for the introduction. What a great service you have here for everyone. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Can you see it? Can you see my screen? Orange cover. Yes. Excellent. Thank you for that. Okay, folks. Here we go. Nice to nice you to join today. We're going to talk about the ABCs of real estate investment trusts or what they call REITs. We're going to go ahead and go through about 15 minutes or so of content and then I'll ask you to, and then I'll open up for a few questions. I'll have Nancy monitor the chat. So Nancy, so please, any questions you have, put them in the chat. She'll look at them and prioritize them and synthesize them and we'll take a few and then we'll take a few more 10 minutes later and then we'll take some at the very end. So I'm looking forward to that. I think that's probably the best part of the presentation is being able to answer your questions. Okay, here's our disclosures. I won't read this, but it just basically says this is educational. So whatever you'd like to think about doing or want to do, you should check with your own certified financial planner, your tax person, your attorney. You want to go and make sure that it's appropriate for you. Okay, and here's your agenda today. We're going to talk about a couple of different things. First, we're going to go over the basics on REITs so that we're all on the same page. Second, we're going to talk about the numbers really kind of a case for adding REITs to a overall portfolio. Then we're going to talk about the pros and cons a bit and go into a case study of an actual real estate investment trust. We'll redact the name of that trust, but I want to show you how that works. Then we're going to give examples of three potential buyers of REITs, and it'll take your questions at the very end. Okay, so the first question is what is a REIT? First of all, a REIT is managed by a management team, an investment management team of professionals with lots of experience in commercial real estate. Right away, when I say the word commercial real estate, it includes things like apartment complexes, office buildings, warehouses, industrial, that sort of thing, retail specialty. Commercial real estate generally does not include single family properties for plexus, that sort of thing. That's where the distinction is. That would be while those could be investment real estate properties, those aren't defined as commercial real estate. So there's a pool of managers in any fund that actually manages them in their typically very experienced long tenures. They can be either available publicly, which means that they can be purchased from the stock exchange. You can open up a Schwab E-Trade, something like that, or work with a financial advisor and purchase through that, or something that can be private, which means that they're not available through a purchase of a stock symbol. Each REIT includes each commercial REIT that's publicly available, includes thousands of investors. So it's just not you and your roommate or you and your family member investing, but these are lots of folks that you've never met before. That's not a bad thing. They're all contributing the same thing. They're all contributing money. And this money goes into a fund that raises enough money to go out there and purchase commercial properties. So that's what that means in terms of having lots of investors there. The portfolios are diversified. A couple of different things about that. One is that they don't just buy one or two or three properties, but REITs tend to buy dozens or hundreds of properties. And the value of these properties as an aggregate are generally about half a billion to a billion or more dollars. So there's a lot of real estate share at play. And so in that way, because they invest different in different properties in different parts of the country or even the world, they are diversified geographically. And then finally, there are very low minimums. So we're talking about billions of dollars. We're talking about thousands of investors. We're talking about lots of skilled managers. But in the very end for investors, the minimums to be involved in a REIT can be as small as $2,000 or $5,000 or even for some of the ones that are traded $1,000. So they're actually within reach. You don't have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity to invest in a real estate trust anymore. You can do it with a few thousand dollars or even money in your IR account. Okay, so let me give you a little bit of an outline of what the timeline is for REITs. Back in 1960, Congress said, yes, the REIT structure can exist. So that was about 61 years ago and they allow the use of REITs, aggregation of properties to be sold to the public for investment purposes. Then in 61, you saw the very first community shopping center REITs and shopping mall REITs. That was early on in 1971. That's when you began to see the rise of apartment and warehouse REITs and distribution facilities. It was way back in 71. Go to 86, self-storage, actually from 86 for a couple of years. That was quite a hot commodity there, self-storage REITs. Again, real estate investment trusts. 88, we have suburban office parks that came out of the REIT scene. In 2001, gasoline stations, there are REITs for gasoline stations. Basically, if you can think of a property type and commercial real estate, there's probably a REIT for that. In 2004, data centers, that makes total sense given the rise of the Internet and e-commerce. 2012, pipelines and single-family rentals, that's when those REITs came on the scene. Finally, the last example is electric transmission lines in 2015. You can actually buy a REIT for that. Then there's lots of other ones that we didn't cover, the movie theaters, the banks, the life science buildings, and so on. But like I said, chances are there's an asset class that you like. There's probably a REIT that addresses that asset class. Okay, so now we're going to divide this up a little bit. A little bit technical here. I'll try to make it simple, and I'll encourage your questions definitely in a few minutes. But there are two different types of REITs. One is a traded REIT, which means that people like us, you and I can access these by putting our dollars into the fund. Then there's non-traded REITs. A traded REIT is, which is the same thing, except they're not on the open market. For example, a traded REIT is listed on the open market. What that means is that you can actually see it. You can go to Yahoo Finance or anywhere else. You put in the symbol numbers, you look at it by the name of it, and you'll get the symbol numbers. It's actually traded. It's available for trade daily on the business day, and you can get out of it when you want. In that way, it's liquid. There's liquidity. If you need the money, you can go ahead and within three or four days, you'll be out of that fund. There's control because you have a chance to go and get in when you want, and you can get out when you want. You have control over that investment. Now, what you don't have control over is what the performance is between the time you get in and out, but you do have control over when you take your funds and decide to move them. They have daily share values. At the end of every trading day, you'll see what the end of the day value is, and you can market every single day if you want. Not a good idea to look at your investments every day, but you can if you want with these traded REITs. Then finally, there are less restrictions because they're more liquid and they're more visible. The non-traded REITs, you can invest in those too, but the difference is that there's pros and cons to them, but the difference is that they're not listed. You won't be able to look up their ticker symbol. It doesn't mean it's bad because you can't find it. It just means that it's private. It's non-traded. On the one hand, you can't see it every day, and on the other hand, it's actually more transparent than traded because with traded REITs, you normally don't get to see all the investment positions that you're in, but with the non-traded, they actually will give you a list, typically a list of every single property, purchase price, cash flows, and the whole bit. They're illiquid, so there's generally a holding period. The holding period lasts anywhere from three years to nine years. It depends on the fund perspectives and perspectives and what they hope to accomplish with their holding period. They're more tax efficient. I'll give you an example of that later, but you can actually get an after-tax yield that's greater than many other investments because they do allow for you to be able to take advantage of the tax efficiency of real estate. They're less volatile because they're not traded every day and because the prices don't change every day. There is volatility in them, but it doesn't happen until the entire fund is valued. There are typically higher dividend rates and there are various exit options. They can actually at the end of the non-traded rate period, they can go public and have its own IPO. They can sell their properties out at chunks at a time or one at a time or they can merge with another rate. That's typically what the exit options are for non-traded rates. We're going to dig into the last technical part here, private versus public. A lot of things that you might hear about regarding small family or small group investments are really private. They're not really available for the public to buy into. These are typically individuals, regulation D offerings, group offerings, private investors, that sort of thing. Those are private investments not open to the public. What we're going to focus more on is we're going to focus more on the public offerings and all the public offerings are SEC registered. That means there's some sort of oversight. There's regulation to this and that brings some people a little bit more peace of mind that there's somebody overlooking the entire process and perhaps the funds are held accountable to a much greater extent than they are on the private side. There are the trader rates we talked about. We just mentioned a little bit about those earlier where those are liquid. There are the non-traded ones where they're illiquid, but they have other features of them that are beneficial to some investors. And then there's something called the interval fund, which is kind of a hybrid. It is like a non-traded rate. You get the benefits of the steadiness, the cash flow, the tax advantage.  