I think we all look at the world today and we realize that we are facing many challenges, whether they are in the economic domain, in social issues such as inequality, poverty or environment, climate change, erosion of ecosystems. In 2015 the nations of the world came together and set themselves an agenda, an agenda to work together and that is essentially the product that we now refer to as the Sustainable Development Goals. Seventeen goals that are not the answer to everything but they provide a framework. A framework for looking at issues together with a common understanding but also a framework that can become a platform at national level in the business world. We refer to them as universal goals because they bring all nations together but also integrated. They've kind of become an organizing principle. People can rally around the particular goals that they're interested in, that their investment thesis is. Is that, I mean, is that bearing fruit? Yes, because, you know, we live in an age of complexity and complexity can be paralyzing so the first thing that I think the goal provides is a sort of common understanding of how do we deal with complexity. The goals also provide us with entry points but we should always realize that one of the premises of the Sustainable Development Goals is that you can't just pick out one goal and say that's the only thing I worry about. The relationship between these goals is first of all one that will allow you to be more successful, it can produce multiple benefits. So, you know, we lived in a 20th century world where economic progress defined essentially success. At the beginning of the 21st century the social and the environmental dimensions are haunting us in part because of the failures that we did not recognize soon enough. Revolutions happen, planetary challenges happen. The economy of the 21st century needs to be one that delivers prosperity but also equity and outcomes and opportunities and a sustainability pathway. We can't use this planet like a mining operation. And that is in part, I think, where business now finds the Sustainable Development Goals very interesting because there is a global marketplace out there. If it starts operating with a common understanding of what matters, what needs attention, it's also a way to connect consumers and producers. The markets of tomorrow are in part defined through the Sustainable Development Goals because they focus on the challenges that together with the business world, the impact investment community, we can begin to turn into solutions and therefore markets for investment, for technology, for new business models. I think you'll tell me the numbers but people talk about a financing gap of something like $2.5 trillion a year in reaching these goals. At some level it seems like a staggering number. How do we fill that gap? Well, when you look at the fact that total wealth in the world is somewhere around $300 trillion, then you can see that actually in part it captures a degree to which economic activity would happen anyway. The question is can investment, can our wealth that we have accumulated be invested in tomorrow's economy that provides solutions to some of these problems, or do we simply invest in the 20th century economy on energy technology, on mobility, on the concepts for urban living and urbanization? But also on agriculture, how do we produce the food to feed 10 billion people without destroying the very capital, which is soils and water resources that we use? We also waste over 35% of all food produced every year. It's never consumed and it's an extraordinary economic failure. It's that which we need to address together and that is where I think the Sustainable Development Goals become an enabler to draw capital, to align our capacity to invest, which is enormous, unprecedented in history of humanity today, with the development outcomes that we actually wish to have for our children, for our community, for our nations. But there's not really a gap at some level. It's kind of an opportunity map of the big industries, the big sectors of the 21st century. Well it's a gap for those who are actually trying to bring new solutions to these problems, to the market, to our societies, because they cannot find the investors to put their money there. But as we know, there are people all over the world sitting on enormous mountains of cash wanting to invest and not finding the right opportunities. So we have a misalignment here. That's where part of the work of the United Nations with its specialized agencies working with governments is trying to address the public policy framework. Because if we can incentivize these investments, suddenly we open up channels for enormous amounts of funding actually being directed towards these solutions. Just a simple example, take climate change. In just 15 years, because of the realization that we had to decarbonize our energy supply, a whole new energy revolution has unfolded. We now have a 300 billion plus investment market every year in renewable energy technology. The patents were in draws for decades. It was when public policy on behalf of our societies took the decision that we have to make the transition, suddenly the opportunities for investment arose and the private sector impact investment has created truly a transformation in our energy systems. These are the kinds of interfaces between recognizing where the need to act is, looking at the potential for drawing in investors and putting the right public policy in place.


I'm going to tell a little bit about what Amit was just talking about, how to use a framework and a child theme to be, well, to create better themes, easier, and with a lot more options. So I'm a big fan of Genesis, and Genesis is a parent theme that allows us to build very nice things. And I'll show you in a bit. So again, my name is Ram Khristofriis. This is, you can find me on Twitter. My company name is Forsyth Media, and I also have a WordPress related blog called WPRilm. You should check it out. Why Genesis? There's a lot of frameworks out there. There's a lot of solutions in WordPress community that will allow you to basically do what I'm telling you to do. But why do I choose for Genesis? Well, the most important reason is that when using WordPress with Genesis, you are using the best practices because you are using WordPress. And because Genesis uses WordPress the way it's supposed to be used, and that gives you endless possibilities. Possibilities because, you know, when you build your theme, your parent theme like WordPress is being built, you don't have to worry too much about breaking stuff when WordPress updates or when other plugins who also do it correctly, like Gravity Forms, for instance, you don't have to worry about updates messing around with your theme. So Genesis Framework, what is it exactly? Well, it's a framework, it's a powerful WordPress theme that acts as a design security and SEO foundation for your site. So it's basically a theme. And within that theme, all this is already taken care of. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's already been done for you. And it will allow you to separate your design from your code, from your functionality. It will allow you to have SEO part of the theme from the get go. So why specifically Genesis? In my experience, and even though I've been using Genesis for the last couple of years almost exclusively, I do check out what the competition has to offer. But in my experience, Genesis gets updated quite regularly and is in better sync with WordPress. Safety first is a big motto. And like new WordPress functionalities are automatically added. So like when post formats were introduced, all you had to do is upgrade Genesis and all your existing themes, even if you built them two years ago, they will still have the ability to add post formats like they are supposed to be. Best practices for SEO are already implemented and, well, stable, stable, stable. Because you want to have a framework that is stable. You want to create it. You want to leave it. And if you don't touch it for another year, that should be fine. And all the WordPress updates shouldn't mess around with whatever you have created. Child themes. I already spoke a little bit about child themes. Well, Matt Mullen, the co-founder of WordPress, said it very nicely.  So like I said, WordPress is built to be used like this, to be used in conjunction with the framework. So really what does the child theme do? If the framework already has all the functionality, all the design in very basic layout already taken care of, what does the child theme do? Well, it sits on top of that framework. It handles all the design and all the layout aspects of your site. So colors, layout, topography, extra functionalities, anything you can think of that is extra in comparison to the default framework, that's what you do in the child theme. So you don't ever touch the code of Genesis. You look at it, you learn it, but you don't touch it, you don't change it. So how to make one? Well, this is a bit of repeating what Amit said, but all you have to do is create a folder inside your themes directory with the name, create a style sheet, create a functions PHP file, and have a Ceresa. What does it look like in case of Genesis? This is actually the one you're seeing now is the one, it's publicly available. It's the one we use for WP Realm, and it's based on Genesis. And as you can see, it states the normal things, theme name, URI, description, author. We added versions, but the important one is the template tag that says Genesis. That's telling the theme that, you know, for all the functionality, look at Genesis, but the rest is done in the WP Realm theme. So this setup, this separation of framework and child theme allows us to go from this, which is the default layout of Genesis. This is how it looks. If you don't touch it, if you don't change the child theme, this is it. But you can make it look like this, which doesn't look like Genesis, doesn't look like WordPress, I hope, or maybe I should be proud of it, I don't know. But what you see here is a very custom home page. It's got nothing to do with what Genesis normally looks like. So you can make it look like this, have sliders, custom functionality. The orange bar that you see is calculating based on your postal code and a