Now, keeping the world company here on Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel, and our guest today, our esteemed guest is Jean Rosenfeld. She's an independent scholar, came from UCLA in history and the like, and she joins us today to discuss exactly what Putin's vision is, what his aspirations are, and how all of that helps us understand what he's doing. Welcome to the show, Jean. Thank you, Jay. So, just in a rough way, what are Putin's aspirations, and what drives him? What kind of strange, personal experience is he having to justify in his own mind what he's doing? I think we have to take the statement he made about the fall of the Soviet Union being the greatest disaster of the 20th century at face value. What matters to him more, it seems, is Russian nationalism, the history of Russia, and the future of Russia. So, it's a kind of patriotism then? It is a misplaced, extreme patriotism, and when you get into extremes of anything, you get into dangerous zones?  You know, you can be a patriot without doing those things. So, sort of ingrained in the DNA of his quote patriotism are some pretty nasty elements. Are those historically identifiable? Well, they're both personal and intellectual and ideological reasons for where he stands right now. Number one, you remember that when East Germany, the wall fell, that he was involved in burning all the documents in East Germany because he was a KGB operative now at FSB, and so that must have been a shock. That must have been a really shock, a big shock for him, and it's reflected in the statement we just talked about. But then, also, there's the context of the man. There is a history behind where he stands today, and that is, you go back to Peter the Great, who was one of the more important Tsars, the Tsar who was behind the colonization of North America and Russians. Russia's rivalry with the United States in the 19th century and the 18th century even. When Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French writer, observed in 1835 that Russia and the United States were quote, natural rivals. And still today, there's a battle for the Pacific then, there's a battle for the Pacific today. So that's not different. In Europe, it's the battle for that set of countries between Western Europe and Russia. Russia is always suspicious that that flatlands is going to be the subject of an invading army. Whereas Europe is very, very sensitive to invasion from the East. They've had the Mongol invasion, they've had the Muslim invasion, and they've had recently, since the Yalta conference in World War II, they've had the takeover by the Soviet Union of the countries from the Balkans to the Baltic. So we have a natural history, and history in a sense does repeat itself, but the details are different. Wow, so this is all something you could have, which de Tocqueville and others predicted. And here we are, and it almost seems it's inevitable to continue that it's always, my right, it's always going to be thus. Well, the relationship that we have with Russia is at some times very quiescent after all, it only took them a month to decide to sell Alaska to us and almost fortunate. We are a Pacific power. If you look at Alaska geographically, and I love geography, it turns out. If you look at Alaska geographically and you follow the Aleutian Islands, they almost touch Russia. And if you look at our Pacific Island holdings, if you look at Hawaii, for example, the Hawaiian chain, as you well know, goes to the northwest about 1000 miles and almost touches Asia. So we are legitimately a Pacific power. And you recall the lead up to World War Two was our rivalry with Japan. And so we were contending with Japan over the power of, you know, deciding the freedom or the control over the Pacific Island. Now, we have been a country that has gone into the Pacific Islands, the Philippines, we were in control of the Philippines at one time, but we give back. We don't keep territories. We have a Federation of Micronesia and Association with the United States, but all those small islands rule themselves. Samoa is divided between itself, Western Samoa, and American Samoa. But we don't control in the way Japan was controlling before World War Two, or in the way that China seems to want to control now, or that, you know, Russia colonized. So we have to kind of pat ourselves on the back. We don't do that often enough. Well, we pat ourselves on the back and yet let me, let me tell you a short story, reported in the Times, I think it was years ago when Trump first took office. It was a visit to the gun show, a large gun show and a large convention center kind of facility in the south. And the Times reporter walked through there. This is in what, 2017, maybe, walked through there and talked to people, how they felt about Russia. And most of the people that the Times reporter talked to said, we've given Russia a bad rap. They're really nice people and they have only the best intentions in mind. And, you know, my view of it is that they were getting that from Trump. They were getting that from the conservative Republicans and they still are. And so does the country fully understand, doesn't understand at all what you're talking about? I think not enough. I think, first of all, who forms a grand design that we need to learn about and keep in the forefront of our mind. And that grand design is called Eurasianism. And the two architects of that that develop the idea are a man who lived around the time of World War II and happened to be in Germany. And it was a kind of neo-fascist or proto-fascist, I would say, not neo-fascist. And that is Ivan Ilyan, I-L-Y-I-N. And then lately, there is Alexander Dugan, who is also a neo-fascist, who want, who look forward to Russia fulfilling its historic destiny. And that's something that Putin also agrees with. In other words, it's the Russian state that really matters. It should have control over the Eurasian continent. It should relegate Western Europe to basically the satellite economically and socio-politically of Russia. It enlists China in this and now North Korea to implement this vision, which Putin expressed in a very important speech in October of last year at the Valdai International Conference. And the Valdai Club is something founded in Russia. And the state is very involved in it, as is a leading university, in inviting to an international conference each year, countries that it wants to assimilate into its sphere of influence. And those are particularly the large developing countries, the BRICS, the so-called BRICS countries, which are Russia and China and South Africa and India and Brazil. But beyond that, they want to make inroads. And we've talked about this before. But the whole point is to divide and conquer, to take away from the United States the hegemony, the unicolor support for democracy of the world. I say we give back, not always, but we do give back when we take other territories. And we have to remember that we do that because we have a particular kind of political philosophy called democracy. And the people in this country who support Russia now don't understand that what they're doing is undermining what America stands for and has always stood for and still stands for. So this is an international thing. And it is a type of fascism. There's no doubt about it. Ilian, Ivan Ilian called it a third way, like Mussolini. He supported Mussolini. He supported Hitler for returning traditional values to Europe, which is what Putin wants to do today. He's anti-LGBTQ. He's only wants the Russian Orthodox Church in power. He is poor square behind, quote, morality and spirituality that reflect the Tsarist values of the traditional culture. And that is an extreme of traditionalism, which goes into alternationalism, which then becomes fascism. And it's happening here in tandem with that. And that is now the ideology they're exporting. In the Cold War, we were very conscious of the fact that there was a whole Marxist philosophy that Russia had adapted to its own unusual circumstances. Marx wouldn't have agreed and sent that throughout the world. Now we are contending with the type of Russian fascism. And we need to understand what it is, where it came from, what his vision is, and what he intends. Can you connect, you mentioned the Tsar, the monarchy in general, can you connect up what the Tsars were doing, what the monarchical Russians were doing that somehow influences Putin? Well, I don't think he wants to bring back the Tsars, but he does model himself after Peter the Great. And Peter the Great is the Russian Tsar who brought civilization, we would say, to Saint Petersburg, Putin is, I believe, from Saint Petersburg. And it is a fine example of a French culture imported by Catherine and Peter into Russia. And, you know, they really, they want to absorb these kinds of things from Europe, the culture and the beauty, but they want to control it. They don't want the democracy. They don't want the revolutions that occurred there. We have to understand that to Putin, Muscovy is the center of the universe.  How did Russia lose Ukraine? Thank you, pardon? If that's the three brothers, how did Russia lose Ukraine? Lose? Yeah. Well, Yanukovych was in place until, I think, 2014. And then there was an election and he was deposed. And Russia didn't tolerate that because they had, you know, basic control over Ukraine through Yanukovych, their little satellite. And so Ukraine is a very important country, potentially. It is rich in agriculture. And it has access to warm water ports, which Russia has always wanted and needed. That's why Crimea is so important. And it then is open to the world, because Russia doesn't have warm water ports except a little piece in the Baltic Sea next to Lithuania and Poland. And that's why the Arctic is so important. When it's melting, now becomes the potential huge coastline. Half of the Arctic Ocean is Russian territory. So Ukraine, you know, we hear stories about the creativity of the Ukrainians, the resilience, the sense of patriotism, commitment. Is the Ukrainian culture remarkably different than Russia and Putin? Is it the kind of place that is actually more likely to be democratic? What is the difference between the Ukrainian ethic, the Ukrainian character, and the character that Putin elevates in Russia? Well, you know, you'd have to ask Tim if he's not Snyder of Yale about that. If you look at the most intransigent and terrible conflicts in history, they're always between siblings. And so we fought England, for example. And that was fun.  