So today we're gonna bring in a guest who I've only really Recently discovered maybe in the last I don't know four or five months or so his name is yarn Brooke He's the chairman of the board at the end of the iron ran Institute. I owe you. It's funny. Yeah, and I always say Right, I mean, you know, but it's it's I got your name right. I think and I ran right, right?  Okay, I jump around you might say I waste time, but I don't really consider it wasting time because Sometimes you discover somebody and in this case I discovered yarn who you've done so many interviews I mean you talk about all kinds of different things, but there is one central theme I think and certainly at one central person to do the things that you address and It's the 20th century philosopher. I guess we'll call her writer philosopher. I ran who was a More or less a refugee from the Soviet Union in the early part of last century enormously influential writer thinker Etc. And the more I hear you yarn talk about her and apply her thoughts philosophy approach To current events the more I wanted to talk to you and say man Good every single time But you know when I'm talking about sports this stuff just has a way of popping up and it's tough to describe It's like it's not like I can say oh well This is iron ran and this is sport like this is where the intersection is it's it's not as clear as that but I just wanted to welcome you in and maybe quickly give us like a 20 to 30 second I Don't know nutshell version of what iron rands Approach philosophy is can we do that? Is that possible? We can try probably not 30 to 40 seconds, but we can try you know reality is what it is It doesn't bend to your wishes. It doesn't be it's not determined by some other consciousness It just is and you have the tool to know it your reason.  You're responsible for your own thinking for your own ideas for your own values and Your purpose in life should be your own happiness. You shouldn't live for other people. You shouldn't expect other people to live for you You should live for yourself interacting with other people in win-win relationships win-win relationships spiritually win-win relationships materially as a trader and then the political system There's more than most appropriate for a life of a rational being pursuing his own happiness is a political system of freedom political system of Where the government protects individual rights and that's its sole purpose and that is that is the essence of capitalism so Antisocialism anti any form of statism pro individual rights pro capitalism, right? So It's you know, there's so many issues in sports that come up that have kind of this overarching theme I mean just as an example. I'm reading this week that there's this controversy in the NFL where The players don't want to partake in these off-season Workouts for you know fear of maybe catching COVID they want to minimize that risk, right and they're you know Just I keep hearing this word pop up solidarity in the name of solidarity We the teams are not going to you know for taking this and it almost frames the coaches and the Organizations as being tyrannical in some way so it's there's a lot of like us versus them We're right. They're wrong that kind of thing that pops up, you know in college football or college athletics Should we pay players that that or is the NCAA evil that that kind of stuff? And it's there's one key thing that you pointed to when you were describing that you're in self-interest Right self-interest not living for others. I think when people hear that they hear Selfish right like be selfish push everybody else out of the way acting morally be Bernie Madoff, right type thing whereas My understanding is the more you Act in your own self-interest and pursue your own goals Diligently the better you're going to be for everybody else around you. Does that make sense? Well, maybe not everybody else, right? I'm not gonna commit to that, but to the people the matter sure So I ran redefines the term selfish or she resurrects its original definition Which is really taking care of self Taking care of self does not evolve line-treating stealing and treating people other people really really badly That always boomerangs back at you It basically is you know a person who does that has no integrity is is is dishonest it's not using his mind to pursue his own values and You know, it's not gonna be happy look at Bernie Madoff land up in jail just died age 82 miserable I was always being miserable was actually more miserable when he was rich Then he isn't jail because when he was rich he was lying to everybody. He had no friends He couldn't look his family in the eye couldn't have any kind of relationships So no the idea of self-interest is the idea of How do you build the best life you can build for yourself? And that involves creating when that involves first of all committing to living a good life for yourself It means investing in it thinking about it. There's only time to it. How many people sit down and say How am I gonna make my life the best it can be right? I'm gonna live like 80 years I want them to be every moment. I wanted to count for something. I wanted to really really mean something And I want to have fun doing it. I want to enjoy it I want to I want to really be happy at the end of the day, right? How many people do that almost nobody does it and in that sense almost nobody is selfish almost nobody's taking care of themselves and Then with regards to other people the way to think about that is you want to treat them with justice People who are bad you don't want to have anything to do with them And sometimes you want to actually penalize them because they're bad people you want to distance them from yourself You don't want it to have the bad influence on you people who are good You want to bring closer to you and you want to trade with people? You want to create these win-win relationships as many win-win relationships as possible now It's interesting because we're talking sports right in his sports. It's win-lose, but yeah, there's a sense in which for example accepting the rules of the game Living up to the rules of the game having integrity around the rules of the game is win-win, right? Even if you lose the game because you stuck to the rules Because you're you're sustaining a game that is important your livelihood is important your happiness is important your values So you don't cheat to win even though winning is important because more fundamental than that is your integrity and more fundamental than that is The value the game provides your life Right. So just as an example of that I think think of steroids in baseball, right? It was the big, you know late 90s mid 2000s Oh, we're all watching baseball McGuire everything and it seemed like it was great and then all of a sudden We found out all these guys were doing it and then the game not that it ruined the game But it kind of it's never gotten back to where it was Therefore kind of like you're saying they're cheating the game did not do the game any good long term It did it, you know, I think that's right There's a whole discussion we had about whether the game should exclude steroids or not What the rules should be once the rules are set Sheating on those rules is a is undermining of the game itself and therefore undermining of your These people care about the Hall of Fame. They care about their place in history. They care about records They care about being winners as individuals and it undermines it It puts what they call an asterisk next to their name and and so was it worth it? For for many of them it wasn't and for the game it was so how do we define? Integrity or I guess how would Rand define integrity in that kind of context because you say, you know good bad I mean Objectivism good bad, you know, it's not in here. It exists out there. How do we Objectivism is not in here, but it exists everything everything to be objective is in a sense an interaction between what's out there and Your evaluation of it good and bad are human Assignments, right? They don't exist out there Independent of human consciousness, right good or bad for whom in what context? When is killing somebody good or bad? Well, what's everybody say that if it's in self-defense? Oh, then it might be good, right?  So sticking to pro life moral values that's integrity and To the extent that honesty is a crucial.   I mean look at to bring it back to sports. Look at where the cyclist remind me is Oh, uh, Lance Armstrong Lance Armstrong. He lied. He lied. He lied.  You're always caught. I mean, he's miserable now He's lost everything. He they've taken away all his sort of fonts winnings He's gonna be viewed as a as a bad guy in history a bad guy in sports He's a nobody and and and he is from a self-esteem perspective. He's he's he's being crushed Was it worth the lie? Of course not even though he got those highs.  Is it worth it? You know almost never right always not worth it Do you think that and this is a this is about as large a question as you could possibly ask About sports, but you know from the from a young age when it when a child First gets interested in sports and let's say that they have, you know, just a great proclivity They're they've got their physical potential, etc And you know, maybe the parents recognize, okay, I think sports are for my son or my daughter Do you think that the lessons that a kid is going to learn along the way Teach that kid or our our kids Integrity or do you think that It depends. It really depends on the coaches depends on the parents. I mean so many parents are Win at all costs Even at a cost of your own integrity don't think long term. It's just a matter of winning right now They can learn a very wrong lesson same with coaches. There's some bad coaches out there who Who instill the wrong kind of values in the wrong kind of sense of integrity? I think sports like any Anything that a child does That if devotes huge amount of energy to huge amount of focus to and achieves real achievements in You know Kids can learn a lot from that experience and can learn real values from it if it's coached in a right perspective But it could also be it can also teach them about the wrong things if the coaches and the parents You know sense bad people and you know teaching bad things I just want to recommend a couple of things here real quick I'm rand I mean she's she's an author and and evidently when she moved As a she did she move as a child from the soviet union when she adult? No, she was in her 20s. She was in her 20s Okay, because she went to hollywood right because she wanted to become a A script writer for for films, right? But she ended up well obviously authoring her own stuff and just two books If you're interested In some of her work, would you recommend atlas shrugged and or the fountain head? I would recommend both that would recommend starting with the fountain head for most people And then reading out shrugged if you really into politics Yeah, the world then I would start with atlas shrug But I'd say for most people start with the fountain Okay, and the and these by the way are there are stories. It's not you know, sometimes you pick up a book by you know Nietzsche or a conter something Yeah, these are novels exactly right the fun reads. I think the found head is the american novel I think it's some of the more, you know, it's a it's a classic american novel. Everybody should read the fountain head Uh, you know it was made into a movie gary koopa patrice and nil o nil Uh, we're in it, but I would recommend reading the book before you see the movie Uh, so No, absolutely. These are thrilling exciting interesting stories. Even if you land up on agreeing with a philosophy You know, I know a lot of people Violently agree with iron rance philosophy disagree. Sorry disagree with iron rance philosophy. I love the fountain Love the novel because of the heroes in it because