Tonight, the DuPont Company brings you Flying Tigers Fly Again, starring George Murphy on the Cavalcade of America. But first here is Gain Whitman. Would you consider using salt, sugar and honey to keep the radiator of your car from freezing? Of course not. But those materials were used in the early days of the automobile. However, salt caused corrosion. Sugar and honey stopped up the radiator, and kerosene was a fire hazard. In 1930, DuPont chemists searching for a better antifreeze began a program of continuous research and road testing. The result was DuPont Xerone Antifreeze. Today, Xerone is the largest selling antifreeze in the country. It's another example of DuPont's better things for better living through chemistry. America, the pony expressed. The commercial airline. America, the football game. America means skyscrapers and halos. The crack of a pioneer splint lock and the sound of a riveter's machine. America is your story. America is you and everyone you know. Tonight, we present George Murphy in Flying Tigers Fly Again. Another true story on the DuPont Cavalcade of America. Trying to remember just when and where a thing started is a pretty tough job. I don't think anybody can point to a calendar and say, that's the date we first thought of it. Thought of what? Well, the Flying Tiger airline. That's right, Flying Tigers. Sure, I was one of them. My name's Bob Prescott. Then there was a guy called Catfish. Another guy named Link. The three of us in particular had an idea looping around in our heads. We always figured the war'd be over someday and if we pulled out of it okay, we had to have a cushion to fall back on when we got back to the States. Anyway, one day back at our base in Loy Wing, China, in the ready shack, I raised it for you. Hey, hey, quiet, quiet. Sharp red one from base, come in. That's Bob Prescott he's calling. Come in, sharp red one, come in. Bob should answer. Yeah. This is base calling sharp red one, come in. This is sharp red one, go ahead. He's okay, he's okay. Chinese net reporting. Three bandits approaching from south. You get them, cowboy, I'm barefoot. Thanks, Bob, we'll do. Well, he's all right. Some people have all the luck. Yeah, what's luck got to do with it, Rossi? I ain't never get a crack at three when I'm upstairs.  Listen, when you're flying a hundred hours a month, it's not luck. It's work. In a hundred hours, you've got to run into some of them. Hi, Link. Oh, Rossi. Hi, Catfish. Hello. I heard Bob's call. He answered, huh? Sure, three bandits. He's after them. Hey, what's eating you, Rossi? Try to fill an inside straight again last night? That he did. Oh, you'll never learn. His money looks so good in my pocket. Let me ask you guys a question, Link. Yeah, what? What do you save in your tofu for tomorrow? Maybe. Maybe it'll never come. In this business, a guy's got to count on today. That's what I like about you, Rossi. No matter how dull things get, we can always count on you to bring in the sunshine and light. Come on, come on. Answer the question. Why are you putting a dough in the sock? You know, that flying tiger line back in the States? Sure. Sure, Mr. Sure. Just like that. Well, what's wrong with the idea? Everything. For instance.  And they're like a cabbie freight. Well, work, that's all. Why not? What are you, the DA? Go on. Why won't it work? Works here in China. Catfish is right. We bury everything you can think of over the hump. That's different. Well, the run from New York to California wouldn't be any harder than the one from Kunming to Ding'an. Hey, here comes Bob. Yeah, come on. He's rolling. Must have knocked off the bandits. Some guys get all the luck. I'll tell you what we'll do, Rossi. We'll put up a dirty shirt that, within one year after the war is over, the flying tigers will fly again. You got yourself a bet. OK. And what's more, Rossi, you'll come in with us. Oh, yeah? Well, I've got to be awful dumb to do it. Knock the drinks, boys. Hey, Bob, did you get them? How many? Just one this time. Photo recon job. He got his pictures all right, but it'll have to show him to his honorable ancestors. Break out the champagne, boys. Champagne. Hey, are you kidding? Where's our treasure? Right here, getting cooled off. Ah, good old American beer. Kick it open and let's have a toast. Hurry up, Catfish. Come on. I'm not opening this with my teeth, you know. There she is. Will you pour, Mr. Prescott? That I will, Catfish. That I will. Hey, you win on this, Rossi. What am I, an outcast? Here we go. To the end of the war. No, no. Here's to the Flying Tiger Airline, back in the States. I got a drink to that. Give me that beer. All right, all right. I'll drink to anything. To the Flying Tiger Airline and success. Well, it was kind of easy to toast something that was just a dream. Back in China, it looked pretty real. But the war ended and most of us came back to the States. Rossi stayed over in China, the ferry freight. Link, Catfish, and I kept our idea. But, well, every Friday night, we'd meet a little hamburger joint. Sit down, if you want to order. All right, all right, all right. Want anything, Catfish? Uh-uh, nothing. Look, we're going to close up soon. Hey, Link. What's keeping them? You guys are keeping me. Hey, look, honey, we're waiting for a very important third party. That's what you said at 8.30. He'll be along in a minute. That's what you said at 9.30. Now, look, if you don't want to order nothing, you can get up. Hey, it's about time you ambled along. Yeah, well, you've been there. I'm sorry, fellas, I couldn't help it. Bring us some Joe, honey. What's Joe? Coffee, baby. Some like it hot. And some get it nine days old, too. Sure you can afford it? What's the matter with her? She's been waiting too long. Yeah, like wink and me. Well, I'm sorry I couldn't help it, but I got good news. Oh, good news. What's that? What's the matter with you two? You got faces like ceiling zero. Well, it's like this, Bob. It's just that we've been sitting here figuring it out. Yeah, adding things up, sir. What did you get? A low score. Look, Bob, that airline was a cinch in China, but back here in the States, it's tough. Not enough old day. Maybe Rossi was right. We should have had a good time with it when we were earning it.  Go ahead. Better be good. I lost my job. Swell. What did you say? I said, swell. Now you can give all your time to being Vice President in charge of operations. Catfish. Yeah? He said operations, didn't he? He said operations. That's what I thought he said. What operations?  Now listen, we're going to get our big chance. Yeah, that's what you said last week. I got a better memory. It was last month. Do I do the talking to you guys? Go ahead. Now look, would a fleet of 14 Conestoga's convention? 14. Now he said 40. When you dream, dream good. It's all we've got. One Conestoga costs $50,000. And we've only got $35,000. 