Aloha everyone and welcome to Hawaii Together on the ThinkTech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Ikeena, your host and president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. We're down to the final weeks of the 2022 legislative session and I'm very pleased to see that there's a bill to limit the governor's emergency power. It's making its way near the finish line. We hope it crosses. Now that bodes well for transparency and for accountability here in Hawaii as limiting executive power during emergencies is an essential part of good governance. Bill we're looking at is SB 3089 and it would specify limits to the governor's emergency powers and help protect the state's traditional constitutional balance of powers. To discuss this matter today I'm so delighted to have with us two individuals who understand the issues very well. They've been working on this bill and they've been communicating to the public what we need to be looking at. Sandy Ma is the executive director of Common Cause Hawaii and Malia Blomhill is the policy director of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Just so glad to continue working with both of these individuals. Sandy welcome to the program thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having us. Good to have you back. Love to collaborate with your organ. Could you tell us at the start just something a little bit about your background and what led you to work with Common Cause Hawaii. My name is Sandy Ma and I'm the executive director of Common Cause Hawaii. Common Cause is a national nonprofit dedicated to holding power accountable. Our purpose is to make sure that people can engage with government and know how our government functions and to ensure that our government is transparent and responsive to the people. And so I grew up on the east coast, went to undergrad and then to law school. I started off in the nonprofit sector on the east coast and then moved to Hawaii and practiced in the nonprofit sector here in Hawaii and then moved over and did some private practice law firm jobs moved over to government and when this opportunity came up with Common Cause to be the executive director here to participate in making our Hawaii government more accountable to the public. I jumped on this opportunity and it has been a great ride for me here in Hawaii and making sure that the people know how to engage in government. So that's how I became the executive director of Common Cause Hawaii and very much enjoyed working with other nonprofit organizations such as the Grass Institute of Hawaii. So thank you very much. Thank you Sandy and we also enjoy working with you. Appreciate so much what you and Common Cause are doing. We also welcome to the program today someone who'll be familiar to anyone who has been following the Grassroot Institute for the last decade or so and that's Malia Blomhill. Malia is from Hawaii. She started with us here and thanks to the magic and wonder of telecommunications. She remains on the staff of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, although she lives and frequently represents us in Washington DC. Malia, Aloha and welcome to the program. Tell us a little bit about your background. My family, my heart is in Hawaii but I also went to law school on the east coast and after some work in that general area I came to Grassroot Institute first to work on transparency of all things. We had a very large transparency project and then over time I got more involved in the policy side including transparency, still accountability, a lot of the free market work that Grassroot Institute does but I've been very interested in the issues related to civil liberties. And so I'm the author of the report of the the liberties and lockdowns report that we did last year looking at the issue of the emergency powers and Hawaii's emergency management law and that's become, you know, a real strong interest of mine as we've watched what's happened over the coronavirus pandemic. Thank you and thank you for your work at Grassroot. I'm going to start off by directing a question to you Malia. You did author Liberty versus Lockdowns which is available at the Grassroot Institute website. What have you learned about the emergency powers and the emergency management law? How would you explain what this body of law is? You know it's interesting because it's the kind of law that everyone sort of, you know, you figure it must exist.  And we didn't think about it in terms of a health care emergency. And that's what has really exposed the problems in it because what the statute does is it just gives the governor power to suspend laws as needed to act, you know, very quickly and decisively to deal with an emergency situation. However, because it was never created with this sort of vision of a ongoing multi-year health emergency, it has real limitations. Most notably is the, let's go with the vagueness about what happens if once the initial emergency ends, the emergency management statute says that emergency can last for 60 days because these are pretty remarkable powers that are being given to the executive, things that are, you know, almost legislative in nature, you know, the ability to basically change the law for a temporary time. So after the emergency period ends, what happens? Well, the statute says it terminates after 60 days and then it says nothing else. And that's where over the last two years we've seen a lot of frustration, because what has happened in real life, in practice, is that the governor and the mayors have just kept extending the emergency through additional proclamations. And, you know, 60 days is one thing, two years is another. And that is a very long time for an executive to have powers that go far beyond, you know, what we really assign to the executive constitutionally. So it's a necessary statute. And I don't want to create this idea that, you know, we have some sort of problem with it or that we don't understand that there needs to be a way to deal with emergencies. But one can do so without upsetting the constitutional balanced powers. So when we talk about reforming the statute, what we're really talking about is restoring balance of powers and making sure that, you know, constitutional rights are protected under it. Sandy, you're particularly interested and concerned about the transparency aspects of the emergency powers laws and how they may need to be reformed. What are your thoughts on that? You're absolutely correct there. So there were two suspensions of laws under Governor E. Day's use of the Emergency Powers Act that we were particularly concerned with. Governor E. Day suspended the Sunshine Law and the Public Records Request Act. And he suspended it for a really long time for well over a year. And this caused for great concern amongst good government groups because that affected how we were able to keep tabs on our government that affected transparency and accountability. And so there's concerns with the indefinite and prolonged and widespread suspension of our Public Records Act and our Sunshine Law. Government meetings were still going on, but we were not able to have any guidelines for how the public were able to attend these public meetings. So we're particularly concerned with suspensions of the Sunshine Law because government meetings were still occurring, even though the Sunshine Law was suspended. And so there were no guidelines in place for how the public could attend these meetings, what decisions were made at these government meetings, how the public could submit testimony and could comment. And so that was particularly troublesome to common cause and other good government groups. And another law that was suspended was our state Public Records Request. And so especially in COVID times when we didn't know how many cases there were, what stats were being taken by government to address the COVID situation, news agencies could not file a public records request to actually find out this information. And so while government was functioning, no one knew what government actions were taking place. And so that was incredibly troublesome for the public. And so these laws were suspended up until last year for the Public Records Request and the Sunshine Law was just the suspension of the Sunshine Law was just recently lifted. And so these are all things that the public needs to know about, has a right to know about. Sandy, I appreciate that, understanding these two laws that got suspended. I think some people might ask the question, what is the big deal, however? What harm does it bring to limit the Sunshine Law or Public Records Access for a short period of time? I'd be interested in either of your thoughts on that as well as whether this reflected a national trend or whether we were actually an outlier in our practice of suspending Sunshine and open records laws. Any further thoughts on that Sandy and then Malia? That's a great question. Other states did suspend their Sunshine Law and their Public Records Request, but we had the most egregious suspension of both. It was the most, ours was suspended for the longest period of time and was the most broad suspension. And so if we go back and look at states that suspended the Sunshine Law and the Public Records Request across the nation, we had the broadest and the longest suspension across the nation. So we were an outlier in that sense. And why it's important? It's important because we can't keep tabs on our government. We can't keep tabs on what our government officials are doing, what our elected officials are doing, what our public service are doing. And that's what we're here for. That's what the public is supposed to do, is to keep tabs on our government. Malia, ostensibly there must have been some purpose behind the suspension of Sunshine Law and open records laws. Our government must have been trying to accomplish something. What was it they were accomplishing? What do we know about their thinking on this? Well, if I were to be kind, which I will be for very, very briefly, it could be that in the early days of COVID, no one really knew what they were dealing with. And so there was this idea of, no one's going to be there to deal with it, or it's too dangerous for everyone to be in a room together. We're just going to, and not every state did this, but we did, we'll just stop everything and then figure it out from there. But that is the problem. And now to be unkind, there was no need ever to suspend the open records laws. Our open records law already envisions the possibility of some need for delay like this. So that was completely unnecessary. As for the Sunshine Laws, yes, the issue of having everyone in one room together was a real concern for a while. However, and there's two, there's two issues there. And I'm actually, I'm going to steal from, I noticed that Sandy's commentaries or something like that. I remember during this all, she pointed out that Zoom is not the same. And I recognize the irony of saying that, but Zoom is not the same. Not everyone has access. And these open meetings laws exist so that the public has access, so that we can see, so that we can participate. And that really got shut down. And then it has another layer of, you know, who can participate because making it virtual and keeping it virtual for so long locks people out of it. And I'm going to be honest, I think it makes it a little easier for the government to keep everyone at this virtual distance, even when it was no longer strictly necessary for health, because it's just easier to dismiss people. It's easier to control the situation when you're doing it all virtually. You don't have that messiness of having to deal with the public in person, but the public is entitled to be part of that. We need to be able to watch it. We need to be able to, you know, see how these decisions are made.  