There’s plenty to debate about the economic policies that have been adopted by Britain’s coalition government since coming into office in 2010, but that the country’s finances were coming to a very dangerous point indeed after the long Blair/Brown binge ought to be beyond dispute. Something had to be done, and however limited the progress (and however much fresh money has been wasted along the way) something has been done, thanks mainly to the efforts of finance minister George Osborne. He was, of course, given a big assist by the fact that Britain had ignored the advice of the likes of Tony Blair, the BBC and Paul Volcker (oh yes) and retained its own currency. That left the pound free to sink to a level that reflected  market perceptions (a  strong currency has to be earned) and it meant that the UK dodged the terrible trap into which the countries of the euro zone have fallen. A half-completed monetary union leaves its members peculiarly vulnerable to market panics on a scale that can convert a liquidity crisis into a solvency crisis, which is why Spain (say) is in much more of a jam than heavily-indebted Britain. I linked to a paper that explained this last year, but, basically, by retaining control of the printing press, the UK can pay its bills so long as there are buyers for its paper. Spain does not have that luxury.

But the price that lenders will demand for taking that British paper can rise very quickly, particularly in the case of a currency that enjoys far less safe haven status than the dollar. When the Coalition took power, there was every danger of a renewed run on the pound, and with it the need to hike interest rates (and thus borrowing costs) to levels that would have fed on themselves. To avoid that disaster, Osborne had at least to signal a change of course. And he did.

The alternative would have been disaster, as the IMF’s Christine Lagarde recognized today:

“The gain that resulted from the fiscal consolidation that was decided two years ago has been that result, the credibility of the UK government and its ability to borrow at extremely favourable rates….Sometimes you feel like you could look back and wonder ‘what if?’. And when I think back myself to May 2010, when the UK deficit was at 11% and I try to imagine what the situation would be like today if no such fiscal consolidation programme had been decided… I shiver.”

Food for thought.

Jonah, Kevin, re Bernie Quigley’s ingenious “Fake but mythic” defense of Elizabeth Warren, does that mean that when she checked the “Native American” and Harvard Law “woman of color” boxes, she merely displaced another mythic Injun or woman of mythic color? Or did she displace an actual non-mythic minority?

For my part, the next time I’m confronted by the neo-apartheid ethnic-categorization boxes of official paperwork, I intend to write in “Mythic”. There’s bound to be a grant or at least a tribal cookbook in it.

Jonah, that Quigley piece you cited sure is heap big fun, but, by all that’s Natty, could he not at least spell “Bumppo” right? (The extra “p” is for “paleface.”) Makes you wonder whether he’s actually ever read The Last of the Mohicans or any of the Leatherstocking Tales.

E. J. Dionne thinks it’s unfortunate that 43 Catholic institutions have filed suit against the Obama administration over the HHS mandate, because that might give the impression — in an election year, no less — that many Catholics are really, really unhappy with the Obama administration.

Well, yeah.

Dionne thinks this is “unfortunate” because, apparently, the only thing that can explain American Catholics being really, really unhappy with the Obama administration is, you guessed it, partisanship.

There is certainly a case to pushing the administration to rewrite the definition of religious organizations under the health care regulations, but no reason to treat President Obama as an enemy of religious freedom. The bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign [a fourteen-day period of prayer, education and action in support of religious freedom] is looking more and more like a direct intervention in this fall’s elections.

The Catholic bishops, for the record, have called the HHS mandate “unjust and illegal.” They insist that the mandate “creates and enforces a new distinction — alien both to our Catholic tradition and to federal law — between our houses of worship and our great ministries.” Dionne himself once called this the mandate’s “most vexing problem.” Despite all this, Dionne remains primarily concerned about the bishops’ call for a “Fortnight for Freedom” looking like an intervention in election-year politics.

In what kind of polity, one wonders, would an adequate response to an unprovoked government abrogation of religious liberty not have the kind of political implications that, at least in democracies, usually involve elections? To be sure, saying that an appropriate response from Catholics citizens will have political consequences is not at all the same as saying it is a partisan exercise. Dionne conveniently conflates the two.

Keep reading this post . . .

Jonah: It took me a while to convince myself that Bernie Quigley is a real person and not a product of your imagination. Alas, he exists.

