And now for the last live stream here of 2023 We'll close the door on this chapter. We'll look to the future in 2024 to establish Thesis about where we think that the market will end up You know you look at some of the thesis on where 2023 was supposed to end up with the S&P 500 You'd be entertained. Most of the analysts had it in the high threes low fours and the S&P closed today Up 24% for the year fantastic year in in the broader markets Nobody would have predicted that I Think just as of six months ago The pulse on the channel that I was trying to combat a little bit was analyst coming on and suggesting that you needed to take your entire Portfolio and invest in the bond market That that was a far cry from the inevitable recession that we were supposed to have here in 2023 I find it ironic how we keep going through these habitual bad habits over and over and over and Over and over and over again It's amazing what people think actually works in stock market investing That doesn't work and it is amazing what actually works in reality that all too often I find People don't want to focus on and and these are not novel concepts I own none of them I Do pay attention and I report out on those items because I have put them to rigor and I report out on the results that are rendered by Deploying those strategies that have been tried and true Tested and and do in fact work For the for those of you guys out there that know me and understand I do Deploy kind of a multi approach strategy I pay attention more than the average bear look I you want to get ahead financially pay a little more attention as opposed to no attention challenge the idea that your money has to be put to sleep with a money manager professional With a fake plant and an oak desk and a little pig on the corner that they're going to give you before you leave They'll provide you a beautiful colored pamphlet portfolio They will give you all kinds of reasons as to why your Money is best suited with them and they can get you out the door as quickly as possible You will have every indication That the suit and tie that the individual wears or the beautiful clothes Actually does in fact contribute to your bottom line They will have you believe that there's absolutely too much that requires in-depth self-study on You have to be able to read financial statements to succeed at stock market investing. It's too complex It's better if you leave it with the money manager professional because you'll have an edge on every other investor out there We have access to information that you don't have access to The fact that I'm not wearing socks tonight is Going to actually be a detriment to your bottom line The very fact that I don't wear a suit and tie when I come on to YouTube just speaks to my insistence that a Suit and tie will not contribute to your bottom line I'm here to break it to you for you guys that are interested in the truth Ghosts don't exist either Just thought I'd break it to you and for you guys that are firmly Enjoying your feet squarely in the earth and enjoying the really real world You can actually start to realize that What you need to know about investing and putting capital to risk Is probably a far cry from what you think you have to know or What your neighbor Janelle told you you need to know or what's your best friend who would never lead you astray? Told you that cryptocurrency is super hot in 2023 and that's where you need to focus all of your attention in 2024 it's as if we never learn I look back over the last five years and Kathy would Archi TFs, which is again starting to be the new craze Spacks certainly cryptocurrency one of those things that I believe is Muddying the truth you want to invest in cryptocurrency. Hell. I'm not your dad I'm not your father through YouTube I'm just a guy who comes on and sports my opinion. I'm just here to suggest that Every dollar that's donated to cryptocurrency is one less dollar that you could invest in I don't know Let's say like an aduro clean technologies. I don't know, but the utility is improving Ryan No shit when that utility gets to a point where it's justifiable for me to spend $42,000 on a on a crypto coin a Bitcoin You let me know now my naive nature and Lack of understanding and knowledge about this particular topic may just play into the fact of why I think My common sense tells me that it's a complete and utter farce People who come on to television and speak about cryptocurrencies are quite frankly very entertaining to me Human beings can be led in a number of different directions It's as if we allow the leash to be put on our necks and we actually hand over the leash to somebody to lead us astray Way too willingly instead of avoiding the leash at all cost Maybe coming to grips with some of those things that actually do work in stock market investing But what are some of those things? What is the best stock to buy? You know fantastic candid discussion in the Viper group this week on investing in single stock and I Map money who's part of my Viper group just kind of a brother of mine Self-made millionaire. He said even I and I fall victim to this a lot We have ourselves convinced somehow That investing in single stock is a viable option in stock market investing. I Invest in single stock. There's some folks I see in the group here Good evening to all of you who do engage in single stock investing But can you explain to me the capacity by which you invest in single stock? What percentage of your portfolio is dominated by single stock investing and For every dollar that's allocated to a like a dividend growth strategy or a growth strategy Maybe you heard on CNBC that there's this magnificent seven that you need to invest in But to break it down in a way that I can understand your rationale In such a way that I can give you my stamp of approval on what you have just Reiterated to me with regard to your strategy on how single stock investing is going to win out over the long term Matt made a good point. He suggested that You know, we all kind of have ourself convinced a little bit that we're gonna pick those Winners and you look at the performance of meta this year in Nvidia and and Microsoft and Google Amazon Absolutely phenomenal performance Absolutely phenomenal But I think all too often what people miss are the huge drawdowns in single stock No matter what stock it is at any given time these are companies that on the onset can appear to be value Plays that can never go down. I would have said this about Disney five years ago and Disney has been on an absolute free fall here just within the last five years So if you're gonna come to me and suggest that you've got this stock a Value stock that is gonna outperform the market every single year From now over the next 20 to 30 years. I'd like to hear it. I really would Because if there's something that I Again with my socks off and my bare feet and with no tie, right?  It's that If you're going to take any amount of money and there could be very specific situations where an AT&T makes sense for you as an investor, okay? If you came to me and said Ryan, I've got $2,500. I'm gonna invest in AT&T.  Are they eventually gonna pay off that huge lump of debt on their books? It's it's this very notion that for the twenty five hundred dollar investor It makes no sense whatsoever Whereas if somebody is sitting on a mill mill and a half to two and a half million, maybe they own their own business They're financially secure And they came to me and they said ryan. I want to invest 25,000 in AT&T. It's a company. I've always wanted to own I've done my research. It looks like they're chipping away At their debt. They're gonna chop direct tv, right? They're doing some things internally. It looks good I'm gonna go after the six seven percent dividend Now in that particular case it makes a hundred percent sense That you have done your homework and it makes sense to to render that higher than average dividend off of that 25 thousand dollars So where it be right for one person? It's absolutely wrong for another person. How is that possible ryan? I don't get this In either case what gets missed especially amongst the new investor crowd I was just asked today by someone who We engaged in a great discussion On our way to a to a job I said, you know, if you could give one investment advice, what would it be? You know, what what would be that stock for 2024 and I said look If I had it to do over again and I had to go back and I started at 18 years old There would be one investment and one investment alone that I would invest invest in Far and away from any other investment That's with the investments that I know made 30 000 percent 20 000 percent 10 000 percent. It doesn't even matter If I knew what I knew now and I could go back It would be any one of three holdings. That's it One of three anybody want to take a guess at what any one of those three are? I'll wait And this is easy within my fidelity account I have the ability to Um Your blue wrench commentators would never lead you astray um When I look at fidelity and I have the ability to compare specific mutual funds to the s and p 500 Do it every now and then uh, you'll prove my theory correct In that even with the high fees Even with the fact that it's actively managed Comparatively speaking Any of those assets most any of them now you can find those mutual funds that do outperform the s and p 500 Don't get me wrong. I just bought it Um this week. Um, I bought a semiconductor Fs elx I believe that's the one but it's the semiconductor mutual fund It's been around since 1985 Um, it's performed really really well 25 percent of the top holdings is in vedya, but they own the entire Semiconductor index. I see some of you guys Uh guessing Got some good guesses That's for sure vti. I own Vo o is is right on the money now I honestly kind of put those into the same category but To make it very very simple for anybody who's making their way to the live stream within the first 15 minutes or so of the show The s and p 500 I don't care if you take vo o.  I just purchased ivv for myself and my roth. I array Just this week I I just cannot justify in my mind And there have been people here just as of late who would suggest through the twitter I go on to twitter to get my financial advice because i'm a complete idiot And I figure twitter is a really good source of information So when I tune in there, I see comments come through like dollar cost averaging doesn't work Can you explain that to me?  