Unig o ran ymgyrch, ac mae'r ddisgwm yw'r ddisgwm, Fynghor i'r cyflaenol, 11340, oedd yn amdano'r rhai Cyn Macintosh, yn ystafell, yn rhoi'r ddau i'r cyflaenol. OXFAM's report and campaign. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak with Martins now or as soon as possible. Mr McIntosh, if you are ready, you have seven minutes to open the debate, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I have always thought, like many members here, I have always thought of myself as a progressive politician. I was brought up in the expectation that progress, economic, social or political, was not just desirable but almost inevitable that, with our advances in science and technology, so our society would advance in mutual prosperity, understanding and tolerance. I have not lost my optimism that we can make it so, but the evidence from the last 30 or 40 years has provided a salutary reminder that we have to choose to make it so. Yes, we are a far wealthier nation and measured in material goods, TVs, mobile phones, cars, we have clearly prospered, but on so many other measurements, the gap between rich and poor between the haves and the have-nots has actually increased. Audit Scotland, for example, has pointed out that our overall life expectancy has increased over the last decade, but that the better off have benefited most. The difference in average life expectancy between women living in the least deprived areas compared to the most deprived areas has risen from around six and a half years to around seven and a half years. Similarly, the overall death rate from cancer has fallen by 12 per cent between 2001 and 2011, but again the gap between the most and the least deprived areas has widened. It is not just with our health that we have failed to make progress in tackling inequality. We are proud to have one of the most equitable education systems in the developed world, and yet the findings of the OECD report in 2007 still hold true that who you are in Scotland is far more important than what school you attend so far as achievement is concerned. This report and this new campaign from Oxfam, Even It Up, Time to End Extreme Inequality, is a powerful and welcome reminder of the task before us. In fact, it offers some consolation in that we are clearly not alone here in Scotland, but it is not the consolation that you might want to hear. As the report points out, seven out of 10 people on the planet now live in countries where economic inequality is worse than it was 30 years ago. The report is full of evidence and research that fascinates and horrifies, but which I also hope potentially inspires us to action too. To quote just one example, you may be familiar with the line, we are all in this together. It turns out that, as a statement of fact, those words are more wide of the mark than even I suspected. Oxfam highlighted that, since the start of the financial crisis, the number of billionaires in the world has more than doubled. Here we are knee-deep in austerity, trying to do what we can to mitigate the impact of the welfare cuts, and yet, with every day, the obscenely rich are getting obscenely richer. As a sobering contrast, how many of us read the report from the Trussell Trust earlier this week, which revealed that the number of Scots turning to food banks in the last year has also more than doubled. I cannot do justice to the many juxtapositions between rich and poor, which are illuminated in this report, but the key point is simply that such inequality is offensive and morally repugnant, but it is damaging to us all. It is damaging to poverty reduction, stifled social mobility, undermines economic growth, and holds us back in the fight against climate change, and it compounds one of the most long-seated inequalities of all—that between men and women. I believe that many of us have taken encouragement from the new First Minister's implementation of a 50-50 approach to gender balance at Cabinet level. As I reminded members just last week, just as we slap each other on the back for our commitment to progressivism, the pay gap between men and women in this country is widening again. If we are not constantly aware of the hill that we are trying to climb, we will slip backwards. Extreme inequality reveals itself in many destructive ways, from poor health and illiteracy to levels of violence. However, I want to return, as the Oxfam report does, to the central issue of economic inequality. The global scale of the problem suggests that we need to take action at a global level. Earlier this year, Oxfam and others reported that the combined wealth of the 85 richest people in the world is the same as the poorest half of the world's population—approximately 3.5 billion people. One answer, as suggested by economists such as Thomas Piketty and others, is a wealth tax. Oxfam, for example, has calculated that a tax of 1.5 per cent on the wealth of the world's billionaires would raise £74 billion, enough to get every child into school and deliver health services in the poorest 49 countries. However, while supporting those global initiatives, I think that we should look closer to home. It is also the case that three families in Scotland own more wealth than the poorest 20 per cent of Scots put together, or in another statistic, also quoted by ministers, fewer than 500 people own more than half the land in Scotland. We have a land reform bill coming before this session. Do we not need to ask ourselves how we can use that piece of legislation to tackle this particular inequality? Poverty wages are clearly central to this issue, and I doubt that I have to convince anyone in this debate about the importance of implementing the living wage, but what are we doing about wage differentials? We cannot address extreme inequality if we only help those at the bottom. We need to look at the gap between what those at the top earn and what those same people pay their employees. When I proposed just such a measure using the procurement bill to minimise wage ratios between the highest and lowest paid, the then Deputy First Minister spoke very warmly about such an approach, then properly asked colleagues to vote against it. I am not going to pretend that there are easy answers to any of those complex issues, but the point is that we could take a different approach. Here in Scotland, for example, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance has imposed a wage freeze or a 1 per cent cap on public sector workers for each of the last four years, yet our university principals enjoyed a median increase of more than 4 per cent on salaries already approaching or exceeding £1.25 million. I need to point out that those are the same publicly funded institutions that are currently employing staff on zero-hours contracts. The Equality Trust has estimated that none of the large companies bidding for public services contracts paid their chief executives less than 59 times UK median earnings. We are using public money not to reduce inequality but to increase it. Is it really the case that we wish to see one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us? That is not about envy, it is not about suppressing ambition or capping aspiration, it is not even about blame, it is about balance and reasonableness, it is about ending exploitation, it is simply recognising that our communal and individual wellbeing, our communal and individual prosperity depends on taking action to reduce inequality. We like to portray ourselves as a progressive country, but if we are truly to become the progressive beacon we want to be, it needs more than warm words and good intentions. I could not wish for a more timely occasion to hold this member's debate than on the day that the Government outlines its programme for business, because Oxfam has highlighted a programme that we can all sign up to. Here is a vision for Scotland that can unite us across party lines that can unite civic Scotland, business Scotland, trade unions, churches and voluntary organisations. Presiding Officer, now is the time to end extreme inequality in Scotland. Thank you very much, and I now call on Nigel Dawn to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and as ever, I would like to welcome Ken Macintosh's contribution in bringing this debate before us this evening. I would also like to register that in the time that is available to any of us, we can hardly do any more than scratch the surface on this, but I would also like to commend Ken Macintosh for the way that he put his motion together, because I think he actually laid it out for the wonderful answer to a method of writing an essay, you know, you just actually lay it out in such a way you know where you're going, because he clearly brought forward that poverty is itself a barrier to poverty reduction, it does hurt everybody, the solutions involve closing tax loopholes, they involve progressive taxation, the implementation of the living wage, universal free public services, universal social protection, and recognising the importance of women's rights, and one might add children's rights as well. If I may go to each of those in turn, I'd like to start first of all by recognising that economic growth by its nature tends to favour those who have put their own money into it simply because it is the richest who have the capital, and it's usually the capital that derives the benefit first. Secondly, because the benefits of any economic growth go to those who are themselves already socially advantaged, because that's where they put themselves, it tends to go to men in societies around the world and in the UK as well, and it goes to those who are better off because they are in a better position to put themselves in the right place. Poverty is its own barrier, and we've also had a demonstration of that, I think, within the