Ted Auch

I just read an article at Project Syndicate by Heizo Takenaka former Minister of Economics, Minister of Financial Reform, and Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under former LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi; of Japan. Who cares you may ask? And you would be right for asking that….BUT the reason we should care is that if you replaced Japanese people and places with US people and places this article would read like a John Boehner or Mitch McConnell manifesto replete with the privatization, deregulation, reduced government spending, and lower taxes (See Friedman, M) mantra of these 2 esteemed leaders of the Republican party. This would be awesome and totally worth considering if it weren’t for 1 conveniently downplayed FACT….Mr. Takenaka’s party – prior to the current DPJ government that can’t get out of its own way with respect to broken promises – had had complete autonomy in Japan for the better part of 50 years. Likewise Messrs. Boehner and McConnell along with a moderate agenda going back to Gerald Ford have been running the show since the early seventies. Okay I know there was a brief hiccup by the name of Jimmy Carter, who decided the American people needed to hear certain truths that would prove hard to swallow. Well we canned his ass the next chance we got! The point is that these Monday morning quarterbacks are incapable of acknowledging their participation in the games to which they refer. Until they do this their rhetoric and bombastic critiques of current and future regimes will – in my humble but certain opinion – be comedic at best and counterproductive to the point of being obstructionist at worst. Do the current folks in office in Japan and the US and the soon to be Green administration in Columbia have problems? Sure lots of them and their growing by the day, but to say that the trouble a/o irresponsibility starts with them, while simultaneously ignoring their own malfeasance is the reason why I just can’t imagine why anyone would give such biased and myopic voices any type of local or global platform. Enough with the sectarian rhetoric!

So it appears that Arizona successfully decoupled its laws from those of advanced society when Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into Law SB 1070 last Friday whose “…aim is to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.” The criteria police officers will use rely on something the law calls “reasonable suspicion”, which is about as big an umbrella category is you will find anywhere. Anyone with dark skin (THAT MEANS YOU JOHN BOEHNER!) will be forced to carry with them wherever they go documentation speaking to the validity of their residence in the United States. I find it amazing that the very same folks that pushed this bill out of one side of their mouth are on the other side accusing Barack Obama of being a Fascist. This DoubleSpeak is right out of George Orwell’s opus “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and is the type of rhetoric that has slowly but steadily been percolating up from right-wing hate groups since President Obama’s election. It is even creeping – overtly and covertly – into national politics with Pat Bertroche (R) vying for the 3^rd District Congressional primary seat in Iowa noting that “I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal?” That’s very True Pat why don’t we just make a minor incision in everyone with dark skin, implant a microchip, and send them on their merry way. That makes complete sense and it doesn’t sound prima facie like it violates anyone’s human rights!

This uptick dovetails into The Southern Poverty Law Center’s documentation of mushrooming phenomena in their latest report “Rage on the Right”, which quantified a 244% increase in the number of “Patriot’ groups, from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009. This came at the same time as racist hate groups rose from an all-time high of 926 to 932 in 2009 and “nativist extremist” groups – vigilante organizations that go beyond advocating strict immigration policy and actually confront or harass suspected immigrants – grew from 173 to 309 (+80%) between 2008 and 2009.

This type of trend does not speak well for border states writ large. If Vermonters think that this type of sentiment will not rear its ugly head here with respect to Canadians in general and Québécoise specifically we’re fooling ourselves. The recent legal battle between the Rainsville’s of Franklin County and The Department of Homeland Security is in my opinion the opening salvo in a nascent fortification and potentially militarization of our border with Québéc. Janet Napolitano & Co. feel it is imperative that we fortify a crossing that experiences 2.5 cars an hour or 21,900 per year. If you consider that the monies allotted to this project amount to $5 million that averages out to $228 per car or with respect to the Rainville’s about 4.9 acres we’re talking about $1.02 million per acre. Either way you cut it I am sure Governor Douglas or his successor could find markedly more important things to do with this “stimulus”. For anyone interested in reading more about the Rainville matter I would refer you to Secretary Napolitano’s letter to Senator Leahy on March 10 of this year.