of the the characters in it Um, and I think for sports fans I think iron rand has a as a unique appeal not because she deals with sports But there's something about sports that's unique It's one of the last Refuge refugees, you know in our world Where there are winners and losers in a sense Not really but in a sense, they're good guys and bad guys, right? They're your guys and sure and your and You know success is awarded And and failure is is not Uh, not everybody gets a ribbon, right? Uh in at least in professional theoretically Right to country in professional sports. You do not all get a ribbon So iron rands world is very much that kind of world It's a world of good guys and bad guys. It's a world of heroes It's a world of of people who you know people who step out to play ninth inning You know to out uh and and hit home runs to win the game that that's the kind of world she has Those are the kind of heroes she portrays, you know, what's interesting about that is that You know up here in washington, we have gonzaga, right the team that just lost in the uh, the ncaa Men's basketball tournament in the final now there a team they went undefeated the whole year Right up until that last game and we're beating pretty soundly by by a good baler team And you know, it's it's funny yarn I'm on twitter a lot. Okay. I don't know how much time you spend there, but I see a lot of reaction To certain things and you can almost see patterns at times and one thing that I saw with gonzaga or from gonzaga fans was Well, you can't criticize gonzaga for that loss because they had a great season. I feel like more and more I hear people Even though your team lost or did something wrong or this or that try to spin it like Yeah, we lost but it's not so bad because of blah blah blah blah blah It's almost like they're they're not willing to accept the loss for what it is For I see that as problematic Does how would you interpret that? That's probably always been that case I mean people don't want to completely face the fact that the lost I mean, what did the red sox invent a curse? Yeah In fact, if I you know 80 years 90 years or whatever they they couldn't win a world series So people try to try to find excuses try to find justification for the fact that they've lost But yeah, I think in in in our modern day, which is dominated by kind of egalitarian philosophy and egalitarian view of the world There's much there's more and more Don't emphasize the winners. Yeah, everybody's equal. Everybody's the same but he gets a ribbon I think it's interesting because if a good zaga had won They would have celebrated like like crazy, right the win But it's it's what you lose you bring out that more egalitarian perspective, right? In an effort to kind of ease the pain of actually having having lost So that pain of having lost though Isn't there value in that you mentioned the red sox, right? I mean for the first 25 years of my life I was a red sox fan who gradually started believing in curses as it went like 86 and then you know 99 2003 like the whole thing and then the whole history of it like you get indoctrinated into that when you're when you're from new england, but You can say the same thing for cub fans. I guess the pain that you experience has value because it it adds To the joy or actually it creates the joy in some way that you experience when you finally win So isn't so is minimizing pain a good thing? well, remember This is a Fun part of life an important point, you know an important part of life sport is it's not crucial though, right? It's not real pain not not and it shouldn't be right if it is You know, you should you should you should check your life consult a therapist. Yeah This is a it's a game and and and To some extent we're fans of a particular team For random reasons right because we were born in a particular area because we lived in a particular time of our lives at a particular place I became a red sox fan because I happen to live between the ages of 14 or 16 happened to live in boston and and those Periods in which you you know, there's a big influence all the music Uh that I you know popular music. I love it's from that period of time, right? What what period of time is that by the way? This would be the the the mid 70s. This would be colton's fisk's Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah game winning You know Right the world series against insinuity reds and then bucky dent a few years later the pain of that, right? Yeah, I wasn't there with bucky dent. I wasn't in boston when that happened But but that was you know colton fisk was 75 so Fred lin You know was in alefield jim rice, uh, I think colby's trim she was still he was there. Yeah So it was a great team of of really legends and I can still remember. I don't remember anything else But when I was you know when it was 14 But I remember the almost the entire lineup of the boston red sox from that season which is insane, right? So these things these things kind of stick with you in a way But on the other hand, it's not It's not existentially a threat to me if the red sox lose and as a consequence the pain should only go So far down.  So, you know and fans where it becomes that You know, it is I think it is it does become a problem It it it starts to dominate their life and obsess their life and they can't pursue other values Which is a real threat to their happiness. That's true now Having worked in sport stock radio for 15 years. Okay, what I've found is that people People take sports conversations And they use those as fronts to fight other battles like moral battles Like I I can't tell you how many times I've heard In the owner versus player like union versus owners Uh debates when when labor issues come up. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say I always side with millionaire players over billionaire owners I've heard that so many like people make up their mind ahead of time As to who they're gonna side with regardless of the issue just based on the fact that what one side has earned more or Whatever, I mean, it's it's it's if you brought up with the certain marxist philosophy, right? Then you always decide with the workers versus the owners Uh, you know, whoever makes more money is more evil That that's just part of the philosophy In capitalist america Many people are raised with the opposite attitude. Yo, you know instead of Siding on the issue, right? And and figuring out what you really think about the particular issue They have preconceived notions based on their kind of philosophies and based on on how they were raised and and their perspective on the world Why is that? I mean, I have my own ideas about this, but why is that? unhealthy or wrong well, you know It's always unhealthy not to look at the facts and not to look at the actual evidence and to You know compress everything into kind of a set format that you already have Um Let's say I you know, I love capitalist. I love people who billionaires. I love billionaires. I think they're great We had a lot of value for me, you know, I think they're I think they're wonderful human beings, right? That goes against the grain. I know but you know some billionaires are scumbags Right, Dave just talk So I don't say all billionaires are good guys because I because I I appreciate what it takes to become a billionaire And and I admire that in people I want to value it each if I if it comes to that and issue of justice I want to value and and just because I think I don't know Some billionaire is basically a good guy because they've been productive and they produced and they've created and they've traded and they've made the world a better place I think That doesn't mean every decision they make is the right decision. Right doesn't mean every decision I make I mean, they're not gods. Nobody's a god and the same is true in terms of workers some some, uh, you know, sometimes workers are, uh, um Right in their complaints against employers and sometimes they're wrong So, uh, you've got to be able to look at issue by issue evaluate the facts Evaluate the conditions the context again and and and figure out who's right and who's wrong Why do you think that I mean, I first of all, I totally agree with you. I mean, if you're debating Something anything in order to communicate We at least need to be able to agree on the facts. Otherwise any conversation thereafter. I think as a non-starter, but Why do you think people tend to Decide ahead of time who they're going to side with before they even know what the issue is like Why is why is there a tendency in humans to even do that? Because they don't want to think for themselves because being tribal Associating you see this in politics all the time. So it doesn't surprise me that it's it's it's filtered. It filters into sports and into heavy aspect of life Reason thinking is work It requires effort And one has to be convinced it's worthwhile And we live in a culture that doesn't view thinking as that worthwhile. Yeah, you have to do it sometimes But um and and a lot of we're taught we teach our we teach kids You know, who are you to have an opinion about that? An opinion. I mean we respect their feelings their emotions. We're very good at that We don't respect their minds. We don't emphasize the mind. We don't teach critical thinking in our schools We don't emphasize That just the work and the effort and the importance of being rational, right? That's not a value Almost in anybody out there, right? Unless you go unless it's work it work. You have to be yeah You have to be a fact and stuff but outside of work in our lives We don't value rationality now if if we don't value rationality if we're taught that our minds, you know Everybody has his own point of view. It's all subjective. Nobody knows the truth all of that garbage Then how do I trust what I think? So maybe I shouldn't go through the effort Maybe it's not worth it. Maybe I should just listen to Joe A listener, you know my little tribe or my friends or you know, if I'm a republican I listen to republicans from democrat I listen to republic Democrats if I'm a sports fan of this inclination, it's just easier than to always It's a shortcut, right?  So be aware of them, right? You you want to always do the thinking I think that there's a safety In that right when when you can a laziness and safety Yeah, because when you want to I when you tend to identify with somebody else when you identify that guy And you say oh, he's like me or he thinks like me And then you say he what part of what group is he in? Oh, he's that one therefore So now you don't feel like you're alone. Do you think that there's an element of um I guess objectivism or even critical just critical thinking itself Which makes Which may make one feel alone Yeah, a little bit. I mean, but but we are alone. So I mean, it's it's good for us to feel alone, right? The end of the day, you're born alone.  I mean you you could you can talk about family all all you want But at the end of the day only you can feel what you feel only you can think what you think You are in in some fundamental metaphysical sense alone And then you choose to interact but but that means what that means is not You shouldn't fear being alone You shouldn't feel lonely What what it what it should really mean the sense that only you can think for yourself only you can have values for you only you can feel Is the importance of doing it that is the importance of embracing you as an individual Embracing your choices your values your thinking and investing in it. Look I say this often and it's a cliche, but it's a true cliche. You only live once Every second that you live you'll never get back Life is amazing It's fun.   