But, the purpose of this drill is to replicate what happens a lot of times as a defender cycling the ball around the back four or the back three. So ball comes from one side, let's say you're playing center back. You want to receive that ball and you want to quickly play it to the other side. When I say quickly, I don't mean rush, I don't mean panic, but as a defender, if your job is to switch the ball, it comes from one side, you want to switch it to the other side. You can play in two, three touch tops most of the time, okay? So if you are receiving the ball from that way and my body's not turned, I'm taking one touch here, maybe I'm taking another touch to set, then I'm playing that pass with the wrong foot, I'm getting myself into trouble.  Let's say the opposite net is over there. So I play this ball, I want to keep my body this way so I can play that pass and then go again.  Go the other way, play it with the other foot. Opening up the body, play it to the other side, go again. Practice opening up the body, facing the field. The field's this way now, facing the field. Switch of play, okay, and you can let that ball roll across your body or hit it with a bit more pace. Now we're playing two touch and play, okay? Switching feet. Hey, what's up? I hope you're finding this content helpful. Watch this all the way to the end if you want to find out which subscriber got this video's special shout out. Touch and play. Now, first step of this drill is opening up the body, seeing the field, not closing yourself off when I know I want to go that way. Receiving in half turn so I can switch the ball quickly. The other thing is the quality of your pass. As a defender, you need to be an expert passer. You can't give the ball away. Best defenders have very high passing percentage completion, okay? So when you're playing that pass, focus on the quality of the pass.  Hit that spot. Go again, yes. Good, play. For this defender specific drill, we are not going to use the ball.  It's closing players down. So obviously you're going to get a bit of fitness out of this. But what you really want to do here is practice the way you close down the attacker. Okay, so first of all, if I'm closing him down, I'm not just going to jog towards him. I want to close that space. If he's receiving the ball, let's give him a ball. If he's receiving the ball, I want to be on him as he receives the ball. Okay, so imagine that pass is coming. First, that pass is coming as that ball gets there. Boom, you want to be here. Okay, so focus on closing quickly is number one. But this drill, what you're going to do is I'm going to close him down, close him down and then practice kind of jockeying back into space. Go again, close them down, jockeying, staying low, jockeying back into space, kind of trap him one way, but a couple of things to this drill. Okay, so you're going to get a fitness practice closing down quickly. So one speed of the drill, the close at this point. Now I'm getting cautious. Now I'm not running in crazy. He's in my defensive third. I'm getting cautious. So close down quickly. Next is the way I want him to go the shape of my run. If I run directly at him set up like this, two ways for him to go three ways for him to go. What I want to do is think about trapping him, pushing him one way. Let's say I want to take him to the sideline. So I'm going to close quickly, but I'm going to curve my run. So I know where he's going. I'm pushing him this way. So practice curving your run, then practice keeping him into that space. Good.   So practice this skill of closing down and jockeying. Another important skill for midfielders is long passing. And I'm actually going to show you some clips I did for a video on soccer drills for midfielders. In this drill, we're going to do some long passing. And if you only have one ball, find a wall, ping it against that wall, let it bounce back to you. Go again.  Okay. So good technique, driven pass, focus on, and if you can, don't just have a dead ball, go and hit it because in a match, that's not realistic.  Good technique, driven pass. Let's do better than that. And maybe you missed the net, but you go again. There you go, driven pass. Okay.  So depending on the distance, a little bit of fitness, come, get it out of your feet, driven pass again. And like always, ooh, crossbar, ooh, camera. I'm always playing with both feet. So as I said, it's better for you to practice off a dribble. It's more realistic. Get that ball down. Good technique. Playing with both feet. There we go. Beautiful. As a defender, it's very important that you're capable and confident with your heading skills. So practicing as a defender, defender specific skills can be tricky. But one thing you can do to practice your heading technique is use a wall. Okay. So first just practice good contact off the forehead, good contact off the forehead, direct it where you want to go. As a defender, a lot of times maybe you're doing a defensive clearance. Okay, so you can practice going up, going high. Yeah, but this is a good way to get that technique. Can't be scared of the ball as a defender. Practice good contact off the forehead, snapping with the body. Okay, the more power you want, the more you have to generate from the hips, from the upper body, from the neck, but developing confidence with your heading skills. This is the featured subscriber for this video. If you'd like to be featured in future videos, hit that like button, drop a comment below and let me know how my content has helped you improve as a player.


The seed, the flower, a tree, a tree, a tree In a leaf, on a flower, a tree, honey-herd The seed, the garden, oh, the flower The seed, the seed, found some old seed It ends up as food to eat


Can't stress this enough Bernie became a multi-millionaire by never creating one job It's all through government money.  He knows nothing about it It's like an alien world to him We tried that other countries tried that was called communism and it just didn't work What what's happening they're booing over Warren That's right folks you heard her right she said that communism will work I got to say I was kind of blown away by the reaction from both the Democrat candidates and the audience after Bloomberg dissed on communism, but then Warren actually says it will work I can hardly even believe my ears and scanning the news. I'm not seeing that anybody else really noticed that I didn't even notice it at first SJG perspective picked up on it right away and kept trying to point it out to us another thing I wanted to mention American Joe pointed out to me that all the clips that he was finding of this moment Cut it off right after Bloomberg took the dig at communism and as you can see here They cut it off right before Warren says it will work Communism So it's pretty clear the media definitely wants to cover that one up in case you're wondering we streamed this live last night Over at a new website called D live that everybody's talking about so I figured I better go over there and check it out Anyway, it was a lot of fun They have a lot of neat features that I've never seen and you should all go over there and check it out Make sure to subscribe to my channel as well as Roberts and SJG perspective You can find all those links in the description


Political gladiators are plotting against the dictates of the new electoral act and Rao Dipens over Tom Polo's 48 billion-dollar pipeline surveillance contract. This is Plus Politics. I am Mary Anacol. Until the Nigerian political act has resolved to play by the rules, the electoral debacle in the conscious democratic system would continue to get worse. This narrow-mindedness played out recently when some National Assembly members, governors and other politicians willingly decided to break the electoral act of 2022 by aspiring to be candidates for their political parties in two different positions. Also recalled, the former president, Electoral Commissioner, a resident Electoral Commissioner, I beg your pardon, in our Kwaibom State, Mike Igini, had warned that politicians who procured multiple forms were criminals and risked two years imprisonment. Joining us to break this down is Kunle Lawal, he's the executive director of the Electoral College in Nigeria. And of course, Wahab Shitu is joining us via telephone. He's a legal practitioner. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Mr. Shitu, can you hear me? Great. All right. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to start with you, Kunle. A lot of Nigerians fought for the electoral act of 2022 to be amended, even though there had been, of course, some back and forth as to what was in it and what was taken out of it. But then with what we have, Nigerians would be celebrating that, oh, this might point to a free-for-accredible elections to an extent. But then we've seen this double-dipping by certain members of the political class. And this calls to question, if the electoral act in itself was good enough? I don't see a problem with the electoral act. I think where the major problem is, is that the National Assembly, if I could be quoted, passed a bill that they obviously didn't read. And this goes to the point that first they took out delegates, statutory delegates, which was them, out of the equation. And, you know, going to the president two days after he was sent there to the bill that you passed to ask for, you know, a re-amendment of that particular bill. And the president, of course, refused to bulge. So it's clear that you have a National Assembly that didn't read a bill. So you can find them, of course, within the the precipice of trying to truncate the same bill. Now, you have a clear act that says you cannot pursue two different political positions in one electoral year. And you have the Senate president, who is actually the highest legislative office, virtually trumping that and breaking the law. And it comes with a two-year imprisonment clause. And nobody has done anything. They're still trying to fight for their positions. Governor Omahi is one of them. Quite a lot of them around Apabio, too, is within the same system. They bought presidential forms and also still got forms for within the legislative house. So it doesn't make sense if you put this bill down and you're the one trying to corrupt it. But, you know, of course, because we've not activated the recall system in Nigeria, and where people are a little too shy or scared to try to recall their representatives. That's why I think they still sit down, because they do not have immunity. Mr. Shito, you are obviously an officer of the law.  You don't understand this better. One would ask, I mean, Kune is saying that the recall process would also play a part in, you know, reducing the number of people who take advantage of the electoral acts of 2022. But what can people do in the interim? I mean, we've seen the clear case of Governor Apabio, who's former minister. We've seen a clear case of the sitting Senate presidents. We've seen the case of the governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade. I mean, I'm sure there are several other people like this and the drag between them and their placeholders. What does the law, what can the law do other than, you know, what the act is presenting us with? I'd like to know, is there a law that is designed to regulate conduct of elections? I'm sure the elections are credible, fair, and free. But the law is one thing. The attitude of the political elite is another. So the attitude that they say is everything. So I think it's a great thing. The electoral acts will work. So they say that the political elite allows it to work. And this brings us to the issue of rule of law. We must be ready to enforce the provisions of the electoral act. No matter whose house it's given. So no matter how set all your standards in the society, all are bound by law. So the political actors must be ready for the provisions of the electoral. Otherwise, we should be ready to apply sanctions. So it is important that these provisions of the electoral act are only good on paper. What is important is the will of a lot of first managers to ensure that the provisions are not only implemented but rigidly enforced. But why would I want to? Okay, I'm so sorry to talk over here. I wanted you to land before I come in. So how do they enforce it? Because again, it's one thing for me to make a law. And of course, it's another for it to be enforced. But why would there be sanctions? Who's going to put those sanctions in place? Is it the same people who are breaking this law? Is it body charged with the affordability of supervising our election? Why is there any wrongdoing? I know most of them is the evidence. And then the police. Another law of first managers must enforce. So the issue is I make or provide evidence that why the police will enforce. Interesting. So I say there is a consequences for violations. Okay. And the electoral act would not be able to be affected. Okay. Back to you, Kunle. We see how vilified the wreck in our QI boom state has been in the past months. He's been dragged in the media. They've called him all sorts of names. But for those who know this man, Mikey Guinea, he's been known to be one that would not waver in any way. He stands his ground. But he's saying that what has been happening is criminal. And there are people who are advocating that he be removed from that office. He should be dismissed. Even though he's saying, look, this is criminal. This should be implemented. This should be done. And just as Mr. Shichu is saying, INEC's duties end at some point. And of course, it be hopes on the police to do the job. But do we see that happening? Okay. So for me, looking at everything, of course, INEC has stated clearly that this particular people are not those running for office. INEC put out a press release. But where I think it's critical to be able to turn or to receive some power to the electoral act of 2022, is if Nigerians who, of course, assume themselves politically aware know exactly what's available within the electoral act. And for me, that's where the problem lies. So you have a lot of Nigerians that discuss politics publicly and privately, but they do not understand in which concept the electoral act is directing and where it's not directing. And then this problem not only is strictly related to the electorate, it's even worse that those in political parties are totally oblivious of the laws that are available in our land, guiding what they claim to practice. Are you sure that they're oblivious or they do not care? They're two different things. Okay. So interacting with political parties, one of the things I think I've noticed the most is that first, they don't care, especially for those within incumbent parties. Then secondly, they feel the system has run a particular way since 1979. And some people have participated. And it's shocking that even the so-called new breed are inheriting the exact traditions that are passed down. So our irresponsibility towards law or statutes that are put down or the constitution in general is inherited by the so-called new politicians. I've been heard to say clearly that the only difference between new and old politicians is that the new ones can use Instagram live. Wow. That in itself is sort of a blow, a low blow for the young politicians. But then it's interesting to note that we are pushed for this. And then you're saying we still didn't even read the text in this particular act that we pushed for to even know if we have a problem. Now, what is most shocking is that the people that are past it, they read the text. The people that have passed it for haven't read the text. And the people that are supposed to enforce it don't fully understand the text. This is a total quagmire. So, you know, for people that keep saying Nigeria's constitution is faulty, this is that I would tell them most people have not looked at the electoral act or the constitution where the problem lies is that we've not looked at it. And then it's not even implemented to about 35 or 40%. So therein lies the problem in which we have as regards almost everything we do. Mr. Shichu Kulei saying that we have too many laws and we barely even understand these laws, let alone pushing for its implementation. So I come back to you with the question that I asked earlier on, how do we get, including the police, you know, law enforcement, that he has also, you know, tied up in this particular ignorance game. He's saying that, you know, those of us who were, these laws were passed for, we still don't fully understand. The people who wrote the laws and passed it don't also fully understand. Let alone the law enforcement agencies. So where does this leave us? Because again, how are we getting ready for a general election with an act that we are all jubilating over as something that would help us to grow or improve our electoral process. Mr. Shichu Kulei. Are you talking to me? Yes, sir. Yes, yes. I only come up here. All right. Let me ask the question again. So Kulei is saying that we are somewhat in a quagmire where the people who passed that act did not fully understand it. Those of us, the act was passed for, still do not fully understand it or even have some of us haven't even read it. And of course, the law enforcement agencies that are supposed to enforce it also do not fully understand. So where does that leave us going into a general elections in a few months? Well, I think what is critical is we need for political education. We need to break down the electoral act and get those who understand it to really interpret this position to a lot, including political actors. So education, political education is key. And there are political actors who are ready to play by the rules. I don't think it's fair to say those who propagate the electoral act don't understand the position. I think they do. I think the understanding of the position is one thing. Williness to abide by the position is another. And that is why the issue of enforcement comes in. I know when it plays the role, the political actors will play the role, the enforcement agents will play the role, and the public, the public, the members, the electorate must also play the role. I think if all of us are, I mean, to enforce the positions of the letter, violations of the letter are minimal. And then there are politicians who will force to play by the rules. Interesting. Let me come back to you, Kunle. I wanted to ask him something about the MBA, but I will come back to that. He's talking about education, voter education, civic education. And to be fair to the media, a lot of that is being done. But I always remember that this honours is also on political parties, which, if you ask me, I hardly see them do that. The N.O.A. is another kettle of fish. I never want to mention the N.O.A. because I don't know when they're going to come alive anytime soon, maybe sometime in