It sounds a really really professional You take a small wad of cash and you put it to investments On a little dab of a frequency Every two weeks every month whatever it is me personally. I started with 25 dollars And that's why I use that figure when I throw it out there and provide that kind of testimonial of those things that are highly underrated and in some case scoffed at With regard to what will work for the masses. Okay A duro clean technologies is working for me. It will continue to work A duro clean technologies as beautiful as a company as it is It is in the micro cap space which is coming off of very very tough three years Okay, we're starting to see a little bit of grumblings for good reason Capital has been very tight the Fed looking and forecasting potential rate hikes into 2024 Should give more of a perception of a free Free or access to capital whereas that perception Again, the truth ends up somewhere in between perception and reality on how much the Micro cap market needed to suffer with this perception because now we're looking at What is being sifted through and we're finding these companies that are like, holy crap These have always been good companies, but they've been beaten down in a market. They're for gaining a lot less favor But a duro clean technologies isn't for everybody You tune into the independent investor channel and Like hey, man, I want to buy my first stock and a duro clean technology. I want to buy $2,500 Again, I'm not here to tell you what to do But if you don't have $10,000 invested in the smp 500 and you want to go with a speculative name like that All the power to you that's the best name I can absolutely come up with but Typically your odds Significantly go down in succeeding For a lot of different reasons.  You're the man. I'm the man. I'm a man I'm going to go and use my manly hood and buy a duro clean technologies against your advice Okay You sucker and the stock goes up to two dollars and fifty cents and you sell the stock for 150 percent profit I showed you ryan I'm a better investor than you ryan.  He talks about doing it for 25 years.  It's just that you were ill prepared to Have the mental fortitude to own a position like this has taken me decades to build up the level of acknowledgement Define the The risk versus the reward It helps to be sitting on a half a million dollars of padding that I don't work at all to manage I I don't work at all to support my vti That requires zero effort on my part none zero Zip zip zero. I work harder lifting my glass I worked harder making the ice that went into this beverage I worked harder placing it to my lip than I did owning vti over the course of 2023 God damn. Let me think about that ryan. God dang it talking all kinds of hyperboles tonight Talking too fast, right? I can't understand you god. Dang it zero zero effort None My due diligence on aduro back to the speculative layer of the portfolio Allows me significant comfort Significant comfort in understanding that this party's just getting started Just getting just getting started. What can I say it's just getting started Gets up to 250 and that just gives me a much further base off of my Entry cost Right. I consider it to be insulation On a holding that I'm looking at for the first look at 10 bucks. I declared this on The the panel that we had this week with myself Penny queen, uh, who's a guest of the channel who's a frequent Feature channel of the channel and as well as my riyush and yuzan They've been guests of the channel and I appreciate their insights, but I think they I didn't really get a lot of response from them. I don't know if they think they're that I'm crazy I don't think this puts the stock Really at at a $10 valuation. I think this company could absolutely Rerate to the 1.5 to 2.5 billion Very very quickly Very quickly and I don't think there's a whole lot of Of of of craziness to be applied to them emboldening that top line Uh on their customer engagement program. I don't think that's too far-fetched Um, they've got a technology that works now. All they have to do is not screw it up on the roll out The big companies that want this technology. They're talking to big governments right now the mandates are coming It's not a plastic producer out there There's not a big oil company out there. That's not looking at this technology as we speak and if you want to look at themes By all means do it What's to suggest that kathy wood doesn't pick up on this and just pick up a duro clean technologies in her venture superstar portfolio arc s Superstar for the layman ARK ss is the ticker symbol With 65 million shares of float. I'm happy to be sitting on my Share account. I don't even know where I'm at right now. I think I'm somewhere In the fifth 55,000 range, maybe 56 57 59 close to 60 Not too shabby I think the take home really is is to Challenge this idea that what works for somebody? um, we'll specifically work for another And that philosophy really really hits home when we start to talk about specifics Right s chd. You got sophi I don't know if I'd put sophi in that super crazy category VoO most definitely You know, what what's to say that it's not worthwhile to take a little shot Sophi's been on fire make a little money. Why not? You know I feel like I've held google and amazon and microsoft and apple throughout the course of this entire year And I don't see the profits that they're that they're disclosing for the year-end profits. That's for sure Like I said, I mean if I would have listened to everybody at the beginning of 2023 We would have been we would have just been coming out of this A medium to mild to major recession in 2023 They had those same guys on cmbc today to come on and talk about Well, you know, we're still seeing the headwinds in the market and we're just coming off of a bannery year Like this has been one of the best years for the smp 500 in the history of the stock market How is that possible? Chairman Powell said that it could have been even better if it didn't if it didn't have the overhang of high inflation and high interest rates to go along with it and the market's chugging along really really well and You know, it sure didn't feel like that But it sure ended up that way and for those passive investors those investors not passive investors if I say passive investors I'll have to send you a bill for 3% management fee in the mail So I'll just say this investing in the stock market and then focusing on All the important stuff in life while your money is invested in the stock market That's passive investing. Okay And make no mistake about it. Whether I put socks on right now or remain barefoot It's not going to affect your performance in schd going forward over the next 20 years. It's not going to matter It's not going to matter. God dang I can't tell my friends about this guy. He wears the same t-shirt every friday. It must be poor He's posing. He's posing as somebody who knows what he's talking about. He's crazy The second this guy gets gets professional And starts to portray an image That's actually going to help my bottom line. See, I actually believe that right that I can tune in and if I You know, I don't know maybe come on and wear a cowboy hat And I need to bring back the whiteboard right Bring back the whiteboard God dang it doesn't It doesn't make a bit about bit of difference Okay What can make a huge difference is Taking a step back um listening You can disagree with what I say There's nothing that would suggest that you have to blindly follow or even agree with my philosophies You can disagree it with everything I say Disagree A suit and tie makes a huge difference, right? If you put a pair of socks on your portfolio would get one more percent of appreciation Then if you just went through the year with no socks on I think a little bit of common sense in this deal goes a long long way And so when people come to me and they ask me what's the best way to invest in the stock market in 2024 I would kindly respond by the smp 500 And live to fight another day get up to your first 10. I would say up the ante And I don't care if it's you know You know an index fund through vanguard or it's the ibv or or whatever that is um but You are basically guaranteeing yourself To have the greatest wealth building vehicle in your possession now And more importantly guaranteeing a matching of the market performance Over the next x number of years doesn't matter that variable can can can fluctuate 10 20 30 40 50 years plus doesn't matter And maybe sitting back in agreeing with this concept that the smp 500 now Will be different in 10 years. It will be different in 20 years 30 years 40 years and all you're doing is basically playing your reservation right to the smp 500 Indefinitely to have the best version of the smp right now But more importantly in 10 years and more to more importantly in 20 years and more to more to more importantly in 30 years Would you invested 10 years ago? If you knew that tesla was going to be in the smp 500 this year How about invidia the invidia wasn't part of the smp 500 the top 10 As those companies grow in market cap it it it makes sure that the continually has that best example of the A large capitalization Stock market in the u.s. And gives you that opportunity to have that exposure to that It is a very very powerful wealth building tool and when you put that tool As one element The second element being tax protection tax preservation tax adherence right you got to pay your taxes Tax protection being that it's housed in the right account Okay, and then preserve that money going forward with the reduction or elimination of fees That's the trifecta of independent investing and money market Planners analyst people who wear suits and ties That sound really really freaking awesome and they sound really really smart when they start talking about derivatives and they start talking about quantitative Artificial intelligence that's going to come and it's going to make our lives so much better And that you should just invest in the magnificent seven for the rest of your life And i'm the smartest tool in the shed Most of those analysts in 2023 were proven wrong Even some of the really that was dead six months ago my friends Don't you remember I was coming on to the live stream and even my pulse was different I was like, holy crap.  I know it doesn't suck I'm investing and that payoff is happening now when nobody's talking about it Everybody's panicking by in the market right now. I got there, you know It's my pay attention to the market for the last three years, but now everybody's telling me it's going off I had to pay attention to it now and start jamming a bunch of money into it at all time eyes It'll start to sell off and those people will sell it a loss and We'll start the cycle again the habitual cycle and the damnable misery cycle too because man alive Is it ever predictable the further down it goes the more aggressive I get in buying The higher it goes the more I take my foot off of the accelerator Or keep it the same to be honest with you. I've stayed pretty consistent on a 25 clip of contribution to at least my Thrift savings plan, which is government backed 401k type for all of you guys who join the the program and understand kind of how I deploy that section of capital right Giving stock picks is a stupid thing to do Um, I used to do it on the channel.     