In a lot of ways, Zurich is my dream city, fairly quiet, unassuming, near beautiful mountains in nature, and a lot of trains. This fact might be surprising, because like Switzerland it is surprisingly small, with only half a million people or so in the city proper, and around 1.5 million in the greater urban area, about as big as Jacksonville, Florida. Despite that, Zurich has an almost unbelievable public transport network, from funiculars to cable cars, to an extensive network of buses, ferries and trams. Getting around the city is incredibly convenient. As within Tokyo, this is a city to learn all about, to bus transport myths. And there's one part of the network that in my opinion stands above the rest, and that's the incredible Zurich S-Bahn. Let's talk about it. Before we talk about Zurich's S-Bahn, naturally we have to talk about Zurich itself, which, if you're coming from, say, Toronto, you'll arrive at via the very nice Zurich Airport, which is north of the city centre, and served by bus, tram and train, because of course it is. Trains at Zurich Airport run every few minutes, right from the beginning of service, and can take you all over the city, but also all over the country. Now, I mentioned ferries before, which you might be a bit confused by. Isn't Switzerland a landlocked country? How would Zurich have such an extensive ferry network? Well, that would be because Zurich is actually situated at the north end of the roughly 30km long lake of the same name, surrounded by suburbs and villages accessible by boat. To the north is the River Limand, which splits Zurich in two. Fronting onto the river is the true gateway to Zurich, Zurich main station. The city's rail terminus and main transport hub, featuring tracks underneath it that enable many services to run through, even as most tracks leave the station heading west on the surface. Switzerland is a railway nation, and that doesn't just include passenger service, in fact during off-peak times, there's still a slot for a freight train to pass through the central station. Also relevant to discussion of Zurich is the city of Winterthur, which is an important regional center that lies to its northeast, roughly east of the airport, forming another major node in the rail network. Looking at the city's Espa network, things can initially appear very confusing, especially as there are at least 26 different services that serve close to 200 stations. But in reality, things aren't so complicated, as the network is heavily intro-lined, traveling travel from between many points in the region to be as simple as getting on a single train. Now today's video is centering on the Espa, and more specifically the services within the ZVV transit organization, which acts as a unifying agency between the multiple individual train companies that operate services. Speaking of the Espa services, they are fairly frequent, but they aren't universally rapid transit like as the name might suggest. To be clear, trains are fast, and most major corridors have trains which run at least every 15 minutes or so. But a lot of routes do operate lower if still regular frequencies of every 30 minutes or hour. In most cases, higher frequencies are generated by a couple of less frequent services coming together and overlapping on a shared corridor in a predictable way, so that two 30-minute frequency services further out generate a roughly 15-minute service further in, and so on. The trains on the network are also pretty interesting. The majority of them are double-decker, and some are multiple units. Trainers are unpowered coaches, usually pulled by one powerful electric locomotive, for every three coaches, providing close enough performance to an EMU. All railways in Switzerland are electrified, as you may already know. Espa trains are up to 300 meters long, with 12 coaches and boards from low platforms. Not all that unlike those seen on the system like GO Transit. That being said, unlike GO Transit, there is level boarding via platform gap fillers. Trains are also operated by single operators, and doors are entirely automatic. There are no cameras or mirrors, and thus pressure-sensitive doors do all of the work of making sure the train is cleared out of the station. Something quite strange is that as some parts of the rural lines have short platforms, but as the capacity of long trains is still needed in the core during rush hour, some trains are actually lengthened and shortened on every rush hour run. Probably the most unique feature of the trains is that they feature a first-class space, but it's really nothing to write home about. While you won't necessarily see frequencies measured down to the second, like with the MTR or the Paris Metro, what Zürich's trains do have is extreme regularity, and they're scheduled to run like all Swiss trains following a consistent hourly scheduling pattern, which is known as operating on a tact, or in less cool terms, clock-face scheduling. This enables not only very efficient use of the rail infrastructure, but also enables all manner of trains, including intercity ones, to rather seamlessly share the same tracks. Switzerland takes its integrated scheduling to an almost unbelievable level, in that essentially all public transport in the country is scheduled to synchronize and provide very convenient transfers between different services. All of this reduces the need for super high frequencies everywhere that enable less coordinated travel. Since many riders will know when their train comes, say 45 past the hour every hour and simply arrive as necessary. This is only possible because of the very high on-time performance and consistency of the train service. Oh, and naturally, as with other S-Bonds such as the Berlin S-Bond, there is 24-hour weekend service on a number of lines. If you want a better idea of what it's actually like to ride the S-Bond and Swiss trains more broadly, you should check out not just bike's recent video on the topic. Now, we actually want to see the structure of the Zurich S-Bond, so let's start looking at the main corridors, starting with the various routes running west from Zurich main station, which has a crazy tangle of above-ground approach tracks to its west that allow trains to head south, west, and north in multiple directions. The routes heading south run west out of the main station before making a broad southern turn that loops them around central Zurich and then has them running along the western shore of Lake Zurich. These routes include the S-2, S-8, S-24, and S-25, as well as intercity and inter-regio trains, which in almost all cases do not require reservations, essentially acting as super express services that in many cases are seen as interchangeable as long-distance S-Bond express services. Along the shore, the services start to split apart. S-24 diverges to the southwest to travel along the mountains, which ham in Lake Zurich. S-8 terminates roughly at the south end of the lake, while S-2 and S-25 continue east and south respectively. It should be noted that S-2 runs an express service pattern, while S-25 runs a super express, stopping at fewer and fewer stations enabling higher speeds. Interestingly enough, the inter-regio services on the same corridor actually stop more frequently than the S-25. As it turns out, there are actually two more routes that operate west out of Zurich main station and then to the south, in the form of the S-4 and S-10. These two routes are operated by SCU, and use space under the main station originally designated for the never-built Zurich U-Bond, the decision that sets Zurich down its extensive S-Bond construction path. Zurich's transport network indeed has a wide range of operators, but the beauty of the Verkerstverbund model is that they all function in a unified way to the user. S-4 and S-10 are quite unique due to the way they were electrified until recently, and because of that, I have a dedicated video mostly talking about S-10, which operates unique single-deck trains as a mountain railway after leaving the built-up urban area around Zurich. S-4 by comparison is fairly similar to other Zurich S-Bond lines, despite its isolation from them, and runs inland parallel to the lines along the west shore of Lake Zurich following the River Seal. Looking at the routes running to the west of the main station, we have S-5, S-11, S-12, S-14, S-19, and S-42, which all travel on the south side of the rail corridor west of the station to the shoulder station of Alsteaden, before starting to break apart. S-5 and S-14 diverge to the southwest without a flyover, onto an initially single-track corridor that only widens back to two tracks after about three kilometers, despite the S-5 and S-14s combine four trains per hour per direction, which is part of why you should be deeply skeptical if your local railway tells you it needs a fully double-track line to operate a basic frequent service. These lines then continue along the western slopes of the mountains, which the lines west of Lake Zurich run on the other side of. S-14 terminates roughly half of the way down the line, while S-5 runs all the way south to meet the southern terminus of S-24. From Alsteaden, the S-11 and S-12 both travel west, with the S-11 continuing in that general direction and the S-12 turning to the northwest to terminate, both alongside intercity trains. There are also the S-19 and S-42 routes, which follow along but extend S-12 and S-11 to the north and southwest respectively, with express trains, which run on S-19 to Dietikon all the time, and on other segments during peak hours. Now, there is also the S-17 route, which runs from Dietikon station through the city of Dietikon, and then along mountainous roads to the southwest. The route is probably best described as a narrow gauge into urban mountain railway, and like the S-10, it's quite different from other S-Bahn lines. While the service does operate a high, consistent frequency, its small single-level trains also operate on streets and adjacent to mountain roads for a portion of the route. Next comes the routes that travel mostly northwest from Zurich main station. These routes run along the northern part of the rail corridor west of the station to Hardbook, another major western shoulder station. Before diverging north on a flyover, that takes trains through this portion of the city on a tall elevated viaduct before crossing the Limat and entering a tunnel. Trains then surface due north of the city center in the district of Erlikon, where a major station collects many of the routes heading north from the city center. From here, routes diverge in various directions. S-6 turns to the west and acts much to the S-12 as S-5 does to S-24, paralleling the western routes to the north and connecting to S-12 near its terminus. S-15 and S-9 continue roughly northwest, with S-15 diverging into the countryside to the west and terminating a few kilometers east of the S-19 route. S-9 