Good day everyone. Yesterday the State Government introduced legislation to create a new organisation called Fire Rescue Victoria. This will bring together MFB and CFA career firefighters into the one organisation and establish CFA as a dedicated volunteer firefighting service. We all know this reform has been flagged for a long time and with commenced planning for the change. The really important responsibility we as leaders have is ensuring that our members are informed and listened to throughout this entire process. As a start, we've set up a dedicated email address for you to send through any questions, concerns or ideas. The email address can be found in the organisation-wide communication I sent out yesterday. If the legislation is passed, we'll be commencing a thorough process of engagement over the coming months. We'll have a clear timeline to inform our planning around that engagement if the legislation is passed. We're already getting some questions and comments into the reform email address which I'm happy to address today. First of all, there's been some concern raised about the future of volunteers at our 38 integrated stations. I just want to reassure everybody that the volunteers at the integrated stations will not lose their roles. All CFA volunteer brigades will retain their brigade identity and continue to operate within their district under the leadership of the CFA Chief Officer. In our integrated stations, CFA career firefighters will become fire rescue Victoria employees but both volunteers and career staff will remain in the same building and work alongside one another as they do today. We have a responsibility to maintain interoperability and maintain the excellent working relationships we have now. We're not losing those career firefighters. They'll still be Victorian firefighters. They'll just be looked after by an organisation focusing on the support of paid firefighters, leading us in CFA being able to increase our focus on supporting our volunteers. Some questions we've been receiving have been related to about who will have command and control of fire grounds in and around fire rescue Victoria areas once they're established. Control agency arrangements will not change. The first arriving officer still becomes the incident controller and any changes to that are in accordance with the operating procedures on transfer of control that apply across all of our emergency services right now. We continue to receive your feedback and have been collating and we'll continue to collate all of it and we'll respond as soon as we can to keep you all updated on any matters that you raise with us on the legislation details, particularly around changes in staffing and volunteering roles and responsibilities. There's also been some more specific questions around operational models, equipment allocations and upgrades. It's really early days yet as you appreciate and these are matters that will be addressing as part of the consultation and implementation process following the successful passage of the legislation. We'll certainly be communicating with you over the next 12 months as we work through these matters with government and of course with our emergency service partners. In the meantime I acknowledge that any change is hard and I appreciate that these organisational changes can cause or may cause stress and anxiety to people and I'd remind you that we have CFA Welfare Services available on the 1800 959232 number. As always I thank you for your hard work and dedication. Keep focused on why we're here, we exist for the community, we're a part of the community and we must keep the community at the centre of everything you do. If you do have any further questions or issues please send them through, keep the communication lines open and remember we're all here for the same thing.


This paper proposes a new fish detection network, FD-UnderScoreNet, which uses a modified version of the YOLO-V7 algorithm to detect nine different types of fish species in underwater images. The authors found that their modified version of YOLO-V7 outperformed other algorithms in terms of accuracy and speed, achieving a mean average precision, map, of 14.29%, compared to the original YOLO-V7's map of 8.9%. Additionally, the authors tested their FD-UnderScoreNet against other state-of-the-art algorithms, including YOLO-V3, YOLO-V3-TL, YOLO-V3-BL, YOLO-V4, YOLO-V5, faster RCNN, and the latest YOLO-V7 model, and found that their FD-UnderScoreNet outperforms all of them in terms of both accuracy and speed. This article was authored by Hassan Malik, Ahmad Naeem, Shazad Hassan, and others.


The nation is fighting through a tough challenge right now with COVID-19, the virus. Sergeant Major Black and I thought we'd take some time today to talk about the families, talk about Marines, and talk about why we do what we do, especially in a time of crisis, which is right now. To the families that would just say, you should be really proud of your Marine. They are performing just like you would expect them to do. And you should also be confident that every measure is being taken so that they can train and prepare in the right way. There are Marines who deploy from Camp Pendleton and have deployed from Camp Lejeune that have gone to both of the cities where those hospital ships are at and they're on the pier. They're sitting there and they're assisting and they're working along with our Navy partners and city commanders. Thank you very much for using good judgment, making great decisions, even when things are uncertain, to make the right decisions, the right calls at each location. As leaders, we know what a right looks like. It may look different tomorrow, but today a right looks like this. Make that call. Make that call. And you have the Sergeant Major and I's full support. We back you all the way. Sergeant Major and I have gotten some questions. Each one of us, I think, has been asked, why can't you just stop training? Why can't you stop recruiting? Why do we continue to do recruit training in the middle of this terrible virus? We train so that we're ready to go. We never get the chance to pick the next crisis where it happens, when it happens. When the President calls Marines and the Navy team, we respond immediately. So we must continue to train. We have to continue recruit training because this nation relies on its Marine Corps especially in tough times. Thank you Marines. Thank you families. Superfile Delos always faithful. Thank you. Thank you to the families. Thanks to Marines. Thanks for staying focused on the mission and yourselves. We need you to take care of yourselves. Take care of your families. So Sergeant Major and I, very grateful for all your hard work. Keep it up. Be ready to go when the bell rings.


USS Ross successfully intercepted a ballistic missile in the North Atlantic Ocean during an Etsy demonstration October 20th. The exercise was part of the Maritime Theater Missile Defense Forum and presented a number of firsts for the event. This is the first time this type of missile was fired from a non-U.S. range and the first intercept of a ballistic missile threat in the European Theater. During the scenario, a short-range Terrier Orion Ballistic Missile target was launched from the United Kingdom and was in flight simultaneously with two anti-ship cruise missiles fired at the Coalition Task Group. Ross fired and successfully engaged the ballistic missile threat in space and the other ships in the group intercepted the cruise missiles. This live-fire exercise demonstrates the forum's ability to safely conduct sea-based defense against simultaneous anti-ship and ballistic missile threats. To learn more about this story, visit Navy.mil.


is the first of September 2020, a Tuesday, that is the first, or this, you can say the debut of this fantastic political show that is right here starting on Y254. My name is Ram Magukko, trusting that you've had a fantastic evening. This morning, this evening, we have a lot in store for you right here on Y254. We shall be putting politics into perspective and specifically, political party progression. What next for our Kenyan political parties? We are gearing up to 2022. Do we expect to see lots of changes in our political parties and do they start for ideologies rather than individuals? Well, we shall be putting this into perspective with my panelists. I shall be joined by Karl Max Odiambo. He is a governance and policy expert. I shall also be joined by Advice Mundalo, who is a political and communications strategist, coming up in a bit. Remember, this is where we interact with you. Our handles is at Y254 channel on Twitter, at Y254 on Facebook, tag me at Ram Magukko. The hashtag is the stand. It starts right now. And as we would like to set pace right here on Y254, we shall have our panelists joining me on set. They shall take the position, giving, addressing the nation in regards to this subject matter. And introducing first Karl Max Odiambo, who is joining me right now on set, Karibusana Karl Max. Taking center stage, you're looking good. Thank you very much for joining me today. First show. This is where Ram and Advice, it's that show that we've actually been longing for. Yes, yes. More importantly, I think we need to pick it as the stand. Yes. And I would like to find out your stand in regards to this. So how best can Kenyan political parties take its people to the next level? Thank you, because talk of the stand. Sorry, you have two minutes. Yeah. Two minutes each. We talk of the stand, and when we talk of the stand, there is much to the cognisive and dissonance. Why we talk of many political parties not to be the solution to Kenyans and even to Africa. Remember, we have over 160, 160 political parties presenting candidates, presenting candidates at the national, the county, the constituency, the world elections on the ballot. More importantly, we talk of, if you look into what we are referring to as political parties, I would first of all suggest that we need to actually reduce the number. We reduce the number of the political parties in line with the ideologies. Because if you look into the political parties that we have today, basically, I can call them a business ventures because they don't stand the test of time. Since the birth of the multi-party democracy in the year 1992, floating political parties is like talking about business ventures. And this one I'll actually put it into two major reasons. One, that the political parties being, I mean, the state is providing funds for the political parties actually to assist them to run their functions. Number two, you can realize that the political parties that we're talking about is that it's about the nomination certificates that are being sold to huge numbers at a price that gets to understand. And it is the most expensive. And that's my decision. We shall continue from there. Just take your seat there. And remember, right here on Y254, we engage our panelists, giving them the platform to share their stand within a two-minute time. So coming up next is Mundalo M. Advice. He is a political and communications strategist. Garibusana Mundalo, take the stand and give us your take into regards to political party progression. So how best can Kenyan political parties take its people to the next level? Your stand. You have to meet. Thank you so much, Ram, for having me this night. And for sure, this is one of the amazing shows that we're having tonight. About political parties, we all understand that our country has been able to move from being a de facto one-party state to a de-joe one-party state. And then we adopted multi-party in 1992 through the efforts of the many who fought for it. But it's unfortunate that as it sounds today, most of our political parties are what I would call election bidders than political parties, because a political party is supposed to be driven on agenda, on ideology, and is supposed to propel a country towards a certain vision. Unfortunately today, most of the political, if not all the political parties that we have, don't stand by that fact. Most of them are actually election bidders anchored on party leaders. And it's unfortunate that the political party leaders in Kenya are more important to the party than the party is to the political party leaders. And that is the unfortunate stand. Thank you very much. You can take your seat. Remember to give us your take. That is their stand. But what is yours? Hashtag the stand.


