The old medicine show
Despite presiding over a rapidly rocketing “misery index”, President Obama is sanguine about his chances for re-election. The reason is that being so far down automatically gives rise to both the need to blame someone for the debacle and to rely increasingly in the hope for a Hail Mary pass. And he aims to provide both. Gerald Seib at the Wall Street Journal describes the blame part:
By most normal standards for gauging a president’s chances of re-election, Mr. Obama would appear sunk.
But “this isn’t an ordinary year,” argues David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political adviser. And it’s just possible that the normal political metrics don’t hold in a time of unusual economic and political ferment. Indeed, Mr. Obama holds some advantages that are obscured by the overall economic gloom.
For starters, after more than three years in office, he still isn’t shouldering most of the blame for the economic slump. When the Journal/NBC News poll last month asked Americans who they think is most to blame for current economic problems, both former President Bush and Wall Street bankers were fingered more often than was President Obama.
The “it’s all Bush’s fault” mantra can be pretty convincing if you can sell it. Then there is the second argument: that all of the Republican contenders are pygmies compared to the dear leader and therefore if you want a miracle recovery, elect the Miracle Man. Seib continues:
Second, whatever unhappiness exists with Mr. Obama’s economic record, there is ample reason to think Republicans are even less popular. Just over 40% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the president, but 48% hold an unfavorable view of Republicans. And when Americans are asked which party is better at dealing with the economy, the two parties are rated about evenly.
“That Republicans are still not seen as a truly acceptable alternative at the moment gets at the anger and the frustration the public has at Washington, that nobody is doing anything right,” says Jay Campbell, a Democratic pollster who works for Peter Hart Research. Hart Research helps conduct the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, along with Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies.
The gridlock that has taken hold in Congress since Republicans won control of the House last year doesn’t appear to be helping the GOP either. A record 42% of Americans call the current Congress one of the worst ever, and they rate Republicans’ performance in it slightly below that of the Democrats.
Moreover, none of the Republicans jockeying for the right to run against Mr. Obama next year is exactly soaring in public esteem. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now one of the two front-runners for the GOP nomination, is popular among his party’s conservatives, but gets low ratings among the kinds of independent swing voters who tend to decide national elections. His main opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, does better among independent voters but isn’t particularly popular among his own party’s conservatives.
Taken together, all these forces suggest that a close election lies ahead.
Since the disenchantment with government is general, the incumbent gains the unexpected advantage of being able to argue ‘better the devil you know than the one you don’t’.Besides, President Obama still has his miracle cure on offer. He claims the only reason his “redistributive” medicine hasn’t worked yet is because the public hasn’t drunk enough of it. Four more years of Barack’s patent medicine and we’ll all be cured of acne, dandruff and insolvency. Besides given the advanced state of the disease, what’s there left to lose?
Robert Samuelson that the real cure for debt is too painful. To fix the problem at the core of America’s woes means surgery. The Republicans aren’t prepared to mention it, so it leaves the field open for the patent medicine salesman and his traveling retinue of singers and dancers. Samuelson writes:
We are shifting from “give away politics” to “take away politics.” Since World War II, presidents and Congresses have been in the enviable position of distributing more benefits to more people without requiring ever-steeper taxes. Now, this governing formula no longer works, and politicians face the opposite: taking away — reducing benefits or raising taxes significantly — to prevent government deficits from destabilizing the economy. It is not clear that either Democrats or Republicans can navigate the change.
The problem is that making the change is that take dieting is unpleasant. “No one wants to take away; it’s more fun to give.” So while the past nostrums of both parties no longer work, the fake patent medicine tastes better — so why not sell it?
All 2011′s budget feuds — over the debt ceiling, the supercommittee, the payroll tax cut — skirted the central issues. There’s a legitimate debate about how fast deficits should be reduced to avoid jeopardizing the economic recovery, notes Charles Blahous, a White House official in the George W. Bush Administration. But the long-term budget problem, as he says, stems from Social Security, Medicare and other health programs.
Any resolution of the budget impasse must repudiate, at least partially, the past half-century’s politics. Conservatives look at the required tax increases and say: “no way.” Liberals look at the required benefit cuts and say: “no way.”
