The last item of business is general questions. Question 1, Jamie Halcro Johnston. To us, what engagement the Royal Affairs Secretary has had with the fishing industry in communities that may be impacted by its proposals for highly protected marine areas? Minister Lorna Slater. I regularly meet my colleague Mark O'Gian with Scotland's fishing industry to discuss a wide range of issues that are of interest to Scotland. Of course, highly protected marine areas are being there is one of those issues. Just last month she was in Aberdeen for the Skipper's Expo and, more recently, she visited Shetland to meet with fishers there. As my colleague with portfolio responsibility for the area, Maira Macallan has said, this government is committed to listening to the views of people living and working in our coastal and island communities, including fishers as we consider our next steps. Jamie Halcro Johnston Thank you. We all want to see healthy thriving seas and that is something shared ond dar HIMM a'r ddau o'r hyn sydd yn wentlynyddio and o'r ddau o'r ddau o'r ddau o'r sph �nd ac rhai o'r ddau o'r sydd yn mynd i gaelio'r mynd i gaelio'r ddau o'r mynd i gaeliaid y sgol a'r heb yma i rydw i'ch ymwanfaen eich prif o hyn arlinellwgol, phobl i'r prosiectau a— i'r mnffodol i'r gaelio i'r ffwrdd. Maen nhw oedd koes yma yn ei hyn. i ni'n gwybodaeth cael ei gwybodaeth y llwyg. Felly, mae'r plan wedi gwneud y cyfnodol, nid o'r gwbl yn gwneud i'r peth ysgawr, i'w bwysig i'r sektai, i'r gwybodaeth ygafoddiadau drwy'r cyfrifosiwr. Felly, mae'r ddweud y cyfnodol, mae'n cyfrifosiwr, mae'n cyfrifosiwr mewn cyfrifosiwr, mae'n cyfrifosiwr i'r gwybodaeth yn ymgyrchau ysgawr. Felly, mae'n cyfrifosiwr oeddwn i'n gwaith nghael gwybodaeth nesaf. Iewwch, i rhan i'r ministerio. Norwm dwi assessedo yw'r ysgawr o gwaith. Dwi'n gweithio'r cydnogol i wneud muniol ac oeddwn i'r communityau ddylam ac i wneud tudyddau cyfrifiadau, ac rydw i'n gweithio'r communityau. Rydw i'n gweithio, wrth gwrs, gydag iawn o ddigredais o gydag yn ei ddefnyddio cyfrifiadau a'r economu cyfrifiadau. Long term cyfrifiadau o ddylam a'r communityau depend on healthy seas and thriving marine ecosystems. The consultation on HPMAs is at a very early stage in the sense that we have not got any specific details as to where these might be located and we will be working closely with communities as we go forward to work with those communities to shape their creation. Can I ask members to resist any temptation to contribute during questions and responses? Kenneth Gibson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The consultation is in depth, ranging from local communities to the Royal Navy. Does the minister agree that, whilst the views of fishing communities are important, Scotland's waters belong to all 5.4 million people who live here? The opinions of people deeply concerned about environmental degradation caused by scallop dredging, for example, must also be considered when taking steps to protect marine biodiversity and the reduced impact of climate change, and that the areas selected as highly protected marine should surely be those that have been damaged most by human activity. I agree with the member that the views of fishers are very important to this debate, along with other users of our seas. Their livelihoods depend on a healthy marine environment, so it is only right that we listen to what they have to say on this issue. It is also true that Scotland's seas and marine ecosystems are a national asset, and their health matters to us all. We want to have as many voices in this debate as possible, which is why we have chosen to consult early on our proposals, and we will be speaking directly to island and coastal communities over the summer and look forward to hearing the wide range of views that they hold. Fishers know better than anyone that protects in the marine environment is key to safeguarding stocks and their industry. However, it is not the case that the Scottish Government has dropped the ball in terms of marine protected areas, and should ministers not be reviewing NPAs, assessing the evidence of their impact where changes are needed and, if required, strengthening them, rather than imposing arbitrary targets for HPMAs? We know from studies that removing human activities can have benefits for the marine environment and the people who rely on it. We know from evidence elsewhere in the world that fully protecting marine areas has improved benefits over partial protections. There are some studies to that effect. We will continue to work forward with communities in Scotland to understand how best to enhance marine protection so that we can have thriving and sustainable communities. To ask the Scottish Government how many paramedic students have access to paramedic nursing and midwifery student bursaries since its introduction in July 2021. Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson, In 2021-22, academic year eligibility criteria for the nursing and midwifery student bursary was extended to incorporate paramedic science students studying in Scotland and renamed the paramedic nursing and midwifery student bursary. In 2021-22, academic year 670 paramedic science students received the paramedic nursing and midwifery student bursary. In 2022-23, academic year 975 paramedic science students submitted applications for the bursary. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. With a record number of student paramedic sex in the bursary, can the cabinet secretary provide any clarity on how he envisages this increase will impact on paramedic numbers going forward and, importantly, on response times? The bursary is an important part of the Scottish Government's response to making sure that we take forward work to boost our paramedic numbers and also to make sure that we recruit more into the service. I can say that the way in which we consider how demand and capacity are going forward in the Scottish Ambulance Service is through the Demanding Capacity programme, which is operated by the Scottish Ambulance Service to consider what resources are needed for both now and in the future. As part of that programme of work, there has also been a record number of additional staff joining the service since 2020. Some additional 1,388 staff and there will be a further 307 staff will be recruited in this financial year to help the service to maintain its response to patients across the country. To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to provide continuity in education for children living in the MS Victoria in the coming weeks. The Scottish Government works with local authorities and other partners to ensure that all displaced Ukrainians have the support that they need, including access to education. That includes working intensively with the City of Edinburgh Council and the education officers, who are on board the MS Victoria Monday to Friday to support transitions to school or education settings locally or in other local authority areas. Local authorities are best placed to identify and support the education needs of children arriving in their area, and that includes involving parents in the planning process, seeking their views and providing appropriate support during the transition process. Jeremy Balfour. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer? The families living on the MS Victoria have been through unimaginable turmoil and disruption. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that any child already enrolled in an Edinburgh Council school will be provided with accommodation with Immacity to enable a safe and secure transition to their next academic year and to avoid yet more disruption? I thank Jeremy Balfour for the question. It is a very important time for those on MS Victoria, and there is an obligation both on the Scottish Government and all local authorities to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to respond to the requests of people on board MS Victoria. However, I would say that he will be well aware of the housing pressures that are present in Edinburgh, and therefore it is exceptionally difficult to be able to ensure that anyone who wanted to stay in Edinburgh could stay in Edinburgh, particularly in a school placement area. That is why it is very important to ensure that we do not just have an Edinburgh solution but that we have a Scotland-wide solution, and that is why a number of local authorities will be working with City of Edinburgh Council to be able to support families that may need to move outside the Edinburgh area. I wrote to the leader of Glasgow City Council recently about the education of children from MS ambition when they are relocated, and I was told in response that they would likely be required to relocate to other local authorities. Can the Scottish Government outline what support is in place for those children to maintain friendships and connections as they move to other schools, including to ensure that local authorities work together to minimise disruption? It is another very important point to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to provide support when people need to leave either the ambition or the Victoria. I recognise that, although those are a temporary solution using ships, there was a community on board that ship that was very important to people. That is why the matching teams on ambition and now on Victoria are doing everything that they can to respond to personal requests and to ensure that we are doing what we can when they move to another local authority area to support the families in that process to ensure that they are aware of what else is happening within that new council area, what is happening within that school catchment area, to ensure that, where possible, attachments can be kept with other families, or if not, then support is given to ensure that there is a community that is successful and vibrant for people that are leaving both ships to ensure that we are supporting them through that process. Cabinet Secretary, could you outline what support the Scottish Government is providing for displaced Ukrainian students who have settled in Scotland to ensure that they are given as much financial stability as possible during this incredibly traumatic time? While following Russian's illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Scottish Government did introduce a change to our student support regulations extending access to financial support for Ukrainian students. Ukrainian students wishing to embark on a further or higher education course in Scotland are now eligible for tuition and living costs support on the same terms as any other Scottish domiciled students, providing they are undertaken an eligible course and have submitted an application to the homes for Ukraine, Ukraine family or the Ukraine extension schemes. Question 5, Willie Rennie. To ask the Scottish Government what action it plans to take to ensure the fair application of funds from Event Scotland and Creative Scotland to every part of Scotland. Cabinet Secretary, Angus Robertson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Creative Scotland funding reaches individuals, organisations and projects across the whole of the country in each of the 32 local authority areas through its regular and project funding streams, with particular flexibility through its place partnership programme. Event Scotland provides funding to diverse portfolio of arts, cultural and sporting events and festivals that deliver strong social and economic benefits across Scotland. Its national events programme has been designed specifically to support events outwith the local authority areas of Edinburgh and Glasgow to ensure representation across Scotland's local authorities. Between Creative Scotland and Event Scotland, Edinburgh received £52 per person, but Fife only received less than £4 per head. There is a big city bias when it comes to Creative Scotland and Event Scotland, and it is almost as bad in Glasgow. I am planning a creative and event summit in Fife to attract more funds to Fife. Will the Minister join me at that event to try to attract more funds to the kingdom? Can I agree with Willie Rennie that it is a good thing for communities, localities and regions to work together to promote and develop their local culture and arts sector? He will of course appreciate the very good reasons why our national arts organisation and funding body, Creative Scotland, operates at arm's length from Government, but I would strongly encourage Willie Rennie and the culture sector in Fife to continue working with Creative Scotland. Wherever it is appropriate for me to do so, I will support local initiatives to ensure culture and arts reaching its full potential throughout Scotland, including Fife. Rhoda Grant, the cabinet secretary will be aware that Creative Scotland is cutting funds to organisations in the highlands and islands and adding to that the community cash back fund is only providing funding to one organisation based in the region. Given our rich culture, those cuts are going to have a devastating impact. That could impact on pivotal organisations such as Edencourt Theatre on their outreach programme. I want to go back to the drawing board and reconsider those allocations. Cabinet secretary. Firstly, I think Rhoda Grant would acknowledge that the allocation of funding from Creative Scotland is a matter for Creative Scotland, and I would encourage her and colleagues throughout the highlands and islands who believe that there should be a different method of allocating their funding to make their views heard. This government is very keen to support multi-annual funding solutions to arts organisations, including the regularly funded organisations in the highlands and islands. She has mentioned Edencourt, which is one of the jewels in our artistic sector. I agree with her that we need to make sure that the entire country has the level of support that is appropriate for the culture and arts sector. Any input that she wants to make with Creative Scotland, I would be grateful if she would copy me in. Question 6, Clare Baker. Thank you. To ask the Scottish Government whether it is on track to meet its target of harping the child obesity rate by 2030. Our aim to have childhood obesity by 2030 was deliberately ambitious and part of our public health priority to ensure that Scotland is a place where children have a healthy weight. A range of factors, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost crisis, will have impacted on childhood obesity levels. The Scottish Government has delivered a range of actions from our diet and healthy weight delivery plan and remains committed to taking forward further actions, including forthcoming regulations to restrict promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt between now and 2030. Thank you. I have to say that deliberately ambitious is a new way of describing a lack of delivery from the Government. In the recent statement on the health weight consultation, the minister said that she would not take mandatory measures on energy drinks due to a lack of data, with the most recent insufficient data, which was published by the Government, dated February 2021. Does the minister recognise that we can all see an explosion in consumption among children and young people as the energy drinks market has expanded? If the Government will not take action because of a lack of data, what are they going to do to improve the evidence base because the lack of action here is very disappointing? I thank Clare Baker for that question, and I think that she raises a very relevant point. Although we do not intend to proceed with legislation at this time, we recognise that this is an issue of concern to parents and teachers. We continue to support voluntary measures to restrict the sale of energy drinks to children and will keep this under review and how we can strengthen those. We will consider additional information gathering and analysis, including relation to energy drink