So keep that in mind. There's a kind of a fund right in the middle of the two, the traded and non-traded, that might be suitable, might hit the spot for some investors. Okay. So the typical life cycle of a REIT is that they raise money. So in the very, say the very first third of his life cycle, they're raising money from people like you and I. They're typically doing this through the different platforms or the advisors that they work with, that they're approved to offer their properties or fund to. Then they take it to after they've done, after they're done raising money, they stop the raise and then they spend a number of years stabilizing the assets. And what stabilizing the assets means is that they are taking what they purchased and they're trying to improve on them or strengthen them. So for example, they might have purchased a building with an occupancy of 85% and perhaps a target on that is 93%. And that's what they're working to do. They're looking to increase rents over time. When inflation happens and the costs of goods increases, it's typically that real state follows. So when you increase rents, because people are paid and I guess they are rewarded, when the value and the income increases over time, it increases the share value when rents increase. So they're stabilizing, they're working hard to stabilize these properties and make them into a nice exit for the investor. Now I'm talking about the non-traded rates, the ones that they hold for three to nine years. And then the third part of the cycle is that they sell a portfolio in one of the three areas or three ways that I mentioned earlier. Okay. So we're going to talk about numbers now for a little bit and then I'll take a few questions. And you want to get your questions into Nancy, put them in the chat and she'll look at them. And we want to stick to questions on things that we've been talking about so far, because there's probably some other things that you might have questions on that we'll cover in a few minutes. Okay. So let's take a look at the numbers. This chart is interesting. This is a chart put together by JP Morgan. And what they've done is they source the return rates of a variety of different types of investments over a 20 year period. The 20 year period ended in December 2019. So it's fairly recent, not exactly till last year, but fairly recent, but it goes back to 99. So when you take a look at all of the different investments here on this bar chart, you see REITs, you see gold, the S&P 500 exchange, 6040 means 60% stocks, 40% bonds in the 4060 is a flip of that. So you'll see all these asset classes. This has been, these are measured over a 20 year period. So what that means is, for example, with real estate, it considers the bust of residential real estate, which is not necessarily commercial, but in 2008 and in the rise of real estate before that, it considers the drop of the what the dot com bust back in the early 2000s and the other drop in 2008. So this covers a lot of period, a long period of time. So if you look at it in the last 20 years, and so this is a really cherry pick, this is not in the last three or five years, REITs have done really well in terms of return rate. Gold has done good. The stock market has done okay too. Some people are surprised as 6.1. Some people thought it would be less, some people more. Take a look at homes. Homes are defined as places where people live. In other words, they're not investment properties. They're lifestyle assets, places you purchase or you rent. The appreciation for homes has been 3.4 percent over that time. Inflation has been 2.2. And by the way, the average investor has been just under 2 percent. A little bit disappointed to see that. The reason for that is generally the investor chases what is hot. What is hot generally drops over time. What is actually not performing well, generally increases over time typically. So when somebody chases something that's kind of hot or on top, they're probably in for a decline coming forward. That's just the way that worked. And that's an actual number. That's a not a good number, but it's a number that has been verified. So REITs have done a good job. Even if I throw in last year, if I just speculate a little bit on last year, this REITs performed, the trade REITs performed like the stock market. So they probably have maintained or, you know, their 11 percent return rate on an average for 21 years. If I had to just guess on that, the non-trader REITs, some of them would define some of them hurt, but it's not over here because they're still going through their cycles. So, and of course, remarkably, the stock market did well, the market not so well last year. So, but still, this is a 20 year average. So even if you add last year into this, you won't get much more of a difference. All right. So this is looking back where it's not looking forward, but I thought it was interesting to show you what the REITs actually do a pretty decent job in terms of return for investors. OK, let's talk about what tax advantage means, because I know this is a question that comes up often. I teach a class at UC Berkeley Extension. It's real estate investing, and we hold it in San Francisco or recently on Zoom. And so I know people really want to know about this. I'm going to try to make quick work on this here. We're going to make an assumption of a hundred thousand dollar investment for a moment. And we're going to go ahead and assume that that investment produces a 6 percent return rate. All right. Now, and real estate on non-traded real estate and also real estate that you hold directly this investment property, you can depreciate that property over time. You can also write off the mortgage interest. So let's assume for right now, and this is not outrageous, but let's assume that I am able to deduct 50 percent of the income thanks to depreciation and mortgage interest. OK, and also there's something new a couple of years to call qualify business income that I can deduct 20 percent off from the very top. So that's another tax benefit for most of the rates out there. And then there's the let's say assume that we're in the 35 percent tax brackets together. All right. So that's the assumptions that we want to make. Let's see what happens with those assumptions if we invest in a note. A note is basically taking back a note from somebody you lend them a hundred thousand dollars and they pay you 6 percent a year. That's what that is. So on a pre tax yield, you get your 6 percent, which means that you get $6,000, which isn't too bad. But there's no write off because notes are all ordinary income tax. There's no tax benefits to that. So your taxable distribution is still 6 percent. There's no QBI deduction or credit for that either. So it's still 6 percent of a hundred thousand. So $6,000. So your taxable net net taxable distribution is $6,000. We're at the 35 percent tax bracket. That means that the government keeps $2,100. That means we get to keep in our pocket after that $6,000, $3,900. This is really important because people really want. It's really about what you keep at the very end of your investment, not necessarily what you make on a gross basis. OK, so and we're at the 35 percent tax brackets are effective tax on this investment was 35 percent because there's no deductions or no tax advantage. And that means our yield or actual yield was not 6 percent on this investment, but it was 3.9 percent. So much less than six, but it's part for the course, given, you know, the assumption that laid out here. Let's say that you put that $100,000 into a REIT. You get that same 6 percent assumption that we made. The distribution is $6,000, but then we get to write off half of that for for tax write offs. So that means we're only taxed on $3,000 of that so far. And then we get 20 percent of that QBI credit to for most REITs that most REITs get. So that means you save another $600 in taxable income. That means that your net net taxable distribution is $2,400. You take 35 percent off of that and the taxes only 840 compared to 2100. You get to keep $5,160. That means that your average tax rate for that investment was 14 percent, well, less than the 35 percent on the note or a similar investment. And that means that your after tax yield after you pay taxes is 5.15 percent. So you can see why a directly held real estate real estate investment trust with tax advantages like this. You can see why people love the tax advantage of real estate. And by the way, to get the same 5.15 percent after tax yield on my note, I would actually have to yank that up to about a 7 almost an 8 percent pre-tax yield or interest rate, which is hard to do because people won't pay more than they have to pay. So it gives you an idea what the tax advantages of REITs. OK, pros and cons. Why are REITs so popular? One is diversification. It allows you to diversify your portfolio from not just stocks and bonds to stocks, bonds and perhaps real estate. So here's an example of that. Now there's two circles here. I'm going to ask you to focus on the first one. The first one is a circle, a chart that represents 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds. Well, during a 20 year period, the same one we talked about earlier ending 2019, so 20 years is a good period of time. The return rate for a 60 40 portfolio stock bond was 5.71 percent. And the volatility rate was 7.1. Now I don't want to go into a big explanation on volatility and what this number means, but I will say that the lower the volatility number, the lower the volatility of that portfolio is. So you really want a lower number and 7.1 is not a terrible number, but still it's 5.7 return rate with a 7.1 volatility rate. If I simply added during that same time, 10 percent commercial real estate REITs in there, right, then I would have come up with a return rate that is 30 pieces points higher, 6 percent than the other 60 40. And I would my volatility would have dropped by about to 6.4 percent instead of 7.1. And remember, we want more less volatility. We want a lower number. So you can see just by adding 10 percent rates in there. During that same period of time, it would have improved performance and reduced volatility, which most people seek from their investments. OK, a few more than we'll take a few questions. It's non-correlated. What non-correlation means is that when what non-correlation means, excuse me, is that when the stocks go up, it doesn't mean that the REITs will follow or when the stocks drop, it doesn't mean that the REITs will follow. So in that regard, they're non-correlated just because you hear the stock market news and it's one. It's a big news increase or decrease one day doesn't mean that REITs will follow. So it gives people a little bit of way to to average out their risk reward experience. OK, these are institutional rule states investments. These are big buildings, typically 10, 15, 20 million dollar buildings, 50 million dollar buildings. It's the stuff that you see when you want, when you go into San Francisco or Oakland or San Jose and the things that you can't imagine owning. And by being part of a REIT structure, you might own a brick of that, perhaps. And you're on the board with that. It's passive income. And in my experience, that's really what most people want. They really what they really want real estate for is they wanted to generate income for themselves and their families and want to be passive and they want to allow them to work less and relax more. And that's really what the the main thing is. Now, it's passive and it's tax advantage. And by the way, it's not quarterly, the stock market. Boy, that's great. They're low minimums. That's why they're popular. Even somebody, though, with two hundred thousand dollars of of equity, who would otherwise invest in a property on their own, they may not want the hassle of the management. They want may want something more passive and already generate an income where they don't have to worry about all the other stuff, especially in the last year where we saw landlords really had to compromise a lot with, you know, what they could do with tenants and what they could do to collect rents and so on. If you're the actual investor in that, it was probably a challenge for you. It was a challenge for the runner and it was also a challenge for the investor. And then also people love real estate. I mean, they people cannot get enough of it. When real estate is going well, people love it. When real estate is going poorly, people see opportunity. It's not the same with stocks where people's the market goes down. People get scared and they want to sell. When real estate, they see opportunity there. So people love real estate. So Nancy, I think we'll I think we'll open it up here and we'll take some questions and see see what we've got. OK, well, the first question is are REITs audited by certified public account third party? Yeah, that's a great question. The so they remember there's two different types of REITs. One is the private ones and the other ones are the public ones. The public ones are but they're the the range of quality of REITs are great. So you want to stick to the higher quality REITs that do have third party auditing and they do make these reports available on a regular basis that do have to report to the SEC and also are accountable to the financial regulatory organization called FINRA. So yes, they can be not necessarily on