Weekly Wrap: Current News, Views & Notes from Ty Andros

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TedBits Weekly WrapMay 30, 2014 

 

This past week was action packed and the smoke signals have come at us in a fast and furious manner.  The biggest headline came from the EU parliamentary elections where a good portion of the disenfranchised sent an unambiguous message of protest of central governments and their socialist masters.  The people are WAKING UP to the creeping loss of freedom and destruction of the economic future by Brussels and their handmaidens in capitols throughout the Eurozone.  Let’s take a look at the growing march against CREEPING socialism and totalitarianism on the continent:

Keep in mind that the left leaning groups have the something for nothings firmly in their camp, encouraging public servants to up the looting of the public in the interest of FAIRNESS.  The groups on the right believe in more traditional small government and economic growth.  The only country where voters remained supporters of the party in power was no surprise:  Germany, where capitalism and competition have kept them fully employed and an oasis of economic growth in a socialist desert. 

"The nearest thing to eternal life that we'll ever see on this Earth is a government program."

– Ronald Reagan

Just as in the United States, those that support less central government and smaller government are being labeled extremist by the main stream media.  Jean Claude Juncker and Brussels refuse to acknowledge the message by crowing they still control the majority, purely contemptuous of the man in the street.  Ms. Marine Le pen of France had this to say:

“The people have spoken; our people demand one type of politics: they want French politics by the French, for the French and with the French. They don’t want to be led any more from outside, to submit to laws [by outsiders]… The sovereign people have proclaimed loud and clear that they want to take back their destiny into their own hands…  We must build another Europe; a Europe of free and sovereign nations and freely decided cooperation. Tonight is a massive rejection of European Union.  If Germany has become the economic heart of Europe, through the incompetence and weakness of our leaders, then France has been and will be the political heart of Europe. What has happened in France signals what will happen in all Europe countries: the return of the nation. To all those French who voted for us, I say that the battle for the greatness of France should unite in the rediscovered love of our country…”

Well said and only the beginning of this.  Nigel Farage of the UKIP (UK independence party) is one of my favorites as people everywhere are demanding an end to unaccountable government by and for socialists and bureaucrats. Check out these two CNBS interviews with Nigel:

Ms. Le Pen of France and Bippo Grillo of Italy is the tip of the spear of a larger movement of the disenfranchised in the Eurozone.  The group is large and growing.  The elites in Brussels and European capitals have totally dissed the results of the election and are proceeding with business as usual: unaccountable bureaucrats, government officials, and Crony capitalists removing freedom and self-determination from the European populace as quickly as possible.  I will close this summary with a quote that sums it up rather well:

“The EU has come to symbolize authoritarianism, anonymity and undisguised condescension.”

 – Dominique Moïsi

…Of course you can say this about Washington DC as well.

The second major event was the Jackson Hole of the Eurozone.  For those of you who aren’t aware of Jackson Hole, it is a meeting of the foremost central bankers and monetary academics annually in August.  It is strictly a KEYNESIAN AFFAIR and spotlights the latest trial balloons of the banksters and their academic intelligencia.  Europe is having their version of it in Portugal.  They all are dedicated to one thing:  separating you from the wealth you have stored in their fiat currency and credit systems and transferring your wealth to themselves from any one of thousands of ways they have devised to do so.  Fredric Bastiat described it exquisitely:

This quote summarizes the symbiotic and predatory nature of LEVIATHAN GOVERNMENT AND CENTRAL BANKING SYSTEMS.  Both have slipped their bridles and their depredations are aimed directly at the people they claim to serve.  They are robbing and enslaving us all in myriad ways.  They are literally carving up yours and their futures to benefit those in charge today.  Draghi emerged from Last weekend’s meetings to announce a “pernicious negative spiral”… nice that he finally noticed after years of negative credit and economic growth to the private sector.  But that actually was the idea of the euro, bring the governments and private sectors who gave up the printing press to their knees in exchange for nothingness.

