Article 43
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
NAFTA Revisited
Despite its name, the primary purpose of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was not to facilitate trade among separate sovereign societies. Rather, it was to promote an integrated continental economy and establish the rules to govern it.
by Jeff Faux
Economic Policy Institute
September 28, 2006
As a former foreign minister of Mexico once remarked, ”NAFTA was an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies. It should, therefore, be no surprise that NAFTA rules protect the interests of large corporate investors while undercutting workers rights, environmental protections, and democratic accountability. Hence, NAFTA should be seen not as a stand-alone treaty, but as part of a long-term campaign by the conservative business interests in all three countries to rip up their respective domestic social contract.
This REPORT details how this campaign PLAYED OUT in the labor markets of all three nations. It is, of course, not the full and complete measure of the impact of NAFTA. But it is arguably the most important one, because the agreement was sold to the people of each nation on the promise that it would bring large net benefits in better jobs and faster growth. Indeed, supporters claimed the gains would be so large as to more than compensate for the erosion of the average workers’ bargaining power and the weakening of citizens rights to use government to protect themselves against the insecurities of unregulated markets.
Twelve years later, it is clear that the costs to workers outweighed the benefits in all three nations. The process differed from country to country, and given the greater size and wealth of the United States, the impact there has not been as great as it was in Mexico and Canada. But the overall pattern was similar. In each nation, workers’ share of the gains from rising productivity fell and the proportion of income and wealth going to those at the very top of the economic pyramid grew.
Americans were promised that NAFTA would generate large numbers of net new good jobs. Instead, over a million jobs that would otherwise have been created were lost, and wages were pressured downward for a large number of workers with less than a college education.
Mexican employment did increase, but much of it in low-wage MAQUILADORA industries, which the promoters of NAFTA promised would disappear. The agricultural sector was devastated and the share of jobs with no security, no benefits, and no future expanded. The continued willingness every year of hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens to risk their lives crossing the border to the United States because they cannot make a living at home is in itself testimony to the failure of NAFTA to deliver on the promises of its promoters.
Canada likewise saw continental integration undercut working families. Except for those at the top, real incomes have virtually stagnated. Canadians were assured that NAFTA and the earlier CanadaU.S. Free Trade Agreement were necessary to save the social safety net of which they are justly proud. Yet a dozen years later, government transfers to individuals have dropped from 11.5% of GDP to 7.8% of the countryԖs GDP, and Canadian governments overall (non-military) program spending fell from 42.9% of GDP in 1992 to 33.6% of GDP in 2001 (see Canadian analysis starting on p. 53).
Defenders of NAFTA have two main responses. One is that its damage to workers is exaggerated. Perhaps. But NAFTA was supposed to make thing a great deal better for workers, notҗeven a littleworse. The second response is that the problems of inequality are largely the result of domestic policies and have nothing to do with globalization. Yet that ignores the enormous increase in bargaining leverage over workers that the ability to shift production out of the country, and then sell the products back home, gives the transnational corporation. With that leverage, corporate influence over economic policy has greatly expanded in all three nations since the agreement was signed.
The reality is that the denial of social protections in the rules of an internationally integrated market inevitably undermines the protections established in the previously separate domestic economies after decades of political struggle. In that sense, the דvision of NAFTA is profoundly reactionary: it pushes nations back toward a 19th century ideology in which governmentԒs economic function is to protect the interests of investors, while working peoplethe overwhelming majority in each nationחare left to fend for themselves.
The FOLLOWING THREE STUDIES add to the mounting evidence of NAFTAs perverse impact on the distribution of income, wealth, and political power in all three nations. For over 12 years, we have been told by NAFTAҒs champions to be patient, that NAFTAs great benefits were just around the corner. We are still waiting. The time for a continent-wide debate over the future of this agreement, which was negotiated by and for the rich and powerful in all three countries, is now overdue.
Jeff Faux is the founder and former president of the Economic Policy Institute. He is a contributing editor to The American Prospect, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent.
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Image by Matt Wuerker
Monday, October 30, 2006
Where Did The Iraqi Guns Go?
