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2021 - Is inflation finally back in the conversation?


Reagan1k

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@Captainant, you would like this article:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong

To Weber, people like Summers were looking at the situation from the wrong side. The focus ought to be on sellers, not buyers. The pandemic had upended global supply chains, making it harder for corporations to acquire the stuff they needed to make their products. This should have squeezed their profit margins. Instead, as the economy began opening up, corporate profits were wildly outpacing growth in consumer spending power.

Here’s an example. Semiconductor chips are the basic building blocks for electronic equipment. When covid lockdowns and a string of temporary factory closures led to global shortages, the price of each chip began to rise, as did the price of everything else that used them. This proved especially troubling for the automobile market—a new vehicle can require as many as three thousand chips. As you’d expect, new cars got more expensive. So did the consumer alternative, used cars, which, in the first six months of 2021, jumped in price by nearly thirty per cent. But Weber argued that carmakers were raising prices far beyond what was necessary to cover the more costly chips. By 2022, the ongoing chip shortage had resulted in the fewest annual sales of new cars in more than a decade. Still, profits were up—car companies posted their best earnings in six years.

In a recent paper, Weber writes that the chip shortage established a “temporary monopoly” that allowed automakers to “raise prices without having to fear a loss in market share.” And it wasn’t just chips. Analyzing transcripts of company earnings calls, Weber concludes that firms in a variety of industries knew they could get away with gouging customers, who were already primed by the chaos of the pandemic to expect price hikes. Crucially, firms weren’t worried about losing customers to competitors; because of the supply bottlenecks, competitors would also be raising prices. Weber calls this dynamic “sellers’ inflation,” in contrast with the traditional model of inflation, in which an excess of consumer purchasing power is to blame.

The higher upstream the supply disruption, Weber has noted, the greater the ultimate impact on consumers. Raise the price of electricity or oil, for instance, and suddenly everything becomes harder to make or move. The same is true for chemicals, metals, lumber, or any of the basic commodities required to produce more complex products. If a government could somehow prevent the price of these magnifiers from getting out of hand, it could stave off inflation.

Edited by HonkeyVape
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3 hours ago, HonkeyVape said:

@Captainant, you would like this article:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong

To Weber, people like Summers were looking at the situation from the wrong side. The focus ought to be on sellers, not buyers. The pandemic had upended global supply chains, making it harder for corporations to acquire the stuff they needed to make their products. This should have squeezed their profit margins. Instead, as the economy began opening up, corporate profits were wildly outpacing growth in consumer spending power.

Here’s an example. Semiconductor chips are the basic building blocks for electronic equipment. When covid lockdowns and a string of temporary factory closures led to global shortages, the price of each chip began to rise, as did the price of everything else that used them. This proved especially troubling for the automobile market—a new vehicle can require as many as three thousand chips. As you’d expect, new cars got more expensive. So did the consumer alternative, used cars, which, in the first six months of 2021, jumped in price by nearly thirty per cent. But Weber argued that carmakers were raising prices far beyond what was necessary to cover the more costly chips. By 2022, the ongoing chip shortage had resulted in the fewest annual sales of new cars in more than a decade. Still, profits were up—car companies posted their best earnings in six years.

In a recent paper, Weber writes that the chip shortage established a “temporary monopoly” that allowed automakers to “raise prices without having to fear a loss in market share.” And it wasn’t just chips. Analyzing transcripts of company earnings calls, Weber concludes that firms in a variety of industries knew they could get away with gouging customers, who were already primed by the chaos of the pandemic to expect price hikes. Crucially, firms weren’t worried about losing customers to competitors; because of the supply bottlenecks, competitors would also be raising prices. Weber calls this dynamic “sellers’ inflation,” in contrast with the traditional model of inflation, in which an excess of consumer purchasing power is to blame.

The higher upstream the supply disruption, Weber has noted, the greater the ultimate impact on consumers. Raise the price of electricity or oil, for instance, and suddenly everything becomes harder to make or move. The same is true for chemicals, metals, lumber, or any of the basic commodities required to produce more complex products. If a government could somehow prevent the price of these magnifiers from getting out of hand, it could stave off inflation.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-government-sets-penalties-43-drugs-over-price-hikes-2023-06-09/

Yeah, turns out we shouldn't just be letting firms exploit the fuck out of their customers just because ThEyRe WilLiNg To PaY iT

 

When profits and prices are surging far faster than the rate of inflation (or more granularly, their cost basis for producing their product) then you're getting fucking price gouged and exploited. We shouldn't be cheering it on, it's fucked up and eats at the social contract that lets society function.