the private side, but on the ones that we've been talking about. Yes, but you still want to go ahead and do more research and make sure that they're on the higher end side so that you're getting the benefit of all of that due diligence in that reporting. Great question. Great. On your slide, where it says how do REITs perform? The one with REITs goal and the S&P 500. What does EA FE stand for? Oh, that's a foreign stock exchange. That's a symbol for a non a domestic or non U.S. stocks. OK, and this question I'm not sure I completely understand, but the QBI deduction is that they're asking is that for active managers or passive investors? Yep, has nothing to do with either of that. It has to do with the structure of the investment itself. Or a QBI is also good for some professions. Some business owners can take QBI. I think like I think real estate investors are a good example of real estate brokers are one. CPAs, a lot of business because it can take QBI deduction, but many of the REITs can take it as well. OK, so questions here. And another one, how do REITs go up and down in value with inflation? How does inflation affect them? Typically, so I can't speak universally for all the REITs, but typically inflation is good for real estate and REITs. The reason is because when there's inflation, that means there's increased increased cost of goods. Whereas there's an increased cost of goods. It means that the landlords need to increase through rents. So that's what happens. Everything goes up and then includes real estate. Real estate is right there with the rest of everything else. And it's counted as part of that cost living index too. So it's inflation. Inflation is not great for everybody, but for REITs and REIT investors is generally good news. So we'll take one more and then we'll go back to the presentations. OK, actually, there's two similar ones, but someone said if Amazon is successful in taking over brick and mortar retail, would that hurt REITs and is the working from home trend affecting REITs? OK, gosh, great questions. I love those questions. So Amazon, you know, if they're successful, the brick and mortar, which means that they go more on retail and they're more in our local neighborhood rather than entirely on our front doorstep is what that means. They don't own a lot of the properties that they use. So it is so, for example, I'm here in Pleasanton. I'm here in San Ramon and the Stone Ridge Mall is having a struggling keeping their doors a couple of retailers in there. Amazon is working out and it was not Amazon. It could be anyone else working out where they take over some of the major space there and be able to use it as an outlet. So actually, Amazon might actually say that shopping center. It's actually more of a shopping mall. So I was I could do do very well on that. And a couple of the recent we offer in many of them, Amazon, especially the warehouse REITs, Amazon is a major tenant. So and the reason is they rather least than own because it's off their books and they're not to real estate heavy. You know, they're not a real estate company. Regarding the second thing with COVID and the how I think the question is essentially how it's changed REITs. Some REITs really did very well and some didn't do so well. So I think you'll I think the person asked this question will follow this. The REITs, the category that didn't very well is hospitality. Hospitality is basically hotel resorts, that sort of thing. Those hurt. I mean, they had a drop of about 40, 50 percent in value as well as a corresponding drop of income now. So now they're stabilized. Some of them had to go out of business. They're not when they're REITs, that means they have lots of them. They they the REIT doesn't go out of business, such as some of their properties might not do well. I haven't heard of any hospitality doing terribly. But I have heard of people who own hotel space doing poorly because of that, but they're not part of a restructure. So that's one. The other one is medical centers and facilities, especially elder care. Those REITs didn't do as well, because that was a scary place to be in the last 12 months. On the other hand, an office did actually pretty decently. Office is still kicking out an income because the REITs by office buildings with large tenants that guarantee that basically are required to pay no matter who shows up shows up to the office or not. So the office rates actually didn't do so bad. And warehouse REITs really took a rise. They did. There's not enough for them out there. They can't build in fast enough. So it depends on which, you know, which category. I think the the opportunity is to be part of a mix of different types of REITs.  And they mitigate their loss by being involved in any one category. Great questions. OK, we're going to come back to this in a few minutes here. Let's get back to our regular programming. Oops. There we go. OK. Nancy, can you see the slide? Not yet. OK. Do this again. OK. There's that look. OK. Thank you. OK. So on we go. What are the primary risks? And this is something that's really important to think about. People always underestimate risk. And they're so eager to do something that they don't think about that. So to pay attention to some of these here, not real estate trusts or any sort of real estate investment is not suitable to all investors. And sometimes you just don't have enough money to make it happen. Sometimes you got to pay the bills and keep the lights on. Sometimes it's better to be boring for a while and just be stable. So it's not suitable for everybody. There's never a guaranteed performance. Anything that's invested, anything that's not in cash is an investment. Anything that's investment is speculative. So there's certainly no guaranteed performance. Upon liquidation of a REIT, you might actually end up with less than you started out with. So there's that possibility. There's a possibility of loss. There's limited liquidity with non-traded REITs. You're relying on fund managers to make the selection for you. I think for most people in general, it's better to have an expert do it for you than not, but just something to know that you're relying on that manager, that team. And there's various economic factors that can play into the performance, interest rates, legislative risk, which is law. You know, how will they change the laws to change the benefit of the investment that are bought offering expenses, insurance costs, and a turnover, that sort of thing. OK, so those are good risks to consider. Typically, the question is in this sort of format, you know, then what should I be looking for when I think about a real estate investment trust? And what I put together here is a page of considerations. And I broke them down by types, investment objectives, portfolio statistics, distribution, taxation and debt and leverage. So this is a really good starting point. I think that if you went through and understood most of this about the investment you're making, you are much better informed than most investors when they decided to make this sort of investment. OK, so I hope that you can use this chart. By the way, the slides are available to you. I think there's a recording that will be posted as well. So you're welcome to revisit this if you like. My email address is at the bottom. So if you have questions, there's something like some sort of direction I can provide. I'm up for a quick message like that. So feel free to reach out to me. OK, so we're going to talk about a real set example here called a read story. And we're going to use a case for a warehouse and industrial. So what I consider what most people consider the most boring asset real estate asset class out there or property type. Apartments are interesting. Office buildings, retailers, they're vibrant. These things you drive by on the highway. So most people don't get really excited about owning an industrial warehouse. Right. But I want to I want to make a case for why it's not a bad thing to consider. All right. First of all, look at the increase in population over time. So I've got it from 2015 to projected 2045. Now, right now for 2021, it's we have about 330, 335 million people in America. OK, it's expected to get to 300 and almost 60,000 by 2030 and by 389,000 by 2045. That is a huge increase in population here. One person is gained every 14 seconds. That's quite remarkable. OK, so the case for warehouses. One is the population growth. Population growth is very big. The second is that whoops with the increase in population and the increase in our individuality here because we all want something that's unique or different for us. They have a lot more skews, what's called stock keeping units. So whenever you see a barcode and you see a shampoo that's one type, but it's in four different sizes. Those are four different skews, right? And you multiply that by the type of shampoo and damage, non-damager, whatever you like, all the toothpaste out there. Everyone's got a skew. So there's more and more of these being created, not less. So when you have more skews, it means you have more products. That means you have need more space. There's global manufacturing. I mean, we're trading more than ever before.  And that means that more things are ended up at our doorsteps than ever before as well, especially in the last year. Companies of all these things make a great case for why more warehouses will be needed in the future. Here's the actual role of a warehouse in the life cycle of a product. And we're going to use toothpaste for a moment, right? So here's if you I'll read this through with you, I'll kind of skip through it a bit, but warehouse distribution, warehouse number one, this is where all the raw material goes before it's brought together to make the toothpaste. So there's different warehouses all around the world. And then then they're brought together in the second second panel here and they're manufactured somewhere. Let's assume that's not a warehouse for a moment. And then they're done with manufacturing and they ship them out to another warehouse. All done in these big boxes ready to be shipped out. OK, then it goes to warehouse number three in this cycle. And that generally is a warehouse somewhere in the region where it's like a stop before it gets parted out. And then warehouse number four is closer to your home. And warehouse number five is the last place at the Safeway or a Walmart or even if it's upon your doorstep, that's the last that's the point of sale. So in this, not including the manufacturing, there's four warehouses being used for a tube of toothpaste. All right. So that's just for toothpaste, by the way. That's not for that does include all the other things out there. Let's see. So that's the case for warehouses. I will tell you this. I will add this that since I really started focusing on real estate and financial planning over the last 16 years, warehouses have been probably according to Price Waterhouse Cooper. They have been in the slightly higher than average return rate for commercial properties and slightly lower than average volatility or risk rate for commercial properties. So they've been in that nice quadrant there for the entire time, pretty much. So something to think about just because it is boring doesn't mean that it's not a good thing to think about. Finally, we're going to go into three examples of REIT buyers. And I'll try to make this quick so I can take questions here because I know we're about 15 minutes away from being done. REIT investor number one, OK, Mort and Biddy Gage, their retirement bound. All right. So let's see what their situation is. They are retiring. They have an interest in real estate investing. They have income needs in their retirement of $95,000. And their social security is going to take care of $60,000 of them. So what that means is that they have an income gap that they didn't have before retirement of $35,000. So the question is, how do we solve this gap? Well, just to give you some more background, they have cash of $150,000. They have investment accounts of $700,000 and our account our accounts of $500,000. That's what they've got. So here's one approach. There's different things. There's different things to consider, you know, but here's one approach. They invest $100,000 each in two tax advantage REITs. Right. One is a triple net REIT, which means simply that there's not a lot of expenses that generate a 6% yield. And because there's 6% yield, it means that there's an 8% tax equivalent. Remember that chart we showed you earlier. So let's say that 6% really means 8% before the tax advantage or 8% for any other investment that they would have to match that.  