Don't think do things that that Bring misery to you and I think the tribalist mentality is a miserable mentality. Yeah Anything you don't own your values. You don't own your thoughts Right. You just tend to follow. I mean follow. Yeah, I mean chasing Chasing the ghosts of misery where they are not right identifying. Oh, that's you know, this guy's doing that and this when when he's not, right? I just think Yeah, good And and that's about also having a healthy attitude towards sports.  I mean, that's it can be your life Right. So and and I know too many sports fans who are obsessed. This is it and and it's not You know and we like well you didn't play right?  I love fans fandom is the value I think Embracing their mentality and really cheering for your team and really getting exciting and having ups and downs with the team As long as it is healthy in a sense that it is not You know Causing you to be miserable in your life, right? Right. I think so, you know more and more Maybe young people are choosing who they root for in sports Because of the player and less having to do with the team right because you know When you were growing up or maybe even when I was growing up like like 80s 90s You saw the team that was around you right that was broadcast and now you can just see anybody you want and I feel like More because now athletes are they have an opportunity a platform to be more vocal about the things that they believe So that's a bad thing. I think my guess is probably started in the 90s with michael jordan, right? Who wasn't a michael jordan fan and therefore people all over the world Literally all over the world became chicago Right, there became chicago fans Because of michael jordan. He was the first I mean bird and and and um and magic was celebrities, but he was the first Global celebrity certainly in basketball and of course baseball and football in team sports because you would have had ali before that But you're already in team sports. Yeah And and global right and so I can I see that and I understand I for example I don't have a team in football but if the and and You know, I'm I'm a little troubled by football generally these days, but um In the past I've loved teams that had great caught up quarterbacks because you know, I love that position I love what it means. I love the leadership. I love kind of the Great quarterbacks of thinking quarterbacks are smart and and you can see that in the way they play So, you know, Joe Montana was the first guy who I really loved as a quarterback because he he didn't have the physical Abilities of a great quarterback, but he had the brains above and beyond right and he had the The the the emotion right? He had the ability to control himself and to rise to the challenge at the right moment um So I I'm not surprised that people gravitate as we become globalized as we can follow any team Towards particular players and I don't think that's a bad thing or so What if they do it though because they have an agenda? Okay, and I'm actually gonna I'm gonna roll the clock back about five years The Super Bowl in j or in February of 2016 was Denver against Carolina. Okay, and leading up to that Super Bowl there was a lot of Cam Newton's gonna win this and if he wins, it's gonna mean it's gonna be a victory for Our group meaning, you know race or whatever it is Okay I mean, I I didn't agree with that but let's just say you think that okay, and then When he lost the game Immediately in the press conference right after the game. I don't know if you remember this He sat there and he sulked and he pouted and he really didn't answer any questions and then he just you know stormed off and that As I saw it really ended up letting down a lot of people that were kind of behind him because of what they thought He represented And yeah, it's a mistake It's a mistake to to use sports as a as a as an avenue for politics and And for larger social agendas sports of sports Enjoy it for what it is and don't attribute and and look part of why we like certain Athletes I think part of Jordan's appeal part of bird's appeal and magic's appeal and and I think and the Montana's appeal Is how they handle themselves, right? And that's important. So put aside the politics put aside everything else They you know, they knew how to lose They didn't lose very often but when they lost they lost they didn't pout they didn't complain. They you know and and players to do You know have a different legacy Then but I think it's really dangerous to lump Sports into politics and make sports about politics, which we're seeing now Everyone right now every day. Yeah black grabs matter, you know during the Orlando thing In the in the in basketball They're taking a knee thing and you know my attitude is if a particular athlete wants to express a political statement Great, you know fine Owners have to decide how they want to deal with that and that's their decision You might not want to have an athlete on your side who has particular political views I don't think that's I'm all for discriminating against people with particular political views and it could go either way right but It shouldn't be a national issue. It shouldn't be the president of the united states shouldn't be commenting on it, you know It's it's sports and and these athletes You know, it's like the whole celebrity culture we live in today Who cares what? um I don't know. I'm just gonna pick up somebody Kanye West thinks about anything right rapper who cares about who cares what what um uh, Harrison Ford thinks about a Well Clint Eastwood for that matter right their actors They you know, I want them to be on screen do their job and go home And if they want to make comments about politics, they certainly have a right that free speech I don't I you know, are they particularly intelligent when it comes to politics They know more than the average job about politics in 99 percent of the case is no So let's stop taking them seriously when LeBron James comments on politics. I think the attitude should be All right, so it's LeBron James. Who cares right it but it but it's unfortunately it's not they're taken as experts They're taking us somebody we we should pay attention to and follow right right and whether we whether we think they're experts or not I think Maybe people who are my age and young, you know, maybe every maybe it's not even an age thing I think that people have a really difficult time separating the two right separating the fact that um That LeBron James is an athlete from what he says or Colin Kaepernick for that matter I mean the guy was kneeling on the cover of time magazine like people are not really willing To look at what people say and just put that aside It's if you say yeah, good He's nearly on the cover of time magazine because time magazine chose to make a big issue out of the fact that a Sports figure was kneeling if we add a healthier attitude towards sports figures, maybe it wouldn't have made time magazine You know and and my view of LeBron James's political views is he's wrong but Okay, lots of people are wrong like I think 95 percent of americans are wrong on almost every issue in politics Almost every issue. I disagree with 90. I'm not a republican. I'm not a democrat I think they're all Approximately houses because I think they're all wrong. So But that doesn't mean I don't trade with them. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate when they do good work I mean most of silicon valley. I disagree with politically. Do I stop using my iphone because of that? Do I If silicon valley takes a knee tomorrow Do I throw my iphone into the trash and and pick up what samsung? What do I know what samson's exactly user? It's absurd and why? I mean, yeah, if they were if they were, you know, really horrific right if they were Communist or nazis then I'd stop dealing with them But main most of these political views are within the mainstream LeBron James doesn't say anything that about 40 percent of americans don't agree with Does that mean I'm not going to deal with those 40 percent of americans? No, it's not So we need on both sides to take a step back breathe a little bit And you know, you have your political views. I have mine the way to the way to engage with them It's the debate it's the use reason and it's not to get all huffy and puffy because some Basketball player said something he's a basketball player. Why would you expect a basketball player to know better than 40 percent of americans? Right. I mean, it's one thing when a when an athlete Or a coach or whoever just you know off the cuff says something or tweets one thing I do think it's a little bit different when I mean when you say the name collin cappernick to anybody who knows who he is You're going to think one thing first. You're not going to think of him really as an athlete You're going to think of him as the guy who kneels. That's what that's what he's uh known for but you mentioned communism nazi is One thing that I thought was interesting about the cappernick thing was, you know, he he knelt Ostensibly because he was against oppression But he thinks he thinks there's systemic racism But But when he did it when he did it or when he Explained himself at one point. He was wearing a t-shirt that actually had castro's face on it And I was thinking to myself like, you know A why does nobody comment on that and b Why does communism not have not get the same rap that naziism does like why is one looked at as Maybe it's like being fair and humane and the other is looked at as what it should be which is reprehensible When they're basically the same thing That's a huge question. They they're all basically the same thing and and it's the reason for that is The communism is viewed as being basically based on a moral idea an ethical idea that is true that that Suffering is a claim as I'm all claim against those who were not suffering That that need is a claim. We don't believe to take everything from those with ability to give it to those with need But what is the whole welfare state that republicans and democrats all agree on if not Taking from some to give to others based on what based on need and nothing else I would say and I know this will piss off many of you views The communism is basically secularization of christianity. It's not out of the mainstream It's indeed an embracing of the mainstream morally Morally And then taking it to fall all the way take it all the way in terms of the meek shall inherit earth Great. Let's give everything to the meek and and treat everybody else You know as as basically the slaves, which is what communism does it's So people often say even even conservatives often say Kindness is a great idea. It's just bad in practice And my view is no no no Communism's evil is an idea Evil in practice And that's what happens evil ideas lead to evil practices evil practices are based on evil ideas the tour connected You have to reject communism ideologically. You have to reject the morality of communism See nazis it's nazism is easy to reject You know not just because they killed a lot of people because the communists killed even more people than the nazis Because because it's based on race and we've internalized this idea You know a true idea that race is abhorrent But so is this so is treating everybody the same So is stealing and taking stuff from redistribution of wealth, which is basically legalized stealing So all these things which communism is based on and indeed communism is is responsible for the death of more people than Fascism and nazism So these are moral ideas that need to be challenged. And yes, I see it all the time communists are treated with kick gloves right I don't treat them that way. I treat them as the as the murderous villains that they really are And and cap and egg should have been criticized for when that should Taking a knee. Okay. We could disagree about that one. But but having a Fido Castro should when you know what Fido Castro did see his people the number of people he mooted And the fact that he has enslaved the Cuban people now for what 50 years They've been under the boot of communism and and have been being