JOBS: Good News – Bad News

Posted by Tina

The jobs report is out today. A puff of confetti celebrates 215,000 new jobs! 🙂

The unemployment rate ticks up to 5.0% from 4.9%

Most of the jobs created are part time retail

29,000 manufacturing jobs were lost

98,482,000 million workers still out of the labor force

Record 25,741,000 of workers are foreign born

There’s a white male deficit:

…people in their prime working years have a long way to go to recoup the losses of the 2007-09 recession — and white men are further behind than most. On average over the three months through March, a nonseasonally adjusted 86 percent of white men between the ages of 25 and 54 were employed, 2.3 percentage points (or about 1.1 million jobs) short of the average level in the 10 years before the recession. That’s a larger shortfall than any other group… 🙁

Hat tip: DRUDGE!

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28 Responses to JOBS: Good News – Bad News

  1. Libby says:

    Word problem: The population of the U.S. about 300M. Adults comprise 2/3’s of the population. If 100M adults are out of work, the percentage of adults unemployed is?

    Either Drudge is a liar, you are a fool, or both.

  2. Tina says:

    Is your adult figure based on people over eighteen (Or twenty one) or does it include all people who are employable? How many teens over 16 are considered employable? even kids over twelve can do farm work so how do their numbers figure into this? How many illegals are included in our work force that may not be in population figures?

    The Childstats webpage indicates there are 73.7 million children in the US (all children). right away that puts your 2/3’s figure into question. 25.0 million of those children are aged 12-17 and eligible for some work.

    Statistics are funny things. The use of them, when the numbers are this staggering, may incite in you a grumpy need to make nasty accusations, but if you are going to do so, you should at least give it a little more thought first.

    The point is the economy under leftist tax and spend policies has been disastrous for the American middle and lower class worker. You’d like to pretend it’s not so bad; good luck with that.

    Under Obama the rich keep getting richer, as they always will, but the poor and middle classes have had a rough dang ride…nothing is trickling down…fool! Not jobs, not a good paycheck, not more opportunity, and not a sense that starting a business would be a great idea.

  3. Libby says:

    Funny, my Aunt Fanny. The statistics you insist on re-posting are bald-butted misrepresentations of fact, and I don’t know how you can hold up your head … I really do not.

  4. Tina says:

    Nothing prevents you from giving us the current stats that ARE accurate…but you don’t because these stats were taken form government sources.

    In 2014 CNS News reported on labor force participation and came up with similar stats:

    there were 92,120,000 Americans 16 and older who not only did not have a job, but did not actively seek one in the last four weeks.

    That is up 111,000 from the 92,009,000 Americans who were not participating in the labor force in April.

    In June, according to BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), the labor force participation rate for Americans was 62.8 percent, matching a 36-year low. The participation rate is the percentage of the population that either has a job or actively sought one in the last four weeks.

    In December, April, May, and now June, the labor force participation rate has been 62.8 percent.

    Before December, the last time the labor force participation rate sank as low as 62.8 percent was in February 1978, when it was also 62.8 percent. At that time, Jimmy Carter was president.

    At no time during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, did such a small percentage of the civilian non-institutional population either hold a job or at least actively seek one.

    Our readers can check for current facts and stats here; the Commissioner’s statement can be read here.

    You’re going to need a sling to hold yours up, Libby, if you keep making these silly childish attacks.

    Our economy sucks…it just does. Admit it.

  5. Harold says:

    Tina, excellent reply to Libby’s obvious liberal ideologue style of rebuttal, no facts, just a ‘SWAG’ remark that is both rude and dribble designed to misinform.

  6. Tina says:

    Thanks Harold. I keep trying to get Libby to explain how left policies lead to a more robust condition for workers. So far she hasn’t and yet still maligns what has proven to work under both democrat and republican presidents of the past half century. Go figure.

  7. Libby says:

    Hmmm. I did rebut both your sources, CNS particularly, but it does not seem to be here, and I ain’t typing it again.

    But here’s the gist: 63 percent of what?

  8. Tina says:

    Libby you gave no sources for your rebut, just math based on assumptions…must be progressive math!

    You also failed to notice CNS News was not the “source” for the figures in their article, the Labor Board was…links provided.