You know, well, this is why, because you shut down transparency, because you were so slow to reopen it. It actually makes the problem worse. Were there any requests for information made by Common Cause or Grassroot Institute or other organizations or the media that were frustrated during this period of time because the government wasn't able to or willing to comply? I have heard, well, Common Cause did not make any requests of government during that time, but I've heard of media agencies making requests of government health organizations for COVID numbers and COVID statistics that were frustrated due to the suspension of Public Records Act. Yeah, Grassroot did a request about the deliberations for COVID. The Associated Press made a similar request and it was first pushed off underneath the excuse that, you know, they didn't have to deal with it because the governor had suspended. And then when they did finally respond to us, they said it would cost several hundred thousand dollars, which is its own problem. And possibly the topic of a different episode, but it did definitely affect the open records request that we made. One of the things that the public sees going on when records requests are denied, especially for statistics that may deal with the pandemic and so forth, is that it looks like the government is hiding something. The government may or may not be hiding something, but if public is not given access and the media is not given access to relevant statistics and so forth, it's very difficult for government to build trust. Did you sense that going on out there when these requests weren't complied with? Definitely. I mean, we are in a position where we're going to hear a lot of those kinds of complaints. And I think that almost everyone saw over the course of the, you know, especially in the early months or the first year or so, the pandemic, everyone saw this sort of slow dissolving of public trust, this draining away of the leaf that they're being heard and responded to. And the fact that you couldn't, you know, get information requests that they would be delayed, that, you know, even if you were making a request, you know, to something completely unrelated to, you know, not the Department of Health or the governor's office, but say, you know, Hart, it might take a little longer because it could, because there had been given this sort of blank check to just take longer to deal with your open records requests. Yes. Go ahead, Sandy. I think people were just so frustrated with everything that was going on and, you know, the economy and just being told to stay at home, that there was just a lot of frustration building and building and building. And so I think it just led to a lot of anger towards government in some sense. And if you don't have transparency with government, then, you know, it just, it just leads to distrust and anger towards government. Malia, when we opened the program, you referred to some other aspects of the emergency laws that need to be reformed. Could you mention a few of them? And in particular, the need to provide some kind of check and balance by the legislature on the governor's or the mayor's own powers? Everyone has something that they remember from, you know, the COVID restrictions that they, in particular, you know, just thought made no sense. You know, maybe it was, you know, rule about who you can go to dinner with or how many people or how far apart or could you walk on the street or could you not, you know, could you walk at the beach? For everyone has at least one example of something that just seemed arbitrary and irrational and frustrating. And part of that frustration, as Sandy noted, is the inability to bring it to anyone to do anything with it.  And that's one of the problems with the way that the emergency management statute is structured. It has no, because it can't envision something that would go on for longer than 60 days. It puts an enormous amount of power in the hands of the governor and the mayor to suspend laws, to create new penalties. One of the things that has since been addressed, but was a problem, was that there was no real idea of what was going to happen when you violated a COVID order, even if it's just, you know, are you wearing a mask while filling your gas tank kind of violation? And for a while, everyone was kind of racking up misdemeanors, because that's how unprepared we were to deal with this. And yet the only, the only to say the only word was the governor's. Usually when you get new law, when you have a change in the law that goes through the legislature, it has a process, people have a way of having a voice in what happens they can weigh in. And what happens under the emergency management statute is that that's just gone. The legislative check of the executive power is just gone. It's supposed to be temporary, but as we've seen, it isn't functioning as temporary. And that's the real, the real problem here is that we have a statute that we have now through experience learned just to put too much power in the hands of the executive without balancing it. You know, it's not to suggest that, you know, it's going to just be this sort of miracle thing where no executive will ever come up with an emergency proclamation that you won't like. The issue is, is there a way, is there a balance? Is there a place for the people's voice to come through? And that's why it needs reform. We need some sort of legislative voice and legislative check on what the governor or the mayor can do. Sandy, did you want to add anything to that? No, I think that was a great summary by Malia as to why the people's voice is so important in this process because the governor issued over two dozen, I believe, emergency proclamations for COVID. And so while we understand the importance of the emergency powers act and the need during these COVID times, we do also want to balance that with transparency and accountability and the public's right to participate and to engage in government even during COVID times. The declarations of emergency that the governor issued were supposed to expire after a certain number of days. And as you mentioned, Sandy, we had at least a couple dozen of these decrees, which appeared to extend the practices of any one emergency decree. Malia, your thoughts on that. I know you've looked into that. What was going on here? And what needs to be reformed about that? Well, this has been the topic of some legal debate because the statute is silent on what happens after an emergency terminates. It says that an emergency terminates automatically after 60 days, and then it says nothing. Now, one could argue, and I think we have, it had a guest press webinar, seminars, that implicitly means then you can't do any more because that's it. That's the end of the emergency because otherwise they could have done something to signify something else. But what has happened is that the governor has issued successive proclamations extending the emergency. And to date, no one has successfully challenged that in court. So what we have is this sort of open-ended ability to just declare emergencies until the end of time, essentially, because we haven't really seen any mechanism to prevent that. That's what the reform is. That's the reform that is needed the most is the basically the ability to stop an emergency, take it outside of the governor. In this case, we want the legislature to be able to step in and declare an end to an emergency. Thank you. One of the problems that we had with the successive pronouncement of emergency decrees is that it was hard to tell whether, it was hard to tell what the emergency was and what constituted the beginning and the ending of an emergency. Who is it that should determine when we are in a state of emergency that that requires the invoking of the Emergency Powers Act? It says in the statute that the governor is the sole decision maker on that. And it also says in the statute that an emergency is basically what the governor says it is. That's another sort of gray area. You can see why it would be necessary to have some flexibility there because by nature of it, you don't really know what an emergency could be. But there's also reason to worry because at what point is there sufficient risk to health and safety that you should be able to give these rather significant powers to the executive, which again makes it very important to be able to end an emergency because you need to be able to have somebody else, the legislature, to be able to step in and say, no, this is not an emergency. It does not warrant this use of power. So we're just going to terminate this emergency. Again, it just keeps coming back to, you need these powers but you need to be able to balance them. Sandy, you've been tracking SB 3089 and there's a likelihood of it passing. There's a likelihood of changes being made in conference committee. We've only got a minute or two left. Any thoughts about this? Well, our organization's main concern is to ensure that there is some transparency and accountability through sunshine law and public records request that's left in the bill that the public can have sunshine law and public records request. That's not strict from the oversight of the legislature. Thank you. And Malia, what would you like to see changed in SB 3089 or added or deleted? Well, I have to agree with Sandy. They keep putting in and taking out these protections for open records and sunshine law and I want those open records protections back in. I think it just came out of the last one. But I'd also like to see a mechanism where the governor basically needed approval before extending to the third and fourth and fifth emergency. So that's the other change I'd like to see. Well, it looks like the most draconian measures have been lifted. Most things that people dislike about the emergency powers requirements, whether it be masks or vaccine and certification and so forth have been lifted. Just a final thought. Is this a time to relax? Or are there things about which we need to be vigilant as a final word from each of you? We'll start with Malia. You know, I know that it may seem like it's not as pressing, but I will just remind you that the nature of the emergency powers are such that you can be right back in it like that. That the say so of the governor, which means that it's still an important issue still needs to be addressed. Sandy, we should always be watchful of our government always. Great note to end on. Thank you so much for being with us today. Sandy Ma, executive director of Common Cause and Malia Blomhill, policy director for Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. And thank you everyone for joining us. I just want to say mahalo from all of us at Grassroot Institute for your vigilance in staying alert and aware of what's going on in public policy in our state. Until next time, I'm Keeley Ikeena and we are on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. This is Hawaii together. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.