travels much further alongside intercity services around Zurich airport and then all the way north into southern Germany. That's right, international transit. S-16 travels less far than the other routes from Erlikon, only continuing north through the airport, while S-7 continues north but diverges northeast to cut around the airport before heading southeast to the town of Ephretikon and then do north to Winterthur where it terminates. Much as with the routes to the west of Zurich, there are limited commuter-focused services which replicate parts of the S-9 and S-6, known as S-3 and S-21 respectively. I mentioned S-24 before, but as it turns out, it actually operates out of Zurich main station towards the west to two different destinations, running in from one, stopping, and then heading back out to the other. Not unlike the Tobu Urban Park Line in Tokyo. Continuing onwards, the line continues from the south of the rail corridor onto a long sweeping flyover which takes it alongside some national rail trains to the north, parallel to, but east of the other routes we just discussed to Erlikon. From here, the S-24 runs through Zurich airport and then recombines to travel along with the S-7 route to Winterthur which it passes through. Immediately thereafter, the route splits into two branches, with one traveling to north to a connection with S-9, which it terminates just beyond and another traveling northeast alongside intercity trains. This shows the power of the Zurich S-Bong, with long trains traveling all across the entire region on a regular basis. Now that we've addressed the services traveling west out of Zurich main station, let's look at those traveling in other directions. As it turns out, the S-2 and S-8 services from the west shore of Lake Zurich and the S-14 and S-19 services from the west run through Zurich main and then north to Erlikon alongside intercity trains. S-2 runs to the airport and terminates, while S-8, S-14 and S-19 turn east and travel to Wally-Selin. From here, S-8 and S-19 run parallel to S-7 to itself, which they then connect with at Ephredekon, before S-8 continues to terminate at Winterthur, and S-19 continues as a peak only service to the southeast. S-14 turns southeast sooner, passing over the direct line from Winterthur to Zurich before terminating. Now that direct line is accessed from another through running line at Zurich main station, which sees all services traveling east stopping at Stadelhofen, a major station in east central Zurich that's free build was designed by famous architect Santiago Calatrava. The station currently has three platforms and tracks, which are curved and hemmed in very tightly by the surrounding hillside and development, but there are plans to expand the station with a fourth track and platform given how busy it is, and as it places a bottleneck on the network. From Stadelhofen to the southeast is the railway along the east shore of Lake Zurich, which carries the S-6, S-7 as an express, and S-16 routes from the west of Zurich main station, as well as the peak only S-20 service which starts at Hardbrook. S-16 turns back at Herliberg, beyond which the corridor narrows to one track for some distance, despite carrying so many services, including the aforementioned express. S-6 turns back shortly thereafter, while S-20 does near the southern end of the lake. S-7 terminates at the main station of Rappersville, a municipality at the eastern side of the end of Lake Zurich. From Rappersville, you also have the S-40 service, which continues to Fafikon, where S-8 terminates at its southern end, and beyond to run alongside the S-13 service, which it terminates alongside, on the west shore of Lake Zurich line at Fadensville. As you can see, the term S-Bahn is kind of abused in Zurich's rail system, as I think it's pretty hard to consider these services S-Bahn as they don't use a city center tunnel or even interact with central Zurich, much less lines like the S-17, but I digress. Also departing from Stadlhofen to the southeast is the S-18 route, which is quite similar to the S-17 in terms of rolling stock and which uses the Zurich tram network, which is meter gauge, unlike the standard gauge S-Bahn network, to access the city terminal. The S-18 runs every 20 minutes and is essentially the way the S-10 was meant to be, thus its use of DC power and the resulting shenanigans. S-18 runs parallel to the previously mentioned railways along the eastern shore of Lake Zurich, roughly three quarters of the way to its southern end. The rest of the lines from Stadlhofen turn roughly northeast and then travel onto three main corridors via a long tunnel. S-5, S-9 and S-15 from the southwest and northwest turn northeast, first to run parallel to S-14, with S-9 terminating along it and running as a local, and S-5 and S-15 running express, before continuing past the point where S-14 splits off to the east and then turning west to travel to Rappersville, which S-15 terminates at, while S-5 continues to Favicon. S-3 travels as a regular service further to the northeast to Ephreticon before turning southeast alongside S-19, which it continues beyond to loop back southwest and then terminate at the branch point of S-14 from S-5 and S-15. Finally, S-11, S-12 and S-23 travel all the way to Winterter, where S-23 are limited peak only service terminates. This route, which does not require trains to travel north to the airport before traveling to Winterter, is the fastest route between the urban centers, despite not being used by intercity trains. East of Winterter, S-11 splits into two, with one branch traveling north and another south, continuing further as a limited peak only service. Each branch receives one train per hour, alternating from the rest of the line, which runs half hourly. S-12 also splits into two branches, with one traveling to the north alongside the respective S-24 branch and another traveling east. S-26 begins at Winterter, and then travels southeast alongside the southern branch of S-11, looping all the way around to connect up with S-5 and S-15 near Wrappersville. S-29 augments the S-11 north branch, but travels further. S-30 travels to the northeast alongside the southern S-24 branch. S-33 travels straight north alongside the S-12 and S-24 branches, while S-35 travels due east alongside the southern S-12 branch. There's also the S-41 service, which runs west from Winterter, north of Zurich Airport to a station along S-9, and from this same station the S-36 service begins, and runs roughly west alongside the Rhine River to the northern terminus of the limited S-19 service. Despite the fact that they don't travel through the city centre, S-41 is half hourly, while S-36 is hourly. As colossal as it already is, there are some changes coming to the Zurich S-Bahn, though they are mostly evolutionary rather than revolutionary. For one, locomotive hull trains are being transitioned out in favour of EMUs, and most services already do use EMUs. At the same time, double-decker trains, which are used so widely, may increasingly give way to single-level trains, which can operate higher frequencies and feature more doors, under a project known as S-Bahn 2G. Probably the biggest single new project coming to the city beyond the expansion of Stadlhofen is the new Zurich to Winterter corridor, which is enabled by the Brüttner Tunnel, which will bypass the less direct line via Ephretikon, while also adding more capacity and enabling reroutes of trains east of the airport and Zurich main station. Now, speaking of tunnels in Zurich main station, there is a storied past here, and a ton of changes has happened in roughly the last 50 years. Originally, or at least historically, the main station, as a west-facing terminus, did not have great connections or capacity for trains travelling from the north, east or southeast along the eastern chore of the lake, which at the time had to travel through Stadlhofen, and then in a giant loop to reach Zurich main from the west. Zurich main was only connected to Erlikon by a single two-track route via the Vipkingen tunnel. That existing tunnel to Erlikon has since been augmented by two more, the Kafferberg tunnel, which allows trains heading out of Zurich main to the west to access Erlikon west of the existing tunnel opened in 1969. The Weinberg tunnel, which includes new platforms under Zurich main, was completed in 2014, and adds a third route to the east of the two existing tunnels, that finally allowed trains travelling east into Zurich main to travel north without reversing. These three different tunnels form the entire southern approach to Erlikon station, which is quite impressive, especially as the Weinberg tunnel's tracks split to straddle those from the original tunnel. Zurich main is also accessed by the SCU lines by a tunnel which was opened in 1990, extending them from Selnau, the previous surface terminus, which was replaced by a new underground through station on the new tunnel. Probably the most consequential tunnel added to Zurich also came in 1990, with the Zurichberg tunnel, a 5km new underground line which rerouted the northern connection at Stadlhofen to new through running platforms under Zurich main, and added a new link to the south which ran under the hills northeast of the city, providing a more direct route to Winterthur, as well as to the corridor used by S5, 9, 14 and 15. Interestingly as well, the platforms added as part of this project are actually dynamically allocated, so trains don't always use the same ones. This is relatively uncommon on such high capacity rail systems. The final tunnel I need to mention is the Zimmerberg base tunnel, which you might be confused about. Aren't base tunnels all in the middle of nowhere and mountain passes? Well no because base tunnels cut under mountains, and in this case in 2003 a new link was opened that enables express services to bypass much of the line on the west shore of Lake Zurich, with a nearly 10km tunnel, which is set to be extended even further south in the future, turning it into a true base tunnel cutting under mountains. This is actually enabled without shutting down the existing tunnel, as there's an underground flyover inside the current link, which allows the flyover end to be extended without disrupting the express services such as S25 that currently use the tunnel. Now, the tunnel is a lot of fun to look at, because its north portal in particular is completely unassuming. That being said, as is typical with the minimalist Swiss approach to infrastructure, parts of it feel a little underbuilt, most notably its southern end at Tavio, where the two tracks from the tunnel merge into the two under Lakeshore line without any flyovers. So that's the rail network of Zurich, an impressive network with more services than you expect and a lot of tunnels. Make sure to leave a comment below on what transit system I should explain next, and as always, thanks for watching.


