session with the Vice-President of Nigeria, Yemi Oshin Bajal. We're going to start with an indication of where the Nigerian economy is right now, given the fact that we are striving for inclusive growth, and that's not just an African agenda. It's a global agenda. So let me hand it to you. Just give us a synopsis of where we are right now. First, thank you very much, and thank you everyone for coming. I want to say first that I'm sure that most of us already know the background to where we are in Nigeria and why we are where we are. I think the most important narrative today is what our plans are to get out of the recession. We have a Nigeria economic recovery and growth plan, which is a four-year, medium-term plan which first addresses the question of getting us out of the recession, and then of course how to go on the path of sustainable growth. The most important aspects of that plan are macroeconomic stability, diversification of our economy, and a very robust social investment scheme. Now, just to go from the social investment scheme, because that speaks to the question of inclusion. The social investment scheme is peculiar in the sense that it's not a social safety net in the traditional way. This is one where we are actually looking to develop capacity, especially in the young people. So a lot of the investment actually goes into the development of capacity at the level of very young people. So we have a scheme which is called EMPAR, a 500,000 young graduates have been engaged, have been employed, it's a volunteer core program, but they have been engaged to be teachers in primary schools, to be public health officials, as well as extension workers for the farms. But more importantly is the training that goes with that. Each of them will be trained, each of them will be armed with a device which enables them to be trained in a wide variety of areas, especially technology training, even writing codes and training on an ongoing basis and improving their capacity. Mr. Vice President, key to that social development plan will be macroeconomic stability, as you mentioned, and also diversification of the economy. Let's talk a bit about the macroeconomic stability, because at the moment investors are a little concerned. You're excited though, because the opportunity of 180 million-plus consumers in Nigeria is incredibly appealing to anybody wanting to make money in a low-growth environment. So can you assure investors that this economic growth and recovery plan is going to lead to macroeconomic stability? Absolutely. And I think that most investors in Nigeria, most who see the investment coming to Nigeria, are really quite bullish, and I believe that many of them see what the immediate prospects are. If you look at the macroeconomic environment, and one of the reasons why, in our earlier discussion this morning, I was pointing out that once you understand why you are where you are, and for investors they're smart, they understand it. I mean it's not a structural problem, as someone pointed out. For instance, look at foreign exchange availability, it's a supply issue. We know why we don't have as much foreign exchange as we ought to have. And a lot of that has to do with the problems of oil production, which was of course affected by the insurgency in the Niger Delta and all of that. We're resolving that. Once that is resolved, obviously more dollars come into the market. When we have more dollars, those who are looking to import are able to import even more. But just going beyond that, also effecting the foreign exchange policy which we have, and carrying that policy to its logical conclusion, ensuring that it enables some ... Look at cement, which is a big opportunity in my work, which is a big industrial activity in Nigeria. They also make dollars from exports and all of that. Now there are those who are manufacturing, but they're importing 85% and over. Now that's a slightly more difficult problem, and where you have that kind of large importation, you obviously are going to have problems unless you invest locally. And that's why we're also trying to direct attention to local investment. People simply have to invest locally. We're investing 50 billion in export processing zones this year alone. Those export processing zones are supposed to create an opportunity for investors to invest locally and draw from local resources. So this is an opportunity for the investor. I mean, we're not going to ... I mean, it's okay with investors. I don't want to dwell on foreign exchange, but there's just one other statement that you made recently, and that is that we need to see the gap closing between the official and the parallel market, which that gap sitting at about 60% at the moment. When is that going to happen?  Well, it's difficult to give a timing about currency movements and all of that, as you probably imagine. What it is really is what is the policy that's going to lead to that? We already have a foreign exchange policy. Now that policy, and that's the point I've been making all along, that stabilizing that policy and showing that that policy works fully is really what we're trying to get in our interactions with the central bank, which of course is independent, is we're trying to get them to see that you need to implement this policy fully. So no bank, of course, has its own constraints. They're saying, hey look, we have to be careful. We simply can't allow the currency to float. We have to look at all of the market conditions and all of that. But really, the point we are making is that we must create the environment which will help the central bank as well. That will come from an increasing supply of dollars from oil exportation. Once we have more dollars, central bank obviously has more confidence in floating the currency. So a lot of these is... Take your point. Let's come back to that oil production. You need to average over two million barrels a day to basically make your production targets for the year. Yes. With the situation resolved, are you going to be able to meet those production targets? Because this is the money that you're talking about. You're not going to have to revise the numbers downwards. Has anything fundamentally changed in the production cycle? Yes. I think we'll be able to do possibly even over 2.2 million barrels a day as you were able to resolve all of these problems and we expect that we will be able to resolve the problems. What has also happened, of course, is that we used to have cash call difficulties. I mean, in the past, with our joint venture partners, there were issues of government paying its own portion of the cash calls. Now that has been resolved with the major IOCs. We now have a self-financing regime which allows for cost recovery so that we're not going to have to be putting forward all of these cash calls. We're also paying the backlog in debts and all of that, about 5.1 billion. And we're doing that by increasing