consumption, to support further consideration for mandatory measures in the future. We are facing a childhood obesity epidemic here in Scotland. When the pledge was announced in 2018, the prevalence of childhood obesity was 14 per cent. Latest reports now show that it is 18 per cent, that is a 4 per cent increase. As a practicing NHS GP, I can tell you that childhood obesity leads to a host of health issues for children into adulthood, including type 2 diabetes, respiratory and high blood pressure. I think that it is an important message for parents who might be listening and are struggling to work out how to help their children. It is really important that we avoid the latest fads and do not put your children on to diets. Support them to make healthy choices, and hopefully your child will grow out of obesity. I recently met with Obesity Action Scotland and told me of some great programmes in certain parts of the country. Can I have a question, please, Mr Gohani? Absolutely, Presiding Officer, but please see your GP. The consultation by the Minister is the four consultation on the issue of restricting promotions on junk foods. Will the Government be committed that this will be the last consultation and some action will follow? Minister, I think it's clear that whenever we're making policy to ensure we make the best policy that is relatable to everybody and hits the targets that we intend and make the changes that we intend, we have to continue to consult. I can't promise standing here that this will be the final consultation or not, but it is absolutely key to consult to get the right policies. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the final report of the independent review of the skills delivery landscape. Minister Graham Day, as I outlined during Tuesday's debate in college regionalisation, the Scottish Government is clear that reform is needed and we won't shy away from making decisions that will improve outcomes for learners and employers. I welcome the Wither's review and am very much minded to follow the broad direction of travel outlined. However, it is right that the Scottish Government takes a little bit of time to consider the detailed recommendations and the practicalities and consequences of implementing them, working with all those who will be impacted and others. James Wither suggests that giving universities the freedom to utilise funding to deliver degree-level learning in a variety of different ways, including part-time learning, and learning as part of an apprenticeship is a way to uplift the current cap in university places. Can I ask what the minister's view is in that proposal? The member raises an important point. The Wither's review, among other things, does open a discussion around different routes to positive destinations, how they might be expanded and gradually apprenticeships. I have had an initial discussion with the University of Scotland on how the review engages or might engage their sector, and over the course of the summer I will be doing further engagement with them, as I will be with other stakeholders. However, Wither's is clear that there is no lack of investment in the post-school education and skills sector. It is a question of how best we deploy that funding to meet future need.


Welcome to Digital Asset News. My name is Rob, and today, just like a thumbnail and title suggests, there's some activity going on with, I feel, two of the winners, which are Cardano and Ethereum. And what I'm talking about is there was an article recently put out which states that Cardano smart contracts hit a record high as of February 2nd. So this is what we got. Last year's Vasal Hard Fork expanded Cardano support for smart contracts. Imagine that. A year ago, Cardano didn't even have smart contracts. And here we are, stuck in the top 10, doing not too bad. The gains in ADA could also be tied to Cardano's recently launched stablecoin JED. This is true. A lot of things were locked up with that. Smart contracts on Cardano are rising. There was 5,006 on February 2nd and 4,000 as of December 3rd. So you got 1,000 more programs in under two months. And that, to me, is progress. And on top of that, if you take a look at Cardano, this is a report that Ethereum activity is picked up with the Shanghai upgrade. And if you don't know about the Shanghai upgrade, this is going to be happening in mid-March. And this is all about unstaking or giving people the ability to unstake their staked Ethereum, which they did a while back. And they did that under the assumption that at some point, they would be able to unstake it. And nobody knew when it was. For them, I tipped my hat because that was, to me, kind of a risky play. And some people have thought, well, once they are able to unstake, everybody is going to sell, it's going to be a huge, massive problem, and we're going to see the market just collapse. And other people are like, no, I probably won't do much because those people are true believers. Me personally, I couldn't care less because I dollar cost average. If everything goes down, I'm super happy because now I get to purchase a lot of cheap crypto. And that is what I would like to do if it goes up. Well, okay, I'm in profits. But I think in the long term, because I have a horizon of two or three years until we hit the next bull run, maybe four, who knows. I am trying to prepare myself for everything. But it got me thinking about this, which was if we're talking about all these things about, well, there's a lot of activity, some more smart contracts, then if we see more activity, we should see more our fees rising up. And there's a great website called crypto fees.info. And we can take a look here that Ethereum, over the last day or so, has over 4 million in fees, 4.8 in seven days. So it looks like a little bit of a pickup for sure. And then actually everything's up, that we can see. And we take a look at Cardano. Well, Cardano is not here. Oh, there it is. Cardano is way down here at $11,000. Before we start laughing, I will just say this. Cardano is a lot cheaper to use. I want to say it's around $0.09, $0.10, correct me in the comments section. But if you take a look at Ethereum, for every transaction that you do, this is on white charts. And then we can just scroll over here. As of January, no, let's see here, February 4th, it was around $0.66. And this is all denominated in U.S. dollars. This isn't in Hue or Hue or how they say it. This is in U.S. dollars. It costs roughly $0.66. I never really believed too much in charts. So I did it myself. I set a test transaction, and my guess was $1. So again, average fees were $0.66. Maybe I hit it at the peak time, no idea. But $1 for every transaction that you do in Ethereum could, yeah, make a ton of fees up to $4 million, I suppose. But it also got me thinking about another part, which was we see a lot of people talk about, well, everything's locked up as far as like total volume locked up, TVL. And the best way you can find that is on DeFi Lama. There's a link in the description. And we can see the total value locked, total value locked for everything in DeFi at $58.6 billion. That's for everything, Ethereum, Binance, Cardano, Tron, Arbitron, Poly on Avalanche, Optimism. I mean, everything you think of, and they're all right here. It's only $58 billion, which sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, it's absolutely nothing. Now, if we click on just Ethereum itself, it's $34 billion. It's more than half of everything that is locked up. And that's just for now. So when we take a look at Winners, so far, Ethereum is really, really crushing it. But there's this part here that confuses me. And see here, it says include in TVL. So it says to include the staking. So if we do that, let me click this off. Actually, before I do that, let me just show you this. This is stakingrewards.com, and it shows you what is being staked and the staking market cap, or how much is staked. The staking ratio is 14% out of $198 billion. So that's $28 