Fight Inflation: Brown Bag It... and Play Wii?

Lunch time! Are you reading this in the office over bologna and cheese and an apple from home? if so, you're not alone: lots of workers are stretching their dollars by giving up dining out for lunch and brown-bagging it instead.

DeLon and Bernie might get a little nervous, but the Wall Street Journal talks less about the DQ Macho Meal or Rick's noontime mashed potato special in Mobridge and more about the fancy $10-$20 gourmet salads and sandwiches our big-city friends like to indulge in. One New York City eatery that "caters to brokers and banker-types" reports a 15%-20% drop in lunch traffic compared to last year. At the same time, eBags.com reports a 39% June increase in lunch bag and cooler sales [see Dana Mattioli, "Bagging Lunch: The Inflation Effect," Wall Street Journal, 2008.07.16]. Of course, if you're stuffing your lunch pail with expensive processed foods (Oscar Mayer Lunchables, Doritos Snack Packs with the 2:1 air-to-chip ratio, Red Bull, etc.), you might do just as well getting the lunch special at at DQ, Rick's, or your other favorite Main Street chowhouse.

Another unexpected beneficiary of increasing frugality: the Wii. I'm no fan of home video games (mostly because if I had one, I know I'd play it 24-7 and get no blogging done), but yesterday's Marketplace Morning Report finds that the electronic gaming industry may be a bright spot for investors and for families:

Jean-Luc Renault: Inside a two-story condo in suburban Los Angeles, Eileen Dorn takes on her three kids in a game of Mario Kart on the family's new Nintendo Wii.

Video games used to frustrate her, but she's been playing a lot lately.

Not long ago, the family of five would hop into the car and head to a water park without thinking twice, but recently they've cut back. Eileen says she'd rather put money in the kids' education fund than the local gas station.

Eileen Dorn: It's costing me twice as much to fill my gas tank, so every time I do it, I get an internal shudder and then I go, "I guess we're not going to do whatever it was we were thinking about doing for the week.

Instead, they've been taking more walks, dealing more hands of Go Fish and playing a whole lot more Super Smash Brothers on the Wii console they bought six months ago.

Dorn: I think it's paid off in spades because where else can you get a game where a 5-year-old, a 14-year old, an 18-year-old and a couple of parents can play?

The Dorn-Wallensteins apparently aren't alone. Retail industry researcher NPD Group reports Nintendo sold twice as many Wiis last May than it did in May 2007. And this year, overall video game sales are expected to reach a record $21 billion [Jean-Luc Renault, "The Arcade Is in Your Living Room," Marketplace Morning Report, 2008.07.16].

Americans eating fewer fancy meals, making their own lunches, driving less, and playing video games with their kids. It's not perfect, but maybe an economic downturn will do us some good after all. (Hey, I'm just trying to be an optimist!)

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And now some numbers to go with your lunch:

So much for the stimulus package: with stimulus checks in hand, Americans boosted retail sales by a less than impressive 0.1 percent in June. No wonder: we were all busy just keeping up with inflation. Wholesale inflation was 1.8% in June. Of course, excluding energy and food prices, wholesale inflation was up only 0.2%, less than expected. Gee, don't you wish you could exclude energy and food prices?

Worse may be coming: if I understand the report correctly, the producer price index has shown a 9.2 increase over the past twelve months. (Be a real econ wonk: read the BLS report.) Last time the PPI was higher: June 1981, an ugly economic time. Expect those producer price increases to roll into your favorite stores any day now.

New Pro-Choice SD Website Impervious to Prayer?

Kelsey at DakotaWomen draws my attention to the irony of the morning: as Burnnie the Bunny (that's the only name on the website) calls on readers to pray for God to "send confusion in the camps of the enemy," NARAL Pro-Choice SD launches a new website that appears to work just fine. Maybe those prayers ricocheted and landed on someone else's new computer system.