14 would come to, let's see, 14 times 50 is. Now wait, you haven't heard the whole story. Oh, there's more? Sure, there's more. I took an option on the whole 14. I can get them for $400,000. But why take an option when we're only $365,000 short? Look, couldn't we take less than the 14? No, we couldn't take less. They wouldn't break up a lot. 14 or none. Well, so long, fellas. I'm going east. Thanks for the dream. Now wait a minute. Sit down, Link. Look, there's another buyer who'll take four of them off our hands at 50 grand apiece. You know, the fog is closing in. I can't see it all now. What good is it going to do us if some other buyer wants four? Well, it means just this. We'll be buying 10 of them for ourselves at $200,000. So simple. Sure, it's simple. And I know we can do it. Look, we'll see businessmen, bankers. We'll get the money. How about it? Here's your coffee. Sports. Yeah, put it down, honey. That'll be 80 cents. Huh? 80 cents for three cups of coffee? There's a 50-cent charge for writing on the tablecloth. What do you think will happen? I don't know. Now look, look. All we got to do is convince him. That's all. Yeah, but how do we convince a guy to lend us that much money? I don't know. Say, why are we whispering? All right, gentlemen. Come in, please. Oh, thank you, Mr. Mosier. Oh, I'm Bob Prescott. How do you do? And this is Cat Mr. Reigns and Link Laughlin. Glad to know you, gentlemen. How do you do, sir? Please sit down. Thank you. Now, Mr. Mosier, we've got a little problem. Just a moment. I got your letter. And when we talked over the phone, Mr. Prescott, I got the impression that you wanted to start an airline. That's right, Mr. Mosier. You see, the way we're set up, we'll only need about, oh, about $250,000 due to the whole job. Now, if we could get a loan to the- I'm sorry, gentlemen. I wish there were some way I could help. But look, Mr. Mosier, you'd make a nice profit. I'm not worried about that. It's, well, flying's a risky business. Oh, now, wait a minute, Mr. Mosier. Let me give you our records. Now, Cat, that is Mr. Reigns here. He crossed the hump 500 times. Well, quite a record. Edmund crossed the 350 times. Bob here 300 times. Well, we can fairy-fry sure we know that plan, Mr. Backward. A moment, gentlemen, just a moment, please. I don't doubt your experience or your ability, but that was during a war when necessity compelled you to- Excuse me, Mr. Mosier, but that's just the point. You see, we learned a lot. We learned every trick of stowing cargo on the plane the safest way. We learned how to save cargo weight. We packed delicate instruments, heavy machinery. We even took perishables over the hump. We know that we can make a go of this line if we can convince the people that air freight is practical, logical. You don't have to convince me. I'm sold. You're sold? Well, then what do we wait for? It's pretty risky. But perhaps there's something we can do. But all you have is 35,000. Yeah, that's right. But if the other boys in our output knew that we needed money- That's what I wanted to ask you. If you could raise $125,000- Maybe we could, Mr. Mosier. Maybe we could. In that case, I have several friends who happen to admire a couple of good old American qualities. One is initiative, the other is ability. You boys have got both. And I believe they make pretty good collateral for an investment. Meaning? When does your option on the Conestoga's expire? The 22nd of this month. 22nd, eh? All right, here's the proposition. We're listening. With flaps up. Quiet, quiet. Go ahead, Mr. Mosier. Well, if you can show me by, say, the 20th of the month that you can raise $125,000- I'll try to get five of my friends to put up dollar for dollar. Well, that's good by us. Plenty good. You think you can do it? Mr. Mosier, out in China, we flew P-40s and sometimes had to be held together with bailing wire. Nobody thought of quitting. Everybody helped everybody else. And everybody carried his share of the load. And? And the guys are still the same. They won't let us down. Are you sure of it, catfish? 10,000 short. No, that's right, Bob. Still grand, 10 grand short of the mark in one day to left. Now wait a minute. Let's check it again. Maybe just maybe we missed something. Missed 10 grand? Not a chance. Now here's the lineup. Tom Hayward's in for 6,000. Bill Bartling, 10, right? All right. And Cliff Groep, puts in for 4,000. Dean from Duke Headman. Joe Rosebird, antied up 4,000. And that's it. Now, was the whole gang's in and was still out on the limb for 10 grand? Might as well be 50. Yeah, well, we tried. Yeah, come in. Mr. Prescott? Yeah, that's me. What have we got here? Package for you, sir. Fine here. Package? OK. There you are. Thanks. Package. Open it up. Hey, what the devil is this?  Hey, is this one of your gags, catfish? A lot at a time like this. Who'd be pulling gags? Hey, wait a second. There's a note sticking out of the pocket. See? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, holy smokes. Read this. What's the thing? Well, wait a minute. Anybody remember Rossi? You remember old Howard put Rossi? What are you saying?  Listen, dear skin plant, sorry I didn't get your first cable. Busy and Calcutta. Herewith, however, one dirty shirt to pay off a bet. And you can count me in for anything up to 15,000. 15,000. Love and kisses, Rossi. Oh, where do I sit? This fellas were in business. Yahoo! You're listening to George Murphy as Bob Prescott in Flying Tigers Fly Again on the Cavalcade of America sponsored by the View Pond Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Well, we got the money and then the planes. But we still didn't have the business. Oh, there were a few jobs like flying Elsie the Borden cow and Hirohito's horse around the country and stuff like that. But the big stuff that would really set us up didn't come. That is, not until one day when Link and Bill Bartling were tuning up one of the Conestogus. You sound sweet, Bob. You ought to pass the CAA inspection without a plush. Rub up again. What's the matter, Bob? Where's Bart? He's in the plane. Hey, Bart! Bart! Yeah? Cut the motor and come on down. OK. Oh, what's up, Bob? Wait till Bart comes down. Hey, you sound pretty excited. We're getting our first break, big break. What do you want, Bob? Listen, I want to see Bob Smith this morning. Yeah? How did you make out? Well, I got an order to take a load of flowers to Detroit from Los Angeles here. One load? Well, it's a start. And if we deliver, we're in. This will prove to shippers that we can get their stuff out fast. Hey, hey, wait a minute. Flowers are perishable. Sure, I know it. These jobs aren't refrigerated. OK, so they're not refrigerated. It's the fall of the year, isn't it? It's cool upstairs. Fly as high as you can. It'll be OK. We can make this one. We'll be able to buy refrigeration. That's good. OK, when do we start? Is this job ready to take off? Sweet as a dream. Yeah, but one load's not going to pay for the trip. Bart, you and Link make the flight. When you get to Detroit, go and see somebody. I don't care who.  Yeah, but see who? That'll be your job in Detroit. Look, get furniture, bicycle, tires, bag, pipes, anything. But get loaded. Now, get that load of flowers in Detroit in good shape. And we've gone a long way towards convincing people that air freight is the thing. Are you all set? Get going. Link and Bart got the flowers at Detroit OK. And they got a load of furniture to fly back to Los Angeles. Then it happened. Link and Bart were taking off in the Detroit field. 566, the tower, ready for clearance and takeoff. Over. Power to 566. ATC clears you to Chicago at 10,000. On radio, we want contact Chicago radio before let down. Clear for takeoff. Over. Roger, 566 out. OK, Bart, we're off. Mixed your ridge. Mixed your ridge. Gear up. Gear up. Laps up. Laps up. Hey, Link, my right engine's smoking. That's a right prop. Gas off. Switch off. Switch off. She's blazing, Link. I think the wing's tights caught. We haven't enough altitude. I'm going to try a belly landing. Hang on. We stop here. You OK, Link? OK. We've got to get that furniture out. Come on. Let's get back. We've got to get that furniture out. Come on. Let's get going. Line Tiger Line. Prescott speaking. Hello, Bob. Link. Hi, you, Link. How'd it go? Well, well. You got our wire? Sure. I took it right over to Smith. He did nip-ups. When I told him he got the flowers that he tried as fresh as when they left here. Good. What's the matter? Bad news? We got a return load of furniture. Well, that's great. Only, uh... Why not? Right engine. Uh, you want Bart OK? Sure. Sure. How soon did you guarantee delivery? Done. Yes, it can. Look, Link. Now listen, charter a plane and fly it out here right away. Are you sure? That's OK. Charter a plane.  