So, you know, Ukraine is one of the three brothers. And actually, Russia began in Ukraine. It began in Kiev. And it was the Scandinavians that established Kiev. And they took the surrounding peoples, the Slavs, as slaves, not where we get the words slave. And for a hundred years, they were not Christians. But Russia has revised this narrative to say that Muscovy, the Black Brother, not Krasnyi or, yeah, the Red Brother, is really the dominant brother. And that it embodies Russia even more than Ukraine. And that Ukrainians are Russians, basically, they have the same religion, same culture, a similar language. And the territory is so important to control. So, do the Russian people understand what you're talking about? I asked you if the Americans understood what Putin was all about. But what about the Russians? Do they understand about the Slavs? Do they understand about the brotherhood with Ukraine? Do they understand the Muscovy that you described? Or are they just responding to an autograph? I'm not a poster for Russian people. And I agree with you, the Russian people have been saddled with bad governance for centuries. And I feel for them, and they're wonderful people. And they have great culture. Do they understand? Obviously, the cognoscenti, the intelligent class, the educated class, they understand all of this. And it's hard for them. And I'm sure almost all Russians who are ethnically Russian know about their history and their religion, their identity, their territory. And yeah, I imagine they do, just like our people in Appalachia or Idaho or anywhere know, or think they know. So, there have been, you know, programs at least for a couple of hundred years in Russia, anti-Semitism in Russia. Where does that come from? Is that ingrained in Russia now, today as well? What does it mean to Putin? I don't think he's so focused on anti-Semitism. And as a matter of fact, Jews throughout the world come to recognize the support Ukraine. And Ukraine has a Jewish president now. And all of that. As far as Russia is concerned, it's a terrible history of anti-Semitism. The protocols of the elders of Zion, that terrible conspiracy theory that was sent throughout the world about a small group of Jews want to control everything in the world. That began in Russia by people surrounding Nizar in 1905. And it was transmitted to the United States through the court of New York. And then Henry Ford took it up and re-published it in his newspaper and called it the International's Jew at a time when we were having a lot of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe and Russia to the United States because of pogrom, because the Cossacks. They understand that like every large territory, people by the same individuals who identify with one another, there are parts that are tolerant and parts that are very intolerant. And the Cossacks and the people who instigated the pogroms were intolerant and not very educated in many ways. They, like Putin, they see and value only what is theirs and which they claim in the circle of their identity. And this is a way in which tribalism, a mentality tribalism develops and people then fight one another and have more of a work. You know, one more piece to set the stage on where Putin is driven today is the whole thing about the Cold War, about Stalin, about the Lubyanka prison, about the Gulag and all those things that Solzhenitsyn wrote about. How ingrained in the Russian culture is that? How ingrained in Putin is it? Why do people accept that kind of brutality and for that matter accept Navalny being in prison for another 19 years or doing obviously nothing? What is it in the Russian culture and in Putin's approach that relates to or incorporates kind of Solzhenitsyn brutality? Well, interestingly, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was imbued with very much the same ideology of Russian nationalism and traditionalism and the Greek Orthodox Church. He listened to Ivan Ilyan and agreed with him in many ways. But he was, of course, a person with a very different experience in the Gulag and a very strong feeling about human rights and ethics. You know, we have a range of expression too. We have Abu Ghraib, we have Guantanamo, you know, Ron DeSantis was a lawyer at Guantanamo and oversaw, of course, the beating of prisoners, which is torture. We had abuse of prisoners, horrible abuse of prisoners. So, and we committed genocide against the American Indians. The longest war in our history, I don't think, was Afghanistan. It was the Indian wars of the 19th century. So, in that sense, we have a common humanity of both good and evil. And we need to look there for the reasons. In terms of the brutality of Stalin and Lugianca and everything, if you really believe the end justifies the means, you will go to any means to achieve the end. That helps explain Putin, then, doesn't it? If he feels the torture or kidnapping of children justifies the end, then he has no reluctance. Is that what's happening? I think we have to look at the human's goal, ethnic identity, to understand what people behave the way they do towards one another. And I'm doing that in my own research now, because I am doing research on fascism. The worst behavior of one group of people against another in human history was the Germans, the people they put in concentration camps and the genocide. So, we have to understand that. I want to understand that. And I have to go right down to the basics of human psychology. Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, I always say we're mammals, and we're not always rational. And there are things that live within us that are not good. You were talking about your writing, but you wrote an article recently. Can you tell us about the article you wrote and maybe hold it up so we can see it, at least part of it? Well, once in a while, I write a few things, defense them to the star advertiser, and they've been kind enough to print one of them. And this was an inside article. I have to get it in front of me. And then if I put it in front of me, I can't see it. It was on Putin's mind. And I wanted to bring in the power of myth. I had the privilege of co-teaching with a scholar named Ivan Strensty. And he held the chair in the history of religions at the University of California at Riverside for many years. And while we were teaching one time, he had to go to the Caterine Burg in the middle of winter in Russia, which was a program funded by George Soros, to teach Russian PhDs how to teach religion, because during communism, religion was not permitted to be taught. And so he made a lot of contact among educated, intelligent Russian people. He's kept up those contacts. And he has been able to get letters and correspond with these Russians while the Ukrainian war has been going on with Russia. And he also has a Ukrainian descent. So he has contact relatives in Ukraine. So Ivan and I have talked and corresponded over these years. And he's a wonderful source of information. He's also gotten very interested in researching and writing about fascism, if he's doing, but in regards to Trump, which I'm also doing. So we have a lot to talk about. Anyway, he's the one who brought to my attention the myth of the three brothers and how Russia is committed to keeping these three brothers together within its confines. And that is Belarus and Russia and Ukraine. So it becomes an almost fratricidal war for him. He cannot let his brother go. And it's fratricidal wars that are based on ideological, particularly religious spiritual concepts are the most difficult to resolve. And so Zelensky, too, is implacable. He will not regard giving up Crimea. And Russia, of course, has been in a struggle of control for Crimea for centuries. And so we're just...  If there are many people who speculate that it will not stop at Ukraine, whatever drives Putin will drive him into the Baltics and maybe the Balkans. And he will move west into Western Europe as and when he can. And that, yes, Ukraine is a strategic buffer, but it is also a jumping point. So, has that reconciled? In other words, if he's got a special thing about Ukraine historically, ethically, and all that, does it stop in Ukraine? No, it doesn't. Zelensky is absolutely right. And I felt that way from the beginning about this here because, you know, I'm half Lithuanian and they really know the Russia. Well, the best people, honestly. Anyway, not because I'm half Lithuanian, but because of the history of it all. Russia and Sweden have fought for that territory for centuries. And in 1709, at the Battle of Khoava in Ukraine, which was then part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Lithuania and Poland and the king, Russia defeated Sweden and deposed the king and put its own king on the Commonwealth. And then they did this again. This was again during Peter the Great. You have to go back to Peter the Great to understand Putin. I think that's his archetypal person and what was going on then, both in the Pacific and in Europe. And what brings this all together today is this Ilyan-Dugan political philosophy of what's called Eurasianism. And that's what this great speech that Putin gave last year that we should all be familiar with is about. It's about Eurasianism, meaning that Russia wants to have geopolitical and economic control over the Eurasian continent from Vladivostok to double. We need to understand that. And not that they want to go into and take over France and the UK and Germany. They just want to render them neutered. They want to neuter them. And they want a different currency than the dollar. They want to use the resources of Siberia to become very wealthy. They want to control the ports and the trade. They want to enlist the cooperation of unaligned countries, which they're doing right now over the divide over support for Ukraine. They're beginning that. And they have an uneasy alliance with China.  So this dynamic is going on right now and we need to understand that. You know, it strikes me that Putin is doing a lot of other things in the world. He's involved in all the diplomatic organizations and groups. He's trying to create and enhance groups that are anti-American. I think of Bricks, for example, but there are others too, where he creates these conferences, even if he can't go because he's under an arrest warrant. He still encourages them. And he whizzers without pregosion. He's got a presence in the Sahel, sub-Saharan Africa. And he's trying to be influential in Latin America as well. And I wonder how much of all of that, I haven't ended. I mean, there's many other things.  It seems to me that everything the man does these days has got some connection with his drive to take over Ukraine. Am I right? Or are these driven by other factors? Yes, he's driven to undermine and get rid of what he calls the great hegemon, the United States. And this is, again, part of the neo-fascist philosophy of Russian nationalism, that Ilion and Dugan have developed. He's driven to make Russian civilization the great civilization of Russia. He's driven by nationalism. This is a spiritual commitment. So he wants to replace the world currently with maybe the Chinese Yuan. And he's involved in getting allies where he can, because we have sanctions against him. He wants to get rid of the sanctions. And he can't travel, as you pointed out, everywhere he wants to travel now, because there's this other great power in the world that is standing against the development of the future of Russian civilization and dominance. And it's not necessarily a territorial dominance, so much as it is sphere of influence and dominance in the way that we have created that kind of influence in the world. And it's gotten so close to him with Ukraine, with the overthrow of Yanukovych and the putting of a real democracy in Ukraine is insupportable because the enemy has democracy. And it's right on his, right as his doorstep. And he can't support it. One other thing before I ask you what I consider an important question is, constantly, he's saying that the Ukrainians are the fascists. They are the Nazis, which seems to be really ironic, because the Nazis killed a lot of Ukrainians, as they killed a lot of Russians. But Ukrainians are certainly not fascists. There's no indication that that's true. So is that completely propaganda? And why does he say that? Why would the ultra-right in the United States say that Trump is going to fix everything and that we need to change how we vote in the United States? We need to replace basically a dictator in the United States. We need to get rid of the civil service that will service and just point the people who are loyal to us. It's fascism and fascists will do what human beings do psychologically, and that is project their own sins and misdeeds upon the people they want to control and conquer. It's all about power. And truth means nothing because truth is negotiable. In fact, I mentioned Ivan Strensky. He's writing about the influence of pragmatism on truth and lies in Trump, because pragmatically, the philosophy of the United States that we embody is, you know, just make it happen. However you make it happen, make it happen. That's what counts. Do it. And if you have to make a lie into truth, you make a lie into truth. I mean, that's the weakness of pragmatism. Helian Conway, the ultimate reality when she, at the early time, I guess it was 2016, went up there on national television and defended lies. I said, we are really, really, really in trouble with this. How can you operate democracy on this basis? And what's odd is that her husband, maybe her former husband, George Conway, appears on liberal television and takes liberal positions. I don't understand it. I'm really wondering what their pillow talk is like. Never mind. In any event, my wraparound question for Eugene is this. So through this discussion and through the writings and through a lot of observers and commentators and analysts, we do know a fair amount how Putin's mind works.  