production. What the IOCs are meant to do is to increase their production in order to pay for that backlog. So we think that we have a regime now, we have a financing arrangement that allows the market, you know, that allows all production. So you're holding the average, the 2.2 million barrels a day. We're reasonably confident that we will. Let's talk about the turnaround plan for the power sector specifically. The World Bank has given you their commitment. They met with the federal government end of last year. They've given you their commitment to work together to create a turnaround. Again, can you give me a little visibility on the steps that are going to be made in the power sector, specifically because privatisation of the Nigerian power sector has been underway for three years and now obviously it's stalled, given the environment? Maybe a bit longer than three years, actually. But the two issues, one is the very great thing that the World Bank is working with us. And in particular, the World Bank is working on actually the market, which really is a problem. You know, the market and the liquidity in the market is really where the challenges are, aside from the other issues. But I think that the main issue is creating a market that is self-sustaining and I think that's where the World Bank comes in. Because you have a situation where you are producing this much power but it must be sold and it must be paid for. Those who are buying must pay for it. You must pay for gas. Now ensuring that that market is resourced, ensuring that that liquidity is there, is really where the World Bank comes in and where we're working with the World Bank. So if we're able to resolve the liquidity issues, which is important, of course, the other problems are problems of generation transmission, especially transmission. Transmission was about 5,000 MHz capacity and that's for the grid. And we've now moved that up, we've increased that in terms of its simulation to about 6,500 MHz and up to even 7,200 MHz at the end of last year in terms of just the capacity for transmission, which is very crucial. But I think the most important thing is how some of the... Don't forget that this is a privatized environment and the generation and distribution are privatized. But when you privatize, of course, you expect that there will be further investments by the private sector players. A lot of the private sector players, especially the distribution companies, are highly leveraged. So there's a need for them, of course, to find fresh capital to be able to invest in metering. For example, just metering, so that they can collect their money and all of that, they can collect their type invoices and all that. That's an area where we need to do a lot of work, trying to get money into the system and we believe the World Bank partnership is going to help a good deal in that respect. At the beginning of our conversation, you spoke about the importance of macroeconomic stability, diversification and social inclusion. So let's touch on this diversification because we spent a lot of time on the power of the oil and gas environment. Agriculture is enormous for Nigeria and potentially Nigeria can become the bread basket of Africa. Where are we on that plan? Or if you prefer to choose a different sector that you more diversified into, I'm open to that discussion. Yeah, agriculture is crucial and we're being a great deal of attention to agriculture. Smart of Africa agriculture is possibly the second largest contributor to our GDP. So it's big for us. Now, what we're planning to do in agriculture and what we're doing in agriculture is first we intend to be completely self-sufficient in rice production, in tomato, in wheat and in rice, just take rice for example. Rice is an important commodity for us. There's a lot of demand for rice. But more importantly, there's also a lot of foreign exchange being spent on rice importation. Exactly, you import a great deal of rice. But now with the work that we're doing in growing rice, especially in KB state, in Sokoto state, Jigawa state, in the northern rice belt, as well as in a boy state in the southeast, we're seeing that there's a great deal more activity in that sector. For example, at KB state, which is in the north, and Lagos state, just came together to do just over Christmas, KB state produces large amounts of rice. And they supplied Lagos state with the rice and they were able to work together to produce several thousand bags of rice which were sold over the Christmas on an experimental basis. And we actually saw price of rice dropping in the markets. So those kinds of collaborations are important. But the more important narrative is that we're producing the rice aggressively and that we're able to produce larger acreage of rice because we have the right siblings, we're irrigating, and we're financing that sector. There's what is called the Angkor Boros program, and we're financing rice. So rice is big. Also tomatoes. We've got about a minute left. So beyond agriculture, you've got oil and gas manufacturing. Obviously cement production from the Dungote industries. Just a final question. Let's come back to the economic turnaround plan. Yes. Is it documented? Can people go in, survey it, and basically look at the timelines that you've put in place? We'll formally launch the four-year economic recovery and growth plan in mid-February. We've already written it out, and many parts of it were discussing, the outlines of it were discussing, but it will be formally launched as a document in the middle of February. But our current 2017 budget is actually based on the economic recovery and growth plan. By the way, we had a strategic implementation plan, which we started with in 2016. And the economic recovery and growth plan is actually a development of that strategic implementation plan. So if you look at the strategic implementation plan, you're able to see the general direction in which you are going. But the full document is to be launched in February of this year, which is next month. Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for joining me for this conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, Yemi Osenbajo, the Vice President of Nigeria. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.