institutionalized into poverty and that's how horrific Right, which is why when I hear an athlete commenting on something that you know has happened, whether it's A police involved shooting or or a law the voting law in Georgia, right? I mean, they just moved the the major league baseball all-star game out of Georgia to I forget where they moved it um because of that voting law it's like I mean like the second you start you start Managing your business In accordance Or as a reaction To something like that which you may or may not even understand I mean prove to me first that you even understand the issue I mean clearly Kaepernick does not understand the issue that he's protesting if you're gonna if you're gonna make a statement You need to you need to me to prove that you have a grasp and command over the topic First before I'm gonna take you seriously But are you willing that's true, but are you willing to hold everybody to that stand? Yes Well, then yeah, absolutely and indeed the real question to ask you is How come everything has become politicized? How come everything now is about politics everything is now about politics from education to sports teams To where we're gonna have them at this the all-star game Every aspect of our life has now become a political issue That to me is the real question and the real issue And I think the answer to that is the growth of government government is so powerful to me It's involved in everything. It's involved in every aspect of our lives. And as a consequence We need to care about politics because they're everywhere these politicians are The only way to deal with that is not to go after mlb or coca-cola or whatever It's to get politicians off our backs. See coca-cola is saying look Democrats have the house the senate and the presidency If I Oppose what they want me to do they could regulate me they could they could do all create all these problems for me What do I need the headache for well probably can you know have screwed it up? They're probably out of power for a while.  So so they started with democrats unnecessarily because they believe it But because they do the power calculation and they figure this is the best bet right now Imagine the politicians didn't have any power over business imagine if politicians Won't evolve in regulating our lives regulating our businesses Then what power would they have over mlb or what power imagine if we did away with antitrust laws? They just didn't exist And and the politicians couldn't threaten the mlb with yanking the antitrust exemption You know You wouldn't have politics in in sports You know I don't I don't know if I disagree with that so much as I think that there's another element to it Which is that an organization like major league baseball, for example is more concerned With its own image And the backlash they may get if they say we're to keep the all-star game In georgia, so it's kind of it's like a it's a cover my ass thing as a result of Politics having run a muck and being used by a certain group For let's let's say what say for what it is being used for power Right. I'm the I'm the victim You're the oppressor so you better satisfy my needs at every turn if you if you Don't I'm going to call you out and you're going to look like an asshole Absolutely and but that is a consequence of of giving government the amount of power that it does that it has The government fuels that and then and then having and having everything politicized so that it plays into that But it's also a consequence of the fact that we have an elite an intellectual elite primarily That's of one voice and and of one attitude and so so it's rare that companies leave a state because Because democrats have done something crazy No, I'll take that back. That's absolutely not rare. That's often the case. Look at california, right? Why is auricle leaving california? Because the democrats have gone nuts in california and they're doing stuff that hurts auricle Huts all businesses. They're leaving so people leave states all the time because of the politics um It's usually on the right, you know companies leave Because the economic conditions become harmful, but you know auricle would survive even if they stayed in california It's a statement. Why did a lawn musk build this factory in texas versus in california? It's a it's a political statement to some extent and we celebrate that because it's a political statement. We like But if the other side commits a political statement like moving mlb to a different place, we don't like it So again, I think there's more tribalism than anything in this. I don't really care where the mlb wants to play its baseball game um You know and and I don't really care where lawn musk wants to build his teslas What I care about is the fact Two things one is that everything's politicized. I think that's horrible and second That the intellectual elites tend to be of one voice But in terms of companies making decisions about these things As long as they're not communists or fascists, you know, let them make decisions We're gonna disagree right just on I mean, I don't care where they play I was a shalehold that would be pissed off, right? Sure. I'm maximizing my wealth because that should be the only concern Right, and I don't I don't care where they play the all-star game. I don't even I maybe I need to think about this but like say the there's the um The the national anthem before any sporting event, right mark cuban Tried to do away with the national anthem at his home stadium and the nba. I think he they may still be figuring that out I'm not sure but when your solution is to Do away With something as a solution, right? Okay. Well the anthems controversial. Just do away with it Okay, well, you know, georgia has this voting law controversy. Just do away. Just keep, you know, keep it out of there Do away with this do away with that when you're when we do them away with things I just feel like good that we do away with some things What the thing is I'd say Sure. I mean a lot of us can be upset about it. A lot of us can be unhappy about it We shouldn't make it illegal Because it's their property. They if they don't want to play the national anthem They don't have to but we should be willing as fans to say, you know, what if you're not gonna play the national anthem We're not coming You can have an empty stadium Make them pay for it economically. You see that to me Is the way we deal with one another we deal with life. I don't like what you're doing I don't have to deal with you.  And if enough people do that, you'll change your mind, right? So use the economic power that you have as a fan To influence and and maybe that's a place where you rally other people you get together you say we're boycotting games I think that's great when that happens And I think it's great when that happens even if it goes against what I think right because I think that's the right way to behave versus We're gonna get politicians to put pressure on you To force you to do this or we're gonna pass a law Or we're gonna get the president of the united states to say, you know, you can't do this or whatever. No Keep politics out of it as owners fans athletes Let's Through the volunteer exchange relationships that we all have The colonic the colon cap and it break his contract by kneeling.  You broke up contracts contract law, right? Just a bind by the car and if he didn't maybe in future contracts, you should have If you want to play on my team, you have to stand for the national anthem or not You want to write into the contract and then we're sports fans will decide Do we want to go to your always supported or not? Yeah And and and make it voluntary. So that that's my view if people don't like the decision among be what made Don't go to the all-star game And and and make a statement that way and stop watching baseball don't go to any games until they until they change the politicization but to to make it more political by by I don't know Ted Cruz and and and lee and and uh Josh Hawley wanting to pass a law that penalizes mlb now you won't problem Unbelievable can of worms where every time a business does something that I politically don't like I run to my congressman They pass a law to fix it. I mean that's nuts, right and that denies the business The rights the property right to make choices that people don't like and the way to deal with those choices Is the boycott them if you don't like the choices Yeah, and I feel like we're just getting warmed up 52 minutes into this I could talk to you for another four hours, which i'm sure you wouldn't want to do But this I mean really happy to do it. No, I love talking about this stuff and I actually love sports I think sports are amazing And it's it's a topic I don't talk about very often. So it's fun It's fun to have a context and an audience to talk about sports that appreciate it. So no, we should we should do this again I mean, yeah It would absolutely be fun. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would love to talk to you Maybe even just a few weeks to do this because really I mean we can't we kind of In a surfaced sort of way kind of bounced around but the more I hear you speak the more questions it raises and I hope everybody enjoyed it real quick before I let you go though You are kind of everywhere, but can you tell people where the best places are to find your work? You know you're on bookshow.com is a website that has a lot of the material You know, I've got a book that one equal is unfair, which is you know in in sports equal Is unfair, right? We all know this I I'd like us to stop believing that in life That's true. The only place equality means anything is political equality. We should all be treated the same by the law We all have the same rights. We're all equal in that sense But in every other respect in life, we're not equal stop pretending And sports the thing one of the things I really love about sports is we don't pretend LeBron James is better than pretty much everybody else in basketball. That's just a fact, right? And whether he's the greatest of all time or not, that's irrelevant But right now or at least five years ago, certainly he was the greatest player in the world and nobody apologized for that Nobody nobody said, oh no, we have to treat everybody. He's saying no, he made more money And we cheered and you know, how about applying that to business and to other things as well And then of course I have a podcast you can find me on youtube Just put my name into youtube and put my name at google you'll find everything you need. I'm on facebook I'm on twitter, but but youtube and and my website those are the two places you can find me That's the god. That's the thing about When I hear an athlete Tending towards like the left and socialism. I think to myself like you're an athlete Like the better you are the more money you're going to make that's a system you don't support Like what are you nuts? Like it doesn't make any sense. I don't think it's true. But look, right Most athletes Have single-mindedly devoted their lives to their To their if it's basketball, baseball, whatever it is to to this sport I don't expect them to know anything about the world beyond that particularly if you think about From age, I don't know 10 12 8 6 They've devoted that they're not exactly they're smart. There's many of them are super smart They couldn't be great athletes if they weren't smart, but they're smart in a particular way They've studied a particular thing. It's not expansive. So I'm not surprised by their Ignorance and by the fact that they're wrong on political issues Or that they don't think these things through they don't have a life experience to do it Most of my young too.  It's like joe schmo on the street saying something Nobody cares. Nobody should care the whole celebrity culture where we give celebrities this out otherworldly importance Particularly when it comes to politics and and philosophy and and way of living is absurd and ridiculous So so it's on us to stop caring if we stop caring The media will stop caring and these athletes will stop will stop Talking nonsense. I blame the state of the world. I blame intellectuals people who should know better people who've studied people who The equivalent of a of an athlete equivalent of a great basketball player in intellectual field when they're wrong and they all are almost all the time that's Horrific right that is truly truly horrific. So my villains are not LeBron James my villains in in in politics and intellectual My villains are Paul Krugman, right? That's a villain right LeBron James. Who cares? Let me ask about player. I'll enjoy him doing that. I don't really care what he thinks about politics. It's meaningless to my life Well said, sir Take care. This has been just absolutely wonderful. Hope to talk to you again soon Absolutely talk to angela and we'll schedule we'll schedule this for a few weeks