But is it realistic? Is it likely to succeed? And that's one part of my question. The other part which fascinates me is, is he like this? Is he doing these things because he really believes in it personally? Or is he doing these things for political purposes? Because he feels that he can stay in power if he projects these notions of a vision for Russia, an agenda for Russia. I really don't have a sense of what the answer to that is. Maybe it's a combination. What do you think? Operating on both levels. Because power is the essential ingredient of fascism. And the retention of power is the basic fundamental floor on which everything else rests. And the leader embodies that power. And in order to remain in office and enact the vision that he has, that he believes, that does he truly believe it? Absolutely. I'm absolutely certain. And even if we can't verify that, we have to just accept that is most likely because only by accepting that political philosophy as influencing him and that he really believes in can we predict his next moves and anticipate what he's going to do. No, this is not about just Ukraine. It's a lens that he's absolutely correct. It's about Ukraine and Lithuania and Poland and the United States. He wants to take power away from us to neuter us. Basically, there's an element of this incredible Roman patriarchalism and virility. Virtue, after all, is the word that pertains to males because veers is the Latin for male. So virtue naturally is defined in male terms. And anything that questions that or delutes that is unacceptable in fascism. And so it's all in the mix. One other element that might be in the mix, I'd like your thought on it, is when we talk about Trump and we look and see what Trump has done over the past few years, we think he must be out of his mind that he has psychiatric problems and that he's just a nutcase, unhinged as you will. So the question I put to you is, does Putin really believe it? I mean, does he believe that he can achieve these things? Is he being realistic about it? But also, is he a nutcase too? Does it matter? Was Hitler a nutcase? Was Stalin a nutcase? Does it really matter? I mean, what do we mean by nutcase? I'm not a psychiatrist. Do I agree that Trump is a nutcase? Well, if you took, say you took 10 billionaires and then you took 10 convicted murderers or rapists and you gave them all the same psychological tests, you might find that a lot common. Okay, great answer. Thank you, Gene. Gene Rosenfeld, an independent scholar and historian who joins us today to discuss the vision, the agenda of Putin and how we can figure out what he's going to do with it. Thank you so much, Gene. Thank you, Jay.


Hello, people of the internet. My name is Joni. Welcome back to yet another FNAF news video and happy nine year anniversary to FNAF. Yesterday on August the eighth, that's right, FNAF officially turned nine years old, which is fricking crazy to think about. That's only one year from a decade of FNAF. Now, because of the anniversary, we did have a few companies show their support of the celebration and teasing some of their brand new projects. It's nothing too, too big. Overall, this was kind of a quiet anniversary, but we still got a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. So if you're excited for all the FNAF news, don't forget to scroll down and subscribe to the channel because subscribing to this channel is the best way to stay up to date with everything FNAF. To kick off this video, first up, we got this new t-shirt from Hot Topic. Actually, it's a woven button up featuring the security guard aesthetic for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Now I have seen a few comments that this shirt was released years and years ago. So if that's true and you missed out on this woven up button t-shirt, well now you can get it. It's got security for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on the front, as well as the emblem for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on the back. Now let's make our way over to the Fazbear fanverse because we've got some very exciting news regarding POPGOES Evergreen. Kane Carter put out a tweet saying though he can't be prevented just yet, POPGOES moves around the pizzeria correctly and he can pick up black rabbits parts and put them down. The parts are placed in a set order, but they can now each be collected from one of three printers. This means that POPGOES can technically print one piece from each printer room, like in the original game, or he can pick and choose, revisiting some previous rooms. If he wants to be really weird about it, he can even print three pieces from one room and three pieces from another. It should feel quite random. The dynamic ambient slash music has also been programmed so the background audio gets more intense based on the current level of perma panic. It's kind of terrifying. So there we go, actual programming being done on the upcoming fanverse title POPGOES Evergreen. That's very exciting to hear and also these placeholders are really funny to look at. Sticking with Evergreen for a quick second because of the unfortunate apparent cancellation of FNAF Plus, Kane did show off a scrapped ghost detector phone case themed around the game. Kane goes on to clarify, but with Phil out of the fanverse, we actually can't include this in Evergreen as he has never signed a release form as a creator on the project. Honestly, I think this is one of the best-looking phones we've seen from Evergreen. So very unfortunate that it's being abandoned, but also keep in mind there was like 50 phones planned for the game, so this isn't a huge loss. Sticking with the fanverse, we got Nixon, the creator of the Jurav creation Ignited Collection holding an AMA over on Twitter, specifically for questions about the office level in the Ignited Collection that is going to be the first level in the story mode version of the collection. He answered a lot. I wrote down some of the more interesting ones, so I'm gonna go through them pretty quick. Starting off with some mechanics. First up, we got Ignited Freddy in the office. You still need to flash Freddy X amount of times to win, but there's more things to keep track of and more loose conditions this time. Nixon confirming that Ignited Chica will still phase through the wall. And as for her cupcakes, they now have a lot more hiding spots they can hide in now. That number bumping up to a whopping 15 hiding spots. When asked about Q specifically for Foxy, he says for this one, I don't really want there to be an obvious clue as to when the animatronics show up. I want the cameras to be crucial. However, for events like you being too late to flash Freddy, you will hear him leave to show that you fail.  We're gonna have to pay very close attention to where he is on the cameras. Bonnie's mechanic in the office has changed drastically.  Now you may be a bit confused what recharging stuff that wasn't in the last game. Well, that's cause Nixon's added a whole new room to the office level for this brand new battery mechanic. Saying Bonnie will now drain the camera instead of breaking it, forcing you to go and use a battery slash fuse to recharge it. These batteries and fuses will also be needed to keep the main power running as well as your flashlight. So this new mechanic of batteries adds a bit more resource management to this level. Something Nixon was adamant about making the gameplay a bit more tense and a lot more fast paced. Another major change to the Ignatius Collection office segment is when you power out with Freddy, which is still in the game. However, it will actually give you some sort of chance to win this time. Nixon saying, this time I want you to be able to maybe get one last flash in during the power out sequence. Moving on now to something I thought was super interesting. Nixon says he has a very big feature planned for pretty much all levels, which is something that he calls the jump scare director. Once you're technically dead, the game will try and figure out what the most effective way is to create a death scene. That sounds super, super interesting. Not a feature I see many fan games implement and I really, really hope it pays off because this could be super cool. Moving on now to the story. Nixon says the story is completely different and is not directly connected to Scott and his family. Lastly, we got three points of just kind of miscellaneous info. Nixon confirms that the animatronics will not have actual voices because to him it makes them way less scared. As for Easter eggs, he says there will be way less if maybe no Easter eggs at all. I find it ruins the atmosphere and immersion of the game. Though something I absolutely cannot stand by what Nixon has done here. Does it have a Freddy nose honk? No, I don't know guys. I might need to skip out on this game. It sounds like a zero out of 10. Moving on now, let's talk about the anniversary of FNAF, which like I said was yesterday. Celebrating nine years at Freddy, we got a whole bunch of companies and people getting involved celebrating this occasion. Clickteam tweeted out happy hashtag FNAF anniversary. We got Hex also celebrating the occasion with some very cute, lovely, adorable artwork. Even Gamejolt got in on the celebration, creating brand new quests you can complete to unlock prizes. Chances to win merchandise like U2's figures as well as copies of security breach. Even Blumhouse got in on the fun. And actually going back to U2's a few days ago, they tease their next FNAF wave. And as we can see in the teaser image, it was the flocked figures. All standing in front of a print depicting the very first FNAF game. And for the anniversary, they officially revealed the wave will be releasing on the 15th of August. Like we just said, the figures involved are flocked Freddy Fazbear, flocked Bonnie, flocked Foxy, as well as flocked Chica. And most interestingly of all, a limited edition print, like I said, of FNAF one. And by limited edition, they mean extremely limited edition. There's only 125 of these prints being made. So if you're a dedicated FNAF U2's collector, I'd recommend being there the second these things draw. And speaking of U2's, they kind of carried the anniversary because we got brand new Faneverse plushies revealed from them as well. Previously, we've seen their sitting Popgos plushie as well as their Chibi ignited Freddy plushie. We knew they're also making an ignited Freddy plushie as well as a candy plushie, presumably a sitting candy plushie. Well, that still left us with two plushies. We had no clue who they were, a Popgos plushie and the second FNAF plushie. And you might see where I'm going with this because to celebrate the anniversary, we got revealed to us the long Popgos and long candy the cat plushie. Definitely some plushies I was not expecting to see, but definitely some plushies I'm not unhappy to see. These guys look amazing. These guys are based on the long Popgos project that Kane and Emil made featuring Popgos and Candy. And these are not the final designs. In fact, a lot of people notice, hey, their eyes are different. You know, Popgos has more of the traditional blank space with the iconic U2's eyes, where Candy has those more anime-like eyes trying to hide the trademark U2's eyes. And so Kane is actually holding a poll over on Twitter, which style of the Popgos plush do you like best? He gave four options, the original version of the plushie, one with the bright eyes, just like Candy. The third option with the anime eyes, the larger face as well as some ear trims. And the fourth and final one is him with a closed mouth. That poll's gonna be linked down below if you want to go cast your vote. What do you think of these brand new plushies? They're certainly very silly, goofy, ah, chunky boys that I can't wait to add to my fanverse collection. All right, well now let's move on to our final news topic for today, and that is Steel Wool Studios. Because this is a FNAF anniversary, a lot of people were expecting something big from Steel Wool. They just dropped the highly acclaimed Ruin DLC. They've got already another game releasing later this year, Help Wanted 2, a sequel to the first Help Wanted that was also critically acclaimed. I mean, right now, Steel Wool is kind of coasting. And we kind of got news on Help Wanted 2. They put out this tweet, Happy FNAF day. Join us at PAX West for a special experience.  