Needless to say we are seeing a growing sense of paranoia and misguided attempts at securing 1,969 miles (3,169 km) of Mexican- and 5,525 miles (8,891 km) of Canada-US borderland. We should work hard here in Vermont to insure that the 90 mile border we share with Québéc never even faintly resembles what those in Arizona are trying to construct. After all it is not immigrants, illegal or otherwise, forcing US-based multinationals to outsource thousands of jobs under the guise of globalized capitalism. How about a little more job protectionism and a little less racism cloaked in pseudo-patriotism.

What have we learned from the H1N1 scare?

Well we have learned that fear grips even the most rational of human beings when they are bombarded with scare campaigns not seen since the days following 9-11. I suspect that much of this fear was ginned up by the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex (PIC). How can I make such a dark accusation? Let us look at the movement of Roche’s share prices before and after H1N1 was discovered. Roche happens to be the predominant maker of H1N1 vaccine commonly called Tamiflu. They are based in Switzerland and trade on the Swiss Exchange. The graph below depicts shares of Roche in current US dollars (i.e. 1 Us Dollar = 0.9437 Swoss Framcs). The perforated lines in the main graph and inset pinpoint the week of April 27th, 2009, which is commonly used as the starting point of the “pandemic”. The inset is simply the aforementioned week to the present blown up to highlight the post-H1N1 trend for Roche’s shareholders.

I am not proclaiming some sort of grand conspiracy, but what I am pointing out is that there clearly was a financial incentive for Roche to perpetuate the global tamiflu campaign given their near monopoly on the vaccine (Note: This is the kind of thing that antitrust advocates have been screaming about for decades).

Roche’s share price had reached lows not seen since November of 2004 in the month prior to the H1N1 outbreak, but curiously enough many investors were prescient in going overweight Roche in the weeks leading up to the outbreak raising the share price from the previously mentioned five year low of $121.81 to 140.04 in the week that preceded the 1,400 suspected cases reported in Mexico (i.e., April 2oth, 2009).  To put it more succinctly shares of Roche have gained 142% between the IPO in May of 2001 and March 5th, 2010 (116 Months). Yet,  they only gained 117% between the IPO and the week prior to the H1N1 outbreak (104 Months). In the  forty-seven weeks since the April 26th, 2009 outbreak shares of Roche have gained 122% rising from $140.04 to 170.52. That is quite a turn of events for a company that seemed to be floundering and it is also quite the investment for those investors I mentioned earlier that went long Roche in the month prior to the “pandemic” as they have accrued an average return of 140%.

There is one more point to dovetail with the apparent windfall profits generated for one business in a time of near global panic and that is the data used to generate said panic.

The data above describe the total number of H1N1 cases globally as of calendar year 2009-2010. The data represents 28% of the world’s 195 countries, 81 and 94% of the reported Cases and Deaths, 72% of the world’s population, and 58% of the world’s births per annum (h1n1). From this table we see that the phrase “much ado about nothing” – either the Shakespeare comedy or Kenneth Branagh flick – doesn’t do justice to this supposed global scare. The Average-Median Case and Total Death Range was 5,798-52,804 and 132-601, respectively, with totals of 1,326,367 and 16,264. However, the percent of cases that resulted in death globally was 1.10% with an Average-Median range of 2.47-6.83%. I assume this number is one that Roche will take all the credit for and will likewise brush aside the accusation that the panic was at the very least overblown and more likely generated to save a stale and passed-it’s-prime pharmaceutical company.

So some will say and rightly so that I am being completely insensitive to those that lost loved ones during the H1N1 outbreak. I would simply say that I am not insensitive but simply pointing out the fact that a very small sector of the world benefited greatly from your loss (i.e., Roche Shareholders) and that unfortunately people do die, but to say we need to pull out all the stops for such an infinitesimal sector of society is crazy and frankly irresponsible.