Beyond the self-parodying nature of his prose, reconsider this bit: “So Warren’s claim to be ‘part Indian’ is correct in mythical terms. Every old-school white Oklahoman is in this regard even if this in [sic] nominally not true. But it is not a lie to want to be Indian and to imagine your ancestors were. It is to be free of Europeanism. Emerson saw the laggard Europeanism within the Yankee mind as a curse of the unformed American, living half in shadow. It would bring temptation unnatural to us raised free in the forest; fascism, as in Italy, Spain and German [sic], and the perennial virus of French nihilism. . . . In the heartland it is almost universal for those who have been there for a few generations to claim Indian blood.”

“Almost universal”? Upon what authority does he write that? Is there any evidence for this claim? None that he cites, to be sure. It is news to this heartland native. (No, not “Native.”) Having grown up within smelling distance of Oklahoma, I’ve known my share of Sooners. I can’t think of one who dishonestly claimed minority status in educational and professional situations, much less an “almost universal” habit of doing so.

I can understand why some Indians object to being made into mascots for lousy sports teams. But I don’t think I’d much like to be made into a mascot for this kind of risible, content-free, soy-latte mysticism, either. (Though when it comes to that, the Indians don’t have it as bad as the Buddhists, the most aggressively trivialized religious tradition  I know of. Christianity may take a beating in the public square, but at least it hasn’t been reduced to a style of interior decorating.)

This has to be the best attempt to wave away the Elizabeth Warren story yet. It’s almost a work of art. Bernie Quigley writes at The Hill:

…The first poetic vision of Europeans in the new world was that of James Fenimore Cooper, who conjured Natty Bumpo. He had an “Indian name” — he had several: Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Pathfinder — indicating that he had been “reborn” in the new world in the Indian spirit. It is the oldest and most important myth in the American canon of our folklore, from Lone Ranger, who died and became “born again” via agency of an Indian shaman, and Fox Mulder, who returned from the dead via Indian intercession in “The X Files,” born anew with the past burned away in death, to enter a new age under the flag of the White Buffalo.

So Warren’s claim to be “part Indian” is correct in mythical terms. Every old-school white Oklahoman is in this regard even if this in nominally not true. But it is not a lie to want to be Indian and to imagine your ancestors were. It is to be free of Europeanism. Emerson saw the laggard Europeanism within the Yankee mind as a curse of the unformed American, living half in shadow. It would bring temptation unnatural to us raised free in the forest; fascism, as in Italy, Spain and German, and the perennial virus of French nihilism.

Warren in that regard brings a fresh, classical Americanism from the heartland back to us in Boston where we still have tendencies. The James brothers, both William and Henry, would appreciate it. Henry in particular, in The Bostonians, could only find one worthy character up here, the country cousin Basil Ransom, a lawyer visiting from Mississippi. We are lucky to have Warren among us. She adds stock and substance.

I hope Mitt Romney remembers this and incorporates Indian blessings and ritual in his inaugural ceremonies as Canadians do and as they did in those terrific Winter Olympics in Salt Lake in 2002. And I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn’t back down on this, because wanting to be Indian, like Hawkeye, makes us in a deeper sense fully American.

I am reluctant to get too deep into this, but I find it fascinating, even touching, while at the same time utterly ridiculous. With the Dan Rather memos we had the defense “Fake but accurate.” Now we have “Fake but mythic.”

Come by my chat with author Austen Ivereigh on effective communications on neuralgic issues. You will not be disappointed. Details here about the 6:30 p.m. event in D.C.

I had the same reaction to Maureen Dowd’s latest criticism of the Catholic church, noted in the Corner by Mike Potemra, as I usually do: a parochial regret that she couldn’t have been born into a nice Protestant family. Dowd writes:

Speaking to the [Georgetown] graduates, Sebelius evoked J.F.K.’s speech asserting that religious bodies should not seek to impose their will through politics. She said that contentious debate is a strength of this country, adding that in some other places, “a leader delivers an edict and it goes into effect. There’s no debate, no criticism, no second-guessing.”

Just like the Vatican.