Now just like Jim Dobson, I'm not a theologian. But isn't asking the Lord to put the whammy on people you don't like a little unChristian? Maybe the Vote Yes for Life folks would make more progress if they shed their macho bull rhetoric of warfare and enemies and focused a little more on love and community.

Keystone Expanding Pipeline Capacity to 1.1 Million Barrels/Day

TransCanada and partner ConocoPhillips are announcing a half-million barrel expansion of the Keystone pipeline project. The pipeline planned for eastern South Dakota should open with 435,000 barrels per day, then increase to 590,000 per day. If I'm reading TransCanada's information correctly, the Phase II expansion across West River and down to the Gulf of Mexico will increase the capacity of the system to 1.1 millon barrels a day; with more pumping facilities, TransCanada hopes to bump that up to 1.5 million barrels a day.

TransCanada is taking bids now for oil shippers to secure their chunk of that capacity. Deadline for bids is noon (Mountain Time) September 4, so hey, Harding County oil magnates, get to work on your proposals!

Dykstra, Lien, Herseth Sandlin Go 2.0 with Campaign Blogs

Perusing campaign websites tonight, I find that three of our four big statewide candidates—GOP Senate candidate Joel Dykstra and both contenders for South Dakota's lone House seat, the GOP's Chris Lien and Dem incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin—have campaign blogs. Senator Tim Johnson has presences on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr, but the Dem incumbent still has no blog (or does he?)

So how do the three campaign blogs compare? The good stuff will come in the fall, when we see how (and if) the candidates can put their blogs to good use in the heat of the campaign. For now, let's give a few friendly summer awards:

First-Mover Advantage: Chris Lien by a nose: his first blog post is March 25 (ah, that thrilling petition filing deadline!). Dykstra followed with his first post on March 31. The Herseth Sandlin crew didn't start blogging until June 9, after we got those darn distracting Presidential primary candidates out of the way.

First-Person Advantage: Joel Dykstra gets my stamp of approval for authenticity. It appears (and I hope I'm not wrong about this) that all but one of the Dykstra campaign blog posts are written by Dykstra himself. And he actually says stuff! He lays out energy policy, responds to Senator Johnson... heck, Dykstra sounds downright bloggy in his post on the health care reform proposals of McCain, Obama, and Clinton. I may not agree with Dykstra, but at least I can read what I disagree with straight from him.

Lien started his blog with first-person posts, but he rarely managed more than a sentence or two about the latest campaign stop. Then "Campaign Mike" took over in May, and since then his voice (and image, for Pete's sake) have been crowding out that of the guy we're actually supposed to vote for. Oops.

Herseth Sandlin gets lowest marks here: not one post from the candidate herself. And no issues, either: the three staffers posting so far have just written about themselves and various campaign activities. Perhaps it is meant to be more of an organizational blog, one to help volunteers get information. That's fine—blogs can be used for different purposes. But if you want to hear what the candidates themselves have to say, Dykstra is the only one really filling that need.

Quantity Over Quality: Alas, Dykstra is writing the least of the blogging campaigners. The most prolific campaign blog is Herseth Sandlin's, averaging 2.1 posts per week so far. Lien is close, posting 1.86 times a week. Dykstra is well behind at 0.85 posts per week. We can give Dykstra some credit: he's not getting paid to generate content like the staffers driving the other blogs. But almost everyone (except this guy!) says one key to successful blogging is regular blogging.

Vox Populi: Everybody wins here: all three campaign blogs allow comments. But Chris Lien gets bonus points here: His blog posts comments automatically, without moderation! I admire a candidate who's willing to take the Web 2.0 plunge and trust his commenters.

Tech Choice: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin gets big love from me here. While Dykstra and Lien pay for Typepad services, Herseth Sandlin's people go for the free Google Blogger account, the same software that powers the Madville Times! Chuckle at free software if you want, but it gets the job done. (I haven't tried Typepad, so I welcome the assessment of Douglas and other Typepad users.)

