It is late evening in the Vaknin abode. The stars are twinkling in the polluted skies. And of course we are going to discuss borderline personality disorder. What else? I was perusing my favorite tone, the Oxford English Dictionary. A sign of mental illness in itself. And I came across an entry in the letter B, an entry about my work, my life's work. I want to read it to you. I want to demonstrate to you how modest I am. Bodhichitta, the consciousness that arises on the basis of the resolve to strive for enlightenment in order to liberate other suffering beings. Regarded within Mahayana Buddhism is the fundamental state of mind of a Bodhisattva. So, here is a summary of my work. I strive for enlightenment in order to liberate you, my suffering beings. Okay, enough nonsense for one video. Let's move on to the topic of today. The topic of today is the other anxiety, engulfment or enmeshment anxiety. Everyone in his dog, including many therapists and psychologists and even scholars, have heard only about, have heard only of separation insecurity. Separation insecurity is the clinical term for what is colloquially known as abandonment anxiety. Everyone knows that people who are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder have abandonment anxiety. They are terrified of rejection, of humiliation, of being discarded. They spot abandonment everywhere in everything. Even in innocuous behaviors, they tend to overinterpret situations. They overthink and overanalyze, they catastrophize. This is called anticipatory anxiety. True. But people with borderline personality disorder have a second type of anxiety, which is very little reported in the literature, but all the same extremely well documented. And it is what is known as engulfment or enmeshment anxiety. Engulfment or enmeshment anxiety is when you get too intimate with a borderline, when you get really close to her, when you become her bestie or her boyfriend or her spouse. And mind you, of course, the gender pronouns are interchangeable. About 50% of people with borderline personality disorder are men. So this is not a sexist video for a change. It's simply for convenience sake. So when you get close to the borderline, when you get intimate with the borderline, it provokes in her enormous anxiety. She feels that she is controlled, being controlled from the outside. She has outsourced her internal processes to someone else, to her intimate partner, for example. She feels that she's out of her mind, literally. She hands over her mind to her spouse or her boyfriend or her best friend or her special friend. And this creates a feeling of vanishing, disappearing. The borderline feels that she's being assimilated, digested somehow, snatched body and mind. This creates an anxiety about being engulfed, being enmeshed. Okay, this is documented in literature. I've mentioned it before in several other videos. And now the question is, why is this happening? It's happening because of the bed object. Now before you continue to watch this video, I do recommend strongly that you watch my interview with Richard Grannon, conducted in, where else? Bucharest, Romania, the land of Dracula. And in this interview, I explained the borderline's bed object and the borderline's compensatory shared fantasy. Okay, the borderline has a bed object. What is a bed object?  And so the collective of these very self-negating, self-defeating and self-destructive introjets, this collective is known as the bed object. The narcissist has a bed object, the borderline also has a bed object. But what's the connection between the bed object and engulfment or enmeshment anxiety? Here's how it goes. When the borderline is exposed to intimacy, when the borderline is the recipient of true love and conditional or little conditioned love, when the borderline is treated with compassion and care, afforded succor and support, when the borderline in short is loved, this creates a dissonance. Exposure to these messages, I love you, means you're lovable. I support you means you're worthy of support. I trust you means you're good, you're not bad. These messages coming from the outside, for example from the intimate partner, countermand, countervein, contradict the messages of the bed object. The borderline then is exposed to two competing sets of messages. One coming from the inside, messages that emanate from the internal objects, from the interjects. You're bad, you're unworthy, you're not good. And another set of messages coming from the outside, for example from her intimate partner, which say you're good, you are worthy of love, you're lovable, you're worthy of support, care and compassion and affection. So now there's a conflict between these two sets of voices. It's like two warring armies. It's like the war in Ukraine. There's one army, one army inside the borderline that is hell bent on destroying the borderline. This set of voices inside the borderline, upper secretary objects, they are a harsh inner critic. There is sadistic superego. These voices inside the borderline want to bring her down. They want to destroy her self-esteem and self-confidence. They want to dysregulate her emotions, render her moods labile and render her sense of self-worth fluctuating. So the voices inside the borderline are self-destructive, self-defeating. And the voices coming from outside the borderline, the voices coming from her loved one, the voices coming from someone who adores her, cherishes her, wants her, desires her, wishes her the best. These voices coming from the outside clash head on from the voices inside and this creates something called dissonance. More precisely, cognitive dissonance. There are seven types of dissonance. This is one of them. By the way, I have a video dedicated to the types of dissonance. So whenever there's a dissonance, especially a dissonance on this fundamental and profound level, there's an essential dissonance, a dissonance that has to do with your essence, with who you are, with your core identity, disturbed as it may be. When there is such a dissonance, it results in anxiety. Dissonances cannot be resolved because if they were resolvable, they would not be dissonant. They would become consonant. So because the dissonance cannot be resolved, it is very threatening, very ominous, very menacing, and this creates a lot of anxiety. This anxiety leads to an attempt to eliminate one of the two horns of the dilemma. Remember that the dissonance in this case is based on two sets of voices, the internal and the external.  The borderline, in order to avoid the ensuing dissonance and anxiety, she has to eliminate one of these two sets and remain only with one. But she cannot eliminate the internal set of voices. She cannot conquer her introjects, she cannot silence them. They are too persistent, they are too old, most of them formed in early childhood, and they had become a part of who she is. She misidentifies these internal voices as her own voice. She confuses her authentic self, her authentic voice with the voices of her, I don't know, her mother, father, teachers, role models, peers. She has identity disturbance consequently. Her core identity is in flux. She is like hundreds of personalities. And so the borderline is incapable of silencing the tumult inside her.  Instead what she does, she shuts off the external voices. She pushes her intimate partner away. She withdraws, she becomes aggressive or even violent. And she engages in avoidant behaviors. This is a part of the approach avoidance repetition cycle. The repetition compulsion that characterizes the borderline has to do with this. The conflict between the bed object, these internal disparaging voices, and the good messages emanating from the intimate partner. This conflict creates dissonance, anxiety, and avoidance. Running away from the partner, pushing the partner away, alienating the partner, destroying the intimacy, cheating on the partner, hurting the partner. All this is intended to silence the voices of the partner and thereby eliminate the dissonance and mitigate and ameliorate the anxiety. It's an anxiolytic move. People pleasers, borderlines and co-dependence have this. They have this situation. They are constantly in conflict between an internalized bed object and messages from the outside which tend to contradict the bed object. Very often, they behave badly so that others tell them that they are bed objects. They want other people to judge them. They want other people to punish them. They want other people to affirm the internal voices that constitute the bed object. They want to be reflected in the gaze of other people as a bed object. Anything is better than this mounting anxiety. Self-punishment, sexual self-trushing, for example, reckless behaviors, drinking, drug abuse, addictions. All these have to do with this conflict between bed object and good messages from the outside. All of these behaviors are intended to align reality outside, external reality with internal reality. All these behaviors are self-defeating, self-destructive, counterproductive. Their only aim is to create a conformity, to create a resonance, to create a correspondence between messages coming from reality and messages coming from inside.  The message from inside is, you are unlovable, so you behave in ways that make you unlovable. The message from inside is, you are not trustworthy, so you cheat on your partner. The message from inside is, you are corrupt, you are no good, so you become promiscuous, or you do drugs, or you drink.  