I suspect that there is at least as much debate, criticism, and second-guessing at the Vatican as there is at, say, the editorial offices of the New York Times – although in both places there are certain shared, and thus uncontested, assumptions.

Dowd continues:

Twenty-eight years ago, weighing a run for president, Mario Cuomo gave a speech at Notre Dame in which he deftly tried to explain how officials could remain good Catholics while going against church dictums in shaping public policy.

“The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman,” he said.

I’m always amazed that people hold up Cuomo as some kind of philosopher-statesman, and especially that they praise that intellectually and morally embarrassing speech of his. (It’s the speech in which Cuomo said it was fine for Catholics to show “discretion” instead of speaking out against abortion, just as it was okay not to speak out against slavery before the Civil War. Seriously, that’s the parallel he drew and the purpose for which he drew it.)

Naturally, Dowd calls Cuomo to see how he would apply his wisdom to contemporary questions.

“If they make the mistake of saying that a politician has to put the church before the Constitution on abortion or other issues, there will be no senators or presidents or any other Catholics in government.”

The “they” seems to refer to the bishops — but then it’s hard to tell since the thought is so otherworldly. Nobody is talking about putting “the church before the Constitution on abortion.” Some people are saying that the Constitution, rightly understood, does not mandate legal abortion — a position that Cuomo himself seemed to flirt with during his over-celebrated speech. (“For me life or fetal life in the womb should be protected, even if five of nine Justices of the Supreme Court and my neighbor disagree with me.”) If the Constitution really did include a provision barring any government from restricting abortion, however, there would be nothing wrong with seeking to amend it: That wouldn’t be putting “the church before the Constitution” in any troubling sense, either.

John Hart Ely, himself a supporter of legal abortion, famously remarked that Roe v. Wade “is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Something very similar could be said about Dowd’s relationship to thinking, and for that matter Cuomo’s.

I have to admit, my hat is off to Team Obama’s crack strategists for deciding to reframe the Bain attack in terms of how a career in private equity prepares one for the presidency of the United States.

Shrewd move by Axelrod/Messina and co. to make this race about who is better qualified to be president. I wonder why they didn’t think of it in 2008?

UPDATE: Great exchange between Jake Tapper and Jay Carney in which Tapper wonders whether the president governs like a community organizer.

There’s a video clip making the rounds online that shows South Carolina AFL-CIO president Donna DeWitt hitting a pinata with South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s face on it:

I just got off the phone with DeWitt, who confirmed she was the woman in the video. Did she have any regrets? “I don’t regret it,” she says.

“As you can see, I’m not vicious, I’m not hateful,” DeWitt adds. “I think if we’d had a donkey and played pin the tail on the donkey with her face on it, I guess, it’s a children’s game and I guess people would have gotten upset about that. There was certainly no viciousness. It was all in fun. Although she has bashed unions for quite some time.” 

“That no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber,” Joe Biden said today, discussing Mitt Romney’s work at private-equity firm Bain Capital.

UPDATE: Samuel Wurzelbacher, the GOP congressional candidate in Ohio better known as “Joe the Plumber,” says that Biden’s comments show that he is promoting “class warfare.” 

“The way I feel about it, quite frankly, is people in the blue collar world if anything have a better understanding of how to run things than what Vice President Biden gives us credit for,” he says. “We’re the guys who have to make the paychecks stretch, we’re the guys who have to makes sure that our employees are paid. … in truth,  I think we have a better understanding of how this country works because we’re the ones that built it.” 

Does he view Biden’s comment as offensive? “If I cared enough about him, I guess I would,” answers Wurzelbacher.

With the Texas primary just a week away, Ted Cruz has begun airing this new TV ad:

Out of his Depth

From the Daily Telegraph last week:

[David Cameron] is piling the pressure on Europe to stop the collapse of the single currency by raising money through “Eurobonds”.  Speaking in Manchester, he warned the financial crisis of 2008 that led to the near-collapse of the banking system “never really went away”.  He is due to hold a conference call with François Hollande, the French leader, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, this afternoon to “explore new options” to solve the crisis.  Ahead of the meeting, he issued a blunt warning that Eurobonds may be needed to “put an end to speculation about the future of the euro”.