I hope all three blogs will continue to expand their content and give South Dakotans another venue to air their views and discuss issues with the candidates directly. I also hope we'll see the candidates who win lead the way in continuing their blogs in office as key channels for citizen participation in government.

Water Quality Without the Messy Democracy? Let's Talk....

As I prepare to canoe out with my friend Toby on a water sampling mission on Lake Herman this morning, I have a chance to muse over some coming political action on local water quality. The Interlakes Water Quality Committee is making progress on its goal of creating a water project district that includes Lake Madison, Lake Brant, and Lake Herman. My comrades in water quality have been working since last year to create a new legal entity that could raise money through taxes to fund water quality projects.

Now water quality is a very important goal. Water quality is why I get all bent out of shape over pipelines, refineries, giant feedlots, and other industrial abuses of our natural resources. I joined the Lake Herman Sanitary District board two summers ago because I wanted to help keep Lake Herman clean. I was disappointed to learn that sanitary districts don't have statutory authority to do much of anything but install and maintain sewer systems, which don't address the major pollution issues of erosion and nutrient-rich (read fertilizer and cow poop) runoff promoting algae growth. A water project district will be able to tackle those issues.

However, democracy is an important goal, too. I expressed concerns last year that the IWQC's plan to tie Lakes Herman and Brant into a discontiguous water project district created the possibility that our more numerous (and yes, richer) neighbors at Lake Madison could essentially annex us into their jurisdiction against our will.

I took some comfort in SDCL 46A-18-20, which appears to require a public vote on the creation of a new district. Even if we're outnumbered, we can at least have our say at the ballot box. But the minutes of last Thursday's IWQC meeting suggest that the organizers can avoid even that messy bit of democracy:

Water Project District update: Rolly Samp reported that he has worked out an understanding with the attorney general’s office in Pierre regarding conflicts in the laws pertaining to formation of water project districts. To move forward, the committee will need to finish drafting the petition, select an initial 5 persons to serve as directors (2 from Lake Madison, 1 each from Brandt and Herman and 1 at-large), and prepare a legal description of the proposed district. Once this is done we can hold one or more public meetings to explain the project and begin circulating petitions. We will need the signatures of 25% of the registered voters in the proposed district. If and when the signatures are obtained, the petition will be submitted to the County Auditor and the state Board of Water and Natural Resources for approval. Since our proposed district will have less than 1,000 voters we will not need to have a special election but can approve the district at a meeting called by the County Auditor’s office. A sub-committee of Robert Todd, Linda Hilde, Jan Nicolay, Charlie Stoneback and Stephen Snyder agreed to meet July 15 to consider these next steps. Jay Gilbertson will try to get a legal description for the proposed district. The committee also set a tentative date of August 5 for the first public meeting on the district. [IQWC unofficial minutes, 2008.07.10].

Whoa whoa whoa—no special election? I've never heard of that exception. I'm perusing the chapter on water project districts, and I'm not seeing anything that excepts small populations from conducting an election to establish a new district. (Help me out readers—perhaps the exception is in another chapter on organization of governmental entities?)

I recognize that getting signatures from 25% of the registered voters around the lakes is no small expression of popular will. Heck, we may not even get 25% of the voters to show up for a special lakes election. Then again, telling people their taxes will go up can motivate higher-than-normal civic engagement.

A water project district would use tax dollars for good purpose. I'd much rather see the $2000 or so a year that the Lake Herman Sanitary District receives and mostly sits on go toward practical projects like building retention dams and restoring grassy waterways that would actually improve our water quality.

But creating a new political entity and a new line on our property tax statements really should go to a public vote. If we can't get a vote, let's at least have a full, free-wheeling public discussion and make sure no one is caught by surprise. Lake neighbors, keep an eye out for the notice of that first public meeting on forming water project district, scheduled for August 5.

Obama a Contender in SD? Dems, Get out the Vote!