When you are done with your life, it conforms totally to the messages conveyed to you by the bed object. You design your life to fit the bed object, hand in glove. People, pleasers, borderlines and co-dependence have this. And one of the reactions is what we call constriction. Constriction is a clinical term, constricted life. These people, people, pleasers, borderlines, co-dependence, they subsist. They exist only through other people, only for other people. They live vicariously, they exist by proxy. Their identity is determined externally. And consequently, of course, it's very much disturbed. They don't have a core identity. They import their identity from the outside. They have a hive mind, in the case of borderlines and narcissists, or a hive identity. And so, how to cope with all this? What to do? If you are borderline or a co-dependent, someone with dependent personality disorder, you may need professional help. And you should use professional help in the following three ways.  And the message from the outside are exactly the opposite. This creates anxiety. This creates dissonance. And you set out to affirm, to confirm the messages of the bad object by destroying your life. This is a syndrome. And if you're suffering from this syndrome, here are the three things you could do. Again, borderlines and co-dependence should try these three solutions with the aid of a therapist, with the help of a therapist. Solution number one, establish a people-free time in a people-free zone. Banish all people from this space and from your thoughts for at least one hour a day, religiously, don't ever give it up. I'm not talking about sitting by yourself and daydreaming. I'm talking about eliminating people completely, not even thinking about it. Training yourself, training yourself to survive for one hour a day without people in your life physically, but without people in your life mentally as well. You start to think about the person, you stop. You stop this thought in its tracks, you silence it. It's going to be difficult at the beginning, but practice makes perfect. Solution number one, solution number two, introduce structure into your life by embarking on a consuming task or an assignment by adopting a hobby. In short, keep busy. There's a lot of noise inside you. Drown it with external noise. Create a lot of noise in your life. The more busy you are, the more tasks you confront, the more assignments you take on, the more occupations, vocations and avocations you have, the less likely you are to succumb to the voices of the bed object because they simply are not going to be heard. If you create a lot of noise in your external life, it drowns out the voices of the bed object. By the way, that's also an advice which is great for major depression. Major depression is a voice. Cognitive behavior therapy tells us this. Cognitive behavior theory. Major depression is a voice. It's a set of voices which tell you that everything is hopeless. There's no hope. There's no help coming, etc. So you need to drown out these voices and the only way to do that is to create other voices coming emanating from the outside which will drown out these voices but which do not contradict these voices. So I'm not talking about voices of an intimate partner, for example, who tells you I love you, but I'm talking about getting really, really, really busy with a charity or finding a new job or developing a new hobby and then you don't have time. You just don't have time to listen to the bed object and it dies away. There's a principle of mental economy that, I mean, use it or lose it. That which is not used dies away. Solution number three is stop being emotionally invested in the past or in the future. Yes, you heard me right. In the future as well. I mentioned hope in the previous two solutions. It's not the wrong kind of hope. Wrong kind of hope is magical thinking. Something magical, enchanted will happen and my life will turn around. That's hope for idiots, hope for dummies. I'm not talking about this kind of hope. I'm talking about taking life in your hands, embarking on a self-correction trajectory, self-correcting trajectory. So do not be emotionally invested in the past. Stop ruminating. Stop analyzing. Stop overthinking. Stop remembering. Forget the past. Simply forget it. Make a conscious effort to ignore it. Same with the future. Forget the future. Don't be future-oriented. If you are past-oriented, you don't live in the present. You don't live your life. Focus exclusively on the presence. Use techniques like mindfulness, if need be. Consult the therapist. Gestalt, mindfulness. There are quite a few treatment modalities which emphasize the presence and your presence in the present. Be present in your present. Introduce structure into your life.  Try these three solutions initially. They ought to silence the bad object. And then, once the bad object is subdued, you will be open to the positive messages of someone who truly loves you, who truly sees you and accepts you the way you are. Good luck.


It's Q&A time, baby. Okay, it is Q&A time like I said in just like two seconds ago I got my phone here with me with the questions that you sent to me on Instagram I'm gonna reply to them and we're gonna have fun. We've been digging into a lot of big topics and deep and like It's just not as much fun. It's important, but it's not as much fun So let's have a fun video today So the first one is who is your biggest inspiration? Jesus? No, it's just like yes, but also I'm sure the person that asked question probably wanted something a little bit different than that I don't know. It's interesting because over my life There's been like certain people that I've like really admired and in kind of like these three-year blocks. So when I was like, I don't know younger Maybe like 12, 13, 14. It was the guys at the Way of the Master Living Waters Ministry It's all about evangelism and I just love watching their stuff. I watch it all the time. Like those guys were my inspiration And then from like 13 to 16 It was those guys at wretched and they talk about evangelism and other kind of Christian topics around culture and stuff like that So I was really into them. Wait a second. Didn't Jesus say to a judge not? Oh indeed He did but we need to take a look at the entire Context of that command here and then you know apology of studios They talk about issues of abortion and cults and stuff like that. So here's the thing Mormons often Say but we're Christian too and why don't you just leave us alone? We're just another denomination We're I mean it's in our name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Now I don't know. It's kind of like all over the place My biggest inspiration at the moment is Larry Crabb if you've ever looked at any of my books on my wall or my shelf You can see that I have a lot of his books and he's a prolific writer And just like one of my heroes. Okay next question here. What is your favorite TV series? um This is one of those things where I'm going to kind not like Use discernment and whatever you're watching obviously My favorite TV series is the office. I know there's some stuff in there. That's not super appropriate But you know, I enjoy it and yeah, it's fine Now the next question is do I play an instrument and the answer is yes. I do play I mean air guitar I'm pretty good at guitar hero. I do play a little bit of guitar, but it's not that good So you might see I have seen a clip or a couple clips on Instagram me playing guitar That's like the only son. I know So not really okay next question here is how many siblings do I have? This might shock some of you, but I have seven siblings Seven siblings and people when I tell them that I remember telling them that as like a kid And they thought I was totally just pulling their leg Like I was totally just like saying some random number just to get them to be surprised and all this kind of thing But then after a while I try to convince them. No, no, this is actually true. I do have seven siblings These people do actually exist So it's kind of fun. Yeah, we got a big family and Yeah, I I like most of them. I'm just kidding Just kidding. What is my favorite movie Christian or non? Okay, I'll give two different answers for this one My favorite Christian movie. Oh Man, that's tough because sometimes you know Christian movies could be very cheesy and they're very you know that kind of thing I think probably my favorite Christian movie is case for Christ. I think it was the one that was best done The acting was really good and story was was good So I I really I really enjoyed that one If somebody want to do an investigation into Christianity, where would you start? If the resurrection of Jesus didn't happen it's a house of cards for non Definitely this might be a little controversial and if you know me personally I've probably said this movie to you because I'm so hyped about it, but quiet place it is kind of like a wholesome horror movie and You know look it up before you pass judgments on me because it's it's not gruesome at all It's a lot of jump scares, but it's a really Emotional story and I really really enjoyed that film. It really impacted me Okay, this next question I was surprised when I got this one honestly, but It's an it's kind of a weird question. Have you met the person you were going to marry? To the person that asks this question I'm not sure how I would know if I met the person I'm gonna marry Maybe some people are just like they see it and they're like that's the person I'm gonna marry actually thinking about it now I think I have heard people's stories like that like I saw her and that moment. I knew I was gonna marry I've not had that experience. So I do not know I doubt it, but you never know favorite artist or band This is a tough one, but right now. It's gonna have to be Need to breathe is my favorite band and otherwise musically. I'm all over the place. I'm in folk. I'm in Acoustics some rock some pop some rap. I'm all over the place in terms of music Not big on a class. I'm not a big classical guy, but you know, I can do my me some Mozart every once in a while Okay, last question for today is what would I tell a younger version of? Myself, but now I made a video about this is what I would tell to myself When I was 18 That's a that's a bit more deeper of a video this one if I were to just do something, you know a little bit more light I would tell myself when I was younger To chill out like honestly just chill out Stop, you know caring so much about every little thing, you know, and just kind of like relax and And just trust God because at the end of the day, I think I did a lot more stressing when I was 16 15 14 that I needed to well Thanks for watching this video guys if you enjoyed this Q&A. Let me know and we might do it again sometime It's kind of a switch up from what we normally do, but I hope you enjoyed it and Subscribe if you're not already subscribed because I don't know why you'd be watching this video And you wouldn't be subscribed because those are natural Progressions you watch a video you press the subscribe button you press the bell you tell your friend you start going out in the streets You start saying hey, have you watched this YouTube channel? Have you watched this YouTube channel? Have you watched this YouTube channel? You are my message. No Okay, that was just weird. I'm gonna cut that anyway. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye guys