Russia has said that it is open for talks but not on Ukraine's terms. Where does the Ukraine stand today and are there any chances of peace? Just a week after the World Cup victory, women footballers in Spain are faced with a battle against the country's football federation. What does this movement mean for women in sports in the country and in the world? This is the Daily Deep Brief. These are our stories for the day and before you go any further, if you are watching this on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. On the sidelines of the recent Bricks Summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was open to diplomatic solutions but blamed the West for belligerence. He said that Russia would not accept British ultimatums, extortion and threats and said there was a shortage of common sense. That's not the only development on that front. The chief of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigoshin, died in a plane crash a couple of days ago and while western media sources have been quick to pin the blame on Putin, there is no clear evidence per se. To make sense of all this, we go to Prabir Purgayastha. Thanks for joining us, Prabir. Can you start by telling us a bit about some of these speculations surrounding the death of the chief of the Wagner Group? Prigoshin. Prigoshin's death and I think this can be taken now, it's completely confirmed happened because the aircraft he was traveling in appeared to have met with an accident. It seems during the flight there was either an explosion due to a device which was planted there or due to reasons of whatever might be happening inside the aircraft that there was an explosion and the wing came off and the plane descended of course catastrophically killing all the passengers including Prigoshin and some of his very close colleagues. So this is what we know of course the question that arises that this is something which has been now speculated all over the world that was it Putin's orders? Because everything that happens in Russia is supposed to be directly controlled by Putin. Did Putin shoot down the plane as the Americans are saying? Is he responsible for the western media thing? Is he responsible for the death of Prigoshin and the shooting down on the aircraft? Now it's clear the aircraft wasn't shot down as initial rumors or initial news that was spent that it was shot down by anti-aircraft fire or missiles. It seemed to have had met with an either an explosive device or an accident that part is now clear. All the pictures very clearly show that the wing had detached before the plane descended. So there was either an explosion in the plane or there was an accident whatever it might be. So the question is if it was not an accident, if it was really man made in which case who is the guilty party? Who is the one who caused the accident or the explosion in the aircraft by which the aircraft fell to the ground and Prigoshin and his some of his close associates in the plane about I think total number is 10 died. Now when we had discussed the dot c pipeline we had said the needle of suspicion is on the United States and the NATO. In this case the flight takes place within Russian airspace. It started within Russia and therefore there would always be the needle of suspicion that it is the Russian government which would have who'd be behind this particularly given the fact that Wagner had led Prigoshin and led virtually a march to Moscow and it wasn't something which any country is going to appreciate and the fact that you have Wagner a military force which will be a private military force but still a military force which would say that we're going to march to Moscow is something which would of course go against the grain of any country. So there is a plausible argument that therefore after this whole issue has been handled therefore now Prigoshin has been taken out that's the argument the West has been given. There is also the other plausible argument that in this particular case the West would also have a West interest in taking Prigoshin out because it would make a the Wagner's influence in Africa maybe weaken it and they with what's happening in Niger and what's happening in different parts of the different countries in Africa it is a fact that Wagner was playing an important role over there and if Prigoshin goes then it is possible that Wagner will not be the effective force that it is today and therefore taking out Prigoshin is also in the interest of the United States and the NATO allies. So well it's as I said six of one half it isn't of the other and we are unlikely in the near future to know what has really happened but yes both possibilities exist as I said the needle of suspicion in the world really more towards still more towards more more towards the Russian government because it happened in Russia and there's no question that Prigoshin had taken a very high profile position on the issue of what happens to Wagner what he feels the way to conduct the war and all of this would not have been a particularly palatable stance that that would be loved shall be saved by the Russian government. So yes I think the I would say that it is a possibility but at the moment we don't know who has taken Prigoshin out or was it really an accident and one shouldn't really think that that is not a possibility because accidents do happen and this was an Embraer aircraft which is actually a Brazilian aircraft but Embraer has been taken over by the American one American aircraft company so how much also is the maintenance of such aircraft that also we do. Can you just also quickly respond to you know the comments made by the Russian foreign minister at the sidelines of the BRIC summit you know saying that there won't be negotiations on Ukraine's terms and about the West belligerents how do you see these comments going forward? See Russia has made its terms very clear that Ukraine war is not a war against Ukraine of course there are issues that they have raised we are in the Nazi remnants that were there post-war second world war which seem to have have some resurgence in Ukraine but beyond that their main issue was really NATO's expansion and the fact that NATO with Ukraine would have been say five to seven minutes missile distance from Ukraine to Moscow and that's something they were not going to accept they had also said for a long time NATO's eastward march to Russia's borders was something which poses a significant threat in their minds that United States and its allies could deliver what is called a first strike and then try and keep the retaliatory weak attack after the first strike from Russia to such level such a level that they would be able to quote unquote win the nuclear war now this is something which is completely mad and that's why it was called mutual assured destruction policy but it does appear that these calculations are still in place because that is the only argument with which we can understand why anti-missile weapons should be brought to the borders of Russia because it's clear both sides have a nuclear exchange that there's no chance of the globe to survive so the only possibility of a winning winnable nuclear war you strike first and you stop the retaliatory strike and that's been Russia's argument that putting missiles on our borders either in Romania or in Poland or in Ukraine is a security risk for us okay Poland Romania done deal but Ukraine we will not accept and this is the red line that they had put in front of NATO and that is why if you remember in December January all these letters were exchanged between NATO the United States and other countries and Russia where Russia said we want guarantees of peace and we want Ukraine to be neutral we do not want any missiles on our borders and they even said the missiles that you have in Romania Poland also should be negotiated but as you know NATO and the United States decided that they had nothing to negotiate and it was a sovereign right of Ukraine to enter NATO if they wanted and therefore they had to put missiles if they wanted in such a NATO country now this is the crux of the issue and this is where as far as the Ukraine war is concerned there is absolutely no ground that has been reached in terms of narrowing so both sides are as farther apart as they were at the time and it does appear that the United States and its NATO allies believe that if the war continues it will weaken Russia more than it will weaken United States and NATO countries and therefore this continued war against Russia fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian is a policy which is good for the United States and its allies European allies this seems to be the idea now Ukraine is in a position where its daily budget has to be met by essentially United States and European allies the EU countries without that they can't even meet their daily budget so therefore they are financially in a situation of complete dependence forget about the military one they can't even pay their government officials money they can't run their any part of their economy without completely hand out from the west that is the situation they are in therefore for them to be able to negotiate independently of the European Union and United States impossible and this is the reason when Boris Johnson came to scupper the agreement that Ukraine and Russia had worked out at actually in Istanbul that if you remember Ukraine had to back off from that because they were told you do it then you know all money monies that we give you is off you're on your own completely so that is still where it is we do not see any softening on European Union or NATO's behalf let of course the United States is an ocean away so it is not directly in the line of fire but European countries are their arms are the ones which are sustaining Ukraine and it is also true that European Union's economy has been hit much harder than that of the United States because it is dependent on cheap gas and oil from Russia so given that given this that within the European Union also there doesn't seem to be major rethinking at least among the governmental players is something a cause for worry so till the people express their opinion that this war is not in our interest the peace forces peace movement pressurizes their government is there going to be a peace movement in the United States we don't see it at the moment it seems among the right wing there is thinking that we should focus on China not so much on Russia but that I suspect is more the shall we say the white settler colonial powers wanting to want to really control the yellow menace rather than fight with other white nation like Russia could be the reason I'm not so sure that there is anything beyond this who should be our main enemy is the is the is the only division that you seem to see in the political establishment of the United States but yes amongst the American people there may be there may be some fatigue with war in the European Union there may be some fatigue with the war and how much of fatigue with what there is in Ukraine is a question because it's we can see that the conscription is not going well for the Ukrainian forces and people are not willing to be conscripted to fight what they clearly now see is more or less and losing more so given that it does seem that yes maybe three to six months down the line we'll have a possibility of negotiations countries like Brazil countries like India may even best Asian countries may play a part in that may not we'll have to see but at the moment there is nothing that we can see