last week or two, with the calculation done that demonstrates that those who are poor and do not have credit or bank account facilities actually pay another £1,200 a year for the services which they receive simply because they're not able to pay for them on credit or by direct debit through a bank. Another example of the situation where poverty actually generates itself and it's enormously difficult to get out of it. Poverty, of course, generates poor health, low self-esteem, low ambition and is a self-fulfilling failure. Now, we also live in times where we know that inequality hurts everybody. This feels a bit like a rerun of a debate which I think we had about three weeks ago, and I took the opportunity of pointing members in the direction of that wonderful book, The Spirit Level, which I don't actually have with me this evening again. I do need to just encourage everybody to read it because it demonstrates that less unequal societies or more equal societies, everybody benefits. If I can just give an example, a more equal society will have a lower crime rate, which means that those who are wealthy on paying taxes will actually have to pay less in to the justice system. Of course, not only does that reduce the amount of tax that the taxpayer has to pay, but prevention is also better than cure, and it's actually cheaper than it has done that way. But then we come to the issue of tax loopholes, and this is where I think, again, Ken Macintosh got it right, some of this could be dealt with locally. Some of it requires international action. I think the Oxfam report suggests that the international community is losing $156 billion per year because people can put their money into tax havens. That's an enormous sum of money, but it's not going to be moved out of tax havens until we, as a globe, actually decide to do something about that. That's totally out with any national government. It requires collective judgment across the world, and it is unfortunately extremely unlikely to happen, but who knows. If we don't ask for it, if we don't work towards it, it's certainly never going to happen. Progressive taxations also mentioned, of course, that's got to be a good thing. I do think that it's interesting that there is already research suggesting that progressive taxation is not of itself necessarily the whole answer. It's actually how you redistribute the wealth within a society that may be a better discriminator, so we need to be just slightly careful on that. Comment has also been made about the living wage that's come up under this afternoon in the Government's programme. I think that we've got the message. I think that we understand that the living wage, because it defines the minimum standard of a sensible life, must be what we should be trying to pay. I still despair when people tell me that we can do it when it tends to come unfortunate from the Labour Party. You seem to ignore the fact that Glasgow City Council, Labour Party run, lawyers tell you you can't actually do it in law. I just wish we could get past that and actually have a sensible debate, please. Perhaps Nigel Dawn, Presiding Officer, could then be explained to the chamber how Renfrewshire council managed to do it. It would be very interesting, but I think what Hugh Henry has to do is ask Renfrew kids who can't show why they think it was lawful because other people plain lead out. I am not a lawyer, I can't tell you that it can't happen, but I am very aware of the fact that a lot of sensible lawyers have said you can't impose it. Who is to judge? Universal free public services, of course, why do they matter? We had Ruth Davidson go back over this this afternoon. Why does she, why do the Tories not yet understand if you don't go that route, you force people to make judgments that they don't want to make, they actually make bad judgments. I'm conscious that I'm being asked to wind up, so let me do so by just recognising that this is a timely debate. Some of it we can do locally, and I think what we've heard this afternoon encourages us to believe that this Government wants to go in that direction. We have to recognise some of it, requires global scale, I'm not even complaining about independence at this point, requires an effort right across the globe, which will only be galvanised when people across the globe are galvanised to do it, thank you. Thank you very much. I now call on Jackie Baillie to be followed by Alex Johnson. Thank you Presiding Officer. Can I start by congratulating Ken Macintosh on securing time for this debate and for his contribution to the chamber this evening? I very much welcome Oxfam's report, even at uptime to end extreme inequality. It's clear to everyone in this chamber that inequality is, as Barack Obama calls it, the defining challenge of our time. Global inequality has been on the rise for decades. Even in developed countries with high levels of wealth redistribution, like the UK, income inequality is persistently high. It's also clear that politicians at every level of government have a part to play in the elimination of poverty and inequality. I want to turn to the Scottish Government, because I believe that it already has powers to take substantial action. In childcare, in housing, in education, in healthcare, all those powers are available now. As has been much commented on today, the transformational childcare change is only to be delivered in an independent Scotland, which we are suddenly able to do now. I welcome that, but I think that we can do that across a range of other policy areas, and I think that we should work together to do so. Nicola Sturgeon declared in her inaugural speech as First Minister that it would be her personal mission to tackle poverty and inequality. I believe that that is a view that all members of this chamber share, so let's work together to deliver that. The Scottish Government will be judged on the basis of its actions, not its words. Let me review some of its actions since 2007, because there are 6,000 fewer beds in Scotland's hospitals. There are 4,000 fewer teachers, 140,000 fewer college places. All of those contribute to tackling poverty and inequality. 70,000 public sector jobs have been lost since 2008. The Scottish Government has stripped £1 billion away from local anti-poverty work since 2007. We know that the council tax freeze is underfunded, leaving local government to bear the brunt of public spending cuts and forcing them to cut services. Meanwhile, the cost of living and, in particular, the cost of childcare in Scotland is rapidly on the rise. Since 2008, the cost of a basket of essential goods has risen by 28 per cent. Childcare costs have risen by 27 per cent since 2010 alone. At the same time, we know that wages aren't keeping pace with inflation, and the minimum wage is indeed more than a pound behind the living wage at £7.85. However, nearly 300,000 people in Scotland in poverty are working. Half of poor children in Scotland have a parent in work, so in-work poverty is a persistent and growing problem, and we need to address it. Committing to a living wage, expanding educational opportunities, increasing the provision of childcare, making it affordable and flexible, all those steps are things that the Scottish Government has well within its power today to tackle and tackle in-work poverty and inequality. On the living wage, I said this afternoon that we had five opportunities in this year alone to support the living wage—five times the Government said no. I do think that we have the power to do something about that now. I welcome the proposal set out today by the First Minister, but we had the opportunity to legislate. We had the opportunity to help 400,000 low-paid workers—64 per cent—of who are women. I remember that debate about the procurement bill, when we talked about equal pay audits. We talked about zero-hours contracts. All dismissed by the Government, all voted down. Talk is cheap, Presiding Officer. It's action that counts. I noticed reference in the motion from Ken Macintosh to progressive taxation. If we are to believe the press reports coming from the Smith commission, income tax looks like it might be devolved. On that basis, can I ask the minister to respond in her closing remarks? Will the SNP support progressive taxation? Will they support a 50-pence top rate of income tax from the richest people to help the poorest? Presiding Officer, I will finish with one of my favourite quotes from Professor Joe Stiglitz, on which he stated, "...inequality is not inevitable. It is not like the weather, something that just happens to us. It is not the result of the laws of nature or the laws of economics. Rather, it is something that we create by our policies, by what we do." I couldn't agree more. There is no greater ambition in my view for government than delivering social justice and ending inequality, and I challenge this Government to work with us to do so." Alex Johnstone, to be followed by Hugh Henry. I am not entirely sure that Jackie Baillie did not just miss the point of this debate. I know that the message that she delivered is consistent, and that she has taken the view that she has expressed regularly in this Parliament. To take this debate in the context of Scotland alone or Britain alone is to misunderstand the objective that we are discussing. We need to look at this internationally and see where that puts us as a nation in relation to what is going on in the rest of the world. First of all, there are many in this Parliament who assume that equality is a key element of what we would wish to achieve. However, I have equal respect for those who put family first, those who put their community first and those who perhaps put their country first. As a consequence, the idea of equality is perhaps something that those individuals, particularly in some