December. But there is a lot that needs to be done. The media is just one part of society. Yes, we're the fourthest state of the realm. We have our job cut out for us. But where does the political party come in? And of course civil society, and people like you, the electoral college, how do we go above and beyond? Because it's like every election cycle, we have this conversation. So what do we do? Oh, and then it happens again and we say, oh, we try our best. How can we get above and beyond? So number one, a democracy cannot function, except it has a politically literate population. So for this to work, it's the reason the electoral college, Nigeria exists. We've driven quite, we've gone down. We are not even playing grassroots. We are going back, as age wise, going back to kids and trying to educate them with, you know, a little tinny book on the Constitution, your rights as a Nigerian, what the tiers of government do, what the fourth estate is supposed to do. I'll be honest, in Nigeria, a lot of us do not even understand what exactly goes on, and I'll give an example. So we're in Etiusa, LGA right now. Most people are not aware that federal government has a location to Etiusa for a month. Every month, a particular amount is sent. Now the exact particular amount that is sent, Etiusa residents do not know. And we feel from these little levels, then you can go up to the bigger things. You don't start to the electoral act, which is quite complicated. The first thing we need people to understand, number one, your local government chairman do not have immunity. Then, you know, start to influence, then they start to ask, okay, so they don't have immunity, how much is coming to Etiusa? Then I'll tell you, four hundred and five million comes to Etiusa every month. And then we start to build on that. So the anyway, as you've said, is mandated with this, with offices in 774 local governments. Has the anyway taken it? No, they've decided not to act in this manner, or try to do anything within these parameters. Excuse me. So the work is massively on the electoral college and a few other large CSOs that are working within the system. I'm going to say this loosely here. We've seen civil society organizations in quote, be very political, you know, especially when it comes to campaign seasons. And so it takes away from the education that we're expecting to see, and we see more of people speaking for a political party or a politician. So again, is that not somewhat of a dereliction of the duty that you owe society as civil society? Yes, I understand this, and I see this with a few CSOs. The electoral college has remained non-partisan. If you check my public opinions, I refuse to mention anything. And I've stated clearly, I personally will speak for the electoral college in Nigeria. My choice of candidates is not public, and how I vote is not public. So what we try to do is always bring out, you know, issues concerning four candidates, like we did a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, and threats to the top four candidates. We eventually will do coming down to the top 16, and eventually we've done the first four, and we will keep doing things like that. We can't really, like I said, most Nigerians do not understand what politics is, and one guilty part with a lot of other CSOs is that there are people who have never been actors in politics, so they don't even understand where defense is and where not to jump over defense. So there lies the problem. Finally, Mr. Shitu, when we talk about the, I mean, we've talked about the civil society, we've talked about the NOA and all of the people that settled with responsibility. How about those of us who barely have an idea or even want to get involved? Don't forget that there's a chunk, a lot chunk of people who believe that politics is a dirty game. Some people feel that their votes don't count. Some people feel that they don't even need to know who their local government chairman is because he doesn't change anything because they're a government to themselves. And I'm asking this because, and I'm asking this because, you know, it's very easy for people to say, I buy, I, I, I, I, I mean, I get my own voice, I produce my, I get my own light. So why do I need to know my local government chairman? Quickly, how do we change that narrative going forward? Well, changing the narrative. Yes. If there are people who design the kind of government they are, I think part of, part of the way of changing the narrative is what we're doing here. We need to establish it. We need greater, we get that communication, greater constructive engagement, and then, I think people will change their mindset. Everybody is playing politics. Why we are doing that? What is, what is leading us to affect us? What we do will also impact our society. I think we have to change this a little. I don't care. I don't care. Going affects us all. Yes. Well, I want to say thank you. Wahab Sheetoo is a senior advocate of Nigeria and he's also a lawyer. We want to say thank you so much. Kunle is, of course, of the Electoral College of Nigeria. I need to correct the impression. I need to correct the impression. I'm so glistened at the sound. Oh, you're not to stand yet. I'm not to stand. Oh, okay. So you're standing waiting. Yeah, well, I'm not to stand yet. So pray for me. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Sheetoo. Thank you so much, Kunle, for being part of the conversation. All right. We'll take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll be talking about the 40 billion Naira pipeline contract that was given to Tom Polo and of course, the round that he has brought across the country. Stay with us.


What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster can only start again.  The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals. We have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drive change forward. The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope. Hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. A very warm welcome to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for this important conversation, Globalizing the Sustainable Mobility Transition. As a short introduction, I'm Jessica Chiang, Managing Director of EcoBusiness, and I'm delighted to be your moderator today. I'm happy to share that this opening segment that is commencing now, which will set the context of our discussion, will be on the record and made publicly available after the session. I'd also like to thank the World Economic Forum for the invitation to moderate this panel, which is a topic very close to my heart. In my other head, I sit on the Board of Directors of Comfort Dergo Group, which is listed on the Singapore Exchange and is one of the world's largest transport companies with major operations in Singapore, Australia, China, and the UK. I chair the Board Sustainability Committee, which has been grappling with this very issue of how to globalize and accelerate a sustainable mobility transition. There is no doubt that the mobility sector is undergoing a revolution. There is fresh urgency to decarbonize the sector in an equitable, sustainable way, and this is forcing a reimagination of how to move people and goods across the globe. This conversation is an important and timely one, as climate ambition and action gathers momentum around the globe in the lead-up to the COP26 climate talks due to be held in November. By 2040, more than half of the new car sold globally will be electric vehicles, shared in autonomous solutions, but also drastically disrupt the mobility landscape. These trends will have deep implications and requires thoughtful planning so that countries are to reap the benefits of cleaner air, energy security, and more affordable transport options. If we are to achieve an equitable and sustainable global mobility system, it will require deep public and private sector partnership. And to this end, the World Economic Forum's Global New Mobility Coalition is a multi-stakeholder initiative seeking to activate the sustainable mobility in cities by fostering public-private collaboration. The minimal mobility vision is to catalyze supply and demand for carbon-neutral mobility ecosystem by 2050. So today, we will speak with some of the leading voices from the public, private, and civil society around the world who will share their insights on how we can shape this future together. I'd now like to introduce our distinguished panelists. We have with us Miriam Al-Faudri, Group Chief Marketing Officer Agility Singapore, Glinda Bhathan-Batterina, Deputy Executive Director, Clean Air Asia, Philippines, Iris Chang, Director, Sustainability and Social Impact, Grab, Singapore, Gunjan Krishna, Commissioner for Industrial Development and Director, Industries and Commerce, Government of Karnataka, India, as well as Theodor Svajamak, Member of the Group Executive Committee, Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, ABB Switzerland. We have a lot of ground to cover, so I'm going to dive right in. And Theodor, we'll start with you. How do you define sustainable mobility, and how is ABB supporting a sustainable transition for industry and society? First, thank you very much, Jessica, and also thank you to the World Economic Forum for inviting ABB to participate in myself in this very important discussion today. Sustainable mobility is really at the heart of what we do at ABB Global Technology Company. For us, it's