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38 minutes ago, Captainant said:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-government-sets-penalties-43-drugs-over-price-hikes-2023-06-09/

Yeah, turns out we shouldn't just be letting firms exploit the fuck out of their customers just because ThEyRe WilLiNg To PaY iT

 

When profits and prices are surging far faster than the rate of inflation (or more granularly, their cost basis for producing their product) then you're getting fucking price gouged and exploited. We shouldn't be cheering it on, it's fucked up and eats at the social contract that lets society function.

Do you feel like this should cut both ways, in the interest of fairness and equality?

For example, should their be pricing limits on the bottom end as well (and have government money subsidize it, if necessary as the article above talks about is what happened in Germany)?

A good example is O&G. If you think they are or were price gouging to make up for lost revenue during COVID-19, and want to put a cap on the price because they have record billions in profit, would you also be in favor of putting a cap on their losses when times are bad and they are losing record billions?

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3 minutes ago, HonkeyVape said:

A good example is O&G. If you think they are or were price gouging to make up for lost revenue during COVID-19, and want to put a cap on the price because they have record billions in profit, would you also be in favor of putting a cap on their losses when times are bad and they are losing record billions?

We already socialize their losses and external negativities from their core business model. Everyone pays increased healthcare costs from poor air quality. Everyone pays for oil spill cleanups. Everyone has to deal with picking oil out of the sand near their duck blind. I sure don't get a piece of those record profits though.

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5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

We already socialize their losses and external negativities from their core business model. Everyone pays increased healthcare costs from poor air quality. Everyone pays for oil spill cleanups. Everyone has to deal with picking oil out of the sand near their duck blind. I sure don't get a piece of those record profits though.

Okay sure.

But what about more directly versus the indirect routes you have described? Because the argument could cut the other way as well (we are already capping their pricing because of XYZ, which is being played out when you have actually fewer annual sales (like in new cars) but profits are still actually up).

Anyways, I think your answer skirted my question so I'll ask it more directly:

--

Do you feel like this should cut both ways, in the interest of fairness and equality, with direct dollars subsidy?

For example, should their be pricing limits on the bottom end as well (and have government money directly subsidize it and provide organizations with cash flow, if necessary as the article above talks about is what happened in Germany)?

A good example is O&G. If you think they are or were price gouging to make up for lost revenue in billions of dollars lost during COVID-19, and want to put a cap on the price because they have record billions in profit today, would you also be in favor of putting a cap on their losses when times are bad and they are losing record billions? Or are you only in favor or capping the profit and high side while still maintaining the same risk?

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17 minutes ago, HonkeyVape said:

A good example is O&G. If you think they are or were price gouging to make up for lost revenue in billions of dollars lost during COVID-19, and want to put a cap on the price because they have record billions in profit today, would you also be in favor of putting a cap on their losses when times are bad and they are losing record billions? Or are you only in favor or capping the profit and high side while still maintaining the same risk?

Well to directly answer you question: I don't think we should be directly subsidizing any industry whose main product is to pump more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, and we should be using a carbon tax to correctly assess and tax emissions so that the end users of the product can also share in its costs more equitably. 

If those businesses CHOOSE to operate in such a way that a couple bad quarters could sink their whole business, then that's a great example of fuck around and find out. It's ridiculous that every time there's an economic slowdown that every business goes into HOLY SHIT PANIC AND FIRE EVERYONE mode, only to realize outrageous profit the next quarter. It's not stability, and stability is an excellent way to curb inflation.

However we're more into O&G policy now, so we should prolly move this hypothetical to a better thread.

Edited by Captainant
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10 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Well to directly answer you question: I don't think we should be directly subsidizing any industry whose main product is to pump more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, and we should be using a carbon tax to correctly assess and tax emissions so that the end users of the product can also share in its costs more equitably. 

If those businesses CHOOSE to operate in such a way that a couple bad quarters could sink their whole business, then that's a great example of fuck around and find out. It's ridiculous that every time there's an economic slowdown that every business goes into HOLY SHIT PANIC AND FIRE EVERYONE mode, only to realize outrageous profit the next quarter. It's not stability, and stability is an excellent way to curb inflation.