The following is a presentation of TFNN. The Morning Markets Kickoff with your host, Tommy O'Brien. Good morning, everybody. I'm Tommy O'Brien, coming to you live from TFNN Thursday morning, just after 9 a.m. Eastern time. We got about 24 minutes to go until the start of trading. You have markets starting things off across the board in green territory, but barely. You got the S&Ps up by three points right now. You were in negative territory overnight, 3 a.m. the lows, down at about 4,260. We were just approaching 4,300 right now. You're positive by three points in the S&Ps. NASDAQ 100, you're positive by single digits as well, 13,500. You got the Dow just under 34,000. We were just above that level briefly. Again, all the indices positive, but all of them by single digits. Dow positive by eight, Russell positive by three. We jumped to crude, catching a little bit of a lift this morning. We make it to $85 yesterday. You're chopping around with lows of 86 yesterday. Excuse me, 85 was Tuesday, 86 was yesterday. How about $90 coming at you for the price of crude? As we catch a little bit of a bounce, you get the gold contract catching a little bit of a bounce. We give some of that back in the last few minutes. Gold up $2 right now in the session.  And you jump to notes and bonds. There's a little bit of volatility for you to kick things off. Right now you're positive by three ticks on the session, but boy, we just gave up about 10 ticks at 8.15 this morning. You were at 1.1907. Right now we're trading 1.1827. We jump over to the VIX right at about 20, which is where we've been chopping around for the better part of this week Monday. You accelerate to that area and since then just chopping around around 20. Now you take a look at the daily, I've brought it up before. Quite a pullback on this VIX. Risk reward wise in terms of where this VIX goes, right? Do you see it pulling back to 16, 14, potentially 18? We kicked off the year, okay? Kicked off the year, folks. Now remember, kicked off the year at all-time highs of 4,800 in the S&P at 1650 about, okay? We're sitting at about 20. As in pretty close to those price levels, considering the volatility we now face, August 18th versus the volatility we faced in January, you know? We knew that rate hikes were coming in January, but nobody knew that inflation was going to be so persistent. Many people thought so. Nobody knew it. There was still a huge camp that was saying the transitory factors, including the chairman himself, were going to take over. Keep it in mind, because these VIX, you know, chopping around at a pretty low level, looks like the VIX is not going to be comfortable going under 20 anytime soon, even with an S&P sitting pretty comfortably at about 4,300. All right, where do we kick things off? How about meme stocks? Bad Bath and Beyond. Yesterday closes at 23. You had a run up to 30. Let's put this thing on a 15 minute to see the action. 30 early yesterday made it to 28 late in the day. It collapses overnight. And that has to do with Ryan Cohen, second biggest shareholder, the guy who started the meme craziness. He's selling everything he's got. Yeah. He plans to sell as many as 7.8 million shares. Folks, yesterday this thing closed at 23. Right? What is that? He's almost got 8 million shares. He's in a dollar position in this equity that he's going to sell off. Five months after disclosing a stake in Bad Bath and Beyond, he's selling everything. It might sell as many as 7.78 million shares at Bad Bath and Beyond along with some call options as well. You have the stock cratering, of course. It's been a little bit of craziness leading up to that. Now, yeah, you have downgrades, of course. Wedbush, I think, said, yeah, 80%. Some of them, 80%. That's surprising, man. It's a game of hot potato, folks. And you got the guy that started it all, leaving the game, right? Yeah. I would not be participating in that one. Surprised it's not down more. Kevin Hinks on Fast Market at 12 o'clock. We'll talk to him a little bit at 9.15. Get a little taken there. They set up great trade yesterday. I'm going to ask them to talk about it a little bit when we get back, because it was a pretty cool trade and sort of how they set that up with a little butterfly action. Their max profit in that trade that they set up was about 18 bucks, I believe. And right now, you've got it sitting at about 18.40, but pretty cool nonetheless. And yeah, I wouldn't touch that thing now that he's out of it, man. GameStop, you collapse into the close as well. Give back all the games you had on Tuesday. We check in on the recent high flyer, HTD Global, right? HKD, I believe, is their symbol. Yeah, this thing was just up to 2,500 when it was bigger than some of the biggest tech companies in the world. And you're trading at 186, chopping around. Still, still a far cry from, would it go public at like 5 bucks, 12 bucks? Is that okay to sell the way back? Yeah, it does. So I would stay away from all that stuff. All right, let's jump around to some of the other hard lines. We got Apple yesterday announcing September 7th, the new iPhone, one month, new devices, the iPhone 14 Pro line to get camera upgrades and speedier chip. Remember the days that the iPhone literally had huge upgrades that changed the functionality of what you could actually physically do with that product? Now everything just gets better and better, but everything is already so good. And still, Apple gets you to upgrade that phone every two to four years, right? Pretty remarkable. I was just thinking, I got mine. I think I have a 12 and I think I got it December 19? No, December of 20. Yeah, almost two years ago. And I'm close to that point. I'm actually thinking I should contact my provider and find out you pay like a payment plan, usually for 18 months, two years, something like that.  My screen's got a little bit of a headache right now. Might be time to do it. More than half of Apple sales last year are iPhones. Just remarkable. They keep plugging along to that degree. We jump over to Apple, so they'll have that in September. Apple shares. Yeah, look at that, man. There's a lift for you yesterday. Now, Apple's got 16 billion shares outstanding folks from the early action yesterday to where it was in the high. You're talking about 60 plus billion dollars in market cap added this morning, about a dollar to the downside at 173 and change. Not bad. You're bumping up against levels, man. We got to 176 and change yesterday. You're almost back to all-time highs for Apple, the biggest company in the world. I mean, if that's the case, my goodness, what would this market be doing if Apple, the biggest company in the world, wasn't basically at all-time highs, right? I mean, Apple's trading at prices that are traded at December 23rd. For context, okay, December 23rd, the S&Ps were sitting at 4,700 almost, right? Another 12% above where the S&Ps are at right now, even with Apple, and you are bumping up against that 3 trillion mark. 182 and change is the 3 trillion mark for Apple as we're up about 4 points coming into that. Let's check out some of the other Frank Stocks this morning. Amazon shares. Yeah, interesting. Yesterday, heard my dad talking about Amazon. They might be getting into social media. Amazon catches a little bit of a spike yesterday to above 143, pulling back from 146. Why not? We'll reference that article right now. And there it was, testing a new photo and video stream app similar to TikTok. TikTok, well, influencers are convincing followers to unsubscribe from Amazon over labor disputes. Yeah, they have quite the... I was looking this up, right? And it's interesting. You just Google Amazon TikTok, trying to find the articles. And what do you have? You have there testing apps. And then what do you have? Young TikTok creators are organizing a campaign against Amazon to support workers. So maybe Amazon trying to control the conversation with their own social media site, as my dad was saying yesterday. Imagine you're just on social media and they just instead of watching videos, you're getting people to watch videos and just buy things on a little hamster wheel, right? Stay tuned folks. We'll be coming back talking about Kevin Hinks from Fast Market. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on Market Movement you need to act on at any time. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today. TFNN.com. Educating investors. Almost 20 years ago and the student has now become the master. Steve won the prestigious Timer of the Year award in 2018 and barely missed that mark again in 2019. Finishing it number two for the year. An amazing accomplishment. Steve Rhodes is committed to sharing his techniques and knowledge with anyone who wants to learn and he shares his vast amount of trading knowledge every day in his Mastering Probability newsletter. Steve's award-winning newsletter, Mastering Probability is delivered every trading day with updates throughout the afternoon. 