billion is being staked in Ethereum right now, $28 billion. Remember that number. If we go back here, and I click this, because there's $34 billion right here, include in staking. If I click this off, we should see what, $6 billion, $7 billion? No, it's only $29 billion. So I'm not for sure they calculate that. It just seems a little bit off to me. I'm sure I'm not doing this correctly. But if I also go back to stakingrewards.com, I do the same thing. Let's take a look at both crowns number two. And I can see here the staking market, the total market cap is $13 billion. Staking, wow, $10 billion. Well, that's because they have almost 72%. Everybody's staking Cardano. Everybody. You got $10 billion. So again, if I go back to DeFi Lama, and I do a search, and I put in Cardano, and I click on that, the total market cap is a measly $103 million. That's not too much. But again, I'm not including in the TVL the staking. So if I do that, it should rock it up by $10 billion, right? No, $23 million. So again, maybe I'm not saying this correctly. They can put in pool two. It doesn't matter. Borrowed doesn't matter. And that's all we have. So that's all we have for that piece. Again, I think a couple of the winners for Layer 1 Solutions are definitely what I see, Cardano and Ethereum. I still think there's a lot of runway for that. That's why I dollar-cost average into Avalanche, into Cosmos, into Polkadot. I think there's another couple. I can't remember right now. But again, on this channel, you have to understand, I'm super biased. I only talk about the things that I have invested into. So if you're wondering, does Rob invest into that? He sure does talk about it a lot. Yes. Yes, I do. So let me know anything about that in the comments section. Let's move on to an interesting piece about FTX. This one, it makes me laugh because it's just, everybody's just, you go to the lowest volume, the lowest value denominator to what you want to do. So the FTX wants politicians and PACs to return donations and may sue to recover funds. Isn't that the whole point of a donation? I'm going to donate this to you. So here you go. Use this for President Joe Biden so you can actually win the presidency. Now give him that money back. Amazing. Here's what we got. FTX newly appointed CEO, John John, J, that can't be his name, right? John John? John J Ray, the third. Contributions or other payments, he states, will be returned by February 28th. He's talking to all the politicians. That going a previous warning that the company would go after funds, not return voluntarily through legal means with interest accruing from the date any action is commenced. So all those funds that they gave him, which was roughly $93 million, like give it back to us. We don't care if you spend it or not. We want it back. The FTX debtors are sending confidential messages to political figures, political action funds, other recipients of contributions or the payments. This is where it gets pretty dank. Recipients who've donated funds connected to FTX to charities are not off the hook and that company will still seek to recover the money regardless. I find this fascinating.  Well, tough. Give us that money back because that's what we want. On the other side of that, you have to think about all the people who lost all their funds. And of course, I'm sure they'd like that money back. But again, you got to do that for everybody. That's for the dirty politicians and then for the people who gave the charities and everything in between. Let me just think about that in the comments and then also not to leave any our friends Celsius. But this was a good piece from Pete. No stop. And Celsius and Voyager, matter of fact, hired this law firm Kirkland and Ellis. And there was a nice, nice little article above the law. A look inside. Kirkland Ellis partners new 38 million Malibu mansion. Very nice. So if you're wondering where all your funds went to, there you go. And I'm just going to tell you like this, nobody wins in chapter 11. And I'm going to call for it right now, liquidate everything, return as much funds as you can back, because every single day, week and month that we stick ourselves in this chapter 11, the less we're going to get back because the only winners are going to be the people who used to run this company as they do the clawbacks and the lawyers. That's why I say liquidate, give as much back.  Anyhow, that's what we have. Let me know. And then to finish up, I thought it was interesting. NFTs are already here or coming to Bitcoin. And it's a big argument that's always been coming along about as far as like the Bitcoin maximalists and the purists. And they say, well, Bitcoin is this, we can build on top of Bitcoin, we can do all these things, we'll hold on not so much. So the launch of Ordinals, which is an NFT protocol, is on the Bitcoin blockchain that's coming out. Ordinals is a protocol that assigns trackable serial numbers to Satoshis. These Satoshis can then be added to digital assets like video or audio. And people are like, no, we don't want to do this. The criticism is that it's potential to abuse the network and populate its block size with financially irrelevant storage. The argument against onboarding dates back to 2010, when a proposal in a domain name system was rejected by Satoshi, the Satoshi, the Satoshi, and a number of other core developers. Satoshi said this, piling every proof-of-work-quorum system into one dataset doesn't scale in reference to the potential memory usage yet that users shouldn't have to download all or of both to use one or the other. So there's always been this thing about, well, Bitcoin is the most secure platform on the planet. It has the most computational power because we're using so much to mine Bitcoin. And all the Bitcoin Maxis would always talk about, we're just going to build on top of that and scale up. I just, maybe this isn't what they were talking about. I'm not sure. But they're like, no to NFTs. However, I found this interesting, not everybody. So my gentleman, my name is Dan Held. He's got a YouTube channel. Check him out. He's been around forever. He's a crypto Bitcoin OG. He says, this will drive the demand for block space and bring more financial use cases to Bitcoin. And also we'll get a, you know, the meme coins to people or a dog coins like, hey, this might be something good for NFTs. That's the way I have not really convinced on this one. And then lastly, you're going to see these articles pop up. And they're going to really start to question yourself about investing in the crypto. I know some people will look at this and start laughing and go, oh, that's Jim Kramer isn't always talking about, but you understand people outside of crypto, they really like Jim Kramer for some reason. And they love watching the show does, you know, recent, decent ratings. And when he tells them about how bad crypto is, it just leads itself to people just closing their minds down. So if you're new to crypto, I just want to explain to you this. Jim Kramer probably was a great whatever, but he's made so many bad calls as time has gone on. You just have to question yourself is like, does this person really know exactly crypto and all it is? He's already invested in crypto before he used crypto. He sold it, paid off his house. And now he's like, it's the most awful thing of all time. And you should never get into it. It kind of reminds me of what Kevin O'Leary did. He says, you know, up to the 2019, he was saying Bitcoin is the worst dumbest thing and no one would ever get into it on the flip side. And he admitted this on Squawk Box. He was actually buying it in 2018. Anyhow, so here's what we have as far as the article itself. Very quickly, Jim says I wouldn't touch crypto in a million years, which is pretty funny because in December, he said everybody get out now. And we just saw like a 50% rise. So whatever. And what he's talking about, he goes, there's a bailout loan from the federal home loan bank for a crypto bank to stem the run. And