Congratulations to President Obama!

And here I thought political threads were verboten in the AH. Silly me. ;)


Consider this: This country is in a fiscal hole that will take a miracle to crawl out of no matter who is president. Unless we drastically cut spending there aren't enough taxes to toss in said hole to appreciably fill it. We could become like Sweden where you have no take home pay to speak of, but everything is 'free' from the government; and if that isn't an incentive to better yourself, I don't know what is. :rolleyes:

The so-called 'rich' among us (who need to be taxed more) are. for the most part, middle class businesspersons trying to make a living and providing jobs in the process. The more they're taxed, the less businesses can expand due to lost capital, the less expansion, the fewer people they hire ... see the pattern? Occasionally product demand can bridge the gap, but unless you invent something no one can do without and can successfully market it, you're pretty much stuck in neutral.

If you confiscated all the wealth in this country tomorrow, it wouldn't run the government for a week. Once the rich geese have been plundered for their golden eggs and, since the government will continue to expand and more money is needed, the middle middle and lower middle classes will be asked to pay their 'fair share' of the bloated tax burden. Less take home pay, less spending ... tra, la, la.

What the fuck is considered a 'fair share' anyway? Better still, what is meant by 'fair'? Fair is the place you go to ride the ferris wheel and have your strawberry rhubarb pie judged. I guess it's what the government says it is. Whoopee!

Another thing, expect increased usage of automation in years to come as human workers become more trouble than they're worth. A machine can be designed to do almost anything efficiently with minimal mistakes; ask the UAW. Imagine a fully automated McDonald's, Burger King, Carl's Jr. or Jack in the Box; no snotty, indifferent, bored teenager to take your order or a guy who lives in a piano crate under the I-10 overpass making your hamburger ... works for me.

Along that line, tell those college bound kids of yours to not waste their time getting a BFA in Post-Modernist Lesbian Poetry ("Would you like fries with that?") and get a BS (better still, a Masters) in Computer Science. Like the Japanese are doing now, we're gonna need to design and build lotsa robots to take care of all the senile Boomers flooding into rest homes dribbling Quaker Oatmeal on their 'AC-DC' bibs and pissing in their Docker cargo shorts.

Over the last sixty some-odd years, America has slowly accumulated an obligation to support uncounted millions of people through various programs that have expanded exponentially to meet various demands of the population. Now, between the 'Boomer' generation retiring by the thousands every minute, increasingly lax regulation and enforcement of existing federal program requirements, hordes of illegal immigrants making our border with Mexico look like the start of the Boston Marathon and politicians being politicians and trading goodies for votes, we have reached a tipping point in our country's fiscal history. There is simply not enough money coming in to meet our obligations, period. We could print more, of course, then Mr. Inflation comes a'knockin' at the door and it's the Weimar Republic redux.

Taxing the 5% of the 'rich' in this country is the currently popular way out of our money problems, but the very rich do not earn a salary that can be taxed at paycheck rates; they earn money from investments in the form of capital gains and dividends. If you raise the taxes on these items, then you reduce the value of the investment portfolio of every person who has a 401K, an IRA or owns shares in a Mutual Fund. Then they'll have to depend on Social Security and Medicare to live on and here we go again.

With the ceiling of being classified as 'rich' (in order to be increasingly taxed) currently lowered to those making a salary of $250K a year, this includes a good 90% of the owners of small to medium sized businesses who employ most of the workers in America. Lessened capital and slower growth lead to more job losses again.

Another thing: Corporations are not toad-like creatures the size of Cleveland waiting to gobble up unwary busloads of people heading to the nearest Native American casino. They are not evil. They are made up of people called stockholders who have invested their money in said corporations seeking a profit. They are managed by people hired by the stockholders to run the corporation in the most efficient ways possible. Corporations make things that people need which is why they exist. They do not exist to guarantee employment, rather they offer it in return for paying wages and salaries. They are not obligated to employ anyone that is not qualified to do the work; especially because of some arbitrary quotas or guidelines set by some bureaucrat in DC.

The short version is the US Government is running out of money ... fast. We can either tax ourselves into oblivion while we continue to spend more on entitlement programs (which we will), or we cut government spending.