Thousands of weapons the United States has provided Iraqi security forces cannot be accounted for and spare parts and repair manuals are unavailable for many others, a new report to Congress says.
USA Today
October 30, 2006
The news leads The New York Times (click READ MORE below) this morning, after Sen. John Warner, R-Va., head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, requested the report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an office also headed by a Republican.
“The answers came Sunday from the inspector generals office, which found major discrepancies in American military records on where thousands of 9-millimeter pistols and hundreds of assault rifles and other weapons have ended up. The American military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of nearly half a million weapons provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might be in the wrong hands.
“Exactly where untracked weapons could end up - and whether some have been used against American soldiers were not examined in the report, although black-market arms dealers thrive on the streets of Baghdad, and official Iraq Army and police uniforms can easily be purchased as well, presumably because government shipments are intercepted or otherwise corrupted.”
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U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms Shipped to Iraqis
By JAMES GLANZ
October 30, 2006
The American military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released Sunday has concluded.
The report was undertaken at the request of Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and who recently expressed an assessment far darker than the Bush administrations on the situation in Iraq.
Mr. Warner sent his request in May to a federal oversight agency, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. He also asked the inspector general to examine whether Iraqi security forces were developing a logistics operation capable of sustaining the hundreds of thousands of troops and police officers the American military says it has trained.
The answers came Sunday from the inspector general’s office, which found major discrepancies in American military records on where thousands of 9-millimeter pistols and hundreds of assault rifles and other weapons have ended up. The American military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of nearly half a million weapons provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might be in the wrong hands.
Exactly where untracked weapons could end up and whether some have been used against American soldiers ח were not examined in the report, although black-market arms dealers thrive on the streets of Baghdad, and official Iraq Army and police uniforms can easily be purchased as well, presumably because government shipments are intercepted or otherwise corrupted.
In a written response to the inspector generals findings, the American military largely conceded the shortcomings. The military said it would assist the Iraqis in determining the spare parts and maintenance requirements for the weapons. The military also said it has now instituted a process to accurately issue weapons by quantity and serial number listing.
Because the inspector general is charged only with looking at weaponry financed directly by the American taxpayer, the total of lost weapons could end up being higher. The Government Accountability Office and the Pentagon inspector general are expected to look at weapons financed by all sources, including the Iraqi government.
The inspector general’s office, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., also a Republican, responded to Mr. Warners query about the Iraqi Army’s logistical capabilities with another report released at the same time, concluding that Iraqi security forces still depended heavily on the Americans for the operations that sustain a modern army: deliveries of fuel and ammunition, troop transport, health care and maintenance.
Mr. Bowen found that the American military was not able to say how many Iraqi logistics personnel it had trained in this case because, the military told the inspector general, a computer network crash erased records. Those problems have occurred even though the United States has spent $133 million on the weapons program and $666 million on Iraqi logistics capabilities.
The report said that although the United States planned to scale back its support for logistics and maintenance for Iraqi security forces in 2007, it was unclear whether the Iraqi government had any intention of compensating by allocating sufficient money to the Ministries of Interior and Defense.
Mr. Warner confirmed through his spokesman, John Ullyot, that he was reviewing the reports over the weekend in advance of a scheduled meeting with Mr. Bowen on Tuesday.
Mr. Warner believes it is essential that Congress and the American people continue to be kept informed by the inspector general on the equipping and logistical capabilities of the Iraqi Army and security forces, since these represent an important component of overall readiness, Mr. Ullyot said.
Mr. Bowen said in an interview that he was particularly concerned about whether the Iraqi government intended to allocate enough money to support the logistics and maintenance needed for the Iraqi security forces to operate effectively.
Theres a couple of red flags,Ӕ Mr. Bowen said. Most significantly, is the Iraqi Ministry of Interior properly preparing to take over the mission and sustain it?”
“We don’t know because we dont have adequate visibility into their budgeting, he said, “and to a lesser extent the same red flag is up for the Department of Defense.”
Another report unrelated to Mr. Warners request was also released by the inspector general on Sunday, on the so-called provincial reconstruction teams that the United States is creating for the next phase of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure.