What's the word y'all welcome back to call game Kenny for real whatever you want to call it It isn't honored to be able to record one of these episodes on a night where somebody actually called games I don't took cold Anthony man hitting the leaner. They're running off Am I becoming a cold Anthony fam? Because even his post game interview was amazing But but let's listen this is as happy I am for him and for the I guess the magic to get a win after a six game loser streak That shot cost me $1,200. I Didn't lose 1200 but y'all know we've been on games every single day and I bet on a parlay I got every other game winner correct. Yes, I predicted the Cavs beat in the Nets But that one That one and it cost me that much money I'm excited for cold Anthony, but the pocket's a little bit lighter today is all I really say so be sure to leave a like on A video subscribe if you are new let's get into today's show I want to apologize for the past week has been very Brooklyn Nets oriented and I mean it makes sense, right? They make a trade for a superstar player and then they have basically two premieres They have the first premiere was Kevin Iran and James Harden We have to talk about that then they have the premiere today that is all three of them planned together I'm gonna spend a lot of time on the Cavaliers to talk about them But let's focus on the Brooklyn Nets right now because that's probably why you hear the things I'm not gonna be one to overreact to them losing to the Cavaliers, but Everything that I have been saying about them post trade came true today Right, even the first two games when it was just James Harden and Kevin Iran We saw these issues, but at the end of the day they won those games because their office was so potent that it didn't matter That they couldn't defend anybody today They were just waltzing to the rim and well Deandre Jordan had a good offensive game from just standing and getting Lobbs and everything defensively. He was really really bad right defensively He's really really bad as a team defensively They were really really bad the Cavaliers are the worst offense and basketball right now And they gave up 147 points and forget about all over times then even in regulation They gave up a ton of points to a team that is a the worst offensive team in basketball and be Missing two starters. It's not a good sign. It's just not a good sign And I know most days Kyrie KD and James Harden will have the ability to outscore their opponent But there will be days like this where the defense is just not good enough to hold a team Shout out to Colin sex again I'm gonna talk about the cast because shout out to him for just pretty much taking over this game No matter what defender they threw at him. He was just hitting those shots But the thing that scares me a little bit And I know you want to win every single game especially a team that is trying to compete for a championship Especially the first game all three of them playing together It scares me a little bit at how much playing time the big three got. I Understand Kevin Ryan says he's hundred percent James Harden is in his prime. He's hundred percent safe They were Kyrie Irvin 50 minutes 50 minutes 48 minutes and again It was a double overtime game That is a ton a ton of minutes for Landry salmon to get a DMP Coating decision was very weird to me especially when Joe Harris play 41 minutes and didn't shoot well Bruce Brown playing seven minutes is confused to me because he had been very good for your team the past two three weeks So a game that is grinded like this and you have an idea that this might go to OT It's there should not be 50 minutes play for some of these guys and I was like, okay, what was it worth? I sure you built a little bit of chemistry What was it worth because you called it L and my biggest takeaway from this or something that James Harden's gonna have to do and again There's only a third game with this team and his first game of Kyrie Irvin when he is the guy on that second unit He has to treat it like he's back in Houston That's all Play James Harden ball when Kyrie and Katie on ain't on the court with you It's your team at this point And I think he's still trying to figure that out because he was playing kind of passive in the second unit And with that second unit they need him to be goaded because again, they're missing depth They just don't have it. So again, I'm not gonna overreact to some of the things I don't know what the remedy is for their defense because I this is a team that I would see taking plays Especially in a regular season because they do believe that they can outscore everybody and then Reggie Perry Godly we talked about how solid he was over the past couple games today. He was trash that man Jared Allen was like Bro, I know all of your moves. We played together for a couple weeks this season I'm blocking every one of your shots. So let's talk about the Cavaliers, man Collins sexes is basically turning into prime Michael Jordan and over times was a pleasure to watch I have ordered a sex land shirt a couple days ago Wouldn't it been amazing if I would head today now, of course, no Darius Garland But it would have been amazing if I could just show up with that shirt today, right? Down to Jordan or I'm sorry Andra Drummond's minutes took a significant hit because guess what the young guy Jared Look better today, and I love that JB allowed his younger guy to be the one on the court Wouldn't really matter and not just going with okay drumming right now He looks like an all-star this season, but particularly this game. He's turning the ball over I mean, he's doing drumming stuff without the drumming type offensive production. So let's go with the young guy Young guys playing great defense.  I like this team. Y'all know that I've been talking about them in there Beginning of the season before Colin Sexton Darius Garland without an injury I was talking about how much how fun this team was and today they showcased that Jediism was such a big game I hope that a lot of people are tuning into Cavs games now Even though like I mentioned they are the worst offensive team in basketball But what makes that somewhat okay is they're also the best defensive team in basketball It's one extreme to the other which is so crazy because the past two seasons the Cleveland Cavaliers have been The worst defensive team the last previous two seasons and now they are the best just like that They snapped it on. I don't understand it. It was fun to watch today and Twitter's overreacting and everything and it was It's a fun watch I think everybody in the NBA world was watching this game because again Kyrie KD and James So that was my those might take away from that game. So move on to the next with the Mavericks end up beating the Pacers We're gonna use this First of all, I feel bad for Indiana Pacers fans with the injuries I mean Keri Silver tj Warren and now Miles Turner But what I was saying lessy reference this this game right here in the next couple weeks to why Miles Turner should Defensively out of your conversations, bro Because they can guard anything the paint was free cheese and this is what blows my mind when people say just three miles turn Or less a bonus runner center. So bonus can't hold his own down low. It's a fact offensively He's a dog in the paint Defensively he ain't got it and that's why Miles Turner is so valuable to this team I feel like people that say just let some bonus run the center aren't actually watching the Pacers play basketball because today is a prime Example of why they can't do that. They were running out some crazy defenses They did like a box in one with Luca it's out to Luca who didn't have a good game because again You're running a box of work for finest teammates and allowing his other guys like for zingas who I guess it's off of his minister Striction to dominate down low, you know again I feel bad for Pacers fans because every time it seemed like things are ramping up for your team You get a setback you get a setback whether it be a mass on someone's kidney or liver I forget what it was or TJ Warren being out and now Miles Turner that came out of nowhere for me I had no idea Miles Turner went down with an injury and now he's he's out But the good thing is a guy that previously went down with an injury Jeremy Lamb came back so he can provide some of that Production that you're missing and Karris and TJ Warren, I guess he had he didn't even have a bad game first game back from an Achilles I'm pretty sure the next game. I didn't watch it was the 76 versus Celtics They have this rivalry and it seems like Joellenby had a great game The reason I didn't watch this because there was no stakes involved with no Jason Tatum Kimberwalker or on on a minister's restriction. It was hard for me to be invest I tried to watch this game, but when this game was tipping off on the same time as the Brooklyn Cleveland game I'm watching Brooklyn Cleveland. I'm watching more Brooklyn Cleveland than this one So I don't really know what really happened in this game other than a couple Celtics fans tweeted me saying that Joellenby is The way he gets away with things from the rest perspective is kind of wishy-washy, but again, I didn't watch this game So my apologies once the team is fully healthy for the boss of Celtics and they play against each other again Then I'll really be watched because these are two teams that on paper should be competitive against each other Trey young did he get his mojo back? This is so crazy because the first half of the game Trey young was bad again And I was like, bro, this should be a game He dominates he's going against the Detroit business who have struggled to close our games and and the Detroit business deal What they do I guess it just get a good lead and then blow it but in the second half I don't know what got into his mind in that second half. He turned it up. And yes, he did Trey young things He got