What's happening guys? It's Shane here and in today's video we're going to be talking about the top ways for you to pay for college. Now we're going to start off with the non-loan options, the options where you know it's basically like free college money or you know you work your way through college that sort of thing and then at the very end I'm going to talk about how you can take out loans if that's something that you need to do. But there's a very good chance that you won't even need to take out loans if you're somebody who's early enough on in your high school slash college experience and you watch this video and really listen to what I have to say. And there are people that I've been mentoring in my college 101 course that are telling me that they are literally going to be spending less than half of what they thought they were going to just because of some of these tips that I'm going to be giving you. So without further ado, right after you gently tap the like button, hit that subscribe button and the ring the notification bell, let's jump right into it. Now some of these are going to be very obvious and some of them are going to be things that you haven't thought about, but just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's not very, very important. Now there's a couple different secrets to getting scholarships and I've done entire videos on this and I went into a lot more detail on that in those videos and I go very deep into detail in my college 101 course. But basically if you start early enough in high school and you start applying for scholarships, you know, for instance, there's certain scholarships you can only apply to as a freshman, certain scholarships you can only apply to as a sophomore. But if you are able to start early enough applying for these scholarships, just with the small ones, the ones that are like maybe a thousand dollars here, $500 here, $1,500 there, you can get a significant amount of your college paid for. And those are great, especially if you start applying for them early on. I also recommend doing essay contests as well. And the earlier you start applying, the better because you know, with a lot of them, you're going to have to submit like a one page essay. But the thing is, is many of them are going to have very similar prompts. And so once you do enough of them, you're going to see a pattern and basically, you know, you write a certain amount of essays, you can basically just copy paste what you've written before. And so the time it takes to apply to a scholarship goes from maybe like two or three hours to 30 minutes. Now these little scholarships that you can apply to $500, you know, $1,000, $1,500, sometimes $2,000. Those are fantastic. Don't get me wrong. But really the big ones, the ones that are the low hanging fruit, the ones that you absolutely need to go for if you can, are the ones that the schools themselves offer. So a lot of the time the schools will offer huge scholarships. We're talking like $10,000 a year, $15,000 a year, $20,000 a year. But there's a catch. You have to apply for them and you have to meet certain criteria.  But it depends on the college. Some of them, they only care about the ACT score, right? So if you score like a certain score on the ACT or the SAT, then they'll give you the scholarship. Others really only care about your GPA. So if you get a certain GPA, they'll give you the scholarship. Some of them care about both together. For some of them, it's going to involve an essay contest and more than that. But many of these colleges offer really, really good scholarships. And so paradoxically, in my opinion, especially with the people I've worked with, when it comes to the question, do grades matter? They definitely matter in high school because you can get some of the most ridiculously amazing scholarships out of high school. Whereas in college, much of the time, unless you're trying to go to grad school or like something very specific, grades actually don't matter all that much. So if you are early on in high school, there's two things that you should start doing. You need to start applying for those little scholarships. And then you also should be trying to get good grades and making sure that you get a good score on the ACT or the SAT, which is like books that you can buy for that. You can start studying early if you want, start taking practice tests. And that right there alone might pay for pretty much all of your college or very close to all of it. So that's definitely the low hanging fruit. And you should definitely be going for that, especially if you're still early on in high school.  I mean, it's literally free money. My second tip on this list is to choose an affordable college. Don't go to the colleges that are charging $75,000 a year. I think the most expensive colleges last year were charging $77,000, almost $78,000 a year for tuition. And that's just tuition alone. That doesn't cover your cost of living. You know, if you go to a dorm room, your cost of food, a lot of your other college costs, that doesn't cover any of that. It's just tuition alone. Unless, and this is a big unless, you're able to get one of those big juicy scholarships that covers like almost all of your costs. So what you want to do is you want to look at all of the colleges that you've applied to, and you want to look at which scholarships they're offering you. And just the basic thing that you should do is just make a spreadsheet. It's super easy. You can use, you know, Excel, you can use Google Sheets, just make a spreadsheet, list all of the colleges that you've applied to, all the ones that accepted you, and then what scholarships they offer, and then figure out what the expense is going to be for the college after the scholarships, right, after all of the scholarships they're offering you basically all of the money, all the grants, et cetera, that they're offering you. And that's the real cost of the college for you. Because ultimately, that's what you're going to end up having to pay. And then basically go with the college that's the most affordable.  But if there's a huge difference like $20,000 a year, $10,000 a year, guys, it's a no brainer, definitely choose the one that's giving you the better deal.  So they want you enough that they want you to go to their campus and they're showing that by offering you really good scholarships or grants. And that really says a lot because they are literally showing you right up front that they care about you. And that probably means that the rest of your experience there is also going to be good. Now, if you're in a situation where, you know, you don't have any scholarships, you started this whole process late, don't worry, most people are actually in that situation. Most people don't start thinking about scholarships and taking the ACT and getting really good grades until they're a junior or senior in high school. And that's totally fine. What I suggest for you then is to still try to keep your costs low. And one great way to do that is to go to a community college for your first two years, you're going to be taking the same classes anyways. And at a community college, they're going to be so much cheaper. And in my opinion, in many cases, they're going to be a lot better. And the reason for that is because at most universities, the first classes that you take are basically classes where there's going to be like 300, 400 people taking it. The professors there, but I mean, you're not really getting much one on one time, because again, it's 300, 400 people. And at many universities, the professor's main job is to