It's just stupid It says to be fair your stock picks are good Yeah, they're good because they're coupled with a a a yoke of philosophy On what it takes to own the stock How does it make sense to own an AT&T for somebody where it makes sense when I convey that it's not right for everybody How is it that it's okay for those participants out there that are right in their timing right in their life? the right amount of security the right amount of debt consolidation to zero to Justify taking a position on like a duro clean technologies. Why because I explain it a way that nobody else even explains It's the philosophy of owning stock.  That's a different story. What does success look like in the stock market? That I don't tell me. I don't I don't know. Tell me convince me about what stock market success looks like For me, the bottom line is growing Appreciated wealth at at least a clip that matches Or exceeds the smp 500 performance year in and year out That's success to me. That is a very very very high bar Okay matching the smp 500 I could take 10 people give them my philosophy. I could take a hundred people. I could take a thousand people This is why I talk scale to people and take a thousand minds Knowing nothing about the smp 500 and put a few rules over what they can and can't do One of those rules is to take x number of dollars put it into the smp 500 They cannot sell for a minimum of 10 years One thing I will guarantee you as after that 10 years Each of those thousand people will be better off Then they were when they started investing why because all thousand of them for 10 years straight Or guaranteed to match the performance of the market That's psychology You know, it's in a thousand percent. God dang it. I tell you what I hit 250 275 in baseball. I'm considered success Yes, I've just given you a thousand percent success in stock market by just matching the the performance of the smp 500 The problem is nobody speaks like that Nobody speaks as if that's some sort of success. I got dang right. I don't know. We're talking about low single digits in 2024 That that seems kind of anemic to me. I'm going to go after something Significantly more than that. Fantastic. You go. I wish you all the best in the world. Hell. You might even win And you might win again Then something funny is going to happen in 2026 you're going to zig and the market is going to zag And it's going to do something that it's been doing over the last 80 years of stock market and that is proving. No, it all's wrong I'm just a regular fry. Ryan. How do I stand a chance? I just told you a thousand people a thousand Investing x number of dollars doesn't matter what it is hundred dollars a thousand dollars the smp 500 If you came to me and said ryan, I've got a quarter million dollars. What do I do? I I don't know what to do the smp 500 is just as It has just the ample capacity to receive that 250,000 Then it does the first five hundred dollars of starting capital doesn't matter One asset one one remember one one asset Give me a basket of portfolio to build and so I'm going to build the technical pieces Port from the leg over here and in some higher performance over here and How to put this aggressive piece over here and this over here or this this bond piece over here It's kind of cancerous now It's kind of hanging off the portfolio. It doesn't look so attractive. They told me six months ago I've got to invest my 50 percent of my portfolio into bonds and I'm still waiting 12 months to gain that Four and a half percent that everybody says was the only option this year in 2023 Comes down to a very very simple fact when are you going to stop listening to everybody else? And start to listen to what is good for you what is good for you something? I've taught for seven years on the independent investor channel. That's good for you out the hill I don't know. I don't know what's good for me. Right.  That's why come on listen to you every friday rain Because I don't know what's good for me. Have you ever asked yourself? ask yourself Sometimes the coolest people that you can ever have the greatest conversation with is yourself ask yourself What type of investor I want to be? Why did god dang? I don't know. That's kind of fun Try to figure it out. Try to figure it out. Think about it Most people stick their head in their sand in the sand.  Oh god dang ryan. Hold on a time out a second ryan. God dang I'm not doing this thing to lose money. No kidding No kidding Then tell me where you're gonna be and how you're gonna get there into the future Okay, you tell me how my 10 year plan in the s and p 500 and that's not a plan That's just a i'm gonna prove the mother effing point to you right that those thousand investors Will absolutely be in a better place after 10 years by investing in and matching the performance of the stock market over the course of those 10 years God it's I can invest longer than 10 years ryan That just the light bulb comes on Yeah, that's that empowerment piece where you start to be like I dang this is easier than I thought I told you I didn't make it out to be something that it's not All right now nowhere in that 10 year psychology Did I say that you can add a little bit of nvidia in there to try to outface the market?  You're smarter than cousin vicki. You're smarter than Grandma kane, right?  Yeah, he did the match up portfolio. God dang. I'm an aggressive investor ryan I'm gonna outpace the performance of the s and p 500. I'm gonna add a little nvidia in there and over the course in the next 10 years something funny happens and nvidia fails to Perform in the market and the sentiment does something funny. It actually shifts Where nvidia isn't this gleaming beam of light shooting toward the star It's actually a fallen angel And the angel's falling down toward the ground and you're watching it You don't know when it's gonna hit right And your performance goes out the window and you're the one out of 1000 people You're the one person That underperformed the s and p 500 because you made one wrong move to do what? To invest in probably the number one stock right now that has got everybody talking going into 2024 Everybody has got to own nvidia Everybody has got to own nvidia because ai is going to take over the world and it's going to do your homework for you Got to own nvidia buy it. You'll outpace the market for the next 10 years. Could that happen? I don't know maybe Right, but you're missing my point in understanding what is good for one person might not be good for the masses All right, and once we can start to separate those disciplines We can really start to identify some of these very very simple No socks concepts that we can put together and and march into 2024 with some confidence Dare I suggest that you can actually have some fun with this you really can have some fun with it Have some fun Have some fun You don't have to have fun like you do other things right Have fun when you go to the gym Have fun when you hang out with family. Have fun when you budget plan because here's the thing It's a hell of a lot more fun to go on vacation When that vacation is paid for with the renderings from dividends It's fun. I don't know much. I mean you weird six sense of humor Ryan. God dang it. You you wear socks on vacation Oh my god You just totally missing the point Just totally missing the point man.  Yes, it seems selfish. You're selfish. You're so good to think about myself I think about others we're really how well has that worked out for you I've often found that the programs that I initiate in life that render the best results are the ones that I have Complete ownership over I put into play and I I'm completely responsible for the results that are rendered You ever notice that you ever notice when you rely on somebody else? It doesn't quite materialize in a way that you envisioned at materializing You ever notice that I don't think it'd be really careful Um, I didn't find aduro. Aduro was brought to me. I get full credit Full full credit two individuals There's one individual covering it before me One individual that owned the stock I think before or around the same time we were looking at it. Perhaps maybe that was carbonomics But mariusz penny owned it And and the opportunity was brought to me by the panel that I shared with you guys just with this weekend That panel was rich with value That was a reaction to the webinar from two weeks ago that was absolutely fraught with knowledge You wouldn't even need to have bought the stock Just sit there and listen to these guys. These are these are real people These are real people they truly are And by the admission of the chief revenue officer They've got the goods I don't I don't know I don't know He seems pretty convinced the guys got 40 years in the industry chemical engineer by trade and I'm very very impressed I'm not easily impressed This guy impresses me One of my bullish aspects around this specific company as a startup is The strength of the upper management. I really like the cfo I really do I really like Mina Bache very good I cannot wait where this company gets infused with some actual top line revenue And where where Mina is going to navigate this company. I'm really interested to see this company under this stress of Navigating through some really really interesting times. I think things are really going to pick up The company that we're monitoring right now Is a mere fragment of what we're going to see into the future We are not seeing the aduro of two years from now No freaking way. It just it's just not happening Okay, we will be looking at a completely different company two years down the line So those of you guys who are piecemealing the pint paintings together. God dang it I bought bought the stock at 82 cents and I sold it at 96 cents God dang it. I'll tell you what that Ryan guy.  