    “But here’s the gist: 63 percent of what?”

    63% (I assume you rounded up) of the “…population that either has a job or actively sought one in the last four weeks.”

    See current Chart.

    See “alternative measures of labor underutilization, here.

    If the Obama administration had a fabulous labor participation record the left would be crowing. They aren’t. Instead they are telling us how it’s not so bad or improving, or the new norm.

  9. Tina says:

    Here’s a curious wrinkle in the employment story. What could he possibly have been after?

  10. bob says:

    Miss Tina,

    I sure hope you aren’t planning on retiring anytime soon. See, for most retirement is a myth, unless it’s forced retirement into poverty.

    The Boomer Retirement Meme: One Big Lie
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-04/boomer-retirement-meme-one-big-lie

    The article discusses what disaster the Keynesian clowns and their fiat, fractional reserve monetary system along with the corrupt politicians has caused and mark my word, it will get worse. Anyway, you owe it to yourself and your kids and grandkids to read.

    • Tina says:

      Zero Hedge is a fount of information. Too much to share here, not that that ever stopped me 🙂 But I found this of note right off the bat:

      In the year 2000, at the height of the first Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 120 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 54, with 78 million of them employed full-time. That equated to a 65% full-time participation rate. By the height of the second Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 80 million full-time employed 25 to 54 year olds out of 126 million, a 63.5% participation rate. The full-time participation rate bottomed at 57% in 2010, and still lingers below 62% as we are at the height of a third Federal Reserve induced bubble.

      The chart that followed shows participation dipping slightly following the dot.com bubble and recession and 911, and then rising through 2007 when the newly elected Democrats and Pelosi took control of the budget and spending after which it dipped and then rose again under the Obama campaign spell. Then the crash and recession that lasted through June 2009. Sluggish growth continued after “recovery” and a relatively flat participation rate followed. At the end of 2013 the participation rate began to rise slightly but signals anything but a robust economy or an abundance of good jobs. The Obama recovery doesn’t come close to Reagan’s, Clinton’s or Bush’s even after seven long years.

      A pathetic performance!

  11. Libby says:

    And that number is?

    I couldn’t find it. All I have on my side is common sense and simple math. 92 M is more like a third of the total pop. (320M) than an adults in the workforce number (which does not include 16-year-olds or retirees).

    And you’re still thinking we will forget Obama inherited a Great Recession?

    Dream on.

    • Tina says:

      It isn’t that you “won’t forget”. it’s that you are willfully blind and ignorant and absolutely unwilling to accept responsibility. Libby you simply will not tell the truth and expect the people to settle for government handouts and deep malaise as success.

      You propose what amounts to a big fat stinker! Good luck with that.

      “Great Recession” is a political talking point that is good marketing but decidedly false, especially when you consider that the types of policies that made the Great Depression last ten years were implemented by the Obama administration with the same disastrous result…a long painful slog with little to negative growth, a decimated middle class and the rich getting rich while the poor get poorer. Solutions proposed by Democrats artificially prop up Wall street while decimated buying power for the masses. There is no real growth, and although prices for products and services rise, the governments cooked books allow them to claim no inflation. Democrat policies rely on borrowing and spending…while crushing the ability to make money and pay for them! This is the very essence of insanity.

      If we keep going down this road the economy will collapse. Set the people free!

    • Post Scripts says:

      Peggy, hoping you spot this – check your email for a special note from Tina and myself.

  12. Libby says:

    There was no near collapse of the global economy in 2007-8?

    Talking point? Marketing!?

    Somebody’s capacity for denial is, I’m sorry, demented.

    I don’t know why I hang around here. You can’t communicate with people who don’t live on the same astral plain, who deny plain fact.

  13. Chris says:

    Tina: ““Great Recession” is a political talking point that is good marketing but decidedly false”

    Libby said it already, but this is fricking insane. There is no arguing this.

  14. Tina says:

    It is insane. And it never had to happen!

    President Bush (And McCain) warned the Congress what would happen if the problems in the lending industry were not addressed for seven years. Barnie Frank, head of the powerful Ways and Means committee blocked efforts for reform and publicly berated the President with the usual condescending BS. The gravy train for Democrats at Fannie Mae, et al was too good to mess with. I’ve posted the evidence many times. YOU lefties created the great in the last recession which we still must endure.