to the free-throw line a good amount But nothing was better than that dagger he hit over there grows that you probably saw on House of Highlights Shout out to House of Highlights, but this is a good game for him and and I Expected this to be a good game because of his quotes before he was asked about what Steve Nass said about him as far as the way He plays is not basketball And I understand what Steve Nass is trying to say because drawing fouls is tough on it It's kind of boring to watch but Trey young's response was great if I was doing it on his team He wouldn't be complaining. It's a fact So I was hoping I was getting this mojo back and it did click a pellet coming out and having a 27 26 game is amazing John Collins having his first 30-point game of the season. I'm pretty sure it's great. They won this game with four Bench points four of them I Guess you could today is an episode where not a lot of teams have been to production I guess because the brick and lesson haven't any either four Bench points in a win is Absolutely ridiculous and again, they're missing a lot of players here They're missing a lot of players here in Tony snail put up a Tony snails stat line as far as the Detroit pisses I'm so confused on what this this team is trying to do. Yes They're competitive and and losing games like that, but in that competitiveness I don't think they're growing because their young players aren't playing Right Blake Griffin play 40 minutes today You don't need Blake Griffin to grow Sadiq Bay got eight minutes Sadiq Bay was getting 20 minutes a game like two weeks ago and somehow he's basically out of the Rotation, I don't understand a second gets five minutes the younger players that you should be trying to build around aren't getting minutes Do in case he's playing as vets He's playing as vets and it doesn't make sense because these vets won't be on the team three years from now Added all the people that played over 20 points per game 20 minutes a game for them this this game The only guy that should be out there getting that many minutes is Jeremy Grant The just let the young guys play the Wayne. You're not winning basketball games You just aren't let the young guys and Jeremy Grant play because he is your emerging star and let that be it Sadiq Bay getting eight minutes is not helping his progression as an NBA player Sekudin Booyah who's a lot of your pick from y'all getting five minutes in this game does not improve you him Him or or your future as a team. I just don't understand it I don't know what Detroit Pistons fans feel about the way in Casey But that is that is kind of rough at the end of the day the younger guys should be getting more minutes He got a quality win over the the Raptors who cooled down a little bit Kendrick Nunn we talked about how he had fell off after a year look at this game almost a 30 pointer We'd love to see it even though I didn't watch it and then the the last game for me Oh, no two more games for me The mad magic versus the Timberwolves we mentioned Cole Anthony hitting that game when it shot It must be kind of tough to be a Timberwolves fan at the moment because if I'm not mistaken They had a really really big lead in this one And that's why I was so confident that I was walking out of here $1,200 richer because I'm trying to see the biggest lead was 20 and They blew that in the fourth quarter pretty much alone And a lot of that has to do with Cole Anthony hitting that great corner shot and then of course hitting the game winner They it it's great to see Evan for me a back because they needed his offensive production I don't know how many he ended with today, but I know he ended with 24 immediately just back into the lineup So it was great to have his production again and again Cole Anthony hitting those big old shots I don't understand what coach Saunders is doing as far as like when this game was in them When his game was in and they tried to go small ball And they don't have defenders like the biggest questions I had about this team was who the hell is defending anything on this roster from top to bottom other than Josh a Kogi I guess who's defending anything and they didn't have they don't have it so to go small ball It's kind of crazy when you don't have any defenders small ball line-ups typically work when you have good defenders Average defenders, they don't have any of that. So yes, it was bad That's pretty much it. Oh, we got the DeAndre Aiden game Which is great. He plays strong and they got a win against the Houston Rockets I did not watch the other two games because league pass was bugging and it just kept it just kept buffering and buffering the Buffer, but I'll give a lot of love to the Clippers for continuing to stay consistent 32 points from Kawaii I don't know how he did it, but he did it, baby. The Paul George continue his thing 19 points solid efficiency 12 assists. Oh, there it is. So it's a Paul George, man. That's all man Hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to leave it like oh before we end this one I'm gonna say this to the end so you can click off if you want to um Please please please don't try to like hit me in my my DMs or or my mentions like Kenny Be sure to talk about this game. I I'm only one man and I can't watch every single game, right? I can't watch every single game. So I may have missed your favorite team's game But that's not gonna happen for all 72 games So I may not have talked about your team today your game today, but I might hit him on the next game I might hit him on the next game. Just be patient man. Be patient with me. It's a one-man team around here You know I'm saying I'll see y'all soon call game


We should say that the work on the GRD continues a tradition at wider of work on data. We host, as you know, the World Income and Equality Database, which has been running now for nearly 20 years and is one of the best sources of data, consistent data across countries on income and equality. So by partnering with the ICTD, we're kind of continuing this tradition of trying to offer, as it were, public goods in data. And indeed, to flag up for you, we're also working on a social protection database as well. So we're moving ahead on these areas and, as Carl mentioned, we'll be putting up interactive tools over the course of the next year so that particular policy makers could play with these data sets and benchmark themselves further, which I think is extremely valuable. Okay, so in the remaining time in this session, I thought what I'd do is run through some ideas around taxation and development, partly picking up on work that's been done earlier, both at wider and elsewhere, partly picking up on some of the themes that we're seeing across this conference over the last two days. So that's what I'm gonna do now. And part of the motivation is really is policy, getting the answers to the questions in most needs from research. McKean in his very good opening plenary talk distinguished between, as it were, first order policy problems or solutions and second order ones. There are some really big questions, as we'll see out there, that we don't seem to have much evidence or at least the evidence that I've come across. And this doesn't just apply to the area of tax policy, it applies to a lot of economic policy areas, I think, and it's part of the general debate that we've been having at wider on big questions in development economics versus small questions in development economics. One of the takeaways I want to give you from this presentation is tax policy is obviously about revenue mobilization, but it isn't only about revenue mobilization. Tax policy has a very important role in shaping economies and indeed whole societies for good or bad ways. We hope for good ways, achieving inclusive development, but tax policy, as we know, can also impede inclusive development. So that'll be one of the takeaways from this presentation. Okay, so I think we'll all agree that tax policy is at the top of the policy agenda. I mean, there are other things at the top of the policy agenda, but certainly tax policy is way up there. When I compare my professional experience starting out in the 1980s, working on structural adjustment programs in Africa, very much the focus was on the public spending side. It was also to agree on the tax side, but it was fairly kind of rudimentary. We've come a long way over the years, partly because we're much more concerned these days about the quality of states, state effectiveness. State effectiveness needs financing, but also states need to collect revenues in ways that are fair and just and transparent. So the state agenda runs across all of our present concerns. And there's been a lot of talk, as you know, about the so-called citizen state contract in democracies, underpinning new democracies. As I mentioned, the role of tax policy, particularly now in the context of the very ambitious sustainable development goals, the need to diversify resource revenues, sorry, to diversify away from reliance just on resource revenues, which are vulnerable to price slumps. For example, the downturn in the oil price for oil producers since 2012. Aid fatigue, donors have pushed due because the rise in foreign aid over the last two decades has really started to stall out. And so we have a debate, which is very welcome. It's not just between technocrats, like many of the people here, working economists, either in government or researchers, but it now involves parliamentarians, civil society, and a much wider range of stakeholders. And that's really all for the good. And secondly, we have a lot more action on tax reforming. Some people say, well, you know, things don't improve in policy. Well, actually they have in tax policy. We've seen a lot of progress. We've seen a move to VAT systems in most countries, rise in tax GDP ratios in many countries, and we've seen better institutions and better compliance, not in every country, but we're