I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping for another promotional or just overall new poster for Help Wanted 2. It could have at least added the Help Wanted 2 logo to this poster to drum up a bit more hype, but I guess this is fine. Cause at the end of the day, this is clearly hinting towards Help Wanted 2 being at PAX West, which if you don't know is a giant convention being held in Seattle, Washington at the very start of September. I think it's the first through the fourth. In 2019, Steel Wool also attended the PAX convention and there they showed off tech demos for the first Help Wanted game. That was the first time we got a hands-on look gameplay footage for Help Wanted 1. I'm not trying to get too game theory on you here, but that was also about a month and a half if I remember correctly before Help Wanted 1 released. So could this be hinting towards an October-ish release date? I mean, Halloween, that sounds like the perfect time to release it now. Either way, before PAX happens at the start of September, I do feel like we should expect a trailer for Help Wanted 2. Cause if they truly will have tech demos to play at PAX West with Help Wanted 2, I feel like it's not a good look if that's our first look at the gameplay. So I'm crossing my fingers, I'm really, really hoping from here before the start of September, we get a proper look at the game. It's crazy how Ruin just released, like what, two weeks ago, and we're already getting hyped up for another FNAF game. I'd love to know, are you looking forward to news about Help Wanted 2?  If so, do you have plans to play Help Wanted 2 if it's there? But that's gonna do it for this FNAF news video. Thank you so much for watching and once again, happy nine-year anniversary to FNAF. It's absolutely crazy. We're one year away from a decade and I can't imagine what crazy projects we're gonna get for that anniversary. But like I said, that's gonna do it. Thanks for watching and I'll see you all on the flip side. Goodbye.


Good morning to this annual press conference on banking supervision. We're providing today simultaneous interpretation into German, French, and Italian. And the press conference is webcast live. Our speakers are Supervisor-E-Board Chair Daniel Nui and Vice-Chair Sabine Lautenschläger. They will make introductory statements, and then we will go to your questions. Daniel, please. Thank you, Connie. Yes, the microphone is open. No, it's not. OK, is it better like that? No, the microphone doesn't work, so I will. Now I hear something different. OK, so good morning, ladies and gentlemen. What does 2018 have in store for banks and their supervisors? That is a very interesting question, but one that is hard to answer unless you have a crystal ball. Two things seem certain sort. One, banks still face a number of challenges. And two, 2018 offers the ideal opportunity to tackle them. There are four reasons for this. First, the euro-euro-economy is doing well. After almost five years of growth, on these growths is broad based across both countries and sectors. Second, technology is evolving, which digitalization being the key word here. It offers banks the opportunity to raise revenues on reduced costs. Third, basaltry has been finalized, so the word has become more stable for banks in terms of regulation too. Let me stress so that basaltry still needs to be implemented. On force, 2018 will be the fourth year of European banking supervision. The construction phase is clearly over. The supervisory framework is now stable, unpredictable, and this should make life a bit easier for banks. So the conditions are good. On banks, I have made great strides and have become more resilient. The CET-1 capital ratio of significant banks has increased by over 270 basis points since the beginning of 2015, at 14.3% by Q3 2017. We can also see that profitability is rising, also from a low level. So things are improving, but more needs to be done. There are two things that I would put at the top of the to-do list for a number of banks, increase profitability, and clean up balance sheets. These two things are connected, of course. Let me start with the broader issue. When it comes to profitability, European banks have been slow to adjust to the impact of the crisis. Look at banks in the United States. Compared with European banks, their profits fell more sharply during the crisis, but they have recovered faster. The return on equity of banks in the euro area has generally improved. For some banks, however, it remains very low, and this raises concerns about their ability to cover their cost of equity in the medium to longer run. The lack of profitability is indeed something to worry about, as only banks that make enough profits will be able to support economic growth and to continue building up capital buffers. But the benign economic conditions and the desire to quickly raise profits should not lead the banks to embark on a search for yield days. It is clear that banks must find ways to become more profitable without taking excessive risk. And of course, when it comes to solutions, one size does not fit all. Each bank has its own history and needs its own strategy, but it does need a strategy. When we look closely at successful and less successful banks, there is one thing that stands out. That thing could be termed strategic steering. In a nutshell, strategic steering refers to the management ability to set a course towards the bank's long-term objectives. It comprises things like efficient processes and good governance. Those banks that master it are, on average, more profitable. Banks have to navigate through difficult territory. They need to have a firm grip on the steering wheel. They need sound strategic processes. And they need strong governance, including on risk management. And here we see a number of issues in the banks we analyzed. Overall, one of the biggest weaknesses we have seen so far relates to the way in which banks put price on loans. They are loan pricing framework. In very general terms, this framework needs to be comprehensive. It has to cover all business lines. It has to cover all relevant costs on risk, including operational costs. And it has to be group-wide. In short, banks need to put themselves in a position to enhance their profitability. But whatever banks do to design, they must strike a balance between risk and return. We therefore expect banks to invest in strong risk management. Bank needs to cut costs, but risk management is definitely not the place to do so. And to restore their profitability, certain banks must do more. And in particular, they must clean up their balance sheets. In the third quarter of 2017, non-performing loans, NPLs stood at $760 billion. True, they have decreased over the past few years by over $200 billion. But clearly, they remain a major problem. NPLs dragged down profits. They divert resources that could be put more productive use. And they keep banks from financing the real economy. They also create uncertainty, which indirectly might also affect stronger banks. Banks should use good times to reduce NPLs, and the good times are now. Carrying over the residual problems of the crisis to the next downturn is not a viable option. When a downturn sets in, it will become much harder to banks to get rid of NPLs. So for us, NPLs are a major issue. That's why last year, we publish guidance for banks on how to reduce their NPLs. Moreover, cleaning up balance sheet after a crisis is one thing. Keeping them clean ahead of the future downturns is another. That's why we are working on an addendum to our guidance that will specify how and when we expect banks to provision for new NPLs. The draft addendum was subject to a public consultation, as you know, which triggered almost 500 comments coming from 36 counterparties. Most of the comments related to the scope of the addendum on its calibration. We have reviewed all the comments very thoroughly. On that basis, we are now finalizing the addendum. Among other things, we will shift the date from which the guidance applies to new NPLs by a few months. We will also make it even clearer that we will follow a case-by-case approach as part of our pillar two framework. And we will publish the final addendum by mid-March about. So banks should get ready for it. Banks should also get ready for the upcoming stress test by the European Banking Authority. It will be another moment of truth for banks, as it will show our resilience, their balance sheets really are. Moreover, as the result of the ABA stress test will be published, markets are not just supervisors. We'll expect banks with capital weaknesses to address them, even if it's not a pass-field exercise. Robust sound balance sheets are crucial for reducing risk and restoring trust in banks. By doing so, it will become easier to decide on the final pillar of the banking union, the European Deposit Insurance Scheme, EDIS. Over the past few years, banks have made some progress in reducing risk. In my view, we could therefore take EDIS a step further. So I welcome the latest proposal by the European Commission with GERS in that direction. What's more, EDIS might be accompanied by another asset quality review, and that will give banks another incentive to further reduce risk. With the single rule book, European Banking Supervision on the European Resolution Mechanism, the banking union is now well advanced. This paves the way towards a truly European banking system. That is our vision for the future. Sooner, rather than later, banks should start to reach more across borders and reap the benefits of a large and largely integrated European market. Coming back to 2018, my message is these conditions are as good as they are going to get. Banks should seize this moment and tackle the challenges they face. I now want to over to Sabine. Many thanks, Daniel. Well, ladies and gentlemen, 2018 will be the fourth year of European banking supervision. And as Daniel said, the construction phase is over. We are in a steady state. In any case, our objective will be the same. Our task is to contribute to the safety and soundness of banks. But the safety and soundness of banks do not only depend on good supervision. It depends on sound regulation, too. And as I have pointed out several times already in a world where significant banks are highly interconnected, where markets are highly interconnected, it is of utmost importance that sound regulation is done globally in scope. And in this regard, 2017 ended on a positive note. Basel III was finalized. And this is good news for banks because it has restored regulatory certainty. And it's good news for the economy because it contributes to a stable banking sector