    Once the damage was done the greater crime was the way Democrats failed to make policy to create a robust economy. The recession ENDED in June 2009…we’re still waiting for recovery! It was just announced that the last quarter may be revised down to growth below zero…negative growth and our debt has now passed the 19 trillion mark.

    The so called “great recession” has been manufactured with ignorant socialist policies and arrogance that refuses to acknowledge its not working!

    You and Libby can walk off the nearest bridge for all I care. Nobody forces you to play here…instead you’ve been welcomed despite your nasty insults and arrogance.

  15. Chris says:

    Tina, you just seamlessly moved from one position to another apparently without noticing, or hoping that no one else would notice. You do this all the time.

    Which of the following do you actually believe?

    A) There was no Great Recession
    B) There was a Great Recession and it was caused and prolonged entirely by Democrats.

    Both of these statements cannot be true, and yet you said both in the space of two comments while pretending there was no contradiction. Which is it?

    (I wish you’d realize that half of what you see as “nasty insults” are really just me trying to help you understand and defend your own positions better. And yes, the above, in which you obliviously make two mutually exclusive arguments and act like there is no contradiction, shows you really do need help with that. That’s not arrogance, it’s just a fact.)

    • Tina says:

      “…you just seamlessly moved from one position to another apparently without noticing…A) There was no Great Recession, B) There was a Great Recession and it was caused and prolonged entirely by Democrats.

      No!

      The words, “Great Recession,” were concocted and used as a political tool. They do have strong emotional appeal, no doubt about it. It was repeated over and over along with the phrase, “the worst recession since the Great Depression. We did have a recession but it was dramatized for effect. Reagan’s recession was less dramatic in that it followed a long period of economic oppression. Bush’s was dramatic in that it was followed by the disaster of 911.

      The recession Obama inherited ENDED in June of 2009. One year after Obama was elected the recession was over. We should have begun to see a sustained period of normal growth (4%) following June 2009. We have not. Instead we have had growth averaging around 2% and often dipping below that, sometimes into negative territory. The recession was no worse than other recessions. The “Great Recession” is a deceitful mischaracterization. Economic policies (Obama/Democrat) that followed failed to create strong growth. And that amounts to an extended depressed economy. it would be more honest to say Obama created another great depression.

      There is no contradiction. There is a disturbing inability to grasp what I’m saying…and in a teacher that’s pretty frightening.

  16. Harold says:

    ‘The so called “great recession” has been manufactured with ignorant socialist policies and arrogance that refuses to acknowledge its not working!’

    Actually it works for liberals in Government to retain their power, so what does it matter now ?

    As long as liberal thinking and action can be achieved through others efforts and they can find a reason to raise more and more taxes through the fruits of others labor, they will never adjust their handout thinking.

    Liberal Government caused the Sub Prime recession , with the guidance of sub standard thinking of people like Barney Frank and company.

  17. Chris says:

    No, what’s frightening is that you’re still contradicting yourself to a ridiculous degree, and not noticing. This:

    “The recession Obama inherited by Obama ENDED in June of 2009.”

    Followed by this:

    “it would be more honest to say Obama created a Great Depression.”

    Is downright pathological.

    I mean, I guess it’s possible to believe both that the longest recession in seventy years “was no worse than other recessions,” AND that somehow the economic recovery since then amounts to a “another Great Depression.” But it’s also so disconnected from reality that it doesn’t merit a response.

    But you don’t actually believe that we are in a Great Depression. At this point you’re just saying stuff that feels good, and damn the facts.

    • Tina says:

      Chris I know you will never admit that the economy is lousy and has been for all of Obama’s presidency because of his leadership but that is the truth.

      The terms “great recession” and “worst since the Great Depression” were coined before the recession ended. These terms were POLITICAL fodder for numbskulls who know nothing about what makes an economy and opportunity possible. The purpose blame Bush and make Obama the savior. Hope and change and all that.