Each reverts to scripted evasions. Liberals imply (wrongly) that taxing the rich will solve the long-term budget problem. It won’t. For example, the Forbes 400 richest Americans have a collective wealth of $1.5 trillion. If the government simply confiscated everything they own, and turned them into paupers, it would barely cover the one-time 2011 deficit of $1.3 trillion. Conservatives deplore “spending” in the abstract, ignoring the popularity of much spending, especially Social Security and Medicare.
So the political system is failing. It’s stuck in the past. It can’t make desirable choices about the future. It can’t resolve deep conflicts.
Given that neither side is willing to go for a deep fix the problem, President Obama may have decided that all he needs to do is put on a good show. History shows that selling nothing works for a long, long time.
Dudley Joseph “Coozan Dud” LeBlanc (August 16, 1894 – October 22, 1971) was a colorful and popular Democratic and Cajun member of the Louisiana State Senate whose entrepreneurial talents netted him a fortune through the alcohol-laden patent medicine known as “Hadacol.” He is also considered the “father of the old age pension” in Louisiana….
the Hadacol Caravan, sponsored by Louisiana State Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc and his LeBlanc Corporation, makers of the dubious patent medicine/vitamin tonic “Hadacol”, known for both its alleged curative powers and its high alcohol content. The stage show, which ran throughout the Deep South in the 1940s with great publicity, featured a number of notable music acts and Hollywood celebrities, and was used to promote Hadacol (which was sold heavily during intermission and after the show). Admission to the show was paid in boxtops of the vitamin tonic, sold in stores throughout the southern United States. The Caravan came to a sudden halt in 1951, when the Hadacol enterprise fell apart in a financial scandal.
The public wailing over the death of Kim Jong-il may have confirmed to David Axelrod what he may have long suspected: “normal political metrics” don’t matter if the propaganda works and you have thousands of government dependents willing to vote for Hadacol to keep from losing their jobs. Kim gave people nothing but misery. But how they loved him for it. So at any rate the old medicine show is worth a try.
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We’re all going to need a lot of Hadacol to get through the coming years.
If you can’t find this particular tonic, merely mix a bottle of cough syrup with a quart of Everclear. You’ll not worry a bit about anything soon after.
The people who bear the brunt of the burden, the average taxpayer, are the least able to directly change the circumstances (at least in our current political climate with Dems and Dems-lite). You can talk to people one-on-one and ask them what they do if they find themselves spending more than they are bringing in, they cut costs almost universally. Ask them then what the government should do under the same circumstances and they rarely talk of cutting spending. The greatest trick the government ever played was convincing taxpayers government economics is vastly different than those of the average household.
I’ll just have a double shot of Phukitol.
If Obama wins in 2012, it will be the quintessential phyrric victory.
If he loses, it won’t matter. America is an Oligarchy, moving directly to a Kleptocracy.
POTUS is a figurehead. Ike was the last real POTUS. He occupied the oval office while Zaller politics was born. Once it became obvious the elections could be bought thru the application of media ‘buys’, the average politician became a sideshow barker. Then ‘campaign contributions’ (AKA bribes) became necessary to get elected.
Politicians went from side show barkers to monkey’s on a chain.
So the Oligarchy was born and after a generation of running things to their benifit, their children are taking over. Only the children are not concerned with anything but stealing everything they can get their hands on. A Kleptocracy
Skimming off the top is to be expected in ANY society. When the skimming starts producing splinters, your going a little deep in the barrel.
Wretchard said:
“Since the disenchantment with government is general, the incumbent gains the unexpected advantage of being able to argue ‘better the devil you know than the one you don’t’.”
Refer to the following:
http://douglas-hibbs.com/Election2008/2008Election-MainPage.htm
The main conclusion of this study is that ideology is almost irrelevant in terms of Presidential election. The graph in the above link shows a linear correlation between Presidential election outcome as a function of “real income growth and military fatalities combined”. If Obama wants to get reelected then he needs to reduce military fatalities (withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan regardless of the consequences) and hand out massive amounts of printed money to John Q. Public. Obama (or any other person) could be a blithering idiot wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and still be elected President if those constraints are satisfied.
Key points:
1) Reduced military fatalities are the relevant parameter and NOT military activity or expenditure. A President could wage war against the entire world using killer drones or even nukes with no significant political downside provided no US soldiers or civilians got killed (the war must be seen as entirely one sided due to advanced military technology).