Don't even think about cutting the Defense budget as a way of saving money; in fact it should be increased.. In this time of increasing world tensions, the last thing we need is a weak military. Keeping our defenses strong is a small price to pay for freedom. BTY, the Defense budget comprises this much of the Federal budget, while this is how much of the budget goes to entitlement programs.

There are various elementary ways to trim the federal budget, yet no one wants to listen to them because they have been demagogued and overblown by the Liberal Left to scare voters into voting for them. Remember the campaign ad showing grandma being pushed off the cliff in her wheelchair by the uncaring Republicans? That sort of thing. This annoyingly sophomoric crap solves nothing, yet leaves a lasting impression on the increasingly short attention span of the American people. Which in turn pretty much explains Obama's re-election.

Expect little or no improvement in America's situation in the next four years. What you can expect is more taxes, more regulations, smaller paychecks (for those of you who have jobs, that is), increased conflict in the Arab world as they make the transition from dictatorships to Radical Islamic Fundamentalism, more people dependent on the government for their very lives, increasing nationalization of industries via government bailouts to 'keep jobs in America', more calls for increased tariffs and excise taxes on goods from overseas to raise revenue, more plant and business closings to avoid taxes and Obamacare costs and pretty much the same shit we've had the last four years.

Don't worry, though. The Republicans will finally cave on raising taxes in exchange for vague promises of budget cuts by Obama and the Democrats which will never happen. Their constituencies are counting on them to keep the goodies flowing.

The Republicans don't really care anyway, because being in the minority party ain't bad since you get all the perks and not have to do any of the heavy lifting. They can satisfy their constituents with goodies too and at election time they go home and say "Well, we tried to cut spending" and get re-elected.

I know everyone has some sob-stories or pitiful examples (usually apocryphal) of how so-and-so came to a sad end because the government wasn't there for them and if the government had more more money we could ... blah, blah, blah. That is not how you make government policy; running from one poor soul to another with another program and the attendant bureaucracy to maintain it. Those private, non-profit aids to the sick and poor that still exist have been shoved aside by Nanny Government to the expense of everyone.

There are things called churches and charities that deal with people in need every day and do it more cheaply and efficiently than the government. The government isn't a 'nationwide coordinated relief effort' either. Ask those people in the northeast who were bitch slapped by Hurricane Sandy and the Nor'easter combined about that. Red tape, over regulation and general incompetency kicks in and the result:chaos. Expect the same results from Obamacare once it fully kicks in. Look for the government medical clinic coming to your town soon.

Central government planning has been and always will be an abysmal failure (see USSR and other socialized economies), yet that is what America seems to want. Expect a bushel basket of disaffection and frustration among the populace as the years roll by and things don't improve and get worse.

To remind my readers: I am a Libertarian as far as politics go. I'm fiscally conservative and a moderate socially. I care about people, yet I don't let my heart rule my head as so many of those with good intentions do. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I believe in being practical, straightforward, prudent, rational and sensible. I am definitely not Don Quixote tilting at social windmills.

Finally: Someone on this thread was worried about the State of Israel starting a war. Since it's inception, Israel has never started a war, but they've finished a few. They have retaliated when attacked, that's it. Since the much heralded 'Arab Spring', Arab nations friendly with or indifferent towards Israel have become hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalist factions like al-Quida hell bent on destroying the Jews. Now that Iran is getting nukes and it's delivery systems up to speed, Israel is in grave danger. This will not be allowed to continue and the homeland will be defended at all costs. Never again.

That's all for now. :D

Let the catcalls, insults, name calling, Iggy button pushing and other expressions of fear and loathing begin. :devil:
 
A big bowl of dire warnings, a heaping platter of 'it serves you right', served up with a side of 'those poor little trillionaires.'

Yup.

Nope.
 
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A big bowl of dire warnings, a heaping platter of 'it serves you right', served up with a side of 'those poor little trillionaires.'

Yup.

Nope.

Heh!

"The moving finger writes,
and having written moves on.
Nor all thy piety and all thy wit,
can cancel half a line of it."

Omar Khayyam.
 
AS someone that was greatful to have had Pell and TAP in college, things that Reagan didn't even try to eliminate (NeoCons eat that!), I am happy that Obama won. Now, students that otherwise couldn't attend colleges or trade schools can afford it!!!
 
