One of the biggest challenges for libertarians is convincing others of their viewpoints.  It is especially hard persuading family members, because they already know your flaws and do not necessarily think you are any smarter when it comes to politics.  Regardless of whether it is a family member, a friend, a co-worker, or just someone you happened to sit next to on a plane, it can be quite difficult to get someone to be open-minded about libertarianism.  There are a lot of people stuck in the Republican/ Democrat paradigm.  It seems to make people not think clearly.

One approach I have found that actually opens up some people’s minds is to talk about investing.  Every individual is different, so no one approach will work the same.  But I’ve found that talking about investments gets some people to think differently.

I am a big advocate of the permanent portfolio, as discussed in Harry Browne’s book Fail-Safe Investing.  If someone asks me for investment advice, I often refer them to the permanent portfolio, or at least the mutual fund (PRPFX).  If someone looks at the performance of PRPFX, they can see that it has been a good and consistent performer.  It is an opportunity to explain to people why diversification is so important.  You can explain that it doesn’t just mean diversifying in different stocks.  It also means diversifying so that you are hedged against a weak dollar and high price inflation.

It is fairly easy to explain to someone that the overall general price level goes up over time because money is created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.  It is easy to explain that gold and silver (but gold in particular) are good hedges against inflation.  Therefore, it makes sense to have them as part of a portfolio.

It is important to remember that it is rare that someone is converted into a libertarian based on one conversation.  Even if you did supposedly convert someone in one conversation, does the person really understand libertarianism?  Hardcore libertarians understand that it is an ongoing learning process.  They also understand that you probably would not have a full grasp on the subject after one conversation.  It takes most people many books and articles and YouTube videos, etc. before they are converted and have a good understanding.

So, most of the time, the best you can hope for is to move a person one step closer to your ideology.  But the first step may just be a matter of opening up the person’s mind.

There are a lot of people who are frustrated with their own government and they are also frustrated with investing.  The stock market has been a roller coaster ride and it has barely provided any return in the last 12 years (if you bought and held), while most prices have continued to go up.  People are looking for explanations, other than the same old Keynesian lines.  They are also looking for sound investment strategies.

So why not help a friend and let him know about the permanent portfolio?  Why not tell your friend about the importance of gold?  You are appealing to their self interest.  You are helping them out.  And you may be opening up their mind to more libertarian ideas.

The one thing I would caution against is being too aggressive.  It is important to talk to people when they are ready.  It is probably not a good idea to offer unsolicited advice.  People around you can know that you are interested in investments and interested in libertarianism.  It doesn’t mean you have to sell them.  Some people become ready in their own time and will come to you for advice.  Some people will never be ready.

For those people who are looking for answers, it is important for libertarians to be there for them.  I have found that a good way to open minds is by talking about investments and avoiding the subject of politics, at least directly.  It may work for you too.

I suffered through some of what people call a debate.  It is only somewhat of a debate because a lot of the lines are rehearsed.  In addition, it is hard for two people to debate when their positions are so similar.  It seemed like they were struggling half the time just to distinguish themselves from each other.

Of course, the one issue that Obama is most vulnerable on is Obamacare.  Yet, Romney can say “repeal and replace” all he wants, but he has no credibility on the issue.  There are two people in the history of America to have signed legislation into law mandating that individuals buy health insurance or else face a strong penalty.  It just so happens that those two individuals are the two main candidates for president this year.

I was happy to see Obama embrace the term Obamacare.  My leftist friends hate it when I and others refer to it as Obamacare.  But now I feel fully justified in using the term, since Obama himself is willing to accept it.

While Romney may have come out as a winner to the pundits and the so-called swing voters, it was no win for libertarians.  He assured people that he was not going to cut taxes without also eliminating deductions (raising taxes).  He assured people that he would not cut taxes for the rich.  He assured people that he did not have a tax cut plan for $5 trillion.  (I’m guessing that $5 trillion that Obama kept talking about was over a 10 year period.)

When Romney was asked about tackling the deficit problem, Romney said, “I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they don’t pass it: Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?  And if not, I’ll get rid of it.  Obamacare’s on my list.”

So Romney’s test is if the program is so critical that it’s worth borrowing money from China.  There is absolutely no mention of the Constitution here.  So it’s not whether it is actually constitutional, it is just whether it is worth borrowing money from China.

