POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

What strikes me about today's autumn statement is the fact that the water has been so effectively muddied by all the leaks and counter claims about broken promises and recycled money that any meaningful debate will be impossible, it will deteriorate into a slanging match which of course is just what the Coalition wants. The only way to attack the government is to keep it simple. The National Debt has risen from £1trillion in 2010 to £1.5trillion now. Public borrowing is going up, tax receipts are down and the amount of money being paid out to subsidise a low wage economy is dragging us inexorably downwards with no signs of any respite. This is why the government says we must do more of the same, deeper cuts and higher taxes (except for the fat cats of course, they have had their reduction). In the meantime large amounts of pie are being thrown into the sky promising large capital programmes on anything that looks popular but all so far in the future that nobody can be held accountable.
Give me strength....!

[Stanley]

The Office for Budget Responsibility has comprehensively filled in the gaps in Wee George's Autumn Statement. They have estimated that even if Osborne's predictions on growth are correct, the cuts required in welfare predominantly will be the worse since 1930. My estimate for how big the percentage of cuts to come compared with those since 2010 has got to go up because the position is so much worse, it's now running at another 60%. The situation is now so bad that no opposition party can mount any attack on his policies because they will be faced by exactly the same situation. The management of the economy since at least 2005 has been so dire that we are now in a worse position than many of the Euro countries that are considered as 'lame ducks' in terms of national debt as a proportion of national worth.
The last time this happened in the 1930s the eventual route out was to incur massive current debt to finance WW2. It took over 30 years to climb out of that hole aided by a technological revolution. The only thing that is certain is that the position of the bottom 50% of society is going to get much worse and that will bring its own problems. I see no way out of the maze......

[plaques]

Stanley, you are forgetting what Piketty said. If we carry on like this the bottom 50% will soon increase to the bottom 70%. But take heart the top 2% will be doing very nicely thank you.

[Bruff]

I see the Chancellor’s moaning about the BBC challenging him this morning over the OBR (which he set up as an independent scrutiny body!) laying out the scale of the challenge ahead. I think this is what’s known as a tantrum and perhaps to be expected from one of the less mature members of the Commons.

Thankfully, yesterday the Shadow Chancellor was heard with a little more respect than he was last year, when he was faced with a barrage of likely orchestrated heckling and distractions. It’s well known that Mr Balls has struggled with and largely overcome a debilitating stammer, though one can still note hints of his on-going challenge when he speaks. It is also well known that stammers manifest markedly in sufferers when they are forced to raise their voice or are subjected to actions that put them off their stride. The behaviour of the Tories last year was quite disgusting and quite deliberate and successful (Mr Balls really struggled) and why I see this lot as quite the most indecent bunch ever to disgrace the Commons, lacking all sense of any civility. But as the saying goes, what do you expect from the pigs but a grunt? They might as well have put a Downs sufferer in a cage and prodded them with a stick…….

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Richard, news to me and I agree with you completely. I'd noted the strange breaks in his delivery but didn't know the reason. I heard Osborne on Today accusing first the BBC then John Humphrys of bias when he was pressed on matters he was sensitive about. It would appear that we have a new definition of bias, any attempt to break through the barrier of smoke and mirrors. It might be working, I didn't see anyone contradict Grant Shapps the other day when he used a direct lie (he said that it was a lie that many of the new jobs being created were low pay and insecure). Shades of Herr Goebbels and 'The Big Lie'. At the moment there are only two drivers for Tory policy, protect the leadership and keep seats in the May election. We are in deep trouble.....
07:00. I've just been listening to Margaret Hodges giving witnesses a hard time on Legal Aid in front of her committee. Can we please have this woman as Prime Minister?

[Tizer]

Some years ago the BBC were accused by climate deniers of being biased in favour of the climate scientists so they swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and favoured the deniers!