Lets look at the data another way so as to put it – and the campaign to eradicate the world of all viruses and sicknesses no matter the cost – in perspective. Globally 0.00026% of the population died from H1N1 and when you consider the world’s exponentially mushrooming population as the balance between births and deaths we see that H1N1 deaths were 0.01258% of births worldwide. These are numbers that border on the non-detectable when compared to pressures such as drought, war, famine, AIDS, malaria, etc. Additionally, it is worth noting the US has lost 4,386 men and women in Iraq since the occupation began, with a similar trend evident in Afghanistan. The former is 0.00143% of the US population, which is a greater than those killed by H1N1 in this country. Just a little perspective as I don’t see any fuss being made over the countless bodies arriving in Delaware every week. As a matter of fact former President Bush/Cheney wouldn’t even let pictures be taken of this type of seen.

The fact is that H1N1 and the inertia involved in fighting it’s spread lined the pockets of Roche shareholders. The general public writ large was stirred into a frenzy by a convergence of private and public forces for myriad reasons, but undoubtedly the private concerns centered on going long Roche in the weeks leading up to the outbreak and sustaining that momentum to the present day. The data does not lie!

What is that famous line “The Plural of anecdote is data”? Well it says here that the data paint an entirely different and markedly less dire picture than tha forwarded by popular media and the Madison Avenue wunderkinds.

From The Economist January 3oth, 2010

“Thus Thomas Jefferson’s mandate to pursue happiness “falls like kerosene on the torch of liberty”, warming many but “scorching and blinding” countless others.”

From The New York Times:

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

As a murmur swept through a hearing room packed with gay rights leaders, Admiral Mullen said it was his personal belief that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

There is alot of talk right now about Tea Party Revolution and Socialism via the Obama administration. However, the thing that these people that are not seeing is that most of what is happening is being inflicted on them via both parties in concert with the banks, health care industry, and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). I used to be very skeptical of the socialist ideologues and remain skeptical of those that invest all their emotional and intellectual capital in one school of thought or religion for that matter. Such philosophies remove the individual’s personal responsibility. They also allow themselves to be easily manipulated through advertising. The fact is that when you look at two long-term sets of data – income disparity and the MIC – you see the true problem AND to those that blame Obama as a fascist or whatever I say a trend does not 9 months or 1 adminstration make. This guy is clearly overwhelmed but based on the data I will present he is facing an inertia whose depth and scope is quite daunting.

As you can see from the figure to the right when plotting the returns on 10 of the largest military industrial contractors it is clear that they are rapidly overtaking this country’s production sector.

What we are seeing is that those firms with a long-term presence on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) have done quite well for themselves from the 94,171% increase in share price of General Dynamics since it’s initial offering in January of 1977. The MIC giants Boeing and United Technologies have since their share prices increase by 21,788 and 18,633%, respectively. Interestingly two new players in the MIC industry KBR a spin-off of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and DynCorp a leading competitor of Blackwater (now called Xe Services LLC) have declined by 105 and 119% since their arrival on the DJIA in 2006. In summary the MIB has on averaged gained 15,448% relative to the 823% increase on the DJIA.

So, while the economy suffers and jobs are lost at the rate of 250-750,000 per month in the last 2.5 years the MIB is operating at a profit ratio of 15:1 relative to the DJIA. This type of ratio would usually raise red flags, but since these companies are True Patriots their profligacy is viewed as an inevitable result of the War on Terror and the Spread of Democracy. I wonder if these companies are also Too Big To Fail?

The other contention is that Obama is a looking to redistribute wealth at the expense of most Americans. Hand in hand with this argument is the idea that all citizens have access to the American Dream. Well if you look at data from the Census Bureau you will see that redistribution is absolutely happening but it is occurring in the opposite direction. Two correlated trends are quite evident from the data:

1. Every year the Upper 5% of this country increases it’s average income by $2,049, while the income of the lower 2 Quartiles increases by $93-164. This seems unfair yet the common concern amongst those that are benefiting the least is accruing enough wealth to realign themselves with those that benefit the most form the Efficient Capitalist Market. However, those that benefit the most are doing their darndest to insure that they and only they benefit from this increasing disparity.