So with that question, Romney could only come up with two specifics: Obamacare and PBS.  The rest of his suggestions were all generalities that could have been said by anyone.  Every presidential election, we hear the candidates talk about making government more efficient, blah, blah, blah.

By the way, PBS does receive some government funding and he is right to say that it should be eliminated.  But in the big picture, it is like taking a drop from a swimming pool.  It is a tiny fraction of a percent of the total federal budget.  Notice he didn’t talk about getting rid of the Department of Education or any other departments.  Obamacare is all he can come up with and even that he wants to replace it with something else, perhaps Romneycare.

One of the noteworthy things about this debate to libertarians is the things that weren’t said.  The word “Constitution” was said only once in the entire debate (including the moderator).  Romney mentioned it once.  I guess they don’t even try to pay lip service to it anymore.

Doing a search of the transcript, there was no mention of the Federal Reserve by anyone.  It is amazing what happens when Ron Paul is missing from a debate.  This is one of the most significant topics and the entity that has a much greater control over the economy than the president does.  Yet it wasn’t mentioned once.

For all of the rambling of Obama and the Democrats about how they want to help the poor and “invest” in things like education (yada, yada, yada), you would think they could mention the Fed at least once.  When the Fed creates money out of thin air and prices go up at the gas pump and the grocery store, who do you think that hurts the most?  The Fed is there to help the big banks and to fund the government’s deficits.  Meanwhile, it disproportionately hurts the lower and middle classes.

Perhaps this debate could shift things enough to make things interesting on the day of the election.  But no matter who wins, it probably won’t matter much.  Both candidates are central planners and want to continue to run the lives of other people.  They both want to rule.  There is no real choice between these two candidates.

Being one who looks at money and financial websites, I will often come across articles discussing retirement.  I will see headlines such as “How Much Do You Need to Retire”, or “When Can You Retire”, or “Will You Have Enough For Retirement”.  There are also retirement calculators.

It is a popular subject and not surprisingly, considering most people would like to retire at some point in their lives.  They want to know when they can free themselves from the daily grind.

The problem is that it is very difficult to estimate a good retirement number.  You don’t know what kind of unexpected expenses you may have, including medical.  You don’t know what the economy will be like and what kind of a return you can get on your investments.  One of the biggest things is that you don’t know how long you will live.

Aside from your life expectancy, by far the biggest variable and perhaps the most underestimated factor is price inflation.  You don’t know what your cost of living is going to look like years down the road.  If we have annual price inflation of 10%, then prices will double approximately every 7 years.

The Federal Reserve and the fiat money system makes it extremely difficult to plan for retirement.  It has been bad enough in the past, but now we are looking at $16 trillion in government debt (and growing) and perhaps $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities (and growing).  There are many good reasons to expect substantially higher price inflation in the future.  Meanwhile, your bank savings account right now is probably yielding .1% per year, if you are lucky.

Of course, this is just another reason that we should strive to allow competing forms of money by repealing the legal tender laws.  It will either keep the Fed somewhat honest or else it will put it out of business.

Since getting rid of the Fed isn’t a reality at least yet, you are probably still trying to find a good way to calculate your retirement needs.  While it is difficult to do, I think using real estate as a marker is actually a decent way to do it.  I have written about this before.  Owning houses (or condos) that are paid off will generate income.  The best thing is that rents will tend to keep up with price inflation and are a pretty good marker.

So while it is impossible to accurately calculate your retirement needs because of variables like life expectancy and inflation, you can at least get a decent estimate by using real estate as a marker.

I have detected a shift in the American mind and it is a good thing.  I see more and more people awakening to the fact that government is not there to look after people.  I see more people realizing that these ongoing wars are ridiculous, unnecessary, and quite harmful.  I see more people realizing that government is not the answer to their problems.

For young Ron Paul supporters, they have no idea just how much this country has changed in the last 5 years.  Libertarianism was barely on the map.  There was no such thing as a libertarian giving a speech to thousands of people in an audience.

But I also see very subtle things in every day life where the government weakens slightly and the spread of information increases.  The government has promoted, and sometimes even forced upon people, unhealthy things.  Fluoride in water is one example and yet I see most people drinking bottled water now.  They know that most of the tap water is bad.