      The recession Obama inherited was not any more difficult than the one Reagan inherited. But his response was very different. Obama’s “new jobs” reports through the years have matched his 2% growth…always hanging around 250,000 new jobs. Reagan’s policies sparked growth rising to 4% and job growth one month of one million new jobs.

      The policies Obama enacted DID NOT spark a more robust economy…an economy that normally follows a recession when it ends. The policies he favored were in the same vein as those taken after the 1929 crash and in both cases a lousy economy was the spectacularly horrible result!

      The facts are we have not had growth of more than 2% for Obama’s entire term.

      The truth is that we’ve had a lousy job market for all of his presidency.

      The truth is our debt has doubled and is about to overcome what we produce each year…a recipe for disaster.

      The truth is that all of the growth in the stock market is artificial, created by the fed pumping money into the system.

      The truth is the administration encourages debt and blunts savings.

      The truth is the administration has been unfriendly to business causing more to close than are being started for the first time in decades.

      The truth is college graduates cannot find jobs in their field of expertise and have had to move back in with mom and dad and work in entry level jobs.

      There are many more truths that are indicators of depressed conditions.

      You have no interest in the truth.

      But the people effected KNOW! Even if they don’t know the particulars they know. This depression doesn’t have the same face as the Great Depression only because America has had decades of robust economic activity for most of the years following the depression and redistribution policies mask the malaise…record numbers of Americans are on food stamps putting downward pressure on the program. (47.8 million people).

      This Obama economy doesn’t work. The only thing that works is freeing the American people from the heavy hand of government…ITS THE PEOPLE that create growth and opportunity and you can’t get that when they are being restrained at every turn and burdened by the excesses of socialist politicians.

  18. Chris says:

    Tina: “The recession Obama inherited was not any more difficult than the one Reagan inherited.”

    Again, factually incorrect. By almost every measure the recession Obama inherited was worse.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/nov/17/sarah-palin/palin-claims-reagan-faced-worse-recession-obama/

    This should be obvious; this was a global recession.

    You lack a basic understanding of the scale of this recession, and all of your arguments regarding it are based on this absurd false premise that it wasn’t any worse than previous recessions.

  19. Tina says:

    Yeah, yeah…according to all of the leftist “experts.” All of the same kind of people who think taxing and printing money are solutions…because of that the WORLD remains in deep deep economic doo doo to this very day!!!

    Had America actually enacted sound economic policy and recovered we would be better off today. Whether or not the socialist nations in Europe would have followed our lead is questionable.

    Don’t tell me I lack understanding; you still cannot tell me how printing money, creating monstrous regulations, adding another entitlement, keeping taxes high and credit spending will grow an economy. So go ahead…tell me all about it….educate me. What are the mechanism and why haven’t they worked?

    My God you are a stubborn, stubborn………………………..donkey!

  20. Chris says:

    Tina: “Yeah, yeah…according to all of the leftist “experts.””

    This is not a rebuttal. Tell me, which of the measures that Politifact analyzed are wrong? And are you going to deny the fact that the recession was global?

    “You still cannot tell me how printing money…”

    Completely irrelevant dodge. There is no point in discussing solutions until we can agree on the problem. It is a fact that the recession that ended in 2009 was worldwide, and one of the worst ever seen in America. It isn’t just “leftist experts” who think this, it’s everyone in the reality-based community. You haven’t done anything to rebut the facts expect plug your ears and go “LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU.” It’s juvenile.

  21. Tina says:

    Chris the recession Obama inherited ended within the same general time frame as other recessions. There’s nothing magical about that.

    A lot of people were hurt in the last recession, no doubt about it. But no two recessions are exactly alike. People suffered for a long time before the Reagan inherited recession hit. Inflation was through the roof during the Carter years with highs around 14.8%. People couldn’t afford their heating bills and old people on fixed incomes were actually eating dog food and going without heat. Carter told them to put on a sweater. We sat in gas lines and watched our grocery bills skyrocket. Interest rates were so high (21.5% prime rate) people couldn’t qualify for a loan to buy a house. So the economic slam to middle class and poor Americans didn’t follow the same path, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t experienced just as devastatingly.