While some of the teams, intended to be scattered in each of Iraqs 18 provinces, are functioning, security problems have severely hampered work in others, the report says. As a result, the inspector general recommended, the United States should consider reassigning its personnel in six provinces - including Basra in the south and Anbar in the west to other places where effective work can be done.
The western province of Anbar is a central focus of the Sunni insurgency, and power struggles between Shiite militias have made Basra increasingly violent. The other four provinces that the inspector general recommends essentially abandoning are also in the Shiite south.
In its assessment of Iraqi weaponry, the inspector general concluded that of the 505,093 weapons that have been given to the Ministries of Interior and Defense over the last several years, serial numbers for only 12,128 were properly recorded. The weapons include rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles, machine guns, shotguns, semiautomatic pistols and sniper rifles.
Of those weapons, 370,000 were purchased with American taxpayer money under what is called the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, or I.R.R.F., and therefore fell within the inspector generalԗs mandate.
Despite the potential risks from losing track of those weapons involving 19 different contracts and 142 delivery orders - the United States recorded serial numbers for no more than a few thousand, the inspector general said.
There are standard regulations for registering military weaponry in that way, governed by the Department of Defense small-arms serialization program. The inspector generals report said that when asked why so many weapons went to Iraq with no record of serial numbers, American military officials in Baghdad replied that they did not believe the regulations applied to them.
Still, in their response to the report, military officials said they would keep track of serial numbers for weapons shipped or issued in the future, but in a database outside the small-arms serialization program. They did not present a plan for identifying or monitoring weapons that had already been issued.
The inspector generalҒs report also found that money for spare parts was allocated for only 5 of the 12 different kinds of weapons sent to Iraq and when the inspector general contacted units of the Defense and Interior Ministries, none actually knew how or where to requisition spare parts.
There were also significant discrepancies in the numbers of weapons purchased and those in Iraqi warehouses. While 176,866 semiautomatic pistols were purchased with American money, just 163,386 showed up in warehouses ח meaning that more than 13,000 were unaccounted for. All 751 of the M1-F assault rifles sent to Iraq were missing, and nearly 100 MP-5 machine guns.
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Will Big Business Overthrow Sarbanse-Oxley?
Frustrated with laws and regulations that have made companies and accounting firms more open to lawsuits from investors and the government, corporate America with the encouragement of the Bush administration - is preparing to fight back.
By Stephan Lebaton
NY Times
October 29, 2006
Now that CORRUPTION cases like ENRON and WORLDCOM are FALLING OUT of the news, two influential industry groups with close ties to administration officials are hoping to swing the regulatory pendulum in the opposite direction. The groups are drafting proposals to provide broad new protections to corporations and accounting firms from criminal cases brought by federal and state prosecutors as well as a stronger shield against civil lawsuits from investors.
Although the details are still being worked out, the groups proposals aim to limit the liability of accounting firms for the work they do on behalf of clients, to force prosecutors to target individual wrongdoers rather than entire companies, and to scale back shareholder lawsuits.
The groups hope to reduce what they see as some burdens imposed by the SARBANSE-OXLEY Act, landmark post-Enron legislation adopted in 2002. The law, which placed significant new auditing and governance requirements on companies, gave broad discretion for interpretation to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The groups are also interested in rolling back rules and policies that have been on the books for decades.
To alleviate concerns that the new Congress may not adopt the proposals - regardless of which party holds power in the legislative branch next year many are being tailored so that they could be adopted through rulemaking by the S.E.C. and enforcement policy changes at the Justice Department.
The proposals will begin to be laid out in public shortly after Election Day, members of the groups said in recent interviews. One of the committees was formed by the United States Chamber of Commerce and until recently was headed by Robert K. Steel.
Mr. Steel was sworn in last Friday as the new Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, and he is the senior official in the department who will be formulating the Treasuryגs views on the issues being studied by the two groups.
The second committee was formed by the Harvard Law professor Hal S. Scott, along with R. Glenn Hubbard, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Bush, and John L. Thornton, a former president of Goldman Sachs, where he worked with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.