SDPB Dakota Midday's Paul Guggenheimer discusses a new Rasmussen poll with "political junkies" Denise Ross and David Kranz. The buzz: McCain leads Obama in South Dakota by just 4 percentage points, 44% to 40%—a statistical dead heat. Compare that to Rasmussen's last check of South Dakota's temperature in March, when McCain held a 10-point lead, 48% to 38%. Rasmussen thus shifts South Dakota from the "Likely Republican" to "Leans Republican" column.

Can Obama be a contender here in Bush country? "When donkeys fly," says Kranz.

Close: an Obama win or even a darn close fight between Obama and McCain in South Dakota could send a lot of Democrat donkeys flying right to Pierre as a new Legislative majority.

But just in case donkeys do start showing some feathery growths... if there are any Clinton holdouts still hunkered down in their bunkers, understand that your vote could matter, even here in South Dakota.

Acer/Gateway Never Promised...

SDPB Dakota Midday discusses the latest round of layoffs at Acer as the Taiwanese company sheds the excess labor force it inherited in its acquisition of Gateway. Paul Guggenheimer talks to Rick Hanna, equity analyst at Morningstar in Chicago, who points out that Acer never promised not to layoff anyone in North Sioux City or anyone else. Hanna says he looked back through the news coverage from the time of the Acer-Gateway deal last year. He says Acer CEO J. T. Wang never promised no lay-offs.

Sure enough, Google through the press, and there it is, a Business Week Q&A with Wang, headlined "Acer Chief Promises No Gateway Layoffs," in which Wang offers plenty of CEO-execuspeak but no promise:

[BusinessWeek] Is laying off U.S.-based workers at Gateway one way to achieve those synergies?

[Wang] People in Gateway started to think how many employees will be laid off. That's not a priority. We want to keep the business. The synergies calculated don't include laying off people. They're mainly from back-end synergies, especially for procurement of key components and possibly synergies from logistics and services. The priority is to create synergy and maintain the business. We don't want to destroy the business or scale down the business. People at Gateway should look at Acer as supporting their strength to make the business turn around [Bruce Einhorn, "Acer Chief Promises No Gateway Layoffs," BusinessWeek.com, 2007.10.29].

The Sioux City Journal reported that gobbledegook as a no-layoffs promise; having read the headlines but not the original quote from Wang, so did I. Oops. As Hanna points out on SDPB, we sometimes hear what we want to hear. And certainly the folks in North Sioux City wanted to believe that, after years of a good jobs and a good relationship with the company, the new boss's complicated words could be taken as a signal that their jobs were safe.

The moral of this story: never believe your job is safe... and never take anything a corporate CEO says as a promise.

CAFO News: Riverview Dairy Plays Good Neighbor in SD

Terry O'Keefe is giving some really good coverage to Morris (MN)-based Riverview Dairy's effort to build a 5,700-head concentrated animal feeding operation in Kilborn Township near Milbank. Last week O'Keefe talked to local opponents of the project; this week he gives Riverview a chance to air its side.

O'Keefe reports that Riverview Dairy, which runs five big dairies around Morris, already has a South Dakota presence. They run a new 7,200-head feedlot south of Doland under the name United Feeders, LLP. They're building a 7,000-head feedlot south of Raymond and have a permit for another 7,200-head feedlot north of Doland.

Tracy Miller, Zoning Officer for Spink County (that's where Doland is), says Riverview has changed minds and been a good neighbor around Doland:

Since it began operation two years ago, Miller said attitudes have changed and complaints have been sparse.

“We’ve had none,” she said Friday. “There were concerns about odor, about how big it is.

“But since it’s been up and running, there’s been no complaints.”

Miller said the owners of the dairy feedlot have apparently gone out of their way to make sure everything is run as it should be and operates as a good neighbor to others in the area.