We're going to make good. Yeah, but Bob. It's OK, Link. It's OK. Things are looking up. Uh, not from this end. Well, if you were here, my friend, I'd show you a nice, fat contract with the Fruit Growers Association. One load a week from Los Angeles to New York. What? Then we did it. We sure did, Link. Now look, charter that plane, like I told you, deliver the furniture and we'll break open a bottle of beer. The Flying Tiger Line was going places. Or looked like it. We had the fruit contract to fly one load a week from Los Angeles to New York. But payloads both ways were needed. But we didn't have them. Then one night, Catfish and I were in New York after delivering a load. Oh, come on, Bob. Snap out of it. It's New Year's Eve. Let's go up to Times Square. Watch the crowds.  I want to stick around here and wait for that call. Hmm, Baylor? He promised me a decision on that contract today. Hey, look. It's 10 at night. He said he'd call you at noon. He didn't. You know what that means. Well, he might have got tied up. Not a chance. The amalgamated garment manufacturers just don't want to ship their stuff by air freight. That's why he hasn't called. Oh, but I worked for two weeks on this contract. Sure. And for two weeks, we've been sitting here in New York. I say take any load and let's get back to LA.  But, well, it just isn't working out that way. I'll forget it. Let's go up to Times Square. Come in. Maybe you're right, Catfish. Can you tell me where I may find Mr. Prescott at the Flying Tiger Line? I'm Bob Prescott. Oh, I'm Captain Hans Jorgensen of the Sphinx. My ship is in Los Angeles. Mr.  You've got to help me. Well, what can I do for you, Captain Jorgensen? I came here to New York to replace the gyro compass for my vessel. Well, I still don't see what... The Sphinx is loaded with food and medicine for the starving people of the East. She must sail, Mr. Prescott. But she cannot without a new gyro. Oh, I see. You mean you're stranded here in New York. I myself could get to Los Angeles, but the gyro weighs hundreds of pounds. For 10 days, I've been trying to get it to the West Coast. No, I'm desperate. What do you say, Catfish? Well, I say let's do it. It's not a payload, but we'd be doing a good turn. Can you be ready in an hour, Captain? Thank you, Mr. Prescott. Thank you. Well, we took Captain Jorgensen to Los Angeles. We thought it was just one of those things until the next day. Bob, look. Look at this right up in the paper. Look. Hey, see Captain flown to ship. Flying Tiger Airline. Hey, it's about us. Yeah, we do a favor for one guy, and the next day we're spread all over the papers. A whole story of the airline. A syndicated column. That means we're spread all over the state. Sure, sure, but... Flying Tigers, Bob Prescott here. This is Link. Whether okay? Yeah. Well, what else? Hey, look.  Now, what's up? Baylor? Baylor? Amalgamated? Yeah, that's the fella. Link, I'll break your head open if you don't talk. What did he say? Stop running up the phone bill. What about Baylor? That's about all there is to the story of the Flying Tiger Airline.  You know, like we used to out in China. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold it. Two years ago, we used to toast anybody who knocked off a zero. Well, we can't do that anymore, but we can toast something else. We'll break out the bottle of beer. All right, come on. Time ago, we drank to the Flying Tiger Line. And here we go again. Up! No, no, no, no. Wait a minute. Hold it.  What are we forgetting? This toast. Here's to what made the Flying Tiger Airline possible. Here's to what gave us our chance to show what we could do. Fellas, here's to the real backer of the Flying Tiger Airline. America. In a moment, our star, George Murphy, will return. First here is Gain Whitman speaking for Dupont. The first snow, like white powder on the ground, makes you want to get out into the open. The trees are bare. You can see the sky between their branches, a winter sky with a pearly sun. Where snow doesn't crunch under your feet, fragrant leaves rustle.  And the faint drag of his brush in the snow. And then the shrill protests of a jay dressed in the blue of summer skies to remind you winter doesn't last forever. People who live in parts of the country where it snows think their winter is the most beautiful. But people who live down by the gulf like their winter too. And no one needs to remind you what folks in California think of their winters. Perhaps it's just that each of us loves his own part of America a little more than any other part and loves it winter as well as summer. Hunters feel that way about being out of doors. A gun gives them an excuse to get out into the open, get the feel of the country in the oldest, best way, actually feel it under foot, feel it in the tingle of a cold breeze against their cheeks. The Remington Arms Company, associated with the DuPont Company, has manufactured sporting rifles and shotguns for generations of American boys and men. The DuPont powders, loaded into Remington and Peter's cartridges and shells, are products of DuPont chemistry. In these days of industrial chemistry, the DuPont Company manufactures many thousands of chemical compounds. But DuPont started business as a powder company 140 odd years ago. And an invisible but nonetheless important ingredient of Remington and Peter's ammunition is the know-how, which under our American competitive system, manufactures and distributes constantly improved products. The know-how, which enters into all of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. American hunters add 250 million pounds of dressed wild game to the nation's meat supply every year. 70 million pounds of big game alone. If you'd like to know how to prepare venison, duck, veg, pheasant, and other game for your table, the Remington Arms Company publishes a booklet How to Dress, Ship, and Cook Wild Game. For a copy of this 48-page book, you can close a dime for mailing and handling and send your name and address to Radio Section, DuPont Company, Wilmington, Delaware. And now our star, George Murphy. Thank you, Gaine. Not only did I enjoy playing the part of Bob Prescott on Cavalcade tonight, but I have the additional pleasure of introducing the former Flying Tiger himself. Ladies and gentlemen, the founder and president of the Flying Tiger Line, Bob Prescott. Thanks, George, for myself and my fellow Flying Tigers. I'd like to express our appreciation to the Cavalcade of America and you for doing so well by us. You know, it has been said that our story brings out how veterans can convert the wartime know-how they picked up into useful peacetime practices, all to the good. But for me, I'd like to say in all honesty and with conviction that our enterprise stands for something bigger. As a flyer, I've seen a lot of our world, all sorts of countries. As when I think how we were able to turn what was just an idea into a big airline operation, that I feel good about this USA we fought for. Because without pulling any punches and laying it right on the line where else on earth today could a man get the opportunity and freedom to play all, except right here. You can count on me as one who is grateful and proud of this country. I always will be. Thank you. Next week, the DuPont Cavalcade brings you Robert Young in an honorable titan. It's the story of a man in whose honor Times Square was named. The story of a little Tennessee news boy who rose to become one of the greatest and most honored publishers in the world. It was a long and difficult fight for Adolf Ochs, publisher of the New York Times, but by hard work, uncompromising principles he built to greatness the paper whose mass-haired bears the famous slogan all the news that's fit to print. Be sure and listen next Monday to an honorable titan starring Robert Young. The music for tonight's DuPont Cavalcade was composed and conducted by Robert Armbruster. Our Cavalcade play was written by Daisy Amery. Featured in the cast with George Murphy tonight were William Johnstone as Link and Jerry Hausner as Catfish. This is John Easton inviting you to listen next week to Robert Young in an honorable titan on the Cavalcade of America brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. The Cavalcade of America came to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.