of the more impoverished countries in the world, cannot afford to consider when their priority is to look after their own and make their own way in very difficult circumstances. If we are to achieve our objective of cutting the extreme difference in income that exists in the wealthiest countries in the world and the most impoverished, then we have to consider what the impact of that is likely to be here in this country. It is undeniable that, while we have spent generations striving to increase the quality of life for us, ourselves as individuals, to increase average incomes within our own country, that for every part of our share of the world's resources that we have consumed over and above the average then someone somewhere has had to have less so that we can have more. The impact that that has had in places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is massive and we have to accept that if we are determined to maintain our high standards of living then somebody else will have to carry the can. As a result of those pressures, but not only those pressures, we have a Government in Westminster today which, prior to its election, made a key commitment that it would exceed the required 0.7 per cent of national income going into international aid when it took off us. In fact, the latest figures that we have are that 0.72 per cent of national income—that is £11.4 billion a year—are now going into international aid. That makes Britain the second-highest contributor in absolute terms and the fifth-highest contributor in the world in terms of share of gross national income. If we look at how the reaction to that in our own country has happened, we will see that there are many who will criticise this Government for having taken that decisive step. When we see by-elections take place and parties such as the UK Independence Party competing to win seats in Parliament, we see our Government being attacked and criticised for having set that target and stuck to it during its time in government. I am very grateful to Alex Johnson for taking part in the debate and for flagging up the issue of global inequality. I will ask him to reflect on the report. The report does not just talk about global inequality. That is the inequality between nations, but on extreme inequality within nations. That is the main focus. In other words, not just the difference between the wealth of Britain and that of sub-Saharan Africa, but the differences between the wealthiest in Britain and the poorest in Britain, the difference between the wealthiest in sub-Saharan Africa and the poorest in sub-Saharan Africa. I have got 35 seconds to cover it. I accept that there are key issues that we need to address even within our own country, but we have seen under this Government a situation arise where we now have the top 1 per cent of earners paying 30 per cent of all income tax. We see the top 5 per cent of earners paying 50 per cent of all income tax. Looking through the recommendations, and as I come to a close, I have to say that there is perhaps a key difference in understanding which I must address. That is where demands are made for taxes to be placed on wealth. I have said in this chamber before that I am a good old fashioned capitalist. I think that we should tax growth in wealth, we should tax income, but taxing wealth is a dangerous place to go. The purpose of wealth is to ensure that that is properly invested so that we can have economic growth, we can have fair trade around the world and we can use our wealth to invest and create jobs in countries where that will benefit people as well as here in this country. The appropriate use of wealth is to invest with it, to consume wealth by taxing it to pay costs on the current account, to shrink wealth, to shrink economies and to shrink ambition. With that said, I understand the objectives in that report, but you will understand if I take a slightly different view of some of the objectives and how they might be achieved. I congratulate Ken Macintosh on his eloquent and passionate statement about why we need to do something to tackle the obvious inequality that exists both in this country and throughout the world. I do not disagree with Nigel Don. I think that global action is required by large companies and by Governments. It is a sobering and shocking fact that Oxfam has outlined that, in 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality is worse than 30 years ago. Just think of it, Presiding Officer. Look at the technological advances that have been made in the world in 30 years. My children and grandchildren laugh at me when I reflect on how the world has changed even in my working life. When I left IBM to commence a career in teaching, I went into a school that was the same as schools right throughout the country where computers did not exist, where mobile phones were not within anyone's horizon. We have progressed so much as a human race, but at the same time we can cast our eyes around the world and look at the sheer extremes of inequality, poverty and deprivation. Many of the things that we in this country take for granted in the run-up to Christmas, the commercial and consumer goods that we will want to exchange with one another, to remind everyone to have a happy Christmas and for those of our religious nature to reflect on the religious significance of that. We very rarely take time to reflect that many of those goods are produced by child labour and squalid conditions being paid poverty wages. We forget very easily the hundreds of women workers and child workers in fact who died in Bangladesh and in the clothing factories there. We forget the squalor that many people in factories throughout the world are working in to give us something that we now, as I said, take for granted. So inequality has deepened, inequality has become worse and we see that when comparing country to country and society to society, but even within countries there is shocking inequality. I said in a previous debate that John Wilson sponsored last week when I worked as a welfare rights officer. It was in communities where the stark consequences of government action were all too obvious. One of the things that we neglect at our peril is that much of what happens is the result of conscious decisions by individuals and politicians to make things happen in the way that they do. Again, it is a shocking fact that, in 24th century Scotland, one of my councils, the Renfrewshire Council, has had to set up a commission on tackling poverty. Why should any council in this country have to look at something like that with all the material wealth that is surrounding us and yet I am no different from anyone else in this Parliament? I can look within my constituency and find communities just a few miles from each other, looking at Brookfield and comparing it to Linwood, where all the statistics of poverty and deprivation are sharply contrasted. In some parts of Scotland, they are even worse than they are in those two communities. It then becomes a matter of political will. The point that I would make to Nigel Don is that politicians are all too keen to hide behind the advice of lawyers when it suits them. What Renfrewshire Council did was a matter of political will. Renfrewshire Council used its scarce resources to say that we want our contractors to pay the living wage, and the consequence of that was that Renfrewshire Council had to compensate the contractors through their contracts just in the same way as the Scottish Government could do with its contractors if it had the political will to do it. So let's not hide behind lawyers, let's not hide behind weasel words, let's say that there are issues that we can resolve if we have the will to do so. I would like to add my thanks to Ken Mackintosh for securing debating time on that important issue. In doing so, we must consider the many deeply upsetting facts surrounding the global issue of extreme income inequality, which greatly hinders the aim to reduce and end world poverty on a global scale, as described in the Oxfam report, even up time to end extreme inequality. Poverty is a condition that is defined in terms of income. According to threshold set by the World Bank, about half the world's population is currently living in a state of poverty. Of that, the level set for extreme poverty is an income level of 1.25 US dollars or 80 pence a day, and according to recent studies, roughly 1.3 billion people fall into this category. Of that staggering number, three quarters are children. Extreme poverty is a blanket term that involves a lack of decent dependable access to basic amenities such as food, clean water, shelter, healthcare and education. Every year, it is estimated that 2 million children die from preventable diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia because they lack access to basic medical treatment. Since Oxfam published the report just under a month ago on battling poverty via addressing the extreme inequality, over half a million people have died of hunger or hunger-related causes alone. Malnutrition and its associated effects is the number one cause of death in the developing world, killing more than HIV, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Studies by the Pew Research Centre found that deepening income inequality is considered to be the main threat to economic and social progress and is therefore a top priority when working towards poverty reduction. What the trend shows is that not only are nations of the wealth being increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few and therefore away from the wider public, but a great majority of the income and wealth is being held by just the top 0.1 per cent of the population. As poverty impacts the lives of half the global population, the number of billionaires in the world, as Ken Macintosh mentioned, has grown now to over 1,600 and increased to 200 since last year according to Forbes. The effects of income inequality on a population are well known.  