Never Waste A Crisis

From the EUObserver

BRUSSELS – The European Commission has said it will soon bring forward plans for an economic and political union it says is necessary for the creation of debt-mutualising eurobonds – one of the most controversial proposed solutions to the current eurozone crisis.

“We need to reflect what kind of European union would be required to deepen economic and political integration, for instance so that joint issuance of debt would make sense for all member states sharing the single currency,” economics commissioner Olli Rehn told MEPs on Tuesday (22 May).

He said the commission would “soon” come up with a “medium to long term roadmap” outlining the necessary deeper fiscal and economic integration that would minimise moral hazard – member states running up debt because they know it will be paid by others – and ensure “fiscal sustainability.”

“In other words,” the commissioner added, “the features of an economic and political union required to make mutualisation rational for all.”

Commonsense

Vincenzo Scarpetta, Open Europe:

The idea of Eurozone countries pooling their sovereign debt in the form of Eurobonds re-emerges every time the euro crisis suffers another turn for the worse. Curiously, the idea’s chief proponent seems to be the UK government, which has made several interventions, stressing the need for the Eurozone to move to “fiscal burden-sharing”. This puts it in the company of European federalists such as Romano Prodi and Jean-Claude Juncker, and socialists such as François Hollande.

However, the UK government, like most other advocates of Eurobonds, tends to gloss over the details. There are at least three economic reasons, and a huge political reason, as to why Eurobonds are no easy fix. Firstly, the moral hazard entailed in Eurobonds is huge. Remember, for large parts of the past decade, Greece was treated by markets the same way as Germany, and was able to borrow money at almost the same interest rates. Everyone can see the results. Secondly, Eurobonds would inevitably take away pressure for radical reform. As painful as it is, at least the Eurozone crisis is forcing Club Med countries to pursue long-overdue reforms of their pension and tax systems, labour markets, and so forth. Piggy-backing on Germany’s credit rating could take away this pressure. And linking back to moral hazard, the focus could again be on growth via debt, rather than through structural reforms. Thirdly, most of the proposals for Eurobonds would see only part of the Eurozone governments’ debt underwritten jointly, with the rest remaining national. This option would be a major economic gamble. Not only would it be extremely difficult to implement on existing debt stocks, it could also send borrowing costs on the nationally-denominated debt skyrocketing – which would ultimately outweigh the benefits of having Eurobonds in the first place. In addition, a half-way house would mean that a substantial euro rescue fund would still be required, since the Eurozone continues to lack a lender of last resort – putting extra pressure on the credit ratings of Germany and other “core” euro countries.

The first and second problems could be dealt with, in theory, by imposing strong EU budget rules. But the record of Eurozone countries of abiding by such rules – and the lack of credible enforcement mechanisms – does not inspire confidence. The third problem can only be solved by going for “full” Eurobonds, meaning no national debt at all.

However, this is where politics – and a bit of constitutional law – kicks in. German taxpayers are not ready to accept higher national borrowing costs to underwrite Greece, Portugal and Spain. Nor are they willing to accept a euro based on watered-down budget discipline. Going down that road risks a major backlash – which could lead to the Germans pulling the plug. In addition, the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has already expressly forbidden Eurobonds without a change to the German “basic law”.

In any case, Eurobonds would take years to implement. The answer to the current crisis must lie elsewhere.

Rehn is just an apparatchik doing his job, Cameron is a prime minister unable to cope with his, and Scarpetta is right. Theoretically, “full’ Eurobonds could be the answer (if we ignore the insult to democracy that they represent, and if a legally and politically credible structure for their issuance could be put in place quickly enough).  In the short-term, and under those unlikely circumstances,  they could have the potential to calm the crisis down. Over the longer term, they will merely postpone the day of reckoning and, quite possibly, make it even worse.  

Despite some significant flaws, I really loved the first season of AMC’s “The Killing”. The second season has been a bit of a mess, I think, because of the need to play out the same murder investigation for whole new season. I still really enjoy it, and the last few episodes have been pretty engaging. Some observations:

The Good!

  I particularly like the UN-PC development that the Native Americans are shaping up not just as bad guys — bad news for Elizabeth Warren!  — but as casino-bilking frauds.