Kenny Kunin shot at while driving in Johannesburg Kunin was apparently caught in a rain of bullets in what may have been a hijacking gone wrong The citizen understands that well-known businessman and socialite Kenny Kunin has allegedly been shot at while driving a car in Johannesburg It's possible it was just a hijacking gone wrong, although there is speculation it may be related to media stories about Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa Several bullets were allegedly fired at the car, many of which left visible damage on a blue BMW Kunin was traveling with a female passenger No one was injured Sapp's spokesperson Brigadier Mathepello Peters confirmed there was evidence at the scene of a shooting as spent cartridges had been found However, she was unable to confirm any specific details as to the motive and nature of the alleged crime and said that investigations were still underway to establish the facts According to Kunin, his friend Sunday independent editor Stephen Motel had been meant to be traveling in the car with him, but bodyguards moved Motel to another vehicle prior to their departure Motel has said he's been receiving death threats ahead of and since publishing stories about Ramaphosa's personal life and his alleged affairs Kunin told the citizen these threats started being made through phone calls to Motel Kunin has also been breaking stories about the so-called Ramaphosa email leaks on his website, Weekly Spose He told the citizen by phone on Tuesday night that at about 9 p.m. he was approaching Corlett Drive in Santon near the M1 when a group of men in a white Lexus SUV pulled up and he realized he was in trouble A shaken Kunin said, I reversed to get away When I hit the pavement, they came and shot at us He said he saw at least two men, one of them in a white cap The cops say they have found 12 bullet casings at the scene, he said The police said they could not confirm any particular details for the moment Kunin claims that he drove into a gated community and the men fled on the M1 heading south An old lady heard the bullets, the gunshots, and called the security guards The cops came At first they didn't take the casings They took us first to the police station but then brought us back to the scene where they found the casings


Okay, let's get things started. My name is Jasper Lawler, Mark Analyst here. I'm taking over from Michael Houston, who typically does these webinars just looking at what's coming up for the week. Now, we've just got this risk warning. I'm sure you've all read it by now. Let's bring it through to the next page. Okay, all right. Something I was just having a little look at now. But what I'm going to do here is look at just a few key economic data releases coming up for the week, and then taking some charts. And if you could now, or any point during the presentation when you feel like it, send me a little message as to which products you're exactly interested in, what you've got your eye on at the moment, or just what you always trade, be it Euro, DAX, Dolly N, whatever it is you're looking at. Send me a quick note and I'll make sure to cover it. So I just made this note in our Insights column. And obviously there's a lot more data than this that's coming out for the week. But this, I think, is the kind of key market driving data, depending on which market you're trading, obviously, that you want to keep an eye on. Now we've already had the German industrial production. That was actually better than expected today, and not really helping the DAX. That's still down half a percent. But given the Euro a little bit, really in terms of the stock indices, they're just following through from last week when we had that non-farm payrolls miss. What you'll see about that report is that the market did initially react quite well to the report, because it wasn't really a bad report. In case you've read the morning note on the USA burn or the UK open today, the previous two months were revised higher, and it literally narrowly missed by just a few thousand. And very close to 200,000 jobs. It generally was a good report. My personal take on it is that the S&P pushed up towards 1900, and people just took profits going into the weekend because of that slight miss and better safe and sorry kind of policies. More sort of rebound from that round number after a week of gains. It's got to correct at some point, and people use that rally after that report as a chance to settle it off. So keep that in mind. There's not been any kind of seismic shift in U.S. economic data. It's really, as expected, and the timeline for tapering the U.S. asset purchases by the Fed really should be as expected as previously thought before the report because the cause of this rally in stocks throughout the week was basically Janet Liel and sort of backtracking on her statement that she had made previously, about six months being a possible timeline as to when they would raise interest rates after stopping tapering and just really saying that it's all data dependent and the Fed is going to remain incredibly accommodative for the foreseeable future and it's all sort of data dependent. If you see a slight drop in the data, they may pause tapering and maybe even add to the stimulus again. So that's still the case and the U.S. economy is still sort of steadily improving which is kind of basically wading our way through this first quarter and sort of putting a line under all the first quarter's data and then this month going forward really is when you'd expect the jobs have already kind of held pretty strong but you want to see some of the other data from the U.S. improving as well. So like I said, I think more of a sort of technical correction right now. We'll look at the chart for the S&P a little bit in a second but to me we're 1857. 1850 is definitely going to be key because that's really been a pivotal price. It may dip a bit below that but really if it substantially closes below that we'll probably look at a slightly deeper correction which may not be such a bad thing because if we again when we look at the price action it's been upwards but kind of grinding upwards in a bit sideways and to improve the momentum a bit we may just need a sharper correction to entice some buyers in at lower prices. Back to this insight things that I pulled up. Tomorrow we've got the Bank of Japan monetary policy statement. This is just extra interesting because this month Japan introduced their increase in taxes and so the expectation is that that's going to slow down economic growth in Japan and that eventually the Bank of Japan are going to step in and ease policy further. They're already engaged in QE but that's pretty much priced in at the moment in the N-crosses and the Nikkei so really people are waiting for more QE just for the dollar to go higher against the yen and the Nikkei stock index to go higher but general consensus is that's not going to happen at this meeting just because the central bank doesn't really have the data yet to sort of prove that the sales tax has dampened the growth. Some of the economic indicators out of Japan already have started falling off a little bit so it most likely is going to. The big surprise would be if they did sort of decide to act preemptively ahead of any worsening data and seriously worse data and start easing now but it does seem most likely unlikely but as I've mentioned in the note here the Nikkei and the dollar yen, the other yen-crosses would most likely fly higher if they did announce some further easing. Later tomorrow we've got the UK industrial production. The UK economy is recovering obviously and hence the strength of the pound and the fits he's been generally outperforming most of the indices by the US. One of the things that's been lacking a bit is sort of investment growth. It's been a bit of a sort of consumption led recovery so any improvements in these areas is definitely looked on favorably and you know would be positive when you're trading fits here in the UK shares. Wednesday we've got the trade balance. Again one of the things that's been missing from the UK recovery so far is the growth in exports. The pound has rallied recently as we all know but generally speaking from prior to the financial growth prior to the recession it's still a lot weaker and so that should be feeding through to some better exports but it hasn't really done so. It doesn't speak to the sort of growth in kind of quality of UK manufacturing and produce that you would hope for as the recovery is investing and improving after the recession. So any uptake there again is definitely looked on widely. The trade balance as a whole is you really want to look deeper within the data more to the exports to take the positive survey from that one. The more meaningful data. Then later on Wednesday we've got the Fed minutes and that would just be interesting because obviously there has been a bit of back and forth. Janet Yellen at one point was sounding quite hawkish saying that six months after the end of tapering with zero raises then a few Fed officials came out in support of that. Bullard even said that that's in line with private surveys but then this statement last week which caused this rally which I was just talking about before was really ultra dovish the meeting that she had, the speech that she gave rather and so this will just be interesting to see how her sort of ultra dovish speech lines up with these other Fed members to give us a bit more of an idea as to when they're going to stop the tapering firstly if they do and then when they're going to raise rates afterwards. Obviously I'm sure you all understand this but for the general idea being that low interest rates obviously spur on investment and they make bonds relatively unattractive and so they generally keep stocks higher. So the closer we get to raising interest rates then that's just generally speaking bad for stocks. The reason the markets are still kind of generally trending high at the moment is because the positive U.S. growth is sort of outweighing the negative impact of raising interest rates so that's what you're kind of balancing the two. You want better growth, GDP growth and you want higher employment, all these kind of positive numbers to outweigh the fact that they are going to be raising interest rates. So obviously when the economy is improving obviously that overshadows higher interest rates because it's improving the higher interest rates are kind of like the causation of the economy that might cause the economy to start lagging off so it's kind of causing effect indicators. At some point in time the higher interest rates are going to cause the economy to slow down but it's kind of lagged effect and stocks should stay higher a bit after the raise at rates based on historically typically the way it works. Thursday is big if you trade the Aussie dollar or the Aussie index. Basically