radius of kilometers, you can find the jobs that are closest to you. This is a site that, you know, uses WordPress to host jobs basically for the postal company in the Netherlands. So another example, again, it really doesn't matter what example I show, pretty much any design or as far as your imagination goes, you can create a child theme of. So, how? Who here has ever created a child theme? Who has ever created a child theme? Raise your hands, please. Who doesn't, who didn't know what child themes was before today? Rafa. Okay, but, okay, so you know, the idea behind it is that you learn whatever platform you work with. So the first thing we work with is WordPress. So how many of you look at the code what WordPress actually does? Okay, a few hands. So how many of those, how many people here are developers are creating code? Okay. So the how is, again, it's very easy. You change the default style sheet to whatever you like. You don't import. Amit was showing a version where you import the style sheet for 2010 or 2011, it was, I think. But importing is a little bit slower. So ideally you want to start out with the style sheet, the default style sheet of Genesis which has everything in it and you put it in the style sheet of the child theme itself. So from here, you just change what you need to change. If you want a different header, you want an extra, well, you know, anything you can think of, that's what you do in that child theme. You override the default functions. Now one important thing about learning how to play with Genesis is that all the functionality has been brought back to small little functions. And those functions, they hook into places that either Genesis creates or WordPress already has created. So when you look at the HTML structure or, for instance, this one, it's clear to see what the header is. But within the header, we have a top navigation and we have the normal navigation. Now because they are functions, I can write, well, I can unhook the navigation at the place that it's currently at, which is Genesis after header. And if I want to have it on top, I change that to Genesis before header. And that's two lines of code. And that's the only thing you have to change. And Genesis will take care of the rest for you. So if you look at the default layout, you'll see that when you look at the post, you'll see the sample post within threaded comments. You see below that, you see the post info which says, you know, it's created on September 1st, 2012 by Brian Gardner and it has six comments. So what if you don't want to show how many comments there are? Or maybe you don't care about the date. Maybe you want to have a timeless thing going on. The idea is that instead of having to go to every single template file, you change the function output. So if the function output by default is post info says use the post date, post time, post author and post comments and you just want to show post author, then you adjust the filter in the way that you just say okay, whenever there's a post info output, only show the post info. If you'd like to have extra functionality, like the one I showed you with the orange search button, you would do that just the way you would do that with your normal theme. You create a library and within that library, that's where you logically house your code. You structure it as much as possible because that's basically keeping you sane. So what does that look like in the example of WP Realm? You see that we have in on the left you'll see WP themes, W content themes and you have the Genesis framework sitting on top and at the bottom you see the child theme of WP Realm. Now if you look inside the library you'll see there's a bunch of stuff going on. We have stuff that's specifically for admin. We have custom fonts. We have HTML stuff that needs to be in there. We have JavaScripts. We have markup things. We have metaboxes. We have specific plugins that we only use for this site and there's in this case two extra resources and sketches which you don't normally use but that's the way that it's set up. What this does is just create a good solid code base and a good folder structure. So what you need to properly work with WordPress is to learn about hooks, actions and filters because that is WordPress. You may not know it but every single plugin that you activate is doing nothing more than this. It's manipulating, it's adding or it's removing. But it does it through the hooks and the filters and obviously the actions. So I'm told this is how you... So to learn about hooks, actions and filters is to learn about WordPress. Should be a capital P? Damn it. Fran helped me. I can blame him. But really to know... I know a lot of people are accustomed to, you know, you want something changed on your site and the first thing you do is you check for the plugin. And if there's a plugin found, you activate it and you're done with it. Yeah. Yeah, some are even happy about it. Honestly, if you want to be a better developer, if you want to be... if you want to understand what you're actually working with better then you ought to do yourself a favor and check out the codecs. Now you may not be the best programmer but you don't have to be. You can read. And I assume since you're all working with WordPress and that English reading, speaking... reading, you all can read English. So checking out a codecs to see what that thing that WordPress installation is actually doing is actually helping you understanding better how you can manipulate WordPress to whatever you would like. And in the end, that's going to reduce your time working with it. You learn to make quicker decisions because you know what the product actually does. So to learn about hooks and acts and filters is to learn about Genesis because Genesis works the exact same way. Doesn't reinvent the wheel. Doesn't do any funny stuff. Just does what you expect it to do. But does it really smart, really fast, and really secure? So just to give you an example of what a hook is that Genesis adds. There's places. I can't help it. I feel special. You all probably know that in your header you have WP underscore head. That's why you add stuff like Google Analytics and... better? I can't reach it. Better? Then I'm eating it. Oh, yeah. So Genesis before is what it says. This hook executes immediately after the opening in the document source. So right after HTML, the declaration, that's where you can add stuff. Genesis after loop. Right after the loop is a place that you can use. And if you need to output code, if you need to change something there, that would be the place to use. And Genesis before header, I gave you that example earlier. When you want to move the navigation up one bit, then you use, for instance, that hook. How to use a hook example. This is an example of what a function would actually look like. So the function really, all it does is remove the post title on the specific quote post format. So if the post has... sorry. If the post format is quote, remove the action, Genesis post title, and at the location. And then else, because it needs to add it back because otherwise it's going to be gone on all of them. And when you go all the way in the top, you see the add action. So the function I just created needs to be added to Genesis before post because I want that specific code executed before every single post. So how to use a filter example. Genesis comes with six different layouts. Now, for instance, let's say we use the default of content sidebar. But for the home page, you always want to use full width for whatever reason. This would be a way to create, to override a filter by stating that we need to use the value of full width content. So it's, you know, anybody familiar with a little bit of code, this shouldn't be rocket science. And if you're curious, there are a lot of resources about Genesis. I think in the Genesis framework is the most popular one because it's the most solid one. But I also believe it's the most written about one. There's a lot of people doing very nice and nifty stuff with Genesis. Obviously, I'm one of those nifty people, but there are more. So if you look at the Genesis tutorials, Genesis plugins, and you have like Nick Croft, Bill Erickson, Gary Jones, those are people who do a lot, but share a lot as well. Now, when you go to GitHub, anybody have a GitHub account? Just Google for Genesis and you'll see a lot of solutions are already out there. There's a lot of gists being used to demonstrate how you can manipulate or do things that, you know, you don't have to invent the code for. Travis Smith of WP Smith, also a very good resource on Genesis. Now, you can actually, you have to buy Genesis. That's the only caveat. You have to buy it because it's a premium framework, but you only pay $60 once and you can use it as many times you want for the rest of your life. So it's a very small investment. But the WP Realm theme is available on GitHub for you to check out, to learn from, to help improve. And obviously Google is your friend as well. If there's anything you'd like to do or change or want to know about Genesis, you can obviously ask me, but there's a lot of room for your Google capabilities. So I've tried not to go too technical, but I'm, you know,


