Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"The Reign of Terror" at the OSC Is Over!

Wow!  The Bush administration has finally dismissed Mr. Bloch.  I fear long-term damage has been done to the reputation and integrity of the Office of Special Counsel, but at least a change has been made.



Fresh Details Emerge In Special Counsel's Ouster

by Ari Shapiro

October 28, 2008

New details are emerging about the White House's dismissal of Scott J. Bloch as special counsel last week. The Bush administration told Bloch on Thursday that he would no longer serve as head of the office that protects federal government workers from mistreatment.

Government watchdog groups had complained for years that Bloch abused his power. They said he ignored legitimate whistle-blower complaints and retaliated against his own employees whom he perceived as disloyal.

The Office of Personnel Management eventually began an investigation into the claims against Bloch. Bloch then hired a private company to scrub his computer, triggering an FBI investigation into whether the scrub violated obstruction-of-justice laws. Bloch claimed it was to eliminate a computer virus. But even when FBI agents staged a high-profile raid on Bloch's home and office last May, the White House did not take any action.

Sources close to the Office of Special Counsel say the first indication that something was about to happen came about 10 days ago. The White House told Bloch to attend a meeting the following Friday. A few days after he learned of the meeting, Bloch sent the president a resignation letter saying he would step down in January, at the conclusion of his five-year term. After the letter was released, White House officials moved up Bloch's meeting. Thursday morning, they told Bloch he was done.

He was placed on administrative leave with salary through December. While Bloch was at the White House meeting, federal police officers showed up outside his office door to make sure he didn't return.

"It seems like this has been a long time in coming," said Elaine Kaplan, who preceded Bloch as special counsel. "I don't think it matters that he's going to get a paycheck through the next couple months."

She says Bloch's leadership in the past five years has demoralized the career staff, and that many experienced employees have left.

"I view the departure of Scott Bloch with great satisfaction," said Jim Mitchell, who was Bloch's spokesman and chief of staff until Bloch forced him out over the summer. "Bloch was doing harm to the credibility of the office because of all of his problems," Mitchell said. "He also was not much of a leader. He spent most of his days sitting in his office, interacting only with a few senior people and rarely with any of the people who were doing the work in the office."

The current office spokesman referred requests for comment to the White House. White House spokesman Carlton Carroll declined to comment on personnel matters but said the decision to dismiss Bloch was not based on any ongoing investigations.

Debra Katz, a lawyer who represents whistle-blowers in a lawsuit against the OSC, described Bloch's departure as "a really significant event."

"If whistle-blowers get protection again," she said, "the public will be better served."

Katz has a theory about why the White House put Bloch on administrative leave instead of firing him outright. Bloch was investigating White House officials at the same time the FBI was investigating Bloch. Katz says that if the Bush administration had fired Bloch, he might have countersued, claiming he was a whistle-blower being punished for investigating the White House.

"We have felt all along that Bloch has been trying to insulate himself from termination," Katz said, "so here it appears that the White House has taken the easy road out, and instead of firing him for misconduct is just allowing him to receive a paycheck."

Another possibility is that the White House wanted to fire Bloch but could not find a good enough reason. After all, Bloch's supporters point out, although the complaints against him are legion, no one has charged Bloch with a crime.

The Office of Special Counsel had an all-staff meeting Thursday afternoon. The agency's top lawyer told everyone that Bloch was gone. Sources said there was an awkward silence at first before someone cracked a joke about getting Bloch a going-away present. Then everyone relaxed, and at the end of the meeting, people burst into applause.

When asked why, an OSC employee replied, "The reign of terror was over."

Link to article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96184109

Copyright 2008 NPR

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Dear Joe the Plumber: if you wind up paying more taxes, you’re an idiot

It's like watching a train wreck in slow-motion...and I can't turn away!!!



Posted on October 16, 2008 by JS OBrien on Scholars and Rogues

Dear Joe the Plumber,

Welcome to your 15 minutes of fame. It’s not everyone who gets his name mentioned 286 times in a presidential debate.  If you haven’t already, you simply must change your business’s name to Joe the Plumber.  That’s just good marketing.  Oh, and don’t forget to add the tag line, “As seen on TV!”

OK, Joe, so you had a conversation with Barack Obama and, while media reports are very sketchy about exactly what your circumstances are (not surprising), it appears you want to buy a business that “brings in” more than $250,000.  I have yet to find out if “brings in” means $250,000 in revenue or profit (a very important distinction, Joe), but let’s assume for a moment that it’s profit we’re talking about.  Under Barack Obama’s plan (as sketchy as it is on his website), a good guess would be that you would go into a higher tax bracket, paying about 3.6% more in taxes on every dollar you earn over $250,000, for a total marginal tax rate of 39.6% — exactly the same as it was in the 1990s.

But let’s take a closer look at your situation, shall we Joe?

You say you’re planning to buy this business, and it must be a very large small business, indeed, if it covers salaries, expenses, trucks, inventory and the like and still yields a $250,000 + profit.  I’m going to guess that you don’t have the cash to buy this business outright, Joe, and if you do, I think you’re holding back on us.  I think you’ve inherited some money.  But let’s assume that you’re borrowing a fair amount of money to buy the business, using its book value (what the business is worth if you sold all the assets and paid off all your debts) as security and using the revenue stream to pay off the loan.  Let’s also assume a business this size is incorporated.

Here’s what you do, Joe.  First off, you have your corporation pay you a salary of, say, $249,000 per year.  Now you’re not in the higher marginal tax bracket, right?  Payments on the loan you took out to buy the business are fully tax deductible, so profits will be reduced by that amount.  If you still have more than $250,000 in profit, we’re talking about a rather large business here, and probably a very large down payment (which suggests that you can manipulate your down payment to reduce your taxes, doesn’t it?)