Well, what this says is that if they do the $200,000 there, and they get that return rate, the REITs will generate $15,000 of income. All right. So we've taken $200,000 of their $1.2 million and that leaves them a million dollars left to generate the other $20,000 of income, which is only 2%. So really taking the heavy lifting, the REITs taking the heavy lifting of the income helps them relax and say, can I can I pull out 2% of my million dollars for a while and make that work? And the answer is probably yes, as long as they do a good job behaving on all the other investments. OK, so the benefits of the decision is that they got their first vacation like they're hoping for. They have non-correlation so that the investments in the REITs will be different than the other investments. The REITs cover 43% of their $35,000 gap. They have tax advantage income and they have other assets to solve for other needs. Perhaps there's long-term care down the road. They might need cash and some of the other million dollars. So there you go. There's more embedded gauge in the case for them. OK, number two, here's a younger family. We're going to go to the other side of it. Some of you are the thirties. They call the younger family and there's a call. That's a greater calling. So the situation is this, the dad is a top income producer. Mom is a higher earner as well. They're great savers. OK, and mom wants to spend more time with kids now. So the problem of the challenges is how do we replace her income? Well, here's one approach again. We invest in dividend producing assets, not REITs, but there's other assets that produce dividends out there that are tax advantage. Right now, a very good fund on a dividend produced being basis is about 45%, 4 to 5%. And it's tax advantages, tax at a dividend rate, which is lower for most people. It's at 15% instead of our ordinary income tax rate. So there's that. They can do also a private note. They can do a high dividend, large company stock. OK, they can do a diversified income producing REIT. So there you go. There's different ways to produce the dividends, replace the wife's income. OK, the benefit of the decision is that there's diversification again, non-correlation, a mix of ordinary and tax advantage income. Most people like that, but they don't know exactly how to achieve that. And more time with the kids, most importantly. OK, last one is a single woman named Broker Bar Barker. I don't know why I made that so tough for myself. If she's seeking a hedge, let's see what that means. Her situation is that she's a high income earner. All right. She is 100% in stocks and bonds. So she can relate to real estate because she sells it. She's a real soup broker. She's broker Barb. OK, she wants to avoid the active management. She's seeing how actively managing real estate has been a little bit challenging for some of her clients. She wants to avoid that because she really enjoys just selling the real estate. She has a self-directed IRA account. This is important. OK, and she won't retire for another 10 or 20 years. So here's the thing about Barb. She doesn't need the income, but she wants diversification. The REITs generate income. When they generate income, they are taxed. That's where the SEP IRA comes in. If you put the REIT in the IRA account and it generates the income, it'll simply grow the IRA account balance, but it won't be taxed. So this is a great use of, especially in this situation. So one approach is she uses her self-directed IRA account to make a read investment. She splits the read investment among three different REITs. So that way she's allocated among the REITs. She has different property types. One read is perhaps opportunistic or as aggressive. She can take a little bit more chance on that, a little more risk reward on that. The benefits are that she got diversification and the non-correlation. It satisfies her anxiety around being too concentrated, too. She wanted that hedge. So satisfies the anxiety about being too concentrated in stocks and bonds. Real estate is an income that's taxed and deferred in her IRA account. And she's got a long time horizon. That three to nine years will work out perfectly for somebody to retire in 10 to 20 years. And by the way, this is really important. She can also use this as an example of a test on REITs before she retires, because once she retires, then maybe she would want to buy some REITs under her taxable accounts in that way, that income will be taxed advantage. All right. So those are our examples here. I'm going to skip this one here, the buy or sell thing. I'm going to leave this to all the good folks on here. Here's my contact information. Don't abuse it, but use it if you need. Happen to help out and be a traffic cop on your questions. All right. Let's go back to your questions then. Go ahead and stop sharing. OK. There are a number of questions about where should they do research to find a good REIT or to research more in depth, a particular REIT. And how do you determine as you're doing your research if it's a high quality REIT? Let's see. There's a couple of different questions. Let's tackle them in order. One is how do you do your research? It depends on which direction you decided to go. If you decided to go on a traded REIT or so available on the exchange, you can buy it on Schwab, that sort of thing, there's lots of research out there for these REITs. So in fact, they actually give ratings in the compare REIT. So there's a lot of data out there. You can do that through your platform that you're on, whether it be Fidelity or whatever it is. So there's lots of resources that way. That's taking your research. I would use my grid that I created earlier as a baseline for sort of things to look for when you do your research. So put those two together and you're probably off to a good start. In terms of the non-traded REITs, the suggestion, those are harder to get because because you're non-traded, that means that they have to go through a financial advisor who is authorized to sell them. Not all the advisors out there are licensed or have the licenses to sell these non-traded REITs. They're not commissioned. They can be commissioned. They can be fee. So it's not about fee and commission. It really is about having the licenses to do that. That person would have the information that you would need for that because if they're non-traded, that means that they have to go through that filter. You can go ahead and look for non-traded REITs and do some research. You get some done on the web, the websites of those REIT companies themselves. But probably since these are generally going to be purchased from an advisor, you might want to establish a relationship with an advisor like that and then let them know what their goals are, try to match up your goals and what they have and then go from there. And they'll kind of streamline it for you and get you all of them. But in the very end, with those non-traded REITs, you get a lot of information. You get the prospectus. There's a lot of material in there. It's probably more than you would expect. And certainly it'll check all the boxes. So that's how you do that. How do you end up with a higher quality REIT? You know what? I think what you look at is you look at a couple of things. The one is the property type they invest in. Second is the management team. There really is a big difference in management teams out there than all the same. And the third is the experience of the track record of the fund manager because they have more likely more than just that one fund that they're offering. They've had other ones and they've had other funds go through full cycles. So you can look back and see on their track record how they've done and how they've weathered the tough times. And if they had a bad year or two or three, I think the question is to learn more about what happened during that time because just because it was bad doesn't mean it was a bad manager or bad fund. It could have been just a bad period for that asset property type. So I think that answers most of that question, Nancy. Yeah, definitely. And you kind of answered this too, but can REIT sometimes result in a passive activity loss? Yes, they can. Yes, so on a REIT, a passive activity loss would be that you lose. Let's say you buy it here, ten dollars a share. You sell it at eight dollars a share, most definitely. It's like any other investment. If you sell it at eight, you got two dollars a share, lost times the number of shares you have. And you would write that off against other passive gains that you would have. OK, and then another question. Are there state tax advantages to REITs? No, there's not. One thing I don't know is I don't know the impact of QBI to each state. So I don't want to carve that out and say to ask your tax person for that. But otherwise, there's no tax advantage. They're not like muni bonds where there it could be good or not not reusable in the state that you're in, not the same with the REITs. And then someone directly asked for if you have a suggestion for a REIT, a traded REIT mutual funds. You know what, I don't have a recommendation for that person. But I do have a fund that I I've been looking at for a while now. They have a good track record, but I would I would encourage this person. This is not advice for them and not a recommendation, but I would encourage them to look into more and talk with their advisor, their tax person, so on to see if it's suitable because it could be not suitable at all. But I like the Conan Sears realty shares REIT. They you'll see when you go back to actually through even through covid. They did a decent job. There's a lot of good trade REITs out there that they can get. I like that one. That's a good place to learn and then decide to pick work with your professionals to figure out which one you want to eventually go to. That's a freebie. There you go. Excellent. Thank you. And I believe we've covered all the questions. Wow. OK. OK, folks. Thank you very much, San Francisco Library, for allowing us to cover this topic and spend time with your membership. And how do you spell Conan and Sears? Your recommendation. You're right. Yeah, now that he's now that this person spells it that way. C-O-N-A-N Steers S-T-E-E-R-S. And if you have the fund is realty shares, they have several different funds. They've been around for, I think, over 40, 50 years. But if you, yeah, Conan Sears, thank you, Elizabeth. That's the one C-O-H-E-N. That's what was throwing me off the Conan thing of Conan O'Brien for some reason. But C-O-H-E-N is the right spelling. Thank you. So I think that's it. I'm almost embarrassed that we're done early. So OK, Laurie, is there anything else on our side that you need? Now, thank you so much, Rich. Thank you, Nancy. We really appreciate you taking the time to share with us your professional expertise and thank you, everyone, for joining the program. I hope you find the presentation informative. We'll send out the evaluation survey together with the site deck and the link to the recording later this afternoon. And please give us your feedback so we can continue to improve. Again, thank you, everybody, and have a wonderful afternoon. Take care. Take care. Bye bye. Bye bye.