Alrighty, let's play this in full. Somewhat longer-ish. So there's some music that I synced it to, but I've removed that for now. That's totally fine. It kind of works as a mechanic shot.  Look at that. All right. So the main impression is that the upper body feels very stiff. This I like. I like this kind of the hold and drop. Question is, do you need that camera rotation through there? I mean, it gives it a bit of an interest, I can see that. So the main thing that I'm seeing here is that there's a little bit of wonkiness in the mechanics where you have moments where when you push off we suddenly have an overextension where that IK controller feels like it's here. Then you have a broken wrist here. This feels like that foot is up too soon. It will be a bit lower and then at the end gets up here. But then once we get there, you have an overextension here where I feel like we will be sooner over that leg into a bend with the roots. Arms feel a bit IK just because they're very straight and their path is no arc and there's a very sharp direction change there. Same thing here that goes back, back and then bam! Doesn't have easy in and out and a bit of an arc there. Again, a lot of overstretched legs. Through all of that, I also feel like as this arm goes up I don't see anything in the chest where there's a rotation in Y to go. I mean, it's right there. I say this and it's right there. But then as you continue, like through all of this I feel like this needs to be slightly pushed. I mean, it's there, I guess. Maybe I'm just not seeing it enough. Like the hip could also be rotated more this way. But then as you continue, I'm just looking at with all that arm movement, I'm just not feeling like there's enough influence. Even as you go back with that arm, again that chest would have to go back with it. But it continues with some sliding over extensions, some broken wrists where that push off. It's good that there's a full extension on the push but then it starts to break again. The silhouette's a bit wonky there. Same here with the arm bends. Like that just all feels slightly broken. Like there's an overall feeling of brokenness. Even when you jump into it with that twist there it feels like the upper body just kind of stays put. Yes, there's a rotation in Y but it's all always so straight where I feel like I would push this where character might start there. But then as this happens it might push forward for more of a bigger run energy leaning forward. So then you can go back up here for the jump. And then on that it will go backwards a bit. Again, the camera move makes it hard to see the line of action going back. It's a bit of a dragon and bam, going into this. This also feels, I don't know if that is yet. This feels really broken going in here but then arms are up into that stretch. We might argue it's kind of robotic things. Maybe we can do different things. But again, this was like the eye case back there overextending with the broken wrist. So to me it feels like you want to really focus on the mechanics and there's also something about jump, roll, continuing, turn, and then having that here. So I know there's a double kept playing about in the actual cut. Let's play this here. All right, it starts here. Jump, roll, continuing, jump, turn, and then we have that roll, jump, turn. So that's why it's there twice. So I would say to me this seems more interesting staying put. And I'm not sure if you need that second part. It's basically not super good wins that you need that camera move. So I'm glad that you included the second one here. This is to me just nice because of a nice silhouette and you can work a bit more on that. It's a bit more of a drag at the end, extending that leg, just kind of pushing that. So it's not just stuck in that pose, especially through there, it would be leaning back and then getting into this, but I would tuck in those hands and the arms. Not sure. Like from this angle, it's kind of an interesting view for kind of an exoskeleton way of rotating around there. But then again, it feels really broken through there. The question is though, do you need this turn?  The only difference is the turn, but then it just feels a bit broken. So my question to you is like, there's a lot of little technical things that feel broken with overextended arms and legs. Silhouette could be worked on every now and then pushing the line of action. But then the question is, how far do you want to push this? Like, why do you want to include a second thing? Are you okay cutting that out? Could it be something a bit more dynamic or different? And that's why you have that. Could the second thing be lower? Could it be higher to change something? I know it's something that's a bit more contrasty as opposed to just that twisty thing, which is kind of the same. This is already fairly mechanics driven to do run, jump, land, roll into that. To me, it's enough to show mechanics. So I'm gonna stop it here. You let me know how far you want to push this. Like, do you want to make this really robotic with potentially breaking things on purpose where arms can swivel around just because it's a robot type of thing that can do that?  How far do you want to push this in terms of style? Is this for a real, is this an exercise? A lot of things to kind of think about as you do this. Alrighty, but again, this I really like. The timing of, let's pretend it's less broken in terms of just the mechanics. And you just look at the general shape going forward up and then landing. That feels nice. I like the timing. It's good stuff in there. It's just kind of pushing the poses and making a bit less broken over extended stuff like that. So let me know regarding all those questions and that is that. Thanks. All right. There's an email you can sign up. You can start whenever you want. You can submit whatever you want. You get 16 submissions. Either way, a like and subscribe would be awesome. All right. Thank you.


So, Campbell, we're here to talk a little bit about the annual Osmin talks, the Australian Ministerial Talks between, excuse me, the Ministerial Talks between Australia and the United States involving the Defence Minister, the Foreign Minister and their US counterparts, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defence. These happen every year, this year, in Washington. And I thought I'd ask you, actually, try to take the perspective of a student. We have a lot of students who look at the interpreter. And I know when I was a student, I was always really curious about what actually goes on in these meetings. So, rather than getting you to be a pundit here, let me ask you about the mechanics. What actually goes on in the room? Is it very casual or is it incredibly formal? Do only the senior people speak? Does everyone sort of muck in? How does it go? Great, Sam. I appreciate the question and appreciate the opportunity to be on the interpreter. This is great. The OSMEN is one of the oldest institutions that we have for managing this complex and, I think, wonderful relationship between the United States and Australia. Every year, the Secretary of State and Defence, as you suggest, either travel to Australia or their counterparts come up to Washington or some part of the United States for these meetings. In addition, as part of OSMEN, there is a military component in which increasingly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs meets with his counterpart as part of these discussions. So there is a robust set of discussions on defence, which is really the foundation of the relationship, increasingly on intelligence and then on diplomacy going forward. I think in fact it is a mixture of both rather formalized presentations and sort of just informal discussions about either our bilateral relationship or the region as a whole. Normally we did one of our OSMENs during the four years. I was at the State Department in San Francisco and so Secretary Panetta, who is a native of Northern California, insisted on taking us to his favourite Italian restaurant down on the Wharf. It was lovely and fun and there just is a sense of camaraderie and comfort and shared values and common experience that animates the meetings between the United States and Australia that I have experienced nowhere else. So they are intense meetings but they are comfortable, they are friendly. Normally we do much of the work in advance and so it is reaffirming at the highest levels on both sides of our government, often complex, diplomatic or military arrangements that have been worked on sometimes for years. I think it is fair to say we all look forward to OSMENs. They were generally quite productive and usually the chemistry between the leaders is quite good. So when you say that a lot of the work gets done in preparation, that implies that the agenda also is set quite early on in the piece. Does that mean that OSMEN is dominated by long-term issues or does the stuff that we are reading about in the papers today, for instance, does that make it onto the agenda? Look, it will be unavoidable. Some of the challenges that are taking place with respect to the revelations about spying, those will be addressed quietly and there will be some back and forth. But basically these are planning opportunities in which both Australia and the United States really look ahead and try to guide the direction of future interactions between our two countries and the world that we live in. So I expect over the course of the coming OSMEN there will be interactions about some of our military role in the region and in Australia, some engagement about our diplomacy with China. There will be discussions about the ambitions of the new government of Australia to raise defense spending. There will be examinations of where the U.S. defense spending is going. Overall, these are comprehensive discussions. The agenda is primarily poised to reflect on strategic issues where we are heading in the future. But there will undeniably, as I said, be discussion of some of the challenges that we're facing currently. So the picture you paint is generally a very friendly atmosphere. Do these discussions ever become prickly at all? Some commentators, for instance, have argued that Australia has a right to be a little bit upset with the United States for the fact that the Snowden revelations came out at all and have put Australia in a