But here’s the thing, Joe.  When you own a business, you can do all kinds of things to reduce taxable income (profit).  For instance, you can buy more equipment, which can then be depreciated over the years, providing a tax deduction and increasing the company’s book value and, thus, your wealth.  Even fully depreciated equipment can generally be sold, in the future, for something.  You can spend more money on advertising and hire on a new plumber or two.  The advertising costs and the employment costs are generally fully tax deductible.  Well, let me take that back.  If you provide your employees with health insurance, your costs for health insurance won’t be tax deductible under John McCain’s plan, but who’s counting, right?

By advertising and hiring on, you can drastically increase your revenues (the amount of money coming in) while keeping profits below the $250,000 mark.  The increased revenues will make the resale value of your business much higher than it already is, increasing your wealth without getting taxed on that increase.  If you want to take more wealth out right now without paying taxes, there is a cornucopia of tax-free or tax-deferred retirement options, benefits, and the like that can move money right around the IRS’s outstretched palm.

Eventually, Joe, your company will be so large, and you will be so wealthy, than an extra 3.5 pennies in tax on each dollar on income you earn over $250,000 will be chickenfeed to you (if it isn’t already).  But, hey, it’s up to you.  Increase the underlying wealth in your company without paying taxes, or take cash now and pay a few additional taxes on it.

But, please, don’t complain to me about paying more taxes.  All it says to me is that you’re not smart enough to run your business’s financial side.

All the best to you and yours,

JS O’Brien

UPDATE

It turns out that Joe is not a good businessman for a simple reason:  He doesn’t own a business, appears to have no immediate prospects to do so, has no plumber’s license, works for a small firm doing residential work (which means his employer is unlikely to be clearing $250k per year), and has occasionally talked to the owner about buying the business — someday.

Poor Joe.  He’s about to get ripped to shreds by the media, and he seems like a pretty decent guy.  I feel for him.

On the other hand, Joe is a great example of those who are so terrified that they’ll get rich some day and owe an extra 3.5 cents on every dollar over $250,000 that they spend a lot of time worrying about it.  Joe doesn’t know that he is unlikely ever to make that kind of money.

UPDATE #2


It just gets better and better.  Bloomberg is reporting that Joe owes around $1200 in back taxes, and there is an Ohio lien filed against him.

Link to Article:
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/10/16/dear-joe-the-plumber-if-you-wind-up-paying-more-taxes-youre-an-idiot/

© 2007-2008
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

American debt nightmare ends easy credit era

"Experts say crisis could spark shift away from maxing out credit cards."  Amen and amen!



The Associated Press
updated 1:38 p.m. CT, Tues., Oct. 14, 2008

An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to "come on up under the canopy and put your hands on" a new set of wheels.

But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.

"It's just rough times right now," Clark said. "Rough times."

For Clark, and for a nation of consumers heavily dependent on credit, there are growing signs that those rough times could prove to be more than just a temporary problem, that they could be the beginning of a stark, new reality.

Is America's long era of easy credit over?

Experts say that even when the current credit crunch eases, the nation may finally have maxed out its reliance on borrowed cash. Today's crisis is a warning sign, they say, that consumers could be facing long-term adjustments in the way they finance their everyday lives.

"I think we're undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue," said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com. "This entire credit crunch is a wakeup call to anybody who was attempting to borrow their way to prosperity."

A prolonged period of tighter credit is ahead, experts say.

U.S. consumers will find it much harder to get a credit card, and to carry large balances. Late fees will rise and lines of credit will be reined in. After years of buying homes with interest-only loans, or loans that allowed people to borrow more than the value of the home, substantial payments and downpayments will be required. Interest rates are also likely to rise.

Lenders, far more wary of risk, have tightened the standards they use to judge potential borrowers. Regulators will be looking over their shoulders.

The changes cap three decades in which U.S. consumers — along with businesses and government — have run up ever-increasing debt. Americans became accustomed to financing purchases large and small with plentiful credit cards, easily approved loans for cars and the latest conveniences, and by siphoning the equity in their homes. Lenders did far more than just make credit plentiful. They aggressively marketed it as a necessity, a way for the smart consumer to leverage themselves into a better lifestyle.

The financial meltdown has made clear the role an increasingly global economy played in facilitating U.S. consumers' borrowing, with banks packaging and selling debt to investors, providing cash to people who once would have been considered too risky to get a loan.

The expansion of credit has, in many ways, been a good thing. It has allowed many more people to buy homes. At a time when household incomes have stagnated, borrowing has made it possible for many people to afford purchases and cover short-term expenses they might otherwise have had to delay or abandon.

But all that borrowing came at a heavy cost.

Americans are more reliant on debt then ever before.


The portion of disposable income that U.S. families devote to debt hit an all-time high in the second half of last year, topping 14 percent, figures from the Federal Reserve show. When other fixed obligations — like car lease payments and homeowner's insurance — are added in, about one of every five household dollars is now claimed by bills.

The credit card industry lobbied heavily in 2005 to tighten bankruptcy laws to make it more difficult for consumers to seek court protection and shed responsibility for paying off debt. But in a sign of just how much households have become dependent on borrowing, the average amount of credit card debt discharged in Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings has tripled — to $61,000 per person — from what it was before the law was passed.

"We are going to have to cut back," said Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, D.C. thinktank. "We've really been living beyond our means."

Americans, borrowing to cover ordinary living expenses, have all but abandoned saving.


The U.S. personal saving rate dropped to well below 1 percent in late 2007 and early this year, according to figures from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The figure has edged up in the last few months, but the actual savings rate may still be near zero, given that many people are covering living costs by using credit cards or money saved earlier, according to the BEA. The lack of savings is a sharp contrast with the decades after World War II. Americans routinely saved more than 10 percent of their income in the early 1970s.

Now, many families spend virtually all of their incomes covering living expenses, and even that is not enough.