Stephen Holder (played by Joel Kinnaman) is one of the most authentic characters in a drama in years. He’s manages to play a white trashy-thug life drug addict while at the same time being humane and likable. That’s tough.

The Bad!

Absurd narrative time compression! Because the series takes place during a remarkably short amount of time — I think it’s been three weeks since Rosie Larsen’s murder — it’s easy to accept some pretty miraculous developments, so long as you don’t think about them.   Consider, for instance, Darren Richmond’s season 2 arc so far. Contrary to widespread misconceptions, I’m no spinal neurosurgeon guy, but Richmond rebound from a crippling gunshot wound in a matter of days strikes me as awfully implausible.  In just a few days, Richmond was shot, almost died, then miraculously recovered only to learn he was paralyzed for life from the waist down, went into a spiral of depression, came out of it and is now running all-out for mayor again. During this time, his old semi-girlfriend quit the race in a huff, moved to Washington, DC and then moved back to rejoin the campaign.

By the way, for a guy running for Mayor, he seems to talk about his schedule and appearances a lot, while never leaving his office.

The Ugly

It is hard to think of a show that spotlights really bad mothers more (or to be more fair, bad mothering). Sarah Linden (compellingly played by Mireille Enos)  was sympathetic for a while as the obsessed cop who doesn’t want to give up on being a mom. But eventually, it just became infuriating the way she was treating her own son like an inconvenient load of laundry, dragged from one hotel to another. She eventually did the right thing in sending him to his father, but it went way too far before she finally caved in.

Oddly the same goes for Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes). What the hell? Look I certainly get the idea of a mom flipping out when her daughter is murdered. I can even see her needing some alone time, despite having two young boys to take care of. But this is an area where the time compression thing is a real problem. It feels like Mitch (I thought it was “Midge,” too, until I looked it up for this post) has been gone forever while her two sons are in agony. I don’t know why her husband Stan doesn’t tell her that her sons are unraveling and need their mother, but it’s just painful to watch her go on her self-indulgent trek of personal discovery while her surviving children fall apart. Moreover, I don’t really find it all that plausible. If Rosy were an only child, I could see Mitch disappearing forever to cope with her grief. But do mothers really do that when they have kids at home they still need to take care of? I’m sure some do. But Mitch doesn’t seem like that kind of woman to me. Or at least, her portrayal of that kind of woman feels forced. They needed her to go off on her quest to expand the storyline, not because it was in her nature.

Anyway, I still like the show. But I’m beginning to think they should have solved the Larsen murder already and moved on.

As Noah noted below, Representative Jim Clyburn has taken particular issue with certain objectionable forms of free enterprise, and he proudly notes, “I don’t take contributions from payday lender. I refuse to do that.” That’s all well and good (though payday lenders can provide a vital service to those who can’t access other forms of credit), but, of course, Clyburn’s man President Obama has been a recipient, as many have noted, of oodles of private-equity cash. Worse, Clyburn has also benefited from the support of a range of what he might consider objectionable “free-enterprise” groups.

Clyburn doesn’t meet his own standards, because he’s received plenty of campaign contributions from private-equity donors. For instance, in the 2008 election cycle, employees of the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest PE firms, gave the congressman and his PAC $34,500, making the firm his fourth-largest donor (other substantial donors that year included JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association). Altria Group, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, is also Clyburn’s ninth-biggest donor over the course of his career, sending him $71,000 since 1998, presumably to remind him that he should support fair regulation of a morally questionable industry. (All info from OpenSecrets.)

Furthermore, the Congressional Black Caucus, of which Clyburn was chairman from 1999 to 2001, is notorious for its less-than-reputable supporters, some of whom have donated to an affiliated charity in the name of Representative Clyburn. One particularly prominent supporter is the rent-to-own industry, essentially the moral equivalent of the payday lenders Clyburn supposedly eschews. In 2010, the New York Times had a devastating report on the CBC’s moral unscrupulousness, explaining:

The caucus has had to fend off criticism of ties to companies whose business is seen by some as detrimental to its black constituents.

These include cigarette companies, Internet poker operators, beer brewers and the rent-to-own industry, which has become a particular focus of consumer advocates for its practice of charging high monthly fees for appliances, televisions and computers.