which shows an indication that there is a there is a thinking that this war should stop and instead the thinking should be is that if the war continues Russia will weaken and that is in our larger interest and Russia's weakening means this huge resources that Russia is sitting on that might become available to now shall we say global capital which is really United States and Western European capitalist forces and that is still seems to be their main line of thinking so I don't see any major peace initiatives coming from any of these places so yes I would say that we are in for a longer period of war before we start seeing some moves towards peace and at that point of time the a lot of the countries which are not directly involved may have a place then they have a position of them saying okay shall we mediate at the moment I don't think anybody can really help even mediate between Russia and NATO which are the two forces at war at the moment right thank you for being for this update not even a week after the first World Cup win in Sydney Spain's women footballers are united in reward close to 80 players have signed a letter informing the Spanish football Federation that they are unwilling to play for the country unless Luis Rubiales the president of the Federation is removed and the management addresses the concerns raised by the players this comes after Rubiales's behavior at the official FIFA World Cup presentation ceremony where he forcibly kissed player Jenny Hermoso on the mouth but the stand taken by the players is also about other long-standing issues including the role and position of senior team manager Jorge Valdes in an emergency session of the Federation Rubiales refused to resign instead he made a rambling speech where he talked of fake feminism and character assassination the Federation has 140 members of which only six are women and Rubiales's speech was met with widespread applause much to the disgust of the wider football world to talk more on this story we go to Sharda thanks for joining us Sharda both FIFA and the Spanish prosecutor's office have said that they are investigating this case what can you tell us about you know Rubiales's brazenness despite clear evidence of misconduct Rubiales's brazenness just comes from a long generation and a long history of sports Federation bosses thinking that they actually control the lives and the fates and you would think the personal freedoms of their athletes in this case you're seeing that he's immediately he has turned the blame on to onto the player he said no no it was consensual with Jenny Hermoso this is fake feminism and all the other kind of things that you'll see there are so many parallels that you can even draw with the case that's happening with the wrestlers in India except at this time the Federation and the and the government is not after the wrestling Federation boss for because he is one of their own but in the case of Rubiales I think that is a great deal of public protest and maybe pressure on the government and and you know the prosecutor's office to act but his response is just classic you know very powerful men thinking that they control they have the right to do whatever they want and and it can be all it's all water under the bridge as long as no one makes a stink or uses the noise about right like you said you know so Spain is not the only country where such battles are happening like you said India is one such example as well is it time for women in sports to start you know thinking about building their own institutions and structures which are independent from institutions running men's sports it will be very difficult for women's sport to do that because the entire structure of world sport is built around this you know the central ruling body that runs every sport has to have men and women that are there and they lay down the rules now the only organization that has broken away in the sense and set out on its own is women's tennis you know which is its own its own board its own marketing agency and so on that's the only one that's there and you would you would hope that there will be no such allegations heard about you know WPA stood up for the Chinese player when she complained about her own about being harassed by someone in you know in a senior position and and in the government WPA did stand up for her for some amount of time but in international sport it's very difficult for sports bodies to sort of break away because there's a there has been an in cricket we saw at the start of the 21st century there was a desire to sort of consolidate it make it one whole and then say look this is how we're going to do it the international Olympic committee is trying to now make this seem become a gender equal Olympics same number of men same number of women similarly representations in boards and in parliament it's not successful at particularly at the at the administrative level I wonder what impact they could have on because FIFA is as big as the international Olympic committee it's as powerful a body because of the fact that it is in charge of the biggest sport in the world and the the only sort of positive from this is that you are this has got a very big it's become a very big piece of news it's all everywhere there discussions happening about it and maybe there will be pushback from say other organizations let's see what the UEFA says about because Spain is a part of of UEFA let's see what UEFA says about this you know let's see that there are I don't know whether there are any enough sporting laws in place that particularly in football that formally say that you can be punished for harassing or bullying or they have all kinds of things that are just sort of almost lip service to okay we are we are kind of a gender sensitive organization but whether they are able to do something about it remains to be seen so of course there are many other federations many other sporting teams also facing such issues for instance in Nigeria there is the women's team is facing issues of pay like lower pay you know do these issues overshadow what is happening on the pitch you know do they sort of take away from the positives that we see of women participating in sports and doing well and you know all the all that impact is it taken away from such issues that are coming up I think particularly in in the light of Spain's terrific win at the women's World Cup football this has literally become you know it's such a sign of just bad you know administration bad governance how they're running the the program and the fact that the women are able to push through all this and still put in a great performance to win the World Cup reminds you of all the odds that women face when they compete in elite sport at a very high level all the other sort of accusations that you hear about you know what happened with Nigeria with about pay you would have to think it's as important to talk about those particularly when there are big events on to just highlight it because otherwise it tends to get forgotten you know in men's football you hear stories of people being under trial for tax evasion and so on you know and we take those things quite lightly because it's just white collar whatever cry in inverted common alleged white collar cry but in women's sport it is a lot of it is detrimental to the physical safety of women that are taking part in sport to their livelihood issues when it comes to pay and so on that is important that these things are talked about you know and that they highlighted what is seen in in in say a situation that all the French players are having a problem with their coach in a men's football World Cup takes on a completely different meaning if there are women players involved then you don't know what that dynamic that's at play when it comes to women athletes and until very very recently people didn't care about it they paid no attention to it you know we all know the story of gymnastics and US gymnastics and what happened so I think particularly women's sport we have to be particularly vigilant about talking about these issues bringing them and raising pressure against governing bodies as to how they love their sports and how they treat their athletes right thanks Sharda for this update this is all we have in this episode of the daily debrief for more details on these stories and for other such stories visit our website people's dispatch.org and our social media pages on facebook twitter and instagram for more video updates visit our youtube page thank you for watching


Our third rust disease on the list is cedar apple rust. Like the other two rusts that we've discussed, the white pine blister rust and the fusiform rust, cedar apple rust also has two hosts and therefore would have two potential signs and symptoms. The most common that we see are these little round balls that in the spring swell up and look like giant octopuses. These little tendrils are orange, they're dry now so they're kind of spidery looking, but they form in this particular one that those spider things have broken off. But these are like giant, they get huge, probably three to four times the size and they'll have these orange tendrils coming out of them. And here's one that's stuck on a plant that typically doesn't do any harm to the cedar. It's just kind of unsightly and people don't like to look at it. But what's going on is these are producing spores that in the spring go to the other host, the apple. And what happens with these spores, get on the apple tree, the apple leaves, apple flowers and apple fruit and will produce these small little circles on the leaves, of course where more spores are being produced and they'll also produce on the apples and there's more spores being produced and what'll happen is the apple tree may lose all its leaves and no one wants to eat the apples that are full of these spores. But what's happening, these spores are then being released and going back to the cedar tree. So it's a unique life cycle. The tree needs apples and cedars. On the cedar we get these orange gauze that are formed with these orange tendrils and they release the spores that go to the apple tree, forms these little dots and then the cycle just continues back and forth.


One of the major problems in pancreatic cancer is the small subset of patients that potentially can have cures through surgery, about 20 percent, have their primary tumors removed, and then within two years have metastatic disease appearing in their liver most ordinarily. Can we understand this process? It means that at the time of surgery they already had cancer cells in the liver, but those cancer cells were not growing. The question was why are they not growing and then what leads to their growth? So we created a mouse model showing that the immune system held in check cancer cells that were actually silent and sleeping, just sitting here, not doing anything, and occasionally one would awaken and start to grow, but the immune system would kill them. If you take away the immune system, then these metastatic diseases grow out and cause disease. So the key issue here is what might cause suppression of the immune system. And it's been actually published that pancreatic cancer surgery itself elevates the level of an immune-suppressive hormone, cortisol, for up to a week to 10 days. So we think that might be the explanation for the outgrowth of metastatic disease within the years following surgery. This then needs, can we interact with the surgeons to prevent that rise in cortisol levels and prevent the occurrence of metastatic disease?