AS someone that was greatful to have had Pell and TAP in college, things that Reagan didn't even try to eliminate (NeoCons eat that!), I am happy that Obama won. Now, students that otherwise couldn't attend colleges or trade schools can afford it!!!
And thus be able to qualify for jobs, if we can bring the jobs back to this country.

Personally, I'm expecting a lot of people who had jobs, to recreate the businesses they had jobs in. I know a couple of people who worked at Macy's, for instance, who have twenty years of fashion experience between them. They are searching out stuff in the thrift stores, mending it, or remaking it, and selling the garments in a small boutique housed in one of the women's garage. Hardly any overhead, just the two of them and a couple used sewing machines. Over the summer, a highschool aged nieghbor apprenticed herself to them. She learned to sew. She sells in the boutique after school, on a profit-sharing basis. They advertise events on facebook, host trunk sales of other designers. I won't be shopping at Macy's this year-- not while the guy that wears the dead cat is a spokesperson. I'm putting my Xmas fashion dollars straight back into my neighborhood.

A handful of college kids just opened a used bookstore. I gave them a few hundred books, as did a lot of other people, in return for vouchers-- one book for each twenty we donated. Their opening week was kinda non-profit, as all of us who had donated came in and spent our vouchers. They are getting writeups in LA Weekly and stuff, and every time I pass by I see at least a few folk in there. They host a parcheesi club on tuesday nights.

Shade tree mechanics, job swap co-ops-- taskrabbit.com

That is how jobs are created, by little people nickle and diming their way up, in the grey market if they have to. If the trillionaires want to keep all of the dollars for themselves, people will invent a different money-- oddly enough, it's not illegal to coin currency of your own, as long as it is distinct from federal dollars.
 


Hallelujah for unmoderated, uncensored message boards.



Every time I go to National Public Radio ("NPR") or Public Broadcasting System ("PBS"), I witness suppression of opinion and I am reminded of how godawful it would be if censorship/political correctness was imposed on Literotica's boards.



Freedom of expression has actually become endangered in the U.S.** If you think about it, that's amazing and horrifying— and more than a tad ironic.







_________________

** If you think I'm kidding, try uttering something on a college campus or at the workplace that doesn't comply with Big Brother's dictates.


 


Stella is entitled to stuff 'cause Big Daddy done promised that shit.


 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the intelligent replies posted here. Thank you, contributors.

And that is correct. Israel does not start wars, but works to end them in a very aggressive manner, very quickly. It is a little horrifying to watch. I am still praying for peace, but what else can you expect from an old hippie chick, who just wishes everyone could get along with each other.
 
AS someone that was greatful to have had Pell and TAP in college, things that Reagan didn't even try to eliminate (NeoCons eat that!), I am happy that Obama won. Now, students that otherwise couldn't attend colleges or trade schools can afford it!!!

Historical note: Ronald Reagan ended the USSR and the Cold War which is a tad more important than creating another government giveaway program.

What's a NeoCon anyway? Another Leftist pejorative for anyone who doesn't believe in Socialism?

Look, I'm all in favor of government loans to aspiring college students that might not have the opportunity to attend said colleges; my objection is the miasma of worthless degrees to which these loans are put. For every degree in Mathematics, Chemistry or Engineering, you have twenty-odd in such totally useless subjects as Byzantine Urban Architecture or Contemporary Hispanic Novelists in the 19th Century. Other than using as toilet paper, the utility of said degrees qualify one to be head cashier in a Wal-Mart or a fry cook at a Waffle House.

Government grants for higher education should be offered only to those individuals who intend on getting useful and practical degrees or to attend a trade school that will equip them to secure gainful employment and achieve a measure of financial security. If you've ever hired a plumber, electrician or a carpenter lately you know where I'm coming from.

Upon reflection, Colleges and Universities are to blame for offering the aforementioned useless degrees anyway. What else are you going to do with a gaggle of tenured professors who received their various degrees while avoiding the draft during the Vietnam War? Besides, it gives them something to do other than debating the finer points of Wittgenstein's philosophies in the faculty lounge, leading marches of students against what isn't politically correct on campus that week and trying to get into some nubile young co-ed from Nebraska's pants.

