It looks like they finally struck a deal. And it’s a hell of a good deal for Conservatives. This thing better slip through the House, or we’re going to have to check the water or air inside the Republican’s half of congress. There might be a leak, allowing crazy to seep in from the Democrat’s side.

No tax hikes. $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years. A committee to cut an additional $1.5 trillion by the end of the year, with a trigger if that does not occur which will cause cross the board cuts, half being defense cuts. Obama gets $1.2 trillion in debt increase.

I have a question. I was thinking about Hillary the other day – can’t remember why, might have been something about female social progress. Anyway, over the past 10-15 years I’ve had a certain amount of admiration for her. In the past four years, my admiration has been markedly stronger.

I like how she’s been able to maintain a certain level of dignity, despite Bubu’s wet-cigar incident, her generally unfair treatment as a female politician, her weirdly unfair treatment by the sudden pro-Obama movement, and her defeat in the 2008 primary. She’s got character – which is rare in politics and utterly missing in the current Whitehouse.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want her in charge. As much as I appreciate her ideas on improving society, as you know, I think her ideas for getting there are aren’t based in reality, although her version is a damn-sigh more realistic and honest than the regular-Liberal shenanigans we’ve been enjoying for the past three years.  And it would be great having an actual leader up there. Obama is sort of like having a really smart little kid in charge of things, you know. He’s got all these fancy ideas, audacious confidence, a naively optimistic set of assumptions – which is adorable. It just doesn’t work when you’re supposed to be leading adults.

And that’s my question. Are Liberals pissed or what? I mean, if I were a Liberal I’d be pissed, unless I was in some type of denial, which is kind of the Liberal’s regular state. Yeah, yeah… The healthcare bill passed. But did it? Did it really? I don’t think so – I mean – if I were a Liberal I wouldn’t think so.

If I were a Liberal, I’d be looking at Congress right now, I’d be watching them argue and discuss spending cuts. Not whether or not to do some spending cuts – but how much to cut spending. I’d be watching Congress struggle to make a deal in order to raise the debt ceiling. I’d be watching the Democrats give in to all kinds of spending cuts, and the Republicans standing firm on zero tax rate increases. I’d be watching Obama and Dems try like hell to demagogue the issue — balance the budget on the backs of students and seniors, tax private jets, increase tax revenue — and failing miserably to get public support, meanwhile independents worry more about our spending. I’d be watching Obama himselfput SS and Medicare on the table. I’d be watching all this, remembering the audacious hope I had just a little while ago, how we had a super majority for two years, and I’d be looking at what we managed to achieve, and I’d be like – WHAT THE F***********************K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So there’s my question: How pissed are Liberals? Just imagine what Hillary Rodham Clinton would have done with that super majority, healthcare debate, this debate, and everything else — who knows what else! I might be interested in a Democratic primary next year. And I’d own Hillary a serious heart-felt apology.

We need to increase tax revenue, not necessarily tax rates. The core problem is the bad economy, growing medical quality (notice I didn’t say costs), and entitlements that haven’t been adjusted for 50 years of change, including increased medical quality that has people living into their 100s and not just their 60s and 70s when SS was constructed.

Raising tax rates won’t fix any of this, and any intellectually honest person with even the slightest understanding of economics will agree that raising tax rates right now could easily decrease revenue, and make the problems worse. Just because the last few harvests have been poor doesn’t mean we should fall to the temptation of selling the tractor… We’re undergoing some serious economic change and we need our “rich” to invent the new economy before our rivals do and we end up behind or buried.

I watched Charlie Rose yesterday. He had a political analyst on there who said something I’ve heard multiple times since the speech, on NPR and FOX, which makes a lot of sense. Basically, according to the commentator(s), Obama’s strategy – political strategy – was to wait for the Republicans to come out with their radical Teapartyish budget reform plan, let it scare everyone into pooping their pants, then appear on TV with a 45 minute speech doing his election-2008 shtick, criticizing all the easy targets of the Republican plan and offering an “alternative” in the form of inspiring moderate ambiguous intangible rhetoric.