Extreme wealth inequality is also linked to limiting women's abilities to succeed economically and repressing women's rights socially. Already a major problem in countries with high rates of poverty. However, the most devastating aspect of economic inequality is a self-perpetuating problem. As long as those in control of the ability to influence or set policy, the poor are prevented from lifting themselves above the poverty threshold, is at this point where other nations must intercede on behalf of the oppressed. I do welcome the contribution of the UK Government to poverty reduction overseas. Steps that this Scottish Government can take to address this issue would be to continue working to end severe economic inequality both in Scotland and where possible in other nations. This must involve wealth creation and redistributive policies in the knowledge that there is an imbalance in earning potential. In the interests of fairness, our Government must work to address this. According to data collected by the quality trust between 2011-12 and the following year, the annual income of the poorest 10 per cent in Scotland, over half a million people dropped by 8 per cent, while the wealthiest 10 per cent saw an increase in income of 3 per cent. The poor are getting poorer, while the rich are getting richer. Within the UK, the richest 10 per cent earned 27 times more than the lowest 10 per cent, and tens of thousands of people in Scotland now rely, as we know, on food banks. Are we to believe, unequivocably, that the wealthiest members of society are really working 27 times harder than the poorest? Is this Government's responsibility to all the people of Scotland, particularly the majority, to ensure our employment practices, tax and economic policies over which we do have control, promote fairness? Globally, as Scotland continues to increase its participation, working to reduce world poverty via decreasing economic inequality, we will improve the future outlook of millions of people currently stuck in a state of extreme poverty. Extreme wealth comes at the price of extreme poverty, and to end one requires ending the other. I sincerely hope that this Government will take on board the recommendations outlined in the Oxfam report and will, to the best of its abilities, continue to develop policies to combat poverty, both in Scotland and overseas. Thank you very much and good evening, Presiding Officer. It is a pleasure to speak on the Oxfam report, even it up, time to end extreme inequality. I thank Macintosh for securing this debate today. Oxfam estimates that the richest 85 people worldwide own as much as poorer half of their world population. This is a frightening figure and a dramatic way of illustrating the extreme inequality. Economic equality prevents those living in poverty and obtaining access to basic needs like food, clean water education and health care in addition to lack of opportunities to enable them to improve their quality of life. The report looks at the increases in inequality within countries as we see them. Poverty, the poorest struggling to get by while their neighbours prosper. Across the world, seven out of ten people live in countries where the gap between rich and poor is greater than it was 30 years ago. Now I accept that some people will earn more than others, but economic inequality means people do not have the equality of opportunity, a fair chance to have a better future. It is of vital importance that the poorer in society have enough. The report highlights that in 2014 the UK top 100 executives took home 131 times as much as their average employees. Yet only 15 of these companies have committed to paying their employees a living wage. This is quite shameful. One way in which to tackle this economic inequality as seen in Scotland specifically in Glasgow would be to address the high unemployment rates in many ethnic minority communities and acting upon the solutions to facilitate more employment and if necessary education for these citizens. In the census of 2011, unemployment is higher for Africans at 22 percent, Caribbean at 16 percent and Asians at 11 percent compared to the indigenous white community at 8 percent. Unemployment numbers are higher in constituencies like Glasgow. For example, African community has 32 percent while the white indigenous community population has 11 percent. That's a difference of 21 percent unemployment, a horrendous figure and I think that we talk about overseas, let's talk about what's happening in Scotland. These employment inequalities are facilitated by similar facts, lack of education, insufficient housing, health care. This is not a level of quality that the Scottish Government aspires to or does it. I had spoken this afternoon, I had a question from the minister in regards to issues regarding housing issues, particularly for people who are overcrowded. The minister had suggested that everything is reasonable and everything is going on okay. I had suggested for the minister to come and visit my constituencies to some of these families to see exactly what poverty actually means, what overcrowding actually means, what it means to be in a family where you have no opportunities to homework, to have a social life, to have a private life. These are the families who actually suffer the injustice. These are the families that suffer lack of opportunities and I once again invite the minister to come and visit some of these families to give her a first-hand experience of what it is really like on the ground to try and reverse the trends that people are facing today in Glasgow, thank you very much. I would also like to congratulate Ken Macintosh on bringing this debate to the chamber. It may have been him or someone said that it was appropriate on the day where the Scottish Government laid out our programme for government. I think that the very central programme for government was about reducing inequalities in Scotland. Ken Macintosh, Hugh Henry, Kenneth Gibson and Alex Johnson have mentioned about the global economic inequalities and I concur with a lot of what was said in that and that Scotland and this Government will always play a part in trying to tackle global inequalities as well as we see it because we know as the more developed countries appear to become, the wider the gap is between the rich and the poor and at the moment the UK sits at 28th of the 34 OECD countries and that is something that we should all reflect on. However, there are some things that are improving here in Scotland. For the first time since records began, full-time weekly earnings in Scotland are now higher than they have been and higher than those in the rest of the UK. Real earnings have risen in Scotland since it is the first time annual increase since 2008 and compares to a real-terms reduction across the rest of the UK. I am not hailing that as that it is okay for the rest of the UK. I absolutely understand that there is inequalities across the UK, but since 1999 the Scottish gender pay gap has decreased by 7.7 percentage points but that is still far too high and absolutely I accept that. The number of living wage accrediting employers and we have heard a lot about the living wage in Scotland has tripled since April this year and that thanks to the poverty alliances living wage accreditation initiative which has been funded by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government fully supports the living wage campaign, advocates the living wage and recognises the real benefits that a living wage can make to the lives of lower-paid workers in Scotland. However, as the economy grows, we see more and more women are moving into work and this month's labour market statistics show that women's employment rate is now 71.2 per cent, 10 per centage points higher than when records began in 1992. In work, as many members have said here, should be a route out of poverty but we know that women predominate in low-paid jobs and are more at risk of in-work poverty than men. Part-time working by women has increased by 97,000 since 2008 and under-employment rates for women continue to rise despite two years of economic growth. So, while women should be benefiting from the level of the growth that we are seeing, it is clear that many are not. The Scottish Government is taking action.  