that can finance growth. And it's good news for supervisors, too, because it underpins our work with strong rules. As a global standard, Basel III will be applied to a diverse set of banks with very different business models in very different legal and macroeconomic environments. And against this background, Basel III is a good compromise. It takes into account the differences in banks' business models. And it seeks to strike a balance between sometimes very contradictory interests. Risk sensitivity, simplicity. So on the one hand, banks will be able to take into account bank-specific risk experience they can use for the calculation of capital requirements internal models. And on the other hand, Basel III establishes some safeguards, such as input and output floors, which will prevent capital requirements to fall below a certain capital level. Hence, with Basel III, we are not doing away with risk sensitivity. And in my view, that makes a lot of sense. I am still convinced that risk-based capital requirements are efficient. They set the right incentives for banks' business strategies. And they prompt banks to carefully define, measure, and manage their risk. Let us not forget that the financial crisis of 2007, 2008 was based on Basel I capital requirements and not on Basel II. Sometimes this is forgotten. The next step is now to ensure that Basel III is fully and timely implemented, as only with full implementation, it can contribute to financial stability. So full implementation in all relevant jurisdiction is our message. So a sound risk-based capital framework is an essential part of a stable banking system. But the internal models used by banks to calculate risk must yield adequate risk rates in the first place and here the ECB plays an important role. As you all know, we have launched a major project. It's called the Targeted Review of Internal Models, or in brief, TRIM. And TRIM has three objectives. First, to make sure that internal models used by banks comply with the regulatory standard. Second, to ensure a level playing field regarding the treatment of internal models with regard to the supervisory treatment. And third, to make sure that the results of internal models are driven by actual risk and not just by modeling choices. And as you can imagine, TRIM is a huge effort. We are making progress, I can tell you. So far half of the roughly 200 on-site missions have been successfully launched. The first phase started in 2017 will last until mid of this year. The aim was to review the internal models that banks use for credit risk, specific for retail and SME customers. And we will look until mid of year into the models used for market risk and counterparty risk. The on-site missions conducted so far have been very useful in identifying best practices, good practices, and in spotting shortcomings. The deficiencies we have found are always very bank-specific. But some banks have shown some common patterns. For instance, for internal models used to assess credit risk, we have found some shortcomings with regard to data quality, with regard to the calculation of realized losses, with regard to the treatment of defaulted exposure. But we have also observed that many banks have already invested heavily in relevantly strengthening their internal models, the governance of the internal models, and their validation, especially the last point is a very important topic. At the same time, we are working on an update of our guide to internal models. It is based on the comments received on the first version of the guide, and it is based on insights we gain from the on-site mission of Trim. We intend to seek feedback from the banks again. The first chapter will be published for consultation in the coming month. And this part of the guide will clarify general topics such as the governance framework for and the validation of internal models. Ladies and gentlemen, so far, we haven't touched upon one of the biggest issues in and for Europe. This is an issue that goes far beyond banks, but affects them as well. I'm talking about Brexit. Banks must be ready for Brexit. It will happen. Also, the EU and United Kingdom have agreed to discuss a possible transition period. We cannot be sure whether the transition period will happen. Thus, our expectation have not changed. Banks must continue to prepare for any outcome, including a hard Brexit. Any bank that wishes to relocate from the UK to the euro area should have submitted its license application already. But if it has not, it should do so by the end of the second quarter of 2018 at the latest. So far, aid banks have taken formal steps to seek a new license, and for others are planning to significantly extend the activities in the euro area. But I can tell you, we are in, how can I say this, in many, many meetings with more than 50 banks right now. And many of them are in a pre-application phase. We will continue to closely observe the Brexit negotiations depending on how the discussion on a transition period go. We may discuss with banks whether they might be granted more time to implement their relocation plans. But we will only do so with banks that have already presented high quality and credible plans for the steady state situation. In such a discussion, we'll, of course, only cover those aspects that are within the competence of the supervisory authority. Euro area banks should also get ready for Brexit. They too should submit their license applications in accordance with the requirement of the British supervisor, the Prudential Regulation Authority. We welcome the fact that the PRRA has provided more clarity on its supervisory approach. This will help banks for the post-Brexit work. When preparing for Brexit, banks should be in mind something we keep repeating. We won't tolerate any empty shells. Banks must be real banks if they want to operate in the Euro area. European banking supervision will keep a close eye on how incoming banks will organize their business in the Euro area, how complex their structures will be. In particular, when assessing their resolvability. What counts for us as supervisors is that banks retain full control of the balance sheet risk within the Euro area. Bank needs to establish sufficient local capability in areas such as pricing, trading, hedging, and risk management. Only then can they be deemed able to conduct their European business activities adequately. This includes direct access to financial market infrastructures. Here, they must have business continuity arrangements in place to ensure access to financial market infrastructures for all relevant exposure classes. The bottom line is that banks must remain in control of their own risk. We therefore expect incoming banks to be able to produce complete and accurate data on booking models, hedging strategies, and intragroup exposures. But Euro area banks should also review and disclose any changes to their booking models during the ongoing supervisory process. Ladies and gentlemen, Brexit is just one of the many challenges banks are facing right now. Challenges that they need to address while times are good. Here, I agree and join Danielle Foley. Any thanks for the attention. So we come to your questions now. Any questions? We should start. Let's start in the first row here, please. Yes, hello. Nicholas Comfort from Bloomberg. You both mentioned the fact that the ECB Bank is in its fourth year of active supervision. But it's also Danielle Louise last year. And so I'd like to ask two questions, one looking back and one looking forwards. Looking back over the last four years, you and your team have turned up startup into one of the world's biggest banking supervisors, pushed banks to hold more and more importantly, better quality capital. But how would you respond to the critics who say that national interests are still rife at the SSM, and especially when it comes to big decisions like Montepaschi, and that these national interests have actually delayed and weakened your plans to tackle NPLs? Looking forward, how confident are you that you're setting the right priorities now for the future? I'm thinking disruption of bank business models and cybercrime, and also what advice would you give to your successor? Thank you. Well, thank you for reminding me indeed that my mandate will end up by the end of the year. We have such a momentum on supervisory issues that sometimes is it as if we'll last forever or for a long time. Well, I don't agree with the fact that we are burdened or preventing from acting due to national interest or national bias. I think the supervisory board has been a very disciplined supervisory board, really trying to deliver on the European mission and European ideals. Obviously, when a national bank is hit by circumstances or by a measure or is in a difficult situation, our national colleagues explain what are the challenges of the situations and what might be the limits to what can be done if we want to be successful. But this is very, very welcome. In fact, we have the best of two worlds. We have the expertise and experience of national supervisors. And we have the distance in the decision making which is helping us, both elements, to take the good decisions. Well, if I were to give advice to my success source because Sabine also is not so staying for much longer than myself, would be certainly commitment to implement the best supervisory practices wherever they come from within Europe and belong to strongly adhere to the European mandate and European ideals to be ready to fully and totally cooperate with other European institutions that also have a mandate to deliver, which goes in the same direction as we are going, certainly to have enough vigor to handle banks on criticisms that go with the job. That's the way it works. And what else? Well, persistence to make sure that what has been decided is fully implemented. But I think the list is already probably too long. Well, tackling NPL is a journey, a journey that started in 2014 with the accuracy of the comprehensive assessment. Then in 2015, there was the qualitative guidance on how to address them. Then we moved to what should we do to avoid piling up of future NPLs that would turn into the legacy of the next crisis. And that's the addendum. So addendum is close to finalization. We will get it out. And for the stock, we have not stayed without action because at the same moment where the qualitative guidance was published, the supervisory dialogue started with the banks that were overburdened. We took above the average of the banking union as a starting point to make sure that they design their own plan to go out of their legacy issues. Those plans have been challenged by the joint supervisory teams. And now they are going implemented. So let's see what will be possible. But I think a lot will be possible on more than what we expected when we designed, on the banks, design their own plans. Because precisely, gross is there. And we have benign economic conditions. So let's continue in the second row there. Francesco Canepa, Reuters. So my first question is a follow-up on NPLs. So you said that individual plans for NPL reduction are being examined. Some banks have been most recently entered a Sao Paulo yesterday. So that this is resulting effectively in the ECB putting pressure on them to offload NPLs, as opposed to work them out internally. So can you just give us an update on how your assessment of individual plans is going, whether you're happy or unhappy with them and so on? And the second question is about Banco Popular Espanol. Last year, in this same press conference, you praised Banco Popular for being brave and coming out to markets and saying that they need more capital. That didn't quite work, as perhaps people were hoping. And so what lessons can be learned from Banco Popular? Well, regarding the plans, first, of the banks, the plans have been sent about a year ago to the