Hello and welcome to this presentation of the STM32W beam comparators. It covers the main features of the ultra-low power comparators and some application examples. The two comparators inside the STM32 microcontroller provide a binary output, which indicates if the analog voltage on the plus input is larger than the voltage on the negative input. It allows the MCU to react when the analog signal crosses a predefined threshold. The comparator continuously monitors voltage in contrast to an analog to digital converter, which operates in sampled mode. The comparator can be used to wake up devices from sleep, low power sleep, and stop modes. Applications can benefit from the flexible configuration of comparator properties, which can be locked for safety reasons. Another safety feature of the comparator is its ability to generate a break signal for timers, allowing it to safely stop the generation of PWM driving signals. The two integrated comparators can be combined into a single window comparator. The analog properties of the comparator include hysteresis or a trade-off between speed and power consumption, which are configurable. It offers flexible interconnections of inputs and outputs, allowing a threshold selection of several external and internal inputs, such as DAC outputs or internal reference voltage outputs. The comparator output can be connected to IOs using the alternate function channels or internally redirected to a variety of timer inputs, such as enabling the break event for fast PWM shutdown. The user can create cycle-by-cycle current control or input captures for timing measurements. This slide shows the general block diagram of the comparator integrated in the device. The comparator's power consumption can be adjusted to have the optimum trade-off between the speed and energy efficiency for a given application. There are three modes available, high speed, medium speed, and ultra-low power. The high speed mode would be preferred for power conversion applications, for example, a motor control design. While ultra-low power mode would be the right choice for battery-powered applications where reaction times are not critical, for example, in PIR sensor monitoring. The comparator can stay active even if the rest of the system is suspended and the clock is switched off. The comparator can trigger an interrupt on the rising, falling, or both edges of the comparator output through the EXTI line. The on-chip comparator remains active and can be used to wake up the device from all low power modes except standby and shutdown. The on-chip comparator configuration capability allows the user to select the best performance point for the targeted application. It replaces the external standalone comparator, thereby reducing the bill of materials. The purpose of the window comparator is to trigger an interrupt if the analog voltage goes beyond the defined lower and upper voltage thresholds applied to the inverting inputs of each comparator. This event can generate an interrupt through the EXTI line. Two non-inverting inputs can be connected internally by enabling the wind mode bit and therefore save one IO for another purpose. Comparator output values can generate break input signals for the timers on input pins using GPIO alternate function selections incorporating the IO open-drain connection. The purpose of the break function is to protect power switches driven by PWM signals generated by timers. The two break inputs are usually connected to fault outputs of power stages and three-phase inverters. When activated, the break circuitry shuts down the PWM outputs and forces them to a predefined safe state. Please see the timer training slides for more details. The comparator can be used in the cycle-by-cycle regulation loop for monitoring the peak value of the current flowing into the load. The purpose of the blanking function is to prevent incorrect current regulation tripping due to short-duration current spikes at the beginning of the PWM period. Short current spikes caused by activating power switches can produce false pulses on the comparator output marked by the blue color on the diagram. These pulses need to be masked by a blanking window to avoid false fault detection. The blanking window waveform can be generated by one of the timer output channels. Both comparators have identical electrical parameters and configuration options. The difference in input interconnections are summarized in this table. For the difference in output redirections, please refer to the product data sheet. This is a list of peripherals related to the comparators. Please refer to these peripheral trainings for more information if needed. Thank you.


1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 5 through 10. I want to speak to you Concerning Well Paul's going to use this phrase in word only in word only you'll see that phrase in just a moment So I'll read to you out of 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 beginning at verse 5 I'll read to verse 10 the conclusion of the chapter and we'll be looking at this together tonight Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 5 For our gospel Did not come to you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and In much assurance as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake and you became followers of us and of the Lord Having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia, but Achaia But also and Achaia But also in every place your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and To wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come And so let's begin by just laying a little bit of a foundation I want you to notice something I want you to notice how Paul begins here in chapter 1 verse 5 How he begins by saying this for our gospel did not come to you in word only our Gospel let's begin with that for just a moment lay a foundation Paul refers to the gospel notice this as our gospel the word gospel means Extravagant news great news Whenever you hear somebody speaking about preaching the gospel, that's what gospel means the word means simply great news Amazing news really and so he's speaking concerning this amazing news. It is called the gospel now the word gospel is used Something like 55 times in the New Testament, so it's a common word. It's used quite often and When you define gospel in terms of its theological content the gospel is the news of the coming kingdom Salvation through Jesus Christ and what relates to being saved in essence. That's basically the gospel now as we look at this And he speaks of our gospel. I want to point out that he's not saying that the message of the gospel originated with him He's not saying that when he says our gospel He's not saying like it's something I created is something I invented when I was in college in a secular University We had a professor one of my classes was in comparative religion and the professor gave to us You know we had to buy a book that we had to read and It was related to comparative religion therefore it would give various religious beliefs and all and one of the writers or Contributors to this particular book was saying that the gospel originated with Paul He said he was the one who invented the gospel now This was not a Christian school. This was a secular school And so that's what you commonly get if you take comparative religion in any college or in a high school for that matter There are those who will say that the gospel originated with the apostle Paul, but Paul would have argued with the professor Paul did argue with the professor if he if that professor would have taken a moment to read Galatians chapter 1 verses 11 and 12 He would have seen what Paul would say concerning the gospel He says there I make known to you brethren that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ So Paul was not saying I invented the gospel He was a recipient of the gospel in 1st Corinthians 11 23 He said I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you So he's not saying that the gospel originated with him And if he's not saying that then what is he saying well by referring to the gospel as our gospel Paul is saying that he Also has partaken in the blessings that you find in the gospel You see the gospel is good news to all sinners and Paul included himself in sinful humanity The gospel was brought to him. He partook of it and he preached what he received Now that's where true gospel preaching gets its authority. The preacher is first the partaker You have to give that what you have received first You cannot give what you don't have So when Paul would speak of himself He had said it like this in 1st Timothy chapter 1 verses 12 through 16 He would say I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has given me strength that he considered me faithful Appointing me to his service Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners Christ Jesus might display his Unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life I have partaken and now I preach so the our gospel isn't that the gospel originates with Paul The our gospel means I'm preaching to you that which I've received myself I am a fellow sinner just like you I'm reading a book. I believe we have it here in our books or if not I'm going to make sure we get many copies for those who might be interested in it It's a it's book called the reproducers and It was written When Calvary chapels were first beginning So it's it's 40 some years old so for me, it's it's Still something I relate to because I got saved 40 something years ago, right? So I've been reading it just to remind myself of my own traditions and histories in terms of the The first things that I encountered as a Christian and as I'm reading through this and remembering through this Pastor Chuck Smith, you know at that time was in his early 40s He's interviewed and they're asking him questions and all and and he simply keeps saying the same thing He keeps saying that people are coming and they did they came from worldwide People would fly in from South Africa from Japan. They came in from different countries in Europe they were coming to to his to his church and they wanted to see what is going on here that all these youth all the youth is showing up and and and it was such a phenomena that On one occasion Chuck told us that that somebody because they knew that a lot of youth were showing up They asked him to go and speak somewhere once and And he said I'm sure they thought that I had this Emotionality because they come from a Pentecostal background They must have felt for sure that that I would cry as I was preaching He said but the only person who ended up crying was the guy who invited me to speak, you know But Chuck says and this is this is the heart of our ministry that That really what was the the thing that was drawing people and guys This is an important thing to say right now is the word of God and the Spirit of God It's always been that it'll never be anything different It'll always be and I'm going to develop this in a moment I'm just getting ahead of myself right now to be honest with you It will always be the word of God and the Spirit of God That is what makes a revival happen the word of God and the Spirit and the kids would show up I was one of those kids. I was 20 years old would show up Not to be entertained But to be edified So that I might grow in my faith in Jesus Christ. I didn't need entertainment. I'd already been in the world The world is very entertaining, but it also is a death system It's drinking salt water When you're in the world you can drink the water, but