What's going on everyone Sam here late sports cards are up in one box at 21 22 maybe up city and basketball for Adam K. So good luck here Adam. See what we got man first break over here at Leighton. Good luck, buddy That's awesome.  What's his face? Yeah Can happen someone who deserves it more So you guys for wanting to be in the media all the time Purple Kevin Garnett that's gonna be 31 out of 99 Let me take a look here really quick for you mark. I don't see an order mark. When did you order the athletics? You said you got the athletics in number 18. I'm looking up your name You have the I've I see one order for the Dodgers one for oh there they are. There's the athletics Um and that one's in number two, right? That's eight bucks half case break number two from that Orange higher you're having 26 out of 35 Just shoot us an email mark if you think something looks fishy cat not numbered Dearon sharp rookie not numbered and Alex Caruso Got four our hits That is 58 out of 149 Bobby Portis on the Aurora Nice one there And we've got this is pretty cool one out of 49. How about an RJ Barrett on the Matrix materials? Game worn on that to one out of 49 congrats on that on the star J. There you go, Adam That'll do for your break there Adam. Thanks again for jumping in man. Hope you had a good first experience here We'll get them right out to you man


I'm Kiara with Moving Minds Dance. I think that we can learn anything through dance, so today we are going to dance about the setting of a story. The setting is where a story takes place and it can be really important because the setting changes what happens to the characters and how they're feeling. If a character is in outer space, they're probably gonna have a very different experience than someone who's in Seattle. So we're gonna think about setting and we're gonna dance about it. To do all of that, all you need is your body. You can think about setting in the book that we'll look at together, but you can also do this activity with books that you have around you or with the world that you have around you. You can dance about the setting of your life, whether that's the room that you're in or what you see out the window, or if you go outside the world that you have all around you. We are going to think about dance levels to help us understand setting today. In dance, levels talk about how high or low you are. So we can be in a shape on a high level. Can you do a high level shape with me? Reaching up to the sky. We can do a dance on a middle level, which is kind of like crouching in a tunnel or a cave. We have to stay down low, but around kind of where the middle of our body is. And then a low level is all the way down on the floor. We can be flat on the ground for a low level or we can have a little bit of space to make some shapes. Level is important in the setting of a story because it helps us understand what's going on around the character, all around them. So there might be something in the sky above the character or something kind of on a character's level or something underneath them. And we have to know what's going on in every direction to understand why the setting is important to the character. Let's look at some examples. This is the book Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers and it has some beautiful pictures of the earth that we live on and the things that are all around us. Whoa, let's start on this page. We can see all kinds of different parts of the earth on different levels. Up high we see the sky. I see the moon. Could you make a curvy shape like the moon way up high? Maybe you hold your arms in a circle or the clouds might be floating on a high level. We also see the mountains that are jagged and cold so we could make that sharp shape of zigzags with our body. On the middle level in this picture, there's a volcano. How would you erupt like a volcano? What movement would you do? I might jump and explode that way. We also have some curvy hills. I couldn't make those shapes on a middle level. On the low level in this picture, we see things that are flat. So either the flat grasses that are waving or even the flat dry desert. If I laid all the way down on the ground, I could show that or the wiggly wetlands. Let's look at another one. This is the ocean. In this setting, the animals can be characters or they can be part of the setting. At the high level, I see waves. How would those move? Can you show me a movement that would reflect what you see in the picture on a high level? In the middle, we could think about all the animals that are moving. How would the octopus move? How would the turtle move? What about the jellyfish? How is that different? On the low level of this page, we see different animals that live at the bottom of the ocean, like crabs and corals. We can also see a shipwreck. How would the pirate ship dance? Would it wave? Would it be big and wide? What about the treasure chest or the manoray? On this page, the world looks very different. The setting changes how the people are acting and what they're doing. On a high level, I see a tree. I could balance like a tree or I could stretch like the branches. I could even wave my fingers like leaves. I see people climbing the tree. I see a bird flying. We could jump and fly like the bird on a high level. On the middle level, I see the waving river. I see the cow moo. And on a low level, I see grasses and I see bugs. I could buzz like a bumblebee way down low. Bzz, bzz, bzz. Or I could crawl like a ladybug or I could even bloom like a flower on a low level. Let's look at one more example of setting. This is a busy city. It's very different from the ocean and very different from the meadow. In this setting, we see airplanes and helicopters on a high level. We even see a skyscraper and birds on a high level. On the middle level, we see boats. We see a bridge. Maybe we see people who are doing things in their own apartments. And then on the low level, we see people walking on the street and a train going through the tunnel. How would you show a train on a low level? If you have a lot of people around you, you can make a dance where you all work together and show what's happening on different levels. Maybe one person could do a high level dance. One person could do a middle level dance. One person could do a low level dance. And when you work together, the people watching can understand the scene. They can understand the setting that they see. I just have myself all alone. And maybe you are watching by yourself too. So we are going to make a dance that is called an ABC dance. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, ABC. And each movement in our dance is going to be different. When we do this dance, we're going to show a different level for every section. So we're gonna do a high level dance at the beginning, a middle level movement in the middle, and a low level movement at the end. When we make this dance, let's look at our ocean setting. I think this is a fun one to dance about. I want you to look carefully at this picture and decide three things that you want to put in your dance. One thing on a high level, one thing on the middle level of the picture, and one thing from the bottom of the picture. While you decide, I'm gonna tell you what I'm putting in my dance. I'm going to have the waves in my dance. I hope somebody picks the shark. I'm going to have the turtle in my dance. And then at the end, I'm going to dance like the treasure chest on a low level. So my ABC dance is waves, turtle, treasure chest. What's in your dance? What are your three parts? I'm doing a high wave. What will you do? I'm going to do a middle turtle. What will you do? And then at the end, I'm going to be a treasure chest. Let's do those movements one more time without the help of the book. We are going to dance our ABC dances and that will be our last activity for the day. All right, are you ready? Let's start on a high level and we'll do our movement for the number eight. It's a magic number in dance. All right, are you ready? Here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Your second movement. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Your third movement. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. The end. Good job. Thank you so much for dancing with me today. I had so much fun and I hope you did too. You can keep doing this idea of creating a scene dance, a setting dance, again, with the books that you have around you or with the world that you have around you. Think about how dancing about the setting can change your perspective of it and make you understand it in a new way. I hope that it's fun for you to explore and I hope that you'll keep dancing. Thank you.