GSTs. They have been challenged. Sometimes, the banks have produced a second plan which was more precise, either more ambitious or more credible or both. So this is work in progress. And indeed, the number of banks are changing their policy, using the good times to do what they can do, more than they had planned to do at the beginning. And this is what, in my view, good supervision is about, make the banks safer and stronger when this can happen. Regarding the press for Banco Popular or others, for getting more capital, in fact, there is a principle. Capital is always music to the ears of supervisors, obviously. More good quality capital for weak banks, obviously, are a positive point. But there is also a risk which is to do too little, too late. And if this is considered by investors too little, too late, it's not necessarily helping the bank through the future. So the advice, again, is for the banks to do what they have to do at the right moment. This being said, if you read the information which is available regarding Banco Popular, there are a number of public elements, like change in the rating, like a need to correct the accounts of the end of the year that were not fully correct, and so on and so forth, all those elements. It's not about just not asking for more capital at a different moment. It's accumulation of a number of elements that were not good ones. I think the second part of the question, the Banco Popular, do you want to answer that? The lessons learned? The lessons learned are always very bank specific. And I beg your understanding that we cannot talk about single cases in a very detailed fashion. But perhaps in an abstract fashion, I can tell you, we again experience that we have very different tools to react as a supervisor. And here, a part coming back to my request not only for good supervision, but a request for good regulation, I think here some work still needs to be done by the European and the national lawmaker. We do have very different standards being applied to banks, for example, in large exposure rules, because there are still very different national legislation around. We do have different tools as a supervisor. In some countries, we can use a moratorium in order to stop a liquidity drain on a bank. In other countries, we cannot use this, because we do not have a moratorium. So here, we still wait for a lot of work which has to happen on harmonization in regulation. So there's a question in the center here, please. And can I please ask you to just ask one question per question, or because, otherwise, we have a lot of questions here. Hi. Good morning, Nicolas Menendez-Harias from Espansión. Last week, the SRB published a more complete, non-confidential version of the popular evaluation report. According to the resolution authority, it was the ECB who asked not to disclose some points about ELA and liquidity outflows. Do you agree with that statement? And why did you decide not to publish all the information? Thank you. Many thanks for the question. I think I will answer. We do have a very strict confidentiality obligation given to us by the lawmaker. We are allowed to know everything with regard to a bank. This is the one side. And in order to balance this broad information possibility, the lawmaker gave us a confidentiality obligation to meaning that we are not allowed to publish something on a specific bank if we do not have the consent. This is the information I'm talking about with regard to the supervisory process. Coming to the ELA process, let me remind you, and here, again, I'm not allowed to give you individual comments. But let me remind you that ELA is a national task. ELA is given by the National Central Bank. And if ELA moves beyond a certain threshold, then the ECB, the governing council, is asked whether there is any objection to this, objections which have to be based on monetary policy grounds. This decision is a case-by-case decision, this kind of objection or non-objection. And here, the first question I would relate to the National Central Bank because there is the source of a decision. And the second one is then a very, very bank-specific discussion which we do not comment on. Next question. Gentleman in the middle here. Come back. Stefanos Gilgacopoulos, Deutsche Welle. There were some reports in Greek media that the trigger of recapitalization will be 6 to 6.5% under the adverse scenario. Could you confirm that? And my second question, why don't you use the upcoming stress test for another capital increase so that the Greek banks can clean up their balance seats from their huge MPL pile once and for all? Thank you. Well, as you have two questions, we start with the first and let Sabine respond to the second part. It's not a pass-fail stress test exercise, which means that there is no particular trigger and the possible recapitalization, the need for a possible recapitalization for all the banks, the Greek banks, just like the other banks in the EBA stress test will be decided on a case-by-case basis by the supervisory board. So that's the situation. Nothing else, so no need to discuss percentages that may be relevant for one bank and not for the others which do not make sense to be implemented for both space line and adverse maybe for certain banks. Case-by-case basis supervisory board decision. And perhaps may I add just to give you an idea why it is a case-by-case decision. The EBA methodology is a methodology which will be applied to about 50 banks. If I remember correctly, it will be about 37, 38 SSM banks. It has to be a size fits all methodology. The outcome and the question of what do you have to adjust in order to take into account very bank specific facts like restructuring, like already agreed upon contracts to sell this or that, but which were not being able to take which were not to taking into account until the end of last year. This kind of facts we have to take into account when deciding whether a bank needs more capital or not. And that cannot be taken into account in an EBA, one size fits all process. So it is very relevant that you take this kind of case-by-case decision before you move into a very bank specific individual decision as a supervisor. Otherwise, we would set rules, which we do not do. We have bank specific measures. Now the second question, let me be very abstract because we have not yet started the stress test. And you are already asking me about the results and the consequences of the results. I don't have a, I think you call it an English crystal ball. So I do not know the outcome yet. But what we for sure need to do is to ensure equal treatment for all the banks which might need additional capital. And that means that we have to look into the bank specific risk profile. And then we have to see what kind of requirements do we set for the SHREP for the capital add-ons. And then we will see what will happen. So let's take the gentleman over here and then we'll come back to you. Thank you. Bernardo de Miguel from Cinco Dias, a question for Madame Nuit. You said that the addendum on MPL will be a new date for entering into force at the addendum. Does it mean that it's going to be delayed and what is the new date? Thank you. Well, it has already been delayed because it was said in the consultation paper that it will be implemented by 1st of January. So it is delayed. And as soon as it is published, you can expect that it will be implementable. But it's a decision to be taken by the supervisory board. I know that the date of first April is a possibility, but not yet decided. So it has already been delayed. It's not a piece of news. It was supposed to be 1st of January. OK, let's continue. Let's go in the front row here, please. Claire Jones, Financial Times. Just to return to Nicholas's point about there being national interests, some people would see this delay on the addendum of how to treat new MPLs as a classic example of those national interests superseding those of the region as a whole. I mean, what would you say to that? And at the time when the addendum was originally discussed, there seemed to be some hints that there were going to be tougher measures taken on the stock. Has that now been shelved, or is that still something that you'll look at once this delay is overcome? Thank you. Well, I will not call national interests but normal human beings' reactions that countries or banks that can be heard by a measure are the more vocal about possible consequences. I think, well, it's almost normal as far as I am concerned. So we are able with all these explanations to do the good thing, including, in particular, explain that the addendum is not binding instruments, that it is the starting point of the supervisory dialogue, that it will be implemented on a case-by-case basis, and so on and so forth. I think this is useful clarification. As far as the stock is concerned, this is work in progress. There was not even a first meeting of the supervisory board on the issue, so let's wait what will be decided. The two documents are at different stages. On one side, we have the addendum that is very advanced in its finalization, known for which the publication can be expected by mid-March. We coordinate this with the European Commission that is also going public by the same time. For the stock, that's still to be discussed and decided by the supervisory board. I have a few more questions here in the middle. Take the lady in the middle there, please. Barbara Steder, Schuttkath-Herzaitung, thank you. Also on NPL, you said yourself the stock is still high, and there's no decision on how to deal with it yet. So how, then, can you convince countries with a relatively low stock that time is ripe for eaters, as you say? Well, just to change the tone of the response, even if the content is the same on the stock, Sabine, please, could you say... No problem, no problem. And first of all, let me tell you very clearly, we are doing a lot of work on the stock. It's not that we are lenient there on the contrary, and I think we can take a little bit of the praise when looking into the reduction of the stock, the last three years, 200 billion, that part of it is a result of our constant pressure and our constant request for working on the stock. And I like to use the chance, perhaps to add something to a former question. We are not pressuring banks to sell NPLs. There are all kinds of different tools, how you can reduce the legacy issue you have. It's not only about loading them off to a third party, and this is sometimes a little bit, how can I say this, forgotten, because everybody only talks about the sale. It is very, very important to have a good workout in a bank. You can earn quite a lot of money by having good strategies. They are competent people, highly qualified people, I can tell you. And very, very essential is too that the governments, that the countries, ensure that they have a legal and judicial environment where you can have a quick workout. Because the quicker the workout is, the higher the value of the NPL. The better the banks can draw upon collateral and have recovery rates which are relevant for their capital, for their provisioning level too. So, just to give you this kind of, working on the NPL to come to your edis question, working on the NPL is one of the major tasks with regard to supervision, when talking about risk reduction. When you hear a discussion about edis, it is always a discussion between risk reduction and risk sharing, which have to be balanced and have to be looked at at the same time. A banking supervisor is part and is supposed to be part of the risk reduction. NPL is one big issue. But there are other issues too. It's not only NPL. I know that this is the most sexiest thing right now for you in the questions and I hear this, but let us not forget that we have many, many banks in the euro area, which do not have to do a lot of work with regard to an NPL stock, but which might