They are doing this by promoting war in the hopes of keeping this country divided and invoking patriotism as a means to encourage those with nothing to fight for those with everything.

2. The data also demonstrates that the share of this country’s income allocated to the Top 5 Percent has risen from 43% in 1965 to 50% in 2008. If this trend continues this sector of society will account for 60% of this country’s wealth by 2050.

So I just finished an amazing book by Naomi Klein called “The Shock Doctrine”, which basically chronicles the dark side of capitalism via the actions and thinking of folks like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Eugene Fama, and Jeffrey Sachs. Anyway the book is revealing and pokes lots of holes in the Efficient Market hypothesis of Fama and Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”. Ms. Klein mentions in passing the SPADE Defense Index, which according to www.amex.com

“…is a modified market capitalization weighted index, comprised of publicly traded companies that seeks to measure the performance of securities in the defense, homeland security, and space marketplace.”

For those that deny the existence of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) described by Dwight D. Eisenhower as he left the oval office I think I can prove empirically that the SPADE Index demonstrates the naivete of such a view (See Figure).

Between the end of 1997 and September 10th 2001 the SPADE rose by 107%, but between 9-11 and 9-14-2009 it more than doubled (205%). Overall the SPADE has grown by 233% since it’s origination in December of 1997. So whats so important about these data? Well looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), S & P 500, and NASDAQ we see that they grew by 103%, 99%, and 90% respectively between December of 1997 and 9-11. These trends are well alligned with what I described for the SPADE during the same time period. Heres the rub these indices only grew by 111%, 103%, and 142%. It is understandable that the NASDAQ would outpace the DJIA and S & P 500 as it was operating from a lower base. We are seeing that this country is relying more on the financial services and war profiteering industry 2 nefarious and wealth concentrating sectors of our economy. I must wonder where the outrage is? We have been conditioned to believe that all of us can have a big piece of the pie when infact the folks that pull the strings of these industries would in no way allow such an event to occur. It would be called wealth redistribution and we know what the neoconservatives and evangelical right-wingers think about such a prospect. The SPADE provides concrete evidence that we are moving towards a society that embraces Frederick the Great’s belief that “Diplomacy without war, is like music without instruments.” For those that think that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, et al’s fingerprints have been removed from the dialectic I call your attention to the Supreme Court and the SPADE’s trajectory.

“Even as Islamist terrorism grabs the headlines, more familiar varieties cling stubbornly to existence. It would be a brave man willing to bet where the next attack will come from.”

This is a quote from an article titled “The Airline Bombers: Bang to Rights” in the September 12th-18th 2009 edition of The Economist (http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14424960). However, given a recent and very disturbing story emanating from from a town called Big Creek in Clay County, KY this quote could easily be superimposed on the current moral and political divide in this country (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/us/25brfs-CENSUSWORKER_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kentucky%20census&st=cse; http://blogs.newamericamedia.org/nam-round-table/1777/locals-parse-death-of-kentucky-census-worker). Bill Sparkman a Boy Scout leader and substitute teacher was found dead, naked, and gagged in the Daniel Boone National Forest, with a rope hung around his head and looped over a tree. The coroners believe that Mr. Sparkman was dead prior to being hung as his feet were in contact with the ground. One of the more disturbing aspects of this story is that Mr. Sparkman a part-time census field worker was found with the word “FED” written across his chest with red ink. Folks at New America Media noted that a blogger named “Hill Jill” an appalachian resident was defending her region on the Daily Kos:

“This does not strike me as a “native” crime. A native might shoot you, I won’t argue there-but they would not do the whole elaborate staged crime scene.”