research, right? So they are a researcher first, and a lecturer or a professor second, whereas at community colleges, most professors are predominantly going to be teachers first. And the class sizes are also going to be smaller. So you could really argue that you get a better education in your first two years at a community college a lot of the time than you do at university. Now again, not true at all universities, I know some of the smaller ones, you're going to have smaller class sizes. Yes, I know. I can already see it. People in the comments just, I went to a university and there's only 20 people in my class. So okay, okay, I'm just saying much of the time or a lot of the time when people go to state colleges to have, you know, 10, 20,000 plus people, this is what they are going to find. And I know this because I have talked to many other friends who've gone to state colleges, you do need to make sure that the community college you go to, you can transfer your credits to an in-state school to have in-state tuition, because that's the cheapest way to do it.  Community colleges are usually maybe like $3,500 a year. So that's going to be $7,000 for two years. And then in-state tuition is usually about $9,000 a year. So overall, you know, $18,000 plus 7,000, that's about 25,000 overall cost for your tuition to go to college that way. That's pretty manageable. So that means that if you earned about $7,000 a year working part time, you would pay for all of your tuition and then some. Another thing you can consider doing, and this is the next one on the list, is basically figuring out how to get into an accelerated program. So there's a lot of programs out there that are accelerated, where something like a degree that might take four years, usually, maybe it takes two and a half years or two years. In some cases, a degree that might take eight years usually can take like six years or sometimes less. So for instance, I went to an accelerated program for a pharmacy school, and I also was able to cut some time down an undergrad. And so a degree that usually takes people about eight years to get only took me about five years and nine months. And I was able to get a PharmD, also known as a doctorate of pharmacy. So this is a great route to save money because basically it's more than just the time and the money you're saving.  So it's not just money, it's not just time, it's also opportunity cost. Because during that time that my friends were still going to school for the next two years plus, I was working, I was getting experience, I was networking and doing all the things that you can do when you get an entry level job. Now, I know most people watching this channel are more focused on like bachelor level degrees. You're not, you know, there's not that many people who are thinking about getting their master's or doctorate, at least not at this point. But there are also some schools out there where you can cut the time it takes to get your bachelor's degree. Now, I have to admit, there's some degrees that are just really difficult. And even doing them in that four year stretch is going to be pretty hard. Right, we're talking about engineering degrees, physics degrees, they're probably going to take you four years. But there are many degrees that just, you know, and I don't want to make people mad, but objectively speaking, they're not as difficult as engineering or physics. And there's simply no reason why they should take you four years. And then there's universities like Western Governor University, that's one I've talked about before, where they offer programs where it's basically go at your own pace. So if you're somebody who's able to take classes really fast, then you can finish degrees and sometimes like two and a half years, two years that are usually four years. So this is something you really have to research because there's a lot of sketchy programs out there. Like I said, this could be an entire video, just this one point alone. Can't go into too much detail right now. But this is a fantastic option for the right person in the right situation, getting the right degree. Another option is kind of a similar way of cutting time down that it takes to get your degree. And that is taking extra classes, either during the semester, taking extra classes before you even start college, or taking extra classes during the summer. Okay, and this is the next tip, which is take extra classes. Now, there's many different ways to do this. You can test out of classes in high school by taking AP, also known as advanced placement or IB, international baccalaureate classes. You can also take CLEP, which stands for college level examination program exams. You can take online classes from other universities while you're at one university, or you can just take extra classes during the semester, or whatever type of program you're on, maybe you're like a quad master or a trimester program, you can take extra classes, or you can take extra classes during the summer. There's so many different ways to do this. It's very important that you talk to your college counselor and make a really good plan for this because it can get kind of complicated because you know, a lot of colleges, for instance, they'll be like, Oh, you have to take this class before you take this class. So you have to take X class before you take Y class and Y class before you take Z class and Z class before you take A class. So you have to be kind of strategic about the order that you take the classes in. But by doing this, it's very easy to shave off like one year of college, sometimes even more, sometimes you can shave off like a year and a half, two years. And again, this doesn't just save you time and money, but it's also opportunity cost. And the opportunity cost is arguably even more important than the time and the money that it saves you. Now, the next tip on the list is going to be to cut your college costs. And there's so many different ways that you can do this. I've made entire videos about different ways that you can cut your college costs, but just to kind of summarize it very quickly, the big things you want to save money on are going to be tuition, housing, transportation and food. And then one other one that can be kind of expensive is college supplies. So if you can save money on those five things, if you can really just make a plan, you don't have to get too detailed with the budget, but if you can make a plan to save money on those five things, you're really going to keep your costs low. You know, one obvious way to save money on housing is going to be to get roommates. So if you're able to get roommates during college, you know, an apartment that might cost you $1,500 normally, maybe you're only going to be paying $500 a month instead. Saving money on food, for instance, you know, crockpots are great. Pre-making your food, basically meal prepping, another really great option. This is a great way to save money. I know when I went to college, I found that, you know, between classes and stuff, I would end up going and eating at the food court all the time. And that can really add up in terms of cost. So you definitely don't want to be doing that. You want to be bringing food with you if you know that you're going to be hungry during a certain time between classes. When it comes to transportation, a lot of colleges are very bike friendly. So you, a lot of the time, you really don't even need a car. You can also just use the bus system in many cases.  