One, two, three, four, five. Red. No, no, no. Thank you. Here's a red. A red. All right. I got your rounds on my bags, so I'm going to just split these between the two. Sure. He's in. All right, let's go. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Watch that doorway. Go, go, go. Watch that doorway. All right, you got the front doorway. And then only rely on the intermediate one. So we'll keep you guys established in the house.  And then once they're set, so the trigger for you is to get to that point and clear that whole entire room. And it's not clear until every single spot in that room is clear. Especially against this. So they're just sitting outside. Yeah, we gotta push that down to the tree once in a second. I just want to sit on the road.


Kumbalajinaaaaa What's the other word for it? DAAAAY Hey, welcome back to our show but our exit is on Corbin I'm Rick I'm Felsen Instagram, Twitter, and more juicy content It's so juicy Is that how you pronounce it? Kumbalajin? Yeah Kumbalajin Kumbalajin? Is it? What? Are we talking Hindi? No, I think this is uh Ah, then not necessarily I think this is Malalian Yeah I believe so Yeah, Malalian Malalium? Malalium Cool Uh, and this is, came out this year And uh, lots of people say it's fantastic That's what I've heard about Well, I remember we've seen some of the more recent things we've seen that are Malalium trailers have felt like film festival circuit kinds of independent films, things of that nature Yeah, and so Really artsy I'm going to ask you at the end, is this something we should start with? I know this was recommended, like I asked on YouTube What's the next film we should watch? Yeah, this one was highly highly requested Cool From this year, it just came out earlier Uh, last year Literally January 17th is when this trailer is going to release Probably release in February maybe There's probably some precious stupid babies who've been asking for this since February last year 100% And I'm sorry Yeah Here we go Rani, look at that, that's the mask Go away, man I don't want to play with the mask I'm going to smoke Ah, Pranky What are you doing? What are you doing with the mask? No, dude, I'm just doing this What? Wait, just a minute Why haven't you called in yet? We've already received an old man Yeah, he's here What's his name? Shammi When I'm going with him, Rani is asking for a song That's the best song He's playing the way I want to play When we get here, we're all bored Why? Don't treat him that way, let's get to work That's not true, it's not a matter of the day Dream on Yeah Rani, do this I think it will be sugar. I don't think it will taste good. Hey Bobby! What are you laughing at? What are you laughing at? Bobby, what happened? I don't want to sleep at home. Is there any problem? Yes, we don't know anything about it. Where is it? I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about it. Do you know anything about it? I don't know anything about it. Do you know anything about it? I don't know anything about it. Dude, look at you. It looks like an over direction. There is a culture in the family. I don't know which family it belongs to. I don't know which family it belongs to. There is a culture in the family. We live together. There is nothing impossible here. I can't even look at his face. I don't understand. What happened to you? I don't understand. Everything is so funny. to look like a just a love story. Yeah it looked like it looked like in the same way for example love actually has several stories going on at once but they interweave at different places obviously thematic and very very different but it felt like we've got several different stories going on at once with people who are connected. Right and I really love the choice of the moments to just to choose a moment as seemingly throwaway as somebody looking at somebody going I love that just feels and clearly ending I almost you know when you see the faces boom boom like you would see that in love actually you'd see the faces of everybody that we would know the actors that are in the film it seemed like that at the end it's like this person this person that people would know who that was definitively Indian yeah for sure and like a story that it seemed very real uh and let me see this film revolves around four brothers who share a love hate relationship with each other their relationship progresses to another level when Saji, Bonnie and Frankie decide to help Bobby stand by his love. That looks really good it does look really very interesting. His director only has two credits to his name is that normal? You don't see that a lot here. You don't know you don't. Let's see. Yeah I don't really recognize most of the names but that makes sense because if it's a Malolio this person right here though. Okay I mean she has no credits because it looked like there was an American this person right here Jasmine. Yeah have you played the American? That's her only credit I don't know if she is American but she was playing the American and so yeah it looked really really good I thought it didn't suck and didn't suck what the American didn't suck in the trailer well yeah from the little yeah that's a little bit shown that's good yes that's promising so maybe the Malolio's can get the uh the Americans correct yeah or even that poster I really like it this is very intriguing to me it's only 135 very intriguing to me uh so kind of quick yeah uh is this what we should start with I think we got a bunch of recommendations for it uh for Malolio we did just one I don't know if you've seen it yet because it did get blocked so that's on patreon I will try to cut it cut it up but there's a film called takeoff remember that one the military one that looked really good really good yeah so I don't know if you've seen it yet um but uh is that one we should start with it should be because this one got like if you go on the community page where I posted hey what you watch next they said tons and tons of suggestions and upvotes I don't know if it was all by the same person could be made a bunch of account films producer just a bunch of time but I can see like it looks really really really real yeah we love that uh when something just looks uh I don't know if it's a definitively Malolium store is is there a state called malolium or is that just the language yeah I think it's Malolia Malolia and Malolium and Malolia Malolium is the language the language yeah okay and the Malolium people I've correct us if we're wrong is that north or south south itself yeah okay um I think please correct us if we're wrong and we probably are and you can let us know yeah I have felt that regionally most Hindi films cover the north and the west except for stuff that would be Punjabi because that's north but that's that it has its own industry yeah the Punjabi films and then anything below Delhi that would be central would I think they would characterize as South which would basically be everything except Bengali things because Bengalis east so like Malayalam, Marathi, Tulu, Telugu, Tamil. Do you sing in a song in your head right now? No actually I wasn't. That was a way I was remembering them but I don't have to do that anymore. I'll fall within the south in the central region I think please correct me if I'm wrong. That's my understanding based on our exposure so yeah well let us know how this one is and if it's the first one we should start with if it's not recommend it down below yeah I want to get into regardless of what people think I'll get into other really do guys


10 best marketing tools to get influencers to work with your business Okay, you've thought about using influencers, but how do you go about it? I mean do you just do you send them messages? Do you ask them the answers? No There are actually marketing tools and in this video, I'm gonna walk you through the 10 best ones You're gonna know exactly how to contact influencers. You're gonna know what they cost You're gonna know what their audiences are You're gonna know the pros and cons of each of these and I'm gonna walk you through step by step As a matter of fact, I'll put them up on the screen so you can actually see these tools and see how they work But before we get started, don't forget to turn on all bell notifications Click that subscribe button below turn it from red to gray and Turn all bell notifications so you're notified each and every time I go live. Okay, so Contacting influencers. Why is that a little intimidating? It can't actually be a little intimidating. That's why these tools are so great guys I want to walk you through each one. You've got a market in a digital age now You've got to use what works now. It's it's different. It's not like running newspaper ads or magazines ads anymore It's it's entirely different. So you got to jump into the new digital marketing age So let's get right into it and let me start listing some of these and telling you all about the first one I want to tell you about his trackers. Let's go over there and take a look at it. Okay. Here's tracker right here It's a favorite of companies. I mean Zendes uses an American Airlines using it If you don't mind investing just a little bit of cash and a little bit of your time to get the ball rolling it actually helps you find influencers and Target more in on your strategy You can find the best appeal to these audiences and it can also help you nurture relationships with people you already have You can make up really descriptive Reports you can show exactly what progress you've made and you can also narrow down your efforts a little bit more It's it's a decent Program it's a little bit on the pricey side But it really is all in one solution for those who prioritize Influencer marketing above all else. The next one I want to tell you about is buzz sumo buzz sumo has been around for a long Long time