I want to make a plea to members that, in order to get in as many members as possible, I would appreciate synced questions and answers to match. I would like to call question number one, Pauline McNeill. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to support the development and expansion of Glasgow's international financial services district in the past year. Minister, Richard Lochhead. Glasgow's International Financial Services district is driven by a partnership between the public and private sectors, and since its launch, more than £1 billion of investment has been secured, more than 90 per cent from the private sector, bringing more than 15,500 jobs to the area so far. Scottish Enterprise has completed the purchase of a key development site in December 2022 to facilitate continued investment on the grooming law, and through the agreed master plan, continuing to work in partnership with the private sector, this will expand the district west of the current boundary and will unlock even more opportunities for the district. I thank the minister for that thorough answer. Bartley Spine decided to invest in Glasgow in 2018, and JP Morgan agreed to expand and become tenants of the new office in Argyll Street in 2019. However, there does not appear to have been much progress since then. In November last year, I was saying young reported that 655,000 square feet of development under construction in Glasgow, only 55 per cent of that is pre-let or sold. There is a concern that Glasgow remains low compared to pre-Covid levels, and, importantly, those prospective occupies are looking for grade A office space. Therefore, I ask the minister to outline how ensuring that a pipeline of grade A office space is available, what specific inward investment pitches have been made to investors over the past year, and how many notes of interest have been submitted. If he cannot give me the answer today, I would appreciate a follow-up if that was possible. I am happy to follow-up the member's questions in writing. After question times, a lot of detail is quite rightly seeking there. Since the launch of the financial district, more than 15,000 jobs have moved into the district through new investment expansion or diversified development. Of course, the district is playing a really, really big role as being a catalyst for regenerating the grooming law in the west city centre area. There have been many new investments this year alone, bringing more new jobs to the area from a number of companies. I am right in saying that there are several dozen fintech companies now based in the city. Glasgow is forging a really impressive international reputation as an international financial centre. I am keen to support that, as are my colleagues in the Scottish Government. I am happy to write back to the member about what action has been taken. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how it is supporting communities and local authorities to strengthen local bus networks across Scotland. Local authorities have greater tools at their disposal from the Transport Scotland Act 2019 to revitalise bus networks. Since June of 2022, authorities are able to run their own local services. From 1 April, they can now request more information from operators via a new information sharing process if they propose to vary or cancel services. Further legislation on partnerships and franchising will be introduced later this year. Separately, £26 million of bus priority funding through the bus partnership fund has been awarded to 11 partnerships covering 28 Scottish local authorities to tackle congestion and improve journey reliability. Mark Ruskell. I think that the answer is from the minister and the package that is emerging. Despite public subsidies, private bus operators are still slashing services in rural areas, communities such as the Glenfark community transport group are stepping up and are providing new services. This community group recently launched a new bus service running on a recently axed route from Glenfark to Kinross, which managed to carry around 200 passengers in its first week alone. Can I ask the minister to outline the Scottish Government's plan to support communities to deliver the quality bus services that they deserve? It is always heartening when communities get actively involved in improving their local services. I welcome the launch of bus service 55 in Glenfark. We brought forward a toolkit of flexible bus options in the Transport Scotland Act 2019 to enable local authorities, such as Perth and Kinross Council, to respond to transport challenges in their own areas. Local authorities now have the power to run their own bus services, which sits alongside their existing ability to subsidise services. In 2021-22, local authority spent £55 million on subsidising socially necessary services. Powers to develop bus service improvement partnerships and to establish local services franchising will follow. As Mr Ruskell knows, because we have already had the discussions, we are also introducing a community bus fund to support local transport authorities to explore the options in the Transport Act 2019 and to improve public transport in their areas, like what is happening in Glenfark. I have a number of supplementaries. I will only be able to take some given-on-time constraints. I would make a plea again for succinct questions and minister succinct answers. I call supplementary from Graham Simpson. Thank you very much. If the minister was serious about getting people on to buses, then he would take action on fares as he is doing on the trains. Why doesn't he replicate what they have in England at the moment, which is a fair cap on local bus journeys? We will continue to look at fares as we move forward, not only on rail but also on bus. Why would I point out to Mr Simpson that we do things somewhat differently here? If we look at what we have in this country, we have a concessionary travel scheme, which covers over six days and under 22s. In all that, we are investing some £359.3 million in those schemes, which benefit people right across Scotland, over 2.3 million people across Scotland who have access to free bus travel. That is certainly not the case south of the border. Referencing the concessionary bus fares, which I welcome, can I ask how much those subsidies—indeed, I would call them investments in the services cost? As I just pointed out to Mr Simpson, we are investing £359.3 million in concessionary travel, giving 2.3 million people access to free bus travel in Scotland. In March of 2022, the child poverty action group reported that free bus travel for young people can save a total of £3,000 in the lifetime cost of a child in Scotland. That is also tackling child poverty. With more than 3 million journeys every week, those schemes are helping people right across our nation to cut costs for essential everyday and leisure travel, making sustainable travel a more attractive option. Of course, all that supports our net zero ambitions, too. I will be able to squeeze in Monica Lennon as a supplementary if I can get a succinct answer for the minister. Monica Lennon. The free bus travel is great, but in parts of Scotland, bus fares have been taken away altogether, like in Hamilton following the withdrawal of the X1 bus. We have local people with the free bus pass having to use the car, use taxis, is bad for climate action, is exacerbating social and economic inequality. Three weeks ago, I met with 100 residents who want to see action from transport chiefs, and that joined up support. They are not getting that from the Government or from others. Will the minister welcome to his new post, meet with me and campaigners, to see how we can find a way forward? Presiding Officer, first of all, I am willing to meet almost anyone as folk in the chamber who are very well aware. However, in the first instance, those campaigners need to speak to the local authority who are ultimately in charge of those services. I would say to Ms Lennon and other members that the Government will do what it can in terms of investing, like in the concessionary travel scheme, and the bus partnership fund to get that right. Ultimately, some of that is down to local authorities and local decision-making. I hope that local authorities, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire, in this case, will have listened to Ms Lennon's question here and will take action in supporting local bus services. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has reviewed the guideline sentencing young people issued by the Scottish Sentencing Council. Responsibility for the development of sentencing guidelines is for the independent Scottish Sentencing Council. Prior to the introduction, all sentencing guidelines are approved by the High Court. The Sentencing Council has a statutory duty to periodically review the sentencing guidelines that it produces. As with the work of the council more generally, the independent nature of this process is fundamental. As I have already made clear as part of my new responsibilities, I intend to meet with the chair of the council to discuss the important work, including how the council plans to keep its published guidelines under review. Community service for child rape is obscene, but similar sentences are being passed across Scotland because of the sentencing quangol created by the SNP Government.  Will the new cabinet secretary ensure that, when she meets the chair of the Scottish Sentencing Council, the vacancy for a victim representative is filled immediately? Let me start by reassuring Mr Findlay that the recruitment of a victim's representative for the sentencing council is well under way. There had been an earlier recruitment round which was unsuccessful, and I can assure him that that is now at an advanced stage. Mr Findlay will be well aware that, as justice secretary, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to comment about individual offenders or indeed individual sentences bearing in mind this Parliament, which, in an act that all parties supported passed the judiciary and courts legislation where we all, ministers and MSPs, have to uphold the independence of the Scottish judiciary. It may well be of some information to Mr Findlay to say that, with respect to some of the most serious offences such as rape, that 98 per cent of convictions for rape across all age groups result in a custodial sentence, and, with reference to young people, that, since the implementation of the sentencing guidelines over the course of 2022, nearly 1,000 under-25s have been incarcerated. I can squeeze in two supplementaries if I have brief questions and succinct answers. The cabinet secretary has gone into some detail about the independence of the sentencing council, and I understand that it consulted a range of stakeholders, including victims groups, when formulating the guidance. I therefore ask the cabinet secretary what action the Scottish Government is taking to improve victims' experiences of the justice system, in particular, to ensure that their voices are heard. Improving victims' experiences within the justice system is at the very heart of our vision for justice and will also be progressed through the forthcoming criminal justice reform bill. We are also working closely and directly with victims through the victims advisory board to embed their lived experience into our actions. The victims task force brings together victims, organisations