Archive for category Taxation
Geithner: Transfer Payments Create Wealth!
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Economics, Taxation on August 5, 2010
Larry Kudlow calls it “The Washington War on Investment.” Taxpayer Tim Geithner said that extending tax cuts for the wealthiness Americans would imperil the fragile economic recovery, would harm growth; this because the wealthy save more of their tax breaks than do others.
So, according to Geithner, savings and investment are bad; and the corollary, transfer payments from the government to the unemployed are good. Let’s take a simple case of the dollar in question, the one that winds up as investment or tax. The dollar of tax goes through the government collection machine and comes out at 80 cents, then it goes to the state in need (most of ‘em) so that it can be distributed to the long term unemployed worker or about to be unemployed teacher (bloated administrative bureaucracies don’t get laid off) who receives about 70 cents. He or she spend that 70 cents at the supermarket producing 70 cents of revenue and a penny of profit. The penny of profit nets a half penny of income for the market, half of which as dividends may get invested by the market’s shareholders. Note that none of that dollar went to reducing the deficit and debt that Hussein and Taxpayer Tim loaded on our children and grandchildren.
Alternatively, the dollar not taxed is either saved as Taxpayer Tim would argue or spent. On the save side, that dollar is invested for an economic return. It may go to stocks, bonds, real estate, start-ups, small businesses, etc. But it is invested in expectation of an economic return. It produces, technological advancement, new business, growth, and yes indeed, taxable income! It goes into expected productive investment at best case 100 cents or worst case 92 cents covering transaction costs. So here for growth we have 92 cents versus one-quarter of one cent!
If the dollar is spent instead of invested by the wealthy American, and this is contrary to Taxpayer Tim’s hypothesis, it produces 100 cents of revenue, that is GDP. So here the comparison is 100 cents versus 70 cents for the tax and transfer case. In either case, Hussein Obama and Taxpayer Tim are wrong. And their position will drive this country into ruin.
Larry Kudlow says it better and I recommend a full read of the article: “The great flaw in the thinking of the Democrats is that they are ignorant of the economic power of saving and investment. Saving is a good thing. Stocks, bonds, bank deposits, money-market funds, commercial paper, venture capital, private equity, real estate partnerships — all that saving is channeled into business investment. And whether that capital goes into new start-ups or small businessesor large firms, it finances the kind of new investment in plants and equipment and software and buildings that ultimately creates jobs and family incomes. And that, in turn, spurs consumption.
“But pulling out just one dollar from the private sector and rechanneling it through the government as a transfer to someone else creates nothing. At best it’s a safety net. At worst it may damage private-business activity and actually reduce employment. Without saving there can be no investment. And without investment there can be no enhanced productivity, which is the ultimate source of long-term prosperity and wealth.”
Would that there were there just some modicum of economic intelligence in Hussein Obama’s administration!
Deflation, A Self Fulfilling Prophesy?
Posted by Tom in Business, Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Fed, Financial Policy, Monetary Policy, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, Taxation on August 3, 2010
When Bill Gross, the bond guru manager of Pimco Total Return Fund, says “it’s happening,” he brings credibility to the deflation first scenario, that is deflation before inflation. According to yesterday’s WSJ article many fund managers are loading up on US Government bonds and hedging stocks. Others expect the Fed to come to the rescue. The Fed has limited options since it has interest rates near zero. According to another WSJ report these options are “unorthodox!” As the Fed mulls these, it may spook investors and highlight the weakness in the economy. So when the Fed is playing offense in trying to reflate the economy, savvy investors might conclude as Gross did that it’s time to play defense. Typically these “unorthodox” measures mean increasing the money supply by buying bank assets good and bad, bonds and mortgage backed securities. Problem is that there are not too many bullets left in the Fed’s arsenal.
To cap matters off, vis a vis the “self fulfilling prophesy,” today’s WSJ leads the front page with “Fed Mulls Symbolic Shift” that is using cash from maturities to buy additional assets instead of letting its portfolio shrink to a stable economy level. The Fed’s $2.3 Trillion portfolio has nearly tripled in size since 2007!