"In the credit era, which is like living on steroids, you're not saving money, you're not breaking even. You're actually borrowing 20 to 30 percent," said Robert Manning, author of "Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit."

The new era of tighter credit will largely be a mandate, as consumers are forced to adjust to tougher rules and tighter limits. But consumers have also begun showing signs of a change in mind-set, putting off purchases, buying less expensive substitutes, going out to eat less, and rethinking their propensity to do so on credit.

Consumer borrowing fell for the first time in more than a decade in August, the Federal Reserve reported this week. The decline, at annual rate of 3.7 percent, reflected a sharp drop in the category of borrowing including auto loans and a smaller decline in the category including credit cards.

The tightening of credit will force American families to cut their spending, mindful of their current paychecks instead of borrowing against future ones, said Frank Badillo, senior economist with TNS Retail Forward, a consulting and market research firm in Columbus, Ohio.

"We're going to see some fundamental changes in consumer behavior," he said.

Badillo and others compare the psychology to the way people reacted after gasoline reached $4 a gallon last summer. Prices have eased considerably since then, but consumers seem to have decided that the good old days of very cheap gasoline are over. In response, people have moved to buying smaller, more efficient cars, and trying to reduce the miles they drive. Demand for homes in outlying suburbs has declined.

Like gasoline prices, the availability of credit should improve once the current crisis eases. But consumers are confronting what some see as a long-term change.

After years of living off one income and drawing on credit to fill the gap, Portland, Ore., legal assistant Susie Shepherd and her partner, Kaite Chase, are rethinking their finances. In the past few years, they regularly ran up debt to pay Chase's tuition and repeatedly refinanced their home, pulling out equity to pay bills and drawing on lines of credit to cover expenses.

But Shepherd was caught short this fall when her brother asked for help in paying moving expenses. She tried to draw on a credit card, but found her line of credit had been cut in half. The only way to help, the couple decided, was to sell some household items.

"We'd been living on credit for so many years," Shepherd said.

Borrowing against the future has always been part of the American story.

"How did those religious English people get to this country on the Mayflower? They came on what we would call the installment plan," said Lendol Calder, author of "Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit."

But the Great Depression chastened consumers. After World War II, and the explosive growth of the suburbs, consumption rose sharply. But the modern era of easy credit really began with the deregulation of the late 1970s.

In a 1978 Supreme Court decision, banks won the right to charge whatever interest rate their home state allowed and to do so across state lines. States repealed usury laws capping interest rates. Banks began pursuing consumers in ways they hadn't before.

When inflation soared in the early '80s, banks aggressively marketed credit cards to struggling consumers as a good deal. The interest rates were high, but not as high as inflation. In the recession of 1990-91, banks who saw their profits tightening seized on the margins available by lending more to consumers. When Congress eliminated income tax deductions for interest on credit cards, banks pushed home equity loans, encouraging people to take money out of their homes to pay off the credit cards.

As families took on debt, they were encouraged to follow a rule of thumb: It's OK as long as you don't devote more than 25 percent of income to borrowing costs.

Lenders, though, found a way around that. The 20-year home loan was repackaged as a 30-year loan and lenders stretched three-year car payment schedules to seven, masking the extent of the debt load.

Consumers "think they're doing fine by their parents' standards," Manning said. "But boy, have they fallen far behind."

The industry came up with subprime loans in the 1990s, then used them to encourage consumers with checkered credit history to buy homes. When very low interest rates early this decade sent home prices skyrocketing, and Wall Street demanded even more lending to feed a market for mortgage-backed securities, lenders went into overdrive. Consumers could buy with no money down and no documentation of income and were encouraged to borrow against the rising value of their homes.

Before the housing bubbled popped, many consumers were pulling money out of their houses to pay for expenditures — from boats to big-screen TVs — well beyond ordinary living expenses.

Over the years, economists have tried to figure out when, if ever, consumers might finally reach their debt limit. But each time, Americans have proven far more resilient than pessimists imagined, financing their spending by borrowing.

The credit crunch, though, may be the breaking point.

Dolores Holmes took out an interest-only $515,000 loan two years ago to buy a bed and breakfast in Lambertville, N.J., a Delaware River town popular with weekend antique hunters. Once the business took root, she planned to refinance into a fixed-rate loan and cut her cost. But as the economy declined, she had trouble filling rooms.

That increased pressure on her to find a way to cut her mortgage payments. But her accountant and financial adviser say her hopes of getting a more affordable loan are slim without a profit that convinces a lender she's worth the risk.

"I've been cutting back on anything personal," she said. "It's like everything I have has to go back into the business."

In Kansas City, Mo., David and Norine Piet were surprised to get a letter in September from USAA Federal Savings Bank that it was freezing their $40,000 home equity line of credit. The bank told the couple it was doing so because their home's value had plunged from $310,000 to $141,200.

The couple had been poised to refinish their basement to add a bedroom and make it suitable for visitors — a place to have people over and play cards, shoot pool and cook. Now that plan has been shelved.

"It's kind of like we had this $40,000 cushion there, that if anything happened we had an emergency fund," David Piet said. "At least we had a source of funds there, and now that's gone. That has caused us to cut back and try to put more money into savings, and be cautious on what we're spending money on."

The Piets are comfortable enough financially to have retired early. But for consumers of more modest means the new restrictions on credit are cutting into their ability to make what would have been relatively ordinary purchases.

Clark, the steamfitter shopping for a car, returned home to Fairview Heights, Mo., in January after a 12-month tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He found a new job and expected that a regular paycheck would be enough to secure a loan for the car he needs to commute.

At the dealership last weekend, Clark and his wife, Flora Rivera, settled on a Dodge Stratus with 8,000 miles on the odometer. But the dealership was looking for a $1,000 downpayment and Clark had just $200.