And it's already taken the brunt of its depreciation. And it's also good to get a brand that has a very good reputation. It's not going to break down. And it's also good on gas. So something like Toyota or Honda. Now the next tip is going to be for you to get a job, right? Being able to work during college, being able to say that you worked during college is going to make you so much more attractive to potential employers. Most of the time in most careers, none of the employers are going to care about your GPA. They're not going to care all that much that you were, you know, the treasurer of this group or the VP of this group, if I'm being completely honest, what they really care about is your skills and your work experience. And work experience is a way to show that you probably have skills and you've been able to demonstrate them. But beyond that, getting a job is going to make you money while you're at college. And again, even if you just make a small amount every year, like even $5,000 a year, you're just working a part time job one day a week, something along those lines, maybe even one day every two weeks, it's still going to add up over time. Now the next one on the list is very similar to getting a job. And that is doing side hustles. Now I used to be super, super into side hustles. I did all kinds of different ones when I was younger. And basically it's kind of like just mini entrepreneurship. So for instance, I would use my truck to help people move people move things from point A to point B. They don't want to hire like one of those big fancy moving companies. They don't want to rent like a Pinsky or anything like that, because it's very expensive. They just want to move a small amount of things, maybe like one couch or just like a couple boxes, something like that. But it's too big to fit into their car. So what do they do? They look on Craigslist, they look on Facebook Marketplace, and they find someone who has a truck and is willing to let them use it or willing to drive it themselves and help them unload and offload all of the stuff. And you can get paid super good money. We're talking like 50 plus dollars per hour doing this. Other side hustles I've done are I would go to different like boat shows, gun shows, health shows, etc. And I would sell stuff. That's a little more advanced. And that actually started off as a job and then it turned into a side hustle. But that was the best side hustle I've ever done. The main thing that I sold was actually eyeglass cleaner. And I would routinely have thousand dollar weekends where I'd make a thousand dollars in a weekend. I had 800 plus dollar days before. So yeah, it can be very, very good if you find the right side hustle for you, even just buying and selling things on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace can put a little bit of extra money in your pocket. So it's very well known that if you join the military, you'll have access to what's known as the GI Bill. And that's essentially going to pay for your college degree. There's also ROTC scholarships. There's other things that you can do like army reserve for instance. That's one thing where essentially at least back when I looked into it, it's like one day a month you go and train and they pay you a certain amount of money to basically be in the reserves. On top of that, there's a lot of scholarships and other opportunities that open up. And again, that would take an entire video for me to go over. I did make a video on some of the benefits of joining the military. But yeah, that is an option for the right person. There's definitely some upsides and some downsides to joining the military. So next, we're going to be getting into the options where you would likely be going into debt or using kind of unconventional methods of paying for college. So the first option, of course, is for you to complete what's known as FAFSA. That is the Federal Application for Federal Student Aid. Now, you should apply for this even if you don't plan on taking out any student loans. And the reason for that is because by applying to it, it actually automatically applies for whatever school that you're applying to, their grants, their scholarships, their loans, etc. So there's certain grants and scholarships, for instance, that you can only apply to if you're from a certain socioeconomic status, and they're not just going to believe you if you mark that down. So they have to actually see your FAFSA application. So even if you're not planning on taking out loans at all, you should still fill out FAFSA, absolutely apply for FAFSA. And you should really apply to it as early as possible. I believe the current application date is October 1st. So really, you should be applying to it on October 1st, if you can. Now, if that doesn't work for you, the next step you should take is you should actually ask for more financial aid from the college itself. And the reason for that is because there might be special programs that the college has where they offer either scholarships, grants, or in this, you know, some cases loans to people who really need it, who are in certain situations, right? So, you know, let's say you're in a situation where you had a lot of medical bills, they might have a special scholarship for people who, you know, went through that. It's just really bad timing. Maybe you're in a situation where you have a child and you're having to go to college while you're taking care of a child. They might have a special scholarship or grant for that. Maybe you're in a situation where you got laid off from your job recently. Again, they might have some opportunities for you there as well. So definitely go in and ask them at the financial aid office of your university. Another option that you can consider is, especially if you're somebody who's currently working while going to college, is you can actually ask the IRS for help. There are certain educational tax benefits that the IRS offers, as well as the government. And you should especially, you know, make sure to talk about this to your accountant, right? Very, very important you tell your accountant what type of situation you're in. Because if you're going to college and you're also working at the same time, there's a very good chance that you are going to be able to apply to these tax benefits. And this can save you, in some cases, like $2,500 a year. In other cases, it can save you like $2,000 a year. There is the AOTC or the American Opportunity Tax Credit, that's one of them. Another one is the Lifetime Learning Tax Credit, right? So make sure you tell your accountant when you're filing your taxes that you're going to college and they might be able to help you out with that.  