But the strategy sort of failed. People didn’t poop their pants after hearing Paul Ryan’s plan. Instead, people praised Ryan – including The Economists magazine – for finally offering some seriously needed reforms. The only partially scary sounding part of the plan is turning Medicare into the type of insurance buying system that Congress gets. Democrats are running around trying to hype it up, calling it a ‘voucher’ plan – which it isn’t. It’s a copy of the prescription drug plan, which works well. Instead of having a monstrous government agency controlling the prescription drug benefits, Medicare recipients have a choice between several private companies. You just check a box. If you want to change you can. The different companies all have to fight over you. Payments to these companies come directly from the government, no vouchers.

And people all this time have been wondering where the hell the President has been. We’ve got serious problems, people are worried about the debt and the future, one guy has produced a plan, but all Obama has done is criticize that plan without offering a solution of his own. People don’t like that. This is lack of leadership. This is indeed political pooplery.

It feels really good to watch one of these big horrible things finally die. Hmmmmmmm… I hope these past two years of naive Liberal idea implementation tide America over for a couple decades, until a new generation emerges eager to believe in unicorns and the unicorn prince.

Probably not though. All the crazy Liberals got infected with some serious confidence and they don’t seem to want to let it go. I heard a lady today, a ‘contributer’ on the news, arguing that we should let ALL the tax cuts expire because government needs to take the money and create jobs… Because “The Rich” are sitting on their money…

I don’t understand how you can become an adult, and have such a poor understanding of business
and economics, to think something so odd. Seriously, when government ‘creates’ a job who do you think pays that wage? We do. The private sector needs to create x number of taxable ‘jobs’ to finance every y number of government jobs.

And of course ‘The Rich’ are holding their money. All the variables are up in the air. Rich people in our time didn’t get rich with luck. They combine talent, resources, and ideas. They play good odds. They only make a bet when the risk outweighs the reward. Right now there’s uncertainty, serious uncertainty, so they’re bidding their time until an advantage presents itself, then they’ll strike.

Business isn’t hiring also because of uncertainty – and because there’s reduced demand. The word isn’t BIGGER anymore. Today the word in successful business is BETTER. In other words, do more with less. That’s the mentality of the strong survivors.

For business to start hiring again, they need to expand – increase capacity. To do that, they need investment. Either way, there’s a guy sitting there studying a spreadsheet. There are numerous entries for costs in that spreadsheet. Somewhere at the bottom is profit. In that guy’s mind he is calculating RISK, as best as he can despite the uncertainty.

Before that guy starts accepting resumes, he needs that spreadsheet to show him something that will outweigh the RISK he imagines. Almost ALL the Democrat’s legislation these past two years increase the costs in that guys spreadsheet, making it less competitive against RISK, and increase uncertainty, which causes that guy to imagine greater risk – with good reason.

I really like the election results. The Republicans have the house, so that puts a stop to the angry onslaught of crazy Liberal haphazard legislation. I feel safe now. But they don’t have the Senate, so that gives Obama one less thing upon which to blame his problems and failures.

Strategically, long term, this was the best result. A HUGE sweep wasn’t possible because only a few conservative Democratic districts were up for election. Had the Republicans taken both houses, it wouldn’t have been to their advantage because of the Presidential veto. They wouldn’t have been able to pass anything, or repeal anything. Now a sanity filter in on the legislative branch, which will due until 2012, when more gains might be made, specifically the Presidency, and likewise 2014, gathering back many of the star-struck Yes We Can conservative districts. And the House can pass some good-sounding stuff and let the Democrats be the opposition. All-in-all, this sets up the Republicans best for 2012.

My biggest disappointments were that Frank, Boxer, and Reid all got away. It was unlikely, but I was hoping for a joyous surprise. And California – well – good luck California, Brown will certainly lead you to victory in your war on business.

You guys watch. US business is breathing a collective sight of relief, and over the next few months we’ll see more investment. Someone essentially called Mr. Business on the phone and informed him that he can adjust his outlook more optimistically, Obama can’t whip out any big new ideas – like taxing good ideas or math – which means figures will show more money for expansion.

I’m excited to hear from Obama later today. Hopefully he doesn’t hit us over the head with an irrational perspective and an arrogant condescending attitude, which is his habit under pressure. It would be cool if he would concede that the fanciful idea that we can borrow and spend our way out of this type of recession is no longer a feasible idea – this type of recession being one of permanent change; e.g. manufacturing leaving, over-inflated housing market popping, developing countries taking over technology, and mainly the US has no new economic driver, unless you count Green Energy, but you guys don’t, because you guys aren’t stupid.