    The Obama recession was global? So what? The thing that matters most is how we respond. But it would have been smarter to know your history. Consider this Wikipedia entry:

    The early 1980s recession describes the severe global economic recession affecting much of the developed world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The United States and Japan exited the recession relatively early, but high unemployment would continue to affect other OECD nations through to at least 1985.[1] Long-term effects of the recession contributed to the Latin American debt crisis, the savings and loans crisis in the United States, and a general adoption of neoliberal economic policies throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

    The principles for recovery are the same whether applied to households, cities, states, countries or internationally. Politically, the socialists won and the policies for recovery followed in the Carter mold, hence seven long years of tepid growth,a lousy job market and inflation in prices that go unacknowledged.

    I will not address the politifact article written in 2009. As we both know statistics can be tricky and most of the conclusions found the two recessions about equal anyway. The statistics matching employment don;t bother to take into account a much larger population now.

    A prescient article (actually a book review) in The American Spectator demonstrates the point:

    retrograde economic policies are intellectually indefensible. They do not offer forward looking change, but would take us back to the policies of the disastrous 1970s and even worse 1930s. They would ultimately produce a deep, long term decline in America’s standard of living, particularly for the middle class and working people. America would actually fall behind countries around the world that, exactly contrary to the left wing swing of the Democrats, have been racing to adopt precisely the hugely successful Reagan supply side policies of low tax rates, less government spending, deregulation, and anti-inflation monetary policies.

    The Reagan Economic Boom
    When President Reagan entered office in 1981, succeeding Jimmy Carter who had an overwhelmingly liberal Democrat Congress, the American economy was in shambles. Inflation had reached 11.6% in 1979 and 13.5% in 1980, a devastating 25% increase in prices in just two years. The prime interest rate had reached 21.5% in 1980, with home mortgage interest rates soon climbing as high as an absurd 14.7%. Unemployment began an upward climb during the Carter years that eventually peaked at over 10% in 1982.

    The poverty rate actually started increasing in 1978 during the Carter years, eventually climbing by an astounding 33%, from 11.4% to 15.2%. A fall in real median family income that began in 1978 snowballed to a decline of almost 10% by 1982. Average real family income for the lowest income 20% declined by 14.2%. Indeed, during the Carter years (1977 to 1980), real income declined for every quintile, from the lowest 20% to the highest 20%. Real average income of U.S. households was, in fact, in a long-term decline, down rather than up from 1970 to 1980.

    The Reagan economic policy to reverse this economic devastation consisted of the following:

    1. Tax cuts to restore incentives for economic growth, involving first a reduction in the top income tax rate of 70% down to 50%, which probably produced a net increase in revenue by itself, and then a 25% across the board reduction in income tax rates for everyone. The 1986 tax reform then reduced tax rates further, leaving just two rates, 28% and 15%;

    2. Spending reductions, including a $31 billion cut in spending in 1981, close to 5% of the federal budget then, or the equivalent of about $150 billion in spending cuts for the year today. In constant dollars, non-defense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. Moreover, in constant dollars, this non-defense discretionary spending never returned to its 1981 level for the rest of Reagan’s two terms! By 1988, this spending was still down 14.4% from its 1981 level in constant dollars. Even with the Reagan defense buildup, total Federal spending declined from a high of 23.5% of GDP in 1983 to 21.3% in 1988 and 21.2% in 1989. That’s a real reduction in the size of government relative to the economy of 10%;

    3. Anti-inflation monetary policy restraining money supply growth;

    4. Deregulation, which has now saved consumers an estimated $100 billion per year in lower prices. Reagan’s first executive order, in fact, eliminated price controls on oil and natural gas. Production soared, and the price of oil declined by over 50%;

    5. Free trade, reflected in worldwide agreements to reduce tariff taxes.

    This was the most astoundingly successful economic policy in U.S. history, turning around a rapidly declining economy into a raging economic boom. The Reagan recovery started in official records in November, 1982, and lasted 92 months without a recession until July, 1990, when the tax increases of the 1990 budget deal killed it. This set a new record for the longest peacetime expansion ever, the previous high in peacetime being 58 months.