2) Immediate real income growth is the relevant parameter and NOT federal budget deficits or US dollar debasement through money printing or corruption through market place manipulation. We could be facing certain death through economic mismanagement but if John Q. Public thinks his monthly income is increasing then he does not care about the other stuff.
Based upon this perspective, a whole bunch of stuff makes sense. For example, I always wondered why George W. Bush had a blind spot about budget deficits and was so focused on tax cuts. Answer is obvious: US soldiers were getting killed in Iraq so Bush had to offset this by increasing real income growth. In attacking Bush, the MSM was pushing exactly the right buttons by harping on daily US military body counts in Iraq and how personal income was going down. Because the MSM is biased towards Obama, they’re not doing a US military body count in Afghanistan and are engaged in happy talk about the economy. Also the timing of the September 2008 economic collapse becomes even more suspect given that the Republicans were seen as the incumbents.
The “good news” about this analysis is that Obama is probably doomed because the economy is almost sure to collapse in 2012 due to Europe’s troubles and all the money printing.
The extreme bad news is our democracy is probably also doomed. No politician will accept the short term political pain required to fix the economy. Likewise only an extreme patriot (read: George W. Bush) would take the huge political hit required to engage in a shooting war with Iran or Pakistan.
Extremely bad events are on the near term horizon. I predict a world wide economic collapse followed by World War IV. I anticipate that both events will be two orders-of-magnitude worse than the Great Depression and World War II. After the smoke clears and the dust settles, I predict a new political order that is NOT dependent only upon “real income growth and military fatalities combined” (this requirement may exclude genuine democracy). If life is good for you now, I strongly suggest that you savor the moment (I’m doing that). It’s not going to last.
all of the Republican contenders are pygmies compared to the dear leader
and that is it, in nutshell.
first, that they, the Axelrod, have the unmitigated nads to make such a claim, however true or absurd it may be, and that they, the GOP, has nobody capable of making a coherent response to such a stinking gopherball.
and second, that it has even the smallest kernel of truth, as, I suppose, it might in any comparison of two mere human beings.
you can’t beat something with nothing, and the Mitt and Newt show is as close to nothing as one can come in any asymptotic, finite approximation, with only LuapNor any closer to the singularity that holds our dear leader his own self, Zero. yet, the Democrats seem to love him, or his potential, or his symbolism, or the fact that he is not Hillary. maybe what they love is his vapidity, I could make that case especially when the “they” is that comedy duo, Pelosi and Reid.
if the race were only between Matt Damon and Michelle Malkin, it would be vastly improved, more contentful. if Donald Trump only had hair, he might be a shoo-in even as a third party. if only this, if only that.
4. Buck O’Fama said:
If Obama wins in 2012, it will be the quintessential phyrric victory.
———-
No disrespect intended, I think you have it wrong; a Romney win will be perilously pyrrhic.
“There’s a legitimate debate about how fast deficits should be reduced to avoid jeopardizing the economic recovery, notes Charles Blahous, a White House official in the George W. Bush Administration.”
This quote illustrates the problem.
It is unavailing to merely reduce the federal budget; deficit spending must end, as must deficit financing. It is drawing off liquidity that would otherwise be used to create productive capital.
Moreover, there is no recovery. The percentage of the population who are employed is at a record low.
We are being led to ruin by the machinations of deal brokers such as Charles Blahous. Ron Paul could help put us on the road to recovery. This upcoming Presidential election may be our last chance to do something about debts and deficits before the economy collapses.
Eggplant, is this how the new Dark Ages start?
As a high school student I never could understand how the people living in the 1930′s couldn’t see what was coming, especially those living in Europe. I guess I still don’t fully grasp it even though it is unfolding again right before our eyes.
And Wretchard, I am in awe of how you come up with all these great hypertext connections.
Josh @ 7 said:
“you can’t beat something with nothing, and the Mitt and Newt show is as close to nothing as one can come in any asymptotic, finite approximation”
Actually Obama/Romney is like 0/0, i.e. an indeterminate result (it can be any number between zero and infinity).