difficult position with Indonesia right now. On the other hand, we've heard some American commentators say that Australia needs to do more on defense spending, for instance. So do the two sides? Yeah, look, the truth is we both understand the domestic constraints that each of the governments deal with. I think there is a recognition that, by and large, we are like-minded. I think it's often important in these meetings for one side of the other to lodge careful areas of concern. I can tell you that during the period of WikiLeaks, Australian counterparts were quite clear with the United States about certain aspects of our handling of it that they were uncomfortable with and thought were incorrect. And I think we've quietly asked Australia in the past about the direction of defense spending and how it sees its role in Asia. And I think there have been periods in both Iraq and Afghanistan where the Australians made clear that they needed to be consulted if there were to be any changes in strategy going forward. So yeah, there are intense interactions, but I would say that those interactions take place in a larger context of partnership and trust. Last question, you're of course closely associated with the pivot, and I've noticed in your, the discussions I've witnessed so far, you tend to say quote unquote pivot. Now I want to ask you, do you think the United States in these Osmin talks will be in a reassurance mode, if you like, because there is a perception in Australia that the pivot or the rebalance has stalled somewhat? I think that's the case, and I think you will see strong views put forward, particularly by Secretary Hagel, who I think has done a very able job in Asia about why and how the United States will go about its business in Asia. And I'm comforted by that, but I do think there is a bit of reassurance that's necessary after the unfortunate, but again, I think understandable cancellation of the President's visit to Asia during the time of the Stacia Summit and the Oceania Regional Forum. Ultimately, I think that some of those setbacks are recoverable, and I think the Osmin, which is, again, it's a full Osmin, it's our fifth year in a row, that's significant. I think can go a long way towards that kind of reassurance. Look, the reason there is always debate about the appropriate terminology, whether it's rebalance or pivot, a funny story, I think Secretary Clinton and I and others have been more associated with the term pivot and some in the White House more with the term rebalance. I think that the underlying fact is more the contents of the policy than the naming of it, but I will tell you that there was a period where our friends at the National Security Council were quite determined that everyone would use the term rebalance than we all did, only to find that the President actually prefers, in some respects, the term, the pivot. Ultimately, I think the unintended consequences of the term pivot suggested a turning away of the United States from the Middle East and Europe, and that was certainly not our intention. And some suggested that the term pivot had a harder edge and occasionally was misinterpreted by Chinese friends and that the rebalance was somehow less sharp. I'm not sure those distinctions are as accurate. The reason I kind of like rebalance, though, is that it suggests an ongoing, innovative process that requires course corrections and adaptation. And I think that is what, in fact, the policy demands going forward. But for better or for worse, I think I'm stuck with the term pivot. Good. Thanks for your talk. Sam, thank you very much. It's great to be with you.


Zifei slide that out of there and it comes in a nice box Zifei Zifei right again the gun metal color love it this is a tool this is a didn't we just do this one no we didn't this one here is push button right so you push that and that cutter will come out a whole cut of to cut the whole end off right now cut the whole then this one is the V cut you put your cigar end in there and it'll cut a V into it the V notch into it right now what else is this how I think that's it oh it's got a hole punch up here there's a hole punch up there if you want to use the hole punch right pretty cool little design in the gun metal right


Hi there, it's Sandy and I wanted to let you know that I have a guest video up over at MFT Stamps and it's all about coloring snow. It's my final snow video of the 2019-2020 season, as far as I know, and it's all about contrast. And I also wanted to tell you a penguin joke that I just heard. Why should you not write a book on penguins? Because writing on paper is so much easier. Click on the link in the doobly-doo or over on the screen and I will see you again very soon. Take care. Bye.


We have today our keynote speech and afterwards the panel discussion and It's my pleasure to announce to you the keynote speaker of today Professor Ming Feng Ling who came all the way from the Georgia Institute of Technology I think it's a 14-hour flight. So we really appreciate the effort of flying over to Berlin I thought we make it more appreciatable since tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the German reunification So you can actually do two things come to the conference and also attempt this very historic event So Ming Feng is an associate professor at the Georgetown Institute of Technology He's at the business school and the Department of Management Information Systems He did his PhD in business and management from the University of Maryland At the University of Maryland. He also earned his MA in economics But he also earned another MA in economics from Peking University Where he also received his BA. He has a lot of fellowships at different universities I just named one of the most important. So he's also a fellow as Cambridge University varies at the Judge Business School and the Center for Alternative Finance and Ming Feng was one of the first scholars I have to say I found Publishing in the area of peer-to-peer lending and crowd investing and crowdfunding in general in particular in 2013 you had your first paper on management science already on peer-to-peer lending and so that was really the start of the literature I would say and Since then you didn't stop. So I just counting your iterating in your publications It's either management science you have five by now and four information system research And there are a couple of them already in the pipeline again I would say if I have to make a predictions probably the next one is information system research because now it's then it's five to five I would say and so Your honors and awards list is very very impressive. So in total I'll count it 33 awards and honors and So I cannot name all of them just I would suggest to you to see the website of Ming Feng and then you will be very impressed So among others he received the best paper award of management science also for management science he became the Distinguished Service or got the Distinguished Service Award and I must say there are a lot of productive people here in this room and I really appreciate that Losses among one of them I would say and but Ming Feng is really topping topping the edge I would say so he's really one of the most productive people I know Today he actually talks very much on the topic or the overall theme of our conference because his Presentation or his keynote speech today will be about something borrowed something new from peer-to-peer lending to real estate crowdfunding and beyond and we are very much looking forward to your presentation and the floor sewers Thank you very much for coming to Berlin. Thank you so much Lars for the very nice introduction And also for the honor to be here to share my work with you guys and thank you all for being here today So as Lars mentioned I've been working on peer-to-peer lending for quite a while Never counted actually. Oh, it's almost like 12 years now since when I was a student At that time it was quite uncertain how far it's gonna go and I'm gonna share my personal story in that period But if you guys know like today, it has become since the time I was a student It has become a global phenomenon from the US China and then UK Germany and many other places as well around the world So it has it has produced many many great success stories, but also produced some horror stories So like so that's why it is the Chinese government crack down on peer-to-peer lending a few years ago So but back then it was just started So this was the homepage of prosper when I was starting my PhD dissertation It looks very dated as it should be because that was back in 2006 when they just started so for me at the time because I came from an econ background so we are always looking for data and This one seems to be a very promising kind of arena So that's why and also it seems really exciting. I just got really excited by the phenomena itself So I collect the data study processing it and then try to formulate research questions based on that data set But at that time it was actually not all peachy So in fact, I was quite stressed out to be honest for two reasons one is prosper itself at that time It was just starting so there was a lot of Good news coming out from day to day But sometimes they're also bad news like November 24th 2008 SEC the security Exchange Commission in the US send a cease and desist letter to prosper to make sure they want them to shut down So that I saw the news and then my heart almost stopped So and then like two days later They got sued by a class action lawsuit by the investors probably following the cease and desist letter And then they also run into some troubles along the way, especially they are ups and downs in the fundraising process so At that time it was a startup and I tried to come for myself say that hey even if it goes out of business It's still real money invested by real people on the real marketplace So even if it goes out of business, this is still good place that generates great data that we can study as researchers So that's one thing that's kind of trying to come for myself I try to encourage me myself to keep working on my dissertation But there's another source of stress, which is the fact that it's public data So because everybody's looking at that I think there are many other people like in the finance in finance area also marketing area They're