the Aussie, you may have seen a report I did on the inverse head and shoulders of the Aussie dollar that kind of caused a breakout there with some positive numbers from last month and so if you see some good numbers again today beating expectations well or it depends if they're going to be in line with expectations probably not a massive move but a good beat should help the RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia stay fairly neutral in their statements and not jaw bone the Australian dollar down too much and so that would generally be positive for the Aussie and generally again we can have a look at the charts but the inverse head and shoulders I pointed out it's not reached its measured objective yet that you would typically see from that pattern so this may be the impetus to take the Aussie above 93 and then push it close to that chart objective. There's a lot of China data this month the one that I've kind of highlighted particularly here is the trade balance because you may remember about a month ago it was this Chinese trade balance that came in way below expectations and caused a kind of general slump in global markets so we may get a repeat performance if this on Thursday Chinese data comes in worse than expected obviously it's not going to be such a shock as it was last time so probably not going to be the massive sell-off that's seen but nevertheless it's not going to be taken too well the one thing I just noted in this insight note here is that expectations are lower this time they're basically for minus 0.9 billion so trade deficit of 0.9 billion so essentially flat so essentially any exports being bigger than imports in any way generally should be seen as positive and maybe that'll undo some of this sell-off that we've seen in stock markets recently. French and industrial data French and Italian industrial data the periphery of Europe is still a bit weak so we just need to see improvements here to have any kind of faith that this rally in the Euro and the DAX is really deserved because it's really throughout this whole recession it's just been Germany holding it up and we have seen some slight signs of improvement Spain actually have 10-year high revenues in tourism so that's a symbol of things that are improving there but still a bit sluggish in general and then Friday we've got the Chinese CPI and GPI and this is a bit of a kind of double-edged sword kind of situation where China are trying to reduce inflation from particularly in the housing market but then again any kind of drop in inflation is sort of symptomatic of a sort of slowdown that's happening there so it's interesting to watch but it's hard to read exactly what the market would use in the U.S. and more positive I'll probably lean towards then wanting to see iron inflation to just show that kind of the growth is better than people thought that's a short term obviously what you want to see, longer term they really do need to be curbing inflation because there's going to be a housing market crash if they don't do that then finally last but not least on Friday we've got the University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the U.S. and consumer sentiment's been generally pretty strong throughout this whole turn down in the U.S. and so we just want to see that continuing because we did see a bit of a slight miss on fire even though I said it's generally a pretty positive report but we did see a slight miss there so if we saw some misses happening in consumer sentiment as well that would be taking a couple of the main pillars that people have been riding off this U.S. recovery okay let me close that down now did any of you send me a message about just which charts you'd want me to go over more than others? It's fine if you don't I've got some defaults I'd look at but I'm sure you all trade specific markets if you want me to cover those of course I'm happy to I thought I might actually just go straight to currencies this time often I start with indices but I thought there was a few interesting things going on with currencies start with a euro now what I tend to do in general when it comes to charts is to kind of top down approach I mean you look at the monthly first strictly speaking but you only have to do that so often really start with a weekly work your way down so this is quite an interesting potential pattern that's setting up here in the euro it would be a sort of bearish wedge whereby this was the kind of crash down that we all remember during the European crisis and this has been the sort of subsequent recovery so I've gone over my timelines a little bit out of whack there but I think you know what I mean this has been a big downturn in the price of the euro this is what could potentially be a big rising wedge pattern which for the most part would mean a big breakout down in this kind of direction certainly far from guaranteed from happening what I suspect might happen is that we've got this first line which has been holding up, yeah there was a break there but it's been holding up pretty well since and we're right at it again what I suspect is maybe this will break this time maybe a little pop higher again then a break and then come in right where there's 200 moving 200 day moving averages for now you've just got to assume that the trend is higher and so you don't really trade off this idea exactly I mean you can put some resting orders down here but you know really no point until the market gets closer but that's what I'm going to suspect it might happen so that's kind of a bigger picture and we've dropped down to the one day chart and so this is where we currently are you know we've had this kind of move down and as far as I can kind of see the move, you know the kind of correction that we're seeing of this trend line area sorry the little bounce we're seeing is off this firstly off this trend line but then also dating back to you know generally what you see is when you're kind of trying to time market and imagine where they're going to where they're going to bounce is that you see a sort of resistance turn to support, support turn to resistance so you know this was resistance broke through came down and used it support a few times I mean nothing's perfect as long as it stays above here it's still an uptrend but generally that's what was acting as support so this is our buy zone but this is the most kind of aggressive buy which is right above this high made up highs didn't hold up this time and you can see these lows were the spur for this to come down here and then you can see here which caused this big momentum move higher in this area is what kind of caused the little bounce there but that hasn't really done enough to push up to the highs in fact now we're through that now we're back down to this high again and then you know below that I'm going to look at this high here as a sort of that was the resistance and then it becomes the support and that's what caused the buy so then if we get down again that's what I'd be expecting to see that as the next potential support and again it doesn't mean it has to perfectly stop here there it did there it didn't here on the other way around there it did it's perfectly going to stop there at this high but again it depends how you look at it nothing's perfect again it could have stopped there which arguably that's the close there in a way it did respect that as well so it depends on whether you're using the highs and lows or the close it's the kind of beginning of this support turns to resistance type area and always keep in mind it's never going to perfectly stop those two pits below this or something just because really as long as it hold in this example when we're looking at this dip as long as it held above that low it's still an uptrend so even at this point it it's come down made a high you know lower high so we're kind of in downtrend territory down and we still are strictly speaking so then when it came down to here yeah it did bounce off this low but it's like it was already trending lower at this point so it's not like that was the first bounce down it bounced made a high lower high than a lower low but it got there so you have to weigh up with these different factors as I see at the moment yes it's made a lower low but have a look just this was the low right here from this reversal pattern here and it only just kind of dip below it it really kind of barely has and this is a hammer that's a hammer that caused the bounce this is another hammer and quite often these hammers cause a reaction higher in the interim so given this is this trend line that we are referred to on a longer turn train and it's this previous resistance turns of support good chance for this it already has bounced obviously but good chance for it moving up into what now this would be the kind of beginning of the kind of momentum change area where it's broken down through there and there would be the next kind of expected area for it to you know if it was going to continue down trend it would probably be from here up to there breakable there obviously it's a game changer it means we made a high high and we're back into kind of up trend territory I wouldn't necessarily buy on a break but there you can obviously the risk the problem of it is that you've got all this down here is your risk so more likely what would happen is you'd get a breakable there and then a dip down towards here somewhere and then that would be your chance to buy in it if you believe this little short term dip has ended now probably go a little bit lower even I tend to stop around the four hour mark but there's kind of a bit more clarity to things you can see it's that was the low and it's really just kind of not really held too well below there and it's just shifting above this one hour 21 day moving average that's a little sea change there that's the 200 hour right there and then you can draw some kind of trend line down there perhaps and that would be a little indication of a short term change in trend so at the moment what I kind of take away here is that it is a down trend in the interim but we just come off some quite significant support as I see it this trend line combined with this kind of resistance turn support area so it could be the beginnings of a move back up to test 139-140 let's have a little look at the dollar yen now this is one of the more interesting set ups at the moment again let's go start with the weekly now I'm sure most of you if you trade the yen have this trend line on here fairly obvious stuff but that is what's important to price and that's what's keeping us bullish at the moment the other factor is this trend line here which as of last week has pretty much been held it's spiked higher and this is a big shooting style reversal pattern here so that's kind of a bearish pattern and what you'll notice is that we actually have a pretty identical looking pattern on the Dow and the dollar yen and the Dow are kind of pretty well correlated at the moment they don't look perfectly the same but they're both displaying kind of similar patterns and our price is above this trend line at the moment so various things to consider the reason I've got this line in here again is I was considering this to be the support to the price based on this weekly chart and you can see that was the first one there and it kind of held there there's a big spike lower than it held and then that was the big drop off that we saw I think that was most likely when we started hearing about Ukraine or maybe that was that Chinese trader I don't remember it was early in the year, it might have been prior to all that so then as you can see the price has kind of come off that with this evening style pattern so generally speaking this is a pretty bearish pattern and it takes a brave soul to trade against that but you have to consider all the different factors let's drop down to the daily chart now