The problem is that Clark, 22, has almost no credit history, a problem compounded by the time he spent serving overseas. A few months ago, multiple banks would have been happy to give such a consumer a loan, salesman Scott Ziegler said. But now only companies offering pricier subprime loans are interested, and that still doesn't solve the problem of the downpayment.

Clark left the dealership without a loan, but decided to put down his $200 as a deposit and try to find another source for the remainder of the downpayment. In recent weeks, such scenarios have become the norm, said the dealership's loan manager, Jarrod Campbell.

"I'm getting a lot more customers who are saying, 'I've been to 10 other car lots,"' Campbell said, "and no one will give me a loan."

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27149408/

© 2008 MSNBC.com


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Monday, October 13, 2008

Next Generation Skyscrapers to Exceed One Kilometer in Height

Astounding, at least we get to see where some of our petrodollars are going.  I would like to know how I can have my name listed on the cornerstone or dedication plaque as a primary investor?!



Saudi prince to build tallest building

By Mark Tutton
For CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Saudi Prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world's tallest building, planned to be over a kilometer (3,281 feet) high. The tower will be built in the Saudi town of Jeddah and will be part of a larger project that will cost $26.7 billion, (100 billion Saudi riyals) said the Prince's firm, Kingdom Holding Company.

The project, entitled Kingdom City, will span 23 million square meters (248 million square feet) and will include luxury homes, hotels and offices.

The booming city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has also joined the skyscraper race.

While the ever-growing Burj Dubai is already the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Nakheel Tower is set to go even higher.

Developers suggest the finished building will be at least 1 km tall.

While in Europe, Paris is leading the skyscraper revolution -- plans for a 50-story building have been given the green light, which will make it the first skyscraper to be built in the city for 30 years.

These buildings are part of a new generation of innovative, exciting skyscrapers set to appear all over the world over the next 10 years.

Some truly mind-blowing structures are being planned for the Middle East.

Hot on its heels, the Burj Mubarak Al Kabir, proposed for the planned 'City of Silk' in Kuwait, could also break the 1000-meter barrier.

While they may be mere midgets compared to the mega structures of the Middle East, Russia Tower in Moscow and the Okhta Center Tower in St Petersburg promise to provide some stunning eye candy.

Spiraling its way through the Chicago skyline, the Chicago Spire will have a striking corkscrew design, while a gleaming Freedom Tower is to be the highlight of the rebuilt World Trade Center. And proving the skyscraper renaissance is a global phenomenon there are stylish giants planned for Panama, Pakistan and South Korea.

Anouk Lorie also contributed to this report
 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/10/13/future.skyscraper/index.html
 
Copyright 2008 Cable News Network


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Sunday, October 12, 2008

States Warned about Mortgage Crisis: Bush administration, financial industry thwarted efforts to curb greed

A long, but nonetheless interesting, read on the current financial crisis.  I find it interesting and instructive that most of the problem is rooted in poor character, greed, low integrity, and the interests of the powerful and rich being placed ahead of the poor and marginalized.  "Let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24).


("To' Nizhoni Ani" found on Al_HikesAZ's flickr photostream)

By Robert Berner and Brian Grow
Business Week
updated 11:59 a.m. CT, Sun., Oct. 12, 2008

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

Hawke, a veteran banking industry lawyer appointed to head the OCC by President Bill Clinton in 1998, wouldn't budge. He said he would reinforce federal policies that hindered states from reining in lenders. The AGs left the tense hour-long meeting realizing that Washington had become a foe in the nascent fight against reckless real estate finance. The OCC "took 50 sheriffs off the job during the time the mortgage lending industry was becoming the Wild West," Cooper says.

This was but one of many instances of state posses sounding early alarms about the irresponsible lending at the heart of the current financial crisis. Federal officials brushed aside their concerns. The OCC and its sister agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), instead sided with lenders. The beneficiaries ranged from now-defunct subprime factories, such as First Franklin Financial, to a savings and loan owned by Lehman Brothers, the collapsed investment bank.

Some states, including North Carolina and Georgia, passed laws aimed at deterring rash loans only to have federal authorities undercut them. In Iowa and other states, mortgage mills arranged to be acquired by nationally regulated banks and in the process fended off more-assertive state supervision. In Ohio the story took a different twist: State lawmakers acting at the behest of lenders squelched an attempt by the Cleveland City Council to slow the subprime frenzy.

A number of factors contributed to the mortgage disaster and credit crunch. Interest rate cuts and unprecedented foreign capital infusions fueled thoughtless lending on Main Street and arrogant gambling on Wall Street. The trading of esoteric derivatives amplified risks it was supposed to mute.

One cause, though, has been largely overlooked: the stifling of prescient state enforcers and legislators who tried to contain the greed and foolishness. They were thwarted in many cases by Washington officials hostile to regulation and a financial industry adept at exploiting this ideology.

The Bush Administration and many banks clung to what is known as "preemption." It is a legal doctrine that can be invoked in court and at the rulemaking table to assert that, when federal and state authority over business conflict, the feds prevail — even if it means little or no regulation.

‘Fundamental disagreement’


"There is no question that preemption was a significant contributor to the subprime meltdown," says Kathleen E. Keest, a former assistant attorney general in Iowa who now works for the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit in Durham, N.C. "It pushed aside state laws and state law enforcement that would have sent the message that there were still standards in place, and it was a big part of the message to the industry that it could regulate itself without rules."

"That's bull----," says Hawke, the former comptroller. He returned to private law practice in late 2004 with the prominent Washington firm Arnold & Porter. Once again representing lenders as clients, he confirms the substance and tone of the April 2003 meeting with the state AGs, saying they "simply had a fundamental disagreement." But he denies that federal preemption played a role in the subprime debacle.

Hawke blames much of the mess on mortgage brokers and originators who, he says, were the responsibility of states. "I can understand why state AGs would try to offload some responsibility here," he adds. "It's important to remember when people are trying to assign blame here that the courts uniformly upheld our position."