Increasing early learning and childcare eligibility to 600 hours for three and four and two-year-olds in work-less households will also help more women to enter and sustain work. We are growing the capacity to increase that to 30 hours a week should we be elected again in 2016. It falls short of what we said in the white paper and what we could do with independence but what we are doing is what we can with the powers that we have. We have increased to 600 hours and that is going to almost double in future in increasing capacity to cope with it. In helping women to enter work, we have to address the challenges of occupational segregation and equal pay that impacts so many women. Otherwise, there is a risk that women will still remain in poverty. By implementing the recommendations of the commission for developing Scotland's young workforce, we hope to see a real shift in the gender balance in skills training and in further and higher education. We want more young women entering non-traditional roles, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math-related careers. From the next academic year, colleges and universities will be required to report on work to tackle gender imbalance in courses. Career options and choices are often made early, so it is key that we ensure that young people receive unbiased advice from an early age and teachers and parents have a crucial role to play in that. Early today, the First Minister published the programme for government, continuing the Government's commitment to our central purpose around sustainable economic growth and setting out key priorities to provide fair work, for example, through our commitment to pay the living wage and increased funding to the poverty alliance to grow the number of accredited living wage employers, to focus on school attainment and university access for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and to support the increased childcare and free school meals. All of those are designed to reduce intergenerational poverty and tackle inequality. The programme for government emphasises our commitment to empower communities by handing over decisions on key issues to them and to make government open and accessible through public participation in the decisions that we make that affect them. We have committed to poverty-proofing all of our new policies and legislation through the use of poverty impact assessments whenever we make a change. The Scottish Government, as the First Minister said today, will appoint an independent adviser on poverty and inequality, to hold public events with the First Minister, to raise the reality of living in poverty, to make recommendations to the Government and how collectively we should respond, and, importantly, to hold the Government to account on its performance. With all of that, we know that poverty levels are increasing in Scotland because of UK Government policies. We are aware that £6 billion could come out of the Scottish economy by 2015-16. Tomorrow, Jackie Baillie commented on the Smith commission and, earlier on, when I asked a question, Jackie Baillie said, wait till the commission publishes. I will give her the same answer to the question that she raised to me about the Smith commission. However, the Smith commission will report tomorrow. The Scottish Government has made our case for full powers over tax and welfare to help us to tackle the scourge of poverty and inequality. It is a case backed by many of our stakeholders. The Scottish Government is committed to working collaboratively with the people and communities throughout Scotland to reduce and bring an end to inequalities and to use the words of the Oxfam report to even it up. That is what we intend to do with our programme for government.


Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines, India's farmers lead country-wide rail blockade as protests continue. UN Secretary-General condemns widely unfair and uneven vaccine distribution. Ecuadorian Electoral Council cancels partial recount as runoff uncertainty continues. Facebook blocks news and a wide variety of content in Australia. And finally in our video section, we look at workers in the US leading a strike to demand an increase in the federal minimum wage. In our first story, protesting farmers in India held a four-hour country-wide rail blockade on February 18th, that's today. The blockade, or rail roco, protest has been organised by the Samyukth Kisan Morcha, which is the umbrella organisation of farmers' unions leading the protests. Thursday's protest was held as farmers aim to increase pressure on the BJP-led government to repeal its three agricultural laws which they feel are beneficial to corporates. As the protests at Delhi's border almost crossed the three-month mark, the government continues to refuse to repeal the laws which farmers say are like a death wall. The rail blockades were organised from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday. The Ministry of Railways deployed additional paramilitary forces across the country. Farmers blocked railroads and various routes in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Rail blockades and protests were held in more than 50 places in the state of Punjab. Solidarity protests were also held in the eastern state of Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Police forces were deployed to railway stations in the capital as well as in the state of Maharashtra. Hundreds of farmers and the leaders were also detained by the police at a blockade in the city of Gwalior in the state of Madhya Pradesh. This is the third major demonstration by farmers following the Tractor Rally on January 26th and the Road Blockade or Chakka Jam on February 6th. In our next story, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the unfair and uneven access to COVID-19 vaccines across the world. He further stated that 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations while 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose. Guterres made these statements during a speech in the UN Security Council. He further stressed, the need for a global vaccination plan that would bring together those with the required power, expertise and production capacities to ensure vaccine access for all. The WHO's international COVAX program has been struggling to meet its distribution deadlines due to lack of funds and support from vaccine producers. Several rich countries have also been accused of practicing vaccine nationalism by hoarding dosage supplies. This coupled with the high cost has compounded the insecurities faced by people battling the pandemic in poor countries. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also criticized the growing immunity divide across the world. China has donated vaccines to 53 countries and has collaborated on vaccine development with at least 10. Wang Yi also announced the preliminary contribution of 10 million doses of China's vaccine to the COVAX initiative. We now go to Ecuador where the National Electoral Council of the country has suspended the partial recount of votes cast in the first round of the presidential elections. The recount had first been announced in February 13th, following a meeting between the council, the organization of American states and the two second place contenders, Yaquo Perez and Guillermo Lasso. They had submitted requests for a full recount in the Guayas province and a 50% recount in 16 other provinces. Perez has repeatedly alleged fraud in the elections. Lasso later withdrew from the agreement on February 14th. Progressive candidate Andres Arauz, who won the first round with 32.7% of the votes was absent from the meeting and had no part in the agreement signed. A recount request was put to a vote in the five member Electoral Council on February 16th. The request failed to reach a majority with two votes in favour, two in opposition and one abstention. Council head Diana Atamint announced that the council did not recognize the request and it neither approved nor denied the report presented in the technical area. The Electoral Council is yet to confirm who will join Arauz in the run-off election schedule for April 11th. As per the latest estimates, Guillermo Lasso from the right-wing Creating Opportunities and Social Christian Party Alliance has a narrow lead with 19.74% of the votes. Yaquo Perez from the indigenous Pachacotic Party is currently in a technical tie with Lasso with a vote share of 19.38%. Critics have said that the partial recount was the latest in a series of efforts to undermine the democratic process and the progressive movement in Ecuadorian politics. Here is an excerpt from an interview with progressive international coordinator David Adler on this issue. Lasso to say what are the conditions under which Ecuadorians are going to vote, right? They have this precious and incredible constitutional right to popular sovereignty. How is that being exercised? And once again, if you read it forward rather than backwards from the election, you used to see how the ways this rich tradition of legal warfare, which of course was mobilized against someone like Rafael Correa, the ex-president who now lives in exile. But then through the course, this election was weaponized against this party who were thrown off the ballot. So Andres had, you know, he couldn't show up. Just to give you one example, a classic example now, sort of canonical in Ecuador. Correa was planning to come back and run as vice president on this ticket. But they changed the rules so you had to show a signature, right? You had to show a physical signature. But because of the pandemic, they, you know, it was reasonable that you could just send it an electronic signature. But for some reason, Correa still couldn't send an electronic signature. So he was somehow disqualified. It's just the constant bending and rewriting of the rules to exclude the prospect of a progressive politics returning to Ecuador. Mistakes couldn't be higher. Ecuador has been hit harder than almost any country in the world by the COVID-19 pandemic, not just only in terms of health, but also in terms of its economy. And so at this critical juncture of, you know, historic crisis for Ecuador, you're either going to see the rebirth of a certain progressive politics for Ecuador that could be equal socialists learning some of the lessons from a past Corrismo or a doubling down on, for lack of a better word, a neoliberal model that has destroyed millions of people's lives in the country and plans to extract millions more in upper redistribution to the rich and to their offshore bank accounts. So everyone knows the stakes of these elections and they're pulling every dirty trick they have in the book. We could spend all day going through this sort of long telenovela of ridiculous tricks and mud slinging that has been there. But the critical thing is this, that Andres Arauz and his candidacy and the prospect of a progressive block that reaches beyond Arauz and includes the indigenous movement represented by the Conaya. The formation of progressive block really is a dangerous threat, not only to Ecuador and the reactionary right wing