In my last TedBits, I covered the Eurozone and its sorry state of affairs outlining how the private sector has been starved of credit for over two years.  I just got the numbers for sovereign credit growth provided by several of the domestic banking sectors and it is stunning.  In Spain, banks are holding $384 billion dollars’ worth of sovereign debt, up 290% from pre-crisis levels.  In Italy, banks have increased holdings by 240% to $563 Billion, and cross border lending to non-financial companies has basically stopped.  To the banks, sovereign lending to their home countries is RISK FREE by law and regulators make sure domestic institutions must SALUTE.  Of course it’s worse than advertised as Governments slipped worthless IOUs into many pension accounts during the crisis just as the US does with Social Security, transportation and Medicare trust funds.  The looting of the public’s future knows no bounds for fiscally and morally bankrupt PUBLIC SERVANTS.  These socialists have and are running out of other people’s money, so more looting of the private sector looms.

In respect to the private sector, lending it is similarly bifurcated.  As German bank lending to the private sector is alive and well while lending in the PIIGS has virtually ground to a halt.  Why?  Because over 10 years ago, the German economy was known as the sick man of Europe and German leaders swallowed hard and undertook wholesale labor and non-financial corporate market reform.  They abolished the minimum wage, allowed hiring and firing according to economic conditions, restrained the Unions, and took on entrenched special interests to fix the economy for ALL GERMANS, not just the CONNECTED ones.  Now there are good risks for banks and the availability of credit, and the rates they pay reflect it.

It is exactly what the public servants of the Eurozone at large refuses to do and thus the long road to economic growth is much farther away than when the crisis began.  Look for an LTRO directed only at small and medium enterprises to emerge but be of limited effect without the CRITICAL policy changes similar to Germany’s.


Author’s Note:  In my opinion the greatest manmade disaster and OPPORTUNITY in history is unfolding in every corner of the world.  Are you diversified or operating with EYES WIDE SHUT?  Are you prepared to turn it into opportunity by properly diversifying your portfolio?  Adding absolute return investments which have the potential to thrive (up and down markets) regardless of what unfolds economically?  This is what I do for investors; help them diversify into investments which are created to potentially thrive in the storm.  For a personal consultation with me CLICK HERE


My third and final subject is the Inclusive Capitalism conference in London.  Thomas Picketty has set the progressive movements a twitter with his book about the destructiveness and unfairness of capitalism.  It is widely hailed as the basis and justification of further confiscation of wealth and redistribution from the private sector. It was headlined by people such as Larry Summers, Christine Legarde of the IMF, Bill Clinton, Mark Carney of the Bank of England, Banksters, Main stream media, progressive academics, pundits and numerous high profile crony capitalists.  In other words, the predators and socialists who game the system for themselves and against your interests and anyone who is not as connected as they are.  Who is the sponsor of the conference you ask?  None other than the Rothschilds!  It is the group that Bastiat speaks of in his previous quote.

Well, it is clear they have run out of other people’s money and are all patting themselves on the back and justifying the next round of takings for the good of the people and in the name of Fairness.  The definition of fairness in the modern world is what the definition of SLAVERY used to be. 

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Anyone who is familiar with SERFDOM in the Middle Ages knows today’s version freedom of democracy is far worse.   Serfs paid 25% of their income as taxes; in the developed world welfare states it is now approaching 50 to 80% (all types of taxes, fees, etc.) depending on the country. These people are not serving you; they are preying on you as a group.  Please wake up.  Keep voting them out whether they are from the left or the right.  Think of them as the organized crime families: Gotti’s and the Gambino’s who fight turf wars known as elections to see whose special interests get the front row carving up the private sectors in their respective fiefdoms known as countries.

In closing, did you enjoy these brief vignettes?  I could have written a dozen vignettes on other subjects about the events of this past week in my Daily Exercises section, and will include several over each week going forward on my new Blog: www.TedBits.com .  They include:  Unfolding late stage Currency and financial system extinction event in Venezuela and Argentina, The new Cap and Trade bill decreed by the EPA and executive branch BYPASSING congress,  A constitutional crisis is in full roar in the US and NO ONE is reporting or noticing it, and The turning tides of Eurozone periphery debt markets and more.