That group has colloquially become known around Washington as the Paulson Committee because the relatively new Treasury secretary issued an encouraging statement when it was formed last month. But administration officials said Friday that he was not playing a role in the groups deliberations.
Its members include Donald L. Evans, a former commerce secretary who remains a close friend of President Bush; Samuel A. DiPiazza Jr., chief executive of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting giant; Robert R. Glauber, former chairman and chief executive of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the private group that oversees the securities industry; and the chief executives of DuPont, Office Depot and the CIT Group.
Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman at the Treasury Department, said on Friday that no decision had been made about which recommendations would be supported by the administration.
“While the department always wants to hear new ideas from academic and industry thought leaders, especially to encourage the strength of the U.S. capital markets, Treasury is not a member of these committees and is not collaborating on any findings,” Ms. Zuccarelli said.
But another official and committee members noted that Mr. Paulson had recently pressed the groups in private discussions to complete their work so it could be rolled out quickly after the November elections.
Moreover, committee members say that they expect many of their recommendations will be used as part of an overall administration effort to limit what they see as overzealous state prosecutions by such figures as the New York State attorney general Elliot Spitzer and abusive class action lawsuits by investors. The groups will also attempt to lower what they see as the excessive costs associated with the SARBANESE-OXLEY Act.
Their critics, however, see the effort as part of a plan to cater to the most well-heeled constituents of the administration and insulate politically connected companies from prosecution at the expense of investors.
One consideration in drafting the proposals has been the chain of events at Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that was convicted in 2002 of obstruction of justice for shredding Enron-related documents; the conviction was overturned in 2005 by the Supreme Court. The proposals being drafted would aim to limit the liability of auditing firms and include a policy shift to make it harder for prosecutors to bring cases against individuals and companies.
Even though Arthur Andersen played a prominent role in various corporate scandals, some business and legal experts have criticized the decision by the Bush administration to bring a criminal case that had the effect of shutting the firm down.
The proposed policies would emphasize the prosecution of culpable individuals rather than corporations and auditing firms. That shift could prove difficult for prosecutors because it is often harder to find sufficient evidence to show that specific people at a company were the ones who knowingly violated a law.
One proposal would recommend that the Justice Department sharply curtail its policy of forcing companies under investigation to withhold paying the legal fees of executives suspected of violating the law. Another one would require some investor lawsuits to be handled by arbitration panels, which are traditionally friendlier to defendants.
In an interview last week with Bloomberg News, Mr. Paulson repeated his criticism of the Sarbanes-Oxley law. While it had done some good, he said, it had contributed to ԓan atmosphere that has made it more burdensome for companies to operate.
Mr. Paulson also repeated a line from his first speech, given at Columbia Business School last August, where he said, ԓOften the pendulum swings too far and we need to go through a period of readjustment.
Some experts see Mr. Paulson’s complaint as a step backward.
“This is an escalation of the culture war against regulation,” said James D. Cox, a securities and corporate law professor at Duke Law School. He said many of the proposals, if adopted, would be a dark day for investors.
Professor Cox, who has studied 600 class action lawsuits over the last decade, said it was difficult to find abusive or maliciousӔ cases, particularly in light of new laws and court decisions that had made it more difficult to file such suits.
The number of securities class action lawsuits has dropped substantially in each of the last two years, he noted, arguing that the impact of the proposals from the business groups would be that very few people would be prosecuted.Ӕ
People involved in the committees said that the timing of the proposals was being dictated by the political calendar: closely following Election Day and as far away as possible from the 2008 elections.
Mr. Hubbard, who is now dean of Columbia Business School, said the committee he helps lead would focus on the lack of proper economic foundation for a number of regulations. Most changes will be proposed through regulation, he said, because the current political environment is simply not ripe for legislation.Ӕ
But the politics of changing the rules do not break cleanly along party lines. While some prominent Democrats would surely attack the pro-business efforts, there are others who in the past have been sympathetic.
People involved in the committees work said that their objective was to improve the attractiveness of American capital-raising markets by scaling back rules whose costs outweigh their benefits.