Referring to national debt, Stanley says above: "...in the 1930s the eventual route out was to incur massive current debt to finance WW2". This time it looks like personal debt is expected to do the same job, according to this morning's newspapers, e.g. this from the Independent:
`George Osborne’s deficit reduction plan requires unprecedented binge in personal borrowing. Official figures show Chancellor is counting on orgy of credit-card spending'
"The public will have to go on a £360bn borrowing binge to make George Osborne’s deficit reduction plans add up, an analysis by The Independent has found. According to the small print in the latest report from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the public is forecast to add to its pile of unsecured lending, which includes credit card debt and bank overdrafts, by £360bn over the next five years. If the public fails to spend, then growth would collapse and the Government’s deficit would be likely to start increasing again. The £360bn figure represents a £41bn increase on the OBR’s forecasts just nine months ago and would take households’ unsecured lending, as a share of total household incomes, to a record 55 per cent by 2020. That would be well above even the pre-financial crisis unsecured debt ratio of 44 per cent." ...
“The idea that households are either willing or able to take on so much new debt at such a rapid pace is questionable at best and highlights significant imbalances in the shape of the economic recovery” said Matthew Whittaker, of the Resolution Foundation think-tank. “The apparent reliance of economic growth in the coming years on another surge in private debt should worry economists and politicians alike.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 04499.html

[Stanley]

Quite! I have been banging on for a long time about the basic problem being debt within the global system, both public and private. Remember that the trigger for the 2008 melt down was bad debt in the mortgage market caused by profligate selling by the mortgage suppliers who immediately farmed out the debt into the general economic system by burying them in 'derivatives' which became a form of phantom money, regarded as an asset, but in fact a time bomb in the system. This is happening all over again and the inevitable result is another crisis. When that hits houses of cards like the present 'economic miracle' (which is founded on ever increasing National Debt) will, tumble and take us back even further into penury.
Don't bother believing me, just go back and look at the warnings from the police, the health systems and local councils about the danger to basic services that exist at the moment. What will they be saying when another 60% of cuts are imposed in the next six years?
Look back 100 years and see what happened then when societies were pushed beyond their limits. This is not fanciful, it is reality but our current leaders can see no further than the next election which will confirm them in their comfortable secure jobs for another guaranteed five years....

[plaques]

When I saw this I thought 'This must be something that Stanley's written'. It makes for very uncomfortable viewing. "Watch why the UK economy is in relapse, not recovery."Relapse or Recovery.. Hit the 'You-Tube' button for a larger screen. Is George Osborne taking us down the wrong road? A good road to go down if you are in the top 1% of capital holders which I assume most Barlicker's are not.

[Stanley]

No sound with my clip P but I've seen enough to get the gist and yes, not only like my views but those of every mainstream economist. The weight of evidence that Osborne and Cameron are wrong is overwhelming and at the moment the only way they can sustain it is smoke and mirrors. I heard an interview in which a Tory MP was asked if there was any idealogical basis for these policies and he denied it. He is either a liar or as thick as two short planks. It's pure Tory DNA and has been since 2010. Remember that above all Tory policy is to support the Status Quo and their version of this is the good old days of 'sound money', the capital holders in control and a working class on low wages kept in place by the threat of unemployment. Remember Thatcher and "Be glad you have a job!".

[plaques]

I've yet to see a comprehensive report on what the drop in oil prices will mean to the UK economy. The oil and utility companies appear to be holding out as long as possible to maximize profits. Consequently, the drop in oil prices will have very little effect on overall consumer prices. The banks are looking at possible losses of upward of £2bn. Another gamble that's come unstuck. Guess who will pick up the tab? Brent crude down by nearly 40%. What will this mean to GDP? Is our 'recovery beginning to unravel? It may be that the treasury just don't know what the outcome will be but its hard to believe that there isn't a contingency model that covers this scenario. Perhaps to outcome is too bad to release to the plebs.

[Stanley]

I heard Jacob Rees Mogg last night arguing that wages were rising and the working classes were getting the benefit of the 'recovery'. Even if he was right (he isn't, it's a lie) he forgets that the average family has lost £1400 per annum disposable income since 2010. How long will it take to claw that back/ Another figure for you, the total of savings from cuts so far is £35billion, the cuts proposed for the next parliament are at least £55billion. I'll bet he isn't worried about heating and food over Xmas.....
You make a good point P. As Harold Macmillan once said "Events dear boy". The sums in the Autumn Statement are already unravelling, tax receipts form oil are plummeting. Meanwhile, up there in the upper echelons of capital holders things are going very nicely, there rents of income from capital are rising and they are using their ;power to steer their mates in the Tory Party away from any suspicion of a wealth tax. As Piketty points out, this is the only strategy that can halt the bleeding of capital away from the bottom 95% of the population. GDP is not going to rise to the levels we saw historically, the global economy is too weak to support it. The only alternative he sees is social unrest in the form of serious protest from those who are deprived. No matter which way you look at it the outlook is bleak..... Tin hats on lads. (Advise your kids to migrate to the Antipodes....)
A bit later.... See THIS report of further evidence of the growing rift as the Coalition falls apart under election pressures. Danny Alexander accuses the Tories of being ideologically wedded to austerity. Has he only just realised this? I think you all know what my opinion is....