His arguments have some merit. The federal judiciary has bolstered preemption in the name of uniform national rules, not just for banks but also for manufacturers of drugs and consumer products. And state oversight alone is no panacea, as the chaotic state-regulated insurance market illustrates. Inadequate supervision of mortgage companies in some states contributed to the subprime explosion. But the hands-off signals sent from Washington only invited complacency. When some state officials fired warning flares, the Administration doused them.

Consider a clash in 2004 between the OCC and regulators in Michigan. In January of that year attorneys working for Hawke filed a brief in federal court in Grand Rapids on behalf of Wachovia, the national bank with $800 billion in assets based in Charlotte, N.C. Michigan wanted to continue to examine a Wachovia-controlled mortgage unit in the state, which the bank had converted to a wholly owned subsidiary. The parent bank sued, claiming Michigan could no longer look at the mortgage lender's books. Citing the threat of unspecified "hostile state interests," the OCC argued in its brief that "states are not at liberty to obstruct, impair, or condition the exercise of national bank powers, including those powers exercised through an operating subsidiary."

Michigan countered that Wachovia Mortgage was not itself a national bank. The Constitution preserves state authority to protect its residents when federal statutes don't explicitly bar such regulation, Michigan contended. Ken Ross, the state's top financial regulator, says his department fought Wachovia all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in part because it feared a growing subprime mortgage problem: "We knew there needed to be [state] regulation in place or there could be gaps." The OCC, he adds, "did not have robust regulatory provisions over these operating subsidiaries."

The nation's highest court sided with the Bush Administration, ruling in April 2007 that the OCC had exclusive authority over Wachovia Mortgage. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for a five-member majority, pointed to the potential burdens on mortgage lending if there were "duplicative state examination, supervision, and regulation." In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said that it is "especially troubling that the court so blithely preempts Michigan laws designed to protect consumers."

By the time of the Supreme Court decision last year, Wachovia and its mortgage operations in Michigan and elsewhere were feeling the ill effects of unwise lending. As real estate prices continued to fall this year, pushing many borrowers into default, Wachovia teetered on the edge of failure. In late September the federal government stepped in to arrange a fire sale. On Friday, federal antitrust regulators cleared Wells Fargo's $11.7 billion acquisition of Wachovia, a day after Citigroup Inc. walked away from its own efforts to buy the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank.

Confrontations such as Michigan's battle with Wachovia became far more common after George W. Bush took over the White House in 2001 and instituted a broad deregulatory agenda. The OCC, an arm of the Treasury Dept., has adhered closely to it. The agency oversees more than 1,700 federally chartered banks, controlling two-thirds of all U.S. commercial bank assets. Historically, its examiners have monitored bank capital levels and lending to corporations more attentively than they have the treatment of individual borrowers. "Consumer protection has always been an orphan [among federal bank regulators]," says Adam J. Levitin, a commercial law scholar at Georgetown University Law Center.

The OCC brought 495 enforcement actions against national banks from 2000 through 2006. Thirteen of those actions were consumer-related. Only one involved subprime mortgage lending. OCC spokesman Robert Garsson says the figures could be misinterpreted because the agency addresses many problems informally during bank examinations. He declined to provide any examples.

Beyond the influence of free-market theory, turf concerns have reinforced the Administration's determination to exercise responsibility for as many lenders as possible — and prevent state incursions, notes Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr., a professor at George Washington University Law School. Almost all of the funding for the OCC and OTS comes from fees paid by nationally chartered institutions.

The fight in Georgia


Hawke says the OCC seeks only to exercise powers that it has long held under federal law. It is far more efficient for national banks to deal with one set of federal rules than a hodgepodge of state directives, he argues, echoing the Supreme Court's majority view. By the late 1990s, he adds, more state legislatures and AGs were trying to bully national banks by, for example, restricting ATM fees charged to nondepositors. State officials "found it politically advantageous to assert these kinds of initiatives," he says. The OCC's heightened preemption campaign "was occasioned by the fact the states were becoming more aggressive."

The current head of the OCC, John C. Dugan, concurs. "To claim that it is our fault from preemption is just a total smokescreen to shield the fact that the state mortgage brokers and mortgage companies were just not regulated," Dugan says.

Efforts in Georgia to rein in unwise lending provoked a particularly fierce federal reaction. In 2002 the state passed a law that imposed "assignee liability" on the mortgage-finance process. Understanding the significance of this requires a little background.

One of the forces that accelerated the proliferation of dangerous home loans was the Wall Street business of buying up millions of mortgages, bundling them into bonds, and selling the securities to pension funds and other investors. Securitization, which grew to a $7 trillion industry, meant the lenders could pass along the risk of default to a huge universe of investors. Many of those investors, in turn, relied uncritically on reassurances from fee-collecting investment banks and ratings agencies that mortgage-backed securities were high-quality. When many of the reassurances proved hollow, the securitization market collapsed this year.

Assignee liability would radically reshape that market by making everyone involved potentially responsible when things go bad. Investment banks that created mortgage-backed securities and investors who bought them would be liable for financial damage if mortgages turned out to be fraudulent. The financial industry opposed assignee liability, maintaining that it would cripple the market for asset-backed securities. Major ratings agencies later agreed that allowing unlimited damages would be disruptive. The agencies threatened to stop evaluating many bonds tied to mortgages covered by the Georgia law.

But some banking experts speculate that if Georgia's example had spurred more states to adopt broad assignee liability, greater caution would have prevailed in the mortgage-securities market, possibly preventing the blowups of Lehman, Bear Stearns, and other once-mighty institutions. "If the Georgia law had held, it is possible that other states would have followed and there might have been change earlier," says Ellen Seidman, who headed the OTS from 1997 through 2001.