However we're more into O&G policy now, so we should prolly move this hypothetical to a better thread.

Change it from O&G to, say, airlines then. Who lost $$ and now prices are high to recoup for that.

The bottom line, to me and my way of thinking, is that if you are going to strategically cap profits and the high upside that is the payoff on taking a huge risk that goes right, then you should also strategically cap the loss-side and the risk. Only focusing on one comes off to me as overtly political, unfair, and unequal. 

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Just now, HonkeyVape said:

Change it from O&G to, say, airlines then. Who lost $$ and now prices are high to recoup for that.

The bottom line, to me and my way of thinking, is that if you are going to strategically cap profits and the high upside that is the payoff on taking a huge risk that goes right, then you should also strategically cap the loss-side and the risk. Only focusing on one comes off to me as overtly political, unfair, and unequal. 

Airlines receive an incredible degree of public subsidy already in the form of our national air infrastructure that they don't pay a dime for. Another not great example.

However - in any case - maybe firms shouldn't be taking so much profit out of their businesses, and be operating with a little bit more safety margin? Maybe they shouldn't be leveraged to the tits? If they're paying out record profits within a few quarters of big losses, then there's enough meat on that bone to sustain them in the down times if they weren't taking as much profit as they could at every turn during the fat times

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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) revealed headline inflation rose 0.1% over last month and 4% over the prior year in May, a slowdown from April's 0.4% month-over-month increase and 4.9% annual gain.

Both measures were roughly in line with economist forecasts of a 0.1% month-over-month increase and 4.1% annual increase, according to data from Bloomberg.

On a "core" basis, which strips out the more volatile costs of food and gas, prices in May climbed 0.4% over the prior month and 5.3% over last year. Both measures were also in line with economist expectations.

 

image.png.4a254ccf2f68138b478c4f376cf527cd.png

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/may-cpi-inflation-data-june-13-2023-123207667.html

Getting into the 2-4% range seen during 1980ish to 2008ish. 

 

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47 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

 

Getting into the 2-4% range seen during 1980ish to 2008ish. 

 


Thank God for Jimmy Carter and Paul Volcker. Volcker for tightening the money supply and engineering the recession that finally squeezed inflation out of the economy (for decades) and Carter for having the political courage to let Volcker do it even when he knew that it would most likely cost him the 1980 presidential election.

 

Edited by Horn Under a Bad Sign
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9 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

Yeah until rent subsides it’s going to stay high.  I see a few markets where rent is dropping YOY and that is going to be interesting.  None of these new loans modeled that scenario I bet.

CPI is on a pretty significant lag relative to the rental market. We are just getting to the point where a slowdown in rent growth in the second half of 22 will show up in CPI data. In the same way inflation wasn't capturing the true nature of escalating housing costs in 2021 into early 2022, it's now being propped up in a way that doesn't necessarily reflect the landscape.

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Fed skips June, as expected. 

They signaled they expect 2 more rate hikes this year, with a terminal rate of 5.6%, dropping to 4.6% next year. 

They see inflation dropping to 3.2% by the end of 2023, 2.6% next year.

Upped their 2023 GDP forecast from 0.4% to 1.0%.

Only a minor increase in unemployment expected, from 3.7% now to 4.1% by the end of the year.

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New from Weber: micro-stabilization as an additional tool to combat emergency created inflation. 
 

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/340/

In the overlapping global emergencies of the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical confrontations, supply shocks have become frequent and inflation has returned. This raises the question how sector-specific shocks are related to overall price stability.
 

This paper simulates price shocks in an input-output model to identify sectors which present systemic vulnerabilities for monetary stability in the US. We call these prices systemically significant.  
 

We find that in our simulations the pre-pandemic average price volatilities and the price shocks in the COVID-19 and Ukraine war inflation yield an almost identical set of systemically significant prices.

The sectors with systemically significant prices fall into three groups: energy, basic production inputs other than energy, basic necessities, and commercial and financial infrastructure. Specifically, they are “Petroleum and coal products”, “Oil and gas extraction”, “Utilities”, “Chemical products”, “Farms”, “Food and beverage and tobacco products”, “Housing”, and “Wholesale trade”.
 

We argue that in times of overlapping emergencies, economic stabilization needs to go beyond monetary policy and requires institutions and policies that can target these systemically significant sectors.

