take you step by step how to use an extraordinary set of tools as well as provide great market calls too. Sign up today. If you haven't checked out the newsletter's page of TFNN.com what are you waiting for? All of the TFNN newsletters are informative, up-to-date, affordable and must have for every trader looking to gain a competitive informational edge in today's markets. TFNN newsletters cover every aspect of the markets to offer you the very latest in market news plus new subscribers get to test drive our newsletters risk-free for 30 days. From all aspects of the markets including stocks, bonds, metals, commodities and tech there's a newsletter to fit your needs exclusively from TFNN. Stay informed each day you trade and get that competitive edge that will help you stay ahead of the game. Visit our newsletters page by going to TFNN.com and click the newsletters button near the top of the page. TFNN.com educating investors. Since 1984, Basil Chapman has been using the Chapman Wave methodology to advise traders of his expert market opinion. While originally hand drawing charts from the late 1970s into the 1980s Basil noticed that prices under most circumstances virtually always had a certain number of legs to the upside before declining sharply. Later Basil found that computer software which included the standard market technical indicators enhanced the degree of accuracy and calling price turns as well as market trend calls. Thus was born the Chapman Wave sequence. Using the Chapman Wave methodology along with other indicators Basil Chapman advises his subscribers of his expert market opinion each market day with his opening call newsletter. Right now you can get a two-week free trial to the opening call Basil's daily trading newsletter by visiting the front page of TFNN.com. Cancel at any time during that trial and pay absolutely nothing. Get your two-week free trial to Basil's newsletter the opening call today by visiting TFNN.com. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information just click the Think or Swim banner on the front page of TFNN.com. Okay folks we've been talking with Mr. Z from our Tiger Den here in Philadelphia and we were talking about the fact that the hogs were limit up two days they would close limit up on Friday. They opened slightly higher today and then broke three cents which is over thousand dollars. The only way you can take advantage of that folks is to see what the opening call was you can get that from your from your machines they'll give you an idea where the bids are and if it's only up a little bit it might have been called two cents higher and if it only opens up you know .8 cents or .2 cents that tell you there's no buying there and then when the market reverses you better have your order in there because you know too many people have been long and now they could be trapped from the short side we don't know that but in order to take advantage of that the only way you can do it is be prepared for it by watching what the tape is going to do because it could have opened a dollar and a half to two dollars or even three dollars higher because of the fact that it was limit up but when it doesn't do that then you have an idea that well there was not a lot of buying there and then you can see what happened it broke well over a thousand dollars in a matter of a few minutes so I will find out what's wrong with the norm I'm sure I will I hope I will anyway and we'll try to post the key times that he was looking at for today and tomorrow maybe we'll have him on Friday of this week and see if we can get him on then if we possibly can but I'll do my best to track it out highly unusual that he didn't make the call this morning keep an eye on three things folks the euro we get above that one thirteen seventy that's very very bullish keep an eye on the crude oil at fifty nine dollars a barrel and also keep an eye on that gold because if gold can get above thirteen thirteen oh nine it's got a really good chance to complete that abcd garley that's up there around thirteen seventeen also the s&p if we make new highs and don't go anywhere then that's a possibility of a you know a market moving right now which we did we got up to thirteen excuse me twenty three thirty eight so it's still going higher nothing to do there but uh the three that i'm watching of course are the euro the crude oil and the gold those are the ones i think offer the best so live every day in an attitude of gratitude and may god bless


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