    During this 7 years, the economy grew by almost one-third, the equivalent of adding the entire economy of West Germany, the third largest in the world at the time, to the U.S. economy. In 1984 alone, real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in 50 years. Nearly 20 million new jobs were created during the boom, increasing U.S. civilian employment by almost 20%. Unemployment fell to 5.3% by 1989. Also in that year, labor force participation reached a record 66.5 percent, and a record 63 percent of the population was employed. Black labor force participation also hit a record 64.2 percent in 1989, with female labor force participation reaching an all-time record of 57.5 percent in 1990.

    Real per capita disposable income increased by 18% from 1982 to 1989, meaning the American standard of living increased by almost 20% during the boom. The Carter decline in income for the bottom 20% of income earners was reversed, with average real household income for this group rising by 12.2% from 1983 to 1989. The poverty rate, which had started increasing during the Carter years, declined every year from 1984 to 1989, dropping by one-sixth from its peak.

    The shocking rise in inflation during the Carter years was also reversed. Spectacularly, inflation from 1980 was reduced by more than half by 1982, to 6.2%. It was cut in half again for 1983, to 3.2%. The prime rate was cut by two-thirds by 1987 to 8.2%, on its way down to 6.25% by 1992. New home mortgage rates also declined steadily, reaching 9.19% by 1988, on their way down to 8% by 1992. Note that opponents of the Reagan tax cuts had argued that they would increase interest rates.

    The stock market more than tripled in value from 1980 to 1990, a larger increase than in any previous decade. Real personal assets rose by nearly $6 trillion, from $15.5 trillion in 1980 to $21.1 trillion in 1990, an increase of 36%. Total real private net worth rose by $4.3 trillion from 1980 to 1989, totaling $17.1 trillion in constant dollars, an increase of one-third.

    Even with the Reagan tax cuts, total federal revenues doubled from 1980 to 1990, growing from $517.1 billion to $1,031 billion, or just over $1 trillion. In Reagan’s last budget year, fiscal 1989, the widely overballyhooed federal deficit had declined to $152.5 billion, about the same as a percent of GDP as in 1980. 2.9% compared to 2.8%.

    The problem was put in place by Democrats: social engineering policies coupled with expanded government control and bundled loan mortgage backed securities. Bush and McCain both pressed for Congress to address what they saw as a growing problem and, as I have written time and again, Democrat barbie Frank and his power structure refused to even consider it. Frank even boldly declared there wasn’t a problem and dismissed Bush as arrogant lefties always do.

    Who was right about “the problem” and who was wrong. Guess what? The same group that was wrong about “the problem” has also chosen to address it wrongheadedly. In addition to tax and spend policies Dodd/Frank has hurt banking and failed to actually address “the problem.” The administration continues to pressure banks to give credit to people with weaker credit. In fact credit is the way Obama expects businesses to run…I’ve never been solicited to take out loans or borrow money so much in my life!

    Not only have I rebutted the “facts” you present, I have addressed the causes and the failures of the policies meant to correct and recover.

    I’ve told you before that there are radicals that run the Democrat Party and they are supported by radicals in the press. You’ve been sold a bill of goods and you are too ignorant of basic proven economic records to be able to know the difference even when it’s pointed out that those policies that work were used by both Democrat and Republican presidents.

    One of the saddest things about living today is watching young people like you dig your own economic graves for want of a decent education.

    Anyone besides Chris who wants to explore the principles behind Reagan recovery and economic boom can start here, here, here, and here. Here’s a little tease from CATO (see chart): In 1980 federal tax revenues collected from people making over $200 thousand were $19,003,420.00. In 1988, growth from Reagan’s policies resulted in federal tax revenues from those making more than $200 thousand of $99,742,043.00.

    When the government adopts policies that are friendlier to wealth builders and business entrepreneurs people respond positively. Just the opposite happens under socialist policies favored by the Democrats as we have experienced over the last almost eight years.

  22. Chris says:

    Tina: “I will not address the Politifact article written in 2009, because it is an objective fact-checking site and I am therefore afraid to read it. I will, however, link to a bunch of overtly partisan websites that all tell me what I want to hear, that way I don’t run the risk of encountering facts I don’t like.”

    Ok, the bolded part was all added by me, but it seems a pretty accurate translation of what you wrote.

  23. Tina says:

    I see you’re more interested in what you have to say than in what I had to say. Got it.

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