all about provisioning lower CO emission transport in an efficient and intelligent manner for people and goods to make them accessible, equitable and affordable, which is also a very important thing. Given that transport accounts also for up to a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions today, sustainable mobility will really be crucial for achieving all the targets set in the Paris Agreement. At ABB, we provide our customers with various different mobility solutions which are sustainable. Actually, the company was founded on the electrification of rainways in Switzerland and Sweden, our two home countries over 130 years ago, and we're still very much actively involved in electrifying rain transport, but also road transport from cars, opportunity charging of buses and trucks, but also at sea, so electric propulsion systems for various types of ships. Today we're also the leading global provider of electric fast charging technology for e-vehicles, and we are very proud to have installed more than 460,000 electric vehicle chargers in more than 88 markets around the world so far, and this is a business as you can understand, which is at the moment growing very much. At ABB, providing infrastructure and solutions for sustainable mobility is really part of our commitment to driving a more sustainable world, and it's at the center of our company's purpose, and the value that we provide on a daily basis to our customers and society. When we do this, we always seek to balance the needs of both society, the environment, and of course the economy overall. Last year, we launched our 2030 sustainability strategy in which we committed to improving sustainability across ABB's entire value chain, and I want to highlight one of the main commitments that we made, which is to help our customers reduce their annual emissions by at least 100 megatons on an annual basis in 2030. This is the equivalent of the annual emissions of more than 30 million combustion cars. We will also lead by example in our own operations by becoming carbon neutral by 2030 or earlier, and to achieve this goal, we have committed to transitioning our entire fleet of more than 10,000 vehicles to non-emitting, preferably electric, but as well as sourcing all our energy from renewables and drive energy management across our global sites. And we are very advanced already in these states, and we are very proud, as I said before, to be a key leader in driving the electrical vehicle charging infrastructure, and we are very well-advanced at this already in some places of the world, like for example, Northwest Europe. Thank you so much, Theodore. I'm sure we have many questions for you. I want to turn to Maryam now. Agility has had a long history as a logistics provider and has recently made some major investments in new mobility companies. What innovations and new solutions do you think will be key to the transition to a carbonized, efficient, and inclusive passages and goods mobility sector? Thank you very much, Jessica. So Agility used to be a global logistics company operating in 100 countries, and we sold that part of the business, but we have that history of being a road freight operator, particularly in emerging markets. And now we're moving very much into being an investor in the supply chain space, and we've been early investors in some very interesting companies in the sustainable mobility space. And I will say one of the things that has become really clear to us at Agility as we think about our future is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I mean, it sounds like a very obvious thing to say, but it's very clear that different countries and different regions of the world link to their economic trajectory and a number of other localized factors are really in different spaces when it comes to the ability to adopt new technologies. And I think that's really important because when we think about emerging markets in particular, when I think about markets across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, one of the huge issues that will need to be resolved is what you do with existing infrastructure. So although the technology exists to really leapfrog, several steps forward, you still have the problem of an economy that is heavily based around fossil fuels and this existing infrastructure that needs to be dealt with. And I think one of the areas that we're really interested in investing in is these pragmatic solutions that address the issue of existing infrastructure. And I'll give you two examples that I think are interesting. We were investors in a company called Hylion that essentially turns an existing fleet into a hybrid with a very simple retrofit. And one of the things that really attracted us to that technology, in addition to the fact that it's groundbreaking, is that it gives you a very quick solution to a fleet that you already have, which you can imagine certainly in emerging markets where even upgrading a model is an issue, making leapfrogging ahead to completely different technology very quickly is often just not practical. And another example of a company that we invested in is a company called Swivel. And this is a shared mobility platform and it's sort of quasi private mass transportation. So essentially the story of this company is that in Egypt, after many years of a depressed economy, there were a number of tourist vans that were not being utilized because tourists weren't coming to Egypt for various reasons, economic and political and so on. So this company started putting these vans back in the road basically on bus routes and using these existing fleets in new ways. And I think both of these companies, what they have in common is the idea that there's a practical, you know, interim step for emerging markets. And I think that's a really important thing to think about in these discussions. Thank you so much, Maryam. And the emerging markets really are where we see all the innovations in mobility, I think. So I think there's some really interesting areas that we can explore there later as well. I'd now like to turn to Iris. Grapp provides a number of services to its platform. I am a user too, including ride hailing. What are the barriers to electrification that are facing ride hailing operations now? And how can we possibly co-design regulation that balances the needs of the environment and livelihoods and the business of drivers and riders? That's a great question. Thanks so much, Jessica. So I guess for Grapp, we operate across eight countries in Southeast Asia. And Singapore is the only developed country in that space. Everywhere else, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar are actually a very big challenge in terms of electrification. And for quite a few reasons, right? So I think firstly, these countries itself are still largely brown grid, right? And they don't even have intentions like in the States or in Europe where trillions of dollars are being earmarked for greener grids. So I think therein lies, even if we were to electrify all the cars, it's still not a very, I guess, long-term solution of reducing that carbon that will be emitted from transportation. I think secondly, if you look at infrastructure, while Singapore has a very clear plan to get there, but for the other countries, it's a large, it's a very chicken and egg situation, right? Like you don't have enough cars. Why would there be charging stations? What about maintenance? So there's a lot of infrastructure that is lacking and we've actually ran pilots, EV pilots with our drivers for motorbikes as well as our cars in countries like Indonesia and Singapore and even in Singapore, okay? The drivers are coming back and saying that the barriers are just that, you know, it takes so long to charge their vehicles. It takes like one to two hours every day while they are driving just to recharge and this time that they take would obviously mean trading off earning opportunities, right? So that lack of, I guess, fast charging, that lack of innovation in battery capacity. So all of these sort of like draw into the whole lack of infrastructure and technology on top of cost of ownership, which, you know, today it's still high compared to petrol cars. And lastly, one of the facts is that the cars that are designed for electrification today is not designed for ride hailing. Meaning you say like if you look at price points that aim at the middle upper class, you look at sizing for boots, you know, sizing for passengers. It's still not ideal for the type of drivers that actually are serving on our platform. So all of these are challenges that we face today in electrification. And I guess when we think about the government, there's a couple of things that we are hoping to drive and move forward in our partnerships with them, right? So one of it would be, I guess for us, we actually have a very big reach. We have like 24 for almost 25 million monthly active users on our platform. And actually we would really like to be able to partner with them to play a part in public education. And not just that, but, you know, recently we also launched a couple of features, like for example, our carbon offset feature where it's in the app that a customer can just easily toggle to contribute for offsets. We are trying to use technology to reinforce education and make it easy for them to take action because just so many of them are, you know, even though they are aware, they find that it's