[Stanley]

It's official! See this BBC REPORT on the OECD news that global inequality is higher than at any time in the last thirty years. It highlights what I have been banging on about for the last four years and reinforces Piketty and Stiglitz to name just two front line economists. The Tory attitude towards wage levels and economic policy is Neanderthal and they are making exactly the same mistakes they fostered in the late 1920s. This is ideological political thinking at its worst. Baroness Jenkins banging on about porridge at 4p a helping. Cameron and Osborne peddling the old lie that ' a rising tide floats all boats' as wealth automatically trickles down. A blind eye turned to obscene pay levels in board rooms on the grounds that 'it is the rate for the job' and if it isn't paid the brains will leave the country. Wage earners in full time work but reliant on welfare payments to survive.
All this is underpinned by the biggest lie of all, the blunt instrument of comparing wage increases to the official rate of inflation. (Even on this skewed measure real wages are still falling) The real picture can only be shown by assessing the price inflation of essentials such as energy, housing, food and transport, the budget items that the poor have to spend their money on. This rate is far higher than the 'official rate' and would show clearly how bad things are. But Cameron and Osborne never mention this fact. It's exactly the same as the situation described by Charlie Webster in 'Healthy or Hungry Thirties' where average health statistics were used to 'prove' that things were getting better when in fact any examination of poorer areas showed that things were actually getting worse due to poverty. Look at Pendle Infant Mortality figures at the moment....
The worst aspect of this is that in the end, the deterioration in society will adversely affect even the very rich but they appear, on the whole, unable to appreciate this.
Keep an eye open for Dennis Skinner's interjection in the house telling the story about the young woman having a baby in the toilet at work because she was too poor to stay at home.

[Tizer]

...This is ideological political thinking at its worst. Baroness Jenkins banging on about porridge at 4p a helping....

But as you write this morning in the We Are What We Eat topic: "It's an old beef of mine but old fashioned Domestic Science with basic cooking skills should be taught in all schools. Remember all the girls carrying baskets to school one day a week? Forget about PC, just teach them to boil an egg!" You and the Baroness are in agreement. The newspapers and Twitterati have forced her to apologise regardless of the fact that what she said was simply true. We are losing our freedom in the UK to speak out. She said: "We have lost our cooking skills. Poor people don't know how to cook." What's wrong with her statement? She didn't say "Only poor people don't know how to cook", or "We shouldn't give them food but force them to learn to cook". As I wrote on that same thread yesterday, `well off' parents are being criticised by teachers for not showing their kids how to use a knife and fork. As Cameron would say, "We're all in it together". The baroness was simply pointing out the same as I did on the thread, there's more to the problem than lack of funds - we've got to deal with the lack of cookery skills. Let's not pillory her for telling the truth.

[Thomo]

Well spoken Tiz, apt and delivered without a fuss or carpet bombing of the current government.

[Stanley]