and they really have a lot of features. They help you find your niche influencers They'll also predict how responsive they're actually going to be in advance From competitors research to Twitter profile search. This is a tool. That's really a favorite of mine It's a daily to-go list just about any digital marketing task that you want to do You can keep an eye on important metrics like retweets rate. You can also see the reply ratios It gives you a really good idea of your choosing influencers and the tend to talk back to their audiences Or if they're just broadcasting stuff. I mean you want to know if they're actually connecting The next one I want to tell you about is called pitch box pitch box Pitch box is really the top-end influencer marketing outreach tool It has a really robust Prospecting feature as well as all kinds of ways to help you get your contacts organized how to stay in touch with them You can also do reminders. You can do follow-ups. You can check the status updates You can keep your team updated on who of your influencers needs a follow-up It also proves to be very responsive About the best ways to reach out one-on-one to these influencers when you're making your email outreach strategy You want to be really cautious with your email tactics? Make sure your emails don't look like spam. This could actually hurt your brand The next one I want to tell you about is LinkedIn now all of us understand we think we understand what LinkedIn is While it's often used for like business-to-business prospecting and outreach and jobs and all that I've also found it's a really effective way to make the most of the platform and to reach people behind Different brands so that's pretty cool. For example, if your influencer outreach involves media coverage You can find first and second tier connections at your local publication You can reach out or you can get introduced through a common contact So you can use it differently than what you think it may be My next one and one of my favorites is my blog you now You won't get anywhere with influencer marketing without proper engagement So even if you've got an influencer that's working for you and he's got a lot of followers or she's got a lot of followers It's that actual Interaction that you want my blog you is actually a community of experts all in one place and they give it tips advice They nudge people they encourage people. So it's really a pretty cool place It also is a great place to get your content together Such as you know soundbites quotes You can imagine that it will make great resource for people who want to connect with all these different influencers And do it on a one-on-one level while still leveraging their own authority to do it Next one I want to tell you about is Co-schedule co-schedule is a little bit different. It's really one of the best ways to better build relationships And create content that engages with your audience How many times have you seen a major influencer share a post or a video or podcast because they like it a good example is George Takei he brings millions of views to a single post just by sharing it Co-schedule is actually dedicated to helping you create better content Planning your collaborations and so that you can start reaching the influencer visibility. You've always dreamed of now My next one is a Gora pulse a Gora pulse a Gora pulse is Really technically I would have put this in the category with Hootsuite because I use Hootsuite But I really like a Gora pulse for the pro platform in particular It uses the geo data alongside Hashtags and also profile info on Instagram to create more targeted influencer reports for you to use and To make your decisions based on there aren't really nearly enough Instagram tools out there So this is a must-have for anyone that is on a social photo site They have what's called a cross-search feature and it's really special. It allows for full custom Optimization, which I think is really neat my next one. I want to tell you about is one called keyhole Now keyhole, I wouldn't say always works. It really you just got to kind of try it out It's a little bit of a hit-and-miss type thing. It's not really that great for research on specific people That's not what it's there for but you can use the real-time tracking You can identify patterns that show who is sharing the most trendy post across Twitter Which really is going to lead to you to the influencers you want You may not have found these people otherwise if you didn't know this stuff. So this really matters Because influencer marketing isn't just about you know, getting the biggest names to talk about your business It's really about finding the ones who are most valuable to your brand. They may not even be as well known It could be a micro influencer or a nano influencer So this may not always be immediately apparent and keyhole lets you look a little bit deeper And that's why they call it keyhole. The next one is Fin Teza Fin Teza Fin Teza is more to find influencers. It includes outbound tactics You research you reach out you follow up your research again. That's not to be done on site Yet, there's one thing you can do you can create and you can personalize your influencer driven landing page for those Influencers to be sure to engage with their brand once you get to your site Fin Teza allows you to Actually take all those people record them enter them into your site through a specific page and generate a personalized Call to action to better engage with them. So it feels more personalized So you can target your influencer landing page for example, and you don't want to sell anything to them instead You may want to invite them to download your lead magnet or claim their personalized freebies So that's kind of a cool way to find influencers It's also Good to use a Facebook pixel on there to record everyone who initially landed on your influencer driven landing page And that way you can actually remark it to all these people and they can see it over and over and over You know that works the remarketing where does that ad won't go away and my last one on the list? It's a little different. It's called follower walk follower walk I don't know where they come up with these names But it's really been praised by so many people and hailed as one of the best tools To mark it for a long long time I have not personally used this paid version But I have seen the free one a lot And I can say it's one of the really coolest tools on the list that I'm telling you about today Because it's so reliable. I found more Twitter influencers And searching on here to connect with and almost anywhere. Okay, so that's a pretty complete list And there's other tools that are out there. I'm not going to say there aren't other tools out there These happen to be what I think are my ten best. Okay, I've got my ten best and these are it I would tell you if you want to speed up Your influencer research and you want to get the influencers that are going to match your business the quickest I would use some of these tools guys You can do this on your own without paying for any tools But you have to realize your time is worth something So if you're spending all your time trying to find these influencers and wondering if they're any good I mean you can spend hours weeks months just researching who to contact when you use one of these tools You can really target the right people for your business You can look and see how much influence they really have you can see if people are actually interacting with them Or if they're just doing a bunch of posts So these tools are really invaluable to you on your own It's almost impossible to tell if the influence is going to be good for you If they're going to post the way you want and if they're going to get the interaction you want and if you're going to get Conversions in sales, so I highly recommend you using these tools.  I see people do this all the time. I see people mowing their own lawns I mean I used to mow my own lawn so I'm not going to say anything about that But if I go out there and mow my lawn and I don't make a video that video is going to make me a whole lot more money I'm paying 35 bucks for a gardener to show up, you know I can't I can't go out my yard and work for three hours for 35 bucks It doesn't make sense and it doesn't make sense for you to try to find your own influencers either I hope this worked out for you if you're an influencer put your information below talk a little bit about what you do You don't know somebody may discover you if you're looking for influencers post below what you're looking for Somebody may see your post and contact you. I hope you found this video very valuable And if you did do me a favor give me a thumbs up Don't forget to hit the subscribe button down there turn it from red to gray and ring the bell This is the most important thing. You won't get this bell unless you subscribe You won't have the opportunity to ring that bell unless you subscribe and when you turn bell notifications on all Notifications you're gonna be notified every time I do a video or I go live. Thanks so much for watching this video guys I really appreciate you and I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thanks for watching my video Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right there so you can be notified every time I do a new video also click on one of those videos there keep watching on my channel