It would be cool if he were to concede that a different path must now be taken, and super cool if he would grasp the economic reality that the only possible way out of this recession is economic growth, which means we need to offer real relief to business in the only way government can: Cutting taxes. There’s no other way.

Spending cuts would be great, but there simply aren’t enough reasonable cuts to make a numeric difference in the budget, except for raising the retirement age, which needs to happen, incrementally. And raising taxes, or not continuing the Bush tax cuts, is a miserable idea for two really big reasons. 1. We’re in a recession and increasing those taxes will slow the economy! 2. Taxes are already so high, increasing them, or letting the Bush tax cuts expire, will not increase tax revenue by any helpful amount, and could very well decrease tax revenue by shrinking the economy, or driving business out of the country.

Maybe now Obama will have to act like the guy he campaigned as. You know, like how he said we have more upon which we agree than disagree. And how he said that when he disagrees with you, that’s when he’ll listen most closely to you. LOL People bought that.

Wow!!! Michigan went for some RED! Snyder took 59%! How did that happen? And we elected two Republican Congressmen.

I really like these results. The Republicans have the house, so that puts a stop to the angry onslaught of crazy Liberal haphazard legislation. I feel safe now. But they don’t have the Senate, so that gives Obama one less thing upon which to blame his problems and failures.

Strategically, long term, this was the best result. A HUGE sweep wasn’t possible because only a few conservative Democratic districts were up for election. Had the Republicans taken both houses, it wouldn’t have been to their advantage because of the Presidential veto. They wouldn’t have been able to pass anything, or repeal anything. Now a sanity filter is on the legislative branch, which will due until 2012, when more gains might be made, specifically the Presidency, and likewise 2014, gathering back many of the star-struck “Yes We Can!” conservative districts. And the House can pass some good-sounding stuff and let the Democrats be the opposition. All-in-all, this sets up the Republicans best for 2012.

My biggest disappointments were that Frank, Boxer, and Reid all got away. It was unlikely, but I was hoping for a joyous surprise. And California – well – good luck California, Brown will certainly lead you to victory in your war on business.

You guys watch. US business is breathing a collective sigh of relief, and over the next few months we’ll see more investment. Someone essentially called Mr. Business on the phone and informed him that he can adjust his outlook more optimistically, Obama can’t whip out any big new ideas – like taxing good ideas or math – which means figures will show more money for expansion.

I’m excited to hear from Obama later today. Hopefully he doesn’t hit us over the head with an irrational perspective and an arrogant condescending attitude, which is his habit under pressure. It would be cool if he would concede that the fanciful idea that we can borrow and spend our way out of this type of recession is no longer a feasible idea – this type of recession being one of permanent change; e.g. manufacturing leaving, over-inflated housing market popping, developing countries taking over technology, and mainly the US has no new economic driver, unless you count Green Energy, but you guys don’t, because you guys aren’t stupid.

***Update***
Did everyone catch Obama’s press conference today. He’s sounding like campaign Obama. I swear, that man has two personalities. Just last week he was selling some nonsense on The Daily Show – that ending the filibuster would encourage compromise. Then today he’s talking about listening. Maybe now that Dad’s home Obama will actually behave in the way he was advocating during him masterful campaign and in his book? I’m tempted to have optimism. Maybe someone will write some rational legislation?

It would be cool if he were to concede that a different path must now be taken, and super cool if he would grasp the economic reality that the only possible way out of this recession is economic growth, which means we need to offer real relief to business in the only way government can: Cutting taxes. There’s no other way.

Spending cuts would be great, but there simply aren’t enough reasonable cuts to make a numeric difference in the budget, except for raising the retirement age, which needs to happen, incrementally. And raising taxes, or not continuing the Bush tax cuts, is a miserable idea for two really big reasons. 1. We’re in a recession and increasing those taxes will slow the economy! 2. Taxes are already so high, increasing them, or letting the Bush tax cuts expire, will not increase tax revenue by any helpful amount, and could very well decrease tax revenue by shrinking the economy, or driving business out of the country.