So, what to do? If prices are going to be lower tomorrow, why buy today? And this, ad infinitum! Couple this with Hussein Obama’s proposed tax increases, the pile on of entitlement deficits from Obamacare, and the great uncertainty posed by the regulatory bureaucracy, and you get a bleak picture.
Hope I’m wrong!
Incentives Work
So do disincentives. The truism is well illustrated in Art Laffer’s WSJ article, Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse. In it he uses history to illustrate the adverse effect of our upcoming tax changes.
“Consider corporate profits as a share of GDP. Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of the U.S. economy. These high profits reflect the shift in income into 2010 from 2011. These profits will tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market.”
“The result will be a crash in tax receipts once the surge is past. If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The article is too important not to read and understand in its entirety.
Posted from Golfito, Costa Rica.
Philosophical Ramblings
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Taxation, Welfare on April 22, 2010
Saw one of my favorite Docs today and told him of the dismal projections for our country discussed at this week’s Reno Hayek Symposium Dinner, the current and future deficits, the debt, the unfunded liabilities and on top of all this the Omamacare sludge hammer. We both pondered the “no way out-no apparent solution” future. The concern here is for our children and grandchildren. And, its not that they can’t be better, be more independent than we, but that we are saddling them with unimaginable debt burdens so bad that they can’t be overcome no matter how strong they are.
We then discussed the untenable tax burden necessary to barely maintain but not reduce these entitlements, their corresponding debt and merely the interest cost necessary to maintain both. This is not a tax the rich issue, the rich will no longer be here or anywhere for that matter. This is a gigantic burden on the middle class; the less-than-middle class pay no taxes, and in fact have payments going to them. The anticipated 20% VAT tax atop the increased income tax and estate tax will not come close to solving the problem. In fact this tax on consumption will merely accelerate the downward spiral in our consumption based economy. This because consumers will be further forced to hunker down, down to a subsistance existence.
We pondered the all-but-impossible solution of reducing entitlements arguing its necessity but also its political impossibility. Then we broached the real issue, equality.
This, discussed initially in medical services. Should we all be entitled to the best, the Mayo clinic, the latest technology? Or should only those who can afford the best be able to buy it? In Europe it is the entitlement scenario, but the best becomes the non-best. This because the best requires capital investment at risk for long duration and problematic results. My Doc pointed out that med-tech investment is down! In Central America medical treatment and services are pretty good and the tech used is state-of-art but only for those who can afford it. The lower classes are relagated to a lower level of care above first aid but not the best available.
What as a society do we want for our society? What as a society can we afford for our society?
I think it gets down to two issues: the proper role of government and the moral responsibility of the individual. Government must defend our shores first and formost. It must enforce criminal laws protecting person and property. It must maintain a system of civil justice resolving disputes between citizens. And given our republic structure it must resolve issues between states. Finally it must provide for its continuance, succession and amendment. Our founding fathers pretty well set this out initially in the Declaration of Independence and later in the Constitution.
I think the proper role of the individual is to provide for himself and his family; that is food, shelter, education and protection. Beyond that the individual must be a contributing member of society helping his fellow man in need. This frequently through synagogue, temple or church and also through voluntary community societies. The individual must also be a responsible citizen, voting, volunteering, and participating in government offices when elected or appointed.
What of equality? What of entitlements? We are not “all created equal” nor has history shown us to be “endowed by our Creator, with certain unalienable rights” of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The closest we come is to expect “equality of opportunity” despite our limitations. “Equality of result” is never attainable. Nor are we “entitled” to be equal. We struggle to do our best for ourselves, our families and our society. But we are not entitled to nor should we be guaranteed the same as everyone else.
This realization gives us the opportunity to help others, to be charitable, to do moral good. Including providing charitable hospitals and medical care, to get back to the earlier example. Here the government has no role; it is the exclusive role of the individual with other individuals alongside.
So, to prevent or at least mitigate the greatest intergenerational immorality in our history, we must limit entitlements, reducing and means restricting social security, medicare, medicaid and Obamacare. Keep in mind our grandkids have no voice, they are innocent of our current theft of their future. Our parents, the greatest generation, left us a better future but perhaps one too soft. Will we do worse by our children and grandchildren?