it will kill you it will never satisfy your thirst It only makes you thirst you and that's what the world does and you keep having this this I wonder what it is I'm missing there must be something else and that's what the world will do for you It's like that that proverbial carrot on a stick in front of the mule It just ones if I take one more step I'm gonna get it one more step, but you'll never reach it because it's always one step away that's how the enemy works and So the biggest the most important thing for us is is the word of God and the Spirit of God So that we might have this knowledge of the ways of God and the things of God and this gospel We partake in and it's this gospel that we have received that we give out And so he's speaking about this gospel and he says our gospel did not come to you in word only Now notice how he's saying this gospel that he partook in had actually come to the Thessalonians So that tells us that the gospel is not to remain in church views It tells us that the gospel is intended by God to be taken out of the place of instruction Into the place where people have no knowledge of God That's called evangelism. That's called missions. This gospel came to you So it's taken out. It's not meant to remain in the church views It is meant to be shared and that's what we see in Matthew 28 19 and 20 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all things I've commanded you and low. I'm with you always even to the end of the age again Our call by God is to be givers as well as the ones who live we live and we give We live the gospel and we give the gospel and one of the reasons that sometimes are not effective in the giving Is because sometimes we're just not effective in the living We're just not living the message. It's interesting how the Lord Jesus Christ said this He said you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you And ye shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost parts Of the world. He didn't say you will do witnessing He said you will be witnesses And so what happens is this message of transformation this message of grace This message of peace and love and joy This message of forgiveness This message of a new life This message of hope and encouragement This message of the gospel is a transforming message And we become the witnesses We don't just go out and talk We walk and we talk We walk the walk of faith And we talk What we are walking All of us uh before we got saved i'm going to assume Perhaps i'm wrong but i'm going to assume that All of us at least once in our lifetime encountered somebody who claimed to be a christian who just didn't act like one As we understood what a christian was and sometimes we were more rigid than we should let's face it You know we were real legalistic anyway That's part of the reason i didn't come to crisis because i thought once you get saved you can't laugh anymore You can't enjoy life anymore, you know, so i know that i was distorted and perhaps i have some other distorted people in here Um, we thought the same kind of way and why would i want to you know become a christian if you can't enjoy life I mean life's to be enjoyed and here i am you know, and i'd never met a real christian but But i think all of us at least at once one time have encountered somebody who claimed to be a christian just didn't really Live in a way that was appealing And a lot of times, uh, we might even be raised in a house like that Our parents may have been churchgoers They may have gotten us ready to go to church and we went to church But when they got out of church, they just were not real and we saw that all of our lives perhaps There are many people i've spoken to like that That all their life They've seen hypocrisy in the home One when they pull on to the driveway there and into the church grounds whatever church they're going to Suddenly mom and dad are different people entirely. Hi brother. So and so how you doing sister so and so you know all of that Then they get back in the car and they drive on home and they're they're you know I was talking to i'll give you an example i was talking to somebody not that long ago who said That her dad was a deacon in the church was in line to become an elder in the church And in church was always everybody thought brother so-and-so was just a great guy She said but the problem was is my dad was an alcoholic I mean while he's there in church, they're all thinking he's sweet and mellow and kind She says but at home he would drink and he didn't mean to my mom and he was abusive But when we were on the church grounds, my dad was a holy man And a lot of people have seen that right and so we don't want to be what we Say turned us off before And if we're going to be effective Well, let's let god work in us to transform us by his power and through his word And then we can take what he has given to us. We can live what he's given to us And we can give to others that which god has given to us too So he's saying this in verse five. He's saying the gospel did not come to you in word only Now when he says it didn't come to you in word only the point he's making here, it would seem as this He's saying we gave you the gospel without compromise And we gave you this gospel without alteration And the reason we would give you this gospel. They didn't come to you in just word The reason it came to you in the way that we gave it to you is because it isn't mere words The gospel is god's revelation The gospel is not man's philosophy If you turn your bible to chapter two here in first Thessalonians for just a moment And look at verse 13 notice he says Chapter two verse 13 for this reason we also thank god without ceasing because When you receive the word of god, which you heard from us You welcomed it not as the word of men But as it is in truth the word of god, which also effectively works in you who believe So you received this and it wasn't the word of men You received it as the word of god and it had an impact it affected change in your life Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians in first Corinthians 118 said the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing But to us who are being saved. It's the power of god So the gospel gospel came to them in power And that power enabled complete transformation Because god's word and you might want to mark this in your heart god's word can conform you And through god's word any broken life can be healed Any broken life can be healed I believe that I I'm up here as testimony to that And I know many living testimonies of broken lives That have been healed by god The word of god has that power and received by faith and allowed to work in psalm 19 verse The law the law of the lord is perfect converting the soul The law of the lord is perfect converting the soul the word perfect there means lacking nothing It is a complete revelation of truth It is completely Sufficient that's what perfect means the word converting means to refresh To revive or to repair The word of god is completely able to repair your soul It is It is When you take god's promises into your heart I went through a period It lasted quite some time until finally the lord broke through Of of intense Intense intense depression. I didn't know that christians could actually feel it the way I did Never got suicidal Just gave up Just gave up And I was a young believer went through a real painful time My mom I had led my mom to faith in christ My mom came in I still remember speaking to her. I was in the den at my parents home And she said something to me about God in his word And I remember saying something like this to my mom I remember saying You know, it's good for those It's it's good. Yeah, the word of god is good For those who Can actually benefit from it If you believe it, that's good. My mom looked at me with with shock And she said to me, you're the one who led me to faith in christ. And now are you doubting your own salvation? I said it's good for you, but it's not good for me I had got I had point. I won't go too much into this, but I had stayed in my room I wouldn't leave my room. I actually would close the door of the room I had my back against the wall and I would cry for hours a day You can't picture that can you because that but that's that happened I had my back against the in my bedroom on my wall and I would rock back and forth for hours And I would weep and I would weep and my sister madeline Would come in and she would sit next to me and as I would weep And she sat there and this didn't go on for a day or a week or a month It went on and on and on for some time And one day I was in my parents den and I hadn't picked up the bible And I hadn't read it and somebody may be thinking well, wait a minute. I was still teaching at the time I never told anybody what I was going through I didn't have anybody that I could talk to How many of you know what I just said? I didn't have anybody that I felt I could talk to Isn't that a sad thing for us as believers to actually admit That I didn't trust anybody. I wouldn't tell anybody. I kept my feelings to myself What you see up here is a healed man even though I weep As a healed man because I wouldn't tell people I love them. I wouldn't tell people I cared about them I was I was the most distant person you could know And I got worse not better One day I'm reading the bible and as I was reading because I hadn't read it for myself I was in john six and jesus has his disciples speaking to him He's speaking to his disciples and he's watching people fade away And jesus turns and looks to his disciples and he asks him a question. Do you also want to go away? And as I was there I read that do you also want to go away? And I still remember closing the bible with my thumb in place And I prayed a sincere prayer for the first time In some time and I said where can I go? I've already given up everything I have I have no friends I have no life I've been going to bible college now for years I've been doing bible studies I have no place to go Where can I go? And then I opened the bible and the response was lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life And that's a word that the lord gave to me That moment and I still remember it very well Where can I go you have the words of eternal life? And that Changed my life back to where it was supposed to be when it hit me god speaks through his word And he just did right now You have no place to go because you've already gone to the one you needed to go to in the first place He never abandoned me. I was walking away from him See so the word of god Is powerful It's like a double-edged sword It separates the soul and the spirit It awakens us to truth And versus that which is not true and it solidifies us and so this gospel can heal you this word does heal And and because it's so powerful One of the things the lord taught me and i'll say it this way is that the gospel does not make god acceptable to me It makes me acceptable to him It changes lives you see and heals And this gospel comes he says with the working of the holy spirit the word of god and the spirit of god works together You see When paul would bring this message of this gospel It was working alongside of the power of the spirit So the spirit would bring conviction to those who were held in spiritual bondage It would awaken them like jesus said in john 16 8 that the spirit convicts the world of sin righteousness and judgment And so when the word of god is presented the holy spirit's work is to work alongside Of his word and it brings an awareness of of your sinfulness and your need for