Maybe now Obama will have to act like the guy he campaigned as. You know, like how he said we have more upon which we agree than disagree. And how he said that when he disagrees with you, that’s when he’ll listen most closely to you. LOL People bought that. LOL.

Bush II’s book is almost out. I wonder how soon a paper copy will show up at Meijer? I’ve heard a few things about it. Bush apparently became sick to his stomach when it became apparent no WMDs were to be found.

The trouble is competing ideology. Either side has a totally different approach to constructing the solution for certain problems.

But yes, indeed, we are talking about negotiation when we talk about compromise. Obama seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what negotiation means. Think of the whole opening dialogue with Iran campaign point. He doesn’t seem to grasp that negotiation is an adjustment of wills according to leverage. And the goal is to have both sides leave happy. He seems to think negotiation is charming someone into doing something that they otherwise wouldn’t have, without you enlightening charm.

The two sides should come together and discuss each others priorities – and make trade, like two kids trading lunch items. The more leverage you have, the more you can demand. That’s negotiation. That’s how business deals work.

Taking Obama’s legislation as an example. He made one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a negotiation, and gave the Reps one of the biggest forms of leverage: Ability to withdraw. At first he though he had ALL the leverage, so they went after the Pelosi Special. But this scared off many conservative Dems, let everyone know the Obama administration was being belligerent, didn’t include any Republican priorities, giving the Republicans that one big stick: Ability to withdraw and form a bipartisan opposition.

There was nothing keeping the Reps in the negotiation – actually – they were kicked right the fuck out. Remember? The closed door?

Ending the filibuster will just shift more leverage to the majority side. It won’t increase compromise in any way. It will only make one side able to demand more – or kick the other side out all together. This would be in the Democrat’s overall interest, because they’re “Progressives” and have a long list of big changes.

That was the fundamental failure of this presidency. He can try blaming others, but what really happened was he thought he could dictate change and ruined his position, in all of two months. Good work Pelosi. Obama could have pulled the other side in and ONLY passed solutions both sides agreed upon, and strengthened his position – validated his Obama mystique.

Think about that. Think about if he had immediately passed a short and easily implementable healthcare reform bill that first fall. A bill both sides had a stake in and showed some pleasant results that year. He would have earned credibility, and significantly increased his leverage for Phase 2. And Phase 3 might happen in year 6 of the Obama administration and look like a public option.

And yes, there would have been butt-hurt Reps over there holding out on anything. But he could have grabbed half or a third with an honest healthcare reform bill. They wouldn’t have had a choice. They wouldn’t have had the Ability to Withdraw.

Instead he now has the record of passing, or attempting to pass, three bills, all with purely partisan support, and all with bipartisan opposition:

1. Spent $800 billion that didn’t seem to do one good-damn thing.
2. Half passed a cap’n trade bill that scared – and is scaring – the shit out of business during a recession.
3. Passed a healthcare bill against the will of the people and through the use of parliamentary tricks.

Bad economy or not, the reason Obama’s support has dwindled is this: He didn’t do enough for the Left, and the moderates feel like they got scammed.

Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer (R), recently released a commercial on TV satirizing the opponents of the recently formed illegal immigration bill that has sparked nation-wide controversy.  The commercial portrays a frog puppet engaging the viewer in a song-a-long about reading,  ”Reading is, really super swell,”.  Watch the video to the right, it’s hilarious!  The horrible part about all this isn’t that these government officials are being made fun of, but rather that the frog is actually correct in the premise and conclusion it presents.  WTF! seriously!?  Has it really come to the point where the libs and others in washington have so much shit up their ear canals or stuffed in there heads that not even a sing-a-long by a political frog spewing truth and facts can get them to start thinking logically or at least turn their rhetoric down a few notches so as not to completely look like the complete morons they are?  Come on democrats, read the dam bill and stop trying to terrorize the public and minorities with these absurd scare tactics.  You at least attempted to be all incognito with your scare tactics in the good old days, but now, your just letting any old utterance of ignorant doomsday propaganda slobber out.