also looking at the same data set So as a student with not much resources to myself that was always a stress I my biggest fear is that because actually that was the time I was about to go on the job market and my biggest fear or nightmare would be that wake I wake up Sunday and some people published or Submitted something exactly the same idea as I was having so fortunately that didn't happen So but I always try to come convince myself that after all these papers that the first two papers I was having my dissertation. I should get out of this data set So but after all these years Prosper has changed a lot. Okay, so they have gone through many many ups and downs as well But for myself, I often somehow just keep coming back to prosper data set. This is so for several reasons I always find myself coming back to the same data set I've been working on So even today like a few weeks ago. I have met a friend of mine who was a student in Maryland We haven't met each other for 10 years I think and then he asked me what are you working on today as I'm still working on prosper data in addition to other data sets So but there are several reasons for this They are always coming back to prosper data for several reasons. One is the fact that the data is extremely rich There are two reasons for this one is that it is from a debt based or loan based Profunding context and as loans as you know, it's a heavily regulated industry and also is a very data rich industry So you have a lot of information about the borrower and so on so even from the traditional bank You have that information But here is actually not just that the nature of the context But also the fact that prosper made the data publicly available for a long time So from 2006 until 2013 they make the daily snapshot of all the entire platform publicly available So that was essentially the data source that I have been using So I was using the data set for many many papers. So this is just a yard diagram So it's not not just they didn't just provide the data for anybody to look through they actually provide great documentation which was a really fantastic way for us as a students at the time and So even though I have newer data, I think in many ways This is still very very unique and very helpful in many ways Okay, and there are other reasons the other one is that because it's a loan based crowdfunding It's a loan with a fixed maturity date So for us, we feel like there's a one of the biggest benefit is as a very objective measure for quality So for whether you are especially if you are a lender, you're trying to decide who to invest in For loans, you have a very specific date at which you can look back and say whether you made a good judgment or not So if you mess in somebody if you blend the money to that person three years down the road You know for sure whether that was a good investment or not once once the loan matures whether defaults or paid back Okay, so that was the objective for quality. So if you look at rewards crowdfunding that based crowdfunding I have some of those data sets as well But that's always been a struggle how to define the underlying the quality of that campaign So for loans, this is much less controversial So you can actually just look at that and then you can calculate not just whether it's repaid You can also look at for instance the return of investment for investors point of view Okay, so that's really the nature of that data that makes it much amenable to answer a lot of the research questions Especially from economists point of view when we're trying to answer information asymmetry issues The second the third one is the fixed time horizon. So for equity crowdfunding, which is great for businesses It goes on could go on theoretically forever, but for loans is a fixed date, right? So by that date you can actually make a determination and then the last one is actually not the least is the rich history Prosper has gone through so I've often found myself using this a lot because I've been using the data set for so long I think I know quite a few things that people probably wouldn't notice if you're not working on the data set So possible has gone through a lot of changes in their policy So many of the work that I do actually uses the natural experiments either policy changes from prosper or like the sec Shutdown prosper also use that as a natural experiment to help me tease out the causal influence in the data So that has always been a valuable thing in the publication process I think is as you guys will know, it's kind of difficult if you don't have a clear identification reviewer as pretty tough on that. So So the so these are the reasons that keep finding myself going back to prosper data. So these are the Some studies have been working on so far using this data set and the reason I wanted to bring them up today is that I Think even though the research are done on the prosper data set, which is on the peer-to-peer lending or debate that base crowdfunding I think at least to some extent some of the findings could be useful in informing The decisions in the other core funding market such as equity crowdfunding rewards Call funding or even real estate crowdfunding and even future innovations in this field So this will be some of the things I want to talk about today. I'm trying to summarize my research has been done so far So some of them are have been published some of them has still ongoing and so I think there are still some things that we can We can work on from the data set and I hope that the conclusion that I drew from those places can also be useful in in in the in other contexts, so Actually some of these questions like the last one here on the secondary market We actually when we started out we were trying to answer that question in the equity crowdfunding market and But when I talked to my co-authors actually we decided that actually it's better to answer that question Because of the nature natural experiment that we experienced. So that's why we actually come back to use the prosper data So I classify my work in this area into three broadly Broadly defined areas one is the primary market design meaning that the features of the primary market where the borrowers and lenders Interrupt each other. So essentially we're trying to understand the features that platforms roll out to try to solve the Isometric information problem between borrowers and lenders So this is different features that platform has and we're trying to understand and whether they have influence in mitigating that issue Trying to make the market work. Okay, so that's the the the one thing So for instance the first one which the things that we the underlying are the ones I want to spend a bit more time on The first one is the market mechanism. So that's that's how the market is actually organized So for any platform, that's probably the first question. How would you decide? How the borrowers and lenders or even in equity crowdfunding how the investors and entrepreneurs should be matched to each other So that's the market market Mechanism that was referring to the second part is the individual difference between investors. So for that one This is essentially the heterogeneity of my investors So we also look at institutional investors versus noise traders and then also some other information some other angles such as local investors and information about bits and then the last one is the secondary market and so so this is some of the Studies that we've done so far each one of the bullet points can probably expand to a whole hour of talk Which I won't do I promise so I just want to highlight for each one of them I just for the three things that underline I just want to give a one slide overview and then so we can talk more I can go into as much detail as you like me to Okay So the first one is the market mechanism this is also using prosper data and What we did at that time was to use a natural experiment on prosper when they Changed the whole platforms design from an auction format to a post-it price format So in the auction format is that you as investors when you come to the website you can look at the options and then you can decide which one to bid on and then There's an auction process meaning that as funds come in if it exceeds the amount that borrowers requesting the interest rate could potentially go down So from an economics point of view it seems like a very good mechanism Right you can actually reached probably the one with the least regret from both sides So it because you can essentially like a top-to-top momentum process auction Clearly you can find the market clearing price for each borrower But the downside of that offer obviously is that it takes time for auctions to complete So that's also one of the reason that prosper switched to post-it price in which in that kind of context in post-it prices Prosper would come up with the decision on how much each borrower should be borrowing at so they actually priced along For the lenders and then the lenders decision when they come to the website will be simplified in the sense that you only need to Decide whether you want to be part of that loan or not So you cannot really change the interest rate even if you are willing to provide more than they are asking for so that's really the idea So always so that's the original assignment the The announcement that they send out is that they're trying to convince the investors that this is a good thing Which I think this is true because if you are feeling of thinking from the platform's point of view The speed of funding is definitely important right because you make profit when the loans have been funded But what we found using that natural experiment because they shut down the the website and shut down the The auction based format and switch it over to post-it price We did it before enough to comparison using that as a natural experiment and what we found is that yes The funding speed did increase meaning that it is much faster than before to get the loans funded Okay, but on the other hand the default rate is actually getting higher and what we How how we reached that conclusion of course empirically is always that's what we found but theoretically In our model we found is the intuition is actually pretty straightforward meaning that in the past When the borrower Borrow money they start with their