I am actually seeing several products in the grocery store advertising that they contain no high fructose corn syrup.  Of course, this is something that has been promoted by government with subsidies and high tariffs on sugar.  But the fact that some products are starting to advertise in bold letters that they do not contain high fructose corn syrup, attests to the fact that consumers are conscious about it.

Changing subjects, but still on the same theme, I saw a piece on Fox News talking about military requests for ballots being way down from past presidential election years.  In other words, it looks like a lot of military men and women are not going to vote.  While the Republican hacks on Fox were talking about Obama and his administration most of the time, they couldn’t explain why the military people were not going to vote in big numbers for Romney.  And I doubt that there is any more apathy than in years past.  Of course, the most logical explanation, which terrifies the establishment, is that more people, particularly in the military, don’t want to vote because they see little difference between Romney and Obama.

We now live in a world of open communication.  We live in a world of Google and YouTube.  Things get around fast.  Politicians can’t get away with things as much as they could in the past.

With a bad economy, more people are doing their own independent research to find out why.  They want to know the reasons for the bad economy and what can be done to fix it.  They are tired of the same old Keynesian explanations.  More people are finding Austrian economics.

While I think it will still take some time to change hearts and minds, we are actually headed in the right direction.  The government continues to grow, but its structural foundation is weakening.

It isn’t really considered “cool” this time around to support Obama.  If anything, the Ron Paul supporters are where the action is.  People aren’t as excited about Obama this time around and rightly so.  And it seems that most of the Romney supporters are only Romney supporters because they are anti-Obama.

So while it seems like things are getting worse and worse with bigger and bigger government, we need to look at the positive things and realize how many more libertarians we have today than we did just 5 short years ago.  I’m not sure if Americans will be better off 5 years from now, but I think we will be much better off in 20 years.

The unfunded liabilities run up by the U.S. government are estimated at anywhere from $100 trillion to over $200 trillion.  While the estimates vary quite a bit, does it really matter?  Nobody can even conceive of what it means to owe $100 trillion.  In other words, it will be impossible for the government to keep its promises.

The biggest piece of the unfunded liabilities is Medicare.  Then comes Social Security.  There is also Medicaid and government worker pensions.  These are the big ones.  For now, I will just focus on Medicare and Social Security.

These unfunded liabilities keep growing every year.  There is no way that the government can keep these promises over the next 75 years, let alone the next 20 years.  There will be some kind of a default.  Many libertarians assume that the default will come in the form of inflation.  But that will not take care of the bulk of the problem.

If there is high inflation, then Social Security is supposed to be adjusted for a cost-of-living increase.  It will not solve the Social Security problem, unless the government stops giving a COLA or redefines it. If that happens, then seniors will get checks that buy less and less.

It is even worse for Medicare.  If there is high inflation, then medical costs will just continue to skyrocket.  This will make it even harder for the government to keep its promises.

The easiest form of default will be to increase the retirement age substantially.  If Congress raises the age to 75 overnight, then that will wipe out tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities immediately.  Of course, Congress won’t do this.  It will take smaller steps in defaulting on its promises.  It will only do them when it is necessary.

I have always found it ironic that older people probably made up the smallest voting group (by age) for Ron Paul.  Most of Paul’s support came from younger people.  It is ironic because Ron Paul is probably the only person who could have somewhat “saved” Medicare and Social Security, at least from a major default.

Ron Paul had a plan to cut one trillion dollars from the budget in the first year and to balance the budget by his third year (as president).  He was the only major candidate to offer any significant cuts.  He would have cut military spending significantly by ending the wars overseas.  He called for the elimination of several departments.  If Paul had become president and used the bully pulpit to get Congress to go along, there would have actually been a slight  chance that Congress might not have to declare a major default on Medicare and Social Security.

Instead, we will get Obama or Romney, neither of which will cut federal spending.  Even if they froze spending over the next 4 years, the federal debt would still continue to grow by massive amounts.

The so-called entitlement spending, the military spending, and the interest on the debt are greater than the total tax collections.  In other words, you could eliminate everything from the federal government except for those few things and the budget would still not be balanced.  And Romney doesn’t want to cut anything at all from the military.  And we know Obama won’t cut anything unless the situation is dire.