It's it's like nothing's changed Um, I don't think this boost is really that material in nature except for the fact that it's being discovered I do agree with my riyush's post on twitter just this evening He talked about the stock being discovered that I do agree with If there's any type of small re-rating right now It's because of the modest buying being bought up right now because it's being discovered for the first freaking time It's being discovered. So from that perspective, ryan, you told us not to follow anybody look Okay, at some point somebody's got to say Hey, I don't know. You might want to check out the s and p 500 Which seemingly is the greatest secret ever in the history of stock market investing Uh, and I've opened up the war chest of options and you look in there and you're like, ah, dang ryan Thanks so much, man. This is very cool The s and p 500 should be common Knowledge should be taught in school. It should be common knowledge Why is it so socially acceptable to go start a checking in a savings account when we know damn well? I saw a tweet just tonight of a guy boasting about his $259,000 portfolio interest paid on that account from bank of america seven dollars Seven dollars, that's why I just left them Because they take your 250,000 and they do what I suggest That everybody do every single week on the friday live stream and that's invest your money. That's banking 101 That's what they do. They pay you shillings so that you can make a post about your awesome digital number Okay, they don't have a pile of cash for you in a vault that has your name on it. That's not how it works, right? It's a horrible institution. I was happy with them, but they paid horrible interest rates So I'm now with fidelity and I'm very very happy to have switched man It's a great great time and I'm getting very familiar with the account and I really like it really like it a lot I tell you what you know transferring from m1 finance is Interesting. I had some learnings through that whole process. That's for sure They take the whole shares They leave the partial share remainder in the account and it sweeps over and over and over again So dividends that were due will remain in there and then that cash actually will come To follow some time down the line. I they said yesterday it'd be about five days But I presume that and they locked the account down so you can't touch that so that additional capital So the 27,000 of the sector portfolio that I transferred out there's 1300 Of partial share dollars that were liquidated Remained in the account and I think they're just continually sweep that account So kind of cool stuff when within the last 10 minutes, man, that was a cool live stream I didn't have any notes. I didn't have any socks I declared that to you sometimes the coolest content that I come out with is the stuff that I think less about um I think you should deploy some of that strategy. Stop thinking so much Stop thinking that you have to know a ton of stuff um Nothing special about me. I'm a good teacher No doubt about it. I'm a good motivator. I'm a good guy to have on the team No doubt I'm kind of a cool person. I like myself And and and and I'll be dang people like me I know Very cool Victories in the house. He was the first one on the live stream and I give me a thumbs up tonight. I appreciate you, brother I really appreciate you Almost missed it. Happy new year's happy new years to you my friend good convo the other night. That was very cool I really appreciate it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's great to have you part of the family, brother Happy new year to you very cool stuff Kelvin's in the house. What's going on Kelvin? Kelvin's been with me for many many moons He's like a chieftain in the tribe, man. It's like part of the circle of elders Mm-hmm You betcha man one of many really really cool people in the group here That's where the strength of the channel comes from Relationships built over Many many years of good good good fine people like this. Kelvin's great man. I spoke with him offline I'm really really cool got to meet his family school stuff Stuff I get off on, you know They're very cool. What's up, Ryan? And family glad to be here. It's pleasure. Can't catch you all the time Just know I'm always watching listening fantastic.  It's all good The channel exists and the result that you get by deploying some of the simple strategies on the channel That thousand people that I talked about in my example. That's very very real I I don't throw that out there willy-nilly, but it absolutely drives down the point that people's objectives in stock market investing Is is really really off-kilter and it needs to be brought home and it needs to be simplified Simplification in stock market investing has its place. It really does. I don't understand twitter I don't get it.   Don't do it Dad's in the house. He says he agrees a thousand percent caught the message I drive home the point a little bit. I truly mean that man I truly do that's good stuff I don't know very cool, man Let's see in both slides Very cool. I have mostly s&p, but topped it off with the technology and smh smh is Semiconductors as well. I don't have all my ticker symbols memorized. Semiconductors Now that's a good one. I'm on the mutual fund. I was telling you guys about that. I entered into Um a $2,500 bill. So for me not too big of a deal Um kind of a cool way I already invest in the sectors. I already invest in total market. I already invest in international I already invest in smp 500 in multiple accounts in different capacities, right? So it kind of made sense. I was kind of looking for something a little more active And that's what I got very cool stuff Blue collars in the house Been a long time since I joined I'm glad to have you man. Thanks for coming in It's it's nothing really that special about it. It's not I don't know I I could talk about this topic all day every day. Hell. I had a lengthy conversation in new york traffic today on the way to admission No big deal just change the kids life If he's watching tonight shout out No big deal There's change in some lives man with no socks. Can you believe that I should go get a tie and just throw it around my neck So it's official So you can feel inclined to actually go forth and succeed because of the power of the dye Good stuff The power of the dye Yeah, microsoft phenomenal holding man you just buy microsoft and own it forever Very very cool you know Yeah, it's a it's a good one. It's um One of my largest holdings Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Will not lead you astray No, it's a good group man. What are your thoughts on highly on as of today? Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy in four minutes. You want to get me started on this old girl? Oh boy Yeah, I'd love to come out with the reaction video. It would piss a lot of people off Um, I still own a lot of shares in the company I think the transparency is horrible I think the compensation to the board of directors in the upper management is absolutely piss on unjustifiable I think this company has an inability To identify markets and build products and sell said product to those markets because they have not done their homework to Identify whether or not those markets actually want their effing product or not But because they were backed against the wall And are stuck having to do little things like a feudal 20 million dollar buyout that by all means it worked it worked Okay, and they had how much follow through on that zero zero follow through on it um, I I I you know, I I spoke with the ceo of a duro clean technologies yesterday How many times did I ever solicit for thomas heli's? Invitation to come on now. Hey, it was going on the new york stock exchange delivering christmas trees and going on every other youtuber out there and yeah, you know Pissed him off and he probably had a lot to do with why it didn't come on but I never ever had a chance to have one tweet returned Not one Acknowledgement not one invitation honored and looked at Actually early ron in the game I had one that was looked at and they were like yeah right on we'll broach it to thomas thomas has a secret internal team That will broach the information to him and he'll decide what public appearance. He wants that guy You know, who does he think he is making a ton of money to run a company into the ground and Until they can prove out something on the top and bottom line as to whether or not there is Any interest and I don't care about a letter of agreement That's talking about two sales by what the end of 2024 That's not going to move the needle and I don't care how much cash they have I'm very very bitter on the name right now. I do own shares in the company It's based on the technology Of of the stationary power generating and the space and the niche that they work on and the ungodly Long shot that they pull erx back off the shelf And actually take that product and put it to a market that is more conducive To receiving that really what I can glean is a very very good product That they are just a small fry and suffered in rolling out that big boy product to a big boy industry They wanted to play the big boy game and they are not big boy Okay, they are small time player and they they've just got to make some moves and be more transparent across the board They've really just got to clean up the leadership and the and the uh the management to that company. I'm I'm very disappointed. I'm very Very disappointed in how they roll out their execution and comparatively speaking To some of the other companies that I quite frankly have moved on because it's a lot of fun to cover them. They're very transparent Um, you know, I I talk openly with upper management I talk with liaisons and people who are excited about the name It just it doesn't it doesn't I don't feel that with this company. I think they feel like there's somehow something that they're not And until they can humble themselves and realize look they they they have to they have to They have to they did not properly gauge the market that they were stepping into And that will always and forever leave a scar and for those people out there Silent alert. My heart goes out to the guy andrius great great people But continuing to be bullish on the story and not holding them to a line of you got to show me results Is is really just continuing to exacerbate an already horrendous Um situation And that's my two cents on it. Um, I will not cover the company. I refuse to do it Um, I I have better work to do I have more of an inkling to cover the stuff that I want to cover at this time. Why Because i'm not speaking into a black hole I have reciprocation on those projects where they come back and they're like a I caught your content It was very heartfelt. You're very very real in your videos You're damn right I am real and I do acknowledge and and deserve at least a little bit of reciprocation And I get that from some of my other projects and I never got it from that project or whatsoever I gave a lot of hours a lot of time a lot of effort For for zero appreciation on it. It's unsatisfactory and whether or not it'll play out into the future Is is yet to be determined. It's really on the shelf right now and I hope they work it out We're going to continue to monitor the story in 2024. Um, but I am done reporting out on that opportunity. I am absolutely I'm done. I'm done Very cool stuff. Happy holidays wishing everybody the best very cool stuff We'll end on a high note here We got one of the matriarchs of the independent investor channel I should actually offer her shares and compensation in the independent investor channel offer her 1.1 million dollars a year to to be a patron of the independent investor channel have a seat of the board of directors Uh, share her sell her a nice block of independent investor shares, right? Hell I make more on the top line than highly on does good grief Running a mother fm youtube channel with no freaking socks on and I don't need neon green shoes Nor do I need a neon green tie to prove my point. Nope. My words do that just Just fine guys. Thank you so much. It's been a hell of a year Very trying year I was with you every step of the way Um You can absolutely say that to me my devotion and low markets and high markets is all the same very very high I'm devoted to the project. I'm devoted on giving you my best pulse of stock market investing To speak and empower to those one investors that need that motivation. They need that council They need that mentorship to make sure that they're one of those thousand patrons or 10,000 or 100 thousands or millions of people out there that need to understand the value of where to put their focus And that focus is much more obvious Then the mass media would have you believe that it's somehow some elusive thing that you have to pay for For exclusive access guys. Thank you so much. Happy new year to each and every one of you We'll be back with you next friday on the fastest 60 minutes on youtube the independent investor channel live stream We'll see you in 2024 You