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Just visit the front page of TFNN.com TFNN.com Okay great hopefully you can hear me folks we got the S&Ps up by 3, NASDAQ 100 up by 14 right now and let's jump over to our man Kevin Hinks every trading day 12 noon eastern time folks fast market on the TD Ameritrade Network we'll jump right into it. Kevin I was talking about bed, bath and beyond you talked about it yesterday I watched the segment you guys did yesterday great segment great program overall as usual and I was hoping you could go over the segment you guys did because pretty interesting action overnight I set up the trade I believe on my platform with what you guys had yesterday now the prices have moved dramatically but if you could talk about real quick just a segment bed, bath and beyond and the trade you guys set up I believe which is what I have up here Kevin so what we did yesterday and Tom White my co-host he made up he you know this trade and what it was is we bought the 25 foot and bed, bath and beyond and then against and we did basically bought the 25 18 foot vertical right and then against staff we sold the 18 11 foot vertical so we did the butterfly and so we paid about a dollar one over dollar dollar $25 $30 range for that butterfly that would peak out if bed, bath and beyond went back to $18 and where is it today Tommy? about 1890 right around that level 1880 so this trade that we put on that was risk-defined and used that butterfly strategy of selling of your target and that's the 18 strike but we bought the 25 sold two of the 18 and bought one of the 11 so any move right to this area around 18 or in that area Tommy and this trade is pretty profitable with the only risk being if it moves through that and towards the 11 strike so yeah really interesting discussion we had yesterday bed, bath and beyond listen you did such a great job man I knew you could walk through every part of that trade as a trader that you are and I have it up on the platform folks and so you know you're buying a 25 foot now these are September Kevin correct September 16 September 16 almost a full month out to the September expiration and then you're selling the 18 puts you're basically buying a put spread from 25 to 18 folks and you're selling the put spread from 18 to 11 to help with some of the payment you know some of the debit it comes in at $1.24 and I've got the chart up here Kevin in terms of the risk reward when they put it on the risk profile on the thinkorswim platform and you can see folks defined risk of and right now it's showing $1.24 Kevin like you said for a debit for that trade on my thinkorswim platform and that's your risk when it gets above that price point of 25 folks that's your risk when it gets above below 11 range man you got $14 for a stock that's trading at 25 and you've got a break even from about 12 to 24 it was just a great trade man because I of course everybody might go the first step Kevin right which is maybe you think okay I'll buy a put spread right I'll buy the 25 put I'll help finance that by selling the 18 put and I love that you guys just took it one step further and almost did it again by selling the 18 and buying the 11 to help even further it was a great trade folks and yeah some pretty interesting headlines yesterday after your segment to say the least with that in mind Kevin we got a new day ahead of us what are you guys talking about today coming up on fast market more earnings coming out today Tommy will look in the first segment of the show will look at Deer and Company John Deer they have earnings coming up tomorrow morning before the open then like bullio will do a presentation on Foot Locker they have earnings coming out before we'll look at the overall effect of Nike and their direct to consumer and the effect that it's having on Foot Locker and then in the seedlock will look at Chipotle a name that you know by Brian Nichols admission a company that's not really being hurt by inflation because their clients their customers are the higher the middle end in the income spectrum so interesting how that is defining or helping define what this economy is doing in terms of inflation and where it's affecting consumers so John Deere Foot Locker and Chipotle today three great stocks man and yeah quite a chart for Chipotle I got up here you're flirting around 1700 right now with a bid ask pretty strong year considering what's happening some of the other equities of course and yeah interesting we even saw earlier this week right Kevin talking about Walmart one of the reasons they're doing so well actually reaching some of those higher income brackets as people come down to save some extra money with inflation down the line and then target not quite keeping up to the same degree at least with Walmart Kevin I apologize for the technical difficulties but I think we save the segment man I appreciate it we'll be watching fast market at 12 o'clock today man no problems Tommy have a great day you as well folks tune in every trading day outstanding program and yesterday I'm telling you I'm sitting there watching it right it just makes you think about the type of trades that you can make folks when you have market opinions okay it was an outstanding trade setup you talk about defined risk on an equity that's going bonkers right let me pull up BBBY yet again I found it remarkable that for a dollar 24 and you're gonna have to have some price discovery as they say on fast market folks you have to have some price discovery about where that bid ask is because when you're making these multi leg trades like this okay there's not a super deep market of bids and asks for a four legged trade of you know a butterfly option position a month out even in a stock that is traded as actively as bad bath and beyond because you think how intricate it is so you're gonna have a wide bid ass spread potentially so you're gonna have to have some price discovery okay and sometimes it might not be possible for like full disclosure of everything to get the exact price that this yields when you're talking about the middle of the market because sometimes that market in multi leg option trades is very wide okay but if you're looking to trade a mean stock I love this way to trade a mean stock because if you are able to get executed and you do discover where that price is that you get filled and you you consider that a reasonable price of execution you're risking 124 bucks on an equity and guess what this thing's close to 18 bucks this morning and that would be your max profit of almost 600 stay tuned folks we'll be right back for that open booming inflation we are purchasing powers eroded there's no better place to protect your harder and money than ain't gold this the golds flagship asset is the Monk Todd gold project in the northern territory of Australia this is Australia's largest undeveloped gold project we are talking a world-class gold project in a tier one mining district this is a large-scale low-cost project with significant existing infrastructure in a politically safe and friendly mining jurisdiction this the gold just completed the Mount Todd feasibility study which resulted in a 7 million ounce gold reserve in a 16 year mine life all of this combined with the approvals of all major 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moves with your money watch online at TFNN.com or on TFNN's YouTube channel and become the investor you were born to be TFNN educating investors this segment is brought to you by thinkorswim for more information just click the thinkorswim banner on the front page of TFNN.com welcome back folks we've got markets open you got an SMP right now flat NASDAQ 100 barely in the red dial as well now these option markets take a few minutes sometimes even to chop around enough folks to get an accurate price reading of where you are in a specific trade let's see how bad bathroom beyond I'm just going to walk this over one more time so you're trading it about 1880 right now okay now it's going to be interesting with this traded it is so far out into the future okay that the reason why you're able to risk a dollar fifty for this hypothetical trade we're talking about with Kevin okay to make a potential 515 the reason why you risk that money to make that money is you have a $7 range okay so your max profit in the put spread is at $18 and your max profit in the put spread yourself from 18 to 11 is also at $18 okay so ideally on September 16th if this thing expired at 18 on the dot you would make whatever the difference is $7 minus whatever you paid so call it $575 about now what you can see though okay is that we paid about $1.24 if you'd executed this yesterday maybe you paid up to a $1.50 or something like that yesterday because I looked at it when they were trading it even with the type of move you just got okay you're barely in the green because there is so much volatility still priced into this equity that they're not going to let you out with that big of a profit on a defined risk trade because everybody would love to find risk market so interesting to see we'll keep that up but maybe you have a slight profit in that equity and that's with bed, bath and beyond dropping from a price of 25 to 18 overnight right in many other equities folks okay you achieve a much greater profit but in this equity okay there is still so much volatility priced into every price spread along the way okay so to show you real quick we're talking about the September 16th a month out okay we were selling excuse me we're buying the 25 put we're selling two of the 18s and then we're buying the 11 they're all trading with such high volatility and implied volatility okay that you're not getting the type of movements that you may get when yesterday the equity was trading at 25 and today it's trading at 18 but they've all moved in pretty dramatic fashion to where you add up all the prices okay and yeah you know that's not a nothing profit folks okay because you were paying a buck not saying even trying to keep track of this in my head saying it would be even a cheaper trade I mean the volatility this is the disclaimer which is why I cover this in the end right it's almost a broken market when you have implied volatility to this degree with the front end at 633% and the contract we're trading 104% okay trading them up to that point okay your risk profile right you see the purple line is today's action well it's very difficult to get a big profit in today's action with where volatility implied volatility numbers are okay we're almost right where we were yesterday and meanwhile we have the stock moving from 25 to 18 which is our max area but guess what what this number is telling you okay is that we don't care if it's trading at 25 yesterday we don't care if it's trading at 18 today the odds that this thing is either much higher or much lower in a month anybody's guessing that's probably where it'll be because trying to peg a $14 price range on any of these meme stocks is very difficult which is why they're still giving you the same risk reward no matter where this thing is 25 or 18 you want action for a month doesn't even matter where it is today it's kind of the point which is crazy right but that's a nice lesson man to get how that went in terms of price action check out fast market folks they're going to talk about it I'm sure they do an outstanding job this is a great opportunity to learn about how these move and how implied volatility numbers move I'm going to sneeze excuse me okay what is cool about that trade as well last thing is that you can make trades like that though without placing them on the meme stocks okay so maybe if you wanted to make a put spread trade broaden up the type of trades that you put together because let's say you thought this thing had price action