Hey everyone, welcome to theCUBE's special program series, Women of the Cloud brought to you by AWS. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to welcome Angie Perez-Thomas, the area sales leader from AWS as my next guest. Angie, welcome to theCUBE. It's great to have you here. I'm super excited. Thank you so much, Lisa. Of course. Talk to me a little bit about you, a little bit about your role in sales at AWS. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a 10-year Amazonian. So I've been with AWS for about 10 years here. And as you mentioned, I'm the area sales leader. And so my team supports new enterprise customers and executives who are just starting their journey into the cloud. Talk a little bit about some of your career paths. Did you have a linear path? You said 10-year Amazonian, linear path maybe more zigzaggy. Because I'd love to get some of your recommendations for those who may be early in their tech careers, looking to grow their careers. What are some of the experiences that you've had that you think have shaped your career? Yeah, absolutely. So mine, I've gone back and forth through different roles, both in leadership and as an IC. And I'd probably say I've got three recommendations for those looking to grow their career in technology. So the first one is prioritize your time to actually think about what career experiences you want in your fullness of your career. And so this actually may look like sitting down, reserving time to actually deep think about what are those experiences you're looking to gain, but also doing research on other careers of those who may inspire you and kind of collecting those ideas. My second recommendation is around documenting, writing down those career aspirations and actually putting it within and memorializing it within a document. So I've applied Amazon's working backwards methodology myself and applied that on my career and writing my own career press release. And so it's dated in 2029. It's got a headline and it's a physical document of my own career aspirations. And third, I recommend sharing this documentation with others. I really enjoy receiving and reading what others are wanting to do with their career aspirations and helping provide feedback and guidance. And so what we find is people genuinely wanna help others. I agree, I love your recommendations for really being mindful, being thoughtful about what it is that you wanna do doing that research and then actually documenting it. I think it's so wonderful that you're taking Amazon's working backward approach from the press release going, this is where I wanna be in five years or in 10 years.  And then to your point, it's great about sharing it with others that can be mentors, that can be sponsors. I'm sure you've had some great mentors and sponsors along your career path that have probably helped to be pretty successful. Yeah, absolutely. It's been really an effective tool for communicating with those who have helped me navigate as well. Talk a little bit about some of the successes now. We'll switch gears, but we'll continue on the success train. Some of the successes that you've had helping organizations really navigate, migrate to the cloud and become successful businesses as a result. Yeah, no, absolutely. So across my tenure at AWS, I truly enjoyed working with our customer executives and helping them deliver on their business outcomes. And so just recently I met with the COO of a real estate firm here in the Pacific Northwest. And the COO has an initiative to identify and modify home titles and deeds with decades old discriminatory language and restrictions. So although not accessible due to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, racial covenants are just, they're still present and millions of home titles across the United States today. And so partnering with AWS and using our cloud technology, our teams together were able to build an application that was able to, or homeowners are able to look at their titles, analyze it for discriminatory language and be able to submit it for modification. And so today it can be done manually, but partnering with AWS, our teams were able to address modifying titles and deeds at scale. And so it's truly incredible what cloud computing has enabled just all of us to accomplish together. And so I kind of think of it like this, a catalyst for change is our customers and AWS and our partners is the how to accelerate that change. So it's really this partnership. I love that. Accelerating change is so important across so many aspects of life, but the example that you gave is so, it's such an interesting use case. I wouldn't think that there is discriminatory language and deeds for houses, but the fact that it's probably a pervasive problem globally and the ability to help organizations to be able to change that for the better with cloud, with automation at scale is huge. I can imagine that that's a use case that can be replicated surely across the States and more. Yeah, it's definitely gained interest across with different real estate forms across the United States. So we're really excited to be partnering and having impact on this change. And it's also an example of tech for good. I mean, we talk about that all the time, but the fact that there's discriminatory language and housing needs is still kind of blows my mind, but and we've seen so much in tech in terms of diversity and equity and inclusion, but from a diversity perspective, there's still a lot more to do. I'd love to get your opinion on what you think some of the present day challenges are with respect to diversity in tech and maybe some of the things you think can be changed for the better. Yeah, so there's been a huge focus on hiring for diverse talent in the tech industry for a number of years. And where I think we as an industry have an opportunity is to improve in investing and developing in this diverse talent. And try to really think about how are we building up the skill sets to build today's and tomorrow's leaders? And so when I think about this, it requires senior leaders to be really intentional about building a diverse ecosystem of talent and investing in this diverse talent. And let me clarify a little bit. When I talk about investing in diverse talent, this expands outside of just mentoring. This includes sponsoring, coaching, really providing opportunities where this talent has the ability to have a seat at the table, getting into the room where it all happens. And so by doing so, we're helping this talent build their skill sets to learn what questions are being asked within the room, how are others communicating with each other so that they can build the skill set so not only have a seat at the table but can be really leading with that seat at the table. And I would say at last, we as companies, we tend to, or we in the industry, we tend to just focus on developing those within our companies. And where I see a need is to really challenge the industry to reach outside of our own companies in diverse talent. And so developing just that ecosystem, because not just thinking about the roles that are open today, but really building the skill sets for the roles and senior level positions that are gonna be open tomorrow, then making sure we're developing this talent to raise their hand and be the leading candidate for those opportunities. I love how you said kind of really a couple things that with all the women in this program that I've spoken to is a common theme in terms of diversity. And it's really about senior leaders making investments. And another thing that you said that's spot on is doing it with intention. There's so much to be gained by having an intention with diversity, thought diversity to your point, going outside, it sounds to me like kind of, let's go outside of our comfort zones to bring in different thoughts, different perspectives, be able to grow them in their career because of course, technologies and products and solutions can only get better the more diversity of thought we have. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's really being intentional. We as senior leaders, we have a law on our plate. And so, yes, this is an additional thing to be thinking about, but it really has impact and change in driving the right things both for our customers and for the industry as well. And so it's an investment that's worth making. And speaking of that investment worth making, I liked how you said, you know, let's have some forethought about what are some of the roles that are going to be there in the future? How are some of the roles today going to be evolving? How do you see your role evolving in the next few years? How do you see cloud evolving? And what excites you about that? Yeah, well, you know, that has really been helping our customers move faster and adapt to just the ever-changing landscape. I mean, it's over the last couple of years that's been very real for all of us to see. And so my role has moved from just being an advisor to a CIO to actually being an advisor to both the CEO and board of directors. And when they come speak to us, you know, cloud is not just about cost savings. It truly is about helping a CEO to deliver on their business outcomes. So I'll give an example. We're working with a growing community bank and their executive team has embarked on a transformation to becoming a digital first bank. And so when we think about the economic factors that they're working with them to come to mind, the first, they're moved towards online banking. It's accelerated with the pandemic, really creating that customer experience of which when you think about local banks, you know, you think about community, you know, where everybody knows your name over in the brick and mortar down the road, well, they have to bridge that community and trust into the digital world. And second, they needed to improve on operational efficiencies. And so they have to strategically think about what investments they're gonna make to balance inflation while driving growth. And so where I've been finding both myself and my teams is having a seat at the table with these executives, helping them make these strategic business decisions. And we know we're successful when our customers are able to deliver on those business outcomes. They meet those objectives, they exceed those objectives. And then we know we've just exceeded customer expectation when our partnership actually shows up in their next earnings call. You know, it's really special. Oh, I bet it is. I mean, being able to be that influential in terms of an organization's success. I love how you talked about, you know, kind of a career evolution that your career has evolved from. Now you're really with the board of directors having a seat at the table there. My last question for you is kind of on that front, Angie, and it's what are some of the changes and in the tech workforce that you've seen the last few years? And what are some of the things that you're excited about that are down the road? Yeah, so a couple of things where I've really seen change and evolution has been in the leadership level. You know, we're needing to lead with empathy and really think about inclusion as a cornerstone skill set. So for our customers, our partners, our employees, we've really moved into this hybrid environment where both leaders and team norms, you know, were challenged to change. We have to adapt. And so, you know, really having inclusion as that foundational skill set is a requirement for both today and tomorrow's leaders. What I'm really excited about is on the innovation front, you know, anyone can innovate now. You don't need to be a part of the R&D division of a company, you know, we're seeing that cloud, you know, is providing tools all the way down to the elementary student level. So when you think about that, you know, just think the imagination of our youth, you know, brought to life with cloud technology. I mean, the future really is bright. It is that horizon is endless. And I'm going to take some of your advice, Angie. I loved that you talked about, from your own perspective and your recommendations for the audience, write that down, write your own press release in terms of what you want to see down the road. I'm going to take your advice. I'm going to do that. I thank you so much for joining me on the program. You've been so inspiring. Your career path has been impressive. What you're seeing in terms of innovation and cloud coming next is incredibly exciting. Thank you so much for your time, Angie. Thank you, Lisa. For Angie Perez-Thomas, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this CUBE's special program series, Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. We'll see you soon.