very, very hard to actually take action in this space. The second being how do we work with governments to actually think about financing, right? Financing schemes, especially for this group of drive partners that we have on our platform where they are actually economically, you know, challenged in that respect, right? So really hard enough to put food on the table, maintain the current car. Now we are saying, hey, you know, how do you change to an electric car or a hybrid? That's a very, very big ask to be made even in the name of environmental, right? And lastly, I guess as a tech company, naturally we have a lot of data that we can, you know, aid governments with urban planning, green infrastructure developments. So I guess, you know, in that respect, we can definitely add value to governments and we are trying to partner with them that way. Thank you so much, Iris, for that overview. I think it's super interesting that you mentioned how infrastructure really needs to be keeping up with this electrification revolution and there's still a lot of pain points there. And then the public education, you know, carbon offsets piece is also super important if we are going to get mass adoption by transport consumers to these more sustainable modes. So thank you for those perspectives. We've heard from the business sector now regarding the mechanisms supporting decarbonisation. And I'd now like to turn to Gunjan Commissioner. Kanataka is a leading region in the EV sector thanks to how it forces innovation and attracts investment. Can you shed some light for us on your experience in fostering sustainable businesses in this sector and how has regulation enabled a strong ecosystem? Thanks, Jessica, and thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity today to be part of the World Economic Forum, Globalising Sustainable Mobility Transition. Talking about Kanataka, Kanataka is one of the lighthouse states of the country when it comes to electric mobility. We totally stand for sustainability. In fact, if you look at the total renewable energy that is produced within the state, 63% of our energy comes from the renewable sources. So that shows our commitment to sustainability. Now, talking about sustainable mobility in particular, we are actually looking at the ecosystem approach. Now, ecosystem approach has got various components. Now, if we look at the components, we are talking about the policy. There is a strong policy pool that we are creating for all the players to come and participate in the electric mobility sector within the state. We were the first state to come out with the exclusive EV policy in 2017. We have updated, keeping up with the times, we have updated our policy also. The whole focus there is essentially the supply side incentives. So we are looking at manufacturers. We are promoting manufacturers to set up their electric vehicle manufacturing within the state. For that, we are giving turnover subsidies, some capital subsidies. We are asking them to create charging infrastructure. So we are giving subsidies on the creation of the charging infrastructure. So that is one part of it that we are looking at from the policy. From the regulatory side, what we are looking at is how we can ensure and mandate all our buildings, all our commercial complexes, metro stations, to mandate them to have necessarily electric vehicle charging stations. So that is what we are creating, the entire ecosystem for these charging stations to be created in the cities along the national highway. So we are coming out already, we have in place within the Bangalore city around 125 charging stations. We plan to scale them to 600 charging stations. We are working very closely with the private players for setting up these high-speed charging stations along the national highways. So that comes in the regulatory part and also from the demand side, if I were to look at it, we have ensured that all the electric vehicles registration, there are no charges to be paid. Similarly, road tax they do not have to pay. So that is kind of incentives given to the buyers of the electric vehicles. We are also talking about cluster approach. So 50 kilometers away from Bangalore city, if you as you all know, Bangalore is a tech hub and the tech innovation city of the world. We are setting up a cluster where you will have a testing centers, the testing track, the EV vehicles so that and also we are going to create an innovation center. So where in the academia, the industries, the startups, we have a very rich ecosystem of 45 plus startups which are working in this area. We are also working very closely with these startups to understand how we can de-link the battery from the vehicle because the major cost, 50% of the cost 40 to 50% cost is from the battery. So here we are trying to work out innovative business models wherein, you know, swapping centers and so that can be monetized in that ways and there would be only cost would be because the high cost of the electric vehicle is one of the problems which the people face for broad basing the electric vehicle. So that again, that we are working in a big way. The important aspect is retrofitting because we understand in Karnataka or in India we have to look at that more and more people by electric vehicles. And the one of the quick gains we can have in this sector is by ensuring that two wheelers and three wheelers particularly which are used in the fleet can be retrofitted and we are planning to keep a target of say 100,000 vehicles in a year that can be converted retrofitted so that we can have these two or three wheelers on the roads and that would help to spur the demand of the electric vehicles within and create the ecosystem. So our idea essentially is to have both supply side, demand side, create the ecosystem, the infrastructure that is required, have the innovative inputs that are required with the help of all these stakeholders and give that push that is required for this to become sustainable. Thank you so much, Commissioner. I think you've just proven that government intervention and cooperation is so important for us to really transition into a more sustainable mobility ecosystem. Last but not least, I'd like to turn to Glinda. In terms of mobility regulation and financing this transition, what do you think needs to happen to change the system into a more sustainable mobility in the region Southeast Asia? What is your organization doing to assist governments in the region? Thank you very much, Jessica. I'd like to give a little bit of context on the situation in developing Asian countries. Road transport in this region is characterized by high public mass transport ridership. Still a majority of trips are by public transport and mass transit buses, paratransit modes and three wheelers that provide a valuable mobility service to society are often forgotten in the mobility transition. If we are to include them in this transition, we need to focus on the unique challenges they face. And I take the example of the challenge of paratransit modes such as the Jeepneys, the famous Jeepneys in the Philippines. Their challenge is really the high capital investment needed for replacing their vehicles with cleaner ones. Most of these Jeepneys are in need of upgrading as they run on secondhand engines some more than 10 years old, usually unmaintained diesel run and highly polluting vehicles with high vehicle kilometers traveled. And this transport mode should really be prioritized in government programs to shift to electric mobility. Currently purchased subsidies offered by government are insufficient to allow them to invest in new electric vehicles. So how could we help them then? They'll need to be organized and professionalized into transport cooperatives that purchase and manage fleets of vehicles. And for this to succeed, they'll need training and organizational development and management skills. They'll need to understand the technology, the financial implications for shifting to EVs, for example, that batteries will need to be replaced in the future. And another public transport mode in developing Asian countries are the three-wheelers or the tuk-tuk, the rickshaws, or tricycles as we call them in the Philippines. They provide valuable last mile service to a majority of people. And what they need is access to microfinancing and clear regulations on where they're allowed to travel. Business models that reduce the upfront cost of investment are also needed to help them participate in the mobility transition. Now, Cleaner Asia, a 20-year-old international NGO based in Asia, we facilitate the participatory electric vehicle roadmap development led by government agencies, but involving private sector, the academia, civil society groups and the operators and drivers of the paratransit modes and the three-wheelers. We aim to ensure that the concerns of these sectors are considered in the electric vehicle roadmaps of countries. Thank you so much, Linda, for that perspective and so relevant to remind us that a lot of the mass transport are still the two-wheelers and we must include them in this transition. On that note, I want to thank all our speakers and viewers for joining us here for this first part of the discussion. Please do contact the Global New Mobility Coalition team at the Forum to support the Forum's efforts to sync shared electric connected and autonomous mobility technologies. We will be concluding this segment now, so thank you very much.