Next. ;)
 
AS someone that was greatful to have had Pell and TAP in college, things that Reagan didn't even try to eliminate (NeoCons eat that!), I am happy that Obama won. Now, students that otherwise couldn't attend colleges or trade schools can afford it!!!

"In the Miami Herald (11/17) columnist Andres Oppenheimer wrote that despite "the growth of the US student population in recent decades, the number of engineering graduates has fallen from 97,000 a year in the mid-1980s to 87,000 nowadays," according to the National Science Foundation. "In most Western countries, young people would rather go to the dentist than go into engineering. Law, business, and medicine - just about anything but engineering - seem to be the preference of today's youth," said Dave Goldberg, a professor emeritus of engineering of the University of Illinois, "and head of The Big Beacon movement to transform engineering education. Goldberg's recipe: make engineering studies more fun, and more creative. 'We are forcing our students to go to a math-science death march,' he told me. 'Instead of starting with the creative part, we start teaching them the abstract stuff, and lose up to 50 percent of the people who enter engineering.'"



The Silent Crisis in Science and Technology Recruiting
"The American Council for Technology and the Industry Advisory Council’s Institute for Innovation released a report focusing on the challenges federal agencies and industry face in the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) candidates. The report says that although scientific innovation produces roughly half of all U.S. economic growth, the educational pipeline necessary to fill STEM jobs and make that economic growth possible is inadequate. The report also notes that jobs in STEM fields are increasing three times faster than jobs in the rest of the economy, but U.S. students are not entering these fields in sufficient numbers. About $3.4 billion was spent on STEM education, but only $312 million is targeted toward improving teacher effectiveness, and only $396 million is invested in K-12 education. The report says federal agencies should focus on STEM education activities by establishing a national challenge for STEM that includes increased public awareness campaigns, improved coordination efforts, innovative grant and tax incentive programs, and calls for more urgency to the STEM problem. Agencies also should create a permanent STEM education committee that focuses on coordinating all of the various STEM initiatives and establishing clear methods for measuring the outcomes of federal STEM initiatives."

:rolleyes:
 
And thus be able to qualify for jobs, if we can bring the jobs back to this country.

Personally, I'm expecting a lot of people who had jobs, to recreate the businesses they had jobs in. I know a couple of people who worked at Macy's, for instance, who have twenty years of fashion experience between them. They are searching out stuff in the thrift stores, mending it, or remaking it, and selling the garments in a small boutique housed in one of the women's garage. Hardly any overhead, just the two of them and a couple used sewing machines. Over the summer, a highschool aged nieghbor apprenticed herself to them. She learned to sew. She sells in the boutique after school, on a profit-sharing basis. They advertise events on facebook, host trunk sales of other designers. I won't be shopping at Macy's this year-- not while the guy that wears the dead cat is a spokesperson. I'm putting my Xmas fashion dollars straight back into my neighborhood.

A handful of college kids just opened a used bookstore. I gave them a few hundred books, as did a lot of other people, in return for vouchers-- one book for each twenty we donated. Their opening week was kinda non-profit, as all of us who had donated came in and spent our vouchers. They are getting writeups in LA Weekly and stuff, and every time I pass by I see at least a few folk in there. They host a parcheesi club on tuesday nights.

Shade tree mechanics, job swap co-ops-- taskrabbit.com

That is how jobs are created, by little people nickle and diming their way up, in the grey market if they have to. If the trillionaires want to keep all of the dollars for themselves, people will invent a different money-- oddly enough, it's not illegal to coin currency of your own, as long as it is distinct from federal dollars.

Nice response, thanks. :D

Stella, dear, those 'lost jobs' are never coming back to the US. People in other countries will do the same work much more cheaply, are happy to be getting a paycheck at all and can't even spell 'Union', much less want to organize one.

The American spirit of ingenuity and creativity knows no bounds and kudos to those folks who have turned their lemons into lemonade. Barter, job sharing, co-op's, cottage industries, et. al. are all admirable expressions of said traits. Unfortunately, some bureaucrat with a bad comb over in the lower intestine that is Washington, D.C. will sooner or later find a way to regulate these expressions of creativity and bye-bye inventive entrepreneurship.