So, the first thing I want to do is make a question myself to each one of you and I told you over email that you had five minutes to answer it, but you're going to have three. Yeah, because we're a little bit late and I do want to hear from the audience. So, I'm going to start in reverse order. Patricia, you have not only contributed tremendously to our knowledge of the relationship between political violence and development across many regions of the world and you showed that in your short presentation, but you have also been instrumental to increase the number of scholars that work on these issues across the world as well as to coordinate them through the creation of networks and joint initiatives. So, you have been an inspiration to many of us. So, given your knowledge of so many different contexts throughout the world and your network of co-authors, what are the main differences in the relationship between inequality and violence across the world and what might be some of the key factors that shape these regional differences? That is the question to you and I'm going to ask the other questions and then give you three minutes. So, Diana already anticipated what my question was going to be, which is, okay, so your presentation was very interesting about the diagnostics of the problem in the city of Bogota. I know, so I did my homework and I know that there are many initiatives in the secretary to address these issues. So, for instance, that primer paso and opportunities for women such as income generation and training and all that. I was particularly interested in what I saw about and I'm going to say in Spanish Apologies Casas de Igualdad de Oportunidades para las Mujeres that seems to be particularly go at the heart of what we're discussing today, Igualdad de Oportunidades and one of the issues that you do in these Casas de Oportunidades is to sensibilize women towards the reduction of violence against them. So, I want to hear a little bit about the initiatives that the secretary are doing and particularly about these initiatives that seems particularly important in this context. So, Diana, you also have been a leading expert in studying things such as subnational governance and you have challenged the conventional wisdom by showing that oftentimes rebels substitute the states in large parts of countries. So clearly the extent to which inequality triggers violence and shapes productivity depends on the underlying institutional strength and state capacity. So my question to you is how does rebel governance shape the relationship between inequality, violence and productivity in conflict affected areas? And finally, Marcella, so you devised and coordinated this regional report which argues that beyond reinforcing one another, violence and inequality are concomitant to many of the main challenges that the region faces nowadays. For example, economic growth, corruption, trust, clientelism, just to mention a few and many of these issues have been mentioned by either Anna or Patricia. So while this implies that policies to promote regional development should be coordinated across sectors and across countries of the region, this is something that in the region we rarely see. So the region lacks this coordination. How can we achieve better coordination where the main bottlenecks to that coordination and what is the UNDP or what can the UNDP do to help achieve this goal? So those are the questions. So let's start with you, Trixie. Maybe two minutes. Because as usual, this is always very scary to have Juan being the chair of these things because he asks the first question and he starts a new research program, so we could be here for a while. Maybe we'll come back in ten years, Juan, and answer that question. But one of the things that is quite striking in this literature, we started by looking at the effects of inequality on political violence but on civil wars particularly. I started looking at civil war outcomes and one of the things across the world is the lack of causal evidence. No, it doesn't seem to happen. Whereas we know from other literatures outside economics there has to be something in there. So the movement then was to start looking at first at different forms of violence and then unpacking what this inequality thing actually means. In terms, so I was very sweeping through the thing, but one of the things that seems to come across in not a very dissimilar way across all these countries is the impact of inequality seems to be stronger on lower, on events of low levels of violence like rioting, protests and so forth. There seems to be more consistency than looking at civil wars, et cetera, and of course homicides. I mean that usually, I mean in terms of criminal violence and homicides, that seems to be there as well. And it's not that different. One main difference, I'm not going to anticipate Anna's question, but one main difference has to do with the institutional capacity of countries. So if we're going to see how one thing, when inequality impacts all these kind of violent undesirable outcomes has to really do with the institutional capacity of the country to, and I'm repeating myself, to sort of maintain the social contract, ensure security, ability to make sure that services are provided to citizens, et cetera. For instance, the rising protests that we see in Latin America, which Anna showed since 2013, a lot of it is actually due to not so much shifts in inequality per se, but how the middle class has perceived their living standards in relation to, say, the upper classes. So there's been a story about the middle class as opposed to the traditional, the way we see inequality, which is the difference between the bottom and the top. So that would be my answer. So that doesn't really answer anything like I said. This is a huge research agenda to compare countries because there's so different how these things measure and then data is a mess. But if I had to say two things, it varies across different types of violence, including what the types that Anna mentioned. I just know of a project by Anko Hofla, who's looking at the impact of inequality on domestic violence and she sees effects, really strong effects, and against abuse against children as well. And the role of the state in all of this as well seems to be important. But I know Anna is going to say probably more about that. So thank you, Juan. And I think I mentioned previously that Bogota clearly adopts and believes on the two fold, analyzing and addressing violence resonates with violence causes inequality and then inequality can be a causal effect of inequality or correlated. Because I insist we should make a bit of that difference constantly. And so the way to address it in some of the few things that Juan mentioned and thank you for doing your homework one, reflect how we offer those services. So let me briefly tell you. So with regards to direct services to prevent and assist or attend those who've been victims of violence. One, there's clearly Juan mentioned Dal Primer Paso. And Dal Primer Paso is a campaign that basically calls women to step out. Both women and anybody who knows of a case of violence. But then we had to expand our services. But there was also this idea that women, that we should go where women are naturally going if they're victims of violence, which implies a way of switching the mindset of how usually the public sector works, which is this is a service we have and you must adjust to it, which is not where do you need us to be. And that was our switch. So what did that imply? We created three 24 hour, seven days a week services because violence occurs everywhere in the city and it occurs at all times. And so one was the purple hotline, which is our violence hotline. And it existed previously, but it had a 30% effectiveness rates. And we increased it to an average of a 96%. Why? Because the pandemic also increased our reports on domestic violence. But we also had to what's up, expanded the what's up. Why? Because the youth that are suffering violence are not used to calling. They what's up. So we had to adjust to the ways young women are reporting cases of violence. Also sign language for death women. We had to have a way for them to report their cases of violence. Another service, and this is all to say, if you want us to, if we want you when inviting you to step out, this is what we have for you. Another service is having lawyers 24 seven at hospitals. When we compare the data of sexual violence reported to the police, the police data, in comparison to the health services data, we saw a huge gap in the graph, right? Increasing in hospital data and very flat with police data. So we realized women are not stepping out to the police. They're going to hospitals if they're victims of sexual violence. So we decided to have lawyers there next to the ER room, where we can actually help them file a case, give them a cupo and the emergency shelters. So that's another thing of how we want women to step out. We have psychological and legal aid free, which is something you mentioned in your report. We have to address the psychological and emotional and mental health burden of violence if we want to address this. So that's the way it's being addressed and having pro bono lawyers taking cases. Also, you mentioned the House of Opportunity, Las Casas de Igualdad y