Mr. President, Merry Christmas. Hello, Prime Minister. Jim? Mr. President, I'm very glad to see you. What do you want to see? What do you want to see? What do you want to see? Dean, you have a little more in here. Good be. Mr. Prime. This...  How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you? What's the thing about you? Jim? What's the thing about you? How are you? How are you? How are you? How are you, sir? You can't imagine what I want to talk about. Yeah, you know what I mean. But listen, I'm very disturbed and upset about what's going on with this thing. I know that, as we talked the other morning, when you heard the cabinet meeting, both proposals, our Republican proposal, and the way that things have got some things that we all don't like. But I just don't believe that if we let this process die, that we're ever going to certain enough, well, I'm going to have a chance to get out again. And my belief is that we can keep it moving and get it to the Senate and then into a conference. And I assure you that if it comes out of Turkey after all of that, it will then not be the last resort of our visa. But right now, I think the whole image is going to be if we don't give enough support to get this out and come next election. It'll be the Democrats saying that they wanted to have tax reform because people wouldn't have it. Now, this tax reform is going to represent a tax decrease, or at least certainly no increase for 80 percent of our people. Ninety-three percent of our people are going to be in the 15 or 25 percent ranks as a sizable reduction for all of them. And as I say, there are some things we want corrected. I believe that in a conference committee, and I think on the other side, there is some sentiment for that, that there are things that were done to get it out of the Ways and Means Committee that they wouldn't fight through the heart for, that they get changed back. This represents the lowest tax, would be the lowest tax for individuals in 15 years since 1931, and would be the lowest for business in 40 years since 1941. And no one's gotten off the ground, I don't know, with any idea of tax or anything. So if you want to sound off and tell me, I'm begging for your help. If I can just ask you a question about something you said relative to your possible veto of the tax bill, and why infer that if it has not changed significantly, perhaps that's what you're doing. Thank you. Let's you know what we want to talk about. Well, listen, I'm very upset at the way things are going, and the poor slander is being put on this now, and I look ahead to the things that you want, and I look forward to the next few years. And I can see the Democrats out there, paling the fact that they wanted to have tax reform, and that the republicans would have to be vetoed. I don't know how we'll respond to that. This was our whole idea. On our side, we put it in there, and I grant you that there are things in both of the facts before the House now that I disagree with it. But what I really want is the tax, the process to go forward, so that we can get at it not only in the Senate, but then in the conference committee. And as I told people in here before, I have reason, very strong reason to believe that in conference, Rostakovsky is going to be more immediate. That is, he's going to be in the right order. I think he's going to be very cooperative about eliminating some things that may be in the President's proposal. But here's a tax proposal, or two of them, that both of them, with all the folks that anyone else may find with them, are infinitely better in the present tax system. And to the extent that the Treasury Department's study and the Council of Economic Advisory Study reveals that either one of these present proposals would do a better job of keeping the economy growing than with the present tax structure. And to let this die now, all I'm asking is, give us a chance to keep on going with the process. And if a turkey comes out of all of that, then I won't sign it. I won't sign anything of it as a tax increase. I'm not going to go for things that are efficient into this, but 88% of people are either going to get a tax reduction or at least stay even with where they are. 93% of the people are going to be in the two lowest brackets and the 15% and the 25% bracket. You can see the kind of doubling up here. Right, right. All right. Well, what we came to talk about won't be as honest to you. And I'm very concerned about this. Very concerned that our side should be put in the position of looking with 86 coming out, as if the Democrats won't tax reform when they don't. And I know that there are flaws in both bills. The open bill and they never came out of their own means. But in any case, the studies that we've made, we deal with both of these. We agree on what we're trying to get changed. But both of them will contribute more to economic growth than the present tax system will. And here we have an opportunity. The tax rates would be the lowest against individuals as much as 31. Lowest for business is 1940. That's 50 and 40 years. But people will be reversing. And what I want to see is the process go forward. And if we can't, then I think we're all aware of the other one. But then get it to the Senate. If the Senate or should have it and it comes out in Turkey, then right over there, I won't be signing an albivito. And so we've got these protections for us. But I just don't think that we can be in the position of stopping this process of tax reform. And being held up as they will hold us up to view. The eyes of the people next year in the campaign is being the ones that denied the people's tax reform and they weren't willing to go forward with it. So we've got some things to say and we've got some questions involved. I'm just convinced that this just hasn't happened in decades and decades. A legitimate attempt to reform the taxes. At least when I sent those rates there, 18% of the people would get either a tax cut or a fewer than one. At least stay even. But that much benefit millions of people at the bottom of the scale would be totally removed from the tax flows entirely. And 93% of the total taxpayers will be in the 15% or 25% bracket. Which is a hell of a lot better than we could say of the President. Of the President's tax system. Mr. President, I'm encouraged to see that you are. I'm the chair of the Republican National Finance Committee. Jim Robinson, chair of the 86th inaugural anniversary dinner dance. Frank Farrincoff, chair of the Republican National Committee. And thanks to all of you, your generous financial support is very much appreciated. You've all been successful and you've chosen to give some of that success back to America. And your contributions have helped to make our country strong. Our job isn't over, however. The challenges we face in 86 are critical, not only to the party, but to America. I was reminded of that yesterday. We must continue forward. And not only have you generously contributed your personal resources, but you've contributed your time to ensure the success of this important event. So please keep up that tremendous work. It's so important to an even bigger and better egos program at the National Party. As a matter of fact, it's one of the all-time great fundraisers, this particular affair in our party. And working together, we can leave America in the world of legacy of prosperity and freedom for future generations. That's all I've got to say at the Senate now. Mr. President, we thank you very much for taking the time particularly to reference what you mentioned yesterday. There's time and I know it's very important to you. These people here today represent the vice chairman of the dinner dance from around the country. There are 37 members and all but seven were given very short notice and they got here and we're so proud of their energy and enthusiasm in making this dinner dance a tremendous success. Jim Robinson has agreed to be our national chairman. And Red Blunt is one of our national co-chairmen. Ann Armstrong and Al Hague and Don Rumsfeld are the four national co-chairmen. And of course with the great help of Frank Ferenkoff, leadership we've been following for low these many, what, three years. Oh, my balls. And we gave Maureen the title of honorary, national