If you're in a situation where for whatever reason, you know, you can't pay for college, that's totally fine. That's why the whole student loan system works in the first place. That's what it's designed to do, is to help people who are in that situation. Now, I really recommend that you try to stick to federal student loans if you can. Going the private route is pretty risky. Those types of loans are going to have higher interest rates and you're going to have less protections. Going the federal route, especially an undergrad, is probably going to be the best way to go. And then there are ways of paying down your loans in the best possible way. And that is going to depend on how much you have, what situation you're in, what your interest rate is on, and a bunch of other things that, again, I would have to make an entire video in order to cover. But that's all for this video. Hope this gave you some ideas on how to pay for college. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Gently tap that like button. 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Now when you look at Chinese medicine or acupuncture from the eastern side or how it's actually thought of in its own culture and where it comes from practitioners often talk about Qi Quote energy and blood. Those are two really important concepts But from the western side when we talk about biomedical research that on acupuncture What is acupuncture really doing and what is it really doing even in like a general philosophical or a very very very General medical sense in this video I'm going to share a little bit about what acupuncture does both at the high level the ten thousandth of view as well as the practical view Hey, I'm Alex Hein author of the book master the day and current doctoral student in traditional or classical Chinese medicine Now I've included there the first link in the description is a free Infographic on five practices you can do daily to add ten years to your life with classical Chinese medicine So you could check it out right there in the description box below So from the biomedical point of view Typically acupuncture has been shown to work in a few key ways The first is that Studies have shown that acupuncture may alter brain chemistry by changing the release of neurotransmitters and neurohormones So it affects part of the central nervous system related to sensation as well as involuntary bodily functions such as immune system function and reactions Processes that regulate a person's blood pressure blood flow and temperature So we tend to see nervous system effects endorphin effects immune system effects Now the second category broad category is that acupuncture really does affect the autonomic nervous system effectively So the autonomic nervous system typically governs the things we think we can't control consciously So for example research has been done that shows that acupuncture can affect smooth muscle functioning Sleep quality urinary incontinence sweating rate The rate of the transient lower esophageal sphincter relaxations Which is key for acid reflux and nausea and vomiting So it affects a lot of these processes that are One of the things that we think of is why they're so important is because Acupuncture is one of the best ways to activate more of that parasympathetic reflex So acupuncture not only can help can control or affect the autonomic nervous system the thing that we can't control But also for modern people that are super stressed It really is one of the best ways of flipping on the parasympathetic Just arrest and digest switches in the body Now from the chinese medicine point of view, what are we really doing? Right we talked about qi which is quote unquote energy. I use that word very loosely and then blood So the high level of chinese medicine is that everything is about flow Where there's pain there's a saying there's no flow and when there's flow, there's no pain But how does that deal with things like SIBO bloating gut dyspiosis headaches or menstrual complaints So with gut dyspiosis for example like so many patients now complain of SIBO which is bloating Burping acid reflux what a few decades ago was called candida. This is a really big epidemic in modern times For chinese medicine one of the reasons why that occurs. There's many one of them is what's called cold So because it's actually cold in the lower part of the body in the digestive system We want to warm that up. So we use herbs and formulas that actually stimulate for example Hydrochloric acid production use warming formulas We also use herbs that biometically i'm sure have been shown to reduce biofilms and clear them out That's one of the ways that we help the flow happen the flow of qi and blood Now for a headache the same thing could be true The headache in chinese medicine can come from many many many different sources But at the end of the day if there's flow there's probably not going to be a headache or the headaches will be really reduced And with something like infertility that we end up treating a lot Infertility the most common pattern we see is what's called like a cold in the uterus pattern Where the woman may be prone to having like physically being cold But may also have like brittle nails dry or thinning hair falling out here Thyroid issues, maybe is gaining weight Dry lips dry skin Fatigue sleep issues memory issues like this pattern can all be related to cold on one level And so the lack of flow in that case is due to the cold and the constriction So the formulas we give are related to warming and moving and the acupuncture is generally designed to do the same thing warm move and circulate So that's a little bit of a glance east versus west kind of correspondences of what acupuncture specifically does But the whole theory behind chinese medicine is that no matter what modality you use Acupuncture formulas moxa massage whatever they should all move the body in the same direction So the the quote-unquote flow of energy is the most important thing to get right first That's like a an adage that we learned before anything before any treatment or medicine is administered So at the end of the day, what does acupuncture do? It helps restore the natural flow It's the traffic conductor in the body as one of my mentors said It's saying everything's shunting this way in the body But we need to make it go that way now to make even things out balance them out and make this pathological process resolve itself Now of course if you want to stay in touch the best ways to download that free guide in the description Five daily habits that 10 years to life with classical chinese medicine That'll give you a few things to work on if you're more interested Again, that's right there in the description. You can also check out my last two videos right there and right there