Trillionaires create the jobs, Stella, not some joker who begs for money on street corners or collects aluminum cans by the roadside in a stolen shopping cart. Class warfare, dollar envy and hatred of those who have more bucks than we do are how Democrats get re-elected to the detriment of this country.

Finally, these expressions of creative Capitalism you speak of are only legitimate in a non-State controlled economy. Otherwise they'd be classified as the black market and those engaging in it would be prosecuted if caught (which they seldom are since they keep Socialist economies afloat).

Unfortunately, these pursuits may keep the wolf from the door, but do not help us compete in a global economy. We need to stop mourning the loss of labor intensive industries and focus instead on the future which is in electronics, chemistry. physics, automation and information technology. Sure, there will always be a place in society for writers, poets, entertainers, artists, playwrights and dancers, but these skills only entertain and don't feed the bulldog when it comes to global competitiveness.

Next. ;)
 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the intelligent replies posted here. Thank you, contributors.

And that is correct. Israel does not start wars, but works to end them in a very aggressive manner, very quickly. It is a little horrifying to watch. I am still praying for peace, but what else can you expect from an old hippie chick, who just wishes everyone could get along with each other.

This is fun, isn't it? :D

I'm in agreement with you on the war thing, Stella. In the words of FDR, "I hate woah," but sometimes it's necessary to maintain the peace. If you want to preserve the peace, then be prepared for war. Many people in this world are not in any way benign in their opinions regarding freedom and Democracy and if they attack Israel (or us for that matter), they must be dealt with in the most expeditious manner possible.
 
Wait-- before, you said that the "wealthy" are
middle class businesspersons trying to make a living and providing jobs in the process.

Now you're saying;
Trillionaires create the jobs...

But honey, trillionaires don't, and we know this for a fact, because they have not. In fact, the more money goes into those pockets, the fewer jobs stay in America.

They don't do small business. I, and my people, We do small business. We are what small business is. Fuck if I know who decided that "small business" means 500 employees! :rolleyes: Right now, my goal is to generate income for five people. a really successful company that I know of has thirty employees. One guy reycling is a guy doing business.

And the federal government, believe it or not, does a lot to help small business, not hinder it. I am hearing from a lot of people how they can afford more staff for the first time, because of the new health insurance rules. Despite Poppa John's lying bullshit, healthcare is in fact becoming a thing for small people like us. A hell of a lot of those regulations are real useful for us.

The reason we are creating this new economy is NOT because of the state. We are doing this because Trillionaires have refused to do it.

We are not creating new currency systems because it's so much fun; we are doing it because most of this one is sitting in Swiss bank accounts and the cayman islands. :rolleyes:

It's humerous, but not very much, that you suddenly think "global competition" is more important than "keeping the wolf away from the door." Move a goalpost, why don't you?

This is fun, isn't it? :D

I'm in agreement with you on the war thing, Stella. In the words of FDR, "I hate woah," but sometimes it's necessary to maintain the peace. If you want to preserve the peace, then be prepared for war. Many people in this world are not in any way benign in their opinions regarding freedom and Democracy and if they attack Israel (or us for that matter), they must be dealt with in the most expeditious manner possible.
There has been one war in my lifetime that was necessary to maintain the peace of a nation-- and it wasn't ours. That was the cooperative effort in Bosnia.

The way to have a peaceful Isreal would have been to establish it in a far different way in the first place. We know that the intent was NOT peace.
 
...trillionaires don't, and we know this for a fact...

(1) There are no trillionaires. That's a fact (except the trillionaire debtor nation known as the U.S. which used to be the richest nation in the world until looters were allowed to write blank checks on its Treasury).


... we know this for a fact...



(2) It goes straight downhill after that.

The willful lack of understanding of economics is mind-boggling. It's perpetual motion machines, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and infinite free lunches all wrapped into one.



 
Trysail, you might be right about the amount of money any one person has. http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0211/the-first-trillionaire.aspx

On the other hand, when some men scoop up more money per day than ten of me makes in a year-- might as well be a trillion as far as I'm concerned. The only trickle down you or I or anyone have seen for the past twenty years is a thin, warmish, stream of yellow liquid.