seeing some solid progress, and including in some of the countries that we would have thought 20 years ago, whew, this is gonna be very difficult, say like Uganda, you know? But we have many concerns. The tax bases are still too narrow. We still have this continuing resource revenue dependence that I've referred to, and in some ways that's actually been magnified by the commodity supercycle that's been going on the last decade or so, the rise of China, China's demand for metals and oil, particularly from Africa. It's made some policy makers a little bit. I was gonna use the word lazy, that would be unfair, but somewhat negligent in looking for other sources of revenue. Classic would be, of course, Nigeria, which Kyle showed in the data set earlier. We still have weak compliance, although we've got improved compliance, and other issues have come up, particularly international tax evasion and avoidance, because in part, more countries are accepting and attracting foreign direct investment. So in some ways are increasing concern for issues around international tax and evasion and avoidance, particularly involving international companies, for example, in the extractive sector, is driven by greater foreign investment in low-income and middle-income Africa and elsewhere. But those are big issues involving profit shifting, use of tax havens and so forth. Risks and shocks, which I wanna talk a little bit more about later, I don't think there's enough attention paid to the vulnerability of tax bases to a whole range of shocks, climate change particularly, but also pandemics, like the Ebola experience that we had two years ago, conflict, fragility, and so forth, yeah. Opportunities and challenges, we're getting many opportunities and challenges as low-income countries move to mixed status, low-income countries like Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and so forth. We get a process of formalization as countries move to mixed status. With formalization, you generally get better chances of compliance because you get creation of formal financial records by formal sector companies, much easier to monitor transactions and so forth. And of course with the rise of more diversified economies as you move into MIC status, you've got potential for more revenues from financial services, the whole digital economy becomes more important to you. And you get a process of structural transformation and social change, which is then leading to creation of potential new revenue sources, but also new issues in actual taxation that policy makers need to be aware of. For example, taxation in the financial sector and how that operates. And there are large numbers of research issues around that, which I think are very exciting, including the digital economy, which we've barely begun to scratch. But if you look at countries like Indonesia, for example, the rise of the economy and so forth, or India indeed, is really quite startling and needs to be explored from a tax perspective. I constantly say the politics is as important as the economics, not because I'm here to please the political scientists, but because I think that it's really central, political economy as it's conceived in the classical sense. Economists have a vision of tax policy which comes from the optimum tax literature, very well-developed microeconomics of taxation. But we know that in most countries, or indeed all countries, tax policies are an outcome of many different agents interacting. Those agents have varying degrees of power, states, citizens, businesses, communities, international organizations. I think this means much more research at a country level through country case studies, as well as the interesting cross-section work that's now being done. Tax incidents is often sort of discussed in a vacuum still, away from net fiscal incidents. In other words, setting the incidents of taxes by group, by location, by space, by gender. We really need to set that against the incidents of public spending. So we get an overall picture of where the fiscal system is going. And we need that for several reasons, one of which is that an unfair burden of taxation, in other words, I get taxed and most of the benefit goes to you. If I'm a poor person, that's exceptionally unfair. That characterizes the system of many countries. It's one reason why compliance has been sometimes stalling out. It can be a source of social conflict. It has a spatial dimension. Often, remoto-rural regions are disadvantaged in terms of taxation and not receiving much in terms of public spending. But it's extraordinarily data demanding. If you go to the website of Wyde, you'll see some very interesting work by Nora Lustig, for example, on net fiscal incidents. And so underlying all of this, we obviously need a very good database of information and it's not just tax information. We need very good household surveys and enterprise surveys because for households, we cannot explore the incidence of taxes without very good data, including hopefully panel household data, which is still too rare. And increasingly, we need good quality enterprise survey data, small, medium and large enterprise survey data to explore the impact of the taxation in either incentivizing or disincentivizing and private investment. Now, one thing I wanted to flag up is the metric of the tax GDP ratio. You know, it's obviously one of our key sort of flag points and obviously it's very dominant in the way we use the GRD data set. There are all kinds of problems here. I don't need to dwell upon about both the measurement of taxation, Kyla's obviously gone through those, but also actually about the measurement of GDP. And the measurement of GDP is not just a problem in fragile states. It's a problem in some quite large states as well. I mean, for example, there's a very large controversy about the correct measurement of India's GDP, for example, at the moment. But it's certainly an issue in the low income countries. I worked on Mozambique in the early 90s at the end of the Civil War. I was coming in at the end of the Civil War working with the Ministry of Finance. And we were looking at the budget, the classic fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP. Three variables, government spending, taxation and GDP. And we had enormous levels of inaccuracy on all three and correspondingly a very high level of uncertainty about what the true fiscal deficit was. And this was a country, obviously, that was coming out of Civil War. GDP had not been properly measured for years. There were two million refugees flowing around. So the data issues for the fragile states and the fiscal area are very big. But GDP itself is not an incontestable number. Is tax to GDP the best indicator we have? We keep reverting back to it. Governments like rules of thumb, but it's important to think about how the tax-GDP ratio is raised. I mean, for example, if you jack up the tax-GDP ratio through a lot of distorting taxes, including distorting taxes that hit the poor, that's not a very satisfactory outcome. So we need other metrics about our progress. I was particularly struck by Mick Keen's discussion of the policy gap versus compliance gap. That seems a great way to go forward, including decomposing the policy gap across taxes. But it's also we need to kind of develop metrics and measures whereby we have some evidence about whether revenue is really doing its development job. It would be great to see a sort of, even a crude set of metrics around is the revenue we're raising through the higher tax-GDP ratio really doing what we see in terms of achievements in human development infrastructure, shaping the economy in ways that create jobs, particularly for poor people. In other words, Mick had this idea of the policy gap and the compliance gap. In some ways, there might also be a kind of broader inclusive development gap, yeah? Okay, we're doing well with raising the revenue or not raising the revenue, but actually, are we getting the bang for the buck that we want in terms of underlying inclusive development? And it'd be interesting actually to think about what might be some kind of measures for that and also potential benchmarking across countries. So I throw that idea out for discussion. So what should tax policy try to achieve? Well, as I said, public economics makes some very strong statements about what constitutes an optimal tax system, but as we know, tax authorities in developing countries face much higher institutional and informational barriers in high-income countries, classically the informal sector. So what is optimal in low-income and middle-income countries may differ quite a bit from what is optimal in high-income countries, and the large theoretical literature on this, the creation of ideas around second-best tax policy, for example, associated with Chris Heady or indeed third-best tax policy introduced by Henry Claven. And as I said, the tax system that we actually see in operation is often the outcome of an historical path dependence, including inertia, negotiation among powerful stakeholders, which usually leads to very large exemptions. So for example, Latin America's tax system still has very large exemptions around income tax, which some have linked back to colonial land inequality of the 19th century. So a sense of persistence through time of exemptions and patterns of taxation that favor one group over another. And these are very difficult things to shift, and they're very far away from the ideals of public economics. Now, modern public economics, to its credit, recognizes this and emphasizes incentives and constraints in building fiscal capacity. I think here of the work by Tim Besley and Torsten Thurston. But it really does need a lot of work at the country level to think about, and country case goes, think about the sort of fiscal history of nations and the ways in which they've evolved. I think that could be a very fruitful line of research. And