This is something I would whole-heartedly agree with and having worked in Northeastern Kentucky and much of Western West Virginia I know that there are plenty of folks in this region that are pissed that they are immediately conflated with the folks in Deliverance. Yet, there is a problem here and unfortunately The Times has not deemed it worthy of sending someone to the region relying instead on AP reports. Yet, apparently the Roman Polanski story is worthy of round-the-clock editorials and in-depth coverage. Why is this so scary? Well because we need to know how many people are in this country and census workers in no way reflect the Big Brother image promulgated in this country since Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. I must wonder why the coward that killed Mr. Sparkman didn’t revolt against the Bush administration’s constant probing of our phones, emails, and if they had their way our bedrooms? Why did the coward who killed Mr. Sparkman not revolt when the 2000 election was literally stolen from the people of this country by Antonin Scalia et al.? Why did the coward who killed Mr. Sparkman not revolt when his or her taxes were used to bail out a bunch of criminals on Wall Street?

I think the reason he or she didn’t revolt is because this country has transformed from the United States of America into nothing more than a bunch of “tribes with flags”, which ironically was coined by Tahsin Bashir to describe the 22 Arab states of the Middle East and Africa (http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14027698). I think if we were to lift up all the rocks surrounding the crime scene in Big Creek we would be mightily disturbed by what we find. But here in this country the truth more often than not doesn’t set you free, rather it gets you jailed, fired, or relegated to the marginal fringe. It is a shame because what happened in Clay County, KY last week is a symptom of a great sickness that appears to be spreading. It will be easier to address this issue now rather then later. This will require us to engage in thoughtful inter-state dialogue with the politicians and lobbyists locked out, because all they seem to want to stoke rather than quash divisiveness.

The lack of attention this story has received in favor of more titillating and irrelevant events is a shame but in no way surprising. Accountability is something we need to demand of our politicians and current-event purveyors alike.

Take a guess what this quote was referencing:

“It is a threat to the foundations of our free society when government officials, acting in the midst of a crisis, use dire predictions of imminent disaster to justify their encroachment on our individual liberty and the rule of law,” said Darrell Issa (R) Congressman from San Diego, CA.

No it isn’t Iraq, it isn’t Afghanistan, or WMD or anything related to killing lots of folks for no reason.

Give up? This is congressman Issa lambasting Hank Paulson last week (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/16-10) as he appeared before a committee investigating the nefarious actions underlying the mega bailout of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America…..and BofA by the US Government………and the US Government by us the taxpayer.

I find it hard to lend any credibility to the congressman’s concern given that such a quote could easily be attributed to Dennis Kucinich or Russ Feingold during the lead-up to and subsequent complete disaster that was/is the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Does he not see that it is his party (primarily but not completely!) that gave way to this kinda hubris on the part of regulators, bankers, Defense Secretaries, Vice Presidents, and Presidents?

This is nothing new and I find it amazing that San Diego is dumb enough to vote for a guy who is just now realizing what he so eloquently stated last week. Jesus I mean these words are the very same words we could use when describing the motives for Iraq, torture, warrantless wiretapping, mass ousters of states Attorneys Generals, WMD, etc etc. Come on we are asked to pretend like we were born yesterday and it is quite insulting.

This is a quote used more now than everything sans “Green Shoots” right now and it is purported to have been spoken by former Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, although there is no question as to whether he ever said or wrote such words. Regardless of whether Mr. Dirksen did or did not construct this phase it seems an interesting thought given that the Obama administration is now discussing upping US food and agricultural aid to nations around the world to $5 billion annually.  Under the Bush administration this figure was about $2.3-2.7 billion. Now given the quote attributed to the late senator from Illinois this sum should ≈ real $$.

I and others contend that no where is this statement more false than with respect to international aid. Should we look to solve all the developing world’s problems, whether they be health or technology? Absolutely not these folks need to stand on their own 2 feet and it is time to clip their wings with respect to funding for weapons and war related infrastructure. However, the figures mentioned above account for 0.0181-0.0335% of our GDP ($14.93 Trillion FY 2008). At the ultra-macro level the US donates about 0.2-0.4% of GDP in toto (http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/us-and-foreign-aid-assistance#ForeignAidNumbersinChartsandGraphs).This is markedly less than the 0.7% of GDP agreed to by rich nations at the UN General Assembly……..in 1970! Yes it is true we donated $25 billion in 2008 as Official Development Assistance (ODA), which is ≥ Germany and the UK combined and realistically dwarfing every nation on an absolute scale. However, as any economist or pragmatic person would admit absolute values don’t say much, while relative figures say a ton.  The US ranks dead last among the 22 rich nations as a % of GDP. Pekka Hirvonen called this Stingy Samaritanism. The only nations that exceed the 0.7% target are Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands (0.8-0.99% of GDP)……………..Damn Socialists!