Oportunidades. Those are basically the, they're in all districts in Bogotá and the 20 districts and they're for women. Women feel closer. The reports show and women actually say, if they don't have to go to the big macro institution, they don't have to reach the secretary for women, but they go to homes like closer to how they feel. And that's where we also have lawyers and psychologists, both that offer these services for free, to orient victims that have been victims of violence. Oh, and the last thing we have is not everybody, not all women suffer violence in the same way. So the intersectional approach to the study of violence, which is a suggestion I have for the further reports, because I think you've made a great step in putting your focus, as I mentioned in my previous intervention, on those that are left behind. The LGBT and women from racial groups and so forth. But the intersectional impact is huge. And so Casa de Todas is where we address the violence of women engaged in prostitution and migrants, especially non legal, not in a legal status. But as I said, we resonate with the two pronged approach. So we can not only address violence, we also need to address the causes of maybe not inequality measured in the genie coefficient, which I would agree that citizens don't have it in mind, but they do feel the inequality daily. So they do feel their access, lack of access to education, lack of access to free time. And that's why in tandem with the services for violence, we're increasing the services for women who are burdened with the care burden. Because as I mentioned, and I don't have time to go into what the care system is, but if we know that the three variables that are highly correlated with the probability of being a victim of violence is your lack of education, lack of internet access, and lack of free time, that's what we're offering women through our care system. And all this to address one variable, which I think, and with this I conclude, should become even more important when we understand both inequality and violence, which is the variable of time poverty. Time poverty is a driver of inequality. And women are the main victims, or the main, those with the less lack of time. And time, if you don't have time to address a lawyer, if you never have time to go to a mental health service, if you never have time for free time, or to leave your home, all that translates as a time poverty. And I think that's the common variable that ties violence and inequality and should be put at the forefront. Okay, so thank you for the very good and very difficult question. So just to remind you the question that Juan asked is how does rebel governance, and I would add criminal governance, which applies to many other places in Latin America, impact the relationship between inequality, violence, and productivity. So the short answer is that we don't really know yet. There are several people starting research or having done for a few years research on these, that we are trying to unpack this, but so I want to start by saying why it is so difficult to study this. So the first one is civil war, and I think organized crime, especially with the kinds of groups that we have in Latin America, is a shock that includes many different shocks, right? So it's not just the violence, it's not just the rebel governance or the criminal governance. So there are many big, deep structural changes that are happening during the war in the areas where these groups operate and isolating the effect of let's say violence or rebel governance or criminal governance is really difficult, right? The second thing is that there are impacts that happen during the war that we don't fully understand, which may or may not prevail after these groups leave. For example, there can be very important changes in the distribution when these groups create new elites. So when these groups control a territory, there are new winners and new losers. You may end up with a lot of new sectors of the population that are more vulnerable and with less representation and with less income, and you also have new elites. What happens when there aren't actors leave? That depends on a lot of things, including whether there was a peace process with real policies, for example. It also depends on people's trust in state institutions and to what extent they are willing to announce illegal behavior after the war ends, right? If these groups or these elites continue to use violence, for example, to defend their interests, there can be changes in individual behavior, how they see the state, how they see institutions. There's social behavior, which also translates into all kinds of economic outcomes, right? Whether you have people trusting each other more and engaging in new economic activities or not. What are the policy preference? Do they care about redistribution? Are they aware of redistribution locally in their municipalities? So all of these can impact many factors that in turn translate into inequality, into violence, just whether people use violence to solve conflicts, to advance their interests or not, and into productivity, right? So it's complicated. If we only focus on sort of the institutional components of rebel and criminal governance, we may think that these groups are creating institutions. They are providing order. They are reducing uncertainty. If you compare two places where these groups operate, but they are not governing, right? And there is a lot of uncertainty. People cannot make expectations about what will happen. So if we think that this operates us in peacetime, you would expect a positive relationship between say more rebel governance, what I call rebelocracy, and better outcomes, right? But if people are perceiving these institutions as being very short-term, then there is also a lot of uncertainty. So I'll end by saying that there are a few papers out there that have been trying to find these effects. With Patricia and Maria Ibañas, Juan Camilo Cárdenas, Julian Arteaga, we have a couple that show, actually against our expectations, that more rebelocracy, so more intense rebel governance leads to more resilience, to weather shocks, higher levels of trust, and social networks. There is also just, there is this paper that many of you may have seen by Antonella. What is her last name? Bandiera and co-authors that actually find that for El Salvador, places that were ruled by guerrillas are showing lower levels of economic development, right? So it's just a research agenda that is starting and there is a lot to learn. Thank you. Thank you, Ana. Thank you Juan, for when we started conceiving the regional report, we thought about factors that are behind both high inequality and low growth, and for sure there are more than the ones that we can address in the report. Picking to focus on violence has to with an intent to bring together these conversations. Out of the concern that we usually work in silos, and this is how we work in academia, but also how governments work. We usually think about the Ministry of Labor in charge of labor market regulations, sometimes in charge of social protection systems. The Ministry of Education in charge of education, but not speaking necessarily with labor market institutions and so on and so forth. This is part of a development trap, I believe. So I am very happy actually to be sitting together with you guys here, people who work on violence. I am the new one, I am the generalista of the group, but we have them speaking about economic growth, and I think we need to start crossing these conversations because I think part of the solution to development problems is there. So that's the big take on why choosing violence and why worrying about violence as a source also of low productivity and low growth. Something that if we convince people who are actually in charge of handling our countries and managing economies and the world of growth, if we are able to convince them that this is something that really matters, it will probably start climbing up in the steps of attention in terms of policy assigned. I think I will leave it there. Yeah, I think it's a, you said what can we all do? What can the UNDP, I think promote these type of interactions at all levels when we are doing research, but and also when we are actually doing operational stuff. I'm just going to close with one anecdote that I was thinking about when you asked me many, many years ago and Ebanes and I were very young economists and someone asked and so what do you do? And Anna said, she thinks about firms and I think about people. And I went like, oh my God, I've always thought about firms because I care about people. So these type of silos in which we sort of put each other into little boxes, I think they are very damaging and that's the message I would want to conclude with. So before the Q&A please join me in thanking our speakers today. So feel free to raise your hand. I'm going to ask you to ask very brief questions and we're going to collect some questions, five questions more or less before giving the floor to the speakers again. So very brief. I'm going to do my best to be brief. So thank you very much to the four of you. It was amazing to see this and I'm really happy that it's a woman panel talking about violence and also gender-based violence. So my question is related with the true, the report of the Commission of the truth. The report of the true commission. Like in the chapter of children and adolescents, one of the things that you can see in there is that a lot of children go to the guerrilla just because it's the only option. And I'm thinking about here in how we reduce that inequality because for us who live in Bogota, like we say there's a lot of options, but if you live in a town where the option is like not eating or go to the guerrilla and they say like okay, the meal that they eat the first day they arrive to the guerrilla is really the best meal that they have eaten in the field. So my question is, in a context like that, how do you deal with that? Because it's like you have a 2020, a cash 2020, you have violence, you have inequality, you have poverty and you have everything. So it's like, what suggestions? I don't, I know that is not an easy question, but how do you deal with that? Thank you. Great. Please coordinate among yourselves who is going to address these questions. Yes, I wanna join in thanking you for very interesting presentations, a really good mix of practice and analysis. My questions are more on the analysis and I'll try to keep them short. So Patricia referred to the fact that inequality can be measured in very different ways, but I feel that the previous Anna and Marcella referred to inequality in very general terms. And I do think that I'm not an expert on this topic, but I think on inequality as the evidence is inconclusive that there