Insanity reigns supreme throughout the developed world as elites scramble to preserve their systems which are malignant and unreformable.  Unreformable because they REFUSE to consider reform of the welfare state and LEVIATHAN government with themselves at the wheels of power over others.  In fact, the inclusive capitalism conference is just the SMOKE signal of the next leg of confiscation of freedom and property by the elites.  Disguising and presenting their actions as virtuous to the useful idiots that their public school systems have created.  Each day, I recommend readings to sharpen your understanding at Over Ty’s Shoulder on the blog that you won’t want to miss.   

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The Party Is Over In The Treasury Market

By EconMatters

 

 

Last Hurrah

 

Everybody knew the GDP number was going to be revised down on this reading, and that it probably gets revised up for the next reading, and Bond Traders used the Revision in first quarter GDP to take the 10-Year Yield down to 2.4% on a nice push, but this required a whole lot of ammunition, and as soon as Europe started to close at 10 am central time (Europe close is 10:30 am for practical purposes) the Traders needed to start closing some of these positions. 

 

Bottom in the Bond Market

 

The 10-Year then went 7 basis points higher to actually end the day up, which in trader`s terms is an outside reversal, or a very bullish sign for 10-year yields going forward, this effectively is the bottom for the 10-year bond yield for 2014, 2015, 2016 and beyond.

 

 

Mark this date in your calendars as the last time the 10-year Yield was this low, we mentioned in an earlier article about this market being a coiled spring, well just sit back and watch the carnage as everyone tries to run for the exits at the same time in the bond market. Grab some popcorn because this is going to be funny over the coming months and years as yields continue to rise, some poor sap actually bought a 10-Year Bond today at 2.41% Yield, and thought this was a good investment.

 


Stop Trading on 3 Month Old Data

 

Bonds should have never gotten this low, everyone and their mother is underestimating inflation going forward, and the idiots on the Federal Reserve are so behind the curve, still talking about data 3 months old. By the time they realize we not only have food and energy inflation, but that wage inflation is coming in the next three months if not sooner, the absolute wrong-footed Federal Reserve & Bond Market are in for the shock of their lifetimes.

 


Massive Outflows Coming in Bond Funds

 

Literally bond funds are going to see such outflows, there are going to be money managers and hedge funds going out of business on this chasing yield trade blowing up in their faces. Margin clerks will be tapping a bunch of folks on the shoulders the next 6 months and beyond on this massive unwind in bond markets. 

 

I have never seen a market where so much money, and the consensus view is so wrong on this trade; the unpreparedness, the fact that not only do these people Not have an Exit plan, they don`t even know they need one on this trade. 

 

This is like the housing market can never go down logic; that interest rates will never go to 4% in their lifetime unpreparedness. Remember the Fed Funds Rate was 5.5% right before the financial crisis in 2007, this is hardly a century ago, it occurred in the last 10 years.

 

Federal Reserve Members are Clueless

 

I used strong language when I called the Federal Reserve members idiots, but the more I hear these people talk about the economy, this includes Bernanke now that he is retired, I cannot believe these are the best and brightest economists that America has to offer, because they are totally clueless. Even the hawks on the Fed are behind the data curve by at least 3 months, inflation is here, they better start raising rates next week.


Equities Running on Inflation Power: Forget Valuations at this Stage

 

This is what the stock market is telling everyone, and I like everyone was waiting for a summer pullback, a bunch of Hedge Funds starting shorting the market in anticipation, going long bonds; but inflationcannot be held back once it takes hold, and equities are off to the races, there will be a short squeeze in equities going forward. 

 

 

Once people realize what is going on with the reality that this cheap money has finally reached escape velocity with nowhere to go, and bonds are no longer an option once the realization that inflation is going to force the Fed`s hands, all this money is going to finally rotate out of bonds and into equities. We could literally see 2500 in the S&P 500, while the Fed tries to soak up this excess liquidity in the financial system. 

 

I am not sure how it will play out in equities once Bond yields spike, but where does the money go? Does everyone just run to cash? There are two things I am solid on however, one is that bond yields are going to explode higher, and the other is that volatility is also going to go much higher, so who knows how this is all going to play out in the equity markets. Maybe bonds and stocks sell off together.