“We’ve never heard anything negative come out of there,” Miller said. “We’ve had comments on how clean it is. One local guy who does business with them told me it’s cleaner than his pickup.

“Neighbors who had those concerns are now saying it’s not what they thought it would be.” [Terry O'Keefe, "Dairy Has Presence in State," Watertown Public Opinion, 2008.07.14]

Riverview's spokesman Gary Fehr says Riverview buys feed and supplies locally as much as possible. Riverview also says it is "open to answer any relevant questions" regarding the Kilborn Township CAFO project. (I can't find Riverview's website, but feel free to send your relevant questions to their office at 26402 470th Ave, Morris, MN, 56267-5370, or call 320-392-5609.)

So maybe 7,200 heifers' worth of manure doesn't smell. And maybe a big feedlot can contribute to the local economy (though whether that's enough to make up for water pollution and increased wear and tear on county roads remains to be seen).

There are still fundamental issues with raising cattle in such factory conditions. Mark A. Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at Wisconsin's Cornucopia Institute, makes the following relevant observation about industrial ag in a letter to the Harper's Magazine that popped out of my mailbox yesterday:

Industrial agriculture and processing prioritizes high speed and low costs over safety, quality, and nutrition, thereby promoting the lack of hygiene at the root of most contamination problems. Crowded, abhorrent conditions lead to sick animals that are then loaded with antibiotics and other drugs designed to increase their productivity or to keep them alive a few weeks longer [Mark A. Kastel, letter, Harper's Magazine, August 2008, p. 5].

So remember, county commissioners, economic development officials, and milk drinkers: there's more to CAFOs than jobs, main street business, or even water and air pollution. CAFOs also pose dangers to nutrition and health that deserve our attention.

Chamber of Commerce: Public or Private?

Here's a morning coffee question for you: Why does the Madison Chamber of Commerce receive public funding? I wondered about this last year, when the city denied the Chamber's request for a 30% increase in funding from the sales tax kitty. I'm led to wonder again as I read at KJAM that the City Commission last night heard Chamber Interim Director Julie Gross's request for a slight bump in city funding for the Chamber, from $62,300 to an even $63,000.

A little Googling reveals that a number of Chambers of Commerce receive no tax support for their operations:

• Las Vegas
• Las Cruces, NM
• Green Oaks–Libertyville–Mundelein–Vernon Hills, Lake County, IL
• Chelsea, MA
  
• Tuscon, AZ
• Southfield, MI
  
• Bradenton, FL (well, at least its Manatee Better Business Council)
  

Now as I understand it, a Chamber of Commerce exists to promote, well, commerce. Its members pay dues for the organization to promote its interests. And sometimes (Scott Delzer's memorable Freudian slip notwithstanding) the Chamber's interests will not coincide with those of the local authorities or the community at large. The state Chamber of Commerce doesn't receive funding from the State of South Dakota (at least I hope not); why should a local Chamber receive funding from local taxpayers?

And if the local Chamber of Commerce does receive public tax dollars, does it not then have an obligation to open all of its meetings, operations, and records to public participation and scrutiny?

CNN Questions Hyperion's Cash, Commitment

A close observer of Elk Point affairs points me toward a seven-minute report by CNN's Drew Griffin on Hyperion's plans to build a refinery in Elk Point. (I love it when South Dakota makes the national news and the reporter manages not to confuse us with North Dakota.) The report casts Hyperion as a secretive, arguably shady company that lacks the experience and quite possibly the capital to build an oil refinery.

Among the oddities in Hyperion's behavior, Griffin shows Hyperion's shiny Elk Point office, where the reporter was told no one was available to answer his questions. The actual Hyperion people come maybe every couple weeks. The receptionist provides one of the richest soundbites of the report: "They golfed last week at the governor's tournament, but they're not here otherwise."

In Dallas, the company wouldn't give an interview at its headquarters and instead required that an interview with spokesman Preston Phillips be held at a public park six miles from Hyperion's main office. (Hyperion must be really committed to having trees in the background for its interviews to ask a reporter to conduct an interview outside in Dallas on a summer day rather than in the air-conditioned comfort of an office.)