There's a third possibility, okay, to go back to our inequality. Is it possible for the corporation to get a new source of revenue, okay, which would help fund, say, an investment expansion or higher rents or higher taxes, yes. The corporation could borrow money. So the corporation can go out and try and issue bonds and get money to cover this crisis. But if it borrows money, say, to expand an accumulation or new investment and so forth in plant and equipment, it's got to repay the debt plus an interest on the debt. So we have something new on the right-hand side, which is a payment to bankers. Because bankers are a subsume class who take their money and they lend it, one of the things they do, they lend it to industrial corporations for the debt. So the corporations can help finance their payments to subsume classes above and beyond that warranted by the surplus or the gross profit the corporation has received, okay. But then you might say, well, my goodness. If I've added this to the right-hand side, the repayment of the debt and the interest, isn't it possible I have a new inequality? And the answer is yes. Yes, because as you know, the debt has to be repaid plus interest on the debt. So yes, the debt covers this, but then over time, you've got to repay the debt and the interest. And so the calculation is on this borrowing that you've done initially, that debt, will that somehow in some way enhance this over time now, enhance this over time? So that the new surplus that the board of directors receives will be high enough to repay the debt, repay the interest on the debt, cover all of its new subsume classes. And that kind of calculation is the comparison between the interest on the debt and the productivity of the debt. And the productivity of the debt here is how it enhances the surplus over time. That's something else the board of directors has to consider. Now in your reading, this is complex, interesting. That's a class analysis of a capitalist society. In your reading, you have been assigned class analyses of other kinds of societies.  He discusses a variety of others as well. But those are the ones that he spends the most time with, and the most time spent of those five are obviously in capitalism. So I presented to you readings on, if I remember correctly, readings on each of these. And you've got to bear in mind the commonalities and the differences amongst these different class structures. First, very briefly, we have the surplus labor in capitalism. So surplus labor, bracket capitalism. That's the form in which the surplus is produced and appropriated. And that's distributed all these different subsumed class payments to secure its non-class structure capitalism. We also have a surplus labor in feudalism, F, the notes feudalism, distributed for all the non-class processes that exist in feudalism. The big five, ancient slave, and let's take the last one, communism. What's the commonality here? What's similar? What's similar across all these societies is that surplus labor is produced in each of them, because as again, you can't have a society without this social glue holding it together in the surplus enables that social glue to occur by subsumed classes on the right-hand side, producing the non-class processes enabling the left-hand side to exist in these respective societies. So there's a commonality, class exploitation occurs in one, two, three, four because the workers both collectively produce and appropriate the surplus. There's no class exploitation here defined in the sense that the workers are receiving the surplus that the work is produced, which is not the case in the others. You can understand why Marx favored communism over these others. Just a footnote on that, however. On this ancient, and you're reading, you're going to read about this, what the ancient is is the same individual that produces the surplus also appropriates it. Sometimes it's called in the Morkstein tradition, the petty mode of production. What it really is is individual appropriation. So they hear the worker doesn't work for anybody and nobody works for the worker, okay? So there is a similarity between the ancient and the communist. The worker and the ancient, the singular worker, appropriates his or her own surplus. In communism, the collectivity of the workers produced the surplus, which the same collectivity appropriates. So I have to go back, I have to be a bit more careful here. Here there is, if you want, self-exploitation. Here there is collective exploitation. But this is being cute. In the ancient, the same individual exploits him herself. Whereas in communism, the collectivity of workers exploit themselves. Whereas in capitalism, feudalism, slavery, that is quite different. The other workers produce a respective surplus. But a different group, capitalist, lords, masters, appropriate the surplus received, okay? But so there's a similarity of surplus. The forms of the surplus differ. The forms of the surplus differ because there are different non-class structures in these different societies, which literally constitute, create these different forms of the surplus. So in capitalism, there's a set of laws, set of politics, a set of culture and economics, which is different from that of, say, feudalism. And that difference shows up by having a different surplus form of capitalism than in feudalism. But again, in your readings, you go through in some detail how and why these different class structures compare to one another. And that's a fascinating analysis that Marx presents us in order to understand the similarities and differences amongst these different societies. One last comment on this. Is it possible to have a society in which more than one, perhaps even all of these five class structures exist at one at the same time? Yes. Yes. So one could use this class analysis to begin to reconceptualize the history of any country. For example, in the United States, over time, it's quite possible to have all of these class structures coexisting and then, of course, competing, contending, conflicting with one another. Sometimes perhaps even going to war. So in the United States, over our history, we started out in the States during colonial times, in which we have all of these class structures present in the States, perhaps the most important being the ancient farmer, the ancient manufacturer in the urban areas producing shoes and so forth, et cetera, the farmer owning his or her own land producing crops. Beginning of capitalism, a wage labor system. Perhaps we also had feudalism in the sense of the Vaughn servants in Pennsylvania or in upper state New York, Maryland, certainly slavery in the American South. And of course, the American Indian nations, some anthropologists claim, some historians claim that that was a kind of collective society in which the Indian tribe, the nation, both produced and appropriated the surplus as a collectivity. Well, then you can begin to do all kinds of, once you establish, to argue this, all kinds of interesting new histories for the United States in which, let me just give you one of many examples, the state in the United States then would be providing, remember the state would be on the right hand side here, the state would be providing different conditions of existence for these different class structures to survive. So for example, in the United States, the state would have to be providing the laws and the economics and the culture, let's say for slavery and for capitalism. Well, that means this is weird, bizarre, but it's part of US history. Part of the law would say that workers are free to sell their labor power. Part of the laws of slavery would say certain kinds of workers are not free to sell their labor power because they're slaves, they're things, they're not human beings and hence, human beings can sell their labor power, capitalism, but things can't sell their labor power slavery. So the state is providing two different kinds of laws here in the same society. One law says that some people are free, other laws say that other people are not free. You can see that that's a conflict, a contradiction that in fact in the United States, not just because of that but other things as well, we're gonna go to war over that. The state also, let's take another one, Thomas Jefferson could be a champion of the ancients. The idea here that the kind of democracy that we have in the United States was both a cause and an effect of this ancient society, whereas say Alexander Hamilton could be a champion of capitalism and deeply worried about unless we protect these small growing capitalists, they're gonna be overwhelmed by the more competitive, more efficient British capitalists of the day and if we don't do something to help the capitalist, then despite we have our freedom, we just fought a war, we're free of colonialism, we'll end up de facto as a kind of economic colony of Britain because they will outcompete us. So we need for Hamilton a tariff placed on British goods, which will enable the young industrial capitalists in the United States to grow. So the state is to provide a new condition of existence, we'll get a tax for doing that, new condition of existence, which would be a tariff. Jefferson comes back and says no, no, that tariff is gonna discriminate against these ancient farmers because they're gonna have to pay higher prices for their tools and equipment than they would otherwise. And so in order to have a strong, thriving ancient, we don't want a tariff. Hamilton says we need a tariff, you can see what's gonna happen here. You can have a struggle in this state over this particular political processes of a tariff and we can reproduce this again and again throughout US history. So in your reading, in your syllabus, you're assigned some very interesting readings on these different class structures. Please read them, understand how each functions and how that functioning of each is different from the others. The next time around them, we're going to make use of this class analysis to begin to understand Marx's greatest work, Capital.


So, as you can see, this is a joint paper today with Nogu Kiotaki and Shenzhen Zhang, who is a colleague of mine at the LSE. The title is Credits Horizons, and the question that we want to think about is, along with a without a deep pocket needing to raise funds, typically turns to the financial markets and offers future revenues. And it's true that the number of years worth of future revenues that the financial market is willing to lend against is typically between three to four and a half years. Now, we interpret that to mean the first three to four and a half years. That is to say, the credit horizon is quite short, even though the project, the underlying investment project, could be long-term. So, we would like to explain that and then use the explanation to ask the more macroeconomic question, might it be the case that a drop in long-term real interest rates leads to secular stagnation? And that question is that a lot of prompted by the experience of, I suppose, Japan and then countries in Southern Europe, and is becoming more prevalent around the world, that low interest rates don't seem to be delivering high growth. So, here's one slide to give the sense of our approach. As the government mentioned, human capital is centre stage here. Human capital of the entrepreneurs, or more generally, key workers. I'm thinking of the chief scientists in the research and development department. I'm going to call them engineers when I reach the model. Their human capital is essential for two things, constructing and then maintaining the production facilities. Now, their wage, I use the word wage. Incidentally, can you see my slides? Yes. You can, so you can see me on the slides. We cannot see. Now we can see. Okay, thank you. I'm particularly keen that you should see the slides. I think seeing me is a luxury too far. Okay, so I'm going to keep going. Please interrupt me if you can't see the slides. Now, the wage of these key workers, the entrepreneur or engineer, reflects their marginal contribution to productivity. And that is a contribution they make over the long horizon. That's the nature of contributing to productivity. That it has an effect not just in the immediate future, but it has a slow effect into the more distant future. I use the word wage in inverted commons here because this is not confused with the wages of perhaps more regular workers. Now, the human capital is inalienable, as the government mentioned. We put that right at the heart of it all. That's the one departure from Aroda Burr. What that means is that at the time of investment, an engineer or entrepreneur cannot credibly promise to work for less than that in suing wage. And what that means is that, and this next step is a little opaque at this point, I free admit, and I hope it'll become clearer when I'm done the modeling, that the implication of that is that the fund raise capacity of entrepreneurs is governed largely by their near-term revenues, as I said at the beginning. And now a fall in long-term interest rates means, or may mean, that funds, the fund raising capacity of an entrepreneur at the time of investment, may not expand as much as her investment cost, which has a longer duration. So paradoxically, her investment may be stifled. Now, normally we think of low interest rates as being a good thing for people who are raising money, but here it's time to turn out to be possibly a bad thing, and then when you've got it there's generally a different model that turns out to be stifled too. So here is a smaller company that I thought was real introspect. There is something