In conclusion, there will be some kind of a default in regards to Medicare and Social Security.  The main avenue of default will be through raising the age to collect.  If you are in your 40’s or 50’s right now, don’t plan to retire in your 60’s, unless you have done a really good job of saving for yourself.  If Ron Paul had received the Republican nomination, there might be some hope right now of making good on at least some of these promises.  But it isn’t going to happen with the continuation of big spenders in office.  Welcome to Greece soon.

The adjusted monetary base is actually down slightly right now from where it was when QE2 ended at the end of June of 2011.

You can view the shorter-term chart for the adjusted monetary base here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/usfd/page3.pdf

You can view a 5-year chart here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&s[1][id]=BASE&s[1][range]=5yrs

You can view a longer-term chart here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/

You can also view the excess reserves held by commercial banks here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCRESNS

While we will certainly keep an eye on the adjusted monetary base, I see no reason not to take the FOMC’s word that the Fed will increase its holdings by approximately $40 billion each month.

Some analysts have mistakenly thought that the Fed’s assets would increase by $85 billion per month.  But the FOMC statement said that its longer-term assets would increase by that much.  It will also decrease its holdings of shorter-term government debt.  This is part of a continuation of Operation Twist.  I have interpreted the FOMC’s statement to mean that the net increase in holdings will be $40 billion per month.

It will be important to look at the excess reserves held by banks as QE3 develops.  The increase in reserves has almost identically mimicked the increase in the monetary base since the fall of 2008.  This has helped contain price inflation (along with the fear that goes with a bad economy).  If the excess reserves start to decrease, or even not go up as much as the monetary base, then price inflation is likely to get worse more quickly.

Just don’t make the mistake to think that we cannot see price inflation even if the banks continue to pile up excess reserves.  Those reserves still represent money that is held by people and businesses.  While it is not being loaned out, it is still available for people to spend.

As of right now, the monetary base is just above the mark of $2,650,000,000,000.  We should expect to see it go up each month by about $40,000,000,000.

Since QE3 is open-ended, we don’t know when it will stop growing.

The Fed was able to keep price inflation in check for the last 4 years, despite a tripling of the monetary base.  This was the probably the worst recession since the Great Depression ended.  It was a collapsing of the housing bubble.  We have seen high unemployment and great fear.  We have seen excess reserves piling up.  We have seen consumers cut back.  All of this has helped the Fed in keeping price inflation down.

I don’t expect for this to continue.  Something will have to give.  If the Fed keeps going for a while with QE3, I am guessing this will be enough to prevent the economy from falling back into a deep recession, at least for now.  Instead, I think we will see higher price inflation before we see another deep recession.

Of course, nobody can know for sure.  We don’t know how long the Fed will keep up the monetary inflation.  We don’t know what will happen with velocity, which is the speed at which people spend their money.  One thing to be cognizant of, is the fact that velocity can pick up rather quickly.  If people perceive that their dollars are losing value too quickly, they will try to get rid of them in return for hard assets.  This, in itself, actually perpetuates the higher velocity.

So while it is impossible to know for sure when serious price inflation (double digit) will hit, just be aware that it can happen rather quickly.  Eventually, the Fed will have to choose between saving the dollar from hyperinflation or allowing a deep recession/ depression.  Hopefully it will choose the latter.

With the third round of quantitative easing set to begin, there are some people saying it is time to short bonds.  In fact, many of these people are libertarians and Austrian school economists.  They believe that a rise in interest rates is inevitable, as the Fed creates more money out of thin air.

If you look on the right side of my blog page, I link to Charles Goyette’s book called The Dollar Meltdown.  I highly recommend the book.  However, there is one point that I have been critical on with regards to Goyette’s suggestions.  He suggests shorting bonds, predicting that interest rates will rise.  He actually predicted this a few years ago and he has been completely wrong.  I don’t think it is a good idea to compete with the Federal Reserve, the biggest bond buyer of them all.

This doesn’t change with QE3.  While the Fed will buy more in the way of mortgage-backed securities, it also indicated that it will roll over expiring government debt.  While I agree with Goyette and others that interest rates will eventually rise, I have no idea when and I don’t think it is wise to assume that it will be sometime really soon.