You're right Tiz, I saw the full transcript from which the quote was extracted and I realised I had been a bit too hard on the Noble Lady... As a partial defence I also said "If she really meant that traditional cooking skills are not routinely passed on to children (male and female!) I'll agree with her" (Mind you, that still wasn't a cook's kitchen!) As for 'carpet bombing' the government, tough, I shall continue to tell the truth as I see it. If you think I am wrong put some counter arguments up. The evidence in favour of my view gets stronger every day, these policies are the road to the biggest social disaster I have ever seen.
The report on the CIA and torture grabbed me. (LINK) It always seemed to me that the accusations of rendition, black sites and abuse all pointed in this direction and in effect George W Bush and Rumsfeld gave the CIA carte blanche when they said 'they had to know what they knew'. The Snowden revelations on mass surveillance and other black arts raised further doubts about how intelligence operations were being conducted and simply reinforced the documented abuse in US prisons in the conflict areas. This report had to be brought out and arguments against it and the timing are party political. The first thing that strikes me is that this is only a summery, there is little doubt that the detail would shock even more. Is anyone being held to account for the wrongdoing? One suspects that apart from some low level consequences to promotion the matter will now be closed.
When Dubya first announced the 'War on Terror' after the Twin Towers I said it was wrong, it was simply creating a bogey man to justify hitting back at a situation largely caused by gross mistakes in foreign policy. Read Baer 'See No Evil' for some examples of how US mismanagement created the threat.
When Cameron stands up and expresses self-righteous indignation about torture he is on dodgy ground. We knew about rendition and facilitated it, there is credible evidence of Secret Service agents sitting in on US interrogation sessions and if he goes back a bit further and looks at what our Secret Service did in WW2 he will find some very nasty cans of worms. This has never been a gentleman’s war. I heard an American journalist questioning the war on terror this morning. He pointed out that far more people were killed in the US each year because of lax gun laws than were ever killed by terrorist acts. He is quite right. The bogey man had to be raised to justify actions which otherwise would have been impossible. All governments do this, Britain used the Russian Bear, post war America used the Communist Threat, Blair used the threat of terrorism to justify the Coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan. Look where it has got us, we fulminate against ISIS beheading people (we did that in England at one time....) when at the same time we are guilty of using horrible long term abuse against 'the enemy'.
The bottom line is that if we descend to the level of those we oppose we taint our cause. The cure is the reason why Snowden exposed himself by publishing his information, we have to have transparency and face uncomfortable truths. Ask yourself why the Chilton Report is still being withheld from us.....

[Stanley]

News from a defensive CIA in America this morning that Bush and Rumsfeld knew all about what methods were being used to extract information from captives at 'black sites'. It remains to be seen what consequences will ensue for the operatives (and it must be said, contractors) who were doing the dirty work. Worth remembering that the reason the sites were not on US territory was that under then current US law such methods were illegal and the operatives would have been open to prosecution. The siting abroad was a legal ploy to avoid this and also to achieve greater secrecy.
The big news this morning is the continuing slump in the price of oil which seems to be affecting markets globally. From what I have listened to, nobody has any clear idea why the OPEC countries are over-producing in the face of falling demand which is the basic reason why the global price is falling. One commentator suggested that it was OPEC attacking the economic base of Iran. Another said that OPEC had lost the ability to regulate the oil price because of the way the balance of the market has changed with the enormous impact of shale gas on the US economy.
All are agreed that in theory the fall is good for consumers but bad for producers. One man who has been commissioned to produce a plan for closing North Sea production down as it becomes uneconomic says that at $64 a barrel it is already at that point for most producers and certainly precludes further investment in exploration.
All this has effects on the UK economy. On the plus side. in the long term, it means lower production costs for UK industry but against this must be balanced the fall in tax revenues from our oil production sector. There are other losers, the insurance companies who underwrite our pension funds are facing falling asset prices. The more optimistic of the fund managers say that this is only a temporary situation and on the whole they think that the right strategy is to hang in there. I hope they are in the majority because if they start selling market values will fall even faster.
In terms of the current arguments in Parliament about the 'right way' to attack the budget deficit over the next parliament all I can say is that they should remember Harold and "events Dear Boy". It may be that any calculations they make now are going to be blown out of the water.
Also we should remember that whenever the accusation arises that it was the others wot did it, all this started over 50 years ago when all parties, both here and in the US, went for market oriented economics, dismantled the strict regulatory system put in place in the late 1930s and allowed the Lords of the Universe free rein to make money. When this eventually collapsed in 2008 all the reserves had to be thrown at the emergency situation to keep the financial system operating, there was no other option as they saw it and all parties in the UK supported this strategy.
The bottom line is that from the late 1930s on, the people and governments we trusted to look after the economy got most of it completely wrong and it is these same people who are in charge of any recovery. Can anyone see any grounds for optimism?
Sorry about that, but from the perspective of an Old Fart it looks to me like a Gordian Knot and the solution to that was to cut it in two. That may be what is happening to us at the moment.