that includes the centrality of compliance, the work of Joel Slemrod, resonating with the political science, work on fiscal contracts by Mick Moore and others in the international sense of tax and development. Now, one thing, the final point here, is that macroeconomic crises often push tax reform. The government is in a fiscal crisis. It tries to shake down whatever revenue sources it can find. It's the very worst time to do tax reform, but of course it's probably one of the times when the government is least resistant to do it because it has to do it. So my work on Africa in the 1980s, as one went into one country after another was undergoing structural adjustment, you would see desperate attempts to raise revenue from existing distorting taxes. Quite often the revenue was raised, but not in ways that were great for long-term sustainable growth and some of those distortions still kick around the system today. Nigeria and Gola are now in the position where they've budgeted for oil at $70 a barrel, oil is at $45 a barrel, oil is not going above $100 a barrel again. They're desperately seeking around for more diversified revenue, but this is the wrong point to start doing it. It's way too late. I'd just like to make the observation that, I said at the start that financing has driven much of the debate. If you think about, you know, obviously as we've gone through development over the last 70 years, since the end of the Second World War creation of the UN, the independence of new states, the objectives of development have really broadened out. We see that particularly accelerating in the last 15 years with the movement from economic growth as the pure objective to the MDGs to the SDGs. So the questions like, for example, the gender dimensions of tax systems should never have been thought about even perhaps a decade ago and now very much on the policy gender and need really good analysis of data, gender disaggregated data to analyze them. The financing goal drives the debate. So you think about the financing for development conference in Addis Ababa and there's a powerful set of interests that really keeps it focused on the pure financing aim of the tax system to somewhat of the neglect of the impact of the tax system on private sector investment and job creation. So in some ways there's a very powerful set of interests that keeps the financing goal as it were at the top of what policy makers think about when they think about taxation, right? So obviously states need revenue and we know that and states need to be built so we're not complaining about that. Donors want to exit from aid. Silver society and particularly the international NGOs are concerned about the imbalance of power between multinationals and states. They're also concerned about funding public goods and human development for poor communities. So they want to see the maximum amount of revenue raised as well. So you see this underpinning particularly in the UN system, the debate around the role of taxation and revenue raising in the development process. Very much let's get that tax GDP ratio up and therefore let's focus on the reform of tax administrations, increase compliance particularly by large actors such as multinationals and that's all great but what it tends to do is to take attention away from how the tax policy that you have shapes your economy, whether that tax policy is encouraging say small enterprise development, whether that's encouraging creation of jobs particularly for younger people, whether that's attracting foreign direct investment or disincentivizing foreign direct investment and so on. So the kind of discourse that we have around financing for development of the role of taxation in financing development, it very much came out of the human development focus of the MDGs. I mean the MDGs were about education, health, sanitation, et cetera, right? Provision of public goods through government or through local government, particularly for poor people that need a lot of money and a chunk of that money, a large chunk of that money has to come from domestic resource mobilization, yeah? And that's great, I'm a big fan of the MDGs and I'm obviously a big fan of the SDGs but the SDGs are now taking us towards things other than human development, they're talking towards, as I've said, better livelihoods, more job creation, in other words, structures of economy that really work for poor people that may be reducing equality over time. And that's where you really need the analysis, obviously, of public economics because you're now moving into territory where you have to understand the impact of tax policy on enterprise behavior and employment generation, on foreign investment and so forth. And you really need to think about tax policy not just as financing a given budget to then spend on education and health, you need to think about tax policy and its role in shaping economies and societies. And that may be, for example, the use of tax policy for industrial policy. John Page is gonna talk in the plenary about the role of industrial policy later on. Using tax incentives or tax exemptions to encourage the diversification economies, the creation of new sectors. It has some fans but you have to watch the exemptions. If you look at Africa, for example, Tanzania is a classic case of this. They have many exemptions in their tax system which created many years ago with the purpose of creating a wider industrial base which should become quite dysfunctional over time. Quite often what you might be thinking about is removing distortions in the tax system which are discouraging private investment particularly by small enterprises which are imposing high compliance costs on tax, on enterprises and therefore in a sense, a discouraging job creation. And there's a big role obviously for research in that area. Big role for research on environmental sustainability. Not only the reduction of environmental bads like air pollution, water control. This has become obviously a big issue in China but also the classic which is climate change, mitigation and adaption and the movement of the global economy towards carbon taxes and other mechanisms for reducing emissions. Again, a big, big, among a set of issues where research has a dramatic role to play, an important role to play. So there's a lot of ways in which we can use public economics for this new agenda. Technical assistance by donors to improve tax administrations has ramped up over the last decade. That's just great. But as I've said, tax strategy or tax policy is not just about better administration. It's not just about compliance. It's about understanding the impact of the instruments that you're using on the society and the economy that you have particularly in the areas of livelihood creation and job creation by the private sector. And therefore I would humbly suggest that donors expand their support for capacity building and public economics. And in some ways this conference which is supported by Wider's donors is an attempt to do that, a nice vigorous attempt to do that. And I would cite obviously the UNWider South Mod research that's been discussed in other sessions. As a good example of really of what needs to be done in the community now and which needs further donor support. And one thing that I like about South Mod just sort of a brief caveat is the Institute of Fiscal Studies in the UK is kind of the gold standard for the analysis of tax and benefit reform in the UK by government or proposals by the political parties. And if you can kind of create this kind of institutional apparatus to do that sort of analysis right across the developing world, you're really strengthening democracy and governance because parliamentarians, civil society can turn to that analysis and be confident in the kind of analysis being done and confident of the proposals and the reform measures that are going forward. So that's partly why I just think these sort of things are a great thing to do and highly important. So I'm gonna round off now just by saying something about national tax performance. In some ways the time series data that Kyle's presenting and the GRD, it gives us a picture of taxation over time and we want the longest time series possible. But we're now obviously minute by minute moving into the future. I want a fascinating question that I always face is is the development past a guide to the development future? In other words, we tend to think, well, the tax systems of low income countries may evolve in ways that pattern the historical experience of middle income countries or high income countries. But actually, how far is that true? And I think this is a very open research question. I'd just like to briefly highlight four ways which I think it's still an open question, okay? And actually, in some ways I doubt that the next decades will replicate the development past at least as far as tax revenue mobilization goes on policy. And the first is the informal sector. In development economics, and this is what we teach our student, we have a stylized fact that as per capita income rises the informal sector share of economic activity contracts. That's a very strong stylized fact which dominates our profession. But what do we see actually when we go across large parts of the developing world is that as countries move from low income status to middle income status, the informal sector still remains pretty large, particularly in terms of absolute numbers. And sometimes it's not actually falling in terms of actually a share of job creation, okay? And people who work on the informal sector, you know, constantly banging away at me as an economist saying, Tony, you have this stylized fact that the informal sector is gonna diminish over time but actually it's not diminishing in ways that classical development economics would predict. What does this imply for taxation? Well, obviously there's a compliance issue around the informal