In the past, we have covered many ancient anomalies, out-of-place artifacts, and unexplainable features, all hinting at an ancient high technology which ancient man once possessed, an ability to create tremendous heat and thus advanced metallurgy, and in some cases, seemingly turning stone to magma, a knowledge and technology which at some point within history became lost.  Coincidentally, all sharing an inexplicable similarity with the collection of artifacts which are the focus of this video. Discovered in 2019 on Melbourne Beach, off the coast of Florida, a total of 7 artifacts, including the ancient Peruvian death mask, were found. After detailed analysis, the composition of metals used in the manufacture of the artifacts have baffled scientists. Created using copper, gold, and silver, yet what stunned those investigating the items was the presence of iridium. Not only is iridium incredibly rare on earth, with most found within meteorites, but its melting point is also yet another mystery. For as how the Inca apparently created them, if indeed the Inca were responsible in the first place, is yet to be explained. And at over 12,000 years ago, some of the artifacts clearly depict known Incan gods, one of which being Veracacha. Whether these beliefs were merely adopted, like the many unexplainable ruins we regularly cover, and claim were merely re-inhabited, is unknown. Yet what we do know is that the melting point of iridium, 2,446 degrees Celsius, any artifact dated to these tremendous ages, yet created with such tremendous temperatures, furnaces and metallurgies claimed as undiscovered during or prior to their claimed eras or ages of construction, mean that they simply shouldn't exist, yet they do. The question is how. How did the Inca acquire such rare elements? How did they manage to accomplish such temperatures and work the metals at such an early age within known history? We find their possible true origins highly compelling. In the first wing of the Egyptian museum in Cairo, close to the room of the mummies, one cannot help but be surprised by what you will discover. In a small inconspicuous display cabinet, an object like no other can be found. Made from a brittle stone known as shisht, it is similar in shape to a wheel or diskus. This mysterious and to this day unexplained item has become known among particular circles as the trilobed disk. It has perplexed all those who have examined it, especially the select Egyptologist that have had the opportunity to study it at great length. Its discoverer is known as one of the most important Egyptologists of the 20th century, author of a classic volume on Egyptology, Archaic Egypt, that continues to be an important bibliographic reference of study even to this day. While carrying out excavations in 1936 within the archaeological zone of Sakura, Emery discovered the tomb of Prince Sabu. Among several utensils of varying function, the trilobed disk would be found. Emery's attention was immediately drawn to the object, initially defining it in his reports on the first dynasty tombs as, quote, a container in the form of schist bull. Years later, he again commented on the subject with a word that perfectly summarized the reality of the situation, indicating to the discomfort the object was causing, describing it as a kachibachi, a small hole that threatens to become bigger and bigger. It seems Emery, like many others within the same field, retained their success and notoriety by deliberately and publicly denying such artifacts any traction within the public domain, denying us all a true understanding of Egyptian history or at least a questioning of the currently upheld teachings. He finished his quotation by stating that, a satisfactory explanation has not yet been obtained on the particular design of this object or indeed its construction. The accepted and predictably rigid view regarding the introduction of the wheel into ancient Egypt coincided with the invasion of the Hiscose at the end of the medium empire in 1640 BC, this date being over a thousand years after the disk's construction. Egyptologist Cyril Alred reached the conclusion that the object was, without a doubt, a copy of a previously much older metallic object. A detail next to the orifice in the center also made him suspect that this object was only a small part of a more complex mechanism and that it was saved thanks to a stone reproduction for unknown reasons made by an artist with unknown tools, and the fact that it demonstrates such a complex design at such a primitive time in ancient Egyptian history suggests its origins may have been far more unusual than modern tenants would have you believe. It is highly possible that this artifact is a fragment of one's highly advanced technologies which have subsequently been lost over the millennia. Regardless of a hypothesis, its true function, history, or indeed construction, its reason for existence remains a mystery to this day. When they land and the hatch opens, perhaps we will be looking at ourselves in the mirror. Many of you will be aware of the interstellar traveler which visited our solar system from a galaxy far far away a few years ago. Named Omoamua, it is now recognized as the first known interstellar object ever successfully detected as it passed through our solar system. Formally designated one 2017 U1, it was discovered on the 19th of October 2017 by Robert Work while using the Pan-Stars telescope at the Haleakala Observatory within Hawaii. He spotted the mysterious object 40 days post-solar transit on the 9th of September that year. Many people have wondered about the true origins and indeed true identity of the object, yet few have received the backlash which Avi Loeb experienced on November of 2018 when he published a new research paper in an astrophysics journal. Scientists publish thousands of research papers every year. These papers will often attract little public attention. However, Loeb's latest work gained a suspiciously high level of controversy and rejection when he dared to cover the rather taboo subject within this so-called official field, aliens. The subject of the paper was the mysterious supposed space rock. He posits that it likely traveled for billions of years past countless other stars before reaching our own. Eventually, it will cross the edge of our solar system and into interstellar space again. The leading hypothesis among astronomers is that Umuamua is an odd-looking comet, a remnant of another solar system kicked out by natural forces and sent barreling through the cosmos. Loeb, however, offered a rather different explanation. Quote, Umuamua could be a probe one deliberately sent to our solar system by an alien civilization. The detection of extraterrestrial beings, the most