‘Outgunned’ advocates

Roy Barnes, Georgia's governor in 2002, understood the potential significance of assignee liability when he signed the state's new Fair Lending Act that year. He recalls a breakfast meeting with banking lobbyists during which he admonished the industry to clean up reckless lending. He jokingly threatened to hire "the longest-haired, sandal-wearing bank commissioner you ever saw." But the bankers fought back, seeking to undermine the new law.

The OCC's Hawke assisted the industry by issuing a ruling in July 2003 saying the Georgia law did not apply to national banks or their subsidiaries. A fact sheet prepared at the time — and still available on the OCC's Web site — says: "There is no evidence of predatory lending by national banks or their operating subsidiaries, in Georgia or elsewhere."

The OCC ruling had been requested by Cleveland-based National City Bank on behalf of several of its units, including First Franklin Financial, a subprime lender that operated in Georgia and other states. First Franklin, which was acquired by Merrill Lynch in 2006, has been hit with dozens of suits alleging unfair lending practices. Merrill shut down First Franklin's troubled lending business in March. Itself hobbled by mortgage-securities losses, Merrill agreed last month to be acquired by Bank of America. The bank and Merrill declined to comment.

In August 2004, Hawke went a step further in a letter to the Georgia Banking Dept. He said even state-chartered mortgage brokers and lenders were exempt from the Georgia law — if the loans they handled were funded at closing by a national bank or its subsidiary.

By then support for the Georgia law was already eroding. Barnes, a Democrat, lost his reelection campaign in November 2002, and his Republican successor moved to dilute the lending act. Still, supporters mobilized to defend the legislation. One was William J. Brennan Jr., an Atlanta legal aid attorney who specializes in housing and had testified before the U.S. Congress in 2000 about what he saw as the looming mortgage mess. He told the House Financial Services Committee: "The entry of many prominent national banks into the subprime mortgage-lending business has resulted not in reform, but in the expansion of the abusive practices." Federal regulators, he testified, "have done little to stop" the trend. In early 2003, Brennan and a legal aid colleague, Karen E. Brown, consulted with Georgia legislators trying to block amendments softening the lending law. At a hearing in February, Brennan requested a police escort because he feared that angry mortgage brokers would block his way. "The words that come to mind are 'outgunned' and 'overwhelmed,' " says Brown.

The Georgia legislature sharply curtailed the assignee liability provision in March 2003 and eliminated other elements of the law as well. Subprime lenders such as Ameriquest Mortgage that had halted lending in Georgia in protest of the law resumed marketing high-interest, high-fee mortgages. But by late 2007, Ameriquest had gone out of business after agreeing to a $325 million settlement to resolve suits alleging that it had made fraudulent loans.

Escaping state enforcement

Georgia now has the sixth-highest rate of foreclosure in the country. Consumer advocates and state attorneys general contend the weakening of the state's law was a severe blow to efforts to curb careless lending. "Had the Georgia Fair Lending Act not been watered down, we would be in a very different place right now," says Brown.

In some states, dubious local mortgage firms sold themselves to national banks, gaining protection against state enforcement. The Iowa Division of Banking in 2006 sought to examine a subprime broker called Okoboji Mortgage in the town of Arnolds Park. A borrower had accused the firm (named for an area lake) of duplicitous lending practices. Cheryl Riley, a 52-year-old janitor, told state officials she had not received the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage she thought she had arranged with Okoboji in 2005. Instead of one monthly statement, Riley got two: one for a 9.25 percent adjustable-rate loan and another for a 15-year fixed loan at 12 percent. Both rates were far higher than what Riley and her husband thought they had negotiated. "We were horrified," she says.

A preliminary state investigation found that Okoboji's manager had headed a mortgage firm in Nebraska that lost its license for falsifying loan documents. But Okoboji refused Iowa's demand for an examination, forcing the agency to file suit in August 2006. Okoboji responded by announcing that it had been acquired by Wells Fargo, a nationally chartered bank regulated by the OCC. Okoboji handed in its state license, saying it no longer had to comply with Iowa rules. "We'd had red flags but were now blocked from investigating," says Shauna Shields, an Iowa assistant AG.

Okoboji's former manager, Lyda Neuhaus, calls Nebraska's earlier actions "a witch hunt" based on "12 miserable complaints." Her father, Juan Alonso, who owned Okoboji, says he sold his company because he wanted to retire, not to escape state regulation. Both deny any wrongdoing. A Wells Fargo spokesman declined to comment on Iowa's concern about Okoboji and defended the acquisition as benefiting customers and shareholders.

A playing field with no rules


The experience with Okoboji was the sort of thing that Iowa AG Miller had warned about when he joined his counterpart from North Carolina on their visit to OCC chief Hawke in 2003. "Now, we could not do anything with federally chartered banks or subsidiaries," Miller says. In 2006 and 2007 the Iowa legislature shot down proposals by Miller for more-restrictive lending laws. Lax regulatory standards at the federal level helped undermine his efforts, he explains. State-chartered banks insisted that tougher rules in Iowa would put them at a competitive disadvantage with federally chartered banks overseen by the OCC. "We had to acknowledge the [political] environment we were in," Miller says.

The banking industry repeated the argument for regulatory "parity" in many states that tried and failed to tighten supervision of subprime lenders, says Keest of the Center for Responsible Lending: "State institutions then wanted a level playing field, which was a playing field with no rules."

Hawke says that it would have been inappropriate for the states to impose more-stringent standards on federally chartered institutions: "Had they tried to apply those rules to national banks, they clearly would have been preempted."

In Cleveland in 2002, Frank G. Jackson, then a member of the City Council, could see that many lower-income residents were being persuaded by lenders to pile on high-interest debt. "It was pure greed, based on exploitation," he says. "[Some subprime lending] is just the same as organized crime." He started negotiating with mortgage lenders for more-favorable terms. To his surprise, the lenders bypassed him and persuaded the state legislature to enact a less stringent version of an anti-predatory lending act he was drafting. "I figured the good faith had ended, so I passed my law [at the city level]," Jackson says. That law required lenders to register with the city and provided counseling to prospective borrowers.