sector. So some informal sector firms are quite large and they should be registered and they should be formalized. But a lot of the informal sector is self-employed people, highly unlikely to formalize. They sit outside the tax system. Now, what does that mean? Well, if you look at demographic change, this links to demographic change. We think about Africa, it's got a young population, India has a young population. So there is a demographic boom, a demographic situation in these countries which is working in their favor. If you can get young people into productive employment at rising levels of productivity and skill in the formal sector, you'll not only get economic growth but you will also get tax revenues from them. Because they'll pay taxes on their incomes, the corporations that they work for will be paying tax in the form of corporate taxes. So what's happening as employment stagnates, at least formal employment stagnates in many of these economies, is actually young people are flowing into the informal sector. They're basically self-employed. They're not in any tax system. They too need services, they need education and health for their children and sanitation and safe water, but they're not actually contributing to the fiscal system. So eventually, Africa and India will transition into aging populations and that window of opportunity to use these people very productively including contributing to the tax system will have gone away. Or alternatively, some of these people will have migrated to other countries and will contribute to the tax system. Of those countries, maybe remitting back to the home country, maybe not. I think that's a really big issue and it's something that needs to be explored by research. Secondly, there's a digital economy but I don't need to re-emphasize that because time is short and we've already thought about that a little bit. Climate change is the big one but it's not just the impact of climate change physically, it's also the impact of climate change on producers, particularly producers of fossil fuels. In the extractive industries area, which I now work on, there's a very large debate around what we call stranded assets. Basically, fossil fuels, which are out there, for example, some of the gas which is offshore the coast of Africa or coal, which really simply can't be burned if we are to achieve the climate change targets. Companies in the extractive industries area are very concerned about this. So if you look at the oil companies, they're under a great deal of pressure, for example, Exxon, Mobile, BP and so forth, to declare to financial regulators what will be the impact of climate change on the assets they value on their books as companies. What does this imply for revenues? Well, it actually implies that a lot of countries that are sitting on very large reserves of fossil fuels are gonna face a headwind. They're gonna face a headwind of prices as the world moves to renewable technologies, energy technologies, and they're gonna face a sector, the fossil fuel sector, of investors who are gonna drive very hard bargains on tax agreements with countries because for an oil company, there are now multiple sources of oil and gas. And so what you've seen is a real shift of power and bargaining power over to the investor and the exploitation company. So this is gonna change the tax environment for producers in all kinds of ways and actually redoubles the need for extractive resource rich countries to redouble their efforts on developing non-resource sources of revenues. For countries that have resources like metals, like lithium and cobalt, which are incredibly in demand now for use in renewable technologies, energy technologies. I mean, for example, lithium, Zimbabwe now sits on one of the world's largest deposits of lithium.  So we need more research on what this implies longer term for the pattern of revenues going forward. And then finally, there's a whole set of revenue risks that are coming at us that may not make the development future the same as the development past. One is obviously climate change that I mentioned. The other is price shocks, price shocks that are uncertain, we don't know. Nobody really predicted the collapse in the oil price over the last five or six years, including some of the major oil companies. Pandemics, very little research has been done on the impact of pandemics on the tax base. But if you look during the Ebola crisis in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the tax base took a tremendous hit. Mining companies shut down, obviously economic activity just contracted, transactions contracted so that affected VAT. We need to know much more about this because of course you have to keep states going and finance while they're coping with pandemics. It's part of the response to the pandemic crisis. Intensifying global competition that can shut down a successful economic sector and a successful source of revenue. The classic here would actually be Nokia in Finland which contributed massively to the Finnish tax base 10, 15 years ago, which is now a much smaller company. The tax policies of developed countries, of rich countries, I mean one thinks here of the Trump border tax, and of course then conflict. And these revenue risks, which we need to explore much more including what are called fat tail events in the options literature are really important if we're gonna build more robust fiscal systems that could cope to shocks. And I think that's been a very underexplored area in the literature. And the second reason it's very important is that actually quite a lot of research shows that aid, foreign aid, is pro-cyclical rather than counter-cyclical. So that quite often when you're in a difficulty or in a crisis, you actually lose some aid rather than gain some aid. So you can get a sort of double whammy. So we need to look at that much more in future. Okay, well the presentation has much more discussion of these, you can sort of see it online. I'd like to make an advert for my project on extractive industries and development, which is up on the wider website. And just thank you all for that. Yeah, great.


Joining me at the CHTO booth is Cody Porterfield, the 2018 limited Open for Trudy winner. Cody Road cat getter and scored a 2-23. Great effort there congrats to you. Thank you very much. So this is actually your second win of this actual title. Yes ma'am. 2015? Yes ma'am. So how does this one feel? How does it compare? Oh it feels great. I mean it feels real good. They always feel good.  Right. In terms of how they feel. So what was it that you would say has changed about you as a trainer in the past three years since that win in 2015? Well I think it definitely my getting the show more and I've got a little more under my belt since then so I have a little more confidence going down there. When I first won it I hadn't showed very much so that was we actually watched the video not too long ago and it was two totally different runs and so I think mainly that even though it's still it's still hard to go down there and show but doing it more now I think helped you know having the having the more what would you call it more experience. More experience yeah definitely more experience helped. Yeah yeah and your horse cut getter how has how has it developed over this past year in its three-year-old year? You know I've always liked her. Jack's center to me Jake Murray had her as a two-year-old and I got her and and I've always kind of liked her from the get-go. She's always felt smart about a cow to me and and and just maybe not the easiest to train but always no matter what went back to the cow so so I've always liked that about her. And in what way notice mentally or physically or just because the young horses? Probably you know she's she's so smart about a cow so she kind of always wanted to do it her way in a sense and so trying to get the little control that and style that we want on her and keep that cow in her is probably the hardest part but no matter what I did throughout the year she always come back and went right back to to the cow so I think that was very important. So talk about the challenge of training a horse for the faturity about trying to get you know this young horse to physically get to the place where they need to to be able to confidently you know block that cow and to mentally get get to that place when they're still pretty young and you know to have it on your timetable. Well I think it's definitely you use the word there of confidence and and I think a lot of it is confidence and and having one feeling good and healthy and and strong and and sound. I think that as long as they're confident I think you can do a lot with the horse but but I think you have to have them horses confident and trained enough to where they can get through the hard situations in there because they are going to be thrown to you and and mainly just try to advance and try to have as less penalties as you can have throughout each go-round is kind of the goal and and I think that comes with a more trained confident horse.  Yes ma'am. Well you started out was it started out leasing John Mitchell's place and now you actually own it don't you. Yes ma'am.  