Note: stabilization works both ways—stabilize price ceilings and floors. 

(oh, and fuck you Larry Summers.  His record parallels Jim Cramer’s failures.) 
 

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As there's more and more data to support that the current wave of inflation is being driven by profiteering and exploitative profit margins, you're gonna have to dig your head deeper in the sand. 

https://fortune.com/2023/06/15/greedflation-economy-inflation-corporate-profits-ubs-paul-donovan/

Quote

“The third wave of inflation, the one we’re getting now, is this unusual profit-led inflation story,” Donovan went on to explain. “This occurs where firms towards the end of the supply chain, so that’s consumer facing companies or near consumer facing companies, increase margins and pretend it’s all due to costs and other factors. They sneak in a margin increase.”

Donovan was one of the first on Wall Street to argue that “profit-led” inflation has been a serious thorn in the side of the Fed as it tries to return price stability to the economy back in March. And on Thursday, he pointed to evidence for his view in the “rise in retail profits as a share of GDP.” Retail profits surged 86% between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Fed data, while GDP rose roughly 20% over the same period. That’s all consumer-facing greedflation.

“That’s one instance where we’re seeing this expansion of margin under the cover of, ‘Oh, it’s a general inflation problem, we can’t help it.’ But actually they’re expanding margin and basically persuading consumers to accept that,” he said.

Retail profits surged 86% between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Fed data, while GDP rose roughly 20% over the same period. That’s all consumer-facing greedflation.

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10 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As there's more and more data to support that the current wave of inflation is being driven by profiteering and exploitative profit margins, you're gonna have to dig your head deeper in the sand. 

https://fortune.com/2023/06/15/greedflation-economy-inflation-corporate-profits-ubs-paul-donovan/

Retail profits surged 86% between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to Fed data, while GDP rose roughly 20% over the same period. That’s all consumer-facing greedflation.

It’d be one thing if they were expanding margins to increase how much cash/inventory they held on hand to have more cushion against future price increases that might otherwise result from supply/economic shocks.  Somehow I doubt that’s their plan.

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10 hours ago, Captainant said:

As there's more and more data to support that the current wave of inflation is being driven by profiteering and exploitative profit margins, you're gonna have to dig your head deeper in the sand. 

You're arguing with incredulity about economics.

On 6/17/2023 at 11:59 AM, washparkhorn said:

New from Weber: micro-stabilization as an additional tool to combat emergency created inflation. 
 

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/340/

In the overlapping global emergencies of the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical confrontations, supply shocks have become frequent and inflation has returned. This raises the question how sector-specific shocks are related to overall price stability.
 

This paper simulates price shocks in an input-output model to identify sectors which present systemic vulnerabilities for monetary stability in the US. We call these prices systemically significant.  
 

We find that in our simulations the pre-pandemic average price volatilities and the price shocks in the COVID-19 and Ukraine war inflation yield an almost identical set of systemically significant prices.

The sectors with systemically significant prices fall into three groups: energy, basic production inputs other than energy, basic necessities, and commercial and financial infrastructure. Specifically, they are “Petroleum and coal products”, “Oil and gas extraction”, “Utilities”, “Chemical products”, “Farms”, “Food and beverage and tobacco products”, “Housing”, and “Wholesale trade”.
 

We argue that in times of overlapping emergencies, economic stabilization needs to go beyond monetary policy and requires institutions and policies that can target these systemically significant sectors.

Note: stabilization works both ways—stabilize price ceilings and floors. 

(oh, and fuck you Larry Summers.  His record parallels Jim Cramer’s failures.) 
 

You supported the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and then subsequently supported making them permanent. Maybe some humility is in order. 

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2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

change in firm-wide price markup vs change in price, with a particular highlight post vs pre pandemic.

this is from a working paper from NYU and Columbia https://chrisconlon.github.io/site/markups_pnp.pdf

image.png.8bad4e9c94f02f55a67c68b6f44eca8f.png

image.png.1caa1fea57195b0b39e1290a43963eb8.png

***********

this one i set up from FRED website, because food is essential.. and lizzy warren.. and eggs..

image.thumb.png.34bda848c6f10e15b3d78400dec1321f.png

 

Whats the narrative these charts are supposed to be explaining? Yeah that's a bunch of data but what's the argument? That retail profits have NOT been waaaayyyy outpacing their cost basis and that their margins have NOT been exploding? You're throwing a bunch of synthetics out that are defined in a dense paper without any context lol

also just read closer and realized they're omitting more than twice as many firms in the second chart (2018-23) than the first (-2018) because the growth was "outside the axes". Cmon man lol, that's a huge datapoint and strong indicator right there!