[Tizer]

The effects of the plummeting oil price make me wonder what would have happened if Scotland had come up with a Yes in their referendum and had left the UK. Perhaps they soon would have been knocking on the door and saying "Can I come back in please?"

[Stanley]

The CIA line this morning is that some operatives exceeded their guide lines. This is true but doesn't alter the fact that the guidelines were illegal torture. They are wriggling on the hook and trying to justify what happened. They still hold that the information was valuable.... It would be better if they kept quiet, Watergate proved that the cover up could do more damage than the original event.
Later (09:00) after reading the BET. Two things struck me, the stormy debate over funding for dog bins etc and the fact that Moon-face has jumped in as part of his weekly motherhood and apple Pie piece to get a mention of the win in the High Street competition. They have no shame.....

[Stanley]

Just for a change, a nice piece about Frank Fields on the radio this morning. We sometimes forget that there are some very good men and women in government but they are often endured. He joked that he was a member of two alien institutions, the Labour Party and the Church of England. A good man and his report this week on Hunger shows that he is still firing on all eight cylinders. See THIS for his account of it. One is forced to wonder why this didn't make the headlines.....

[Stanley]

The media don't know where to go this morning. UKIP get it in the neck (LINK) as their candidate for Chigwell and Thurrock pulls out after making unacceptable remarks about a number of things. He is said to have been on 'strong painkillers'. This highlights the fact that it is almost impossible to make any serious assessments about any of the parties and the May Election as the situation is so confused virtually any combination is possible so rogue stories like this and Farage on immigrants causing traffic jams is about all they can do. Attention switches to Alec Salmond and Jim Murphy the new leader of the Scottish Labour Party which looks more like a separate entity from Ed's lot. I was amusing myself yesterday by imagining what would happen if Murphy re-adopted Clause Four! Now that would be interesting! Not very likely of course because he is assumed to be a Blairite.
Mention of Tone reminds me that it has been suggested he come clean about what he knew about rendition and torture. Fat chance of that when it is almost certain that he is the main factor behind the delay in publishing the Chilton Report.... Malcolm Rifkind, chair of the Commons Intelligence Committee has asked the US for the un-redacted documents... That could be a can of worms....
A leaked document reveals that the Labour Party has issued guidelines to Labour candidates to avoid the issue of immigration as they can only damage election prospects by doing so.
See this LINK for a report from the OECD questioning whether the growth of inequality boosts growth. It contains some startling statistics about the UK being the leading centre for the policy and raises some interesting questions about the Tory economic trajectory. Add to this the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility immediately after George's Autumn Statement pointing out that his policies would reduce spending on social services (in comparative terms) to levels not seen since the 1930s. Why isn't this the sole topic of political debate? We are sleepwalking into a social disaster.

[Bruff]

‘’ Moon-face has jumped in as part of his weekly motherhood and apple Pie piece to get a mention of the win in the High Street competition. They have no shame.....’’

Well quite.

And just to note, another poster on another thread a week or so back picked me up on my concerns regarding the state of ‘Ashworth House’ drawing my attention to the plethora of unattractive fast food outlets, suggesting therefore that I was partial in my opinion. Not at all. For the record, these fast food outlets are equally unattractive. I only made mention of Ashworth House as its ‘resident’ seemed remarkably keen to tag onto the town’s recent success in promoting its attractions, which was (to me at least) somewhat at odds with the state of their contribution to these attractions.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I must have mossed that Richard. If I had seen it I would have leapt to your defence because you are quite right. Andrew Stephenson MP depresses me beyond belief. He is the quintessential Tory Apparatchik, adhering strictly to the party line. avoiding all contentious issues and latching on like a limpet to any good news story that pops up. Of course I have a jaundiced view, I have read too much history. I can go back, read Marx and Engels and identify the social goals of the present administration. Of course that makes me suspect but I don't see how anyone can fail to see what is happening. In that view of the world the ideal is a pool of unemployment and a cowed workforce on low wages massaging the profits of industrialists. Remember what Thatcher did with the North Sea Oil windfall? She used it to finance a large pool of unemployment to try to break the unions who she saw as 'the enemy within'.
I always remember the chairman of General Motors replying to a question about using robotic/automated methods of production in the car-making industry. He said the problem was that robots didn't buy cars.... Exactly right, the disposable income of the workers, going into the domestic spend and paying taxes, is the bedrock of all sound economies. Contrast that with what 'austerity' (inequality) gives us. Forget worrying about borrowing, as long as the money borrowed at historically low rates is being invested in enterprises that give a greater return it makes economic sense. The fixation on 'balance' and 'sound money' is an ideological nonsense, it was wrong in the Inter War years and it is wrong now.
But what the hell does an old fart like me know about these things......
Later.... I see that Russia is getting a double whammy, the effects of sanctions and the 50% fall in the price of oil since June. If Putin had known what was going to happen to oil prices, would he have gone into the Crimea and Ukraine? Events Dear Boy.... Before anyone starts cheering at Russian bad luck, remember that the same thing can happen to any economy and this event makes Russia even more dangerous.