I get a kick from your incessant defense of the veryvery rich because they need your help so much... I'm only hoping that someday one of them might get throw a dime your way in recognition of your vigilance. :rose:
 
Stella, dear, those 'lost jobs' are never coming back to the US. People in other countries will do the same work much more cheaply, are happy to be getting a paycheck at all and can't even spell 'Union', much less want to organize one.

So are American workers supposed to work more cheaply? How much profit does a biz need to make? They can still make a profit paying US workers, right? It'd just be less of one. This explanation doesn't make the alleged job creators sounds particularly good. This makes it sound like US workers -- or any workers -- are at fault for demanding decent hours and decent pay.
 


(1) There are no trillionaires. That's a fact (except the trillionaire debtor nation known as the U.S. which used to be the richest nation in the world until looters were allowed to write blank checks on its Treasury).






(2) It goes straight downhill after that.

The willful lack of understanding of economics is mind-boggling. It's perpetual motion machines, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and infinite free lunches all wrapped into one.




Why do you defend the very rich's continuation of tax cuts they receive? They're NOT creating jobs with them, far from it. They're eliminating them all together or moving them overseas.
 
So are American workers supposed to work more cheaply? How much profit does a biz need to make? They can still make a profit paying US workers, right? It'd just be less of one. This explanation doesn't make the alleged job creators sounds particularly good. This makes it sound like US workers -- or any workers -- are at fault for demanding decent hours and decent pay.
A small biz is a "lemonade stand." according to TE. :rolleyes:

a REAL biz, the kind he seems to admire, needs all the profits it can garner, and all the tax loopholes it can buy, and all the privileges and perks it can extort.

No, you know how we bring those jobs back the the US is by taxing overseas job loss. Tax them the amount that we are spending, with OUR tax dollars on the unemployment insurance that their ex workers are forced to subsist on. And give them a 'mentor' tax or something, so that we can recreate whose industries here once more.
 

Somehow you've got this crazy image of rich people sitting around on a stack of dollar bills stuck in your brain.



Until you figure out that isn't the case, it's a waste of time trying to explain economics to you.




Q: What the hell do you think happens with money?
A: It gets invested or spent. You can't eat it. It won't keep you warm. A politician is the last person you want handling it; they just give it to their political allies in exchange for votes. That's the very definition of crony capitalism.





Economic dynamism is simply a facet of evolution at work. Markets allow human society to vote for something with money (the result of labor). If you don't like that fact, your argument is with nature.



 

Somehow you've got this crazy image of rich people sitting around on a stack of dollar bills stuck in your brain.



Until you figure out that isn't the case, it's a waste of time trying to explain economics to you.




Q: What the hell do you think happens with money?
A: It gets invested or spent. You can't eat it. It won't keep you warm. A politician is the last person you want handling it; they just give it to their political allies in exchange for votes. That's the very definition of crony capitalism.





Economic dynamism is simply a facet of evolution at work. Markets allow human society to vote for something with money (the result of labor). If you don't like that fact, your argument is with nature.




"Trickle Down" economics does NOT work. That's what the Busch tax cuts were, just repackaged. It does NOT work, never did, never will. Busch explained that giving the top earners cuts would cause them to reinvest the money into creating jobs.

And that NEVER happened!!
 
Reaganomics isn't a fact of nature, its a man-made system that isn't working real well. Too much like a pyramid scheme.

I AM voting with my dollars. I'm voting against big offshore corporations, as much as I can-- I gotta put gas in my car, of course. But it's a Chrysler. Used.
 
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Reaganomics isn't a fact of nature, its a man-made system that isn't working real well. Too much like a pyramid scheme.

I AM voting with my dollars. I'm voting against big offshore corporations, as much as I can-- I gotta put gas in my car, of course. But it's a Chrysler. Used.

People try to confuse the situation with out-of-textbook explanations. Quite simply, the GOP and their Tea Party Obfuscators are in favor of the Reagan economic plan with Busch top rate tax cuts.
 
People try to confuse the situation with out-of-textbook explanations. Quite simply, the GOP and their Tea Party Obfuscators are in favor of the Reagan economic plan with Busch top rate tax cuts.

Well, duh. And they try... oh how they try. They try like a trysail.

but hey-- look at Trysail using his own words!

funny how he has nothing to say...
 
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