I would like to start officially the first session and give the floor to Dr. K. Speck, who is from Kugelwieders. Thank you very much for coming to Tilburg today to be part of this conference on physical state aid control. Wow, this is a little... Well, I think it's a very appropriate, because we will be speaking today and I will be focusing with you on the legitimacy of physical state aid control. Although if you know the name of this very theater where we are now, it's called the Black Box. So that's why maybe it may be appropriate to dim the lights a little bit, but I think it's even more appropriate to discuss physical state aid control in this very room, because I think too many people, especially tax payers, physical state aid control has become a bit of a black box, because we don't know anymore what's coming out of the system in Brussels, what will happen. So I think it's appropriate to speak about this very topic here with you today in this very room. And I will be discussing with you the legitimacy of physical state aid control in a more political sense. You're shining. Yeah, I'm shining out, yes. Which means that I will focus mostly on the political and economic context of physical state aid control, and not so much on the legal elements and the lawfulness of physical state aid case. That will be later. Daniel Smith will discuss it. Raymond Luya in later sessions will be speaking about it. So I focus mostly on the political and institutional context, and that means that I will start with an introduction, of course, discuss the topic with you and end with some conclusions and proposals for further discussions, which will hopefully be interesting to speak about. If we think about the introduction, I think we eventually end up with this woman, Margaret Vestager. She's a commissioner of internal market and competition in Brussels. And actually, she put like a bomb in the international tax community, because she and her team started to investigate all kind of tax rulings that were concluded between the member states and taxpayers. And well, we know all the names, so we have individual tax rulings, which in decisions have been made, like in the Starbucks case, Fiat, Apple, Amazon, et cetera. We also see how some regimes as such are being investigated, the Belgium-access profit regime, but also if you brought our ruling practice and there currently cases of pending before the European courts. And there are also still other investigations of pending, and maybe even more, for example, in the McDonald's case. And what these cases have in common, and that's clearly said by Mrs. Vestager, is that there is a focus on aggressive tax planning. And it has put people a little bit in doubt, because I teach my students, for example, and I teach them about transfer pricing, that there are specific reasons why we have a separate system to tax multinational companies, because group companies are not particularly same as non-group companies. There are differences which give advantages and disadvantages. And in these rulings, at least those which focus on transfer pricing, it seems that group companies, they should be determining their prices within the multinational company in the same way as non-related companies. And the question is, how should we be thinking of that? What should we be dealing with that? And in order to understand a bit better the way of thinking, in order to get to the question, what's the political economic context of these issues, I think it's important to focus on quotes from an interview which she gave with the Guardian last year. And I think it's good to focus bit by bit on what she's saying. She starts by saying, I'm not a federalist. That's important to be sure, because that's political suicide if you say that you're a federalist. So we should start with that. But then she says, we are doing this because the people are angry. And well, it's not really who those people are, but the people are angry. And the people are, of course, the other taxpayers who don't have the possibility to have transfer pricing agreements, possibly, who are not in a group. The people are the citizens, the other ones. That's I think that she's referring to. And importantly, she says in this quote that the European Council, which is the European legislator, the member states together, they knew about it and they already had the power to change, but they didn't do it. And then she says, let's try to do something different within the system that we have. Something that means no change in legislation or voting systems, but a change in attitude that acknowledges that people across Europe are angry. I think this is an appropriate starting point to speak about this topic today. And then I will come back to some elements of this quote in my presentation. Because as we also know, there has been a lot of criticism on those rulings on these statements. People from the tax community mostly, they speak about that there is a creeping normative role. The European Commission is going further than it's supposed to be. It's taking decisions that are going beyond its previous case law. There are no precedents. And that means that the European Commission are considered to put in place de facto tax harmonization, some people say that. Some people say that the European Commission doesn't have the confidence to attack international mismatches which give rise to these possibilities. That the European Commission is even creating new rules to allocate taxing rights between member states. And at the same time, people are also criticizing that legal certainty is being reached by means of all these decisions because we have a taxing system in place already for a long time. And now suddenly the rules are different, which is something like ruling by style. You change the rules and that's of course a big problem with regard to legitimate expectations of tax payers. And then from the U.S. we hear that there is a disproportionate targeting of U.S. multinational companies. Here in Europe you are focusing only on our multinationals. You should also have a look at yours. Well, that's being done, for example, in the IKEA case and a lot of other ones. So criticisms are very severe and the question is should we assess the position of best idea and both criticisms? In order to do so I think we should first have a very brief look, otherwise we cannot have this very discussion, on the political economic context of the taxation of multinational companies in the European Union. And the starting point was and still is the autonomy of the member states to design their own corporate income tax system. They are free to make a system upon their wishes in principle. And they do that, of course, more and more in cooperation with each other, which means, for example, that we have quite some international software norms, most importantly the OECD transfer price guidelines, which make it possible for the states to design the taxing systems in coordination also with other states. But at the same time, of course, there are also a lot of things that are not properly coordinated, which give rise to disparities between taxing system gaps, which make it possible for tax payers to plan and to have tax planning opportunities. We also know that in the European Union there is no completely harmonized system for the taxation of multinational companies. Yes, I mean, we are speaking about the Consolidated Corporate Tax Base. Let's see how that progresses, but at the moment it's not there. But, of course, there is increasing coordination between the member states. Peter was already referring to the tax supported directives one and two, so there is more and more coordination in this regard. And I think it's important to emphasize that in my presentation there was the Code of Conduct for Business Taxation, which is like a political agreement between the member states to limit harmful tax competition. It was agreed upon at the end of the 1990s, and it has shown to be a rather effective mechanism to tackle harmful tax competition. For example, the Dutch ruling practice changed already in the beginning of the 2000s because of the developments and the Code of Conduct. So this is the starting point, I think, for the discussion. And then we need to wonder how should we assess legitimacy of these activities of the European Commission and more broadly, I would say, legitimacy of fiscal state-aid control. How should we think about that? And as I was telling you already briefly before, there are, of course, many ways to look at this issue, one perspective would be to look at the lawfulness of the activity. So then we look at legitimacy in a strictly legal sense, focusing on the EU rules, EU principles. I will do that very briefly, but as I told you, I think other speakers will be discussing that issue more in detail. And we can speak about a more broader concept, which is legitimacy in a political sense, which is not only on the lawfulness, but also on the question to what extent do the citizens have trust in the EU legal order and to what extent does EU fiscal state-aid control contribute to that trust. Well, I have one slide on the legitimacy in the strictly legal sense on the lawfulness, because I took the liberty to write down that the scope of application of fiscal state-aid control of fiscal state-aid law is still not very clear. The analysis effectively boils down to a selectivity analysis, which you will hear much more about later. And the application of that is still not very clear. And there are all kinds of other questions. For example, what is the relationship with Article 116, 117 about disparities? There is one issue in this context, which I do, however, want to stress in more detail, because of course when we speak about the lawfulness of the activities of the European Commission, we also need to understand how much power is delegated to the European Commission in the EU legal framework, in the EU legal order. And then it's, I think, interesting to know that the delegation of power is rather imprecise, I would call it. Of course, we have the supranational and centralized institutional framework, but the very competences have been quite long subject to discussion. I think it's important to know that the