potentially closing out at 18 well some people if the stock was trading at 25 this is a great opportunity I'm going to buy a put spread from 25 to 18 because I think it's going to 18 why would I buy a put spread any further if I think the stock's only going to 18 well you want an even better trade then if you don't think it's going past 18 then sell somebody else a put spread that starts at 18 and goes down lower and you you absorb the premium and you face risk once it starts does start going down 18 okay so if you're bearish in equity then you got to pick how bearish you are but that's what you're doing with put spreads already you're capping your loss potential I mean your profit potential as in you're capping the price action of that put spread so they do an outstanding job and check it out man they're going to be talking about three great stocks as well coming up today deer tomorrow morning footlocker tomorrow morning they'll be talking about Chipotle Mexican Grill as well all right let's jump around some of the other news stories we got so I talked about it interesting that Amazon you Google them and they got they got both worlds of it they're starting a tiktok app and then they got the young tiktok is coming after them to support workers rights nonetheless Walmart they're going to explore matchmaker marketplace for social media influencers think as a smart move man they're well aware of the power of influencers so what are they going to do they're going to use social media influencers to help the retailer and it's a hundred thousand third party sellers so what are they going to do they're going to train the third party sellers in how to use social media Walmart creator Walmart creator collective social media consulting and the promotion of goods and services and others through influences I've already seen some of this right was it's it's Walmart style or something like that people people post on maybe Instagram or something and they hashtag it Walmart style or something like that so what you're seeing is you're seeing creators they put together an outfit which is all products that they bought from Walmart influencer marketing 16.4 billion dollars this year yeah influencers man and it makes sense there's no greater marketing than having somebody that you aspire to be or or are fascinated by vouch for that product themselves alright let's jump back to some financial moves turkey overnight shocks the markets with a rate cut despite inflation near 80% yeah so they already have their main policy rate at 14% and it's down to 13% now surprise surprise but they have 80% inflation turkey's in big trouble man or to one over there he's a bad dude in a big way well I wouldn't have too much faith in everything going on there when you have somebody like that trying to keep control of that company in every way company country every way they can alright let's see what else I have pulled up here talked about Apple yeah Warner Brothers they're gonna sell a steak in GB news checking out this this equity man they have been punished WBD is their symbol yeah let me check this thing out well below covid lows the Bill Huang run up to 7814 and now they're known to 1299 down another 2% today there's your drop off at some point I imagine that we'll find a low man what are we talking about from market cap right now for this company one of brother's discovery $31 billion that's still a lot of money okay yeah so be careful Paramounts they're lower today as well by about 1.4% we jump over to Disney down about a half a percent right now Netflix shares down a third we got all the markets literally in the red stay tuned folks we'll be right back TfNN.com the opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman wave the Chapman wave up down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns finding the peaks and valleys and stock prices get the opening call newsletter by Basil Chapman and your inbox every day first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up TfNN.com educating investors the technology around us is changing every day with so much happening it can seem impossible to keep up with all the information David White's investment newsletter the technology insider is designed to give you all the information you need to understand the 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at 30 on Tuesday too can't overstate the biggest cheerleader of them all folks that was the whole rallying cry now interesting to see he got out of this he had been calling for them to spin off the baby store they own let's see if it lists in here what do they operate bye bye baby to spin that off because that is probably yeah bye bye baby so I wonder how that's going to play out because that was probably a decent idea but guess what even he knows that it's not a decent idea when the stock is trading at 25 and he's only got 8 million shares folks okay I say only 8 million because the volumes at these levels allow for somebody to get out pretty quickly and he doesn't want to wait till it's back at 5 okay he's got 8 million shares a month ago this thing was at 5 bucks now I think that was when he first revealed his stake back here he was probably unhappy that he was sputtering around at $4 for a while and maybe he's getting a little bit of a reprieve up at these higher levels maybe they do eventually spin that off but it doesn't matter if they're going to spin it off on the things at 19 bucks because it's way overvalued as to begin with yeah maybe a billion dollar deal I don't think I've ever been in a bye bye baby but I've heard good things about it and with a 1 year old in the house I do hear things about where you shop for baby goods and you got to love shopping for your kids man I should really be creating baby products man because you want to talk about rationalizing overspending on yourself get a 1 year old or a newborn in the house and walk through a baby store that's got all the outfits and the little foot, the feet and the slippers and the hats and the onesies and the shorts and the little toys and the chew toys and the bottles you walk through that store and good luck with impulse buys folks to say the least jumping back to what we have going on this morning we got jobless claims $250,000 these are just numbers as long as it chops around anywhere we look where we are folks we've been here since January now you do have continuing claims rising a bit up to a level of 1.437 million the market was looking for 264 applications we come in at 250 that's the weekend at August 13th continuing claims which is one week delayed August 6th that's for 1.44 million drop in jobless claims still healthy labor demand 250,000 man 200 even 275 is just the numbers that you'd be getting normally with the healthy economy as long as we chop around at that level I wouldn't be too surprised Coles out with their numbers let's see how they're trading this morning they were lower on the retail Coles they're down 5.4% man let's back this up even further give it a 5-year weekly pretty remarkable right COVID collapses this thing down to about back down to below 30 as they got hit with the same deal Walmart target the whole deal Coles has a good deal going on though folks I'll tell you in my opinion just from a consumer you walk into a Coles they got a lot of good products I'm not sure on the margins they're able to make quite a tough area to be competing in but you talk about a good store that you feel comfortable in and they have some heck of a deal especially with kids whether it's toys cheap toys cheap just straight out clothing for children and then you add on top of that though I believe they have a Sephora right inside so they're doing the deal stores within stores etc nonetheless you're down 5.3% on their numbers today trading off about a buck 82 and check out the volatility they had on there down to 29.30 conference call begin to catch a little bit of a lift for Coles let's see how some of those retailers are trading right now Walmart little bit of a lift today target basically flat to slightly lower on the retail we jump over to the home stocks lows up 3.25% after their numbers yesterday Home Depot down a little bit ahead of the numbers tomorrow Foot Locker down about 2.3% John Deere basically flat and they're going to be talking about Chipotle Mexican Grill as well coming up at noon on fast market trading about 17.05 so it'd be interesting folks jumping around I mean there's been a lot of talk of the IRS and 87,000 agents and all that stuff I was looking into it all right this should not be political something we should all care about remarkable to see the part of the reason this is where everything of you can distort the truth by having a kernel of truth in anything folks right so say you know I said really are they are they higher in 87,000 new auditors that are going to audit everybody I'm concerned about that of course anybody would be right is that how it's going to come down the line that's really not the reality but folks right okay it is amazing how many employees they're going to lose in the next six years okay now I had a few of these up here to pull up they're going to lose look at I got to get it up it's 50,000 plus employees over the next six years they are going to lose in the IRS 50,000 employees talk about having a an elevated age of your employees coming in and the IRS audits when you get into this the percentages here I mean here's the bummer right our biggest worry and this is Republican Kevin Brady of Texas is that these audits will land on Walmart shoppers there's no way that's going to happen in the context of this is folks audits dropped 75 percent from Americans making a million dollars or more from 2015 to 2019 and only dropped 33 percent for low to moderate income filers okay you have an entire segment and I should get the numbers exactly because the number of people that are quitting and just retiring let's get exactly at least 50,000 of the agents current employees are expected to leave over the next five years because they're eligible for retirement so this number is 87,000 by 2031 folks they're going to lose 50,000 employees by the year 2050 or 60 okay so it's important to understand the context politicization of everything but audits are down dramatically in a huge way I'm going to get a couple more statistics in terms of how many phone calls they got last year etc and you're talking about replacing a workforce more you are than ramping it up by 87,000 stay tuned folks we're right back to finish up the show and... the other TFNN hosts while they analyze charts during their live tiger TV programs and join an interactive trading community with hundreds of members exchanging ideas, interact with other tigers and tigeresses as they share trading ideas news analysis, and discuss the market action all trading day even at night and on the weekends the Tigers den at discord is accessible on mobile or tablets as well so it's always at your reach today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page of TFNN.com. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com. Educating investors. Everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. This mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market. To stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of, sign up for the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter at TFNN.com. When you subscribe you'll get a weekly report from Veteran Day Trader Larry Pesavento on stocks you need to pay attention to and you can trust Larry's analysis. After all, he's got 45 years experience as a day trader. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on market movement you need to act on at any time. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today, TFNN.com. Educating investors. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information, just click the Think or Swim banner on the front page of TFNN.com. Welcome back folks. Take a look at that Bed Bath and Beyond trade man, you get a lesson for everything which is why it's great to watch these programs, watch Kevin Hanks, watch all of our hosts folks, especially the hypothetical trade they set up in these meme stocks, but taught me anything, right? That trade made no money and you got to move from 25 to 18 overnight, but the reason why is as I stated folks, okay, in terms of the market still saying, hey, you're a month out, the volatility a month out, we're not going to give you a huge reward for five or six dollars in movement in action in one day. Now, if you get that type of action into expiration, okay, then yeah, you're making a lot more money, but one day of movement is not going to shift, which is why you got the blue graph is September 17th, which is the day of expiration technically, as in they expire on the 16th and the pink is the chart of today's profitability and as you can see basically there's no real way to achieve it because there's just so much volatility priced into these equities. Back to the IRS real quickly. So some of the statistics I did want to pull out of that, okay? You're talking about in 2010, the IRS had 94,000 employees. They're down 20% employment over the last 12 years. 12 years have went by and you have 20% less employees. You're at 78,000 last year from 94 and of the 78, 50,000 are going to retire in the next five to six years. And this hiring of 87,000 is over the next 10 years that figure comes into play, okay? You talk about they have a backlog of 10 million unprocessed individual returns as of August and you talk about wait times, et cetera, to get up to here, how long they had, you're talking about the end date, come on. It's crazy, folks, in terms of the wait times people had something like, let me find it to end it because it's a good one. Too much data to pull in one segment. It should have had a cherry picked out. Nonetheless, you see the number of people. So dig deep into that. That's been a talking point recently. We should all want that, folks. We need people to collect taxes if you want a government to function. I know it's kind of vogue to say not, but it's not new employees. They're going to replace them over 10 years. Stay tuned, folks. We've got our man Basil Chapman. He's up next. Thanks so much for starting your day with me. Have a great Thursday, everybody.


Hi, I'm Susan Ollinies, Assistant City Manager for the City of Fort Worth, and we'd like to share some information about the election that will be happening in November as it relates to our Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum Complex. Just to give you a little bit of background, this site map shows a new and exciting arena project that's anticipated for the complex, and you'll note that the top of the diagram shows Montgomery Street bounded by Lancaster on the right and University at the bottom. The city's already constructed trail drive to run through the complex, and you see a diagram that shows the new arena that's anticipated for the complex. This is an artist's rendering of what the new facility might look like, and it includes an arena, in addition a 2000 space parking garage, as well as a plaza there on the eastern side of the campus, and as you can see there will be a grand entry on all four sides. In addition, because of the grade change between Montgomery Street and the inside of the campus, they'll actually have subsurface facilities that'll be exercise and warm-up facilities, as well as stalls for equestrian events and that kind of thing. You see a smaller building off to the side, and that's actually a place where visitors can watch the exercise and warm-ups that are happening in those subsurface facilities. In addition, the loading areas and so on, you can see in the bottom left-hand corner of the slide of where the loading will be able to take place on the campus as well. So why the new facility? The current coliseum, which will continue to exist, has just over 5,000 seats, and so you can see that the seating capacity in this new facility will vary depending on the type of event that can be held there. But it can be up to 14,000 seats for concerts and special events. In addition, we anticipate that there will be basketball, graduations, hockey and family shows, as well as additional equestrian and rodeo events. So to give you a sense of the flexibility of the seating at the facilities, here's an exhibit that shows what it would look like for a basketball configuration. They've got retractable seating that'll go out court side and allow that particular use. I'll note that the facility is actually configured much like American Airlines Center in Dallas, and it basically doesn't have the cheap seats at the top, and so it's just a smaller capacity than that particular facility. In addition, this is a configuration that would occur with a rodeo, and of course there would be fewer seats. You can see that there's three rows of box seating, much like you see at the rodeo today. In addition, there will be a suite level that will serve customers as well, and as well as the wall where a lot of people gather at the current rodeo, where you can see in the cross aisle there that it'll continue to exist. So in terms of the project scope, again, you've probably heard in the community the figure of $450 million that actually includes a number of things. Little less than half of that is related to the arena itself. In addition, there will be the parking structure, the livestock building, the plaza that I mentioned, and a lot of infrastructure associated with it as well, including the street relocation, storm drainage, and so on. So the preliminary cost estimates are, again, $450 million. Half of that will be a private commitment that I'll elaborate on here in a moment. In addition, there will be a public and user fee portion of about $225 million as well. So in terms of the private funding sources, there's a commitment of 50% from the private sector. It's basically a gift with event facilities leading that fundraising effort. The facility will be publicly owned by the city of Fort Worth, and so it's a wonderful partnership that other cities would be certainly envious of. In addition, they've committed to raise additional funds if the budget grows. And finally, I'll point out that this is different than a lot of other arena projects around the country, because there's no developer or team franchise requiring a profit. This is truly a nonprofit organization that's partnering with the city to make this happen. So in terms of the public funding sources, as I mentioned, there's been some construction that's already occurred, and so we have expenditures to date related to storm drain and the trail drive improvements that have happened. That was a $10 million commitment that was partnered, a partnership with the county. In addition, there's hotel occupancy tax and other taxes associated with hotel facilities in the project financing zone that we anticipate will raise more than $125 million, and I'll share more about that concept here in a moment. And then finally, the user taxes at the bottom are the subject of the ballot that you'll see in November. So just to share with you about the project financing zone, last fall the city council adopted project financing zone number one. This actually is legislation that is unique to Fort Worth. It was passed by the state of Texas last session, and it basically allows us to draw a three-mile perimeter around both the convention center and Will Rogers to capture hotel increment within that zone that the state would otherwise collect. So just to elaborate a little bit, when you have a hotel bill, the state charges a 6% tax that they normally retain. However, in this area, they've set calendar year 2013 as the base year, and beginning in 2014, any additional hotel taxes that are collected in that zone, whether it's through increased occupancy, new hotels, higher rates, whatever the case may be, they are actually setting that aside for this project for the city of Fort Worth. And so it's already being escrowed for our benefit, and the projections for this year alone are $1.3 million, and they will continue to make that commitment for the next 30 years. So it's a huge vote of confidence for the economic development impact of this particular facility and funds that we otherwise would not have had access to. In addition, later this year, when we firm up the financial analysis following the election, we will also make a recommendation to the city council about the local increment, the 7% that the city currently collects within that zone of hotel occupancy tax, mixed beverage tax and sales tax at the hotels. We will make a recommendation to the city council about what portion of that would be appropriate to contribute to this fund as well. So in terms of the question to