forces of Ecuador, but to the region, to the prospects for the integration of Latin America in a new UNASUR to the formation of a deep tie between the mass, for example, that some come back to power in Bolivia and other left forces in the region. So that's why we see this election as such a critical one because it holds in it the seed for a new progressive wave of politics in Latin America and indeed around the world. We now go to Australia where Facebook is blocked news outlets, public information pages and smaller public groups from its platform. Users have also been blocked from posting links to news outlets under the new mass censorship policy in effect since February 18th. The actions resulted from a dispute between Facebook and a new law passed by the Australian House of Representatives on February 17th. The media code presented by the Australian Competition and Crescimbo Commission seeks to address the imbalances in revenue sharing. If signed into law, it will allow news outlets to negotiate revenue sharing for their content which appears on Facebook and Google platforms. Introduced by the conservative government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the draft law is seen bipartisan support and will be debated in the Australian Parliament on February 18th. In the meantime, Facebook censorship policy has blocked important government websites and advisories from the health and methodology departments. This has received a major backlash as Australia is currently facing a bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Trade unions, left wing organizations including the Australian Communist Party have also reported their content being blocked. An earlier statement by Facebook to SBS News stated that the company had employed, to quote, a broad definition of news content. This had also resulted in several emergency services, including domestic violence helplines and fire services being blocked. Facebook is now reportedly working to restore those pages which have, again, to quote, inadvertently been impacted by its policy. For our final story today, we go to the United States where workers have been organizing to demand a raise in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. A country-wide strike was held by fast food workers on February 16th. Here is a video feature on the strike. More news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.


Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Louther and I'm Marina Santy. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live. Cheddar. For many people the word is what they call all cheese products made from milk. For others Cheddar describes a special kind of cheese. Often it is found in yellow blocks at supermarkets, or it is sold as a product that has been cut into pieces. These pieces are sold in plastic bags. In the English speaking world it is one of the most popular cheeses. But Cheddar is also a town in southeast England. It is where cheddar cheese was first made. The town gave this cheese its name. But for a long time people stopped making cheddar cheese in cheddar. The place that had been famous for cheese was now empty of cheese. How did this happen? Today's Spotlight is on this question. It is about cheddar. It is about the town that lost and found its cheese. People have made cheese in cheddar for a very long time. The land around the town is good for raising cows and the cliffs around cheddar are home to many caves. It is cool inside these caves all year. So these are good for storing cheese. These are also great places to age the cheese. In this process cheese makers keep cheese for a long time before selling it. This gives the cheese a more complex taste. Aged cheese is often more interesting than fresh cheese. In these early days cheese from cheddar was not much different from other cheese. Cheese makers would use a similar process everywhere in the UK. They used milk from an animal. Then they added a substance called rennet. Rennet separates milk into two parts. One part is a solid called curds. Another is a liquid called whey. Cheese makers took the curds and pressed them together. They left the whey behind. After some time the curds would form a piece of cheese. This is one of the basic ways of making cheese. But many cheeses made this way still have a lot of whey in them. This makes the cheese softer. But more whey means that cheese will go bad more quickly. In the 14th century cheese makers in cheddar found one way to solve this problem. They created a process called scalding. When cheese makers scald cheese they heat the curds to a very high temperature. This pushes extra liquid out of the curds. The result is a harder cheese that will last much longer. They furthered this development with a process called cheddaring. In cheddaring cheese makers heap blocks of cheese on top of each other. This forces even more whey from the cheese. It also changes the cheese's taste. Cheddaring makes the cheese taste sharper and it makes aging the cheese easier. These special processes made people take note of cheese from cheddar. It tasted different from anything else made in the country. Paul Kinstead is a teacher at the University of Vermont. He teaches about the history of cheese. He spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation about cheddar cheese's spread. The great quality of the cheese caught the attention of wealthy Londoners. They visited the famous caves of Cheddar Gorge and they ate local cheeses during their visits. They told others the cheese from Cheddar became famous from the 15th century on. Soon cheddar cheese became one of the most sought after cheeses in England. Cheddar became the cheese of the upper class. King Charles I was an English king. He ruled the country from 1625 to 1649. During this time there was a great demand for cheddar. People liked it so much that the king decided only he and his court could order it. The popularity of cheddar cheese continues to last until this day. But the town that gave the cheese its name did not benefit from this popularity for very long. Cheddar is a small town. It could not produce enough cheese for everyone. So other towns began to make their own cheddar. People from England also moved to other countries. They brought the secrets of making cheddar cheese with them. Places in the United States like New York and Vermont became famous for their cheddar. Factories appeared. These made cheddar cheese too. Mass production meant that people could sell cheddar cheese all over the world. Cheesemakers in Cheddar could not compete. The fame of its cheese grew. The town did not. But it was not competition that ended cheesemaking in Cheddar. Instead it was a war. During World War II Nazi Germany attacked the United Kingdom. The UK is an island. It became difficult to get supplies from outside, so the food they had was limited. During the war the government created a rationing system. This meant that everyone could only buy a small amount of food. The government also took control over much of the food production. The government bought all milk on the market and they made it into their own kind of cheese. Many people called it Government Cheddar, but it did not taste much like cheese from Cheddar and it was not made in that town. Rationing helped people survive the war. But it also destroyed small cheesemakers. Before World War I there were over 3500 small cheese businesses in the UK. By the end of World War II there were fewer than 100. But cheesemaking traditions did not die completely. In the 1990s small dairy farms began to make cheese again. They returned to old methods. Many returned to the places where people made cheese historically. The cheeses they make cost more than industrial cheeses, but for many the price is worth it. Cheddar is one place that saw a return of farmhouse cheese. John and Catherine Spencer are two English cheesemakers. In 2003 they started the Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company. The company tried to make cheddar in the way it was made hundreds of years ago. They used milk from local cows. They even aged it in the caves of the Cheddar Gorge. Soon the Spencer's cheeses began winning awards. People began travelling to the place from which the famous cheese style came. They began to enjoy this new cheese that tasted so much like the original cheese. They found it interesting to see how much the flavour had changed over hundreds of years. The changes were great. Industrialisation made cheddar cheese almost unrecognisable. It made the taste less complex. But without changing many may never have tasted cheddar cheese. Without travelling to places like America and Australia it may never have found a great name. Without its name it may not have come back to cheddar at all. In 2021 Catherine Spencer spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Cheddar might have remained a small west country product, but it might well have disappeared like many local cheeses have. Its shift to a major global variety has created international recognition. With that comes a desire for our product. It is closer to the original cheddar that would have been made here hundreds of years ago. But our success mirrors the success of cheddar as a cheese in all its forms. Have you ever eaten cheddar cheese? Are you willing to pay more money for small batch products? Is there a type of food made in your community which many people want to buy? We want to hear your thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at radio at radioenglish.net. You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash spotlight radio. The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it on our website at www.spotlightenglish.com. This program is called The Town That Lost Its Cheese. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.