what he's talking about is this, the outcry. So you don't get twisted. The outcry comes after Silvergate Capital Corporation, a California-based bank that provides financial services to the digital asset industry, sought a $4.3 billion loan to make it through the crisis of confidence across the crypto ecosystem late last year. I don't see a problem with this. I mean, it's been a pretty rough year, year and a half actually. So when we have somebody that comes out and says, actually is still solvent and still making things. Hey, I just need a little bit of help. But the thing about this article is this, you look at a guy like Kramer and he seems so sure of himself. I mean, so sure. And when he's talking about these things, he's like, I'm 100% sure there's nothing against me in my thought process. Well, just remember this, that during the financial collapse, this was him. This is 27 seconds. Listen to what he says about Bear Stearns, which was insolvent and actually later went down and was only rescued by J.P. Morgan Chase. Take a listen to this. Hey, great job. All right. Peter writes, should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out there? No, no, no. Bear Stearns is fine. Do not take your money. If there's one takeaway other than plus 400 somebody, Bear Stearns is not in trouble. I mean, if anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from there. That's just being silly. Sure wasn't silly as they just collapsed. And then of course, this was actually an article fall up 10 years later. And it just talks about how Jamie Dimon, the CEO, J.P. Morgan actually regretted the decision to kind of bail them out as they became insolvent. I just think it's interesting just how sure of a person's self that they can be. But they're like, yeah, you got to do this. You got to do this. You got to this. And then it becomes the exact opposite. So that goes for me too. If you think like at some point, like I'm 100% sure, you need to question me and be like, even though Rob is 100% sure, does he really know? Here's a tip. Nobody knows. Nobody. Anyhow, to finish this all up, a little quick article, Binance launches a tax tool for crypto traders in France and Canada. That's great. For all the Canadians and French residents, you guys have a tax tool.  It's called Coin Ledger. And it's what I use two years straight. They are a sponsor of the channel. If you hate using affiliate links, don't use it. I mean, you get like 20% off, I think.  And you can sign up for free right now. And you can just take a look at like a cost-based analysis, you know, to pay for everything. But if you do decide to use it for your taxes, I'm telling you it's super simple.  It's got everything. And it puts it all in there and says this is what you have, this is how much you owe. Great job to better next year. And I just ship it over my CPay and off I go. So if you just want to see how that works, you can sign up for free. There's a link in the description. It's very simple, looks something like this. And there's actually a video on how to use it. And that is it. So look, that is it for today. If you liked today's video, give it a thumbs up, consider subscribing. A lot of us talk about our time sensitive. But that is it for this show. So thanks so much for stopping by. I do appreciate it. And I'll see you on the next one.


Γεια σας, είναι Vicky εδώ, κάνω 10 καρδιά από το σύμφωνα σύμφωνα Halloween card kit. Αυτή η καρδιά was sold out a few hours after it was released και ακόμα αν δεν έχετε αυτή η καρδιά, θα θα τα βρήξω σε όλα τα πρόταξη που were included. Αλλά πρώτα, ας δείξουμε έναν κομμάτι να δείξεις τι είναι μέσα στην καρδιά. Τώρα, έρχεται με τα πρόταξη, έχεις τρεις νουβο-κρυσταλδρόμπες στην καρδιά φυσικά και έχεις τα τρεις νουβο-κρυσταλδρόμπες με νουβο-κρυσταλδρόμπες που είναι πολύ καλύτερο για να δείξεις μικρή λαντερνότητα. Έχεις also get six paper bags, a mask by memory box. Θα χρησιμοποιήσω σε ένα από τα πρόταξη μου.  Θα δείξεις also get those adorable eyes which I am going to use again and again in my cards today. A doodle bag ribbon, a pack of sequins in Halloween colors. You also get a six by six double sided pattern paper and these are by Doodle Bag and you get 12 out of them. And also you get five different cardstock which as always I am going to cut in half and fold them so I will end up with 10 card bases. So let's get started with the first card. My first card is going to be super easy and super simple. I just had to use one of the pattern papers with that adorable image so I'm just going to cut it out in a rectangle. I have used my die cutting machine and then you can stick it directly on your card base at the center or you can do it just like me in an angle. This is going to give kind of a more interesting look.  This is a nice trick if you want to keep the card super simple but at the same time just add a little bit of interest. So I am going to use my glossy accents on the pumpkins, the ghosts and the windows. Just to embarrass it a little bit more. Since this is so simple I am going to add even one more element on my card which is going to be the ribbon. Now for the ribbon that was included in the kit I am going to use a brad on one side so I am just folding it. I am going to use a poke tool to make a hole so that I can add the brad easily through there and then I am going to measure how long of that ribbon I need cut it out with my scissors and I am going to use glue at the back and stick it at the very bottom of my panel. Trying to make sure that the ribbon is nice and straight down there and then I am going to use my scissors to cut out the excess. Now for the second card and probably the most favorite of all I made today is the one where I am creating a kind of a mummy look for the card so I have used this patent paper and I am cutting out strips I am trying to cut them out by having that white edge at least on one side of those strips I am going to do it throughout the whole 6x6 patent paper and once I have all those strips cut out I am going to stick them down on panels so I am just covering up this scrap piece of paper and I am going to stick everything down making sure that I cover it up with the strips all over once I cannot see the cardstock at all I can use my scissors to cut out the excess and I will repeat the same process to the other panel that you see on screen right now So now that I have both panels ready I am going to use some foam adhesive at the back and I am going to stick them directly on top of my card base For this card I am using the black card base and I am going to stick one at the bottom of the card base and one at the top So this way I have two raised panels for the gap in between them I am going to use the rest of the strips that I have left making sure that I don't cover up the whole gap So I leave one hole there where I am going to place the eyes later on I am using my scissors to cut out the excess Now I am using my fingers to distress the edges a little bit more Now in the gap I am going to use a set of eyes and insert them inside that hole I think this is a great Halloween card and it is super easy to reproduce Now I am going to add the sentiment that says BOO and I am going to stamp it on my scrap paper that I have from the previous card and I have used my pencil to draw a speech bubble If you have a die it is even better but I decided to draw it so that I can make it fit perfectly all around that BOO sentiment I am going to stick it on top of my card panel and that is ready Now this card gives me the idea to make the next one which is pretty much similar So I am working on this orange pattern paper I am going to stamp the sentiment with VersaMarking at the very bottom of my panel and then I am going to use my Nouveau embossing powder which is black but with glitter I think this is a great embossing powder to have because being an embossing powder it locks the glitter so it doesn't go anywhere So now I am going to use my heat gun to heat set everything and I hope you can see the shine