the voters, this is a fairly busy slide, but we will just say that it's not an up or down vote on the venue itself. It is an up or down vote on three separate propositions for the taxes or user fees that could be used for the planning, acquisition, establishment, development, construction and renovation of a multipurpose arena and related facilities. So proposition number one will be for an admissions tax that will be on each ticket sold to events held at this project not to exceed 10%. Proposition number two is a livestock facility use tax or also known as a stall tax that basically each animal that is penned there for activities that are happening at these facilities will be charged a stall tax. We anticipate that it will be a dollar to two dollars a day, not to exceed $20 for an event that may span weeks at a time based on some of our current events. And then finally, we have the parking tax or user fee and this will be not incurred until the arena itself opens and it will not exceed $5 per vehicle. And certainly we are sensitive to the market pressure on parking costs out at the campus and our objective is to be able to maintain the current rate structure that's out there today and absorb this within that rate structure and make up the difference in volume. So we anticipate that there will be more users of the facility that will actually allow us to not have to increase the impact to the users who are there. So to give you a relative sense of the value of each of these, as I mentioned, the yellow box shows the 50% from the private sector. The blue box shows the state project financing zone funds that hotel occupancy tax increment that we talked about will provide an anticipated 18% of the project cost, 15%. As noted in the green boxes below are the user fees that will again be the subject of the ballot in November. 14% is the estimate of what the local hotel occupancy tax increment will provide. And then finally, the other public sources that include the infrastructure improvements that have already occurred. So the important thing here is to note that it's not going to be an effect on your property tax or the general operating budget of the city. It truly is intended to be funded by the sources and the people that will enjoy the facilities out there. So in terms of management and operations, we anticipate that the long-term management will be a private sector not-for-profit partner. Certainly we want to get somebody with the expertise of promoting and producing events and running that facility for us. We are working on data analysis that shows us that it will be a break-even basis, so it'll pay for itself in terms of operation plus provide sufficient reserves for the replacement maintenance and upgrade of the facilities over the years as it becomes necessary.  Overlaid on top of that, the shadow shows the current Will Rogers Coliseum. And so you can see that not only are they architecturally complementary, but the sheer scale of the new facility is certainly much larger. I want to emphasize again that the current Coliseum is not going anywhere. It's still a valuable part of that campus and will continue to be used for all kinds of equestrian events. And our long-term goal is to be able to invest dollars in there as well for renovation to that particular facility. And just to give you a sense of how this fits into the context of the convention center, you may know that back in 2002 we completed what we call phases one and two of the convention center improvements and left the arena at that particular facility in place. The goal since that time has been to eventually expand to phase three, which includes additional ballroom space, meeting room space and that kind of thing in place of the arena. The thought has been that providing an arena facility to replace the existing need at Will Rogers would allow us to open up that market, not take away anything from the users of an arena space that currently use a facility like that today. So this is the long-term goal. The funds from the project financing zone, this hotel occupancy tax can certainly help us realize this goal at a later date after we complete the arena. And I'm going to show you a very quick video that is a rendering of what it would look like in our existing campus with the new facility. And so it's pretty exciting to see a flyover of the improvements that will happen there. I'll also mention that Montgomery Street is included in the bond program and the intent is to redevelop it. So it really is a gateway to the cultural district, much like the other streets in that general area. We thank you for your interest in this project and we encourage you to go out and vote. The election is on November the 4th and currently early voting is underway.


My name is Mark Hughes. I'm with Justice for All, a local organization. But we are here joining together to make a proclamation for the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival. You see, all across the country, in state capitals and Washington, DC, policies that promote systemic racism, they promote poverty and the war economy, and the environmental destruction are threatening a democracy and the decaying of our national morality. Young DACA recipients are treated as political pawns, and black and brown people are being kept from the polls by racialized voter suppression laws. 50 years ago, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he called for a poor people's campaign to begin a revolution of values in America. He and other leaders invited people of all races and religions to unite against the evils of racism, against poverty, and militarism. Today, a new Poor People's Campaign is needed to save America's soul. The Poor People's Campaign, a national call for a moral revival, will reignite the effort to unite the poor, disenfranchise, and marginalize to transform our nation's political, economic, and moral structures of our society. This isn't a mere commemoration of the work of Dr. King and others 50 years ago. It is a consecration of a new moral movement to transform a political, economic, and moral structures of a society. The conditions that motivated Dr. King and others to launch the original Poor People's Campaign have worsened over the last 50 years. With the forces of white supremacy and greed gaining even more influence in Washington and in state houses across the country, the need for a poor people's campaign is more urgent than ever. Economic inequity has only accelerated since 1968, while voter suppression, those laws of mass incarceration furthers entrenched systemic racism in America. Now listen, did you know that since 2010 that 23 states have passed racist voter suppression laws? 23. Did you know that in, since, that July 2017, 25 states passed laws to preempt cities from passing their own local minimum wage laws? As of 2016, there are 40.6 million people living below the poverty line. It's a crime shame, ain't it? Now listen, nearly three quarters of the people living below the poverty line are women and children. And since 1976, raised federal spending on prisons has increased tenfold to $7.5 billion. The number of state and federal inmates grew from 188,000 in 1968 to 5 million in 2015. At the height of the Vietnam War, military spending was about $354 billion. And today it's nearly twice that, at 635 billion. 53 cents out of every discretionary dollar of our taxes goes directly, directly to the military. In 2013, 23,000 active duty military troops were receiving food stamps. And in December of 2017, there were more than 60,000 new foreclosures, bringing the total properties of foreclosure to over 572,000 nationally. And in 2017, three individuals had a combined wealth of $248.5 billion. Three people, the same amount of wealth at a bottom 50% of US households of 160 million people. And 4 million families with children are being exposed to high levels of lead right now. And finally, 13.8 million low-income households cannot afford water. This number could triple if water prices continue to rise. Our campaign aims to build a broad and a deep national moral movement rooted in leadership of poor people and reflecting the great moral teachings to unite our country from the bottom up. Demand a change in course. That's right. And today we serve notice that if our voices are not heard and our issues remain unaddressed, we are prepared to take direct action and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. Reverend Joan Javier Duvall, I serve as minister of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier. And we are here this afternoon because we need a revolution of values in America and here in Vermont. Do you believe that? That's when he called for a poor people's campaign in 1968 and this remains true today. The poor people's campaign that we build on today took seriously the prophet Isaiah's call to learn to do right, to seek justice and to defend the oppressed. In the new poor people's campaign, we are united across race, class and religion. And we seek to change the moral narrative of this nation. Seek to do right, to seek justice and to join in solidarity with the oppressed. And we need to remember that it is the heart and soul of our democracy that is at stake when we allow economic inequality to grow, when we seek to profit from our criminalization systems, when we target immigrants and refugees, and when we pillage this earth, our home for the sake of profit. Revolution of values is something that we can all be a part of. And we are here today in the state house to especially share this message with our elected leaders who are here to represent us, we the people. That's right. So people of faith and people of conscience are called in this moment to hold our political leaders at the national and local levels accountable to their highest responsibility to work for the good of not just some people, but all people. Yeah, everybody. To do this, because unfortunately, as Mark said earlier, the forces of greed and white supremacy have been becoming even more influential and powerful in Washington, and we must stay vigilant to these forces at work even in our beloved state of Vermont. Yes, that's right. That's our country. We are witnessing an assault on the poor to line the pockets of the most wealthy. We are witnessing an assault on immigrants, tearing families apart and destroying communities. We are witnessing an assault on black and brown people as hate groups become emboldened and human rights are threatened and taken away. And we are witnessing an assault on this earth, our precious home, as more and more of our natural resources become unprotected and corporations pursue a seemingly unquenchable thirst for fossil fuels. I believe that our moral character as a community must be judged by how we treat the most marginalized in our society. Yeah, that's right. And how we treat this beloved precious planet.  