 

Yield Trade Pushed Down Volatility

 

The abundance of money chasing the yield trade has pushed down volatility, and as the yield trade unwinds there are going to be some volatility traders that go out of business as well. I just cannot fathom how so many investors and traders are currently poorly positioned for one of the biggest moves in markets coming down the pike since the tulip market collapse.

 

 

Bond yields are in a bubble all over the planet, and first you have food and energy inflation, then you have wage inflation to pay for the rising food and energy costs due to the final piece of the puzzle in the tightening labor market. The US exported a bunch of inflation to emerging markets over the last five years, now it is our turn to experience inflation as a result of too much cheap money in the system. 

 

We are currently right at the tipping point of inflation, and nobody sees it at the Federal Reserve, why do you think there are all these minimum wage initiatives? It is because a loaf of bread costs $3-$5 dollars in the United States depending upon the market. Of course wage inflation is going to be the next shoe to drop! 

 

Talking about an Exit Strategy, Isn`t an Exit Strategy

 

I am sorry it is very apparent that not only is the Fed behind the inflation curve, they literally are making Fed policy up as they go along, they have no exit strategy whatsoever, and more painfully obvious is that Wall Street doesn`t realize that the Fed has no exit strategy. The learning curve is going to be painful as always for Bond Holders, who will be the last fool to own a bond in their portfolio? There will always be some Bag Holder in financial markets, and this time it is Bond Investors or should I say Yield Chasers!

 

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Still Think The Fed Isn’t Fueling Inflation?

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Just as we can't eat iPods, we can't subsist on official reassurances that the Fed and inflation are both benign.

 
There is a great divergence between the conventional financial media and the public who goes to the supermarket: the financial media swallows whole the official artifice that inflation is near-zero while J.Q. Public sees his/her grocery costs, health insurance, etc. rising by leaps and bounds.
 
Many observers finger the Federal Reserve as the villain in the inflation story: it's all well and good to conjure up a few trillion dollars to pass out to your banker buddies, but there are always costs, recognized or not, to every action, and the Fed's credit creation and numerous quantitative easing operations have greatly expanded money supply.
 
All else being equal, a massive expansion of money typically causes inflation, as the flood of new money starts chasing goods and services that haven't expanded at the same high rate as money supply.
 
One camp reckons the reason why inflation is muted is that the Fed largesse has flowed into asset bubbles rather than goods and services, and proponents of this view make a good point: since little of the Fed largesse has trickled down to the to bottom 99.5%, it can't exerting much pressure on consumer prices. In effect, the price pressure is all in equities and rentier assets such as real estate rather than in goods and services.
 
But demand from consumers flush with cash is only one facet of inflation, as this chart of oil and Fed operations from Fine Charts (courtesy of Petr Fiala) reveals. Recall the charts I posted a few days ago showed a tight correlation between the price of oil and food: Why Are Food Prices so High? Because We're Eating Oil.
 
In other words, if the price of oil goes up, so does the price of food, and everything else that must be transported or that consumes oil in its manufacture.
 
Now examine this chart of Fed operations and the price of oil: when the Fed is actively expanding credit/money, oil goes up in price.
 
 
If little of the Fed's largesse is ending up in consumer's wallets, why should oil go up as the Fed shovels money into financiers' accounts? The answer is somewhat speculative, but there are two avenues of price pressure other than consumer demand:
 
1. Financial speculation in oil futures contracts, which fuels non-consumer demand
 
2. Fed credit/money creation weakens the U.S. dollar (USD), pushing the cost of oil priced in USD higher.
 
This is how the Fed fuels inflation, even when little of its largesse ends up in consumers' wallets. Recall that the price of tradable commodities such as grains and oil are set on the global marketplace. That means that grain harvested in the U.S. and oil extracted in the U.S. is not priced solely by domestic demand: as the Fed has weakened our currency with its various manipulations to favor financiers and bankers, oil and everything that uses oil rises in price in the U.S.
 