So when will be the right time to short bonds?

Bonds go down in value when interest rates go up.  As long as the Fed is buying debt and price inflation remains relatively low, then I see no reason why rates would go up.  Interest rates are only likely to go up significantly when the Fed stops with its so-called quantitative easing.  When the Fed stops buying government debt, then rates are more likely to rise without the support.  And we can only rely on the Fed to stop creating new money out of thin air because of the threat of high price inflation.  The Fed doesn’t see price inflation as a threat right now, so it is creating money to bail out the banks and to supposedly stimulate the economy.

So until we see a pickup in the government’s price inflation numbers, then I don’t see any significant rise in interest rates taking place.  Price inflation will be the canary in the coal mine for interest rates, not the other way around.

So what would be the point of shorting bonds right now?  You could be waiting for a while before it starts to pay off.  In the short-term, you could easily lose money on this bet.

If you are going to speculate right now, why not buy something that does well with higher inflation?  Higher inflation is much more likely to occur before higher interest rates.  Therefore, for speculation, you should be buying hard assets like precious metals, mining stocks, oil stocks, real estate, etc.  These will all benefit from a depreciating dollar.

In conclusion, I don’t think now is the time to short the bond market, particularly while the Fed is engaged in quantitative easing that hasn’t yet produced high price inflation.  There may be a good time in the future to short bonds, but that will not be until we see higher price inflation.

The Daily Caller had an article on a new Gallup poll that showed 47 percent of Americans think that the government regulates too much.  The first question that popped into my head after reading the headline was, “What are 53% of Americans smoking?”

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about monetary policy, government spending, and even taxes.  But we cannot ignore the huge burden that is placed on us from government regulations.  They lower our overall standard of living considerably.  They make wages lower.  They make prices higher.  They deter entrepreneurs from starting businesses.  They cause unemployment.  They are, in effect, a giant tax.

It is not just well-known regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank.  They are horrible enough and put a huge cost on businesses.  There are tens of thousands of regulations.  Major companies have entire departments devoted to figuring out and complying with regulations.

It is actually probably easier to start a business in communist China than in capitalist America.  China has less red tape.  I think the U.S. is still stronger as far as property rights, but China has less bureaucracy in many ways.  Chinese businesses, operating in China, are not worried about such things as the Americans for Disabilities Act, which by the way, actually deters companies from hiring disabled people.

Repealing regulations is something that could be done almost instantly and few people would feel the pain.  It is not like cutting Social Security and Medicare.  It is not like cutting highway funds where either the state and local governments have to make up the difference or else the roads and traffic become worse.  If federal regulations are repealed, the only ones who experience short-term pain are the workers for the government agencies administering the regulations and the workers who help their companies comply with them.  I suppose that big companies might also suffer, in that they can’t use government as much to prevent competition from smaller businesses, but is that a bad thing?

While repealing thousands and thousands of regulations isn’t an answer to all of our problems, it is a low-cost way of helping the economy tremendously.  53% of Americans have no idea just how many regulations there are and how dramatically they affect their standard of living.  In fact, I would bet that a good portion of the 47%, who think government regulates too much, realize just how extensive the damage is.  They are correct in saying that there is too much government regulation and they probably only know a tiny fraction of the regulations in existence.

I think this is one area where Americans can unite in calling for smaller government.  It is not like Social Security where one group benefits at the expense of another.  Most people can benefit from less government regulations and more regulations from the free marketplace.  If America is ever to be truly prosperous again, it can’t happen with the level of government regulation that currently exists.

While I believe that the main reason for QE3 is to bail out the major banks, one of the reasons that was given for QE3 is to stimulate the housing market.  So will QE3 help the real estate market?

The Fed is going to buy mortgage debt for this round of quantitative easing (money creation), instead of its typical method of buying regular government debt in the form or treasuries or bonds.  This is supposed to lower mortgage rates and help stimulate housing demand.

QE3 may or may not lower mortgage rates significantly.  Rates are already at or near all-time lows.  If you have good credit and a good down payment, you can get a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for as low as 3.5% in some places.  Anything under 4% is really incredible.  I suppose if rates somehow go below 3%, then this will help the housing market on the margin.  However, I would think that most people who could buy a house and wanted to buy a house would have already done so.  So again, I think lower rates would help on the margin, but not very much.