Trying to reason with this is akin to a highly educated teacher trying to convince a a 9 year old, socially maladjusted bully that if he doesn’t stop behaving the way he is, he’s going to get his ass kicked by someone bigger.  The frog read it, I read it, the walls of congress read it, so what the hell are you doing dems? The reason you look like utter fools is because YOU ARE.  Holy shit, its time for some serious self reflection, starting with Brewer’s commercial.  If my 3rd grade students get it even after stumbling through the reading (you know, because its tough vocabulary for a 3rd grader), then surely the heads of our country can take the 20 minutes to read through it instead of getting their info from CNN and MSNBC.  This washington, is why we, the American people, have absolutely no confidence in your ability to run the dam country.  Kudos to the frog by the way. And well done Governor Brewer getting down to the level of the illegal immigration reform critics, even though laying prostrate was still apparently not low enough to reach them.

A Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on the estimated value of products at each stage of production and distribution. And like all taxes on business, it’s passed on to the consumer – making everything more expensive.

A VAT is similar to a sales tax in who actually pays it, but the difference is that the VAT hides the amount the consumer pays. When you look at your receipt from the grocery store you can see the sales tax. It’s right under the subtotal. When you buy a car there’s a special line just for the sales tax.

But the VAT is charged at each state of production and shipping. It’s not marked anywhere for you or me to see. With a VAT, the auto manufacturer would be charged based on the value of the car when it’s sold to the dealer. The shipper for the car would be charged a VAT for the value of the shipping. The subcontractors, the companies that make all the parts for the car, would be charged a VAT for the parts they manufacture. And the producers who make the material the parts are made of, they would pay a VAT too, as would the shippers, as would the producers of the packaging material.

And this huge and complex system would apply to most everything. All the materials and equipment everywhere in between the above process would carry the VAT hidden in its price – everything from tools to toilet paper.

This is why sneaky politicians like the VAT. They can make promises of monetary gifts to get into office, once in office establish expensive entitlements and pass huge goody bills for their friends, and pay for it by raising the VAT without anyone noticing. Historically that’s what has happened in Europe anyway.

If a sales tax is raised everyone sees it. But you can raise the VAT quietly, incrementally, with few people raising a fuss.

So why am I bringing this up? The US doesn’t have a VAT. We have income and sales tax. Well, I bring it up because the US is spending huge amounts of money, adding to the immense pile of debt, and otherwise over the past couple years has been moving in the direction of of a European style of heavy tax/entitlement. Also, Obama says the VAT is, “on the table” with regard to fixing the county’s serious budget problems.

And seriously, what else is there? Is anyone going to cut precious programs in this Liberal climate? Hell, we’re passing new ones. The answer Obama and his Dems have offered to EVERY problem so far is a huge pile of cash or a huge new bureaucracy – but usually both. He promised (pfft) not to raise taxes on anyone making less than blah blah. But he can’t raise income taxes on the rich anymore. They’re already on the down slopping side of the bell curve. (raising their taxes will result in lower tax revenue) What else is there?

So watch out for the VAT. It’s a sneaky tax. Every tax is bad for the economy – but this one dodges accountability with the consumer. It hits everyone including the poorest, which is actually good for the Democrat’s style of campaign/governance. They can suck money out of our society then distribute it back as the clumsy, slow, expensive bureaucracies see fit – VISIBLY – so the politicians can take credit for ‘giving’ assistance to people in need.

Dear Noisy Dove,

The recently passed illegal immigration law in Arizona is apparently supported by 70% of the state’s voters, yet President Obama in a public ceremony called the bill, and so the people, misguided. He spoke generally of a different kind of reform needed. What sort would that be? …other than writing out a US birth certificate for anyone who wants one.

Obama is part of a group that doesn’t like that illegal immigration is illegal. (this group also likes to scare Latinos and other minorities away from the Republican vote) Instead of trying to make wander-in immigration legal, Obama’s group over the years has made enforcing immigration laws exceedingly difficult – that’s why illegal immigration is so popular among immigrants.

Arizona’s new law simply makes illegal immigration illegal under Arizona law, and requires officers to check citizenship status if there is probable cause to believe a suspect is an illegal immigrant. So essentially this law is undoing Progressive efforts to make a law they don’t agree with unenforceable. Obama doesn’t like that so he’s propped up one of his Straw Men again.

Obama can’t argue the logic of the law. AZ has half a million illegal immigrants and the number is growing while Mexican drug violence is seeping over the border. Schools are crowded and hurting for funds while parents are unemployed or under employed watching debt and taxes rise and incomes fall. And the Federal government refuses to secure the border. What does he expect a border State to do?