Sellers of grain and oil have a fiduciary obligation to get the best price they can, and in a Fed-engineered weak-dollar environment, the best price is not in domestic markets but in overseas markets.
 

This chart shows the Fed is indeed fueling inflation by driving oil higher. Official denials are to be expected, as are ginned-up inflation statistics; but just as we can't eat iPods, we also can't subsist on official reassurances that the Fed and inflation are both benign.




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UMich Confidence Misses; Current Conditions Lowest In 6 Months

May's preliminary UMich confidence print of 81.8 was the biggest miss to expectations in 8 years. In the two weeks since then, the 'economists' have ratcheted back their exuberance to an expectation of 82.5… and still it missed at 81.9. So two weeks of exuberant equity markets have done nothing to soothe the consumer. The Current conditions sub-index tumbled to its lowest since Nov 2013 (and the outlook dropped also). Stock pushers are going to need higher highs if the dream of multiple expansion is to live on….So just as reminder, against the initial expectations, May's consumer confidence missed by the most in 8 years.

 

 

 

Of course – as we have noted previously – – confidence is the key number for continued exuberance in hope-fueled multiple-expansion…

But, it's all about confidence… investors will not be willing to pay increasing multiples unless they are confident that the future streams of earnings are sustainable and forecastable… And simply put, the current levels of Consumer Sentiment need to almost double for the US equity market to approach historical multiple valuation levels…

 

 




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Chicago PMI Rises Above Highest Estimate Even As Employment Drops; Prices Paid Soar

March’s miss in Chicago PMI is now a dim and distant aberation as April and now May’s Purchasing Managers Index surged to 65.5 – just shy of its Oct 2013 highs. As champgen corks fly and the world celebrates “we’re back baby” – we hesitate to burst that exuberant bubble and note that production fell, the employment sub-index fell below its 12-month average (but that doesn’t matter, right) and prices paid surged by their most in 5 years (that awkward margin-consuming inflation stoking thing).

 

 

As MNI concludes:

“We’ve had false dawns before, but the long run of strength in the survey, coupled with other more positive economic data, suggests growth is becoming more entrenched.”

Yep – no false dawn this time… we are sure of it.




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That Goldman Even Has To Say This Shows Just How Broken Markets Are

Earlier today, as part of its latest macro markets research roundup, Goldman let a phrase slip, which probably better than anything we have seen in the past few years, captures just how truly broken the “market” is. To wit: it is important to remember that weak global growth is generally negative for risky assets.” That Goldman even had to remind its clients of this dramatic observation, puts to rest any doubts about just how much central banks’ central-planning has perverted the cost/benefit analysis of the world.

From Goldman:

After the price action of the last 12 months, we often encounter the perception that weak DM growth and low US yields are unambiguously good for EM assets. Of course, as discussed above, there are regimes where lower yields are clearly beneficial for EMs, especially those triggered by significant policy stimulus – notwithstanding stronger growth rates. But, in our view, the macro outcomes that can drive yields firmly lower from here are more consistent with significantly weaker growth outturns, whether from a renewed lurch into contraction in parts of the Euro area, a failure of US growth to maintain the current momentum, or even a further downshift in China growth (which is already tracking weaker than our forecasts).

 

And in this case it is important to remember that weak global growth is generally negative for risky assets, including in EM. To benchmark asset performance in periods of weak global activity, we analyse asset returns in periods in which the global manufacturing PMI – a proxy for real-time global activity – is falling. Loosely, there have been around ten such episodes since 2000, with varying durations and degrees of intensity – although precise definitions of these periods are somewhat subjective. The average fall was 5.2 PMI points, or 2.7pt outside of the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Despite the heterogeneity, asset returns over this period provide useful guidance on the distribution of risks to EM assets.

Luckily, courtesy of another side effect of central-planning none of this really matters: here is why from Deutsche Bank:

It doesn’t seem that good or bad data notably alters the path of assets one way or another at the moment as central bank liquidity continues to trump everything.

Correct, and yet ironic that it has taken the big banks over 5 years to confirm what we first said in early 2009.