Tax Season–Players Suckers–Spectators Vote
Mark Steyn’s NRO post today, Tax Season, analogizes tax season to baseball season which, for most of us, is a spectator sport. Yeah, that’s right, we pay at the gate and again for the peanuts and crackerjacks while the guys on the field play and get paid. That’s the opposite of Mark’s analogy. During tax season, the taxpaying-players pay, and the spectators in the stands get in free and enjoy free peanuts and crackerjacks. No wonder they don’t care if they “never get back. Cause it’s root, root for the” Obama team. “If they don’t win, it’s a shame.” Here my choice of Jack Norworth’s 1908 baseball standard as an analogy breaks down. It’s highly improbable, almost impossible that “they” won’t win. Why? Cause like baseball now, the spectators will shortly outnumber the taxpaying players. Thus, the point of Mark’s article.
“And yet for an increasing number of Americans, tax season is like baseball season: It’s a spectator sport. According to the Tax Policy Center, for the year 2009, 47 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax. Obviously, many of them pay other kinds of taxes — state tax, property tax, cigarette tax. But at a time of massive increases in federal spending, half the country is effectively making no contribution to it, whether it’s national defense or vital stimulus funding to pump monkeys in North Carolina full of cocaine (true, seriously, but don’t ask me why). Half a decade back, it was just under 40 percent who paid no federal income tax; now it’s just under 50 percent. By 2012, America could be holding the first federal election in which a majority of the population will be able to vote themselves more government lollipops paid for by the ever shrinking minority of the population still dumb enough to be net contributors to the federal treasury. In less than a quarter-millennium, the American Revolution will have evolved from “No taxation without representation” to representation without taxation. We have bigger government, bigger bureaucracy, bigger spending, bigger deficits, and bigger debt, and yet an ever smaller proportion of citizens paying for it.”
“The top 5 percent of taxpayers contribute 60 percent of revenue. The top 10 percent provide 75 percent. Another 40-odd percent make up the rest. And half are exempt. This isn’t redistribution — a “leveling” to address the “maldistribution” of income, as Sen. Max Baucus (D., Kleptocristan) put it the other day. It isn’t even “spreading the wealth around,” as then-senator Obama put it in an unfortunate off-the-prompter moment during the 2008 campaign. Rather, it’s an assault on the moral legitimacy of the system. If you accept the principle of a tax on income, it might seem reasonable to exclude the very poor from having to contribute to it. But in no meaningful sense of the term can half the country be considered “poor.”
Two Points: One, if you don’t pay for it, you don’t appreciate it. The dole, the negative tax, the entitlements exacerbate an entitlement/dependency mentality that only wants and demands more and really doesn’t appreciate what is given with any contribution!
Two: The percentage of taxpayers supporting the system will decline and decline more, until it wakes up and leaves. We have reached the “tipping point” in social security with more going out than coming in. Medicare is worse, as is Medicaid, the states unfunded liabilities and government debt, deficits and unfunded liabilities follow in order.
That the idiot we have as president, Obama, with his leftist minions, Pelosi and Reid, and the Democratic congress have added Obamacare as another gigantic entitlement to this unsustainable pyramid is immoral now and all the more so later. Obama has proven himself anti-life as that term applies to live birth abortions; he has now done so as to our precious grandchildren now living.
The sad truth that Mark Steyn makes is that there are going to be more voters voting themselves free “peanuts and crackerjacks” than taxpayers paying for everything!
Mark Steyn Is Not a Hangover Cure!
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, Financial Policy, Nationalized Health Care, Statism, Taxation, Welfare on March 26, 2010
How bad can Obamacare get? What’s its effect on the U.S. economy? Mark Steyn’s NRO post, Obamacare Dystopia, gives us a slight indication: When the Bush Medicare Drug plan was added there were many retiree plans that included drug benefits. To incentivize those companies from dumping their retirees on the new Medicare drug plan, “Congress gave them a modest tax break equivalent to 28 percent of the const of the plan.” That has changed.