Obama’s Straw Man in this case is the usual Liberal argument against most anything they can’t counter logically: Racial. He calls it irresponsible and misguided – something that will: “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

What I call irresponsible is an insecure border that leaks thousands of illegal immigrants per day. What’s misguided is hampering law enforcement because you disagree with a law. One notion of fairness that many Americans cherish – especially legal immigrants – is the notion that anyone can become an American if they’re willing to go through the process. (not many countries allow this). And one thing that undermines trust between police and their communities is overburdening the police with hundreds of unidentifiable people entering those communities on a daily basis and then limiting how police can go about enforcing laws that are clearly and blatantly being broken.

Fundamentally, I think it’s lofty, arrogant, and un-American for the Federal government to tell a border state how it should or shouldn’t enforce immigration laws, within reason. And within reason, there is no smaller thing one can do to enforce immigration law than to require a police officer to check citizenship status when that officer has serious reason to question citizenship.

Obama also argues that this law is an example of why the Fed needs to pass immigration reform – to prevent more state laws from appearing that make a Federal law also a State law and require State enforcement. This would be a sound argument – although contradictory – if he were planning anything more than a soft political give-away.

What needs to happen first is our borders need to be secured. Right now this will require the National Guard, and is an optimal job for them. I would have disagreed with this a few years ago. Militarizing the border between us and one of our closest allies is bad for relations, and just looks jackassish. But things are getting serious. Ranchers have trash laden paths through their property and some are taking border security into their own hands. Mexico is fighting what is essentially an insurgency, which is coming over our weak border. And of course, we have unidentifiable people and illegal drugs poring through.

Long term, a serious barrier needs to be constructed. The border fence idea was good, but the contractors screwed it up. Regardless, a triple barrier with a road running down it would be ideal, along with ever improving surveillance equipment. It doesn’t matter how well you’re catching illegals if they’re pouring back in just as fast.

Next would be dealing with the current illegal immigrants. Now, I understand Amnesty is a bad word. But seriously, a society like ours, in most cases, is going to offer some type of stream-lined path to established illegal immigrants, it just is, that’s just how we are. The key to amnesty not breaking our society down is to observe step 1: Secure the borders.

Once the border is secure, and the current illegals are given amnesty or shipped off, we can then look at current immigration law. According to many farmers – for example – migrant workers are essential to their business. These workers are often undocumented and the jobs they do won’t be had by citizens. So certainly, a migrant worker program could be helpful.

The path to citizenship could also be examined, because bottom line, when people are literally risking life and limb to get here with the purpose of building a better and honest life, the legal path should be at least competitive with the shark-infested and 50-mile-desert-walk options.

As for the Arizona law’s probable affect, I agree with Squab Dove:

I say let’s see the arizona law in practice and see if the proof is in the pudding.  Maybe this new law will be really effective.  Maybe totally useless.  who knows.  AT LEAST Arizona is bucking up and doing something.  They are taking charge, as they should be.  Its good not to rely on the fed too much.  I think we need the states taking matters into their own hands more.  This is different though to some degree because it is the national border and hence a matter of national security.  So the fed should be asking Arizona what they need and how the fed can support their efforts to secure the border, not calling them misguided and offering shit on a stick as an alternate solution, or worse, amnesty…

Instead of vilifying AZ and talking about irresponsibility and boycotts for one’s own personal political gain, one should embrace such ideas as part of the 50 laboratories of democracy, freedom, and prosperity we have here – one of our greatest and least utilized strengths. And after implementation, let’s be honest about the results. *cynical laugh*

Something has to be done, and what has to be done isn’t going to be soft or pretty and will require more than creating new bureaucracy and shoveling more money – which is all this Leftist Congress will do.

And listen – Republicans – take it easy on this one. Don’t go getting all blustered over amnesty. Who cares, seriously. The Latino voting block is a perfect fit under the Republican tenants. Don’t let the Liberals paint you as anti-Latino bigots. They’re already picking recent immigrants off with all these lofty entitlement promises. In other words, if you need political points in your district, and you have Latinos, don’t hammer on amnesty. The key is border security and only hippies and modern Socialists will argue with that.