There is both sides really and there's there's a lot of pressure on you know that we have to make the payments and keep it running so we have to win and do good but also the sense of being able to wake up and know that I don't have to leave and I can the the comfort of that is is by far been the most unbelievable thing I felt it's just for everybody there I mean we we can do anything I want so it that helps. And do you have more room you can take on horses or because you've got your own place do people say oh wow let's now send Cody a horse how to kind of impact us it has. I think so you know before when I was leasing and I got the lease from great people and some great places but but it does you know you only have a certain amount of space that you can and and here we can grow to the number that I want to be at you know and that I'm comfortable with so so it does that does help and and too I think it gives our owners more of a mind frame of stability you know that they know I'm gonna be there and and I'm not going anywhere so. I guess just family wise too because now you you've got a daughter that's probably gonna grow you just feel more established. Oh definitely you know plant your roots so to speak. Definitely definitely. And take us through your kind of journey you know where you started in the sport. Well actually in 2006 I found my first cutting horse and Georgia Welch was the first one that put me on a cutting horse. I didn't even know what it was. She we got together for the all-around high school rodeos and I was very competitive and in the other events and I had a buddy that that roped and rode all rust stock and he cut and I didn't even know what cutting was. Well anyways we got hooked up with Georgia and next thing you know we was on the back of a cutting horse and I pretty much moved out there to Buster Welch's with Dawson Burns his grandson and and just loved it and and you know I was in and out of there for a while and rodeoed for a while and then I think 2011 I moved down here and went to work for Corey Pounds and and worked there for a good while and and then when I left I went to work for Terran Rice and I was with Terran until I believe 2013 and then he went to work for Center Ancient encouraged me to stay there at Carl and Shawnee Smith's and Jack's Barrow and that's what we did so and here we are. Now we're going to talk through your run you're going to critique it we'll grab that and and watch that but before we do that I just wanted to ask you overall what you what your goals in the sport are what what's your most important goal that you've got your eye on? Well you know a bunch of my heroes and are some of the best trainers in this deal I mean all these guys up here on this banner you know I look at all them guys as horsemen and they're they're the best but they're also great men and and I would love to to be looked at it's how I look at them because all them guys besides horse training if they didn't even have nothing to do with the horse you'd love them they're great people I thought it showed the other day we watched Hybrow CD sell and and to watch Austin Shepard you know his reaction to that I thought that was unbelievable because we all we all love horses and that's why we do this I I think that's probably the main thing is just of course winning but at the same time it's you know we all love horses and and I think if I could grow up to be like them or and have that reputation of being a winner and also just a great person would be be the top of my list well Katie I think you're well on your way to that and watch this space huh you might have your own DVD here before long that would be that would be a great spot to be in those are the best right there awesome okay well let's have a look at your run okay what are you thinking at this stage when you're entering the herd well this this first cow we cut was a brown braimer that we actually didn't talk much about we knew her and she acted good on a couple of cuts before and Boyd told me definitely cut that cow he he loved her and right here I thought oh boy I thought she's gonna be a little much but I thought this really got the run started great and and I felt like it got my mare tapped off to where we needed to be and I I knew when I quit this cow that she felt good and and and after that cow I knew that we had a good run started and here was a black moth that we we did talk about some and and Matt Miller and Jamie they they liked her a lot before we went down there and she acted good on my first cut and she just kind of shaped up right here and and this cow was awesome too and and I had a lot of work in time here I thought whenever whenever I worked this cow I knew we we definitely didn't need to screw it up because I had a lot of work in time and felt like the mare was pretty spot-on and that was a tough set of cows to both both sets of those finals were tough I felt like there were a lot of good horses and and those guys just really weren't allowed to get their horses shown and I thought that we we just cut the best three cows at night so do you do you kind of get worried when you have to spend a lot of time on a cow or do you just let the horse do you just follow them not on the cow like that and like that night my horse felt great you know right here when I turned around to cut this cow I knew she was in a good spot and I was a little worried I held on there for a little bit but my horse was kind of out of air and and I didn't want to overdo it but I knew I knew we had a pretty good run going so I didn't want to mess the opportunity to go ahead and take advantage of it but but I was really happy with my mare you look like you look like you felt triumphant with the little fist pump there I did I was I didn't know if it would win but I thought it was a good run and and I was just happy of that mare I I thought she really showed some good stuff that night so what are the plans for the semis well I I really hadn't changed my plans and ever run I mainly have the same plan I want to try to cut the best three cows that we have and and just be smooth and and try to be as have a cleaner run as I can and I think when you get to trying to force a big run it doesn't really work but I think if you do your homework and you your horse is trained and I think you then have to try to cut the three best cows and what happens happens as anybody knows anything can happen down here yeah yeah and and the man what are you going to do long-term for the rest of the we definitely plan on showing her the the I mean hopefully just keep going so yeah we hadn't really planned on where we're going next but but definitely keep going


That is how you use your life-scope to get on top of fish. Big, crappy. That's as easy as that, guys. Just gonna stay on them. I got a whole school here just like that.


So there's two pieces of your axial skeleton that are associated with your bony thorax, and that is the sternum, which is this whole, basically your breastbone. It's the sternum. And your ribs. The sternum plus the ribs make up your bony thorax. Your ribs articulate with your thoracic vertebra in the back, on the posterior side. And this is where I wanted to show you a picture so that you could kind of visualize the unique features on the thoracic vertebra. So we know this is a thoracic vertebra, and we know that because, look, there is a rib attached to it. There is a rib articulating with this vertebra. We have two places where the ribs articulate. We have here, that's actually called the tubercle, tubercle of the rib, and we articulate with the body of the vertebra, and that is the head of the rib. So the head of the rib articulates with the body of a thoracic vertebra, and the tubercle of the rib articulates with the transverse process of the thoracic vertebra. The place on the vertebra, where the articulation happens, are you ready for this? Visualize, if you will. The head of the vertebra articulates with the costal demi facet on the body, and there's no eye there, on the body of the thoracic vertebra. Here's my body. Why is it called a demi facet? Demi half, it's half a facet, which makes complete sense because you can't really see it here, but the head of the vertebra articulates with the costal demi facet of two thoracic vertebra. So stack them up. I'm just going to show you so that you can visualize this. You stack them up, and I don't know, can you even see anything? You agree. Now, we have costal demi facets on the body, and if we were to attach a rib right here, the head of the rib would actually attach between the two, like a little bit on the inferior surface of the top vertebra and a little bit on the superior surface of the bottom vertebra. Whoa, did you follow that? And because it's half one rib articulation attaches half to each vertebra, it's called a demi facet, a half a facet. The whole facet is the whole thing. That rib, the head of the rib attaches there, and then the tubercle of the rib attaches to a facet on the transverse process. So, and that's my costal facet. So my costal facet is found here, right here, except I do not want, I need a new color, new colors. It's going to be green. Here is my costal facet. The costal facet on the transverse foramina, I mean the transverse process of the thoracic vertebra, articulates with the tubercle of the rib. The head of the rib articulates with the costal demi facet on the thoracic vertebra, the body of the thoracic vertebra. Whoa, write that down in one little mouthful. The sternum is pretty straightforward. I think we have three sternum parts that we have to know. First of all, is this tiny little bad boy down here. That little twanger is called the manu, I mean the xyphoid process. Here it is, the xyphoid process. It hangs down. It's like palpated if you grab your sternum. This is the body of the sternum. And this guy right here, the top little piece, is called the manubrium. Manubrium. On the manubrium is the suprasternal notch, that little notch right there, and you can feel that puppy. Aw, there's my suprasternal notch. You can even see it if you get your, here we go, sternocleidomastoid, which is this muscle right there, attaches to your suprasternal, attaches next to your suprasternal notch of your manubrium of your sternum. How awesome are bone bumps? The sternal angle is this thing. There was one more. That's my sternal angle. And the sternal angle on, you can actually, I can feel mine. People have a more pronounced sternal angle, but you can feel the, it's a point that you can actually identify. And I think there's clinical significance in that puppy.  WSF scope. Shall we do the pectoral girdle next? I'm in. Let's do it.