When one derides activities like private equity as unacceptable forms of free enterprise, it’s hard to keep one’s hands clean of their filthy lucre. Representative Clyburn sure hasn’t.

Michael O’Brien writes for msnbc.com:

The most misunderstood voting bloc in the 2012 election is the Catholic vote.

Why?

Because there isn’t one.

The religious assemblage, which has evolved over the past century from a strong Democratic constituency into a national election bellwether, is no longer discernible from most other voter groups. As the community has become less homogenous and more assimilated into mainstream culture, so has its voting habits – sending many politicians on a fool’s errand in pursuit of the “Catholic vote.”

Of course it is true that there is no “Catholic vote” if that phrase is meant to connote a group that votes with the uniformity of black Americans. It’s true as well that other facets of a person’s identity — race, marital status, frequency of churchgoing — are more predictive of his vote than his religious affiliation.

But Catholicism does seem to affect voting behavior. Catholics are “discernible from most other voter groups” in their tendency to swing between the parties — which evangelicals, Jews, blacks, single women, and most other voter groups don’t do. The evidence, some of it presented in O’Brien’s article, suggests that Catholics tend to swing a little bit more than the general electorate does. So, for example, Bush improved his share of Catholic voters between 2000 and 2004 more than he did his overall share; and the Republican share of the Catholic vote fell a bit more between 2004 and 2008 than did the Republican share of the overall vote. Swing voters are disproportionately Catholics. Politicians are wise to take note.

Yesterday, I noted the North Rowan High School, whose “social studies” teacher told a student not to “disrepect” President Obama in her classroom. Today, he spoke to Fox News:

The North Carolina high school student who was berated by his teacher after he spoke critically of President Obama told Fox News on Monday that he wanted to “laugh” when he heard the teacher suggest he could be arrested for criticizing a sitting president. 

“Honestly, at the time I wanted to laugh at her, because I’ve been taught all my life that nobody can take your opinion,” Hunter Rogers said.  He said he knew that it takes an actual threat against the president, not just criticism, to be arrested. 

Hunter Rogers and his mother Gina spoke to Fox News about the incident and the recording of the argument that later went viral on YouTube. 

“(The teacher) doesn’t want to hear anything but what she believes, and … if you disagree, you get berated and put down,” Rogers said. “I just decided to finally get some proof of it.” 

The teacher has been suspended, pending investigation.

Remember the time when the Wisconsin recall election was about union rights, and solidarity, and how Governor Scott Walker’s eradication of public-sector collective bargaining was something Hitler might have done? Remember that? Yeah, that was fun.

But those days are well behind us. Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, is trying his hand at a noxious cocktail of different issues; first, he failed to convince Wisconsinites that Walker was at war with women. Then, Barrett’s claim that Walker’s policies led to massive job losses was pulled out from under him when Walker’s administration released more accurate numbers that showed the state gaining 23,000 jobs. (Although Barrett still clings to that talking point as if he were a three-year-old on a Time magazine cover.)

Now, Barrett has taken the most predictable route possible; he has begun running an ad slathered in innuendo citing an ongoing John Doe investigation of several of Walker’s former county executive staffers:

(Ironically, the ad features a still shot of Madison reporter Jessica Arp, who regularly hosts a feature in which she fact-checks campaign ads. Undoubtedly, if she were to fact-check an ad featuring herself, it would cause a tear in the time-space continuum.)

The story of the John Doe investigation is thus: Walker’s former deputy chief of staff, Timothy Russell, has been charged with stealing $60,000 in contributions meant for Operation Freedom, a picnic that honors veterans. Russell’s domestic partner, Brian Pierick, was also charged with two felony counts of child enticement. Two former Walker aides have also been charged with doing campaign work on government time (although just last week it was discovered that Kris Barrett, Tom Barrett’s wife and a public school teacher, sent political e-mails from her government-hosted e-mail account as well.)

Keep reading this post . . .

I write today about America’s demographic revolution. It wasn’t inevitable, but was the result of government policies undertaken over the last several decades. And it comes at a time when we are increasingly ill-equipped to assimilate people.

Are you opposed to Obamacare’s horrifically counterproductive expansion of government power and government spending? Surely the government can spend some of your money to change your mind about that. Surely.