We think the legal liability issues are the most serious ones,” said Professor Scott, the director of the committee singled out by Mr. Paulson. ӔCompanies dont want to use our markets because of what they see as the substantial, and in their view excessive, liability.
Committee officials disputed the notion that they were simply catering to powerful business interests seeking to benefit from loosening regulations that could wind up hurting investors.
It’s unfortunate to the extent that this has been politicized, said Robert E. Litan, a former Justice Department official and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is overseeing the committee’s legal liability subgroup. The objectives are clearly not to gut such reforms as Sarbanes-Oxley. I’m for cost-effective regulation.
The main Sarbanes-Oxley provision that both committees are focusing on is a part that is commonly called Section 404, which requires audits of companiesԔ internal financial controls. Some business experts praise this section as having made companies more transparent and better managed, but many smaller companies call the section too costly and unnecessary.
Members of the two committees said that they had reached a consensus that Section 404, along with greater threat of investor lawsuits and government prosecutions, had discouraged foreign companies from issuing new stock on exchanges in the United States in recent months.
The committee members said that an increase in stock offerings abroad was evidence that the American liability system and tougher auditing standards were taking a toll on the competitiveness of American markets. But others see different reasons for the trend and few links to liability and accounting rules.
Bill Daley, a former commerce secretary in the Clinton administration who is the co-chairman of the Chamber of Commerce group, expects proposed changes to liability standards for accounting firms and corporations to draw the most flak. But he said that the changes affecting accounting firms are of paramount importance to prevent the further decline in competition. Only four major firms were left after Andersens collapse.
Another contentious issue concerns a proposal to eliminate the use of a broadly written and long-established anti-fraud rule, known as Rule 10b-5, that allows shareholders to sue companies for fraud. The change could be accomplished by a vote of the S.E.C.
John C. Coffee, a professor of securities law at Columbia Law School and an adviser to the Paulson Committee, said that he had recommended that the S.E.C. adopt the exception to Rule 10b-5 so that only the commission could bring such lawsuits against corporations.
But other securities law experts warned that such a move would extinguish a fundamental check on corporate malfeasance.
“It would be a shocking turning back to say only the commission can bring fraud cases,” said Harvey J. Goldschmid, a former S.E.C. commissioner and law professor at Columbia University. “Private enforcement is a necessary supplement to the work that the S.E.C. does. It is also a safety valve against the potential capture of the agency by industry.”
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Sunday, October 29, 2006
Rising Debt For Old Consumers
Older Consumers With Credit Card Debt Have Few Places to Turn For Help
By Deanne Loonin
National Consumer Law Center
July 27, 2006
Part Two of NCLC’s Life and Debt Cycle
Credit Card Debt Is Sinking Many Older Consumers: Devastating Consequences for Elders Spur NCLC Report Outlining Reforms.
Older consumers have been increasing their debt loads at a time of life when debt is especially burdensome and FRAUGHT WITH PERIL. While older consumers still tend to hold less credit card DEBT than younger consumers, the elders are CATCHING UP. Not surprisingly, elders are also filing bankruptcy in record numbers.
NCLCs report, The Life and Debt Cycle Part Two: Finding Help for Older Consumers with Credit Card Debt includes original survey research on the types of programs and resources available to help older consumers with credit card debt. The reports were funded by a grant from the Retirement Research Foundation.
Part Two of the report includes a survey of state departments on Aging, Area Agencies on Aging, state AARP offices, and senior centers to evaluate the types of credit and debt-related services they offer. The report concludes that the elder assistance network does not offer much financial counseling assistance to elders beyond bill paying. Many refer elders to outside agencies. The top referral, by far, was to credit counseling agencies. This is striking given the serious problems with the credit counseling industry in recent years. It also indicates the potential for legitimate credit counseling agencies to help fill the gap in debt and credit assistance services for older consumers. The report contains recommended policy fixes to help develop comprehensive and effective programs.