honorary co-chairman and she has been anything but honorary. She has been a great worker and helper and we're just so delighted to have her helping us in this event. So I just want to tell you on behalf of all these people that we're very appreciative that you've agreed to meet with us today and to support our dinner dance and we're looking forward to seeing you and Mrs. Reagan on the night of January 21st. We're looking forward to that too. Jim's our national chairman. I mentioned at our lunch today that he was going to put the hole down on his platinum card in the American Express. It's actually over his limit. It's going to say this is going to be another victim of the lawyers as we get on. Mr. President, this represents quite an elite strike force here and we were talking at lunch about the goal as being four million dollars and that sounds low by about 50%. So we're going out there and see if we can draw up about six million dollars and set a record forever and you've made our lives much better and much easier. Hope we can help make yours easier. Well, thank you very much. I don't want to mean to pick on lawyers or anything, but when you... We have a senator, a Republican senator, without Simpson, who never comes in this room when the leadership of the Congress is down here without dropping a little tidbit in my ear. His last one was a little hard on lawyers. He was speaking about the cold snap here last week and he said it was so cold that he saw a lawyer walking down the street with his hand in his own pockets. Would you like people tied for the lawyers in America? I'll pass on defending my profession three years ago until I get back to England. But just President, in discussions today, we've assessed two years of this term, but also for the governors across this country and the state legislatures and the future of the Republican Party. So we're so proud that they've offered their time and energy to help the party and to help us. It's a big upheaval for us in every year of elections. But we really ought to appeal to the fairness of the American people. We start to think many times we've been a Republican executive, but always in these years we're at this hostile house. But the fact that they have controlled every ten years the government was regarded really apportionately. And now lately, more people in the United States vote for Republican candidates for Congress than are elected. It's an indication that we've been really careful about what's going on, just the way I think that it's time we appeal to the people out there for a little fairness. I've seen that in California particularly. Yes, there's no statement. I've often thought about the only good district they ever let best of self of the border. Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Cunningham. I think they'll all go over here while I sign this measure. I'll sign you a book first. What do you think of all that? You're doing a lot for children yet to be born. We're proud to have you here. And I shall now sign this. I'm very happy and pleased today. Not only your family, but all these people from larger times. Incidentally, did you know that ambassadors keep the title for life? I'm very proud of you. I understand you swim. I understand you swim. Well, I was a swimmer. I was a lifeguard for seven summers. How about that, Scott? See his mobile. I'm going to give him a look at the constant tag. Say bye-bye. Say bye-bye to him. Tell him where you're from. Mobile Alabama. Eight miles. It's good to see you. That's a nice meeting with you. Thank you. Yes, man. See you later. Thank you. What are you holding? Come on in. Step on in here is a jar that has this seal of gray dye. And it's filled with jelly beans. And because I didn't want to open it right now, here's a little sample of what's in the jar. And I've got one also for my brother. They've got a letter for my brother. I'll just take it. Thank you. You appreciate it. Thank you. You're more than welcome. Well, how do you do? I'm fine. Thank you for seeing us. This is our new president, Jim Hughes. We've met before. I'm in little problems these days. We're going to try to help you there. That's what it is. This is Louise Oskerman. Get a little more. Just slide right after you. Okay. All right. Individuals taking. I think you've done. We did. Well, thank you very much. It's good to see you. And that's for the president. And that's for the president. Leave that house before you do that. Well, thank you. That's good. Now I'm going to hand it back. Excuse me. Hello. Good to see you. How's that? Okay. Let me see. You want to kind of square it around? All right. All right. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm fine with it. Wait a minute. I can only count up to eight. How many do you want? No, no. We're not going to have anybody. We just needed somebody else in there. Yes. Okay. Everyone look right here. One more. One more. Yes. Well, this is a chance to thank all of you for all that you do. What do you mean? Our noble cause. We're trying to accomplish. And I've got to take advantage of you telling us something. There's 86 coming up. The rest of them. Elections in the twenty-seven seats and so forth that are up. Back in nineteen sixty-four in California or sixty-six in California after our party who divided and torn sixty-four campaign we gave birth to something called the Eleventh Commandment which shall not speak ill of another Republican. All right. And it became the credo of the four sixty-six election mainly because California Republican women passed a resolution that they would not support the final election of any Republican candidate who violated the Eleventh Commandment. In other words, we ran a primary there for all the offices including us when I was running for governor in which he campaigned against the opposition and not against your other candidates that you all agreed that whoever came out on top everybody would then be supported to run a third of the industry in California. I was there. So I just thought that it might be an idea on kind of a national level that we ran the campaign in eighty-six. I know in our own state there are probably going to be eleven candidates for the system. And they shouldn't be hammering at each other. Because they don't give the opposition what they have about the material. They say, look what these old people said about it. No. It doesn't help. No. But it worked. I think it's kind of faded a little bit that people kind of forgot about it. The Eleventh Commandment. You might mention it to them. I'd say the Republicans remind them of that. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot. Good to see you. Good to see you. I have to tell you if you hear my voice and it sounds like everybody's talking in the press, they're talking about my coat. I don't have a coat. I have allergies. I think what's happening to me is I think the white house that she's decorated is giving it to me. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.


Now, two suicide car bombers have killed at least 10 people when they targeted a military facility in central Somalia. A police official said the vehicles exploded in a neighborhood full of civilians. Al-Shabaab terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.


The only reason anyone could be offended by the idea of the existence of hell is simply because they're not offended enough by the idea of sin. We don't understand truly how evil, how wicked, how dark sin is, and because we don't understand how sin violates the holy nature of God, we become offended by the existence of hell.


When you submit your prayer requests to God, you're lifting those burdens of life from off of your shoulders and you're placing them in God's hands. And in doing that, you experience the peace of God that fills your heart. Now this is the mistake many believers make. They make their prayer requests. They tell them what they need. Then they fill that burden lifted from off of them. They're filled with peace and they say, I feel much better. Thank you, Lord. And then they walk out of the prayer room. But peace is not the conclusion of prayer. It's the beginning of prayer. It's when you're filled with that peace that you can now focus the mind to go deeper into the places of prayer than ever before.