and criminal justice agencies to work collaboratively to deliver improvements. We are also committed to establishing a victims commissioner as an independent voice for victims and other pioneering initiatives to ensure that the needs of victims are met throughout their justice journey. Could the cabinet secretary clarify what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the Scottish Sentencing Council about the rights of victims and the extent to which the trauma of young survivors has been reflected in sentencing guidelines but also the impact that victim impact statements are taken into account by the courts, particularly in serious cases such as rape? The member is quite correct to reference that in any sentencing decision or indeed any set of independent guidelines that, as well as having matters and regard to rehabilitation for example, that guidelines often make very specific reference, as it does in particular to young offenders, that the purpose of sentencing is also about punishment, protection of the public and expressing disapproval of offending. Of course, the impact on victims is absolutely imperative on that, particularly given the young age of some victims. That is why, as a Government, we are committed to developments such as the Bairns House, where we can ensure that young victims have access to justice, care and recovery. To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund, which predicts that the UK's economy performance in 2023 will be the worst amongst the G20 economies, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of this in Scotland? The forecast by the IMF for the UK economy to be the worst performing in the G20 is a shocking indictment of the UK Government's mismanagement of the economy, which undeniably has an impact on the Scottish economy. Global economic conditions are challenging and the Scottish Government is doing everything possible within its limited powers to support households and businesses through the current cost crisis and to grow and transform the economy in a way that delivers fairer, greener prosperity. However, the UK Government's mismanagement of the economy alongside the economic damage of Brexit risks harming our international competitiveness and holding back our ambitious programme of work. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The analysis by the IMF just serves to underline the on-going detrimental impact that Westminster control continues to have on Scotland's economy and the people of Scotland are paying the price. Experts are now predicting that the UK's withdrawal from the EU is costing millions of workers £1300 a year in lost income. Does the cabinet secretary share my concern that the Tories and Labour at Westminster seem determined to press ahead with imposing their disastrous Brexit on Scotland, no matter the economic consequences? Does he agree that the best way to ensure that our economy and communities can flourish is by rejoining the EU as an independent country? Briefly, please, cabinet secretary. Absolutely, Presiding Officer. Independence and rejoining the EU gives us the powers that we need to take advantage of the rich economic opportunities that we have and where we are currently being held up by UK in action. The EU, the US have invested in their economies, putting them at a competitive advantage for taking advantage of the green industrial future. We need independence and the powers that that gives us to make sure that we can take advantage of our rich opportunity here in Scotland. To the Scottish Government, how many apprenticeship places it will commit to funding this financial year? Minister Grimdy. Presiding Officer, more on apprenticeships are a vital resource for employers to invest in their workforce and for the people to develop their skills. Investing in skills across people's lifetimes is critical to our future productivity and success. My priority and that of this Government is for high quality apprenticeships that provide sustainable jobs and careers supporting our transition to net zero. Skills Development Scotland have already issued contracts for 39,000 modern apprentices currently in training. We are working closely and intensely with Skills Development Scotland to respond effectively to the expectations of learners and employers. I expect Skills Development Scotland to begin finalising contracts for new modern apprenticeship starts eminently. Here is what the Scottish Training Federation has said in the past hour. 3,000 apprentices due to start a modern apprenticeship this month have been left in limbo due to the current freeze on funding for new apprenticeship places, and around 1,000 employers who had planned to hire those apprentices have had to put their recruitment plans on hold. That is after they surveyed 1,000 employers planning to take on apprenticeships. I know that the SNP is consumed by its internal woes, but why should thousands of young people be paying a price for the SNP's incompetence and distraction? For months, the SNP has been denying that there is a freeze on apprenticeships. There is a freeze. There was a freeze last summer and there is a freeze now. I welcome the minister to his new post. I welcome the minister to his new post. I know how passionate he is about apprenticeships, so will he turn the page on the mess that his predecessor left him and fix this mess today? Minister, briefly please. The very significant budget challenges that we are facing, which the UK Government's mismanagement economy has much to do with, and the change of ministers, was entirely reasonable to pause temporarily the issue of contracts for new starts whilst we looked at the bigger picture, but I am pleased to tell the chamber that we are about to greenlight that process, and despite the huge budgetary challenges that we are facing, I would anticipate that the number involved will be in line with 2223.


Now I have of course been Now because of Jurassic World alive and it's you know the way it is I'm not playing that one as much when it comes to video games or app games And I've been hearing a lot about this one. This is a Godzilla game app game that Even you know the people that don't like a lot of the Godzilla games of recent years Tender it's a good things about it. So that also makes me a little bit worried Because if it's good Then this might be the next thing that is on the channel The last one we covered was just like a tapper that you could basically I just tapped along and you kill the monster and it was a bit weird Where's this one? I think there's apparently strategy. There's different things you can lock. I'm excited I'm cute. I'm hoping it's this one pays up there. Oh, okay. Okay, I agree Of course, we always agree to the terms This is the way we do it because if we don't agree we don't get to play the game. Oh, oh Battle, okay. Welcome to the world of Godzilla battle iron clear the tutorial to get a high ranking unit. Okay, right? Commander team of monsters and take down your opponent's leader monster the monsters below will make up your team Well, only one of them is a monster one of them row down the others are missiles Tanks in a satellite all the monster don't curse you satellite TV Each unit cost a certain amount of stamina to deploy. Okay, the stowner will be restored over time Right to deploy a monster on the battlefield swipe Simply swipe up the monster. Okay, so can I put oh, okay? Okay, so this place I can put it Let's put it behind Godzilla for support Okay, well that has been deployed a monster will act on its own once deployed cool A little monster cannot move, but it will attack nearby enemies. Okay, so you're just sending stuff to attack the other monster Okay, but I guess we'll learn as we go cool Right, right look at road and go So right now Godzilla will attack it because it's like a defense and it does damage, okay Special can I I can't throw anything. I mean stuns a toriel Your opponent has deployed Kamakurus Now try swiping a missile toward Kamakurus.  I mean it is there anything I could do Special it's got okay where it's done to sore leader monsters can use powerful special moves Tap the special and put it. Yes that way he'd ray Instant death using Godzilla special move with tambourine strength in some of your other monsters This makes the perfect time to deploy some more monsters and defeat your opponent's leader monster I mean, oh, we've got what's he called agron agris anger us. That's it. Oh one is also I make the noise as well. I like the just the massive Tory gates and we're next to Tokyo Tower as well Can I put more? Confort tanks down. Okay. Well, I don't know what this does a marker light cannon, right? So it's a bit like clash royale Okay, he used his own mays won't use you I Think anger us has got this though the tanks. Oh the tanks stole the killer. That's upsetting He walks. He waddled all his way over there and didn't get the kill Ruzel congratulations a token of your victory. You've earned a monster island map You can explore your map and acquire battle pieces and G tokens. Of course. There's always a G token. I Got some moneys. I got some pennies for killing a gogelle Explore three hours. Well, that's all I don't know if I have time for that like three hours. Okay, oh We could speed it up. Okay. Well, we get luckily we've got diamonds Which apparently are global, you know, they're just the currency everyone accepts diamonds don't they? We all love a good old diamond. Oh, we're in the jungle Have we found anything? Oh, is that is that lizard? Oh, wait. No. Is that mecha? Let's get mecha Godzilla Curio, what do you get with mecha Godzilla 1993? Oh, he's beautiful Are we we ranked up did we? 16 of those. Okay Another rodan. Oh, you've got a prickly chest. Don't you we got two rodans from 1964. There's a glasses on it is it's it is just like Drassigal the live or clash royale you have to level them up the more you find the better they get You're just gonna make a good level as your deck to upgrade him Look at the trophy. He's so cute. Oh, can we do different skits? Oh, we get to see what he does So does it do? lasers Okay I think it is oh that's beautiful Brilliant upgrade them. There we go. Make them better Level two. You'll need G tokens and multiples of the same battle piece to upgrade a battle piece The number of battle pieces required increases