Again, based upon my previous comment, the outcome of the general election is dependent upon whether maintenance of the economy through money printing fails before November 2012. If the economy holds until after November 2012 then (shudder) Obama wins. If the economy collapses before November 2012 then whoever wins the Republican nomination wins the general election, e.g. Bozo the Clown, Ron Paul, Zippy the Pinhead, name your favorite idiot. The Republican Primary election is the important election. Everything else is based upon random chance or certain failure (what happens after Obama gets reelected).
It’s insane that we are in this situation.
Given that all of the current Republican candidates have issues, it is my hope that the Republican primary will deadlock and the candidate will be selected by the Republican convention. Given the current set of known candidates, Gingrich is the best of the bunch but has obvious issues. I like to think that given no candidate is selected by the primary process, the Republican convention would select a well vetted candidate who could easily beat Obama and get the country out of its current mess (yes, I’m delusional).
batman @ 10 said:
“As a high school student I never could understand how the people living in the 1930′s couldn’t see what was coming, especially those living in Europe. I guess I still don’t fully grasp it even though it is unfolding again right before our eyes.”
My son is a high school student (9th grade). I frequently tell my son that I’m so glad that I was born in 1953 and NOT 1997. I sometimes apologize to my son for my generation having made such an utter and complete mess of the world. I also apologize to you for what my selfish generation has done.
My son wants to be a physician. I encourage him in this goal. However learning a basic skill like carpentry or plumbing might be wiser (I’m an aerospace engineer with a Ph.D.). People of my son’s generation are going to live “interesting” lives, assuming they don’t die young.
People on both the Left and the Right are looking desperately for someone to lead us out of this depression. I have talked to many dyed in the wool 2008 Obama Leftards who would vote now for a Republican, but they want that someone to reasonably and honestly explain:
A. How did we get ourselves into the mess?
B. How are we going to get ourselves out?
None of the Republicans have decisively and convincingly done this.
I wholeheartedly disagree that the solution has to be pain, only pain and more pain as Samuelson and guys like Denninger think. Yes there will be pain, but the people will accept that pain temporarily if that pain is offset by the real promise of growth and a better future.
Over half of the deficit is caused by the facts that :
• America has lost over 7 million jobs and have added over 6 million to the real workforce.
• Tax receipts are in the tank like nothing we have seen since the Great Depression.
• Welfare programs like food stamps and unemployment insurance are at a all time high.
And that doesn’t even count the severe bloating of government and rampant crony payoffs by our Fourth Best President.
There is huge money on the sidelines effectively hid under the proverbial mattresses because Bernank and the Fed have destroyed the incentives to invest, the Banks have been given on a silver platter a way to make money without lending, and most of all because there is no credible plan for the future out there outlined by any of the our Presidential candidates.
People are hoarding because there is little credible expectation of real growth and a real return on one’s money given the considerable risk premium existing in today’s depressionary and largely deflationary (in terms of sales) market.
And it’s not like that there are no opportunities to turn things around:
We could:
• Drill massively for more oil; in the process lowering the price at pump, giving oil/gas intensive industries a competitive edge, and create millions of jobs.
• Rigorously cut regulation and free up the opportunities for millions of new jobs in industries that cannot now compete under America’s overwhelming vile regulatory burden.
• Reform the banking system so that millions of promising small businesses now closed out of the lending process could gain again access to funding.
• End the Bailouts, QE and ZIRP so investing will once again be profitable.
• Reform our laws so that labor union laws will not longer skew hiring, government pensions will no longer threaten to overwhelm us and where the nuisance lawsuit will no stalk our nations’s businesses.
• Reform our welfare state so that our aged programs are put on a more actuarial sound footing and where the undeserving victim class, particularly the illegals are no longer given a free ride.
It can be done, we just need a candidate to rally around that will show us the way.
egg @ 11: Again, based upon my previous comment, the outcome of the general election is dependent upon whether maintenance of the economy through money printing fails before November 2012. If the economy holds until after November 2012 then (shudder) Obama wins.
Don’t know if you noticed, but on some previous thread I already pronounced my vision of economic doom by mid-2012, or at least some large and negative event. And should that eventuate, I think it might easily favor Obambus.
I’m apparently still more of a great man theorist than marxist, I still say “you can’t beat something with nothing” trumps economic determinism.