need to do work on their business model, on their profitability, on the risk management, on cyber risk. So this is part of our work too. And with our priorities, I think we make a very good kind of rep on all kinds of issues. Thank you. I think we had a question here in this fourth row. We were talking about risk and NPLs. What do you say to those critics who accuse the supervision to focus too much on NPLs and not to take into sufficient account derivatives, for example? Well, we look at all risk. We assess all risk and we try to get mitigants of all risk on the comparison which is made quite often with this level three or level two asset. Let me say that we are conducting rigorous reviews of valuation on pricing models for market risk. We investigate market risk aspects, both in internal models, in off-site supervision, in on-site supervision with missions. Those risks are taken into account in the SREP methodology. We have also horizontal benchmarks that are used for this kind of risk. Also, it is part of the capital surcharge for global SIFIs. It's even part in two boxes, two elements, two criteria of the global SIFIs methodology. One is the complexity element and one is the resolvability element. So it is covered in my view and we will certainly not stop covering it because those are important element and important risk. We think that we are looking across all risk for all banks. So in a nutshell, it's a fairytale that we are not looking at derivatives. Thank you for saying simply. Many thanks. Of course, we have plenty of figures regarding the derivative business of all the banks that are in this business. Yes, of course. But you know it's a fairytale too that all derivatives are very risky. There are very plain vanilla derivatives which are more or less alone. And then there are very complex ones where you really need to look at it in detail. And the banks which are doing a business in this perspective, we are monitoring and we are assessing, examining, on-site and off-site thoroughly. So who has a question with the lady here in the middle please? Vaso Angeleto from Insider Grace. I would like to ask you whether you are satisfied with reduction of NPLs in grace, especially through the auctions procedure which seems to be lagging. And my second question, should the prices of collateral sold through auctions are considerably and consistently lower than the value recorded in the books of the banks? Would you ask Greek banks to take provisions? Thank you. Are we satisfied with the efforts made by Greek banks? Well, we are indeed satisfied that the movement has started and that good efforts are made and that they start bringing fruits. But this is not the end of the task and a lot still has to be done. Regarding electronic auction, that is true that it has been well-delayed for some times. But I am told and I believe that is correct that it has already, even before it is used, produced some effects because you have one category of defaultors, unpaid loans, which are what we call in our jargon, strategic defaultors. Strategic defaultors don't want to discover one day that their property is on sale in an electronic auction. So they can pay, they should have paid and they are ready now to pay in more normal conditions. So sometimes start the momentum is already delivering some good developments. Well, whether the prices are too low compared to current provisions, obviously if the solution picked up is sale, indeed we look at to see whether the plan is credible. We look at the level of provision and the level of solvency.  But as Sabine has said very rightfully so, in my view is that sale is only one of the elements. She quoted a number of other possible solutions. I would even add one more, which is restructuring the loans early enough in the life of the loan to make them performance. At this moment, maybe the banks has to give up something, some interest, some, but it's really little compared to what happens when you are not addressing the issue at the beginning. And I would also take this opportunity to say something that has not been said yet regarding non-performing exposures. Non-performing exposures are a problem that goes, is a problem that goes much beyond supervisory action. And there is something which is very important, which is the efficiency of the legal proceedings, the efficiency of the legal framework. And this is a very important element for the price of the NPLs. If there is certainty on the length of the legal proceedings, if there is an efficient legal framework for processing collateral, then the price of the NPLs can go up in significant proportion. And that's why a number of countries, almost all the countries that are burdened, all the countries even that are burdened with NPLs, have taken action to change the legal framework and make it working better. And all those initiatives are going in the same direction, making banks safer and sounder in this respect. But we have to keep on track now. Yes, of course. So doing it one year is not sufficient. We have to move forward and make progress. So we have time for a few more questions. Let the lady in the front here, please. Patricia Kaussman of the Wall Street Journal. You know, given the Basel III's being sort of sorted and aimed at the continued pressure on profitability, is it your expectation or in hope that 2018 is going to be a year we're going to start seeing some cross-border consolidation in the banking system?  Thank you. Well, I can start on this one by saying that a number of European banks are not earning the cost of their capital. So obviously something will have to happen. And one of the solutions for that is consolidation of the banking sector. I hope that this will happen sooner than later. Will it be immediately cross-border is to be seen? Sometimes there are also national synergy mergers that are making a lot of sense. And we have seen a few of them already, like Populare Milano and Populare. So I think these will go on. Personally, as a supervisor, I think we have, and this is something I will express and we will express to the legislators, we have to be more open-minded regarding, in my view, waivers, cross-border waivers for liquidity on capital. We've seen the banking union because I think we should be considered. We are a single jurisdiction. So we, all the information regarding the SSM Bank is on the table to all members so they can be actors in the supervision. So I hope that that will develop. I have seen recently a letter from a number of big banks within the SSM asking the legislators to be more open-minded regarding these cross-border waivers. I must say I agree with what they are requesting, but maybe Sabine, you want to... No, no, nothing to add. So I think we have time for maybe two more questions. In the middle? No, sorry, in the center, yeah. I think the gentleman had raising his hand the whole time. Roberto Ozzio of the Italian Press Agency has asked, can you say that you are coordinating with the European Commission on the NPL issue and the addendum? I would like to ask what about the European Parliament and the European Council because of the fact that the legal services in both the institution have said that the SSM has gone beyond its mandate with this addendum. So will the final version of the addendum will give an answer to their complaints or will it be simply a statement that you are within your mandate? And if possible, just a question on the stock market. We have just seen a brute volatility episode. With the information you have available now, do you feel confident that the European banks would be able to cope with a correction similar to the one that is foreseeing the new stress test? Thank you. Regarding the European Parliament that you mentioned, I have regular hearings with the ECON Committee and I am very glad to have this opportunity to listen to what the members of the Parliament have to tell to me and to respond to concerns or explain what we are doing. So the next one will be in March at the occasion of the issuance of the annual report. Regarding the legal concerns that were expressed, well, I can tell you we have put the best legal brains of the SSM on NCB to make sure it's absolutely clear that it's not binding, it's part of the supervisory dialogue, it's case by case. We can even put bigger letters, red. Well, I think all the conditions are met. But let's see whether it is clear. May I add something? Sure. Wonderful. I think we had a misunderstanding here and I think we explained very clearly where our legal basis is, why we are doing what we are doing. There are in the CRR and the CRD4 very clear paragraphs which say that we have to assess not only the credit risk methodology, but also the provisioning methodology too. And the EU Commission confirmed that with this assessment that this assessment can result in deductions, in measures of the supervisor out of prudential perspectives beyond the accounting perspectives if we think that there are additional risks covered out of a prudential perspective. So there is a very clear obligation of the SSM to look into the provisioning methodology. And as we are asked by the European Parliament, by the European Court of Auditors and by many others to explain what is the basis of our assessment we publish, the addendum. This is the basis, the starting point. On this basis we discuss with the banks whether their risks are different from our starting point, from our basis and then we decide case by case. So no automatism, no binding thing, but rather fulfilling and complying with the request of the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors to be transparent in our assessment methodology used for fulfilling our obligation according to the CRR and the CRD for. So one last question to the lady in the back, please. Hello. I would like to know this. It is proposal that the AQR is this a proposal of the SSM, the ECB, just an idea or a decision. So when with Brexit, if we have a hard Brexit, the banks have to decide if the clearing business has to be shifted to other places than London end of the year or March or what. Well, regarding Edis on this possible AQR and I will let Sabine respond on Brexit, it's in a document published by the European authorities, the Council, if I remember well, that mentioned the possibility of having an AQR, yes. It's not a request from us or we have nothing to do with it. We just found it in the European documents. European authorities document. With regard to Brexit, which was published the document, not... Sorry, Sabine. With regard to Brexit, Mrs. Osman, I did not understand the question fully. I'm sorry. If there's no political decision on clearing and how to supervise it and so on, until when banks have to decide if they shift it to the EU because maybe it's not further allowed to be in London?  We have a little more than one year left and we will see what kind of framework we will have around it and with the next press conference we can come back to your question. Okay. I don't have a crystal ball, you know, with regard to the negotiations. I thought maybe it's end of Q2 or something because you were very decided... No, no, I'm talking about continuity arrangements. Meaning to have a plan, to have looked into what kind of possibilities, what kind of alternatives do I have and what kind of process do I have to look at and to fulfill in order to come to a certain result. The answer to the stock market question is that we do not comment on single fluctuations of the stock market as a central bank as well as a supervisor. I can tell you anyway, I mean, if not the first would... The second would be our principle that first you have to look into the facts and the reasons, et cetera, before you say anything to the public as a supervisor and a central bank. But don't forget the first principle. Well, thank you very much all for coming. We'll close the press conference here.