according to your battle level. Okay, okay Now I was told to play this game because someone said there's really good things to get in the game at the moment I said, you know what? It was on the cards. I'm gonna get something cool So versus okay stone tutorial level review the flow of battles Is that what it said or does my dyslexia kick in? When battles to get expedition was then head out. Okay sounds sounds easy now and to your players name to get Started what do you think the chances are it's taken? Okay, I just fell right in there. Okay. Oh, what's this? Oh, I've got a freaking iPad I got Joe walkie-talkie sweet, but I do that log it again to pick up four star unit Okay, so daily login bonuses very good. Oh, here we go. Oh, do we get a check through me other things? Imprisoned within Mount Mihara following the attack of 94 Godzilla who has or was awakened Hello, can I not go back? Oh, I can okay Manmade volcanic eruption Godzilla came ashore in mainland Japan and faced off against barlomide at Lake Ashi I should visit these things. I should visit these places. I mean Japan. I'm able to play. Oh, I think oh, no Golden guardian monster Results announced, okay. Well, we don't care about that New season incoming and you season the mightiest duo begins cheapy Godzilla The funny thing is I've seen this character in Japan the cheapy version Beginner the game will be for something and you will start with an arena rank beginning one according to your performance in the I didn't participate Hey, oh, they're getting so many free stuff. I can't wait to get that in the mail, right? Okay, oh even more. I've got a thousand jewels Thank you There it is. Yeah, I see this guy all the time You have received cheapy Godzilla You can pick up your reward from your present box. Oh, it's adorable. Yeah, I see this guy all the time on like the training stuff Yes Brilliant. Oh my god. There's loads of stuff. No wonder the guy was like you need you need to get on this There's really cool things you can get okay Stream the anime short cheapy Godzilla raids again watch new episodes for free on the following YouTube channel phone They're released in Japan Wait, so I get worse. I get more. Okay. Well, don't show me again. I watch it later. I'm recording a video right now Later late later Wow, well, they they really love to just throw everything in starter packs or receive that Day two, that's great day one challenge. I've got all of these Oh, I like the sound effects sound effects are cool to G gold G man, where's my G man? Clear them all to win. Oh Mothra lover from 1992 is that what about day one? Okay day one. I just get that but day two Get an item. Oh, look at this all these things log in two times I've already got that short next mission time by watching an ad schedule. I Get one frickin whatever it is mothra lover. That's cool on the right. Sorry is the amazing one on the left is the free stuff Got you so just kind of like dross of other life. We're getting somewhere We're gonna get who is it anything good. Ah, I was satellite mom Brilliant. I don't even know what that does. Oh I got what's what does face bug-eyed big Larry? Oh the missile more. That's my favorite sweet That was kind of wasteful, but hey, huh? Where's my treasure chest? It said I had a treasure chest to unlock stuff Anyway, anyway, here we go. We got all these daily Reward history Receive all I'd like if I have any oh achievements. I saw that I'd like achievements, please So at the moment I realized this is just me.  Do you go? Wait, did I just get you? Yes, I Cheapy Jilly. Yeah I'm a use it.  Oh, this is new Got a helipad the helipad air base. I'm assuming that's gonna send in the clowns There's no send in what you call it The planes and helicopters and that sort of thing This is loads of fun. I love this like a loads of free stuff Don't care about rockets. Oh laser tanks and My boy more Lizard man. Don't really care about him or insect man. Let's receive all of this And I'll just click receive all the other that'll be easier. Let's receive everything That's everything this is another one of those expeditions. Oh my god. I got a very old Oh, wait, is that from Godzilla minus one shinden? It is I think isn't it? I think that's the plane the dude I can't remember his name. I bet it was ages ago since I watched a movie now I'll take all of that 90 gold as well. Oh More Okay, well we got more missiles Tank. Oh another angriest is angriest. Did I get that right? I'm good. I'm good ears Yes, we can level him up now and then 2005 for rules exceeding imagery limit will be sent your post I've got inventory limit. We'll just receive. Oh, we do more of this. Oh our gold wait, that's Wait, that's okay Godzilla minus one Wait, what is it? Is that good? I mean it it looks good. Okay. I was asking him where's Godzilla minus? Oh, there it was Oh another gold. Okay, so this must be like super rare amazing when you do these ones. So what do I get? Atomic zilla is it or thermal thermal nuclear which one is it burning Godzilla? That's it. Wait, why am I getting all this stuff? Guys, is this normal? Okay. This is a regular one. Okay.  What is this? Oh, of course durat. Who remembers that guy? A classic. How can we not forget? Oh another Godzilla. Oh, is that a different one? 1989 Godzilla and maybe another tank Yo, that was a completely different one. Okay So could I select any of these to be my my boss or like the the the one that just stays still 16 chibi Godzilla's there Oh, that was brilliant another rodan Okay, that's fine. How many of you go with that? We got another oh 16 of that's really good What is going on? I I swear I haven't played this before at all I like is this normal to just get all this stuff. Okay more of that another one I kind of just want to get into the game now. What what what are we getting more? Okay more of those? Oh my god Cool another chibi. How many is this? Me silver so it can't be that good. He's just cute. It's the same as durat 1991 same year I was born Classic durat just like me. I have no idea what he's doing a bit. He has no idea what he's doing Jesus, there's so many of the chibi Godzilla. Do I get more just by watching the the clips as well on youtube? Oh wait, hold on. Hold on. What was that thing? I got it. Oh, okay. Okay. Another mecha zilla sweet Right even more. What? Oh for lord. I don't know what I'm doing. Oh another chibi Godzilla. Okay Are we done? Okay. You've received the presence below more stuff. Okay. Wait. What is that more? What is this ultimate expedition map? A choir Hold on. What's all this stuff space Godzilla? God's what is that thing? I love that. Can I have that one? Oh, I like I said, I don't even know. That's rainbow. Let's do rainbow. Rainbow Martha's cool. Can I have that? Oh, yeah, hopefully I picked a good one. I just think it probably looks pretty Yes, rainbow Martha Yes Amazing Yes, I got one of those I need I did I need 500 to get that maybe Maybe I don't even have that thing unlocked Okay, and if these are all good Can I go for another moth room moth for a leo? Let's go for that one I know if you need 500 I'm a little bit away. Oh, this one's gold though. I think the other one's gold I think I think if there's like a diamond thing then You're probably gonna get the gold background I would assume it's a four star 1996 moth rule leo. I was five years old. What I maybe Maybe I don't even know but there we go Brilliant, right. Let's have a look at my deck. I've got so many new things now I'm assuming there's not a campaign. Maybe there is Yep, I get that but then I've also got all of this level one Cheeby's element hell. Yeah upgrade baby zilla Yes, I want more. What does he do? Is that that's what he does?  Is it a cute face? Level five I hope he's not too expensive to summon. I don't think you will be Sweet how many coins do I have? I don't even know but I'm getting them all the way there Level seven. Heck yeah, and I can't get any more. Well, it was it was a good shot now Let's make sure we put him into the bloody thing a free expedition. Okay. Well, anyway, let's do The main part of this video what everyone I think likes about it. I could be wrong the bowels Here we go. Oh, I didn't change my leader unless it's always this guy It's another guy west something Right. I don't know what to do. I know what's good. Oh, I guess I'll put that down I don't know what that does There we go. Is he gonna do anything? It looks like he's building. Are we in new york? I think we are Are we sending an angus? Okay. Well, let's let's Wait, is that my building? I bet not. Why is that my building? Okay.  That's not the building. Okay, cool What was that? What are you talking about your dad? What about your dad? I don't know Angresses I'll tell them destroy that building because you're the angress is like I don't know what that does But you could get the work on that Oh, look He's doing stuff He's charging his abilities waddling over Okay, well, let's get an air base. I'm assuming that'll send over stuff Okay, oh Yes, that was beautiful Is it oil? Oh get wrecked scrub get absolutely wrecked Cheapy Godzilla's got this. Let's just let's just missile that Yeah Uh rodan off your pop go and do something Is that the noisy mix? Perfect That's how you win these just level up one creature to max level It'll wipe out everything. So I got an expedition map sweet So I got I also got some jewels I'm beginning plus guys I'm very good But let's go into the expedition now that I've won one take one hour three shortcuts remaining. So what does that mean? I can explore Oh, okay, so I can only use a shortcut like to to speed up right so three adverts basically Gotcha, gotcha right victory bonus four more times. We can only do like five rank matches a day Uh-oh I don't like that. I don't like that that this guy's got All right Angus destroy the building just hang back. Oh, is it a way to delay? Oh, I think it is Right, so instead of him rushing over he can just slowly like take on the building and it tells me what I'm gonna get next actually Uh, we'll we'll put a tank there because I think the tank will shoot at that There we go Yeah tanks will shoot at that and then hopefully the satellite. Yeah, satellite shoots at that too And then we'll put chibi Godzilla at the back because he charges I think with his first attack probably does loads of damage right Come on low Okay, okay, okay. Can I put chibi Godzilla as my main dude? I'd like to do that. Maybe that's better Okay, uh, I mean we'll help out there. I suppose take on his although his is currently weaker Now my biggest question is are these real peeps or these bots? I feel like it's gotta be real. Look at him. He's almost fully charged.  