are links to conflict or violence in general, but when it comes to group-based or also horizontal inequality, there are some causal links that have been established, especially in relation to ethnic inequality. So I wanted to ask if you could be a little bit more specific on what kinds of inequality you see mattering most and not mattering. And then to Patricia on redistribution, which of course it can prevent or reduce violence, but I was wondering if when at one point where there is more redistribution and especially if redistribution comes in the form of better public services, and thus they create a demand for better services, whether this increase in expenditure in general cannot provoke protests and eventually conflict even. If there is a demand for quality, there is not yet there. Quantity has increased, but there's a quality that is not yet there. I don't know if I'm clear in this question. Thanks so much. Thank God that I asked for brevity. Sure, thank you. I think first to welcome the presentations. My question really is provoked by the remarks that Professor Justino was making around the higher demands for redistribution or the preference for redistribution and how that might explain the affinity for political violence. So one of the things you were saying there was the prospect of public provisioning, especially insofar as it creates alternative safety nets, might sort of limit the preference for armed action or violence. And I'm quite interested in why that is the case. So one, is it because the relative payoffs to armed violence are shifted when people have access to an alternative safety net? Or is it because, I guess in a sense, what happens to the armed groups or those that have a potential for violence is that the social base that they are reliant on for their criminal governance system would be attracted to forms of public provisioning or alternative safety nets, and therefore they wouldn't have some credibility or legitimacy for the violence that they have. So I'm quite interested in, I guess, what you attribute the decline in the utility of violence, in that case, and what role in redistribution is played. Is it because the relative payoffs are now sort of shifted somewhat, or is it because the social base that in a sense might legitimize that or give credibility to that armed action is effectively covered by the provisioning and some of the alternative safety nets? Okay, pass the mic all the way to the other floor. Gracias, esta es una pregunta para toda esta mesa, tan chévere, pero es una respuesta también a un estudio que se realizó en la Universidad Nacional hace algunos años sobre la violencia intrafamiliar. Y la conclusión fue que el alcohol era el generador del conflicto. Se hizo el trabajo, se presentó en las lecturas dominicales del tiempo y después nos dijeron de algún lado que debíamos calmarnos y no presentar esos trabajos así, porque recuerden que el alcohol es el que ayuda aquí a la educación y la salud en el país. Entonces, pues eso fue un trabajo que no tenía, tenía una presentación social y una presentación científica. Y precisamente hicimos las pruebas en sangre con los hombres que tomaban alcohol y cuando el hombre toma alcohol, su testosterona se convierte en progesterona. Y cuando llega a la casa, encuentra otra mujer y por eso es que empieza a pegarle, encuentra otra mujer. Entonces, pues es un punto de vista diferente desde el punto de vista económico. Pero la violencia viene desde ahí, desde el hombre cuando consume alcohol y es una acotación que quería hacer. Si tienen alguna aclaración o algo. Thank you for the question. So very briefly, the question of recruitment, that's totally true and I collected data on ex combatants many, many years ago. One of the findings was that minors and most of them joined when they are minors, joined these groups basically fleeing from poverty, domestic violence, especially women, and the violence related to the war. What can we do? I think, of course, the obvious difficult answer is we need development, which is everything, but more specifically before we get there. I think that communities that have been able to have stronger mechanisms for collective action are more able to shield a little bit their families, minors from these armed groups. So that's one thing that I think we can do sort of while we build institutions and the economy, and public goods and all of that. And then the question on inequality. Well, in my work, I actually focus on very different forms of inequality. Income is just a tiny piece. So I'm focusing on inequality in human security, in human rights, in income, health, education, local democracy and local governance. So I'm not looking at income and I'm looking at both interpersonal inequality and group inequality, because in my work, subnational inequality is very, very important. And I'll, I think you wanted to see, and I'll compliment to your question. And I think, because it still remains, today we might not be not as common for the former guerrilla to be recruiting the youth, but we have it in Bogota, transnational gangs recruiting the youth. So we still find it. And I guess the main point I want to make is if we want to tackle an issue of violence, it cannot come only from a security approach. I think that's the main lesson that this report and that on the ground lessons leave, which is it's been mainly a security approach and that's where we fail. Because I think, because we know factors that are both correlated and causal, both that constitute inequality that leads to violence or that are correlated with violence. So if you really want to change this, we need to address them in tandem. So we have to come in with more education, not only more police. We need to come in with access to opportunities, not just more of the armed forces. Thank you. Those are great questions. Let me start with the easy one. The one that I can ask, I can address Martha's point, which my answer is we can talk about during lunch more about it. It'll take a long time to answer, but yeah, it varies a lot how you measure inequality. Like for instance, what do you say? Ethnic inequality, the ethnic inequality story comes from the work by Gledesh Sederman and so forth, but it's actually about ethnic groups participating in political structures. It's a very, very specific way of dealing with that. So it doesn't apply to ethnic inequality across the world in general. It applies to very specific points. Plurization is another one. Plurization seems to be linked to inequality. Even with the horizontal inequality depends on the specific way in which it gets measured, but let's talk more. The other question, Martin also, the gentleman behind, those are related and they're great questions. The first one, interesting thing, so focus on the Latin America case, you absolutely write about the demand for exchanges in living standards will kick in. And what we have is say the cash transfer programs come, they seem to have a clear effect in at least preventing civil wars from reigniting at the very least seems to be doing that, but at the same time, we absolutely write created expectations amongst the middle classes, because these programs are really targeted at the bottom of the distribution, created expectations for better services that are not arriving and are not associating with these programs. So there is a problem there and we go to the whole debate about cash transfers versus our cash transfers, the answers to all that, because we are missing the whole state capacity and provision of services side of things. So I think you absolutely right, and I think there's a problem too that needs all the expectations about what you can do with these programs to adjust. And I know Marcel and I had a huge discussion in New York about this issue. The other question that is really excellent, I don't think I can answer. I can just speculate and it comes again to the issue about state capacity and how you see the role of the state versus the role of armed groups. And this is what Kahn and I with Anna Maria Bain has been doing for a long time. And I can only speculate that some of these programs as long as they're being seen as being implemented by the state and they're not being undermined by whatever reason could potentially reduce the legitimacy of armed groups. But also what you can't forget is more complicated because a lot of the armed groups become the state. So I mean, when I say the state, maybe cautious about what we mean by this. But the issue then is about, can you use these programs to create not a new social control set, but actually at the very minimum, stop the use of violence as being a form of governance. And create alternatives for safety that don't involve violence, et cetera. But thank you for that. I think it'll make me think much more about how to move that. It's a very good question. And I think we need to know more, much more about that. Just to close briefly. Juan Verde. Yes, I'm going to answer. No. Yes, I agree with me. I'm going to answer in Spanish. The alcohol in effect is associated with some cases of violence. But not all violence occurs as a source of alcohol. And many times there's alcohol and there's no violence. I was scared to put it in the center of the conversation in that way. Because I think it requires pedagogy and we need to know how to use it. And it wouldn't be like a propaganda for alcohol. But I think the sources of violence are much more complex than just alcohol. That's what I'm saying. I agree, but only because I agree with the conclusion and with the reaction. And both things. Alcohol is not the cause of violence. The cause of violence is machismo. And what's killing us is justifications. Every time a press release or an article says what happened in that case? It's that I was drunk. It's that I was jealous. It's that the essence is machismo. And that's how it is. The closest comparison is with the Nordic countries. They consume much more alcohol and the cases of violence are much lower. So the problem when we say jealousy, alcohol, anger, unemployment is that we're not paying attention to where it is. And the problem is machismo. But I also think that what we have to do as a society is not let one of those causal arguments happen. There may be things that increase. But the first case that is virtual is one. Women could go through the same with alcohol and there's no high violence against men. And both Nordic countries have much lower levels of violence and we look at all the graphics presented. So it's that causal effect. In fact, it gets concrete. When discussions about law are dry so there's no violence, there's no worse policy than that. Because it's dissimulating the real reason. And we're camouflaging in alcohol the real reason, which is machismo. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.