There is a bigger issue that seems to be missing in many commentaries regarding real estate and QE3.  QE3 is inflation.  It is the creation of new money out of thin air.  If the demand for money doesn’t change (or goes down), then the increased money supply will eventually lead to higher prices.

In an inflationary environment, people go into hard assets.  This can be gold, silver, oil, stocks (yes, owning stocks are a claim on the assets of a business), paintings, diamonds, baseball cards, etc.  Of course, a house is also a hard asset.  Therefore, house prices will probably go up if we see significantly higher price inflation.

Housing prices may not go up in real terms.  In other words, if you adjust for price inflation, prices could still go down.  There is still a lot of inventory owned by banks and there are a lot of delinquent “home owners”, who really aren’t home owners at all.  The banks essentially own their homes, but they don’t want to go through the expense of foreclosing.

Just for an example, maybe we will see price inflation hit 10% per year, while housing prices are going up 5% per year.  Prices would be going down in real terms, but up in nominal terms.  It is still a better investment than having your cash in the bank, at least right now.  Plus, if you have a mortgage, then you would be paying it off with depreciating money.  The payments, adjusted for inflation, would be getting cheaper and cheaper as time went on and inflation kept going.

Of course, it is possible that housing prices could go up faster than price inflation.  However, I would be surprised to see another housing bubble start right now because so many people were burnt by the last one.  I think a bubble in another hard asset, like gold, is far more likely at this point.

If you are in the right position, investment real estate could be the deal of a lifetime right now.  You can buy at depressed prices with super low mortgage rates.  If price inflation picks up substantially, you can pay down your mortgage with depreciating dollars.  Meanwhile, rents will probably go up.

In conclusion, my guess is that QE3 will help the real estate market, but the low mortgage rates will not account for most of it.  It is the simple fact that money creation leads to higher prices in hard assets.

It is usually hard to tell how a third-party candidate is doing before an election.  It is not any different this time in the presidential race.  Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is reportedly doing fairly well in the polls, at least for a Libertarian candidate in a national election.  Some polls have him as high as 3 or 4 percent and he polls even higher in some states, particularly his home state of New Mexico.

Polls don’t mean all that much though, particularly for a third-party candidate.  Many voters are spooked at the last minute and don’t want to supposedly throw away their vote.  They end up voting for the lesser of the two evils, whoever that may be in this case.

As I’ve written before, the Libertarian Party had a real opportunity in this election to put up a principled candidate and draw in most of the Ron Paul supporters.  While Johnson may get some Paul supporters, I doubt if it will be a majority.  Johnson is just not as principled.  He doesn’t have that radical side that appeals to so many libertarians.  Instead, we get this:

It is bad when Johnson makes the war hawks on Fox News seem happy.

I will be surprised if Johnson ends up getting one percent or more of the vote.  Based on Ron Paul’s campaign, the Libertarian Party candidate should be getting at least two percent in this election.  It should be by far the best showing ever for the LP, yet it won’t be.  It is disappointing, because it would have been interesting if there were a principled libertarian in the general election.

The hardcore Gary Johnson supporters will be paying attention on election day.  They will be disappointed.  They are hoping he gets into the debates.  He won’t.  They are hoping he will at least be a spoiler, but how can you ever know if someone is a spoiler?  People that vote for Johnson probably wouldn’t have voted for Romney or Obama anyway.

While Johnson is probably less evil than Obama and Romney, I don’t see him as having a strong set of principles.  He doesn’t completely understand what it means to be a libertarian.  He is not that great on economics and he apparently, from the video above, isn’t that great on foreign policy.  Unless I see some dramatic change in him in the next 6 weeks, he will not be getting my vote.  My vote will go to Ron Paul or nobody at all.

This will be a wasted election for the Libertarian Party, just as it was in 2008.  There is almost zero chance of winning, so how can the party and the cause of liberty benefit from running a candidate?  The only benefit is if the candidate helps educate others and gets more people interested in the message of liberty.  Ron Paul’s campaign did that.  Gary Johnson’s campaign is not doing that.