Oh look at that toppled him brilliant Well done chibi Now if I use chibi in As my boss if I can't even do that. Let's have a look we're going deck It am I even possible to use them as a regular one.  Congrats? You've reached bronze rank an exclusive pack has been added to the shop for you. Okay great I'm not gonna buy it But thank you Right, can I change my leader? Here it is leader swap Okay Okay, so he's level seven Now I could switch to a level one mothra thing But I feel like oh no wait Oh, is that the power level they can have? ah Okay, okay. Let's let's put the mothra in. Yeah, let's do that So I can only have five now. So this will be interesting. I'm gonna have five energy. Ooh Different strategies are like this Oh, wait, no what Apparently not so don't know what's going on there, but I have him. Hopefully he's he's good I mean he's a better rank. They were all level one Right, uh We're from always he's sending his own angers. Okay We'll send over some helicopters to support them Uh, I'll put chibi You know that that's good. That's good Ha ha ha he does he does this I love this guy. Chibi's my kind of guide you. I love them. All right. Um, I mean maybe put that there I suppose He's already deployed. That's fine. Let's send some tanks down the middle It wants me to do my special with this guy, but I I don't you know what I might as well do it Oh, wait. Oh, so it's everything around. Okay. Well, we'll save that. We don't need that He like what pretty good I don't know. Yep killed him in the Godzilla. We'll put in another dude there It takes three energy to do it. Actually, I kind of want to do it before he kills everything defensive skills Oh, okay, so I got a defensive boost Right. Okay. We're in three ranked matches T-pose around It's a fun game Not gonna lie. I I see why people like this. This is awesome Okay, so two more Okay, okay. So can I set up multiples at the same time is the question? Okay, so I'm ranked five. I get more gems Uh three hours Now can I only do one at a time? Right, okay, so If I got the premium pass then I would be able to set off more by the looks of it Okay, so we've got two more battles. Let's have a look Oh another one. Okay. Some more Chinese All right I mean, I could just wait to save up Next I mean something cheap. I suppose we could go for the tanks Tanks is good.  Oh, he's got the the weird little thingies Do I need to worry about that one? I'll place that as a defense. I suppose. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh whenever it dies instantly. Okay Helicopter is destroyed. Freaking angriest got over that. I feel like this is far too easy Like not even oh, he's using manila who got instantly wrecked Just tumble There you go, I got that kill Finish Funito Very easy seems very easy. Okay I feel like is it typically spike gonna get a lot worse One more times brilliant. I am now bronze plus six get even more And the final battle who will it be against a normal Godzilla? But angriest are you here? No, he's not. Okay. You know what can't can you do it by yourself, dude? Can chibi Godzilla do it by themselves Boku ga itsuka otou san Like my father, I mean otou san would mean father anyway Boku is just saying very something about him And meets guy is he wanting to his father to see him see him do it like look. I'll do it that father watch me Maybe I don't know lots of missiles. I know I said he was gonna do it by himself, but he needs some help. I think Or maybe he didn't know I don't know defensive skills Yeah, yeah This is far too easy. I feel like the game's doing this deliberately. I don't know It feels that way win brilliant So what happens now it said five or one more and I've done it Five consecutive victories. Oh, I get extra stuff Arena rank. Oh, no, that's not good Oh, wait.  Wait, what? Wait, where's he grade 30 a grade 30? I get mecha chibi zilla. Do I? Yeah, you do Oh, this is beautiful remaining 26 days. Okay, so I I started this at the right time then So, I mean I've got another one of these Okay, what we get I want more chibis hell.  Yeah, that's what I want to see six of the buggers That's about that another angus. Okay angus is good How many I got six thousand coin You know what that means you know what that means Where is he there's the cute little bundle of fun? Yes rank eight Extra damage more health And I don't think I have enough for the next one. No, I don't That's a shame. So versus I see this is going up all these like Daily, I mean I I receive all I don't I don't know Yeah, I get all those the weeklies receive all that's good. It combines them all Uh, okay reach that that's a lot of stuff or we even got one of these Okay satellites Do rat Right cool. I got lots of do rats. She's just got loads of cheap stuff More missiles Okay, weird little bog-eye creature Whilst we go I can see that this is not good man. I feel the game sucking me in Yeah, yeah And a special Oh Chibi Godzilla and chibi Mechagodzilla growing mission win three rank matches with air bases in your team during this period Oh But what are these things that I'm getting? What's a woohoo? What what what does that do? Do I can I emote during a match? I probably can can't I? Winning a streak bonus plus three Okay, so I'm going up the ranks eventually. I'll hit a point where I won't be able to win That's what's going to happen here. I like well. I mean that obviously I'd imagine I'd be a bit weird if I beat people who've been playing it for like a year Um, okay. It seems very simple right now. I'm not I'm not doing a great deal. That's very strategic at the moment Okay Boca Chibi Godzilla is just like I am chibi Godzilla Oh, okay turned around interesting All right Oh my god, no Chibi no My baby Right fine miss. Oh, that's not good.  We need you now more than ever He's amazing.  Oh he's using his special ability. Oh, that's interesting Uh Oh my okay, right. Okay. Okay.  Oh no chibi. He has to charge his beam Yeah, okay, so it allowed me to get five super easy wins and then it went no Then it went you cannot you will lose Oh god.  We I think we've lost this one. Oh my god. He has so many things Why did that wait? Hold on. I should have put more more monsters on my roster shouldn't I? Uh, that probably would have helped I've I've got an amazing cooldown for this I can yeah, no, it's over Well, I think that was the first person I I legit played and I correct Oh There goes my losing streak I mean winning streak the start of my losing streak is right now. Anyway guys That is loads of fun Wow Okay, guys if you want to see this I am more than happy To play this this is loads of fun and it's tactical. It's got the upgrades It's not overly complicated doesn't seem too pay to win I mean, obviously it will be when you get to the higher things and then obviously the best things will win But right now seems loads of fun I don't know tell me what you think in the comments down below if you play this and until next time I'll see you later. Oh, bye


Welcome to the Jalassa News, the top stories in crypto, currency, and Jalassets, and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. Today, it is Sunday. Little interesting stuff. First up, former Goldman Sachs exec says Bitcoin ETF will be approved, bringing billions, not millions, billions into the crypto market. And why I've been hearing this same song and dance for the last six plus years also. VeChain is fly blockchain tech for a Chinese food safety group that includes McDonald's. And the real question is, is this a real press release? Also, we're going to go over Q of the Day, where I'm going to talk to you about a poll that I just put out yesterday, which asked the question, if you had quarter of a million dollars in a nano ledger, would you be okay with throwing it away and reinstalling it from your passphrase? And we'll get into all that, but first let's go over what's going on in the market. So today, again, September 20th, 12 p.m. Texas time, high noon, let's see what's happening. Bitcoin almost at 11,000 yet again, but it slipped 1.4. And here we are at almost 10, 8 Ethereum down to 372. And there's something going on with Ethereum over at crypto.com app. This is what people have been sending me all morning. Looks like Ethereum is hitting a high of $79,519 and 23 cents. So I don't know exactly what's going on. I'm guessing it's a glitch just to guess, but if it is that much, I will see everybody later. And my channel is done. Now I'm just kidding, even if I was there, I'd still be doing videos, but probably just a glitch, but we'll see what happens and see what, who gets wrecked out of this whole situation. So who knows? Moving down, so Tether market cap 15 billion, but still at a dollar because it's a stablecoin. What are you going to do? That's how it works. XRP also a stablecoin at 24 cents. I'm just kidding, it's not a stablecoin, but it has really been there for like ever. Polkadot down 4, down almost 10% for the week. Ouchie down at 467. Bitcoin Cash to 25. And we just did a podcast or a YouTube video with Alex Massioli and a whole cast of characters this morning, one of being Roger Veer, Dennis Ray from a new exchange, which I'm going to get him on the program. It looks fascinating. And John Nangerian and Ryan. And we just went over a bunch of different things. One of those was the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, definitely coming up in November and how it's going to affect everybody. So I'll put a link in the description about when that video gets dropped. It was pretty interesting to me anyhow, but that's could be the reason why there's a little bit of bump and bumble with Bitcoin Cash finance coin down 4% chain link. Yeah, broke beyond the $10 barrier.  