“Ask yourself this: If you impose a sudden 35 percent tax on something, are you likely to get as much of it? Go on, take a wild guess. On the day President Obama signed Obamacare into law, Verizon sent an e-mail to all its employees warning that the company’s costs “will increase in the short term.” And in the medium term? Well, U.S. corporations that are able to do so will get out of their prescription-drug plans and toss their retirees onto the Medicare pile. So far just three companies — Deere, Caterpillar, and ValeroEnergy— have calculated that the loss of the deduction will add a combined $265 million to their costs. There are an additional 3,500 businesses presently claiming the break. The cost to taxpayers of that 28 percent benefit is about $665 per person. The cost to taxpayers of equivalent Medicare coverage is about $1,200 per person. So we’re roughly doubling the cost of covering an estimated 5 million retirees.”
This is all so silly when you think that the tax favored employee medical insurance system has no reasonable basis in economics. It is compensation and should be treated as such, but isn’t under our tax law. And this is the source of our problems. But rather than acknowledge this and put consumers in control, Obama has chosen to put government in control regardless of the costs. Dependency is created.
Mark goes onto treat the facts that we can’t afford Obamacare given our current near bankrupt status with Democratic welfare unfunded liabilities and that this will inevitably bring a VAT tax added to our current tax structure that will doom us to peon status. He then looks ahead:
“All of the above is pretty much a safe bet. What about the imponderables? Even Obama hasn’t yet asked the CBO to cost out, say, what happens to the price of oil when the Straits of Hormuz are under a de facto Iranian nuclear umbrella — as they will be soon, because the former global hyperpower, which now gets mad over a few hundred housing units in Jerusalem, is blasé and insouciant about the wilder shores of the mullahs’ dreams. Or suppose, as seems to be happening, the Sino-Iranian alliance were to result in a reorientation of global oil relationships, or the Russo-Iranian friendship bloomed to such a degree that, between Moscow’s control of Europe’s gas supply and Teheran’s new role as Middle Eastern superpower, the economy of the entire developed world becomes dependent on an alliance profoundly hostile to it.”
Obama has set his course to ruin this nation. Pray that he fails!
What’s Obama Up To?
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Democrats, Economics, Financial Crisis, Individual Freedom, National Character, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, State Finances, Statism, Taxation on March 5, 2010
On paper Obama appears to be a smart guy and reasonably well informed. I suspect he knows:
- We face $1.4 Trillion annual deficits for the next decade.
- Our current national debt is $12.3 Trillion and will grow by $1 Trillion a year.
- Estimated unfunded liabilities from social security and medicare are $107 Trillion.
- States with aggregate deficits of $350 Billion, debt of $1.9 Trillion, and unfunded liabilities of $1.4 Trillion are asking for federal handouts.
- Unemployment is 9+% with private sector growth stalled.
Why then would he promote a radical takeover of healthcare with 10 year costs of $2.3 Trillion that adds $1.86 Trillion to the deficit over the next 20 years, that creates employment taxes and mandates, each discouraging private sector employment, and that fails to solve the demographically certain failure of medicare, social security and medicaid? We’ve proven our inability to handle two, no three if you include medicaid, major entitlements, why add another? And why would he risk his party’s control of Congress and his own ability to govern to attain this goal that a majority of Americans don’t want?
Obama is smart enough to know that Obamacare will exacerbate the financial straights of the United States. It’s uncertainty will decrease private sector employment. It’s taxes will decrease private capital for investment. It will cede financial and technological leadership to other countries. In short, we will be worse off tomorrow than we are today. Why would he risk that…want that?
It is clear that he knowingly intends to drive us further to the brink. It is also clear that given his apparent intelligence he has an end-game in mind. Take our admitted crisis, you know the “never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste” kind, explode it into a gigantic, off-the-clff catastrophe, then come up with a one-of-a-kind, popular solution that involves “shared pain” and if we are all lucky, someday “shared gain.” Call it a Cloward-Piven Strategy on steroids. (See: Cloward-Piven Strategy: Is It Obama’s? and references cited therein.)