Josh @ 13 said:
“… on some previous thread I already pronounced my vision of economic doom by mid-2012, or at least some large and negative event. And should that eventuate, I think it might easily favor Obambus.”
I believe the link in #6 makes a solid case that Obama goes away if the economy collapses. Obviously this is a Pyrrhic victory. However the economy needed to be reformed anyway and economic collapse is probably the only way that reform can be forced. If economic collapse also rids us of a nasty socialist demagogue then all the better.
The effect of an economic collapse could favor or work against President Obama. By itself it does nothing but create an opportunity for change. The direction that change will take is determined in the short run by who has the mechanism in place to exploit it. For example, Lenin took great advantage of the Czar’s setbacks in the Great War.
Lenin himself precipitated starvation. That caused a crisis. But no one was around to exploit the opportunity. The Cheka had rounded them all up. So a crisis does nothing by itself in the short run.
The Left’s great advantage is that — I believe — they expect an economic collapse. They may even know they caused it, but so what? This became apparent when President Obama dropped his “summer of recovery” rhetoric for the class warfare stuff. They have this further advantage. While they don’t mind economic prosperity, it is secondary to the greater goal of power. If they had to choose between saving the economy and saving their power, it would be no contest. Power every time.
So if there is a crisis in 2012, most likely the Republicans will be milling around looking for a solution to the economic problems where Obama will be focused like a laser on getting power.
Does that mean he will succeed? My guess is no. It is a false opportunity — one that the Left can’t resist, but false all the same. The same crisis they seek to exploit will round on them. But my optimism is more an act of faith than on preparation. I think the GOP will be clueless to the end. It will be reality that will save their bacon, for God knows, they won’t save their own.
There has been much talk about how Romney (or Gingrich, or Perry, or … ) is little different from Obama. I strongly disagree while at the same time conceding that none of the Republicans is satisfactory and the best of them is barely mediocre. But that does not mean that there is little difference between them and Obama.
For one thing, all the Republicans except Ron Paul believe that America is exceptional and that the fate of the free world depends on that exceptionalism, including military strength.
But just as important (maybe even more) is that though I grant that neither party has sufficient respect for the Constitution, the Republicans are less likely to ignore and break traditions than the Democrats. It was Democrats under FDR who tried to pack the Supreme Court. It was Democrats who initiated character assassination against Robert Bork and used the filibuster against nominees to the high court based solely on philosophical positions. It was the Democrats that instituted extra-Constitutional “Czars” and it was the Democrat Andrew Jackson who openly defied a direct decision of the Supreme Court.
Don’t confuse the inadequacy of the GOP candidates with the claim that there are zero meaningful differences between them and Obama. And even if all they accomplish will be to slow the decline, we can use that extra time to begin the real changes that are needed to restore Constitutional government.
Delay is not as satisfying as reversal but I would take delay. It reminds me of the story of the Rabbi who was condemned to death by the Sultan. On the eve of his execution the Rabbi said that if the Sultan let him live for one more year he could teach the Sultan’s horse how to fly. The Sultan agreed but the Rabbi’s disciples said, “Rabbi, how can you get the horse to fly? You know that can’t be done!”
The Rabbi answered, “Well, a year is a long time. In that year the Sultan may die. Or in that year I might die. Or the Sultan may change his mind. And if none of that happens, who knows? Maybe I will get that horse to fly.”
Don’t minimize the value of more time.
Batman– you left out the time the Democrats lost an election, tried to start their own country and ended with a war that killed hundreds of thousands or Americans. Then having lost the war, imposed racial policies as if they’d won. When those policies were finally overturned, they got everyone to believe that it was the GOP who were the racists.
Wonder what they’ll do should all their efforts at stealing the next one fail.
Europe is lemming off the Euro…
That is the equation.
That Financial Repression is still not on the lips of the pundits…
L3 is right, the election is being decided long before November.
So now the horse trainer is a Rabbi?
The Donks meet the legal definition of “chutzpah” which is “Killing your parents and then demanding the mercy of the Court because you are an orphan.” The only way to refute the lies that the GOP caused the recession and the rot in our society is head on. Every Republican public figure should be attacking, go for the jugular destruction, every Democrat party shill such as Axelrod. Do not let a story go unchallenged. Clinton and his crew wrote the book on this in 1992. They count on Republican reticence. Axelrod and every other surrogate should be driven from the public stage.