And let's see what else we got. Anything fantastic? Oh, where is the darling of the crypto world? There it is. Uniswap. $5 and 11 cents after hitting, I think a high around 740, 750. So Uniswap, I gotta tell you, I tip my hat to you for the way you did things and the way you are feasting or giving things out to the community. I appreciate that. If you don't know Uniswap was giving away 400 tokens to everybody who's ever used Uniswap and that's 60% of the tokens going to the community. So amazing. And that's how you build a community like Ray says. And couldn't be happier about that. So that's what's going on. Let's jump into today's top stories. First up, Goldman Sachs says Bitcoin ETF will be approved. I don't know how many years I've heard this. When I said six plus years, that's not true. I've been in here since 2017. So yeah, about four years, I've heard the same thing all the time. But also I did a quick video. It was called a message from 2012 where it had Roger Vera on there talking about Bitcoin and how there was going to be an ETF maybe next year. So that's where I kind of got that. I've been hearing this, this same thing forever and just never happens. However, we have never had the kind of railway that we have or the infrastructure that we have built right now, the people that are already in the space, the Paul Tudor Jones, the Fidelity, the TD Ameritrade, MicroStrategy, Data Analytics, just dropping half a billion dollars in Bitcoin. And all the different things as far as institutional investors. And that's what Alex Masculi always tells me. He's like, look, man, everybody's asked for Bitcoin. And that's just how it's going to be. That's all the big institutional investors. And he should know because that's how he does over at Bequant. He just loads up on institutional investors and brings them in, explains how to do things. So I trust that guy. And Raul Powell is the one that we're talking about here. And my friend Jerry, Jerry, if you don't know, he runs a pretty nice little YouTube channel and a podcast. And he had, he had Raul Powell on and they got into the whole thing about the ETA or the ETF. And this is what he says. He says, you're allowed to front run in Bitcoin.  All right. There will be billions of dollars that pours into it. And I believe that if it does get happening, there will be a ton of money. He says every pension plan will allocate some money to it. Every family office will allocate some money. And the more the prices go up, the more they will allocate because the larger the market of Bitcoin is, the bigger everything else is. So I agree with Raul Powell. Definitely that if they get an ETF and then it just makes easier for institutions and pensions and all the different things that are out there as far as traditional finance, they can get into it. However, the thing is you have to get that ETF approved and the way the SEC and everybody else works it, words it, it'll never happen. So it's either some of the top people have to get gone or somebody like Hester Pierce, who was a huge cryptocurrency advocate. She needs to step up and become the head of the SEC. That's the only way I see it. I think it's an old boys club and they don't understand exactly how far cryptocurrency assets are going to go and how it's going to pretty much swallow the whole field. So again, I can definitely it will be fantastic if this actually happens, but I've been hearing it for years. So we'll see. But Jerry, I will check out that video today. And you know, good job getting Raul Powell in there to squeeze the life information out of him. So great job. And let's move on to the next section. Next up, I loved reporting on VeChain because it makes some people's heads explode. But this one talks about VeChain to supply blockchain tech for Chinese food safety group that includes McDonald's. According to a Thursday medium blog post, VeChain joins the 130 strong member group as its only public blockchain technology provider, and will further provide technical and infrastructural support for member firms. CAFA is a government backed organization that falls within the Ministry of Agriculture. So why is this big? So CAFA intends to build a farm-to-table traceability system across China that would record the various stages of the food supply process on the blockchain. Why is that important? The reason why it's important is because not too long ago, this has been going on for years. This is one of the earliest ones I found. In April 2004, at least 13 babies in Fu Yang and Hai, I probably did a bunch of that. And 50 to 60 more in rural areas of Anhui died of malnourishment from ingesting fake powdered milk. And that's just one example. So if you are the Ministry of Agriculture and you're trying to figure out how do I make sure that more people don't die because of all these greedy people out there that are screwing over other people and it's leading to fatalities, well the best thing I could do is probably get on the blockchain. And who can we get to do blockchain? Well, there's this place called VeChain. It's in Singapore and there's a lot of things with tracking and traceability and making sure that frauds aren't going through and they can do a lot of different things and they have it all set up on their own platform. And it's pretty much like traceability in a box. So I don't see why they wouldn't do this. However, on the flip side to that, this was a medium blog post and just so you know, the blog post was written by the VeChain Foundation. And VeChain, from what I understand, a lot of people say that they are.  Well, so what I did, I went to the China Animal Health and Food Safety Alliance, CAFA.org and I translated it all by hand. Now I'm just kidding, Google did all that for me. And what I tried to do was look at the news and look at what is going on. Well, Lex, let me tell you something that they haven't updated this since August 14, 2020. So I don't have an official report.  Yeah, I mean, sure, there is no hardcore proof, but I will say this from now on, every type of thing that I get through here, I'm definitely going to double check because I just don't see an organization being that brazen just to outright lie and lie 100 different times about all the different partnerships. Maybe here and there, there might be like a little bit of, oh, I thought we were going to partnership. Oh, it's just that you're going to use our product, but it's not a concrete thing. There's different levels of what people would consider a partnership. Sure, I get it. However, if anybody's having any information on this, I would like to see some hard evidence either way, because that would be fantastic. So put it on the comment section below, I'd love to hear from it. And let's break into the next top story. Actually, next top story is me.  It's a simple question, simple question with a complex answer. And I want to go over that in detail so let's jump on the office. All right, everybody, welcome back to the office. It's a beautiful Sunday here in El Paso, Texas. And this is our segment called Q of the Day. And this is actually not so much a Q. We'll be doing more of these, what's our statements. And I had put out a poll on Twitter. And the question was, if you had a quarter of a million dollars on your nano ledger, how confident would you be to just throw it away and restore it on a new ledger with your passphrase or mnemonic phrase? And the reason why I brought this up is because I was trying to explain cryptocurrency asset to a person that had no idea what I was talking about.  Just like gold, it is scarce, but it's even more scarce, 21 million. You can send it to anybody to anywhere in the world for relatively no price. And you can do it under 30 minutes. So try doing that with gold. It's the best performing asset class of all time. It used to cost $5 or a nickel and now it costs almost $11,000. And it's why I'm heavily invested into it.  So that was my little Bitcoin elevator pitch. And one of the things that they were asking me was like, well, how do I store it? I talked about the nano ledger. And they said, well, what if I lose a nano ledger? I said, look, this nano ledger, which I held up right here. And I said, I will break this in half right now. And I will throw in the trash. And I have no problems with that whatsoever. Try doing that with a bar of gold or with any kind of fiat money. It just does not happen. And I could do it right now. Wouldn't be a big thing because I have my mnemonic phrase. And this guy Eric, he's like, that's insane. That doesn't make any sense. So, you know, we went into the whole thing. But I thought to myself, well, if that's an issue for somebody who's new, how about some people who are not new, like myself or like people out there in the 20 verse or just like you watching this video, because I got to tell you, I got to tell you, I just transferred not just like a couple of weeks ago between 25 and 30% of my entire portfolio over to my Celsius wall. And the reason I did that is because I believe in the project. I believe how great it is. I believe in Al Shinsky. I talked about this a number of times. I don't want to go over it again. But I totally believe in it. Another problem was when I did it, I was sweating bullets because I'm like, that's a lot of money, you know, transferring back and forth. No, I knew in my mind, I'm like, well, it'll be okay because I have my passphrase. But there's always something in your head that's like, you know, maybe it's not going to work. So I put out that, that poll and the results I got back. And there's about 300 or so people, 318 votes. And about a quarter said, this is no problem. 28% said, I have no problems with that. Even if it's 250,000, I'll get it back. No big deal. I think half those people are liars. Nah, I'm just kidding. I do think a certain percentage, like if you're like, hey, break this ledger in half and throw in the trash, and it's a quarter of a million of your money. Well, they'd be like, yeah, no problem.  