that I don't want to talk about that makes me run. Maybe it's me that should have done that. Okay, the only thing is that the assumption we're investing in, which has been to speed date, a contender of our agents for the content we've got back there later, which is left to never ask. Now, each, I'm sorry, could you possibly ask me a few questions, can we, can you hear me? Yes, yes we can. Thank you. At each date, an engineer, and I'm going to prefer to, I can jointly produce two things, art and tools, and her inputs are two things as well, goods at normal. So at the beginning of a period of putting in goods, buying a building, the cost of the building is going to be actually that's important. And so the price of X plus Q, as she will produce at the end of the period, plant, or I call plant, which is a short hand for the equipment in some of the building. And then quite distinct from that, she will produce what I call a tool, or in here, a tool that's specific to Emma. Now, that's a short hand for an orientation of her human capital, increasing the capacity that she has to work in the future. So there are a few outputs. One of them, the tool is inalienable and can be competitive or sold, but the other can, and in fact that's the way Emma raises funds. She sells the plant to a saviour that's called him Sam. Remember these agents who drove during the course of their life, but at the moment Sam is a saviour and Emma is an engineer. And we want some wobbling reasons that the match between the plant and the engineer is not specific thereafter. So Sam, the plant owner, will be free to hire any Emma for maintaining his equipment subsequently, and indeed Emma, our Emma, is free to work at any saviour down the line. A little bit at your age, W. And the central part of Ara de Bra is that Emma cannot commit in advance to work for us and you. If she could, then she dealt in effect to raise more funds and increase the scale of her investment. Now, coming to Sam at each stage, he has planted productivity Zed. I should have said on the previous slide here that the starting productivity of any unit of plants at the time that it's first produced and installed is one. But Sam can choose the evolution of the productivity of a plant. So start one day where he starts the day with plant with productivity Zed. He can hire any number of tools that is saying any number of Emma's to produce goods and to maintain plants. So here again, we've got a constant return to scale correction function. The input is a unit of plant with productivity Zed. Any number of tools could be zero, H-grinding could be zero. Generates output goods and notice the output is not affected by the input of H. It's just that Zed produces the output according to this linear correction function. The role of H, the tool, is to maintain or possibly augment the productivity for next periods. Zed prime is next periods of productivity. And that's a combination of today's function. Zed prime is a function of today's productivity and the number of tools that Sam chooses to employ. Everything, the plant, the tools, even the building, we assume depreciates by fact lambda each period. Well, the subject of buildings rather oddly at the end of the buildings are supplied by farmers. That's just in order to keep the national accounting in the domestic economy clean and simple. They have the use of building themselves. One building generates F goods each period, as I said, depreciates by fact lambda. And that is that the international price of buildings will be Q, as promised. It's F divided by R minus lambda. Now, sadly, a plant owner has an option to stop. So the value of the plant, with productivity Zed measured at the end of the period, it's capital V on the left-hand side, is the discounted value of what Q is the failed price of buildings, or, that's if he shuts down, in other words, or he continues and then tomorrow he'll earn the revenue, A Z, minus the amount of weight he has to go for to the H. And then the day after tomorrow's productivity, or the end of tomorrow night's evenings, won't be this little complex production function inside Zed. So that's the prime tomorrow's productivity with appropriate depreciation lambda. Now, although this Bellman equation, as you call it, is pretty clean to read, it is actually surprisingly, we found, tricky to analyze. And it turns out that the plant owner, Sam, has a clear dichotomy between planning to shut down in the short term, in a finite period, capital T, mean it could mean in terms of capital T is his choice, or to completely differently to continue forever. And those choices would be different sequences of choices of H on his part. He could, if he's going to shut down in the medium term, then he won't bother to invest so much in terms of maintaining productivity, and productivity will slowly decline. I mean, in the literature, that's sometimes called the walk in there. On the other hand, he could choose to grow, sorry, not to grow, to continue forever, and thought about might be an auxiliary decision, shall I improve that productivity? Now, the relevance of all this to Emma, remember the entrepreneur who's trying to raise funds from Sam by selling the plant, is that Sam pays for V of one, remember one is the initial productivity of the plant, and B is the amount that Emma can borrow per unit. That's her, what we call borrowing capacity. Now, today's talk is just a short one, so I'm going to focus on, as it were, one half of the private space, a half in which, in fact, no Sam's choose to shut down. The other half is particularly rich and interesting, but I don't have time to talk about it today. Now, the feature of equilibrium is that no plant then stops, and because we've set things up, that there really is a one-to-one ratio, H per plant, the number equilibrium statement there, the number of units of plant, sorry, units of tools per plant is one, and given the nature of the product, the conduct of this function for generating Z prime tomorrow, it means that Z stays at one, it starts at one, it stays at one forever, and therefore, the output per unit of plant is in PA every period. Okay. Now, this slide is complicated. I won't go into the minutiae, but I do want to get away some of the important in duration. The first equation here is Sam's choice of how many is the first order condition for Sam's optimal choice of H, which remember, in equilibrium will be one in order to clear the market for labor, but W in other words is in equilibrium, number which induces Sam to choose H equal to one. The right-hand side, so that's Sam's model of cost of labor. The right-hand side is the marginal product of labor, which is crucially a forward-looking animal. Why? Because any tool or emmer that Sam employs today will enhance tomorrow's productivity, and that'll have an immediate impact on tomorrow's output, but it will also have an indication for what makes it today, Monday. It'll have an indication for Wednesday's output and Thursday's output and so forth. So the range, critically, is a function of R, and let me put my cards on the table, as R drops, and that's the thought experiment I'm going to have in mind, that will push the way forward. Now, meantime, B, remember, that's what Sam is willing to pay, or we have on, is what Sam is willing to pay for a unit of plunge at the beginning, let's say on Saturday night, is what is left of A after Sam has paid the wages of the employees or the engineers that have been maintaining it. Now, at any point, the productivity is the cumulative contribution of workers who've been employed or tools that have been employed to that rate. Now, the word cumulative is crucial, because as time goes by, and we go from today, Monday to Friday, Saturday, et cetera, the fraction of the cherry, the cake, that is left for Sam after he's netted out the cumulative wages that he's paid to the various engineers en route, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the size of the cherry that's left for Sam shrinks. In other words, starting from the moment that he buys the plant, Sam anticipates that his residual care of revenues, that is, once he's contracted wages, will be problem. Another way to think about that is this curved line on the horizontal lines if we've got time. This curved line is Sam's share of output, which is of height A over here. It's Sam's share of output going to him after he's netted out wages, and that share of output drops. And ultimately, most of the productivity out here towards the high values of T, most of the productivity really can be attributed to the cumulative contribution of, as it were, generations of embers that have been maintaining the plant. You might think, like I say, and one other little thing to glean from the diagram is F, which is the opportunity cost of the building. Not just beyond a certain point, Sam appears to be losing money. His share at downward slope and curve dips below the opportunity cost. But that's mirage because at any moment, the wages that have contributed to the output at that time are for the by-large sum. And so the crucial position that Sam faces as to whether or not to continue is his ongoing flow of revenue of wages have been subtracted, which is A minus W, is it bigger than F? If it is, he should continue. So although the red area is there, in truth, Sam does not want to shut down that period. Do you want, he wants to carry on forever in the of the plant space, uninterested. And then this effect can be strong enough to overcome any rising net worth to stifle investment in growth. So this rather stylized equation is taken from a sort of generic equation one sees in any macro-finance model, where on the left-hand side you've got investment. And on the right-hand side, you've got the savings rate later. And then this critical ratio on the top line of net worth of the people who are doing investing, which is that day's worth of embers, their net worth, which they plow into investment. The total cost of investment is X plus Q, as I said earlier. They're borrowing P. Now, in the fourth experiment I'm interested in, which is suppose there's a permanent production in the real interest rate, that pushes Q up, big time, because Q is that this long-run discounted value of all the buildings. What it doesn't do, though, is to push up B commensurately, because B is the A by B short-term revenues that Sam is anticipating getting hands on. And therefore, the denominator of this ratio can go up when interest rates fall. In fact, because of leverage here, it could go up by quite a bit and more than any possible increase in the net worth. The literature on macro-finance is heavily concentrated on the enumerator. Our paper today is one which I guess we could call the denominator. All right, so to close. The upshot is that within my chosen part of the parameter space, there's a subset of it, namely particularly where lambda and r are not too far from 1, where a reduction in the real interest rate causes growth to go down. And we see that as the parable, possibly to describe what's been happening in Japan for the last 30 years or a plus, and what's been happening, let's say, in southern Europe since the advent of the euro. In southern Europe, when the euro was introduced in the early 2000s, the markets probably anticipated that real interest rates were going to stay low permanently in the new way. Q, the price of buildings, shot up. And our thesis today is that B, the borrowing capacity of investors, does not shoot up as much, proportionately speaking. And at the end of it all, this denominator that I'm focusing on goes up, and the overall ratio goes down. And in fact, we find that everybody, this is really, I think, quite striking, everybody in the investing economy is worse off. It's clear that the savers are worse off because the interest rate's gone down. But so too are the engineers. Remember, people take turns to be one or the other. The reason why the engineers are worse off is because their leverage rate of return that's issued here is going to go down on account of this more dramatic issue compared to this. So just the last thing to show you is the diagram. Here's a thought experiment where at age five, among the horizontal, there's an unexpected fall in the interest rate from two and a half to one and a half percent, which is assumed to persist. So this is a model without any aggregate uncertainty. It starts with a single shock.  And the value of investment, which of course includes the value of the buildings, really shoots up.  I think they're like 97. Okay, so investment shoots up. Consumption goes up for the similar sorts of reasons that there's a hike in net worth, which causes people to eat more, so to speak. Output goes up too. So it all looks good. This looks like a moon. But actually, it has within it the seeds of stagnation. The real, the good aspect, that is to say, the engine for growth, which is tool and humanity plan, are in a short order shrinking on account of that denominator effect that I told you about. And that persists into the long run. So although there's a boom, a temporary boom, in the long run, there is stagnation. So output assumes a lower growth of service investments, so does consumption ultimately. And in welfare terms, as I say, everybody can be worse off. So turning back to Japan and Eastern and Southern Europe, at the time it looked like a boom when interest rates fell. But actually, with the benefit of the hindsight, it looks more like a form of stagnation. Okay, well, thanks so much, Sean, for this wonderful talk. And once again, we are very privileged to have you and this shows our laureates today for great talks.