this is the reason you might want to trade against it is look at this trend line you'll agree that's pretty perfect right stopped right there on this line and what you could potentially see is is a move up to test 104 and above again if this triangle pattern has essentially worked that's a long-term triangle base but you could arguably have a short-term one here it doesn't fit very well and I haven't put it in but if you assume that was the top of the triangle then you'd be looking for a projection of something like 100 to 104.50 you'd add that on top of here so that's 450 pips you'd be looking about 108.50 as potential price target if this did prove to be the low and right now it's not proving too supportive on the RSI because the RSI has actually moved below this equivalent triangle pattern but again it's nothing's perfect and it may well prove to bounce up towards the 70 overbought level and up into 80 again at the moment RSI is confirming the price moves and there's not showing any particular divergence on this daily chart down to the four hours it's an inside bar a moment on the four hours so nothing too obvious there we are seeing a potential reversal here at the old sold level around 30 on the RSI on the four-hourly so you're probably looking for something a bit more positive above these levels to be feeling a bit more confident about this proving to be a low probably what's likely to happen is something where it kind of comes up a bit and then down again pretty close to these lows to form some kind of reversal in this kind of interim maybe it's going to chop around a bit first before breaking maybe it won't break if you could send me, I don't know if you've sent a message to the group anyone but if you could just send me perhaps a private message if you had some particular market you wanted me to cover because I feel like I'm missing some messages here okay over to the down that's what I had on my chart when we first started to look here and again it's a similar pattern to the dolly end and arguably worse just because these were the highs set at the end of last year and these what we did break in today but it's been a big shooting star reversal last week similar look into the dolly end just because we did, we fell sort of three digits in the doll on Friday and now it's starting to look a bit ominous and you can see it's a similar triangle set up but we're just closer to the highs it's pushed above the highs run a bunch of people stop losses perhaps and then just crashed on down here so again this is a pretty big bearish pattern but we've got to keep in mind that we are still in the context of an uptrend that's still a marginally high high these are higher lows, we're above the moving averages so if we are being bearish it needs to be fairly short term for the time being before we get some wider confirmation now there's a big on Friday we saw a big engulfing candlestick pattern so obviously that's another bearish pattern on the shorter time frame and at the moment this sort of quiver and triangle pattern held up on Friday but it's looking like it might not hold up now the next level will be here I'd have in mind because that's where we saw some movement but then down below this we're not really in uptrend territory anymore and then you need to reassess whether you should be still buying in the short term above that we're still good for buying as long as we don't sort of form a lower high in the meantime if we just drop straight down to this level I'd expect to see some buying even though it did collapse at this longer term level it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to jump straight back up there but you'll at least see some buying interest starting around here I would suspect below that we're down to this level it relates to this high and also you can see it's kind of acted as a key pivotal level here and it's there of course that big inhibitors it was the resistance there broke through came back as support and it's been holding since the big one this 16-140 really okay, yep thanks Peter got your message about the Aussie I'll have a look at that you know just because I really like that that pattern I'm kind of clinging on to that at the moment the Aussie's taken a knock just because it's really a continuation of this RBA statement that we saw last week whereby you know Governor Stevens did still explicitly talk about the Aussie dollar I forget the exact wording but it was something along the lines of the weaker Aussie is still supporting the economy but the slight rise that we've seen recently is starting to impact that something like that so it's almost saying that we're okay for now but we don't like this higher Aussie so it depends how you want to read that I'm kind of hoping to read it as that okay for now aspect of that that will justify a projection from this pattern pointing as higher than the Aussie so this neckline is not exactly perfect and you don't have to be a bit careful with these projections it could maybe be a slanted one down there something more like that it's like more of a consideration I looked at as well which that one doesn't fit very well but then it's sort of it could potentially make it look a bit nutsy up to you you have to be this kind of generalization of these projections but still theoretically if we call the low 87 and we call the high of the pattern 90 past 300 so we've made it I don't know what I'm saying 87 to 91 sorry so that's 400 so we've made it 250 which is 300 perhaps so far so in theory it would be a bit further to go I think maybe up towards this 94-50 the in terms of the daily pattern there was a bullish engulfing thereabouts the bodies at least last Friday and so this is just a correction from this range and I don't know if you can understand this range for until the Aussie unemployment data later in the week it might do maybe that would be the cause of the break above 93 but I'm not too concerned about this it looks more corrective to me at the moment than it does a sort of big reversal now this is more like a kind of at the moment that's like a big strong move this is like a bull flag and then you'd get the equivalent move out of the top that's not to say it can't trip down to one of these levels it's more specific this chart so this is how I got it laid out more specifically that's a big strong move higher but these are kind of trickling moves low in terms of momentum you'd still sort of think that perhaps it's to the upside I had this line in but I was sort of surprised it held I was actually expecting maybe a drop down to 50 after those RBI talks last week what I'm going to do now is I'm going to end the official webcast because I think I've covered most of the main points but then what I'll do is I'll continue unrecorded and answer some of your questions so I hope that was useful if anyone has to dash off now after 30 minutes but as I said I will be continuing just answering your questions unrecorded thanks a lot for attending the SimC Markets Weekly Update and my name is Jasper Waller starting off now but as I said we'll be continuing cheers


What's the latest on spirulina supplements? The reason I told everyone to throw their spirulina away was that it was found to produce hepatotoxins. While blue-green algae supplements had the brain toxins, spirulina supplements were found to have liver toxins. Should we continue to avoid this stuff? Yes. Now, spirulina can boast neurotoxins as well. In 2009, a potent neurotoxin was found in spirulina supplements for the first time.


Thank you Chairman. Honorable Ministers, your excellency's distinguished delegates on behalf of the government of the United Republic of Tanzania and my delegation allow me to first extend our appreciation to the government of Romania for hosting this conference and for the hospitality extended to us in this beautiful seat of which I rise since our arrival. I would like to express our heartfelt congratulation to you Mr. Chairman on your election to chair this potential conference of the ITU. On behalf of the United Republic of Tanzania, we wish to congratulate the newly elected ITU secretary general Ms. Doren Bogren Martin as an African country. We hope that your vision, commitment and determination will accomplish the real needs of member states and the interest of developing countries such as Tanzania. Chairman, allow me also to join the voice of those who have already expressed gratitude to the secretary general Mr. Holland Zhao and the staff of the ITU for successful organizing this conference and for the work they have done in the past four years in spearheading the implementation of union resolutions despite the effects brought by the covid pandemic. Tanzania has been active in various ITU initiatives which emanate from the resolutions agreed by member states. We have adopted pro-ICT policies and supportive legislation to build an ICT driven nation towards achieving sustainable dig to transformation through the following initiatives. First investment in dig to infrastructures such as the national ICT broadband backbone which connects all administrative district headquarters, regions and all unlock neighboring countries. Second by having in place a legal framework that has erects dig to transformation that helped in increasing ICT applications in various sectors of the economy including agriculture, health and education among others. Chairman, recently Tanzania has introduced in the parliament the data protection bill a critical component of African vision 2030. We look forward to passing this law in the next few months is to further open the country to investment for the wider benefit of Tanzania and the region. Chairman Tanzania is working very closely with the ITU to bridge the dig to divide through the use of telecommunications and ICT solutions especially in addressing the needs of the most marginalized members of a society namely women and girls, youth older persons and persons with disabilities. ICT innovations have today made it possible for the millions of formerly unbanked populations of Tanzania, mostly living in rural communities to be financially included via mobile money. Today there are more than 35 million users of mobile money compared to 23 million users in the year 2018. We have put efforts in building institutions that will help dig to transformation in the country. These institutions include ICT commission and the universal communication services access fund which to date access has connected more than 12 million populations living in rural areas to broadband connectivity. As we gather at the ITU PP 2022, we believe that Tanzania's experience in the communication sector can best fit and be shared with the ITU family especially at this juncture when the sector is fast involving and the international community is steadily utilizing information and communications technologies as tools for social and economic development. I therefore wish to reaffirm our commitment to cooperate and share with the other member states the ITU secretariat and the regional offices to make ITU an eminent international body that continues to play its role in enhancing social economic development of all member countries as such Tanzania has put its candidature to the seat of the ITU council representing region D. We are requesting all ITU members to vote Tanzania to the ITU council so that we can share our experiences with the ITU family and the further contributed to our shared objectives of the ITU and as you have seen we are inviting all to join us this evening at 5 30 to our reception whereby you can enjoy the kindness of the land of Kilimanjaro, Gorongoro Creator and Serengeten Zanziba. Chairman on behalf of the government of Tanzania and my delegation, I would like to express my profound gratitude once again to the government of Romania for hosting this remarkable conference and wish success in its deliberations. Thank you very much.