Yes. Will we be a society that invests in education and a sustainable future for our planet? Yes. I hope so, or will we choose to be a society that continues to perpetuate violence against our siblings across the globe and against our planet? No. Will we be a society that stands up to the hate-filled voices in our communities and proclaims a message of welcome and inclusion? Yes.  No. So the new Poor People's Campaign is about choosing the side of morality. It is about choosing the side of love and justice. Together, we will work for policies that create a more equitable and more hopeful present and future for our children, our grandchildren, and for us all. So I'm here this morning to say that people of faith and conscience are here. We will continue to show up. We will continue to demand change until the tide has turned and morality has reclaimed its place in our democracy. Yes. Thank you so much for those inspiring words. I am Rabbi Shana Margolin, the ritual chair of Beth Jacob Synagogue. Our sacred writings teach that we are created in the image of God. It means that we are all created equal. Our secular documents reflect that belief. We are all equal. And as equals, every citizen has an equal right to vote. And we raise our voices in protest and we raise our voices for change when we see states enacting laws that suppress the votes, especially of people of color and of people who are poor. Teachings insist that employers, those in power, treat their workers fairly and with dignity. Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight, we read in Leviticus. Do not take a millstone as security for a debt because that would be taking a person's livelihood, we see. And so we raise our voices for change when we see the struggles of people working two or three low-paid jobs. We raise our voices for change when we see the vast disparities in how hard work is rewarded, when the person at the top can make 300 times as much as the low-paid workers who have a debt. We hear the challenge of the Prophet Isaiah to lose the chains of injustice, to set free the oppressed, to assure that no one goes hungry, that no one is homeless, that we as a society care for all because that is the moral imperative. Then, as Isaiah says, our light will break through like the dawn, our goodness will shine. And then we will truly begin, in the words of this effort, we will truly begin a moral revival, a society based on caring, a society based on compassion, a society willing to work together for the good. Yes! Amanda Shepard, I live in Addison County, which is the west side of Vermont, right in the middle, where the lake divides the state of New York and Vermont along the whole coast. Like across the nation in Addison County, there is an extreme wealth living beside extreme poverty, where the little Ivy League School of Middlebury College has an endowment of $1 billion, while the homeless population are overflowing the shelters and are hiding along the rivers and other places just outside the college's fields. For me, desiring a safe, secure home and a community where I would expect to financially flourish has come with extremely high expenses, such as rent and taxes. I too fear of being homeless again with two children while working unpaid for most of the work I do. I have continually been depleted of my emergency funds because of these high costs, despite always taking on new kinds of work. These high costs have caused me to face housing instability that has directly affected my health. I myself depend on Medicaid because the state doesn't pay me a livable wage and denies my workforce full-time benefits. I'm always in a cycle of catching up with pay and increasing expenses, co-pays, out-of-pocket health care, fees and fines, and as an organizer in the state for different organizations, including the Vermont Workers' Center, as well as providing home care, I see the gaps in our system on every level. My clients are often shamed by their doctors and labeled as non-compliant when they're trying to have a meaningful say in their care. Some worry about homelessness and are too afraid of losing custody of their children to admit it. So when I hear on the Vermont Low-Income Advocacy Board that not one single pregnant woman in her ninth month has requested housing, I can't help but think that it's because she fears she'll lose custody of your child when it's born, simply because she's homeless and has to admit her lack of access to secure housing. Many seemingly easy solutions, such as moving around where the work is or moving from a relatively affordable house to another home, leads to additional instability in education, access to kids' cystic care, and mental health. And mental health is a huge part of the healthcare that is often stigmatized. Though a huge population face these struggles daily, 34% of Vermonters are on Medicaid, meaning they too are low income, making tough choices about whether to pay rent or pay for uncovered medical expenses. There's a huge disconnect between people's needs in this country and our government's willingness to respect and address our failing healthcare system that puts profit over people and it perpetuates poverty. Destroying essential connections and stunting our abilities to grow as a community. Profit and wealth are being held by very few while the rest of us are working three jobs and are humiliated at the local agencies for asking for help. This is why we need a Port People's Campaign, a national call for a moral revival. I see now that our laws, our ordinances, our systems are all set up unjustly. We need a new way to govern our people that's based on what is morally just, not what is profitable for a very few. Our media needs to report that the people of Vermont, just like me, are standing together with those across the nation to participate in civil disobedience, nonviolent actions to say that the poor people, that the politics that use the rest of us, the majority of us, and keeps us poor has gone on far too long. Far too long. Far too long. That their capital is in the biggest movement our country has yet to see. Far too long. My name is David Pipkirski. I'm a member of the Vermont Workers' Center and the Vermont Poor People's Campaign. I have been asked to speak about American militarism and its war economy as I am a homeless fetish who presently resides at the Canal Street Veterans Homeless Shelter in Winooski, Vermont. In 1977, at 18 years of age and still in high school, I had joined the Marine Corps. I thought it was a good idea at the time as I wanted to learn some valuable skills to rise out of poverty. At least that is what the recruiter and my culture had told me anyway. Not to mention that my home and school environment was not a healthy one, so I basically had no other choice but to join the Marines. In retrospect, it became the worst mistake of my life and I compare jumping, that I compare jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. What I found in my six years of service were either vets that had just returned home from Vietnam or new recruits like myself from unhealthy home and school environments who were misled to believe that they would escape from poverty by joining the military. Now, at 59 years of age, I find myself homeless for the fourth time. Needless to say, I have never been able to escape living in poverty. One out of every four homeless people are vets. About 20 vets per day commit suicide, more than are actually dying in our endless, senseless, costly, unsuccessful, damaging, and traumatizing wars. Countries never win at war. Both sides always lose. Always. Always. Vets typically suffer from outhaul and drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, physical injury, depression, self-blame for mission failure, survivor guilt, and other mental illnesses, poverty, high costs of housing, and inadequate health care. Never is it discussed as to what the individual loses nor is it discussed what our country truly loses. Let's discuss the financial cost of war first, then subsequently what our country really loses. Yeah. In 2017, the military budget was about $773.5 billion. It is expected to continually climb unless we do something to stop it. This cost does not include externalities, such as reboting a country we have just destroyed. Or what is termed as foreign aid that is essentially money to buy our political will. Our country spends more on our military than the next country is combined. Americans make up only 5% of the world's population, but spend over 50% of the world's total military expenditure. The Pentagon budget consumes over 80% of everyone's individual income tax return. This money could be better spent on health care, child care, and teacher salaries, caring for a most vulnerable population, and allow many people to access college and drop job training. America could work to heal itself and become a respected leader worldwide instead of perpetually being at war and hated by most other countries. Yes, that's right. I just so happen to serve between 77 and 83, one of the few times in our history that America was at peace. Most feds have not been so lucky and are much worse off than myself. When an individual goes to war to witness man's inhumanity to man, they never return. Some bodily and others emotionally. They live in the woods or commit suicide. Being a homeless vet is a direct reflection of America's unhealthy culture and war economy. Yes, yes, yes. The culture that leads a person to willfully join the military to what amounts to killing other people in a foreign country because there are no better alternatives here in our country. The most difficult hurdle for a homeless person to overcome when seeking help from an inadequate system is to trust the very same system and culture that made them homeless in the first place. Thank you. Then they are rewarded by becoming reintegrated into our unhealthy