a savior And so it's a work of the holy spirit and it's not the work of a man When the gospel goes out and people hear the message of the gospel it isn't a successful sales presentation It is god's holy spirit working through his word to actually get into the deepest recesses of human beings soul And awakening them to their need for god That's conviction So it was a work of the spirit not the work of man Now when paul would preach notice how he said he would do so in much assurance in much assurance His preaching style was one of assurance He had assurance speaks of a passionate confidence And he would present this message with a passionate Confidence because indeed it is god's very word He believed that he was giving god's word now of course we're living in an age when the gospel is regarded as irrelevant to real life Some don't consider it to be exciting Some don't believe the bible is that important And because there are pastors who have fallen into that trap It's actually given rise to pastors who have stopped preaching with confidence And they've developed various styles Some pastors have become entertainers They we call it polishing the presentation They polish the presentation they speak well eloquently They just polish the way that they preach and they make sure That they never bring a word into the church like sin Or judgment Because that's too discouraging Because today there's a lot of people I know you know what i'm talking about. I have to beat this horse Um I believe in preaching the whole counsel of god The blessings and the warnings The blessings and the warnings there are warnings as well as blessings And we need both We need both I've heard preachers say I've got to give you some bad news before I can give you the good news And and to a degree that there's some reality to that Now I don't like to I I don't like to preach the bad news You know, I don't but when you're going through the word of god You're going to hear both sides. You're going to hear god's fullness, right? Well, there are there are preachers that make their churches kind of like home on the range Some of you don't even know that old song, but there's a song home home on the range You ever hear that we're never has heard a discouraging word their churches are that way We're never has heard a discouraging word.  We want you to feel that this is a happy place And you can have a happy time every time you come here and they polish their presentation They become entertainers. There are others who become storytellers They love to tell their stories But what that creates is dull-minded sheep that are hungry for stories only There are some who become magicians, you know, they pull things out of the bible that aren't there That's true. That's true That's true. I look at I I I think better than I speak. I'll put it that way I I think better than I speak. I write entirely different than I preach Because I take my time to think through every point that I'm putting down on paper Sometimes when you're speaking may not come off as clear as you'd like it But I can tell you this I listen to a lot of messages And I can tell you that guy didn't study that passage That passage didn't say that at all I remember watching this one fellow. I won't give his name Don't feel like today All I know is that he was laying on on the platform Crawling on one elbow across it very entertaining Very entertaining and he had his microphone in front of his face as he was dragging himself across talking about moses being in Egypt and And then they struggled and I'm watching him and act this and I'm thinking bravo Good acting job But what you're saying isn't what exodus taught What you're saying is entertaining your congregation and they love it They like seeing that man crawl across the stage But the bible doesn't teach that So one of the things if you guys if you guys, you know me, I'm very I don't know why I keep saying this I shouldn't have to but here I go You know, I think stories and illustrations and jokes and all of that's fine. Our personalities are good but if you if you If you're promoting those things and not the gospel you're in trouble, I'll put it that way And and what and listen those of you who teach and I know I have teachers in this room. Let me give you something You know Just just teach as if like if you're teaching first Thessalonians and I would teach it entirely different I have to tell you if paul was sitting here I wouldn't be telling you stories. I wouldn't be doing this I'd be giving you an entirely different bible study But at the same time If paul could sit there and recognize the scripture and say yeah, that's what I intended to communicate Because the holy spirit instructed me to write that Then you're probably teaching that passage But if you come up with a scripture, I remember somebody giving a message on jesus wept Then he went through an entire study on the therapy of weeping And I'm pretty sure jesus wasn't trying to give a therapeutic session concerning how good it is for you to experience catharsis through tears But that's what happens You just use the scripture and you launch off And you go in any direction that you want And because people are dull of hearing in the latter days People will no longer endure healthy doctrine. They will heap unto themselves teachers having itching ears They'll turn aside from the truth and be turned unto fables And that's what we're living in right now Where some of the largest churches in the united states aren't even built on the gospel of jesus christ And the sheep who are there love the stories and the humor and the encouragement But they're not getting bible studies That's happening right now Some become magicians some write a hobby horse They always find their pet doctrine in the passage that they're teaching some rely on enthusiasm and personality But that produces a personal following Some follow the latest trends hoping to retain relevance to their hearers and make the church into a cool place to be I am not quite sure that church is supposed to be cool And i'm pretty sure that a preacher is not intended by god to try and make a congregation happy I think a preacher is intended by god to encourage a congregation to be holy And the only way that happens is if the word of god is taught And that's how it works And as paul ministered the word of god confidently Because it's a word of god He didn't give the impression that there's another way to god because there's only one way And so as we look at that i want to get into the second portion of verse five And he says this as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake That's a very important point Paul not only taught them out of the bible But he also lived what he taught before them Nothing undermines the effectiveness of the message more than hypocrisy In chapter two verse 10, he said you are witnesses god also how devoutly and justly and blamelessly We behaved ourselves among you who believe The message of the gospel is undermined by those who do not live out its message We need to remember that god is personal And his message creates community And the community lives out the message together Because community gives what is called human flesh to the gospel of love There are those preachers who prefer simply giving the message But they become only messengers But i find interesting again in chapter two verse eight He says affectionately longing for you We were well pleased to impart to you listen not only the gospel of god But also our own lives because you had become dear to us We didn't want to give you just the message We wanted to give you the message and a heart And that's what paul did you know I had one professor saying that the apostle paul was just a heartless intellect That's just absolute nonsense Absolute nonsense. He speaks concerning the fact that to do the Corinthians. He says I was with you in tears He he wept Openly out more than one occasion. He he wrote with such a passion and love To say that this man was only an intellectual is to not understand first Corinthians 13 Or any of the other passages that he spoke concerning his open-hearted Preaching I all you need to do as we did not long ago Is go through second Corinthians and you can see the most open-hearted letter that a man that a man could possibly write He said to them. He said the more I love you the less. I am loved by you He was an open-hearted man. He loved those sheep. He loved them with all of his heart And he was willing he was willing for them to know him in that way You know every minister And I speak to pastors this way Every minister's church ought to know one thing Outside of the word of god is the key thing of course But they ought to know their pastor loves them They ought to know that They ought to know that Because he's supposed to Because what is it that jesus said we looked at this recently is the mark of the christian love love one another And the pastor ought to be a man That you think has a loving heart and i'm not speaking of myself But the pastor in any church The sheep Should not be afraid of the shepherd My pastor chuck smith was a great man billy graham When he was in town many years ago When billy was doing crusades or was having meetings in la billy graham was known to go on the uh The parking lot at calvary chapel costa mesa Billy graham would go on the parking lot and sit in his car The assistant pastor romain Um, we're sharing how that they asked billy once what are you doing In the parking lot here and billy graham's response was I like to come and sit here so that i can just sit in the presence of the power of the holy spirit Because i know the holy spirit's power resides In this place Now isn't that amazing? That's amazing and it's true And it's true The power of the holy spirit. I am telling you we need more of the spirit in our life He said you became followers of us and the lord The church right respects their leadership and as a result Grew closer to god Philippians 3 17 says Brethren join in following my example Note those who so walk as you have us for a pattern Philippians 4 9 says The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me these do and the god of peace Will be with you He says you receive the word of god now notice He says you receive the word of god in much affliction with joy of the holy spirit The word received you receive the word means to welcome as if a guest or a visitor and you're giving them a warm reception Now there had been opposition to the gospel in the city, but they welcomed the word of god The unbelieving jews had opposed paul stirred up riot followed him to baria as it was recorded in act 17 And they would not have left these new believers in peace, but they responded to such great news With the spirit and it actually birthed joy in them They had joy in their circumstances and they had a joy that their circumstances could not quench They went through hard times But hard times this is this is an important thing i've learned and i'm learning Hard times deep in faith hard times deep in faith Sometimes we think that when we get saved we shouldn't have a single bad day from now on I'm saved joy joy joy. I've got joy But what did the psalmist say psalm? 