Have Republicans done stupid things that provided the Democrats with cover? Sure they have, Romneycare and Medicare Part D come to mind, along with much of Richard Nixon’s domestic policy. We must be open and relentless in discussing these.
The Democrats argue that important things such as National Security and the Rule of Law are unimportant and that trivial things such as identity empowerment and grievance mongering are important. Then they argue that resources must be diverted to the causes they feel are important, while at the same time deflecting criticism of the corrupt and unqualified people feeding off these initiatives by encouraging everyone not to take things to seriously.
Look at a local government example. The importance of traditional teaching that relies on an Instructor who is a scholar proficient in Arts History and Literature is denigrated. An urgent need is then discovered to provide additional close interaction with failing students, who are no longer offered a meaningful education. This is used to justify hiring thousands of unqualified Paraprofessionals and substandard Teachers, who then clamor for promotion. When anyone questions the presence of thousands of people in make work jobs they are told to relax since it is a big system and it isn’t like the place was pretending to be Harvard anyway. This example can be replicated for National Defense, the legal system or almost any other field that is considered under the purview of the government.
Everytime I think of Obama’s dream for America, I think of this grand utopian experiment of the 70′s in rural northeast North Carolina- http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/462/entry
Sorry batman, but with Willard Mitt Romney to run against and Newt ‘I endorsed Romneycare’ Gingrich, I’d be sanguine about my reelection chances too if I were BHO.
“Don’t confuse the inadequacy of the GOP candidates with the claim that there are zero meaningful differences between them and Obama.” Set aside foreign policy for a moment, and all the ideas that I-ranians and Venezuelans are going to overrun America if Paul’s elected, rather than us finally putting troops where they belong on our border rather than Pakistan’s. Of course, the Establishment is not going to let Ron Paul win the nomination and they will cheat in states where unlike Iowa it’s not about who shows up.
Neither Byron York nor any mainline conservative journo wants to admit it, but on the Federal Reserve’s bloating of the money supply and unlimited lending to a bankrupt EUrope, there IS NO DIFFERENCE. Newtomney will continue that unsustainable status quo. And even the ‘America is exceptional’ rhetoric is not particularly exceptional. Every empire throughout history as it crumbled though it was exceptional.
I worry that none of the Repub candidates have the stones to do what will be necessary. The only way out of this is to gut the federal government by 30%. That will cause great disruption and consternation. And will require great determination on the part of the President and the Congress. I dont see it in either party.
W – If they had to choose between saving the economy and saving their power, it would be no contest. Power every time.
They have had that choice every day for the last three years.
What potential “ace in the hole” would the Republicans have if the above assumptions about Obama’s electability are true?
That ace is the looming energy boom. Obama is definitely on the wrong side of that issue. There are so many ways that the GOP could sell the “patent medicine” of a hydrocarbon development surge, with the added advantage that the benefits of “drill & mine, Baby, drill & mine!” would be very real. They would simply need to hammer home that the energy boom would be the spark for a new American Economic Golden Age, and that Obama and his party stand athwart that future as virtual saboteurs. There are so many advantages, real and imagined, that the GOP could push forth, especially to the newly-disenfranchised white working class.
Here’s the problem: The GOP is known as the “Stupid Party” for a reason. The current candidates aren’t even talking about this issue with the exception of Perry, who, for some confounded reason, can’t seem to “debate” in those ridiculous game shows the GOP insist on running.
It should be so easy for a Republican contender to do a Music Man in River City campaign on energy independence, but I just don’t see it developing.
No disagreement from me Don Rodrigo, in fact I’d bet you rubles to donuts that some Russian oligarchs would love to invest in North American oil and gas plays especially North Dakota, if McCain wouldn’t blow a gasket if they did so. The Middle East should stay in enough turmoil to keep prices reasonably high for the U.S., Canuckistan and Russia barring some sort of catastrophic Chinese economic collapse.
Funny for a man of the Salt Lake City tribe Romney hasn’t uttered a peep about all that oil shale Salazar’s kept off limits on federal lands in Mormonistan.
End of thread for me.