there and now I am going to use my craft knife and create a few slits I don't measure anything but I make sure that some are bigger than the others and now I am going to distress them with my fingers making sure that I have holes on all the places where I have those slits This is a very easy card to recreate and I am also going to add some embellishments so I am stamping the butt and I have also stamped the spider coming from the top Now I am going to add some foam tape at the back for a raised effect and dimension and I am going to stick it down on the dark grey card base and in the holes I am going to add the eyes just like I did for the previous card Now even if you don't have this card kit I think that this video is going to give you great ideas on how to create 10 different Halloween cards but I am also going to make sure that I list to all the products that I am using today individually down below in the description area as well as on my blog So here is the card I think it is just adorable So simple and easy to replicate For the next card I am going to use this pattern paper with all those different panels and I am going to cut out one of them and I am also going to cut out the strip with the cantes from this pattern paper So with my craft knife and my ruler I am going to cut out a slit before the word candy and one after that I am making sure that it is wide enough so I can thread through that strip of candy that I have cut out I am going to use some foam tape at the back for some added dimension and I am going to stick it on this pattern paper with all those crazy lab designs So the crazy scientist on top of my panel Matt is perfectly the background paper I am going to cut out the excess paper and my panel is pretty much ready I am going to stick it directly on top of the white card base To finish it off I am using my Nuvo crystal drops at the background creating some dots by using my apple green color that was included in the kit For this card I am using one more panel that I have cut out from the same pattern paper where I have cut out the Matt scientist from the previous card So I am using my scissors to cut around the bottom and I am going to chop off the top So I have a nice banner for my card Now for this strip of paper I am going to use a few of those designs at the top of the banner just to extend it to make it more interesting looking and from this panel I am going to cut around that little ghost with the pumpkin and I am going to leave a black border all around as I am cutting it out Now I am using the purple patterned paper and the mask with my blending tool I am going over the mask to apply some black suit distress ink Nothing has to be perfect here I am just creating an abstract background for my card and once I am happy with the half of the panel I am going to move this stencil next to it and do the exact same thing and then I am going to use my blending tool to darken up the rest of the paper and mainly the edges Now to add more interest on the edges and to distress my card even more I am using this Nouveau mousse and that's a lilac lavender and I am going all around the edges This is going to give a nice touch and shine on the edges Now that my background is ready I am going to stick the banner at the top and I am going to add some foam adhesive at the back of my little ghost there and add him just behind the banner poking out So my card is pretty much finished I am just going to give some fun eyes to the little guy there and I am going to stick it directly on my card base for this card I am using the white card base and then to finish off the card I am going to use the purple crystal drop that was included in the kit which happens to have glitter inside it's not just shiny and I am going to add some dots here and there I am mainly focusing on the end of the branches So now let's move on to the 6th card I am going to use my circle die and I am trying to decide which size I want to and I am going for shaker card Now this is a scrap paper that I have from a card I made previously I am going to cut it out using my die cutting machine and on the back I am going to add tape adhesive, stick acetate and again I get a lot of questions about the acetate I use that's just packaging I keep packaging and recycle it So I am going to cut out a piece stick it at the back I am going to cut out the excess and I have a nice window for my card Now the next step is to use a foam adhesive to create a nice pocket so that I can insert my sequence and I use the sequence from the bag that was included in the kit I am peeling off the backing tape and then I am going to cover up the window with a piece of patent paper You can use either side the orange or the green and my window is ready which I am going to stick on top of the purple card base Now I am going to cut out this panel with the pumpkins and I am going to do again the same thing I am using my scissors to cut around the pumpkins leaving a black border and then I am going to use some foam tape at the back and stick them on the window So I am just assembling my card now sticking this down on my card base the pumpkins at the bottom of the window and for the sentiment I am going to use one of the sentiments that were included in this patent paper So I am just going to cut out a happy Halloween I created a fishtail at the end of that strip and I am just sticking it down with glue Now to finish it off I am going to add some glossy accents on the eyes of the pumpkins Now this is a really easy card I am working directly on my card base and I am stamping with VersaMarking the pumpkin the bat and the canty I am mainly focusing on the border of the card and I am going to add up the middle area So you can leave it as it is with that tone on tone look or you can add some embossing powder I am going for embossing and I will be using the Nouveau Black Glitter embossing powder that I have used in one of the previous cards So I am going to apply my embossing powder and then heat set it with my heat gun For the center of my card I have cut out this panel I am going to stick it at the center just by using some foam tape at the back Really quick and simple design Again I am going to use the same technique with my scissors I am going to cut around this image and I am going to create my own embellishment I have a white piece of cardstock and this scrap paper from a previous card with my scissors I am creating a slope there and this is going to be the ground for my little guys I am using foam tape at the back and stick it at the bottom of my white paper and on top I am going to place the little guys Now these little guys were screaming for the eyes so I just had to stick them on top which is going to make the card even more adorable Now for the sentiment I used alphabet stickers and these are alphabet stickers that I had for years I can't even remember when I got them and I just wrote down BOO Now for the bottom of my panel I just used this strip of paper to make it more interesting I am going to cut out the excess paper and I am going to stick it at the center of this orange card base For this card I am going to do some stamping so I am going to stamp this little girl and I am using memento toxido black ink I am also going to stamp the pumpkin and then I am going to use my Copic markers to do the coloring For this card I am going for a shaker card again and I have cut out a panel using my rectangle dies Now I am working directly on the card base and at the center I am going to stamp the sentiment So I am going to stamp it with VersaMark ink and I am also going to stamp the spider web that is included in the stamp set I am going to put it to look as if it is coming from behind the border so I am going to place the border on top of my card so that I can measure I am going to stamp it in one more place and then I can apply my embossing powder The embossing powder that I am using is by Nouveau and I am going to link you down below on the color, it is not totally white it is off white and