As Larry Kudlow said in NRO, One Giant Government Leap Backwards,” One of the most galling features of this plan is a taxpayer-subsidized government-insurance entitlement for people earning up to 400 percent above the poverty line, or nearly $100,000 for a family of four. In other words, a middle-class health-care entitlement that will add millions of people to the federal dole. It’s all too reminiscent of the political dictum of the old New Dealer Harry Hopkins: tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”
So will Obama’s “Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Commission” turn out to be the VAT Commission with a European 12% sales tax on top of the income tax, excise tax, etc. And those on top of the various state sales, income and property taxes? All this to finance BIG GOVERNMENT? If so, we will then all have the advantage of being “in the same boat,” “equal,” and “happy” in an ever declining country and economy.
So for the literarily inclined, Obama wants us on Hayek’s Road to Serfdom where we will encounter Orwell’s Animal Farm with 1984’s Big Brother in control. As Obama recently said in response to a push-back, “we won the election.” And win the next election and the next, he aims to do with the creation of more and more dependency on him and less and less individual responsibility.
I won’t be around to witness the outcome but I hope the next generation will become informed and engaged, lest our grandchildren and great-grandchildren suffer horrible consequences.
Tom Motherway
Obama Can’t Answer Paul Ryan
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, Government Regulation, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, Statism, Taxation on February 25, 2010
Stephen Spruiell’s succinct report today in NRO, Ducking and Dodging, clearly sets out the Obamacare fiscal deficiencies highlighted today by Paul Ryan. Representative Ryan blasted Obama’s “insurance care” today and none of the Democrats could counter his arguments. Basically he pointed out that Obamacare front-loads tax hikes and Medicare cuts and defers costs, forcing the CBO to score ten years of offsets with only six years of spending! The true cost of the bill is $2.3 Trillion not the $950 Billion advertised by Obama.
Ryan focused further on other Democratic gimmicks:
- Double Counting: “savings” are counted as offsets for spending and at the same time reserved to pay for future entitlements. Example, $52 Billion in Social Security tax increases.
- “Doc Fix”: The bill’s 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements is put back in via separate legislation not subjected to combined CBO scoring.
And what does the wimpy Obama say in response? “We have some strong disagreements on the numbers, but I don’t want to get too bogged down!” If there were disagreement you would think he would have answered the criticisms.
As for getting bogged down, Obama should start getting real bogged down in his record breaking deficits, unsustainable national debt and bankrupting unfunded liabilities. Instead he is hell-bent-for-leather to add to that trio of financial irresponsibility. And this at a time of high unemployment when small businesses won’t hire because of the uncertainty, regulation and taxes proposed with Obamacare!
I guess destruction of our economy is a small price to pay for these socialists to gain total control of that economy. You’d think they would see it as a bad bargain.
I pity our future generations.
Tom Motherway
When Insurance Is Not Insurance
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Individual Freedom, Nationalized Health Care, Taxation on February 24, 2010
The Democrats’ goal of healthcare rapidly turned into health “insurance” care. This to supposedly provide healthcare to some inflated numbers of people who had no healthcare. But by law everyone has healthcare, just get to the emergency room and you will be cared for with or without insurance. So the leftist needed another tack to take over 16% of the U.S. economy. Thus Obamacare magically became Obama insurance.
Health insurance is not “insurance” in any true sense of the word. True insurance is a contingent indemnity against loss provided by a business that assesses and pools specific risks. As Clifford Asness states in his Bloomberg.com article today, “Don’t Ask” Is No Way to Run Health Care, “true insurance comprises two things: The first is a goal: to protect against very large losses. The second on is a method: the proper assessment and pricing of risk.” So fire insurance assesses the risk of occurrence of fire in a specific location and the expected degree of damage from fire in that location. Facts and circumstances like construction type, proximity to a fire plug or station, and repair or replacement costs are taken into account. Since others need such insurance like risks will be pooled and spread by the insurance company. To cover expected losses, that company will maintain reserves and beyond that has its owners capital. Companies can incur underwriting profits or losses depending on their experience in the specific insurance pools.
Health “insurance” in this country amounts to prepaid health care expenses. It does not indemnify against only large risks but prepays for every cold and sniffle. In fact it is practically speaking the only way in which medical providers get paid for their services. It is this fact–third party payment–that causes overuse and unnecessary costs.
Think about it. Employer provided insurance benefits are an expensive cost of compensation, yet they are not taxable as compensation to the insured employee, even though they are deductible to the employer. From the employee’s perspective, medical service is a free service.