I mean, a good amount probably, but I think some maybe not. And then next, next close one was 30%. It says, I'd be a little nervous. And then the last one which took the bulk was I'd be sweating bullets at 34%. And then the last one was nope, not even going to try it. That was 8%. So the vast majority, what I'm seeing is either they have a little nervousness, a little apprehension to doing it. And some are just like, I'm not doing that, which is weird because like, that's the whole beauty of the cryptocurrency assets is the, you know, to store them on a cold wallet where they are completely safe. And all you need is that, that passphrase. So if even me, like I'm a little bit nervous as I, as I move things around and I'm nervous to actually, if, you know, if Eric would have called me in my bluff said, okay, well, we'll break your ledger. Let me see it. I would have double checked my passphrase. That's all I'll say. So I thought there has to be a way that we can all go in there and double check our passphrase. And thankfully there is a quick download that you can use in ledger live where you can check your passphrase to double check to make sure it works. So if you do lose it, then you can bring it all back. So I'm going to show you exactly how to do that. And that is the first problem. The first problem is, you know, just being able to restore it. The second problem I see is transferring and spending. So we have to get used to that at some point because when the bull run comes, you know, it's going to be a little bit difficult just to these little tiny transactions here and there. We have to get used to it. So to transfer, of course, you can transfer it anywhere you want to. I'm sure you have another wallet, transfer some of the wallet. I'm not saying to transfer everything like I did, like 30% of your portfolio, but just get used to it and it should be okay. The next thing I would recommend, this is just me being me, is donate. Donate some Bitcoin to one of your charities. I'm going to show you a fantastic website which lists a ton of charities that takes cryptocurrency and I've double checked it for the validity of it. And one of those is Water for Uganda. So if you just want to get used to actually spending it and you want to spend, you know, throw $5 or $10 to any of these charities, hey, so much the better, right? So let's start with the first part. Let's go back. Let's go into Ledger Live and let's take a look at that app and I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, so here we have back to back. I have my Ledger Live app open. And just to be clear, Ledger Live is the app that allows you to see how much cryptocurrency and assets you have contained in your Nano Ledger cold storage device. So this is just Ledger Live is just the app that allows you to see that. And just to be crystal clear, don't download Ledger Live anywhere besides the official Ledger.com website. Don't go to Google.  That'll save you a lot of heartache.  So this right here is from Ledger Support. And there's three steps for to install the recovery check. So the first thing I'm going to do is open the Manager in Ledger Live, which we are in Ledger Live. Let's open the manager, which is on the left hand corner right above by crypto. It says manager, we're going to click on that. And then we're going to unlock our device. So my device is hard connected to my MacBook Pro by a cord. Some of the different Ledgers, they are connected by Bluetooth, but mine is old school. So I'm going to enter in my special pin code and it's going to load. And here we are. So we are in manager. Here's the app catalog. Here's all the apps installed. So we're going to go to the catalog and we're going to type in recovery check. And there it is recovery check version 1.0. Only 32 kilobytes, which is great because I've only got 40 kilobytes free. And that's the difference between a Nano S and an X. X has a lot more. S just has a limited amount, but hey, I don't need that much. So here we are. And besides, I have a couple of these, actually, I got five of these, and they're great. So I recommend not putting everything on one Ledger because if you lose it, what a bummer that would be.  So, you know, space it all out. It should be okay. All right. So we're going to install this and we are done. So now we're going to move on to start the recovery check. Connect and unlock your device. Done that. Navigate to recovery check. And it's going to look something like this. And we're going to open that up. Both buttons to start the recovery check. Sure. It's going to say, check your recovery phrase. We're going to double click. And on the device, on the actual Ledger Live, it may say connect and unlock your device, but it's already unlocked. So it doesn't matter. This will just keep going, going, going. So I'm doing everything on my Nano Ledger right now. And it's going to ask you two things, actually three things. Excuse me. It's going to ask you, do you have a recovery phrase with 12 words? Do you have a recovery phrase with 18 words? Or do you have a recovery phrase with 24 words? Now, obviously, the more words you have, the more secure it is. But for mine, I actually have a 24 word phrase because it's the most secure. And why not? Right? I got time. And I have written my recovery phrase down in two places. One is this Shield Folio Stonebook. If you haven't got one of these, they're fantastic. Should have a link somewhere in the description. Or just look for shieldfolio.com, Stonebook, cryptocurrency. And it's pretty cool because it's smear resistant, water resistant.  Also, you can also write in invisible ink and use a blue light underneath to actually show your words. So that's kind of like James Bond-ish cool stuff. So yeah, not too bad. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my Nano Ledger and I'm going to enter all these words in just like it says here under step two, number four and five. So let me do that right now. And just a note, you don't have to spell out the whole word. If you give it like the first two or three letters, it'll just give you like a little rolodex of different words that it could be and pick the right one. So it doesn't take too long, although it does take a long time. I'm going to go off to word number two and three and so until I get 24, I'll be right back. And when you're done, it'll say processing and I'll go through the whole rigmarow. See if you did that right. And I got to tell you, it took me about, not about seven minutes or so. And it's going to say the most beautiful word, words. Hey, guess what? Recovery matches. Checkmark, baby. And that's it. So we have double checked and that is the recovery phrase that actually works. So I'd highly recommend you to do that just to make sure everything is good. And just like it says here, number five, recovery phrase matches displayed if you've correctly saved recovery phrase. Number six, use the manager to uninstall the app. And the only reason is because not for safety, but the app is particularly big. There's no use in keeping it on your device once your recovery phrase checks. So I'll just do that later. Actually, I'll do that right now. And if you do get an incorrect recovery phrase, follow these steps and show you didn't run recovery check with a pass phrase enabled, make sure the correct recovery phrase link this selected. That's why I went from 12, 18 and 24, enter all the words, verify the order of the words, enter the advice matches the order right on your recovery sheet, and check all the words recovery phrase are on the BIP 39 word list. So you can take a look at that. It's all the different words that are acceptable, which you should have written them down correctly.  So just make sure on that word list and then they kind of help you jog your memory. If you're like, Oh, I wrote down Snapple and it's really Apple. So there you go. So let's delete this. Shall we log back in? And there we are. So what do we got apps that are installed? We got this recovery check. I don't need this anymore. I'm going to install that. And then there you go. I got a whopping 100. Well, no, I got 40 kilobytes free, which I got to tell you, you would think that I mean, there are thumb drives out there that it's like two gigabytes, they're about the size of this thing, and it can only hold how much 156 kilobytes?  Maybe they can work on that. Who knows?  Also, if you're looking for an analyzer, I think they're having like a 20% discount. Do not quote me. They have sales all the time. I always forget because they always tell me, Rob, make sure you mention your videos. Make sure you mention I always forget. So just look at the description in my videos. There'll be a link to an analyzer. It's under the essentials. And just go pick one up or three or like me and get five because I'm nervous. And that's the big thing. Okay, so that's it. So I don't know which way you want to go. If you just want to transfer things back and forth to a wallet or if you want to give to a charity, you'll always feel good when you donate to a charity. I don't know. It's just people helping people. So that's up to you, whatever you want to do. I'm not here to make anybody do anything, but I'd appreciate it if you did. So that's it. Let's jump back to regular video. Okay, that's it. So thanks for watching all the way to the end. I really appreciate it. If you're looking for any type of alternative to Coinbase, if you're new to the space, Coinbase is great for just getting your feet wet, but sometimes those fees are a little bit high, not as high as Uniswaps, but there's other options out there for you. And if you've listened to my channel for a length of time, you know that when the bull run hits, you have to be prepared because last time the bull run hit, Coinbase shut down for new people to get in. Same thing as Binance and same thing as other different exchanges. So you must get as many exchanges on board for your on and off ramp. So if you look in the description, there is a link to this spreadsheet. Looks like this. And from there, it breaks out all different wallets and exchanges and decentralized finance out of things that I have used. I personally have a one-two punch, Voyager and Celsius. Voyager is very easy to buy from. Celsius is very easy to gain interest on the cryptocurrency that you keep on their wallet. So I like both of those, use them pretty frequently. And Celsius, so far as you know, I've put in almost 30% now of my entire portfolio. Going across, you can look at everything from Gemini, Gemini Pro, Binance Uphold, Uniswap, Kraken, Cash App, eToro, don't recommend that, and Crypto.com. So if you want to use the affiliate links, you don't have to. You can go right to Gemini or right to whatever, Uphold or Coinbase. And you can go right there and sign up. Or if you use the affiliate link, it'll give you between 10 and 25 dollars. So totally up to you. And that's it for today. So thanks for sticking with me. Really appreciate it. And I will see you on the next one.


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