society and living in poverty while our country perpetuates a cycle by enlisting new recruits for a never-ending war. While vets never really return home from war, some never return from living in the woods while they hope and pray that someone will listen and has enough sense to put an end to our war economy. Thank you. Woo! 100 people here on a Monday were out today. Woo! Stay with us. I wanna show the world how seriously people are taking this. My name's Henry Harris. I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom in the 80s. The 80s were a tough time in the kingdom and I've paid my dues as a poor person and as a proud member of the 99% in this state. I'm here today to express my sadness and deep anger about where we find ourselves. That's right, look at that. Come on, now. That's right. Uh-oh, you're on call. I got you. I got you. We are in a crisis. Our government is making little sand castles to resist the waves of this crisis while the rich get richer. Meanwhile, I think this crisis is about to get much worse. This climate crisis is going to exacerbate economic instability, white supremacy and genocidal warfare and poverty. Untold millions of people are gonna be forced into refugee status from drought and other natural disasters. The World Health Organization, the Pentagon, everybody else knows that this crisis may be getting way out of control. The collision course we're on with the climate and the economy is one that has been constructed and deepened deliberately. Yes, absolutely true. Not through incompetence, as many of our modern U.S. presidents and governors make it seem so convincingly, but because of greed. Greed, greed, greed, greed, greed, greed. Bill Scott is just running plays for his bosses at the American Legislative Exchange Council. This is the co-brothers run, Bill Mill, said sending him and governors and lawmakers all over the country the bills that they need to be proposing in their states. Come on. Okay, Cape Town is running out of water. Cape Town is a modern city just like San Francisco. It's a little more segregated. San Francisco is segregated too, and they are about to run out of water on April 12th. They are expecting day zero, running out of water on April 12th and the rich people, the white people are leaving the city and the rest of the residents, mostly black and poor folks, are being left there to deal with the crisis and make it if they can. This situation is a microcosm of what's happening to the planet by a deliberate design of creating crisis to destabilize whole cultures and weaken their hold on their resources. Why do we wanna weaken their hold on their resources so the rich can take them? They're trying to take these resources, right?  We know they don't believe that and we don't believe that. Kindness and generosity, mainstays of morality for every culture on the planet are what we need to save society. Yes, right, tell us. Greedy, global white supremacist, imperial capitalism is not going to do this no matter what you learned in college. That's right. But it's always Syria. Do you know that this war in Syria was caused because of food and water shortages? All right, Palestine's running out of water, the rate of desertification in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, swelling whole cultures and languages that will never be spoken again along with countless species of plants and animals. We have friends racing time. Some of us in this room have our friends racing time in their home island of Puerto Rico trying to get their lives, their health systems, their farms and homes back together before the next round of hurricanes hit. That's right. The governor of our state, Philip Scott, insists that the climate crisis is a great opportunity for Vermont. What? Did you see that one liner he stuck to a couple of weeks ago about how cities burning down in California make Vermont look pretty good? Oh. California is the fifth biggest economy in the world, Mr. Race Car Driver, and the destabilization there is not a good sign for our little economy over here. Now, for some, it might seem fun to have mommy's favorite little race car driver as the governor of our state, but this will not do. No, it won't do. So that's where we come in. The world's 99%. We are the power, the people are the power. All right. That's it. That's it. This event is an announcement. This event is an announcement that the 99% is again getting organized, and this event is an invitation for all of us to come out and get involved in doing what is right in protecting the climate and the people and the other living things of this world because that's what's right. Yes. That's right. That's right. Yes, a mass social movement to save us from climate change will keep our planet beautiful and protect our economic interests and keep the resource war away from our doorsteps. But in so doing it will also give us an opportunity to renew a practice of treating each other morally, doing unto each other as we would have done unto us. Yeah. I stand under this golden dome with y'all and challenge their golden rule that whoever has the gold makes the rules.  All right. All right. 15 years ago Martin Luther King invited us to join this movement. And one of the things he said was this. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action. Yes. All right. See many of you here when we return, we will be back. Thank you. Devastation is immoral. Systemic racism is immoral. You are so beautiful here today. It is just an honor to stand here in front of you. Sorry, you're seeing maybe about pretty or sorry. But anyway, it's great to be here today. I'm Earl Cooper Camp. I'm one of the tri-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign here in Vermont. We are here in Vermont. The Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival, planned to open up like we are doing today in 24 other states. Washington, D.C. as well, a truly national movement, a national call for moral revival. State capitals, our sisters and brothers of the Poor People's Campaign are taking a letter to their state representatives. In just a moment, we will take it to our speaker, Mitzi Johnson, the Senate pro tem, Tim Ash. I want to read you this letter. All over the country, in state capitals like Montpelier and Washington, D.C., policies that promote systemic racism, poverty in the war economy, and ecological devastation are threatening our democracy and decaying our national morality. Too often distorted religious articulations confine morality only to personal issues and not public policies. Racist voter suppression laws undermine access to ballot box and the power of the vote, while DACA recipients are treated as political pawns. Where people of all races are being ignored, our political conversation is dismissed and our political decisions are undermined. Programs to sustain the poor are being cut and healthcare, access and living wages are denied at state and federal levels. Meanwhile, the United States House and Senate passed a tax bill that is an obscene transfer of wealth to the richest among us and the president who benefited by this quickly signed it into law. Further cuts that benefit the wealthiest are being passed in state houses all across the country. We demand a change, of course. Our faith traditions in our state and federal constitutions testify to the immorality of an economy that leaves out the poor, yet our political discourse consistently ignores the 140 million poor and low income people living here in these United States of America. We are here today to demand, demand that the committees on the floors of this state legislative body that you uphold the oath that you have taken and represent us, represent us, and on a moral agenda that lifts up the common good and the general welfare. And we are prepared, we are prepared now to take direct action and engage in non-violent civil disobedience to assist our publicists, get our grasp, progress its independence, develop serious proposals to address our agenda. We, we are the poor and disenfranchised, clergy and moral leaders from all across Vermont. We are the poor people's campaign, a national call for moral revival.  We, we will not be silent anymore. First of all, to the speaker's office, we're just delivering the letter, that's it, no conversation, just let her read it. Then we'll go down to the president pro Tim's office, we will also deliver the letter, he can read it. And then we're gonna gather up over in room 11 to learn a little bit more about what we're doing as the poor people's campaign here in Vermont, a national call for moral revival. I so much, I so much appreciate your time here today. But also, this is just the beginning. We're launching here in Vermont, we're launching in 32 other states, soon we will be nationwide. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Dr. King launched the Poor People's Campaign 50 years ago, it's basically Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, little Tennessee, out in Missouri, Arkansas, some of the eastern states. We are reaching all the way from Alaska to Florida. We'll reach it from our brave little state of Vermont all the way to California and Hawaii. This is a movement which will change the moral narrative of our country. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hold up for a minute, hold up for a minute. Before we leave. Hold up for just one second. This is Dr. Altman, he just came in from Southeast Asia. He just approached us and he wanted to just say a couple of words to you before we leave, okay? I've been living on this planet for 83 years and I worked with Martin Luther King. And I only wanna say everything I hear here is beautiful, but I really believe after all the years from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and the 90s and being proactive, that doing civil disobedience, communicating, holding the powers accountable is important, but I don't believe based upon history. And if MLK was here today, I believe he would agree, there needs to be more active civil disobedience. More active, not just communicating with people, not sending letters. And I think all of that's important, but I believe there needs to be at a national level major active civil disobedience. That's what we're gonna be doing. See you in the middle of it. See you in the middle of it. See you in the middle of it. See you in the middle of it.