1971 it is good for me that i've been afflicted that i may learn your statutes So that i may really understand what i'm talking about In psalm 119 verse 67 before i was afflicted i went astray, but now i keep your word You learned some deep things here's something for you that won't make sense Nothing i've set up to this point will Or has I was just talking to somebody about this the other day um One of the one of the blessings in growing older And i'm actually enjoying growing older One of the blessings as you grow older Is this i have come to understand what the term means when they say This too shall pass When you're young you think what you're going through right now is going to last forever When you've got small kids and you're a young mom you're thinking oh How long oh lord how long will you abandon me forever? You know you have three kids and you gave them all biblical names, you know joziah And james and lucifer i mean you have everybody They all have biblical names How long oh lord how long will you abandon me forever? right It feels like this trial is going to go on forever I was talking to a young lady in this church years ago now, but i'll never forget what she said she said pastor I'm in a terrible trial. It feels like it's never going to end She says i've been going through it for two weeks now. I just I just smiled. They said really darling Because life in one way or another is a trial as long as you live But you realize something you're never alone in that trial And you discover that god is patient And you also discover that if he has said it he will do it and you hold fast And you don't let go and sometimes it'll take a month sometimes it may be a year sometimes it may be five years Sometimes it may be 10 years Sometimes it may be 20 or 30 years. Am I encouraging anybody yet?   He's one day closer As he said it and shall he not do it As god given a promise that he will not keep God is not a man That he should lie God god speaks the truth He's coming again So Occupy until he comes Be busy Don't lose heart Remain strong Bring your friends to know jesus christ If you have a daddy or a mama who doesn't know the lord don't give up Keep praying keep seeking the lord Keep sharing when given opportunity Live for jesus in front of them You know most of us could probably say something like this Most of us could say our moms probably know us Better than the average person They raised us And if they were around us at all They got to know us a little bit When i got saved My mom was just waiting for something to happen in our family that would be good When i got saved my mom when she came to faith in christ My mom would my mom was like a I was like a fly and my mom was like a spider i'll put it like that She would she would pin me down and she would ask questions An hour at a time David have you read this yet? What do you know about this? Have you studied this yet? What do you know about this? I would do that every day with my mom I'd come home from school I'd sit at the kitchen table And she'd say she'd pull her chair up.  What did we learn today? What did we learn today? I want to know about jesus Tell me more about him son And that's what led to me teaching bible studies to my mom and my dad Because my mom was constantly hounding me. Tell me more And even as I had bible studies. She did it anyway as long as I lived there and by the way Even to her dying day My mom was still asking me questions about jesus and one of the pictures I have of my mom that is so dear to me Is when my mom was bedridden for the last year of her life She couldn't get out. She had a broken hip and broken broken back and she couldn't do anything anymore She was just stuck in a bed But one of my favorite pictures I have of my mom is an easter sunday service. She's got the little computer It's open up and she's all the way in albuquerque new mexico But she's looking at her son preaching the gospel and my sister becky took a picture of her because her little hand was in the air going Yeah, jesus. That was my mom That was my mom and so Sustained anticipation Waiting for the lord to come But occupy until he does Going through the affliction. Yeah, the hard times indeed But going through it because that's exactly what we do. We go through it. We don't stay in it We pass through and the lord through the affliction He refines our faith strengthens and deepens us as human beings Gives us a message that has some strength to it and some meat to it And we can speak to people and we can say indeed This is what the lord says and this is true because god's word is true And that's why paul would speak not in a word only but with a confidence because this is the word of god And it is true and god is not a liar and what he says he shall do He will bring it to pass and I bless god for being that kind of god to us The man who is a god who is true to his word to man


I applied to MISRA Geopolitics Research Program because it is attached to my topic of research which links security and climate change challenges, especially what regards human security. So I thought that it would be a great experience and a great way to move forward in my research. My topic of research is about, of course, the links between climate change and security, but more specifically the links between what we call in critical security studies ontological security, which is not necessarily connected to a physical security, but to a sense of biographical continuity, of preservation of tradition, heritage and customs. So I'm studying the case of the Small Island states which are in danger because of the climate effects and how their inhabitants are reacting to climate change, how they are fighting and how they are trying to adapt and to stay on their islands. So I believe that being here in Sweden it's an excellent opportunity to move forward in this research exactly because here there is a security agenda which is deeply connected to environmental issues. So that's why I'm here and I'm pretty glad to be here.


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards ripping 23 top star wars signature series 20 box case break number 32 Random hit style. I mean it makes you have a 32 and 33, right? Yeah, okay good So what this is gonna work is I have all of our 20 participants in a random.org Window also have a blank rem.org window where the hits are as we're doing the break Donnie's gonna be typing in a description of all the hits one through 20 Once all of the boxes have been open all 20 hits have been shown They'll be copied back into this random.org hit sheet We'll roll the dice say it's eight times random the names eight times the hits eight times copy them over to the Results tab and then whatever hits next your name is what you're gonna receive. So good luck everybody. Let's do it Thank you again for getting this filled up.  That was insane I appreciate y'all. Thank you so much again price is very solid when we do these in the future I think we're down to 60 a box on these so 60 a random hit So basically like buying a personal which is good Break format Is he actually for McGarrel small? No, is this live probably is nice. Is it my baseball? I don't know. I bet it is because it's in it's in San Diego So it's not what makes sense Nice, let's go dude. All right first hit is gonna be a Hask triplet nice one there. That is Paul Warren is hask triplet It's five foot ten. He's not the buffest. Yeah, he's not For McGarrel, yeah, it's shocked me. Can you get the ball out there though? Yeah, I think it hit dude Trying to get some of his first but they're too dang expensive.  I want to say. Oh Is it supposed to be Toby? That's pretty fine. Yeah, whoops Nice one that lovey on variation B He'll be one. I don't know who this guy next up. We've got Rick Ali that is Ralph Brown from the Phantom Menace Rick Ali Nice. We got a green is Beta trawler that is 15 of 25 nice one there on the green Ryan Watson is beta trawler The green next up we've got a Zuma Andrew Cachino as he's Zuma and that's resistance on a slide Oh Visions is like eight different episodes made by eight different Animation, oh really companies. That's pretty cool. I know it's pretty sweet It's kind of like anime's way of diving in the Star Wars giving people a variety of like different You're awesome. Yeah, nice Next up we've got Lira Urso that is three of fifty on the blue variation B Lira Urso Yeah, I don't think resistance has any Yeah When I said resistance I met visions. Yeah, it's like the anime series Imperial security officer that is gonna be Philip Alexander as Imperial security officer Visions is really interesting. They've got some good episodes. Nice Lux Bon Terry that is Jason Spiezeck as Lux Bon Terry Second half of the case now that is gonna be a mayor Mach Shies Jason Rosengrant This dude looks sick. Oh, he's like this guy because they have that in Lego Star Wars and we have the Quintina. Yeah Whenever you don't remember the species. Yeah, I was gonna say Nice and here is gonna be Pamish Nero good Crystal Clark from Force Awakens Damage Nero good next up. We've got twilight major Doma That is David Pascasse as Twilight major Doma. I'd be a Thorian if I was a slower character Be a common Next up we've got a Pelle Moto That is six of fifty. It's gonna be Amy Cideris. Nice one there blue There he is any two tubes, baby a trio two tubes on variation B David Accord Case it right there Before I say he's gonna change his xbox name to a trio of two tubes Have you got some? If he won't I will oh, this is sweet. We got Cad Bain. Nice Dorian Kingie as Cad Bain.  I'd be I'm seeing more of him like in this as we do more cases really Yeah, he's been like kind of close to a case really nice That's pretty cool Cad Bain's dope. Yeah, Cad Bain's awesome. He's super super cool Fixer, it's gonna be your next one. It's gonna be Skyler Bible as fixer. Next up is Ezra Bridger Taylor Gray is Ezra Bridger from Rebels. Next up is gonna be zero That's pretty cool. Chris Bartlett as zero Strider and Joe Ryan both being studs sucking your pictures with nice mustache. It's someone needs to yeah, someone needs to Investigate that a little bit.  I agree Vaughn a little fishy What's the big Star Wars? They're probably the first first appearance here in Sarasen Dula Yeah, by the big school Babu Frick. It's pretty sick. Oh Bob. Oh Bob. It's probably the biggest Nice that is gonna be orange the armorer Four of ten Emily swallow that one's the best that right that's sick, dude That's the best it right the armorer. What a hit on the back, dude We have not seen her in this I think like ever since we started. Yeah, like she is very rare to be that's a super Yeah, super that's sick. Good luck on this one everyone the armorer again four of ten on the orange that's sick and Empty all right We've got our random to do if this if this would have been like on the On probably the original designs that design be it probably be like bigger, but that's still yeah still pretty yeah still solid for sure All right guys We've got again 20 names all 20 of our hits are now copied over to the random hit sheet I'm gonna go ahead and roll the dice gonna go eight times on each one two three four five six seven eight Jean-Lucca are twice down to Anthony P and eight times on your hits one two three four five six seven and eight Peli moto down to Pamish neuro good. All right. We've got Jean-Lucca are with Peli moto and Twilight major Domo Justin S with Mayor Mock shyce Anthony P as we're Bridger Francis D. Lumina and newly Tom B. Imperial security officer Anthony P with Toby Erin E with Rick Ali Jason D with a trio two tubes Francis D with Lynn or so Jean-Lucca are lovey Locks been Terry the armorer four of ten congrats and Cad Bain and ass triplet very solid Francis D with zero Jason D Izuma John Luca are beta trawler to 25 and fixer and Anthony P with Pamich Nero good Thanks again everybody for getting this filled up when I get this copied over the website now uploaded and on to the next one in about eight minutes