asking interest rate So they come up with the the original for instance I want to borrow money at ten thousand dollars starting at twenty five percent So I know that if I give that interest rate too low I may not get the money But if I give the interest rate too high then I'm going to be stuck with that rate for the whole life of the Long so I will be less likely to give you a very high rate Okay, so I will be trying to be conservative in deciding where the starting point should be for the auction But for the platform, they know that then the borrowers will have that kind of a reservation So they actually take advantage of that because if the price comes from prosper the platform is going to carry a much more Important or much more impactful is impact Effect on the investors because they know that it's kind of a platform's decision-making They have all the data about the borrowers So they should be able to be able to come out with an interest rate that is appropriate for the borrower so because of that lender should be able to react more strongly to the Price that prosper give to a borrower. Okay, so for that reason Prosper prosper as a platform could command that as a premium They can actually charge a higher interest rate than what the borrower will normally ask for at the beginning if they were to price them along themselves So this is also what we found in empirically So again the funding rate is higher But the default rate is also higher and because of the default rate is higher the overall return of to investment for investors It's actually decreasing at least under some circumstances and we also did some welfare analysis Looking at the whole social welfare from the platform to the borrowers and lenders and at least under some Circumstances the default rate will be the the overall social welfare will be decreasing as well So meaning that the overall message that we took away from that exercise is that even though from a platform point of view It may be better to use a post-depress mechanism. It actually comes at a cost that may not be obvious otherwise meaning that it could come at the cost of a higher Likely of a default. So that's something that we want to highlight and this is also highlighting the fact that there are so many stakeholders in the Craw funding market no matter what kind of crowdfunding market it is Whoever has the pricing power actually has a lot of impact on the market outcome So that's I think that's one thing that we want to take away from that study. Okay The second one is Going back to the three things I want to use this one as an illustration for the differences between Different kind of different investors As you guys know, they are both Retail investors who are just like playing around we call them the noise traders in the literature meaning that they don't have a whole lot of asset They are tend to be more Discoverers and then they tend to not react too well into the information that's in the market They are also institutional investors in the prosper So what we have been working on a few projects trying to understand the relationship between the two and also how they compare to each other so I had two studies here. One of them is the effect when prosper study labeling institutional investors I mean in that before some investors some institutional investors could participate But they are just not labeled as institutions and after a certain date They become labeled as institutions and the bidding history is visible to retail it to everybody on the platform And we found out that after they become the label was shown to retail investors The retail investors definitely had a significant reaction to the institutional investors In other words the fact that an institution shows up in the loan that actually carries a very significant impact on retail investors Even though that that actually ended up to be a not a very rational kind of decision for them to make So that was one and then the other one which we thought was quite Interesting it was based on a prosperous mispricing. So which we were just talking about the Prosper pricing the loans But there was actually a period of time between December 10th of 2010 and July of 2012 when prosper had a mispricing meaning that For people who are very different In terms of the underlying credit risk, they should have very different interest rates But because of the pricing scheme that they had at that time, they will actually charge the same interest rate So we use that as a this is one example. So The the interest rate was charged based on a number of factors. One of them is the credit score and so on So for instance this in this one example one borrow has a credit score between 640 and 660 this is the credit score in the US credit system. So We do not know the exact credit score, but we know the range the 10 point 20 point range where they are for into So we can know that borrow once credit score somewhere between 640 and 660 and then borrow to credit score is 760 and 780 so by any kind of indication the second borrower should be a much less credit risk So you want you lend money to them you should give them a better interest rate lower interest rate But during that period of time, they actually both of them were assigned to see at least this is actually what we observe in the data and because they are assigned to the C credit grade in the Prosperous pricing scheme. They were both charged the same interest rate, which is 21 point four eight percent. So that was a very unique period and the actually went on for quite a long time actually So we use that as an opportunity to identify the behavior of institutional investors and retail investors Meaning that when you face when you are faced with opportunities to in a sense to arbitrage Are you able to take advantage of the opportunity? So what we found is that for loans that were underpriced you do You do see or actually overpriced meaning that charging a high interest rate You do see a higher presence of institutional investors So meaning that they are actually able to take advantage of the information much more bad much better than retail investors would so retail investors They actually face with the same set of information if they had if they even look at the platform They should know that this is actually a bad idea meaning that for people in the borrow one case If you are thinking about these two you should go with borrow two for sure, right? But actually a lot of retail investors still go with borrow one So we use that to as opportunity to identify Trying to distinguish between the ability of retail investors and institutional investors. That's always being a question in the literature Whether smart money is really smart. Okay, so that's so that's essentially the question We're trying to Understand we pay them a lot of money to manage our money So whether they're actually able to deliver better performance so we what we found here is that indeed Institutional investors are able to Take advantage of the information they do invest better So if you look at their overall return is actually higher, but the difference is actually very very small So Michael other Rick's eyes as his abundance Professor in Arizona. He did a very interesting calculation. So it's just like a mental exercise So if both retail investors and institutional investors Start with equal share of the market and then we know that they have a difference in the performance How long would it take them for the retail investors to be completely irrelevant? Meaning that their their share of the market will go down to less than 10% and his calculation is that it takes about 400 years Meaning that there is a difference, but the meaning the difference is actually very very small So that was one thing that was kind of interesting and the uniqueness of the data is that this has been a question That's been going on, but we have a very unique opportunity in the data to understand the ability of the retail investors versus the Institutional investors. Okay, so so this is the second part which I think is It's also very important part for any kind of Coral funding especially in equity Coral funding. You have some people who are really experts They are not do a lot and some people who are they want to Get a share in the future Facebook and so on but they may not be able to process information That Correctly, so the question is to what extent we should protect them Okay, so as your retail investors, it's actually very interesting in the finance literature Even though they are retail investors There are noise traders meaning that they are almost like acting on noises. They're very sensitive noises It is actually very essential for the liquidity of the market So you don't want a market where they are only institutional investors participating So I think this is kind of where it's a give us a lot of things to think about to what extent we want to protect them So this is actually how? Institutional investors and retail investors can interact with each other. So this is actually has some implications for other Coral funding for mass as well. Okay The third one which we were looking at again, we look at the three parts one is the primary market design the second one is the Investor heterogeneity and then the third one is the secondary market So I think this is actually another amazing development in the fintech world in the past decade So in the past we're trying to figure out how the primary market works I'm not actually stepping into the secondary market because people want liquidity, right? So so this one was really kind of a lucky thing for me because I was just collecting data on prosper Back in 2016 I think for a while and then they suddenly send out an announcement because I'm an investor on prosper So they said that I saw I forget the exact date We're gonna they are just an email saying that on On the certain day, I think three months in the future. We're gonna shut down the secondary market So because it has not been used that much So I just kept on collecting the data and then we're trying to I try to understand how the shutdown of the secondary market affects The primary market, so it was kind of a lucky thing that was collecting the data before they actually shut down the market but at that time I also knew that this is not a question that Folks in my field I mean in the