Welcome folks, we have the Dow industry is down 66, you got the Nasdaq off 27, S&Ps are down 7.5, and we take a look at the S&Ps first, what you're going to see here folks, another subtle move, you know your sideways is a slightly lower move, but what you also have out here, you're going to have an expansion of volume once again. Yesterday, you did the 52 million trying to get into highs up here, bottom line it looks like we're going to do about 55, maybe even 60 million as you go south. We're going to take a look at the small caps out here, which had a good day yesterday, small caps go above the highs of yesterday, no more buyers, pretty amazing actually. Yesterday you did 18 million shares, we're at 8 million right now, you're going into that high that had 21 million, that high that we're talking about is 157.47, you got the 157.68, and bottom line is that you're not going to do that 21 million shares, so you get another failure inside the S&P, it's pretty subtle, it's subtle all around at these highs right now. NDX100, three cues, same setup, meaning you get to a higher high, hasn't been able to hold price. You know, NDX will have been up here for seven days or so, now keep in mind tomorrow we're going to have the banks come out with numbers, we'll see if the banks can basically get this baby going. Full contract, they whack gold out here early this morning, it's 300,000 contracts, we're down 20 bucks right now, and you're going into 400, and let's see, so there's a big number you're going into here, and you have 427,000. So bottom line, what you haven't done yet is reach the swing low, and that swing low out there is 1284, we hit 1292 out here, if we go to the GDX you're going to see that the equities themselves have been leading the contract higher, and guess what, nothing's changed out here, 22 million shares is coming into 42 million inside the GDX, so those equities still want higher price. Kingdala, we're going to take a look at Kingdala, Kingdala's still hanging tough out here, that's the bottom line. You have Kingdala trading at a price point of 96,815, you've done 8,000 contracts. Now, the volume has dried up dramatically in Kingdala, it's been light for quite some time, but when we're talking about the last two weeks, each time you're up or down, you're only dealing with about 10,000 to 12,000 contracts. That being said, you're still over 96,685, once you're over 96,685, guess what, you can go to higher price.


The US Empire is more dangerous than ever before. Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix. Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it was that their government has spent the 21st century killing millions and displacing tens of millions of people in its post 9-11 wars. The US is more dangerous now as it loses global primacy than it has been at any other point in its history. There really are just two options currently on the table. Either the US Empire relinquishes unipolar domination voluntarily and leads a peaceful transition into a multipolar world, or it takes increasingly drastic and dangerous action to maintain planetary control. The latter choice is both horrifying and likely. People in Western imperialist nations pretending to care about Muslims in China will never stop being hilarious.  Sure is an interesting coincidence how all the still completely unproven narratives about Russian 2016 election interference and Trump collusion served perfectly to manufacture consent for all the batshit insane US NATO escalations we're seeing in Ukraine today. Everyone who'd support going to war with Russia or China over Ukraine or Taiwan should be regarded with the same revulsion and social rejection as child molesters. Capitalism is so innately absurd that its proponents always respond to questions about systemic problems by babbling about what people can do as individuals. People are homeless, get a job, jobs aren't paying enough, get a better job.  It's like if there was a locked room full of ten prisoners and you only gave them enough food to keep seven alive and you responded to their complaints by saying, better make sure you grab the food first when I throw it in your cell then. It's a belief system you can only hold in place with psychological compartmentalization. Tell that one suffering guy to get a better job and save his money and then simply do not think about the millions of people who are working low paying jobs and unable to save any money. Any competition based system will necessarily have losers as well as winners in those competitions. Saying compete better than those you're competing against does nothing for the part of the population who must necessarily lose. A collaboration based system is what's needed. You don't even need compassion for the poor and disadvantaged to oppose capitalism. You just need some basic self-preservation instinct and an understanding that in a system where human behavior is driven by profit, war and ecocide must necessarily continue as long as they are profitable. It's so easy to get lost in the narrative matrix without a good moral compass. You start off opposing right-wingers to be a good person. Then you fall down a few rabbit holes and before you know it, you're telling a Rasmussen pollster that you support taking kids away from unvaccinated parents. Seems like every day the media have an urgent new report explaining why the free flow of ideas on the internet is dangerous and needs to be curtailed. Today it's one thing, tomorrow it'll be something else. It's not about this or that person or issue, it's about controlling information on the internet. It was pretty clever how they redefined fascism as being kind of racist. While actual fascism was rebranded as just normal party politics. Saying propaganda doesn't work is the same as saying advertising doesn't work. And advertising is nearly a trillion dollar industry. Also, advertising would be much more effective than it already is if corporate ads were allowed to disguise themselves as news reports in the New York Times. Having strong political opinions on social media is no substitute for doing the work to heal your early childhood trauma.


If we want to know what is going to be the price of a stock, there are several theories that explain this phenomenon. So, in this section, I am going to briefly introduce you to the concept of the theory of rational expectations. So, if we look into the history in which people have come up with various explanations to describe how the stock prices can be decided or how the expectations about the stock prices are formed. In 1950s and 1960s, the economists have always considered that we need to look at the previous data, the past values, the past prices of a certain stock and that would help us in understanding how the price of this particular stock will be determined or what is going to be the price of the same stock in future. So, according to them, if we want to know what will be the expected price of a certain stock in the next year, we need to look back at the historical data to assess what the previous data is telling us was used to determine that how the stock prices will behave in future. So, this particular concept is called adaptive expectations. So, when we say adaptive expectations, it means that when we are forming the expectations about the future prices, we are looking in the previous historical evidence and that data is going to form the expectations or structure the expectations about the future prices of a specific stock. So, if we see that there is a lot of ups and downs in the price of a specific stock, let's call it the stock of stock X. So, if there were a lot of ups and downs in the past, the experts would say that they will form their expectation exactly in the same way that in the future, there are going to be ups and downs in the price of this particular stock. So, if we see that there was a consistent increase in the price of a specific stock in the past, the expectations based upon the previous data will be formed saying and everybody will expect that a similar pattern will be observed. So, if the prices have gone up in the past, they will be expected to rise in the future also. So, vice versa, if we have seen that there is a downward movement in the previous data, the expectations for the future for that particular stock will be formed in a way that we will expect that in future again there will be a downward movement. So, this phenomenon is termed as adaptive expectations. On the contrary, we have got another opinion which is the basic foundation of the theory of rational expectations. The theory of rational expectations says that the expectations are based upon the forecasted values. So, people do not consider what has happened previously or in the past. They consider how the forecasted values have been estimated and when the expectations are developed for future, they only consider the future or the forecasted values of that particular stock. This particular concept of rational expectations was developed by John Muth and according to him, the expectations are similar to the optimal forecast. That means that the analyst or the financial experts take into account all the relevant data that describe the movements of a certain financial asset and they make guesses about the future that this is how this particular asset is going to behave in the future. So, the best guesses help them in making the optimal forecasting. So, that optimal forecasting shapes the expectations of the investors about its price, about the expected rate of return of that particular asset and this is how the future expectations will be formed. So, instead of looking back at the previous data, what this theory emphasizes on is that you need to consider the best guesses or the optimal forecasting that in future this particular asset is going to behave in this specific way based upon how the company is going to move on in the future, how they are planning or they are making policies to expand or to operate in different countries or they are going to set up new plans. So, they take into account only the things that are going to help them in explaining or understanding the forecasted values. So, the forecasted values are considered and then the expectations are developed and this particular phenomenon is explained in terms of the theory of rational expectations. So, it is in contrast with the adaptive expectations which emphasizes that the experts only look at the previous data and then they form the expectations whereas in the rational expectation theory the emphasis upon is upon the forecasted values, the future values only.