significant scientific discovery in human history, if we were ever told about such discoveries, of course. One must remember that, as a civilization, many believe systems openly objective to the possibility of alien life, many of which are over a millennial old. The thought of finding sapient life beyond Earth, of learning that we are not alone, however, is the pursuit of countless individuals within the modern world, so it is no surprise that his opinions have been so widely debated. But additionally, there is seemingly another possible reason for why the paper was so widely reported on. This being the fact that Loeb is, in fact, a tenured Harvard professor within the astronomical department. Quote, If this was some random astronomer that you had never heard of from, say, Equatorial Guinea, you probably wouldn't write a story on it, says Brian Gensler, the director of the University of Toronto's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and a former colleague of Loeb's at Harvard. He continued, There's a lot of astronomers that have outlandish ideas, and most of them aren't taken seriously by the community, and most of the time the media don't really give attention to them. End quote. Loeb has two decades worth of experience, and is well regarded in the field. So, regardless of what others would like him to believe, his opinions matter. Was Umamwa really an ancient alien's exploratory craft, once buying on ours and many other solar systems? If it is, it means we are indeed not alone. What's more, it means we have undoubtedly been found. So, the professor's opinions, no matter how controversial, we find highly compelling. Enlongated skulls have been unearthed in many places on earth, linked to ancient cultures globally. To this day, artificial practices of accomplishing this striking deformation can be witnessed among remote tribes in certain parts of the world. Thanks to this, and indeed the remains that have been found and studied previously, we not only now understand how this elongation is artificially accomplished, but also anomalies found on some specific and rather special specimens. For example, if one exumes the remains of the ancient civilization of the Han culture, one is able to establish many things regarding the past technique, the individual skull which endured said practice. This can often be done by tracking the cranial napping found upon all human skulls. However, what makes others so intriguing, for example, the Paracas skulls or the lost-belief-stolen skulls of Malta, this napping that one would expect to see is either absent or, if present, not of a deformed nature, suggesting that the previous owners of these craniums had this naturally from birth, leading to many hypothesizing that they were either a now lost subspecies or possibly an ancient alien visitor. If we track the provenance of these beings, one can also argue this increased cranial mass as a possible contributing factor in increased intelligence. Many of the ancient pharaohs of Egypt exhibit this, and indeed the skulls found at the ruins in Malta with its astonishing acoustic properties. There are burials, evidence of them once being valued members of these societies, but also the possible contributors to the advancements in technology and architecture found at these sites. The most unusual, however, those with no evidence of binding have been found at many prehistoric sites, such as the so-called alien mines along the banks of Lake Superior. Lloyd Pie has also made a lucrative business promoting the discovery of a curious humanoid skull he found a few years ago. Although not dismissed as a deformity, many still strongly believe it to be that of a human alien hybrid. Regardless of the artificial binding which still occurs, questions remain. Why do some of these skulls appear to have been natural? Why is the ancient practice undertaken? Who inspired it? Why were the exquisite skulls of Malta stolen? Are we really looking at the remains of ancient alien visitors? It is an area of historical research which we find very intriguing. President Putin recently visited one of the most mysterious places on earth, the ruins of the ancient town of Arkheim. Historians, archaeologists, and UFOologists have spent many years trying to unravel the secrets of this place. Which nation was living in Arkheim more than 40 centuries ago? How did people of such ancient civilization manage to accomplish the incredible technological progress on earth there? The Arkheim Valley was supposed to be flooded in 1987. Local authorities were intending to create a water reservoir there to irrigate drought-prone agriculture. However, scientists found strange ancient circles in the center of the valley. Authorities gave archaeologists 12 months to explore the area. Scientists were shocked at what they discovered. However, it is not the unusual earthworks that have attracted investigators but rather what was recently discovered beneath. A discovery which has seen several renowned alien investigators rushing to this remote and forgotten slice of the Russian landscape in search of the undeniable proof that we are not alone. Researcher Maria Makarova and her team were able to unearth a remarkably well-preserved skeleton in the ground beneath the site. However, it soon became evident that this was no normal skeleton. And although the research team have attempted to disagree with the clear possibility of it not actually being human remains. Choosing to suspect that the skeleton somehow belonged to a woman from the Sarmati tribe, which lived in what is now Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Kazakhstan about 2,000 years ago. It unfortunately appears that this is an attempt to discredit the real possible value of these remains. This, being a logical move by all professional researchers funded by an academia which would not appreciate such honest and clearly forgivable assumptions based on current evidence being publicly disclosed. For example, firstly, the Sarmatia tribe may have practiced headbinding. However, this practice is largely believed to have been located in other parts of the world, and the lack of any additional fines within the tribe supporting this assumption would seem this is a deceptive conclusion to arrive at. Additionally, when headbinding was undertaken, unmistakable evidence of such is left upon the skull. Deformed cranial napping, the stitching of the skull will not appear as normal, yet, alas, the stitching will always be present and easily identifiable. Though astonishingly, this skull clearly shows no evidence of binding on the photographs. What's more, and perhaps more pressing, is the lack of any cranial stitching visible whatsoever. This stitching of the skull plates is part of human growth, we all have them, yet this skeleton does not. What do you think regarding the find, an abnormal tribe member buried beneath an extremely ancient mysterious site, or something else entirely?