In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talked a little bit about COVID-19 and what needs to be done in order to protect Americans. And the reason why this interview stood out so much to me is because we've been talking a lot lately about leadership and, you know, how Trump is incapable of being a leader. Joe Biden has pretty much been MIA for the last week. And Bernie Sanders is currently leading. He's mobilizing his supporters to donate to coronavirus relief efforts, but the media won't talk about it. So to see someone nationally be a leader and, you know, tell us what solutions need to be implemented, I think this is important. It matters because people are scrambling to find anything to take comfort in. They're looking for a leader and they don't know what active measures need to be taken, right, in order to stop this from spreading and stop, you know, us from going into economic ruin personally. So AOC basically laid it all out, and I thought that what she said here, it showed why she is such a valuable leader in this country. One of the things that we're hearing over and over again from hospitals, again, is this point on personal protective equipment. There are not enough face masks, gloves, ventilators, hospital beds to get us through this. Many hospitals are already at capacity or are approaching capacity. And there is kind of no real stream in sight from the federal government on where these materials are coming from. You know, companies are donating what they can. That is great. It is not enough. And the fact that the president has not really invoked the Defense Production Act for the purpose of emergency manufacture is going to cost lives. The FEMA administrator, I asked him about that. He said it's not needed because so many American companies are stepping up to the plate and volunteering to do the right thing. Your response? It is absolutely needed. We are thankful to anyone who's pitching in on this effort, but we are nowhere near the beds and the capacity that we need in this country. And we're hearing it every step of the way from this administration. First we were hearing it was a hoax. Then we were hearing that everything was fine. Then we were hearing that the fundamentals of the economy was okay until the crash comes. And we cannot wait until people start really dying in large numbers to start production, especially if more complicated equipment like ventilators and hospital beds. We need to start this production right now to get ready for the surge that is coming in two to three weeks. Let's turn to Congress. Right now negotiations are ongoing on an economic stimulus package. Chief White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said yesterday could be as high as $2 trillion. You've suggested that's still not enough. If you were writing this bill, how much would you spend and where would the money go? Well I think first and foremost, there is almost no number too small. I don't think a lot of people out there really understand the systemic shock that is being experienced in the economy right now. You know, folks are comparing this to 2008. This is very, very different than even 2008 because what we have seen is that almost overnight our entire economy, even the felt economy from jobs is seizing almost overnight. So the question is not just the size, but what we are doing with those funds. Because if we are having a huge package, and this is something for people to look out for, when this package rolls out, there is no reason for corporate bailouts to be included in an emergency relief package. We should be focusing is unemployment expanding? Are we getting checks in people's hands? Are we suspending mortgage, rent, and debt payments? If we are able to do that, if we are able to get money into households and stop the bleeding with pauses on money going out of households, then we can get working families through this thing. But if all of this money is going to bailing out the airline industry in a way that does not help workers, if it is going to bailing out banks and other industries without helping workers, then it is not going to be enough and in fact it could be too big. So it is really about how we are using these funds. So you seem to be suggesting that you support, as a lot of people do in both parties, direct payments to the American people. Some Democrats have said that the $1200 figure that has been proposed is way too small. How much money do you think the government should be giving the public directly and should it go to everyone or just people who need it? Well, so the financial services committee actually released their own plan. And I am very supportive of that plan, which has about $2,000 this month for every American with an additional $1,000 per child. But in addition to that, it stops payments. So it halts mortgage payments, rent payments, and all major consumer debt. And that is the key, because when you are able to stop the money going out, and that money that you do give goes a much longer way. So I'm very supportive of both of those measures. The Democrats are truly lucky to have her. And it's really a shame that she has to share a party with people like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, because they're just, they're diametrically opposed. And they don't deserve to benefit from her credibility and her vision and leadership. They don't deserve her. But everything she said there was incredibly crucial. First of all, she made it very clear that the thing to do now is for Trump to utilize the Defense Production Act and let's make some medical equipment. Like the number one thing we are hearing from healthcare providers and doctors and professionals is that they're running out of medical equipment. Masks, ventilators, like what are we doing? Like we're talking about flattening the curve, and I think that's really important. It's why we have to practice social distancing. But if we can't flatten the curve and hospitals become overburdened, we also have to prepare for that situation as well, because we can't afford not to be prepared. We can't afford to assume that social distancing is going to work. Or a Wuhan-style lockdown is going to work. We have to prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And the fact that Trump isn't utilizing the Defense Production Act is such a missed opportunity, it shows that he doesn't really know what he's doing. Like he's in over his head. And I'm glad that she said that. Now, at the rate that we're going, unless we take substantial action and we do prepare for hospitals around the country being overburdened, we could be worse off than Italy or Spain. And I'm not being hyperbolic. The rate to which corona tests are coming back positive is growing faster than any other country in the world. Now, part of that is because we're finally actually making testing more available and easier to access, mostly for rich people, but slowly but surely more people are getting tested, hence why the number is going up. But as we kind of learn just how bad the pandemic is going to get, the depths of it, we have to prepare for everything. And the fact that we're not, it just is so frustrating. And at a time when we should be making direct cash payments to Americans, our number one priority, that's not what we're doing. And she spoke to that as well. She talks about how the government can take meaningful action to make sure that working Americans don't suffer if we in fact face a recession. And it's not going to be a 2008-style recession. We're talking great depression or worse possibly based on current projections. I mean, if we actually get to 30% unemployment, that would surpass great depression levels of unemployment. It would be unthinkable. It would be a disaster. So there are things we can do, though, but they don't want to do that. Republicans don't want to actually ameliorate this crisis. They care about doing the bidding of their corporate donors. And it seemed like for a second, maybe they would try to throw the American people a bone because they probably recognize that capitalism can't function if the working class has no money to buy the goods and services produced by capitalists. However, the fact that they're prioritizing corporate bailouts, it tells you exactly where their priorities lie. They never for a second actually cared about the American people. They only care about Americans in so far as they are some benefit to American corporations and elites. But so long as we're unable to contribute to large multinational corporations and American corporations, then our lives then become meaningless. Protecting us is only important in so far as it doesn't hurt the economy. So the fact that we even have to debate this long about what to do, it is absolutely mind boggling. Because like you can leave workers and normal Americans stranded for years, decades, that's what they've been doing. But when push comes to shove, if we see a 30% worst case scenario unemployment rate, if we see thousands of people kicked out because they can't afford to pay rents, if we see an increase in homelessness.   So you have to at least provide the bare minimum to Americans. And in this crisis, giving them the bare minimum, assuring that they're not going to lose everything is the bare minimum. And it seems swift. It seems drastic to consider direct cash payments to people, universal basic income temporarily. But that's what you have to do if you want the system to remain in place. Because people are very apathetic and complacent, generally speaking, when it comes to politics. But if you don't do anything as they watched our livelihoods being taken away from them, that's when we're going to go into full crisis mode. Because people are only going to be apathetic in so far as you keep them at least a little bit comfortable. But when you strip away that comfort and take everything away from them, that's when things start to get rough. Rough for lawmakers, that is.