When you first hear a sleep paralysis story, it can be all too easy to dismiss it as something fake or all in the teller's mind.  You need to escape, but you can't move, you can't even scream or call for help. Could it have been real? The answer is yes. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird But True, a companion to Weird Darkness. Sleep paralysis is real and it happens for a very good reason. It would be extremely dangerous if we could act out our dreams in real life. Just as comedian Mike Bebelia, he has a rare sleep disorder in which he is not paralyzed while dreaming. He made a very funny, very scary movie about his experience called Sleep Walk With Me. It tells the true story of the night he jumped through a second floor motel window and ran bleeding across the lawn because he was dreaming about being chased. Scary as it would be to wake up bleeding in our underwear on a motel lawn, it's also pretty scary to wake up paralyzed in the middle of a nightmare. Sleep paralysis is common enough that most of us have experienced it at least once. Some people experience it frequently. An irregular sleep pattern and stress might be triggers. Sleep paralysis may have been the inspiration for many of these scary images and art of demons sitting on the chests of helpless people. Some researchers believe sleep paralysis may even be the source of stories of alien abductions. A quick search of sleep paralysis stories turns up some truly scary ones. For example, a little creature is chewing something on the floor. In an instant, it's next to my head and whispers remember me.  Something is banging and scraping on the locked bedroom door which starts to open. Something evil is pulling me into a deep and dangerous place. I can't cry for help or even move a finger. I wake and a little girl in the corner of the bedroom is staring at me. Then she shrieks and runs to the bed and starts choking me.  These are just some of the stories of sleep paralysis that people have told. Sleep researchers believe we dream during the phase of sleep called REM rapid eye movement. It is believed that when we enter REM sleep the brain cuts off the connection to the muscles so we can run around in our dreams without risk of leaping out of bed. But when that paralysis lingers for a few minutes into wakefulness after a scary dream it can be a very unpleasant experience. Those who experience sleep paralysis often report feeling like a devil is crouching on their chest or that they feel as though they have been possessed by another entity. The real explanation is a bit less paranormal but it is certainly terrifying nonetheless. Knowing why your body has stopped being able to move won't necessarily stop your panic when it occurs.


Ssssssss, Nessdrunk! Yoshi's Cookie was one of those ubiquitous games back when it was first released. Everyone had seen the cover. It was always available for rent, stores like Toys R Us and Electronics Boutique and Funko Land all had plenty of copies for sale. This commercial aired seemingly once an hour. ["Braveiness! Thank you!" Yoshi and Mario have a cookie factory gone mad! Only you can help sort them! Stack them and make them disappear!" But all anyone really knew about it was that it was a puzzle game. In fact, I'm willing to bet that many of you clicked on this, not from recognizing the game or the title, but from recognizing the cover. So what actually is this game? It's a, uh, well, yeah, it's a single-screen puzzle game, but Yoshi's Cookie does have quite a bit going for it. I'll start by explaining how the basic game works. It's just moving blocks around in four different directions, trying to create matching rows and columns. All while more blocks come from the top and from the right of the screen. The catch is, when you move a block, the entire row or column moves as well. Oh, and the blocks are cookies, in case you couldn't figure that out. There's six different types of cookies, with the Yoshi Cookie acting as kind of a blank spot that can fill in for any other cookie type. As far as single-screen puzzle games go, it's pretty standard stuff for the time. The more you progress, depending on which game mode you're in, the game gets more complicated, and cookies fall and slide in faster, and if the screen fills up or if you run out of time or run out of moves, then you lose. If you clear the screen, you move onward to the next puzzle or the next opponent. Pretty basic stuff. Not quite a total ripoff of other falling block games, but not all that original either. You're still just matching blocks and creating lines. Like I said, though, I personally really like games like this.  And there's quite a bit of content in Yoshi's Cookie, which I appreciate. There's three distinct game modes here. There's what's called the action mode, and that's your typical puzzle game structure where you've got to clear each screen. There's 10 worlds here, so to speak, each with 10 different puzzles you got to solve, making for an even 100 puzzles, and there is a password system to help you out. That's all well and good, but I really like the other two game modes, verses and puzzle. Versus obviously pits you against a second player or against a computer opponent, with the goal being to get to 25 points first before your timer fuse runs out. What's interesting here is that each of the four characters you play as and against, those being Mario, Yoshi, Peach and Bowser, each have their own strengths and weaknesses, divided up into four attributes, Attack, Defense, Message, and Time Limit. To use one example, Bowser has the most powerful attacks out of anyone, so if he matches a row or a column, that enables him to do one of six different attacks. One is called Blind, that blocks your opponents from seeing the middle of the screen. One is called Panic, which randomizes your opponent's pieces, and one is called Slave, which allows you to actually control your opponent's screen. The thing is though, you don't necessarily get to pick which attack to do whatever you want. You're bound to the randomly scrolling list of attacks up top. When you complete a line, then whichever attack showing there will happen. Now, since Bowser has the strongest attacks, then any attack that he does will last twice as long as other characters. But Bowser's views burns faster than anyone else's. Conversely, Yoshi's defense rating will cut any attack time in half for their opponent, but his message rating is really slow, which means that he doesn't get to use as many attacks. So yeah, there's quite a bit going on here, and it makes for a fun two-player experience, or even a game against the computer. In fact, if you beat all four computer opponents, you can unlock four more tougher opponents. The third game mode is Puzzle. The same basic puzzle mechanics apply here for the most part, only you're given a set number of pieces with a set number of moves displayed on the right. Again, there's 10 worlds with 10 puzzles each, giving you 100 puzzles in total. So yeah, like I said, this game has a ton of content. The puzzle mode is my personal favorite to play through, and I should point out an interesting bit of trivia. Contributing to the puzzle design throughout this game mode is none other than the creator of Tetris himself, Alexei Pajitnoff. So that's pretty cool. There's a bunch of other interesting trivia behind Yoshi's Cookie. One is that it was originally designed as a game called Hermetica, and it had all sorts of alchemy-related pieces instead of cookies, but I can't find a way to play that game and there's no footage around, so I can't really confirm that. That game didn't do well in testing, so it was sold to Bulletproof Software, who then reworked it into Yoshi's Cookie. Another fun fact is that a version of this game was sold with the purchase of an oven. Yes, that's right. As part of a promotional gimmick, when you bought a Korupan oven from National over in Japan, you got a special edition of this game titled Yoshi No Cookie Korupan Oven Day Cookie. Only 500 copies were made, and it was pictured at a store in Tokyo with a price tag of over 150,000 yen, or just over 1,000 US dollars. So yeah, I know it seems like there's about a gazillion Mario-themed puzzle games, there's Dr. Mario, Wario's Woods, Mario and Wario, and I should mention that Yoshi's Cookie is not to be confused with the NES puzzle game simply titled Yoshi, but it does seem like with the massive success of Tetris on Game Boy and NES that Nintendo was absolutely dead set on capturing lightning in a bottle again. Yoshi's Cookie does not do that, even with the involvement of the Tetris guy, but it is a good time and it offers a ton of content. It's cool that the three game modes actually utilize the basic puzzle layout in three different ways, but I should mention quickly that the Super Nintendo Edition is the only version with the puzzle mode. This game was also released on NES and Game Boy, and it's okay on those platforms, but the SNES version is better than okay. In fact, it's one of the better puzzle games on the system. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.