“Having businesses offer full health coverage almost from the first dollar spent is phenomenally inefficient. Health care is over-consumed because it is essentially, at the margin, free to employees and too cheap — fully deductible — to the company. All incentive for the consumer to control costs is abandoned. Furthermore, the system is nonportable and famously bureaucratic, with the associated costs in time, money and frustration.
“To put the “insurance” back in health insurance, we need to remove the tax deduction for routine health-care expenses, whether the coverage is purchased by employers or individuals. If we choose to retain a deduction for insurance against large losses, it should apply equally to plans bought by individuals directly and those provided by employers.
“Among other benefits, this would remove a large tax deduction and the savings could be used to reduce other tax burdens. It would also solve the portability problem because without a tax advantage at work most individuals would purchase their own insurance. Most importantly, by buying their own insurance, designed to protect against only relatively large losses, individuals would become conscious of medical costs.”
In short, we need Consumer Driven Health Care (CDHC) where consumer pays for what he gets. He will spend economically both on high deductible insurance and generic drugs. His policy will be portable. It will be highly competitive if companies can cover across state lines and if tort reform reduces the costs of defensive medicine. With increased use of Health Savings Accounts costs will be further reduced. And yes, major pre-existing diseases can be inexpensively covered by subsidized high risk pools.
Tom Motherway
Obamanomics Will Lead To Our Demise
Posted by Tom in Business, Centrally Managed Economy, Democrats, Economics, Government Regulation, Taxation on February 24, 2010
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry to see the dynamic trio, Obama-Reid-Pelosi, ramming Obamacare down our throats at the small price tag of $950 Billion, oh yes and price controls on private insurers, expensive mandates on employers, and the government take over of 16% of the U.S. economy. Employers are not hiring, not investing, and not borrowing. At the very time jobs are needed businesses face health care uncertainty, higher taxes, falling consumer sentiment and high unemployment. Why invest if there aren’t going to be any consumers around to consume? Consumption is three quarters of the economy!
The only jobs the non-stimulus stimulus has created are government jobs–that would be the non-productive jobs that are a drag rather than a stimulus to the economy.
Speaking of economy, Robert Robb pens a dynamite article in Real Clear Politics today, The Chief Economic Worry About Democrats. With syllogistic logic he points out the elites lack of appreciation of investment capital and its function in the economy. Liberals assume a given level of economic output, a dangerously false assumption. Output doesn’t just happen it depends on investment capital. The government cannot supply that capital but can only redistribute what it takes by way of taxes. What it takes in taxes is withdrawn from private productive investment.
“Producers have to produce before consumers can consume. But producers cannot produce ex nihilo. Investment capital provides the financial bridge between production and consumption….In reality, however, the affluent provide most of the country’s investment capital. They are the ones with discretionary income. What the rich do with their money is very important economically.
“The Democrats want to raise taxes on the affluent and on corporations (which are repositories of investment capital). The numbers, and their effect on investment capital, are staggering..So, between Obama’s budget and the health care plan, that’s a shrinkage in the nation’s investment capital pool of up to $1.9 trillion over the next decade. But that’s only the beginning of the effects. Between Obama’s increased income tax rates, the income tax surcharge in the House health care plan, and state income taxes, the highest marginal income tax rate in most states will approach or exceed 50 percent. That will hugely discourage savings and investment by the affluent.”
“This tax-the-rich approach is justified as a matter of social justice. The government needs money, goes Democratic thinking, and it is fairer to get it from the rich than the middle class or the poor. Democrats also tend to believe that large disparities in income and large accumulations of wealth are evils to be ameliorated in their own right. The rich already pay a higher percentage of federal income taxes than they make in income. And the true social justice question shouldn’t be whether income or wealth disparities are increasing, but whether the lot of the poor is improving. Concentrating on the latter question leads to entirely different policy choices than concentrating on disparities.” (emphasis added)
Robb’s back to Adam Smith basics is brilliant, thus I’ve perhaps over quoted in this post. What I suggest is a read of the whole article and selected comments following the article which are displayed by clicking on “COMMENTS” at the end of the article.
Tom Motherway