His accomplishment was short-lived. That same year, the American Financial Services Assn. (AFSA), a national trade group, sued to block Ohio municipalities from passing lending laws that conflicted with state statutes. The Ohio Supreme Court later sided with the industry. AFSA's goal was to ward off conflicts between federal, state, and local rules, says spokesman Bill Himpler. "Different municipalities moving different anti-predatory lending legislation ... would have brought the credit markets to a screeching halt."

Fulfilling Jackson's fears, the Cleveland area has become one of the places worst hit by the mortgage catastrophe. More than 80,000 homes have gone into foreclosure since 2000, the highest per capita rate in the country.

In January, Jackson, elected the city's mayor in 2005, tried a new tactic. He filed suit in state court against Lehman, Wells Fargo, and 19 other lenders, alleging that they sold "toxic subprime mortgages ... under circumstances that made the resulting spike in foreclosures a foreseeable and inevitable result." The city's attorneys based the suit on an Ohio law banning "public nuisances," which is usually used against defendants such as manufacturers whose factories emit pollution. The idea was to steer clear of conventional banking law and head off any claim of federal preemption. The suit is pending; the banks all deny wrongdoing.

Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27121535/

© 2008 MSNBC.com


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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Reversing the Politics of Race...

Things that make you go...hummm?!



the following was posted by Mikey on October 08, 2008
Riddle me this, Cindy
TheGoodWord, a column of TheAmericanBoy

I’m not sure who wrote this, but I received it in an e-mail the other day. After John McCain’s seemingly racist disdain and commentary offered to Barack Obama last night and Cindy McCain’s claim today that Barack is running the dirtiest campaign in history, I thought it appropriate to share. While reading the following think hard about how race plays a part in this election.

——————————————————————————

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to?

What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no
longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain
killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5*?

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election
numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does.  It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in
another when there is a color difference.

PS: What if Barack Obama had an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter….
*******
You are The Boss… which team would you hire?

With America facing historic debt, 2 wars, stumbling health care, a
weakened dollar, all-time high prison population, mortgage crises,
bank foreclosures, etc.

Educational Background:

Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
  Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
   Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

  vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Palin:
   Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
   North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
   University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
   Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
   University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

——————————————————-

Kinda makes you take a step back and think about things doesn’t it? If you’re leaning McCain, think for a second about why you’re even considering McCain and make sure it’s not because Obama is black.

© 2008 TheAmericanBoy. All Rights Reserved.



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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Financial Crisis: Rooted at the Board of Director Level of Leadership

The financial crisis that we are facing as a nation (and perhaps an entire world) is ultimately rooted in a crisis of leadership.  At a national level, our leaders are acting in selfish and self-serving ways that create and perpetuate debt and ignore the general welfare of our nation.  At a corporate level, boards of directors are ignoring sloppy executive management or outright fraud in order to protect their places of oligarchical power and wealth, as well as ignore the welfare of shareholders and the interests of all citizens.  Pat Lencioni, of The Table Group, offers some provocative words that, in part, challenge all of us to be(come) people of courage and clarity.  Thanks for speaking truth to power, Pat!



Pat's POV: September 2008
 
The Financial Crisis


In the midst of the financial crisis going on in America these days, there is a natural tendency to search for a villain we can blame and move on with a sense of tidiness and moral certitude. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is such a villain.

Sure, there’s more than likely a good number of people who made serious mistakes out of carelessness or greed, and they will need to be held accountable for that. But the real culprit here, in my opinion, has nothing to do with economics or regulations or finance. It is about the desire of leaders to avoid interpersonal discomfort.

I realize that this doesn’t sound very sexy, and certainly isn’t going to make for a compelling television movie-of-the-week. It would be better if there were a group of sinister old men out there who sit around in three piece suits smoking stogies and laughing about how rich and powerful they are going to get stealing people’s homes and investments. That would actually be easier because then we could track those guys down, throw them in jail, and achieve a measure of closure. But based on my experience consulting to CEOs and their teams over the past decade, I can say with a high degree of confidence that this just isn’t the case.

The biggest cause of this and other crises is that most leaders operate under the assumption that they should never have to engage in discussions that are awkward, confrontational or career-limiting. As a result, they rarely have the kind of uncomfortable discussions that prevent people from doing stupid and harmful things. Instead, they are polite and guarded and collegial with one another, even when what is called for is passionate disagreement or even outrage.

This is a surprise to people who don’t have a view into corporate America. They are usually shocked when I tell them that I rarely see people passionately argue with one another or take a strong, moral stand. What they don’t realize is that the real world is nothing like what we see in movies where executives routinely pound their fists on the table and announce, “this is just plain wrong and I won’t stand for it!”

Consider the current situation at various banks, some of which no longer exist. Plenty of intelligent and well-intentioned board members and executives must have known that something was wrong with granting a CEO a $20 million bonus in the event that he were fired. And even the least sophisticated executive had to have seen the potential problem with approving home loans to people who would not be able to afford them if and when interest rates changed. So why didn’t they do something?

Because they looked around and saw other intelligent and well-intentioned people who weren’t standing up on their chairs and objecting. And they figured that perhaps what was going on wasn’t so bad after all, especially if so many other executives and banks and boards of directors were doing it. “Who am I to rain on this parade?”

To be fair, some of them probably made a quiet comment during a meeting, or more likely, mentioned something to another board member over lunch. But they weren’t laying down on the railroad tracks and risking their compensation or their friendships or their reputation if no one else would. Of course, plenty of them will come out now and say they saw the problem all along, and they might even be able to convince enough people that they should be considered whistle blowers.