founding fathers of the European treaties, they didn't have much faith in the self-constrained of member states. They didn't have much faith to think that the member states would be behaving in a way that was appropriate from the EU perspective. They were afraid that they would be focusing on their own interest, and therefore those state aid control was introduced at the centralized supranational level. And it proved to be true, because from a really long time states didn't really seem to care so much about state aid control. They didn't notify new aides, for example, they just didn't. And when the European Commission would claim recovery of a certain aid after it had been discussed and investigated, very often such aides were not being repaid. There was no recovery. Member states didn't care. And that means that from a long time state aid control was a very political issue. There were no proper procedural rules until the member states to the council eventually agreed upon the procedural rules in 1999. Before that there was no art law to deal with it. And that means, and that's my point, is that there is very limited art law to limit the power of the European Commission. There is the procedural regulation, the law detention regulation, but for the rest everything is based on soft law, which means that in the end the European Commission has quite some freedom to develop its own policy and it is being supported there by the European Court of Justice. And that means that in the end the leeway of the European Commission is in fact limited by the rationale of this state aid control in the treaty, case law, presidents, its own soft law, and some art law. And that shows that to a big extent we are constantly thinking about what's the rationale of this state aid control? What are we supposed to doing? So there is the teleological problem where we have to look at the objective of this state aid control. And of course we could more, introduce more art law in this regard to make it clearer to limit those competences, but that would probably also limit the effectiveness. So from a strictly legal point of view I think there are still some doubts about the application, the scope of law, and the segregation of power to the European Commission, which puts into question the entire debate. If we then continue, because I told you I would focus mostly on more political economic context, if we put it in the broader scope, a political science perspective on legitimacy, which is somewhat broader, and that means that I also consider the relevance of trust of citizens in the political order. And in that regard I think it's useful to reflect upon the work of Kitschow, who is a famous political scientist, and he made a distinction between input and output legitimacy, and it seems rather... and I think it will help us to think about that problem today, because he says input legitimacy is like government by the people. People, political choices are legitimate, if and because they reflect upon the will of the people. That's on the basis of elections, that's right. But at the same time, he says, we also have to consider output legitimacy, government for the people, and that means that political choices are considered to be legitimate, if and because it effectively promotes the common welfare of the people, which means that in order to be legitimate, there should be mechanisms that facilitate problem solving. They should make it possible that problems of society are effectively being solved by the government, by the politicians. And of course, in the democratic nation states as we are used to live in, that goes hand in hand. There are the elections, and that makes clear also what kind of problems should be solved and there are all kind of other institutional mechanisms in place to improve that, for example, corporate agreements, et cetera, et cetera. But Sharpe says that member states were, and he wrote it in the 1990s, were facing a loss of problem solving capacity, as he called it, because of globalization, because of EU integration that became increasingly difficult for member states to resolve the problems that were being addressed and that would facilitate the welfare of the society that we are speaking about. And that's why, for example, taxation of capital, if we take this as an example, that became increasingly difficult for member states because of the globalization, because of the case law of the European Court of Justice to organize a texting system of capital which is able to result in a fair sharing of the tax burden. And Sharpe wondered, maybe at EU level, we can help to solve this lack of problem solving capacity at the level of the member states. And in this slide, we can have a look at the competences of the European Commission in this regard because, of course, fiscal state-aid control doesn't depend on the input part of legitimacy. It's not that citizens vote for fiscal state-aid control. It's really related to the output part. We expect the European Commission to solve collective EU problems in an effective and efficient way. That's what it's supposed to do. So it operates outside political processes to solve problems that are regarded to be in place that cannot be solved by the member states' level themselves. So it's technocratic governance based on expert knowledge. And then the question is, what problems is the European Commission supposed to solve? What are the issues that it's supposed to deal with? And I think that if we take a look at fiscal state-aid control, the way it was always seen, that we always regarded, that the output legitimacy to solve the problems of the European citizens was, in the first instance, based on the ability to eliminate negative cross-border externalities of the state intervention. So that means, for example, that if one member state would introduce a favorable tax regime for a limited group of companies, for example, financing activities, that introduction has an effect on the company's operating on the internal market, and in that way, it has an effect on the competition between firms in the EU and other member states companies are suffering from that. So that's, I think, the starting point of the output legitimacy, the definition of the problems. Secondly, the European Commission was supposed to solve those problems on the basis of objective criteria that guarantee that those decisions are founded on rational arguments. It should be very crystal clear on which decisions, which criteria those interventions are being made. So that means, we are speaking about expert knowledge, and that means that there should have been an objective identification of the taxation that would have been due in the absence of fiscal stay dates. And it's interesting to know that on the basis of the case law of the Court of Justice, the European Commission in the late 1980s found inspiration in the tax expenditure concept to give substance to those criteria. And tax expenditures, you will know that those provisions in the taxing system that actually implement government spending programs. For example, in the Netherlands, mortgage, if you pay interest on your mortgage, it's tax deductible, which is a government spending program of the Dutch government. And Stanley Surrey, who was a professor of public finance, thought it was important that we are able to manage those government spending. We should keep control of that. In that regard, he came with this tax expenditure concept and he suggested that they should be differentiated from the normal taxing system. And that's how we got to these normal rules. That's how we got to the benchmark ID of dealing with fiscal stay dates because it was being transferred from that public finance concept into fiscal stay date control. And it's important to know that for Surrey, this control of tax expenditures was an objective exercise. It was a science, and he believed very strongly in the science of public policy that there was a rational approach in order to determine that benchmark and that rational approach would make it possible to create decisions that are based on rational knowledge to determine the benchmark. So that's the second element of the legitimacy in the old story, as I would say. And then there was, I think, also important for the member states. It should have been clear that in this framework, they still had the appropriate leeway to develop tax policy, to develop international tax policy. And that's why, and you will all know that, in the 1998 notice on the application of stay date rules, there was this reference to tax measures of a purely technical nature. They were regarded to be general measures instead of fiscal stay dates. And the reference was made, for example, to set in the tax rate, but also provisions to prevent double taxation. They were like safeguarded by means of that provision in the notice on the application of stay date. And that gave sufficient leeway to the member state to continue to conclude double tax that they liked, for example. If we look at the context of this story, if we look at, okay, where is this all based on? You could see that, of course, it's based on the idea that the member states themselves want to set the limits for tax competition in the European Union. So the member states themselves want to set political limits on desirable harmful tax competition in the code of conduct. And for the rest, fiscal stay date control is a complement to that, focusing only on competition between firms within the EU. And, moreover, there was a defect or carve out of those provisions of international taxation by means of that categorical exception that I was speaking about. So member states really were able to set the limits on tax competition by themselves. Well, it's all fine and nice, but at the same time, of course, we could see that the EU, as a whole, would