“This report highlights the gaps in targeted assistance for older consumers with credit card debt” says the reports co-author and NCLC staff attorney Deanne Loonin. Because there is little margin for error with older populations, it is critical to help elders find effective assistance as early in the process as possible.
The report includes an extensive survey of reputable credit counseling agencies to assess the types of services they offer and whether those services are targeted for older consumers. The agencies in the survey reported that elders comprise a significant portion of their clients, an average of 20 percent. Eighty-seven percent of the survey respondents noted that these numbers have increased in the past five years.
The detailed policy recommendations in the report are aimed at improving the types of elder-focused services offered by the traditional elder assistance network and by credit counseling agencies. Further recommendations call on credit counseling agencies and creditors to expand the types of concessions and programs they offer to consumers in trouble, including principal reduction plans in certain circumstances. However, attempts to find out more about the programs offered directly by creditors were stymied by major creditors refusal to speak publicly about credit card loss mitigation policies.
NCLC staff attorney Deanne Loonin is the reports co-author and media contact. The report can be downloaded directly from NCLC’s website at the following LINK.
National Consumer Law Center is a non-profit organization with 37 years of working experience in consumer issues, especially those affecting low-income consumers. NCLC works with and offers training to thousands of legal-service, government and private attorneys, as well as community groups and organizations representing low-income and elderly people. Our legal manuals and consumer guides are standards of the field.
SOURCE
US ADMINISTRATION ON AGING
Copyright And CDs
A think-tank has called for outdated copyright laws to be rewritten to take account of new ways people listen to music, watch films and read books.
The INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH (IPPR) is calling for a “private right to copy”.
It would decriminalise millions of Britons who break the law each year by copying their CDs onto music players.
Making copies of CDs and DVDs for personal use would have little impact on copyright holders, the IPPR argues.
Copyright issues have, in the past, been steered too much by the music industry, the report said.
Public respect
IPPR deputy director Dr Ian Kearns said: “When it comes to protecting the interests of COPYRIGHT holders, the EMPHASIS the music industry has put on tackling illegal distribution and not prosecuting for personal copying, is right.
“But it is not the music industry’s job to decide what rights consumers have that is the job of government.”
According to research from the National Consumer Council, more than half of British consumers are infringing copyright law by copying CDs onto their computers, iPods or other MP3 players.
Report author Kay Withers said: “The idea of all-rights reserved doesn’t make sense for the digital era and it doesn’t make sense to have a law that everyone breaks. To give the IP regime legitimacy it must command public respect.”
Intellectual property laws are currently being reviewed by the government.
Chancellor Gordon Brown has asked chairman Sir Andrew Gowers to report his findings back ahead of the pre-budget report in November.
The IPPR is hoping to influence this with its report, entitled Public Innovation: Intellectual property in a digital age.
Its key recommendation is that any policy regarding Intellectual Property policy should recognise that knowledge is a public resource first and a private asset second.
Social glue
The so-called knowledge economy is growing fast as the traditional manufacturing of goods is replaced by more intangible assets.
With it is a growing paradox in which intellectual property is both a commercial and cultural resource.
Knowledge must, therefore, perform the roles of both commodity and social glue, both private property and public domain,
IPPR report
“The internet offers unprecedented opportunities to share ideas and content,” the report says.
“Knowledge must, therefore, perform the roles of both commodity and social glue, both private property and public domain,” it adds.
The report looks at how Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies - which restrict the sharing of music or other intellectual property - are affecting attempts to preserve electronic content.
It argues that the British Library should be given a DRM-free copy of any new digital work and that libraries should be able to take more than one copy of digital work.
Ms Withers said: “We charge the British Library as being the collective memory of the nation and increasingly it has to archive digital content.
“More and more academic journals are delivered digitally but copyright laws aren’t designed to deal with digital content.”
She said there was often a conflict between DRM and accessibility technologies which needs to be addressed.
“Someone with poor sight may use a screen reader technology and may have to change the format of the content to use it but some DRM technology isn’t sophisticated enought to take this kind of thing into account,” she said.
The report also calls for the government to reject calls from the UK music industry to extend the copyright term for sound recording beyond the current 50 years.
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