information systems field that they will be interested in because it's a very finance question But it's very lucky for me that actually Got into collaboration with quite a few finance co-authors and we actually got this project up and running very quickly So this one has been We almost have a working people ready So it's a but this is what we are trying to do is trying to understand when you shut down the secondary market in the sense Whether there is a secondary market or not how that affects the primary primary markets liquidity So the liquidity in terms of the funding time how much time it takes for you to fund the loan the cost of funding and then the total Total amount that can be funded. So that those are the typical definition in the finance literature That we use to define liquidity and what we found is that even though this is the interesting part to us I think at least even though prosper the reason that they shut down the secondary market is that not many people are using it But what we found is that even though this is a nominally used minimally used secondary market the fact that exists Still provides the comfort that investors need to trade in the primary market So when you shut down the secondary market, even though it was almost nobody was using that using that it still has a very significant impact On the liquidity of the primary market. So that was the the main finding and again I think it's pure luck that actually I came right into that natural experiment So we study how investors react to the announcement and then the actual shutdown of the market Okay, so so I think secondary market is always a very interesting thing I think especially for loans right it because many of the loans are three years in land or five years in land So what if something happens to the investor? They want that liquidity and the same thing for equity and also other kinds of Co-funding especially like real estate crowdfunding as well So I think understanding better how secondary market works and how investors react to the secondary markets existence It's a very important thing for many of us to look into. Okay, so so those are the three things that I want to highlight And there are other stuff that I don't want to go into but that's there. So okay, so Those are what I call something borrowed borrowed because it was in crowdfunding for loans but there's also More importantly for this conference I think it's something new in in the sense that how we can use something that we gather something that we found in Reward in the peer-to-pea lending market to inform what happens in equity crowdfunding real estate crowdfunding and so on So I think there's these are really new phenomena I think it's really interesting that people actually we can actually do a lot of things with equity and real estate and so on so So a lot of exciting developments I think particularly in Germany here and also in the US I think there has been some growth in the real estate crowdfunding market as well equity crowdfunding obviously after the jobs act has been picking up as well So but I Don't think the findings that we have found the peer-to-pea lending will completely apply to these new markets for several reasons One is that so I have been collecting data on rewards crowdfunding such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo and also equity crowdfunding Such as some of the platforms in the UK as well But the challenge that I always found because I'm as academics We have to write papers for the reviewers first, right? So for us, I think at least the most challenging thing is the fact that there's a whole lot of arts Element in rewards crowdfunding equity crowdfunding and even real estate crowdfunding I call them arts because every single project is different so for That crowdfunding is a little bit easier because loans are loans We can package them at the end of the day is just a bunch of numbers and it's almost like something you can package But for this is just a screenshot. I took from Crawl Cube yesterday You can see how varied they are they go into all different kind of industries and so on So if you really want to do a project level analysis To convince reviewers that one of them is a counterfactual of another that is very very difficult to do You can control for a lot of things about each project the funders and so on is I think is Objectively speaking, it's very very hard to find something that's truly a counterfactual of each other So that creates a lot of problem for for instance the the causal inference that we're trying to make for academic researchers So so that's at least one thing that I think is a challenge if we want to general generalize some of the findings from P2P lending to this new context Okay So this is one and for really say real estate I think it's probably even more challenging because every house is different So that this is even gonna be even more interesting There's a lot of numbers, but how we use the numbers to actually make causal inferences That's gonna be a very interesting and worthy of research obviously The second one is the use foot not just for loans, but also for other caps types of crowdfunding There's a lot of work on predictions as well So for instance, you can use prediction to detect fraud activities and so on and they are also Algorithm tree trading has been developed for peer-to-pea lending and I'm sure that as the scale develops There's gonna be similar developments for reward for equity crowdfunding and even real estate crowdfunding So the use of algorithms and the machine learning in this field I think it's gonna be opening up a whole lot of Opportunities on the other hand as we all know this could be potentials for biases, right? So for instance, I think just the what we saw in the news when you use a machine to train Data on how to hire people that will translate into the bias that you don't want to have in the hiring process So this is actually from a long time ago when landing club was I think it was I Think it's the second iteration of landing club when they're trying to create a match between borrowers and lenders Which was very interesting But they also have a what they call the secret sauce how to connect the borrowers and lenders to each other So so algorithm is actually not not something new by shipping going on for a long time But on the other hand I think there still needs to be a lot of research on how these algorithms or the predictions Effect the market participants and also the competition environment in this different context I think that will be a very important thing for us all to think about So obviously for instance in loans You could use a lot like in some of my work we look at text, right? So how people write when they are requesting funding It may seem very Inocuous that you are just trying to predict whether somebody's going to default or not But the by writing itself sometimes could reflect some flag reflect some of the protective information for instance whether The gender the race they all could have a bearing on how you write so if you develop an algorithm to To predict somebody's default likely who based on what they write How is that going to play into the fact that you need to make sure that your lending is done fairly and not Violating any of the red lines. So I think it's not a very obvious question. There's always a big trade-off between the Avoiding discrimination versus achieving the market efficiency that we have auto think about and I don't think that's unique to That crowdfunding but also applies to other kind of crowdfunding markets as well. Okay, so This is my last slide and with a lot of challenges. I think they are still some We are here because of the challenges, right? We are if there are no challenges there, there's no need for us to do research So but I think the more important thing is actually how we can proceed So I think these are three for my limited experience. I think these are some of the things that are very helpful One is the discussion and the collaboration between different stakeholders in the in the in the market So I think this conference is precisely a very good Representation of that kind of effort. The second one is the interdisciplinary research I'm very lucky to be in the field of information systems So this is a relatively small field But I get to work on whatever that I like to do and I can reach out to different experts in different fields So I have collaborators in I think almost all Disciplines in the business school. So it's very I think it's also very helpful like even statistics and so on you can use different Angles to look at the same phenomenon. So even for P2P lending data I think these days have been looked at by computer scientists statisticians and so on so I think it's we once we have the data is very easy to have a Interdisciplinary approach to tackle the problems together and then the last one of course is probably More difficult just like what I mentioned before We always have to balance between the need to protect and also the need to experiment So this is not very easy to do but I think it's ultimately How much do we want to Experiment and how much we want to protect the person people that would need to be protected such as smaller investors So again, that's what just my Something I wanted to share with you guys based on what I've what I've done in the peer-to-peer lending market And I hope that some of them will be useful for Newer iterations of fintech innovations such as real estate crowdfunding. Okay. Thank you all very much


Under Secretary of the Navy, Dr. Jeanine Davidson visited USS America for a scheduled tour during Rem of the Pacific 2016. Davidson met with Captain Michael Bayes, America's commanding officer, before sitting down to have lunch with the crew. Sailors and Marines were able to talk about their experiences aboard America, the first of its class, and share ideas and concerns for the future of the Navy. After lunch, Captain Bayes gave Davidson a tour of the ship's spaces and explained the improved capabilities of America. USS America recently completed RIMPAC 2016, the world's largest international maritime exercise. RIMPAC helps foster and sustain cooperative relationships among the 26 participating nations that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. Petty Officer Michael Rainey, USS America.