I am going to use my heat gun and heat set everything I have prepared my window with acetate and the foam tape all around I am adding some of the sequins I am going to peel off the foam and then stick my card base directly on top So my window is ready and now I am going to embellish it a little bit more with the little girl using some foam tape at the back and now I am also going to stick the pumpkins just next to here and now for the last card I am going to use my punch and my circle dies to cut out images from the patent papers So I had that Frankenstein there I had the cut and the spider I cut out a panel from this colorful patent paper full of stars and I am going to use foam tape at the back of my little elements there and stick them on top For the sentiment I am going to use again this patent paper and cut out some of the strips there is a trick or treat and the other one that says October 31st I am going to use glue at the back and stick them directly at the bottom one over the other and to stick them down just because they are so thin I am using my new Nuvo glue pen and then I am going to use some tape adhesive at the back of the panel and stick it on top of the orange card base To finish it off I am going to add some glitter on the main elements by using my clear wing of styla glitter pen So let's take a quick look on all the 10 Halloween cards that I have created by using the Halloween card kit by Simon Says Stamp and let's take a quick look on all the leftovers Now this kit was a great touch builder since I now have 3 bottles of crystal drops I do have the stamp set the paper box, the tea lights I have only few scraps of paper but I still have the mask and the ribbon and a few more sequins So here are some close up photos of the cards that I made today I hope you had fun and got inspired and if you did don't forget to leave me a comment as well as give me thumbs up on my youtube channel and if you need more inspiration here are 2 more videos where I am creating 10 cards using the Simon Says Stamp card kits Thank you all for watching


Why don't more rich Asians invest in media platforms that would help Asians? It seems like it'd be worth it right now. Yeah, this is going viral right now. There was a huge Reddit thread about it as well. This is a common conversation that you hear in Asian entertainment circles. Andrew, long story short, statistically, there are some Asians that have a lot of cash, right? But their power in the West, specifically soft power, branding, imaging power is very low. Why don't they exchange some of that cash to buy a media platform to level it out? So a lot of people are like, I don't know. It just seems real simple. Why don't they do it? And this turned into a big internet debate. Yeah, guys, we're going to go through the comment section. We will give you our own insights, having, you know, kind of been in media between digital media, regular media, mainstream media for a little while, guys. We've talked to a few people about this. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the hot pot boys as we discuss this question on why don't more rich Asians help create and fund more content? Why don't they? Come on. I think they could fund a few more YouTube channels, maybe a few more movies, indie movies, you know. But before we get in the comment section, I feel like there's a few things people need to realize. Okay. These are things that I want you to understand. I do think a lot of rich Asians, they made their money way outside of entertainment, doing manufacturing or owning something or doing a startup, which first of all, if you make your money outside of entertainment, you don't necessarily understand the power of entertainment. Okay. That's point number one. Number two, producing movies or content or YouTube channels or TV networks has not always proven to be a good return on investment. And people get rich by investing in things that I have a high return on. Right. Have a high probability of returning on that investment. Also, I do think that Asian entertainment from Asia is becoming so strong and develop right now that a lot of people would rather invest their money in like K-pop or K-drama or whatever, that type of content that is actually more trendy than even Asian American. So I'm an Asian billionaire and I'm thinking about where I'm going to give you my money. And I'm looking at Asian America and I'm looking at Asian Asia going, I don't know, maybe Asia, Asia seems like a better bet. Yeah. I mean, overall, I definitely think there could be more done, but let's get into the comment section and see if we find anything interesting. Most rich Asians are sellouts. That's how they became rich. I don't know why I give them a dead accent button. But I actually don't agree because, David, if you think about the Asian billionaires in America that you can even name off the top of your head, how many would you say are sellouts for Asians? Right. Because I don't even know how you sell out. I think there's people who sold out to move up at their company a little bit. Right. To get like a few million dollars. Yeah. To get kind of rich, you know, rich. Like rich. But not like super rich. No, no, no. I think it really depends on what industry you're in and which ladders you had to climb, guys.  Did Jerry Yang? Did Josiah? Did David Tran from Hoi Fong Food, Sriracha sellout? I don't know. Oh, with the Panda Express. Shout out to... Yeah, Panda Express. I don't, I don't wouldn't call them sellouts. No. No, no, no. I mean, but I don't know. Maybe people are thinking of somebody else who knows. Maybe they're thinking of people in entertainment. I could see. I don't think that there's that many Asians that got became billionaires off Hollywood or media, to be honest, because that's been a very difficult field for Asian Americans to rise the ladder in. But if they did become billionaires and they don't give back to the community, yes, I would see that as selling out. Moving on. Somebody said, this is what Mickey Lee did. She is a Korean lady that invested in South Korean media. She is responsible or at least partially responsible for the whole K-pop, K-drama boom and popularity. Oddly enough, she is from Michigan and did not become a sellout. Seems like a lot of badass Koreans came from Michigan, just like Stephen Union, et cetera, probably because they are hella racist there. Yeah, I think more wealthy Asians should take lessons from Mickey Lee and what she did. But I will say this, her situation is a little bit different because she kind of did inherit her spot of the entertainment company from her grandparents who started the company, right? Right, right, right. And then also she did invest back into Asia content and not Asian American content. Now, are Asian Americans, this is my question to everybody out there, are we going to be happy if more money and funding goes into Asia, which that content still does get exported back to America? Right, and some Asian Americans get to be part of that transition ecosystem. Or do we only want them to invest in Asian American products? Well, that's honestly a split in the Asian community and it's going to vary ratio distribution wise, person to person. I mean, honestly, I would say the Koreans of all the Asian groups, they have the closest thing to the right mindset. Somebody said, the powers that be would never let an Asian, especially an Asian man own a media source or a mainstream platform in the USA because the mainstream media in the USA is a mixture of government and private industry anyway. And yeah, they just wouldn't ever want to sell to an Asian. So why, that's why Asians don't try. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I do think that doing something gigantic in America still does require some political power. So if Asians don't have political power, even if they have money, it doesn't get you everything. Right, because you need to combine the two, right? It's almost like having technique or power and boxing. You need both. Somebody said people outside the Asian community would definitely not watch that channel, even if people put billions into it, let alone people within the Asian American community. So this guy was basically doubting that saying, definitely nobody outside of this tiny 6.6% bubble, which is realistic and probably smaller at 4%, is gonna watch it. And even within that 4% of America, how can you count on everybody to support it because Asians are so divided? Yeah, I think it's different because I think you'd have to, if it was like, let's just say they created an Asian TV network, I'd guess I'd be interested to who they're targeting because do you target the older Asians who have time to sit and watch TV or the younger Asians who want different content? What type of content do you show? You can't show all different types of content on one channel. You can't have news, politics, food, dancing, old license sitcoms. Is that true? Are you saying that the same thing that's going to appeal to Tita is not for the Gen Z? Yeah, what I'm saying appeals to your Tita, like is not necessarily the same thing that would appeal to a young Asian kid. Yeah, Aiden. Aiden's not listening to the same thing. Somebody said, you know, there's actually no real big rich Asians in America with like 200, 300 million plus net worth, except a few select East Asians and Indians who came during a very specific tech boom era. And basically a lot of Asian Americans that have worked super hard and networked super hard only have a net worth of like one to like 15 million. So they basically have enough money for them and their family to take nice vacations, have nice cars, maybe even a Ferrari, but nothing even close to having influence in media which takes like way more money than just like a good life for you and your family. Right. Somebody said, yes, you would need a billionaire with a few billion in cash, then they would have to be willing to exchange that cash for power. And plus, I think that the internet's overtaking mainstream media anyway. Why invest in something that's already going downside? Yeah, I just do think that even funding a few premium YouTube channels or TikToks or like some type of those type of platforms, I think actually would do a lot. And I do think some rich Asians have enough money for that. I don't know if they have enough money for a whole universal studios that's Asian or a whole TV channel, but they definitely have enough for YouTube channels. If you told me that we were gonna get a hundred good, well-funded, premium Asian-American web channels over one mainstream network, they probably cost the same and I'm easily taking a hundred YouTube channels, to be honest. And of course, you can use the other digital, free distribution platforms as well, TikTok, whatever, whatever. Somebody said rich people, once they get to a certain level of wealth, just identify as a rich person, jetting around the world in a private jet. They can shelter themselves from the overall big picture that everybody else who is not ultra rich is subject to. For everybody else who is high income, let's just say 150K a year to even 700K a year, they basically just have enough resources to improve things for them and their family. Do you think that's true? I mean, or do you think that those people that are at the ultra light rich category could pull together? Or is that that's unfair to ask for? No, I've seen, there are a lot of the rich guys who still pull their money together for a lot of nonprofit reasons. I mean, there have been some media pieces that have been invested in by rich people. There's a few cases of it, but there's not a lot. You know what I've seen, Andrew, in America? There's sort of this high-low distribution, and it's kind of weird. In Canada, a lot of the Asians are middle class, the upper middle class. Sometimes I see Canadian Asians, like specifically in Toronto, it's like they have more organization, and they seem to be more on the same page about how they want to run their systems. That's from what I noticed. Somebody said, this is just the crabs in the bucket mentality that Asians have always been stuck in. We will never get to the point that it's similar to Jewish people where different people from the Jewish diaspora put their differences aside and decided to show unity as a community. Asians just simply struggle to do that. Yeah, I would agree. And somebody said, at the end of the day, there's probably just way better ways to make a lot of money with less risk. Yeah. I mean, do you think that if the barriers were lowered for Asians to make media buys or whether it's on the content side or owning it on the back end, they would more go into it? I think, I do think that the money should funnel into something that has to do with the internet. I do not know if just spending a lot of money on building like one Asian movie, because you could spend millions of dollars on a movie, versus you could spend like three million dollars instead of producing an indie film, you could spend that three million dollars funding multiple YouTube channels. You probably could seed realistically 10 YouTube channels, 300K each. Yeah, and I'm not just saying YouTube channels, because we're on YouTube, I'm literally talking about like funding TikTokers and content creators and somehow unifying them under one brand. I think that would work. And why do you think there's so much money that's pouring into Asian food, or maybe even the Asian consumption of like gadgets or luxury goods, but it seems like none of it is going into media, at least on a front end. I don't know, there might be back end channels, we're not familiar with. I think Asian food is so good, man. You're saying it's undisputably good. Yeah, I know so many guys who want to like open up restaurants and they're like, oh, I'm part of this hospitality group. Oh, I'm opening my 10th location of this thing. They're not thinking about media, man. They're thinking about real life tangible food. So is the responsibility on the light rich or the ultra rich? Because there's a lot more Asians in there that are light rich than there are ultra rich, but almost a lot of people are saying that media is the playground of the ultra rich. I think it does rely on the super ultra rich and I don't know if they're watching this video right now, but they need to do something, man. And I'm not saying that because I think that a TV network is like an Asian TV network is gonna do the same numbers as like a BET or something like that, but I just think there needs to be more that's done. So hit us up if you have any questions. For sure, for sure. I'd love to have that convo with you. Also, I think that people gotta identify and break off into smaller teams. You know, like an Asian sports network could work. You know what I mean, like niche it out versus like, I think a lot of people are trying to be everything at one time and that's like really difficult because sometimes what's good to this person is not only neutral to this other person but might even be bad to them. Now you're catering to two groups that like disagree. They almost like offended by each other's content. Or how about this? There's already pre-existing channels like Amazing HQ and I would count our channel as one of them, but there's a bunch of other channels out there I could identify that like, if given funding over the next like three, four years, I mean, who knows, they could really do some cool things. Yeah, and I think that every perspective honestly needs to get acknowledged for what the situation that Asians are in right now. And like we said, there's this big gap. You know, some Asians got a lot of cash. Of course, I guess most people would agree Asian soft power in America pretty low. I don't know, could it equalize? Could it actually make money? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. It's been a debate that's been going on for quite some time, but it seems more real than ever now. Until next time, we'd hop out, boys. We out. Peace.