Edited by Captainant
Derped reading the opaque dataviz. Fixed my post
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2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Whats the narrative these charts are supposed to be explaining? Yeah that's a bunch of data but what's the argument? That retail profits have NOT been waaaayyyy outpacing their cost basis and that their margins have NOT been exploding? You're throwing a bunch of synthetics out that are defined in a dense paper without any context lol

also just read closer and realized they're omitting more than twice as many firms in the second chart (2018-23) than the first (-2018) because the growth was "outside the axes". Cmon man lol, that's a huge datapoint and strong indicator right there!

i have him on ignore and don't read his posts, but i'm certain his point is 'here is some selective data to prove to you that whatever you are worried about isn't actually a problem'.

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2 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When you want to seize the means of production in the evening but have to complete your Starbucks shift in the morning

 

9 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

i have him on ignore and don't read his posts, but i'm certain his point is 'here is some selective data to prove to you that whatever you are worried about isn't actually a problem'.

My favorite genre of "I don't read his posts" is "here I am addressing it anyway".  Hi @DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt

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4 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

When you want to seize the means of production in the evening but have to complete your Starbucks shift in the morning

 

My favorite genre of "I don't read his posts" is "here I am addressing it anyway".  Hi @DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt

Hey if you'd like to be responsive to my post instead of just wrapping yourself in a totally-not-political misstatement of what I'm saying, that'd be neat.

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4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Hey if you'd like to be responsive to my post instead of just wrapping yourself in a totally-not-political misstatement of what I'm saying, that'd be neat.

As you must have surely noticed from your last 100 instances quoting me, I don't reply to 97% of them.  But unlike my friend @DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt , I don't *pretend* to have people on ignore. 

I don't have *anyone* on ignore, because reading other people's indescribably stupid posts make me feel smarter in comparison.  Thank you for bringing me a certain kind of satisfaction.  Have a nice day.

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If I remember correctly, a recent favorite post of mine also came from @DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt, when he against reminded everyone of how he doesn't read my posts.

It went something like: "i have him on ignore.  why do you guys bother with that 5280 guy.  hes just going to overwhelm you with data to support his point."

My god, the temerity to support posts with data!!! i died 3 times in shame.

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4 hours ago, Captainant said:

Whats the narrative these charts are supposed to be explaining? Yeah that's a bunch of data but what's the argument? That retail profits have NOT been waaaayyyy outpacing their cost basis and that their margins have NOT been exploding? You're throwing a bunch of synthetics out that are defined in a dense paper without any context lol

I’m happy he finally learned how to include axis labels on his graphs.  Progress.

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1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

It went something like: "i have him on ignore.  why do you guys bother with that 5280 guy.  hes just going to overwhelm you with data to support his point."

 

2 hours ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

i have him on ignore and don't read his posts, but i'm certain his point is 'here is some selective data to prove to you that whatever you are worried about isn't actually a problem'.

it's impressive to misquote someone when it's just a few posts up. Much like you selectively ignored some of those datapoints in your cited source to support your preferred idea, you also selectively ignored some of his words to support your preferred image of yourself.

But like fudgenuggets said, credit to you for making progress and using a chart with labeled axes this time! Even if the labels didn't actually tell you anything without reading several pages of academic paper lol.

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6 hours ago, Captainant said:

Whats the narrative these charts are supposed to be explaining?

Help.  Does someone have a phd or even a wiki that can explain CPI vs PPI.  And who is this Fred guy is he a right wing blogger?

image.png

 

Quote

You're throwing a bunch of synthetics out that are defined in a dense paper without any context lol

...he says of a 5 page draft, without a hint of irony. 

Quote

also just read closer and realized they're omitting more than twice as many firms in the second chart (2018-23) than the first (-2018) because the growth was "outside the axes". Cmon man lol, that's a huge datapoint and strong indicator right there!

...he worries about omission of 2% of outlying points from a sample of 2000+.  and omits to read the very next sentence.

image.thumb.png.eb9d3620fc2695fad15796a22f6a8108.png

 

this is why i dont try to reason with my dog.

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