Today, we talk about using groups, clubs, and forums to meet new YouTubers, collaborate, and more. It is like an internet party, and then we find out who the three lucky winners are in today's $100,000 sponsorship powered by Freedom. I got the names out. Ha! I'm your host, Tiffany, and you are watching Impulse. What is up, Freedom? My name is Estie Mike. Last week, we talked about collaboration. Today, we're going to dig a little bit deeper and discuss new ways to meet new YouTubers, collaborate, and grow together. So in the past, I've tried a lot of different methods to actually try and network and meet new YouTubers, but recently, I found one that I'm truly enjoying. This is simply joining local YouTube groups on Facebook. Now, don't get me wrong, there are good ones and there are bad ones, but if you do find a good one, it can be very beneficial. What you want to try and do is find one that does not encourage spam, but what you do want is one that actually encourages community. Because if you're encouraging community, people are actually going to watch each other's videos instead of just spamming links and trying to get their videos out there. You want to find one where you can network, meet other people, and grow together. Recently, I was added to a Midwest Creators Group and on here, they schedule YouTube meetups where you can actually meet other YouTubers in the area. They support one another and simply by going and seeing who the members are in the area, you can see up to a hundred people that are within driving distance of you. In fact, just the other day, I went to a meetup and I met five new YouTubers that I've never met in person in my area. So now I have new friends that I can actually hang out with and actually make YouTube videos together. Now, I did do some research and there's these groups everywhere. All you have to do is type in your area and YouTube group and hopefully something will pop up. I did it for a lot of different states and stuff within the United States and every single time, something popped up. So do a little research, do a search for yourself and find something that works for you. Now, keep in mind, Facebook is not your only option. You have Twitter, you have G+, you have Tumblr, and much, much more. What I'm saying is try and find a community of people, join it and network and grow together. Now, if you aren't interested in meeting people in your area and just meeting YouTubers in general, another great idea is joining YouTube forums. For instance, the Freedom Forum is great and you can also find me on forums like YT Talk. These sites are cool because it encourages community and not shameless promotion. With this, it's nice because it's a give and take relationship. That's not you doing everything for yourself, it's you supporting others and getting the same back in return. In the past, you have met so many great YouTubers just by simply using social media.  Collaboration and networking has never been easier thanks to the internet. When we come back, we'll be answering a viewer question, but first, back to Tiffany. And not Brittany. That's an inside joke from last episode. You heard it, folks. That's right, use all the social media you want, but for the love of God, don't use MySpace. Who actually uses MySpace? I thought they tore that system down. And now, as always, in no particular order, the two runners-up in the $100,000 sponsorship picked by Heartbeat Chrome. And you get to choose from these lovely prizes brought to you by our partners with Freedom. And if you still need information on the $100,000 sponsorship, you know, get involved in stuff, check out the video in the sidebar, click on it. More information there. Go. Do it. And now to Rick, who I bet still uses MySpace. Actually, I'm gonna check. Our first runner-up is StealthyWolf52. Wolf states to treat the discussion page as if you were on Twitter, active and always updated. It's the interaction that your audience loves, so take advantage and connect with everyone. Our next runner-up is AxemanRecords. Axeman explains that by being active in the Freedom comments, you can drive new views to your videos. He also states that mixing up your content will keep your channel fresh, thus getting you one step closer to success. Congratulations Freedom partners, and remember you are still eligible to win first prize and a future episode of Imples. And now back to Mike for some more networking tips, because you just need more friends. Thank you Tiffany, but now it's time for the viewer question segment of this episode. Today's question comes from ArsiaVO. I'm sorry if I said your name wrong. He asked, I'm wondering if you could do some tips over Fiverr.com, how to get noticed and how to start bringing in orders. As we discussed before, an easy way to make extra money from your YouTube channels by taking your talents that you're using on your channel and outsourcing them to cool sites like Fiverr.com or different sites like that where you can sell your talents, so that way the work you're doing on your channel can be used to make money on the side as well. But unfortunately, it's a bit hard to get started. First and foremost, you need to do a little bit of research. Search your talent and see what other people are selling and a similar topic is yours. And your goal is to one-up them. For instance, if you're doing voiceover if the top one says three minutes, do three and a half minutes or four minutes. You want to make someone feel like they're getting more for their money. Then you have to have a solid portfolio to showcase. If this means doing some free work for a few people, by all means do it. Do whatever you can to get your portfolio up and running because without that no one's going to want to buy it from you because they don't know what they're ordering. But again, even if you have a solid portfolio, it's sometimes hard to get the ball rolling.  They can come and purchase your gig. You work until they're happy and until you're happy, then after you have your first sale, have them review your delivery and then you'll have a review for everyone else to see. And on top of that, it actually shows the work that you did produce. So it has another piece to your portfolio and it shows that that's what they actually got by paying for the order. So now if you're offering more than the rest, you have a good portfolio and you have a good positive rating, people are going to start ordering from you because no one wants to be that first guy and take a risk on losing a whole five dollar. And then if things are still slow, you can take it upon yourself to do your own promotion on Facebook or Twitter and stuff like that. Maybe even your YouTube to help promote yourself. The more ratings the better and the more people that's probably going to order from you because there's more ratings under your belt. And if all else fails and social media doesn't work, go around to your families and friends and even your pets and start selling your work to them and branch out from there. But anyways guys, that's it for me today. If you want more of me, my links are in the description below. You can come over to our channel, see behind the scenes of this show and much, much more. But now the vote you've all been waiting for. Tiffany? Thanks Mike. And remember to leave a question in the comments below for Mike to answer in the next episode. And now for the moment you've all been waiting for, like every time, who is going to be taking home $250 in grand prizes. And as always, you get to choose from all these lovely little prizes brought to you by partners of freedom. And now let's hear from Rick, who I totally just found on my space. That's really cute. And today's winner is Monkey Maniac. Monkey's advice is to always have fun while creating your content and make sure you edit to perfection like PewDiePie, Vanos and Markiplier. He was incredibly active in the comments and we'll definitely check out Chronos' channel to see more GTA 5 gameplay since he liked him all throughout the interview. Congratulations Monkey Maniac. You are the reason we look down at our YouTube comments and smile and walk into a poll. Congratulations Freedom Partner on our job. Well done. Enjoy the confetti. It's free. Remember guys, share your knowledge, discuss today's topic, and interact with your fellow freedom partners in the comments below. And YouTube could be rewarded for helping the community grow together as a family. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode of Impulse. And tomorrow, Brittany is going to go over a topic that many of you have asked advice on. Bullying. Bullying. You know what I'm saying. Until next time, I'm your host Tiffany and I don't think I've used MySpace since like 2002. Internet party. Internet party. It is like an internet party. Internet party. Internet party. You heard it folks. Use all that social media.  There's other stuff. Those are what I use. Don't use MySpace. Oh my God. MySpace. See, I forgot what it's even called. It's been so long since you use it. Don't use MySpace.