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The JPY Momentum Ignition Is Failing

Long-dated bond yields are lower this morning but that is not stopping ‘them’ from smashing JPY lower to try to spark yet another pre-US-open ramp in stocks to run stops and get the momentum going once again (as they have for the last 6 days)… except today – so far – it’s not working…

 




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A.M. Links: No Clemency for Snowden, Hillary Clinton Has Secret Lunch at White House, Google Map Directions Come to North Korea

  • not yetThe White House said it was not considering
    clemency for
    Edward Snowden
    , and that the whistleblower should return to the
    U.S. to be prosecuted. The
    National Security Agency
    , meanwhile, denies Snowden expressed
    concern about the illegality of its surveillance program and says
    it can only find one relevant e-mail from the former contractor.
    And in the city of secrets, even President Obama’s lunch with

    Hillary Clinton
    is one.
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says
    Russia
    has finally removed its troops from the Ukrainian
    border. Rebels in Ukraine,
    meanwhile, shot down a military helicopter outside of Sloviansk,
    killing 12.
  • The Supreme Court denied an attempt by lawyers for alleged mass
    shooter James Holmes to compel FoxNews.com reporter
    Jana Winter
    to testify about her sources in his trial.
  • A bill passed in
    Connecticut
    would require police to track stun gun use. If
    signed, it will be the first such law in the country.
  • Former Microsoft CEO
    Steve Ballmer
    will pay a record $2 billion to buy the Los
    Angeles Clippers, while under rules of the Sterling Family Trust
    co-owner
    Donald Sterling
    was reportedly ruled mentally unfit to try to
    prevent the sale.
  • Google Maps now offers directions in
    North Korea
    .

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Kurt Loder Reviews A Million Ways To Die in the West and Maleficent

Seth MacFarlane finally appears in the flesh in A
Million Ways to Die in the West
. Unfortunately, the flesh is
weak. As he has demonstrated in the long-running Family
Guy
 and his phenomenally successful 2012
film Ted, MacFarlane is an overflowingly talented
comic writer and voice actor. Kurt Loder writes that here, though,
stepping into the spotlight and directing himself in a parody
western he cowrote, MacFarlane’s anachronistic joke-cracking
persona seems too small-screen to anchor a full-scale movie. Loder
writes that Maleficent—a live-action take on the studio’s
1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty—is an honorable
enterprise, an often-gorgeous kids’ movie featuring two strong
female characters and dominated by Angelina Jolie in a performance
of wonderfully silky restraint.

View this article.

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What Q2 GDP Surge? After March Spending Spree, Tapped Out Consumers Had Biggest Spending Drop Since 2009

Last month, when we noted the massive surge in Personal Spending which was funded entirely by the depletion of personal savings, we said that “since spending was so much higher than income for one more month, at least according to the bean counters, the savings rate tumbled and at 3.8% (down from 4.2% in February), was the second lowest since before the Lehman failure with the only exception of January 2013 after the withholding tax rule changeover. So for all those sellside economists who are praying that the March spending spree, funded mostly from savings, will continue into Q2 (because remember March is in Q1, which as we already know had an abysmal 0.1% GDP growth rate), we have one question: where will the money come from to pay for this ongoing spending spree?” Turns out the answer was… nowhere.

Moments ago the April Personal Income and Spending data was released. And while the Personal Income came in line with expectations at 0.3%, down from 0.5%, it was the Spending that posted its first contraction since April 2013, dropping at a -0.1% pace, missing expectations of a 0.2% increase (the biggest since January 2010), and a collapse from the March Personal Spending bonanza which was revised upward to +1.0%.

In short, this was the biggest monthly drop in real consumer spending since September 2009!

 It is also simple math, because when your saving rate tumbles (on a revised basis) to the lowest since Lehman, there simply is no money to spend.

The full history of US personal disposable income and spending:

The good news: the savings rate did finally post a modest rebound, from 3.6% to 4.0%. Which is still the second lowest number since 2008!

 

Bottom line: today’s spending number was good for the final revision of Q1 GDP. Sadly, it was s very bad for Q2 GDP and for so-called economic momentum. Expect to see a slew of downward GDP revisions from the Penguin crew momentarily.




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