What is going on, everybody? It's Stas here. Welcome back to another video. So in this video, we're going to be doing an overall market update. Looking at the Dow Jones, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq, we would be doing a trading update today, but I actually didn't take any positions. I didn't do any day trades today. We're going to be talking about that in a little bit here down the road in this video. And we're also going to be looking at some stocks and ETFs that are setting up for potential trades this upcoming week in the stock market. But before we do get into all of these different topics, for everybody out there that finds value in these videos, and if you find value in this video in a couple of minutes, feel free to go down below and hit that Like button. It really supports me and supports the channel in general. And if you're new to the channel, I have two links down below in the description box for you, both 100% free of charge, a Discord group chat, as well as a Facebook group. Please feel free to join those. You'll find value in there. I 100% guarantee that. So without further ado, let's hop right into it. What ended up happening today in the overall market starting off with the S&P 500 here? We can see we ended up having a pretty strong green day up about 19 points on the day, up nearly 0.7% on the S&P 500. The Dow Jones industrial average up 211 points today, up nearly 0.85%, 0.82% to be exact. And the NASDAQ composite here, up 0.83%, nearly identical to the Dow Jones, up nearly $61 on the day. So finally today, guys, we're starting to see some direction in the overall market. So for those of you guys that have been following the channel for the past couple of videos, this is something that caused me to be pretty cautious, right? I've been saying this over the past couple of videos that I haven't been really taking as many positions, as many swing trades as I normally do, due to the market not really picking a direction. And if we take a look on the S&P here, and if we break down, you know, on a smaller timeframe chart, we can see exactly what I'm talking about, right? Pretty much ever since we dumped from 2860 all the way down to this bottom at about 2785, we've been kind of hovering around this area over these past couple of days. Hence why, you know, I was saying the S&P wasn't really picking a direction until today. We finally saw some push to the upside where we're starting to see the continuation of the uptrend. Let me explain what I'm talking about in terms of that. So if we're hopping back here to the 184-hour chart, like I said, we were struggling to pick a direction, right? We were hovering above this 50-simple moving average support, but we weren't distinctly pushing up and we weren't distinctly pushing down, right? But today, we finally saw the big pop, which is telling me now as a trader, as an investor, as a person doing technical analysis that this uptrend is finally continuing itself after a couple of days of consolidation here. And what I was looking for in particular for those of you guys that watched my morning video and my video yesterday, you know this, I was looking to see whether or not we were going to break the upside, you know, the top of this wedge here or if we were going to break the support here to start to push down. And that was really what I was looking for in terms of a direction in the S&P 500, right? We were making lower highs here over the past couple of trading days, right? We've been talking about that. Take a look at these lower highs, but we also started to make higher lows at the same time based on the two trading days prior to today, right? This trading day here, this trading day, both two higher lows, meaning we were kind of continuing or starting rather an uptrend, but at the same time, we were making lower highs, putting us in this wedge. So the fact that we broke the resistance of this wedge, we broke above the 180 day simple moving average here. This is telling me that again, like we saw in the longer timeframe charts, that we're continuing this uptrend pattern here in the S&P 500, the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. company. So for this upcoming week, guys, I'm going to be looking to see are we going to maintain the 2830-ish level, the 2825 level, really above this level here as a new support level, which I think is possible especially due to the trajectory of this chart right now. And I want to see, are we going to test the 2860 high that we saw? Let's see. Was this about a week ago? Yup, the 21st rather of March. We ended up topping at 2860.  So this upcoming week, if we break out of this level, that's going to be huge for the markets to potentially test all-time highs, which if we see on this chart, and we look back a couple of months, we're at about 2940 and 91 cents for the S&P 500. So as of now, guys, this is pointing up, the technicals are pointing up, heading into the next week for the S&P 500. So let's see here for the Dow Jones what I'm personally looking at. So we talked about yesterday how the Dow has been trading in between 25,500, that support level, and the resistance at about $25,800. So today, we clearly saw a 200-point green day pushing us out of that resistance, which is a good sign for us to test the next resistance, which is at about $26,070. And if we were to break that level, the next spot would be around $26,200. And if we hop here to the 10-day 30-minute, actually, let's go to the 20-day one hour. Actually, no, let's go to the 30-day 90-minute. This will show us a bit better. This is still technically speaking here at a lower high from the previous two, meaning this is kind of the similar pattern that we saw on the SPX on a smaller timeframe basis. The Dow Jones is showing that on a longer-term basis. I touched upon this in yesterday's video how, take a look here, guys, the five-day five-minute. We're kind of making a wedge here of lower highs and higher lows at the same time. That's kind of what we're seeing on the Dow Jones, but on a stretched timeframe here. Let's just take a look here. See, we're making lower highs, but we're also making higher lows. So this upcoming week, guys, if we are able to break out of this downwards resistance here, this downwards wedge resistance, that's going to be a pretty bullish move for the Dow. And from there, again, we're going to be testing 26,070, this resistance level. And if we were to break that level, of course, the next spot, like I said, is going to be 26,200. That is where we're going to be testing in terms of the Dow Jones industrial average. So keep an eye on that, guys. And of course, if we break 26,200, we're going to be off to all-time highs. Potentially, we're going to be testing the all-time highs at that point, which is nearly $27,000, $26,951.81 to be exact. So that's what I'm watching this upcoming week, guys. Just keep an eye for the upwards push here, but let's say we get rejected. Keep an eye on the test, on the support of that wedge. That's going to be a pretty big tell where we're going to be going, either up or down here in the Dow Jones. And if we're hopping over here to the NASDAQ Composite very quickly, let's take a look. So we can see, we double-bottomed here. We talked about this yesterday at the support at around 7,300. We popped above the resistance, the then resistance, which again, now is a new support at about 73.50. And now we're trading above the 50 SMA. We finally popped above that resistance, which was a resistance over the past really a couple of days here from the 25th to the 27th of March. And now it seems like we're fiddling and we're testing that resistance right here at about $7,400 flat. So this week, this upcoming week on Monday, make sure you guys really take an eye on the NASDAQ to see, are we trading above the $7,400 level? Are we going to be maintaining this as a