The fact is, too few people in life have the courage and clarity of thinking to stand up at the right time and say what needs to be said. And that’s what makes real leaders different. They are ready and willing to do what is unseemly, uncomfortable, and even personally risky for the sake of what is right.

And so the lesson that comes from all of his, or at least one of the most important ones, has nothing to do with legislation or economic policy or oversight. It is a personal lesson that each of us can learn by honestly and humbly asking ourselves what we would have done had we been a board member or an executive at one of those companies that did something that seems so clearly wrong in hindsight. By considering that question, we will probably shift our emotional energy away from trying to find a legislative, economic or legal explanation for the mess we’re in, and shine the light on the behavioral one that really deserves the attention. And perhaps that will help us avoid the next crisis.

Copyright © 2008 The Table Group Inc.

 



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Butterfly (song and lyrics)

I was on youtube.com when I clicked on this.  Now it is one of my favorite songs.  ENJOY!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Dr. Ron Paul Diagnoses Our Economic Illness: Buying bad debt is the wrong solution

If it is impossible to dig ourselves out of a hole...then how can we expect to borrow our way out of debt?!  Ron Paul is not crazy...he is a patriot and a prophet who believes that the Constitution means what it says.  Listen as he speaks truth to power!



(CNN) -- Two days after the House rejected the $700 billion bailout bill, the Senate is set to vote on the rescue plan for financial institutions.

The vote is scheduled for after sundown Wednesday.

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, and Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, all said they would be present for the vote.

Speaking to CNN's John Roberts on Wednesday, House Financial Services Committee member and former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul discussed why he thinks the bailout bill is the wrong solution to the economic problem and what he would do to secure financial security.

John Roberts: Congressman, great to see you. I was browsing around on your Web site, Campaign for Liberty. And right there on the very front page, you are appealing to your supporters -- and there are tens of thousands of them -- to get in touch with key senators to tell them to vote this bill down when it comes to a vote in the Senate at sundown tonight.

Why do you want them to vote it down?

Rep. Ron Paul: I think it's a bad bill. I think it's bad for the taxpayers. I think it's doing more of the same thing. The same policy that we're following now with this bill is exactly how we got into that trouble. VideoWatch Ron Paul explain why he opposes the bailout »

And you know, I really don't have that much clout in Washington, D.C. And I recognize it. But there are a couple people outside of Washington that care about what I'm thinking and care about free market ... economics. And they will respond. And I think we did help generate a little bit of mail to the House members.

So you go where you can have the influence. And I think that people -- the grassroots -- understand this a lot better than members of Congress give them credit for.

Roberts: So, instead of the bills that are currently before the Senate, the one that may be before the House as early as Thursday, what would you do?

Paul: Well, we need to do a lot, but a lot differently. We have to recognize how we got into this problem. We have too much debt. We have too much malinvestment.

Roberts:OK, OK. So we recognize all of the things that got us here. But, right now, today, what would you do, if not this bill?

Paul: You have to liquidate those mistakes. Those mistakes were made due to monetary policy. So you have to allow the market to adjust prices downward. And that's what we're not allowing to do.

If there are too many houses and the prices are too high, the sooner we get the prices down to the market level, as soon as we quit trying to encourage more housing -- this is what we're doing. They're trying to stimulate houses and keep prices high. It's exactly opposite of what we should do.

So, we should get out of the way and not buy up bad debt. There's illiquid assets, but most of those are probably worthless. They're mostly derivatives. And we're sticking those with the taxpayer. So we have to recognize that the liquidation of debt is crucial. And if we did that, we would have tough times, there's no doubt about it, for a year. But if we keep propping a system up that's not viable, we're going to have a problem for decades, just like we did in the Depression. That's what we're on the verge of doing.

Roberts: Congressman Paul, what do you think of this idea that's being floated -- this process called mark to market, which would, they would modify the rules so that the, right now, paper that a lot of these institutions are holding, which is worth nothing, they would actually be able to assign some sort of value to it.

Some people are saying that that would just hide the problem. Other people are wondering if maybe that might create some sort of voodoo accounting that would allow widespread abuse in the system.

What do you think?

Paul: It demonstrates the problem. You know, when they prevented them from marking them down, this was an SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] regulation. Shows how regulations backfire.

If you had a market economy and then if you had a market-adjusted FDIC, where insurance was based on the strength of the bank, this would have happened on a daily basis. But instead, we insure everybody, no matter what the bank is doing, and we do it, either we overkill -- we give you too much credit on bad investments -- and then we make changes all of a sudden, and they're drastic, to what they have done.

So, it's impossible. It's either too little or too much. And what you need is insurance of, FDIC type of insurance, has to be driven by the marketplace to measure the viability of a bank.

Roberts: So what do you think?

Paul: This adds to all the moral hazard that we have in the system.

Roberts: So what do you then think of this idea of raising the limit on [FDIC] insurance to $250,000, from its current cap of $100,000?

Paul: Well, on the short run it will calm the markets. People will feel better. I might even personally feel better for a week or two.

But I know that long term, it's the wrong thing to do. I opposed this in the early '80s when they went from 30 [thousand dollars] to 100 [thousand dollars], saying it would lead to more problems like this with malinvestment. It would cover over the mistakes. And the same thing will happen.

But if we raise it to 250 [thousand dollars], people are going to feel better, then it will keep the bubble going for a little while longer and putting more pressure on the dollar. If the dollar lasts longer, then finally the world will give up on the dollar -- and then we will have a big problem that nobody has even really begun to think about.

Roberts: A lot of people might hope that you're wrong with your projection.

Paul: I do too. I hope I'm wrong.

Roberts: You tend to be right on these things on occasion, though. Dr. Paul, it's good to talk to you. Appreciate it.

Paul: Thank you.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/01/paul.qanda/index.html
 
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