[Bruff]

A few things knocking around today. There’s the ‘EVEL’ thing (English votes for English laws). It’s not clear how many ‘laws’ would be affected by this; I’ve heard generally 0.02% of the votes cast in any Parliament, though some suggest that as all fiscal policy is reserved to Westminster in reality there is no true ‘English’ issue-only given any change has a ‘spend’. Either way, whatever the impact Scottish votes have on England, this pales in regards the impact English votes have in Scotland. If one wants to know why Scotland is as restive as it is, then one could do worse than recall Mrs Thatcher treated it as her personal plaything, implementing her policies there some time before England, to perhaps ‘see what happens’. One reason why, as the saying goes, there are more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs. Labour has stayed out of the ‘cross-party’ talks that’ll inform today’s announcements, preferring instead a ‘constitutional convention’ of the public, politicians and other groupings/institutions. Why on earth they got the impression that involving the public in all of this was a good idea I’ll never know……..

UKIP seems the gift that keeps on giving. First we have the illiterate prospective candidate for Thurrock who couldn’t read the leaflet in his painkillers; could he have done so, it would have been clear prescription painkillers can lead to random homophobic and xenophobic outbursts enlivened by florid effing and jeffing. Seriously: on his meds? Do they really think we are that stupid? Probably. As second, today we hear they have trousered £1.5M from the EU to continue the funding of their doing precisely nothing. One hopes that, as they bang on about this funding being ‘tax payers money’ out of one side of their mouth, it’s handed back to the tax payer as a part of the season’s goodwill. Though some uncharitable types have suggested that Frau Farage, one of the better known EU migrant workers, has asked for a pay rise to properly compensate her for doing the ‘secretary’s’ job no British person is apparently qualified for, or capable of. Last, Mr Farage’s discomfort at the female breast being used for the purpose intended, is perhaps partly assuaged by the news that UKIP are likely to be supported and funded by the UK’s pornographer-in-chief and owner of the Daily Express (low-rent tabloid, thankfully over its ‘Diana wuz murdered’ obsession, now simply weather-obsessed). He will no doubt find the female breast put to uses more to his liking on the proprietors, how shall we say, specialist TV channels.

I’m sorry for being flippant, but so much of the shenanigans are so dispiriting it’s the only way I can keep going.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Lovely post Richard.... I heard the BBC political correspondent (Nick Robinson?) giving his version of the low down on the Thurrock fiasco. He reckons it's all about infighting inside UKIP over who gets the parliamentary seats that are on offer. The ousted candidate got the seat by using dirty tricks against Nell Hamilton and he was outed by another bloke seeking a seat who could possibly be the person the remarks were made to. The theory is that these are the growing pains of a party that suddenly sees a real prospect of lucrative power. He reckoned that this was what was behind the kerfuffle last week over the bloke who made unwanted advances to the lady candidate as well.
On Scotland and EVEL, there is a very interesting series of interviews on R4 this week at 09:45 called Kingdom to come I think. They had Robin Butler on yesterday and a senior judge this morning. Some really authoritative views of what will happen and well worth a listen. Incidentally, it followed the last of the Reith lectures this morning. An hour of sensible and fascinating radio.....

[Stanley]

Read THIS and wonder how far this one is going to go.
The collapse of the Rouble gets worse and is probably the most dangerous thing that is happening globally at the moment. The Russian Central Bank has lost control. More jokes about Rouble/Rubble than you can poke a stick at.....