new support from there? If we do do that, we're going to be going up potentially on a technical basis here, up to $7,500 and $70,540, which is the next resistance, which honestly is not too far off. If we do a little drag here, we can see it's nearly about 1.7% to the upside here. So two green days, two decent green days will get us there. One insane green day will probably get us to those levels there. And if we're just popping out here to the one year chart, let's just see how far off we are from all-time highs in the NASDAQ. We can see we're nearly about 316 points here. Give or take away from the all-time highs, about 4% away from the all-time high at about $7,728.75 in terms of the NASDAQ. And honestly, guys, it still blows my mind how quick we recovered out of this massive drop that we saw from October to December. It still honestly blows my mind that in 2019 alone, the NASDAQ is nearly up or at one point it was up nearly 22%, which kind of makes me a bit skeptical. I'm not going to lie to you guys because these types of gains, they are unsustainable over the long term. This is not going to just continue to run up. If that were the case, the NASDAQ would be up 100% this year alone. If we were to just continue to run up at this pace over the span of a year, the NASDAQ, the Dow, the S&P, the indices, guys that we followed, they would be up 70%, 80%, 90%, maybe 100% if we were to maintain this, which is why I still believe we're going to see a big pullback again in these coming weeks. Of course, none of us know. We can't time the market, but that's just what my gut feeling is telling me. This is just not sustainable here. We need to see a correction in my opinion of at least 5%, something like that. But who knows, guys, we might hit all-time highs before we do get that correction in the major indices. That's just my personal opinion here. That is what the overall markets are looking like. The Dow finally is looking to pop up a bit. The S&P is looking to form the direction that we were looking for over these past couple of days. Of course, the NASDAQ, same exact thing. It's finally starting to pick a direction. That's what I'm looking at, guys. Drop a comment down below. Let me know what your thoughts are. Do you think these gains are sustainable? I'm sure a lot of you don't. Let me know your reasons down below. While you're at it, guys, again, if you're enjoying the video, feel free to go down below and hit that Like button and subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet already. Let's talk about, again, I didn't make any trades today, but let's talk about some other stocks and ETFs that could potentially be good for this upcoming week starting off with gold. Actually, let me just talk about very quickly why I didn't take any trades. For those that watched my video this morning, I talked about a couple of stocks, one being Apple, Gold, Jnug, Crude Oil, UWT. I was talking about trading these stocks today, and honestly, none of them ended up playing out, which is why I just didn't want to force anything. I had a green week this week. I had a couple of good trading days. I'm in a video right now. I'm up in the position. I didn't want to force anything and end up taking a red day today on Friday, and I sometimes do that. Honestly, guys, I'm sure a lot of you can relate. I don't always trade and force trades on a Friday. Fridays are typically days where I'm a little bit more cautious, and today just ended up being one of those days where I just did not end up taking a trade. But for this upcoming week, I'm watching to see if gold does end up pushing up into the 1300 to 1305 level, which I do think there is some potential in it doing, which Jnug is going to open up a solid trade. We saw a pretty massive move this morning in gold, which really made me believe that, okay, this is the day that we're going to recover, but then we saw the big, what's it called, rejection here by this 50 simple moving average. We saw the cross below the 50 SMA, below the 180 SMA, which was actually yesterday, I believe. Let's see when that cross was. Yeah, it was yesterday after market hours. We saw that bearish cross, and we got rejected pretty hard, which kind of scared me away from taking a position in Jnug if we're being completely honest here. But the fact that we're still maintaining the 1296 support level, which again, for those of you guys that don't know was an old resistance, and the fact that we're maintaining that level still gives me some hope that next week gold can recover. And for those of you guys that don't know, the futures markets, they're actually open on 6 p.m. or at 6 p.m., rather, Eastern Standard Time on Sunday. So you'll be able to see the action of gold here, whether it's going to maybe dump a little bit more or push up. This way you can plan your trades. So hopefully, guys, gold does end up opening up on Sunday. Hopefully in the 1,300 range, that's going to open up a good trade, in my opinion, this upcoming week in Jnug. So gold, I'm still watching that one very closely, guys. And let's talk about natural gas very quickly, right? Because natural gas now is looking very, very bearish. We can see ever since we ended up breaking that 275 support that we called out a couple of trading videos ago, we've been continuously downtrending and are rejected by the 50-simple moving average, making lower lows, lower highs, all of the things that we look at for an indication of a downtrend, which, excuse me, in natural gas is a case here, degas is a very good potential move to trade or ETF trade, rather, because that one goes up whenever natural gas is selling off. So take a look at this massive move that degas made today of about 5%. So this could end up, if we do end up pulling back next week, which there is a big possibility, because every time over the past couple of trading days, we pushed to a higher high, we saw a little pullback. I think that's going to open up a good entry point in degas. And what to look out for in natural gas here is to see, are we going to start to see a give or a pushback up here and a rejection at the 50-sma, which has been a resistance over the past couple of trading days. This is how I'm approaching this trade, guys. If we start to push back up here and we see some resistance there on Monday, you know, that's going to be a good entry point in degas, in my opinion, especially if we start to get rejected. And we confirm that we're pushing back down towards that next lower low. So that's what I'm looking at in terms of natural gas and degas. Apple ended up doing pretty well today, up about 0.65%. This is another one I ended up talking about in the morning video today. Did not pull the trigger on a position quite yet, but the setup is still looking pretty decent here. We're maintaining the 50-simple moving average. We're maintaining above that support level of about 185. And it's looking like we do want to hit the 195 resistance, which is the next resistance that I'm targeting to see whether or not Apple is going to get to. And if we break out of that level, of course, the next spot we're going to be heading to is around $200. So that's all I'm going to talk about today, guys. I don't want to talk about too many stocks because I typically talk about more stocks in my Sunday video. So for those of you guys that don't know, on Sunday, I take requests from you guys in the comments section on what stocks you want me to talk about. Also, in the Discord group chat in the call-out section, you can call out stocks there, and I talk about them in my Sunday video. So now that we're talking about it, drop a comment down below. Let me know any ticker symbols that you want me to talk about in Sunday's video, and I'll be glad to do that. And if you're in the Discord chat, just leave them in the call-out section again. 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