be bearing cost, maybe because of the loss of the lack of coordination. We could claim that states are in charge, that they are autonomous, as it's being claimed in this ID, but were states effectively in charge of the allocation of taxing rights? Or, could we say that because of double tax treaties, et cetera, et cetera, globally operating companies were able to set the allocation of taxing rights because, for example, the state of the income case is in fact the way of a tax payer who decides by himself how he wants to set to allocate the taxing rights states had lost control there. And that's why we saw that because of a lack of coordination, we had what I like to call a tax law market where there is a whole of non-authority. States didn't always have control on tax payers. States also didn't have control on each other. And this gave rise to problems that were very difficult to solve the problems that we were facing. At the same time, it made it also possible for member states to focus on their own self-interest. For example, in the Netherlands we are considering the abolition of dividend withholding tax within some limits, in abuse cases we will continue, et cetera. That's a general measure so cannot be physical stated, but at the same time it gives rise to substantial distortions probably on the internal market. Would it be okay if all states would be doing the same, or maybe better not? So there are costs because of a lack of coordination. And we see that to continue with this status quo is more and more difficult, I think. The first place because the cost increase when economic integration progresses. We should be considering whether maybe we shouldn't broaden the scope of physical stated control. Secondly, it's proving to be more and more difficult for the European Commission to guarantee that their decisions are based on proper rational choices. As we see, and we will hear about it much more later, this benchmarking test, which was regarded to be an objective measure, bit by bit it seems at least like a non-discrimination test, which makes it more difficult maybe to qualify it as a really objective test, like the benchmarking test. And more importantly, I would say that as we know we have a few criteria to see whether there is physical state aid, but the focus is completely on the selectivity criteria. And for example the criterion whether there is a distortion of competition and an impact on trade is in fact irrelevant because if we look at, if there could be a potential impact then it's already sufficient. So the effector is now need to check it. And I think that's a shame because it would be much better if there would be more economic analysis involved to check actually whether there are those distortions. And it shows, like Professor Vanistendal wisely said already more than ten years ago, it is not relevant whether competition is being distorted, but it's relevant how it is being distorted by means of a physical state aid or a general measure. And if it's a general measure, how distorted it could be, it doesn't matter. Which makes it difficult for the European Commission to substantiate its decisions, I would say. And lastly, of course, that's what we see in the beginning. It's the anger Mr. Stathberger is referring to. It is more and more difficult to continue maybe because people are no longer accepting this current system of taxation of multinational companies. And I would say that this discussion is culminating in the concerns about individual tax rulings because to many people the discussion about tax rulings is a discussion about the legitimacy of international tax law. It makes very clear the tension that we have. Who is in charge? It's presented as a deal, which as tax people we don't agree with, of course. But who is in charge? Is it member states setting the rules or are the companies able to define the way they feel that the rule should be granted? Of course, there are a lot of nuance in that regard, but people feel it that way. And that's something that we should be discussing. And therefore, the question is how should we assess the boundaries? I think that's what these cases are all about. The boundaries of the power of tax authorities to conclude such tax rulings. How much boundaries do they have? How should we determine that? And I think the European Commission is struggling a little bit here and in my view, the starting point should be we should be assessing the strategic behavior of tax authorities on the tax law market. And what do I mean with that? Well, if you look at many of these decisions, implicitly you see all kind of references to strategic actions of tax authorities. For example in the Apple case a ruling was granted while there was not even a transfer pricing report in place. In the Amazon case, there is no proper functional analysis. Should you be granting a ruling then? No matter if it's correct or incorrect should that be okay? Can it be okay like in the Starbucks case that the tax authorities take a look at the ruling that's being presented and don't ask many critical questions. They simply rather quickly accept that it's a tall manufacturer and maybe this should be more critical. I think that's one part of the problem that we are looking at and then even the bigger question is should tax authorities be granting a tax ruling if it's clear or it should be clear to them that the taxpayer is setting up a structure that is causing double non-taxation. So here the tax ruling is, as I like to call it explicitly anticipating on that whole of non-authority or lack of harmonization. Should you be doing that in the European Union or is that maybe for some reason not acceptable? And the other side of the story is of course that the tax authorities have to deal with the law that is in place. That's the most important starting point because the ruling is supposed to grant certainty on that and that's where European Commission is coming in because they claim that those laws are not appropriate. They are not granted a proper allocation of taxing rights and group and non-group transaction to treat it more in an equal way. The question is how should we assess this? Is it only an assessment of that behavior? Or should we go even further and also have a look at maybe other norms that are supposed to be in place? I'll come back to that in a second. What I want to say is that in my view the discussion that we are having is a classic battle of EU integration. On the one end we have the inter-government view which means effectively that states are in control. States set the limits of European integration and states set the limit of the harmful tax competition that is in place. And in this way physical state aid control is an instrument of the states. They define the problems and the European Commission is like an agent, a weak agent to implement those. And well since the states never delegated any power to monitor activities on the tax law markets the question is should we continue that or should we maybe consider that states would be better off to transfer those powers to the states because then they can overcome the lack of trust they maybe have with each other. They don't trust each other and it is better to set up an agent that is able to control that lack of trust. Or should we, and that's the other classic idea about EU integration are we seeing a new official list view which means that member states are in fact no longer to be trusted to set the limits for harmful tax competition and that therefore supranational institutions take over they take control like for example the European Court of Justice did with regard to negative integration where it gave itself the competence to conclude that we have a supranational order that are stronger than national legal systems and that in that way forced negative integration on the member states. Are we seeing the same here? The European Commission doing the same. I think that's the big question that we are facing and which means that we should be thinking can states still be trusted to give a ruling which is not at the expense of others? And even brawler, and that's what the European Commission seems to be after, can states be trusted to create a corporate income tax system that contributes to the legitimacy of national tax system as well? Which brings me to my conclusions and I will be brief here but I think what I would like to argue is that first of all we need to have this discussion much more and not only think about whether the ruling of such decision is okay but we should have the discussion what is the purpose and I think that the intervention of the European Commission should not be based on substantive tests so not like there should be a single tax principle or the benefit principle and that gives us authority to intervene no, we should look at the national system and see whether in a way or another there are failures at the democratic level nationally and if there are such failures then the European Commission should intervene and well, given the time I will only look at the last slide because I think that's the discussion I would like to have with you what is desirable should we continue with member states themselves setting the limits of harmful tax competition so that we have the code of conduct tax competition should we, and that's number three rely on member states who agree on far reaching tax harmonization should we have tax rate competition only or should we go in the middle and say maybe far reaching harmonization is not necessary but if we grant more authority to the European Commission with detailed mandates in mind we don't need tax harmonization but we can still have a European Union that is solving collective problems that we are facing without losing that much sovereignty in case of harmonization thank you very much for your thanks