Lets just quickly contrast this with Defense spending, which was 4.7% of GDP last year and has a 45yr average of 5.3% ($702-792 billion annually) (http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/obama-budget-would-return-defense-spending-to-pre-911-levels.aspx). So, why don’t we just take 0.4% of defense and transfer it to international aid. This would still leave 3.73-4.33% of GDP for making tons of bombs, guns, missiles, tanks, etc. allowing us to continue to engage in mismanaged, ill-conceived, spineless, and pointless wars. How can you argue with that Bush, Cheney, et al?

Further folks like Peter Orzag the Director of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget has noted that if we don’t get healthcare under control it will mushroom from 5% in 1960 to 20% of GDP sometime between 2020 and 2040. If we were to actually shear some of the fat from this beast we could give more generously, but that might actually require a national healthcare option that would apparantly run private industry out of business. However, this is hard to reconcile given that most in the private sector feel the US government would do a horrible job if they got in the business of healthcare. If this is so than what’s the problem?

We have a TRUE Axis of Evil in this country  Defense, Banks, and Healthcare/Big Pharmaceutical. Cutting these folks down to size even if that meant a 5-10% decrease in their nefarious profits, would permit the US government to cut taxes for Joe the Plumber (ie The Common Man and Woman!) and permit more giving to those around the world in desperate need of real aid. Not food in boxes or finished product but rather the tools and knowledge to make their own stuff and feed themselves by themselves.

I must admit rather reluctantly that I did a rough calculation of how much I gave in aid/donations last year and it came out to approximately 1-2% of my income. That is a figure that I really don’t know how to square with others as the data for individual households in this country is scant with respect to charitable donations.

So, it seems to me that a billion here, a billion there does not equal real money when it comes to international aid. This country owes it to the world to stop exporting so much defense related technology and get going on the stuff that makes countries function in the interim. That includes alternative NRG, agriculture, smart-growth, etc. and the myriad skill-sets they need to stop relying on external aid. Its the least we could do.

I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: The Story of Success” and couldn’t help but recall that the U.S. itself is an outlier. Below I have wrapped up where it is we sit on the outlier gradient across a variety of not so complimentary indices relative to other G8 or G20 nations.

1. 20 sq. ft. of retail space per person Vs 13 for Canadians, 6.5 for Australia, 3 in Sweden (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14FOB-Consumed-t.html?ref=todayspaper).

2. 9 of 10 people own a cell phone Vs 4 of 10 in China

3. 19.4 tons of CO2 per person Vs 11.8 in Russia, 8.6 in EU, 5.1 in China, and 1.8 in India

4. 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners not to mention along with 3% of the world’s resources while consuming 25% of the world’s  $69.70 trillion in GDP.

5. US debt will be 78% of GDP by the end of 2009 Vs 67% in France, 63% in Germany and Canada, 52% in Norway, 38% in Spain, 20% in Mexico, 16% in China, 7% in Russia (http://natereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/country_debt1.png)

6. $6,102 spent on Health Care per person in 2004 Vs $3,165 in Canada, 3,150 in France, 3,043 in Germany, and 2,508 in Russia.

7. #29 for infant mortality Vs #3 for Japan, 4 for Sweden, #7 Spain, #9 France, #11 Germany and Italy, # 27 Cuba. Furthermore, we have fallen from #12 in 1960.

So there you have it. We are the global outlier on many fronts and will only be allowed to regain the head of the table a/o be taken seriously by the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) when we accept our faults, heavily modify them, and emerge stronger and more cooperative.