The camera angle may fool you a little bit, but yeah I'm sitting about 38 inches, well I'm a little further now, this is a 38 inch depth case holding over a petabyte of storage. This is the Storenator by 45 Drives, their XL60 model. I've reviewed previously their Q30 model which is actually running behind me right now and you can't hear it because it's living up to the Q in its name which is quiet. This is a bigger version of that, I'll leave a link to that video where I took it a little bit more apart than I'm going to take this one, but today I want to go over the specs. Now one thing you may have already noticed, there's a little bit of blue tape over there. One of the really cool things that 45 Drives does is brand each one of these if you request it and you know I have mind-branded it looks really great, but the faceplate the customer did ask that they not be in the video despite finding us from YouTube, but hey if you're watching here's your server getting ready to be delivered and they told us they plan on getting a few more and it's going to be really nice seeing them all with the logos in there, but a lot of companies are very private about you know where they shop which is perfectly fine and acceptable, but that's just so you are all clear under blue tape, but you don't really care what name is under there. What you're probably here for is how do you set up 60 Drives? Well you're in luck, I have a video already on how to set them up, I've done actually a couple videos with this particular machine. We're going to dive more so into these specs and the fact that this will be running TrueNAS and some of the advantages of the 45 Drives system here which we really like and hey I'm not the only one who likes it, they're a pretty popular product. Before we dive into these details if you want to learn more about me and my company head over to laughtonsystems.com if you'd like to hire a short project such as dining up storage and storage consulting there's a hires button right at the top. If you want to support this channel in other ways there's affiliate links down below to get you deals and discounts on products and services we talk about on this channel. First thing I want to talk about is the sound this is not the cue model I reviewed before this device has 73 decibels in the rear and about 67 decibels in the front so it's not super quiet but then again it's really meant to be in the data center usage and that's not that big of a deal to me it's got to move a lot of air to keep all those drives cool. Next we have dual power supplies consuming about 566 watts on average because yes it takes quite a bit to power all of those drives. Next we have the Supermicro X11 SPL-F motherboard this is one of the nice things about 45 drives is they're using a standard motherboard there's nothing proprietary or unusual about this system and this allows you if you ever wanted to swap it with a different board or even acquire one of their chassis in the raw you can do that the only thing custom is essentially the case and the backplane that they have included in there. Now the Supermicro does have the IPMI management kind of the standard one there and it works great so that's nice for lights out management on there. Next we have the processor which is Intel Xeon Silver 4216 CPU at 2.1 gigahertz 256 gigs of ECC DDR4 memory and then we have four SAS 9305-16I HPA controllers connected to that custom backplane that 45 drives made this is to control all of the drives. There is no RAID controller card they're referred to as HPA host bus adapters because ZFS which we're running TrueNAS on this wants to interact directly with the drives so this is essentially a way to connect to 60 hard drives to the system it does not perform any of the actual RAID functions just the connectivity. Speaking of drives we have 60 Seagate Exos 18 terabyte enterprise drives and this is all tool lists when these are put in so they're easy to take and slide in and out and go in there and lock in there's no actual lock to hold them in other than the top of the lid but hopefully you're not turning this thing upside down and holding it really stable so they don't seem to go anywhere gravity does its job plus they have holders and guides to keep them really tight in place. Then in the back we have a pair of mirrored boot drives for our TrueNAS and of course all this is delivered and connected with an Intel XXV710-DA2 25 gig network adapter and of course the final question is how much does all of this cost and let's talk pricing here you can go right over to 45 drives website and price it out build and price it yourself if you're curious the hard drives are going to be one of the bigger cost concerns and yeah that's actually most of the cost of this total unit overall. Now let's talk software this has TrueNAS 12.0 u6 core on here the client requested TrueNAS because well it's an interface they're familiar with they're familiar setting it up and it's easy to manage I think TrueNAS works really really well on this I've had no issues at all with all the storage testing I've done and all the other videos I've done with this and I see other videos because one of the things that comes into discussion is if we start looking at the pool status you'll see the way I've got the different vdebs broke out I'll link to the other video where I use this server to kind of explain how you lay out 60 drives and the pros and cons of different layouts there's not like a single answer to this question there's the optimal answer for the way you want to use your storage pools any efficiencies that you're looking for a few other people had asked me why there weren't more hot spares set up in here and because the people are admins themselves that are going to be using this and they're very technical we're not too worried about the hot spare situation they'll just have extra drives and if a drive fails they'll just swap it out kind of as needed they really want it to optimize for the most reliable large-scale storage possible for just lots of data sets that they have that they really need for the project that they're working on so this will actually be connected to a series of systems over SMB shares just to pile in a lot of data it's not supposed to be the absolute fastest storage it's all about very reliable very trustworthy storage and lots of it so that's kind of the reason why it's laid out like it is and overall 724 terabytes usable with RAID Z2 allowing us each one of these vdebs to have up to a couple failures of drives is pretty reasonable and that's a pretty good storage based over all I would say as I said in the beginning we purchased all this for a client project that project is going to be delivered really soon not all projects actually get to pass through here sometimes we directly will spec out order or the client will do the ordering and everything gets installed and we work on it 100% remotely I was happy that this one had some time here at our office so we could actually do some testing with it now whether we get it directly delivered to a client or whether it's here it's always a great idea to do a little bit of burn in testing leave it running for a little while before you put your production data on it and dump massive amounts of dummy data to it you want to see if there's any CRC ears in a drive you want to see if there's any problems there rarely is but I would much rather catch that while I'm just duplicating a whole lot of dummy data and making sure all the transfers go through then well in production you go oh wow we turned it on and there's some problems and this is one thing a little bit different than you'll do compared to maybe some of the other solutions when you buy them from a company that does the testing for you because we install all the drives ourselves it comes shipped with the drives in separate boxes we like to do that little bit of extra testing to make sure that there's no errors on there obviously the first one is does it detect all the drives that's the obvious but just to make sure that none of those back planes anything's loose and anything happened in shipping when things get moved around things can happen and once again even when we take it from here to deliver it to the client site we'll do a series of tests real quick make sure that nothing is loose nothing came to be a problem at all double check all the sittings and then it will be in the rack and running for years to come and hopefully never have a failure but if they do as I said they got plenty of redundancy on those drives so hopefully you found this interesting about what it takes to build a whole petabyte of storage in here and how much usable storage you get out of that I'll leave links to the other videos and of course I will leave a link to my video where I did a little bit more take apart of the Q30 model which is that quiet model that stornator that we're still using in this video is edited on that works really great and thanks and see in the forums and thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video if you've enjoyed the content please give us a thumbs up if you would like to see more content from this channel hit the subscribe button and the bell icon if you'd like to hire a short project head over to laurancesystems.com and click the hires button right at the top to help this channel out in other ways there's a join button here for youtube and a patreon page where your support is greatly appreciated for deals discounts and offers check out our affiliate links in the description of all of our videos including a link to our shirt store where we have a wide variety of shirts that we sell and designs come out well randomly so check back frequently and finally our forums forums dot laurancesystems.com is where you can have a more in-depth discussion about this video and other tech topics covered on this channel thanks again for watching and look forward to hearing from you


Hello friends, I am Sanjay Gupta. I welcome you on my channel. You can watch various programming related videos on my YouTube channel. It contains more than 800 videos. You can search those videos with the help of keyword programming by Sanjay Gupta. In this video, I am going to demonstrate you how to pass string into functions in C programming. For example, I am taking find out length of string example. So first of all, I am going to include a header file that is a stdio.h. Then I am declaring a function whose return type is int name is length and it will receive character array as an argument. So this is function declaration. Now I am going to define main function definition. So here I have declared a character array and int is a variable l for length. With the help of print, I am going to display the message enter a string. That string will be received from user with help of getters method. Now I am going to call length function and I am going to pass the string in it. So this is calling of function. You can see I am passing str which is character array into the function length. So this method is known as passing string into function and the returned value will be stored inside l variable. So I can use it as output. So this way length will be displayed on output screen. So this is the definition of main function. Now I am going to define definition of length function. This block will be known as definition of function. Inside this block I am going to apply the logic which will calculate length of string. So here I am initializing this variable l with 0 and another variable I have declared. Now I am initializing a loop with i equals to 0. Then str of i not equals to null and i++. Inside this loop I am going to increase value of l. So in case of string we all know that at the end of string null character is present. So we can iterate a loop till null is available in the string. If null is occurred then this loop will be terminated. So if null is not present then this loop will repeat. Whenever loop reaches to null position then this loop will be terminated. And the counting will be stored inside l variable which is counting the length of string. Or you can say how many characters are available in the string. After calculation I can return value of l with the help of return keyword. So this return value will be stored inside the variable which is available at function call. So in our example it is available at line number 11. So line number 11 l will be receiving the actual value in form of length. And at line number 12 it will be displayed on output screen. So this way I am passing string into function and then processing it into another function. So here two functions are available main and length. Main is calling the length function and length is providing the actual processing so that we can find out how many characters are available in the string. Now I am going to execute this code. I am passing my name or I am entering my name as input. You can see it is showing length equals to 6. So my name contains 6 characters that's why it is printing 6 as output. So this way I have demonstrated you how you can pass a string into a function in C programming. I hope you have understood whatever I have explained or discussed in this video. If you want to watch more programming related videos you can follow my YouTube channel. Thank you for watching this video.