More substantially, Griffin notes that Hyperion's experience is mostly in real estate and oil and gas leases, not actually building anything. Griffin also mentions Milo Vranac's lawsuit against Hyperion CEO Albert Huddleston (but wait, no hat tip from CNN to Todd Epp for his good reporting on the lawsuit? come on, Drew, where's the love?). Believing Hyperion can build a ten-billion-dollar clean oil refinery in six years requires a leap of faith perhaps beyond typical capitalist risk-taking.

CNN's Griffin invites Huddleston to give his side, but Huddleston won't come to the park to chat in person or answer questions directly. Instead, Hyperion provides a video of Huddleston holding forth on energy, history, and other topics of his choice (and again, in front of a backdrop of nice green trees—yes, they meant to do that). On actually getting the money to make the refinery happen, Huddleston only says he won't go to his "strategic partners" until Hyperion gets the permits for the refinery.

Huddleston evidently is willing to talk finances with Elk Point Mayor Isabel Trobaugh, who says Huddleston has told her personally that Hyperion has the money. Mayor Trobaugh also says of course the refinery will be good for Elk Point, since "If we don't grow, a small city dies."

Elk Point farmer Dale Harkness thinks clean water and air might be more important for a small city than a refinery. From his corn field and his front porch (and that's a heck of a front porch, Dale!), Harkness looks beyond his fence line and his lifetime to make the following calm yet firm declaration:

I'll keep fighting it. They'll never build here. 150 years from now, somebody will be enjoying that land and this land.

Now that's looking to the future. You'll never hear Hyperion or any other corporation talking about 150 years from now. Foresight is as important as finances in working toward a sustainable future. Maybe Huddleston should invite Harkness along on his next golf outing with the governor. He might learn a thing or two.

Ethanol Savings: Big Bucks or Pocket Change?

KJAM reprints text from the latest study from the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council. (Hey, about a Corn Eating Council?) The study offers this very interesting if: If all gasoline sold in South Dakota were E-10 (10% ethanol blend), every South Dakota driver would have saved $86 over a year of driving ending March 2008.

Cheapskate that I am, I'm not one to sneeze at $86 (and the tip jar in the left sidebar is open!). We claim our share of those savings by using E-10, and I may yet work up the courage to experiment with E-85 in my Jeep.

But if you're after savings, consider that I saved over $900 over the past twelve months by giving up the commute and working in Madison. And if gas stays at $4 a gallon, I'll save more than $200 a year by working from home and biking to work in Madison instead of driving every day. I'm saving money and using less fuel, not to mention staying in shape.

The point: new technology and new fuel sources can produce savings. But lifestyle changes—choices you make, not Pierre, not Washington, not corporations—can save a lot more.

France Not Perfect, But Universal Health Coverage Still Great!

"My esteemed Keloland colleague Cory Heidelberger still clings to the dream." Well, I don't have guns or religion, so I have to cling to something! ;-)

Professor Blanchard addresses my calls for single-payer, not-for-profit health care, also known as real universal health care, the Kucinich plan, socialized medicine, and the way darn near everyone else in the industrialized world does it. I happily address back (redress? retrodress? undress? hmmm...):

Master of the red herring, Blanchard notes that the purveyors of European-style socialized health insurance are the same folks "who told us that Castro's Cuba was a model for Latin America." In the same vein, Germany brought us Nietzsche and Hitler*, but that doesn't change the fact that the Mercedes is a fine vehicle.

Proceeding to tenuous assertions, Blanchard decries socialism in general by citing these comments from Jurgen Reinhoudt on "France's Broken Social Model":

To say that France's social model is far from perfect is an understatement: in spite of the state absorbing more than 50% of GDP, France has suffered, since the 1980s, from rising child poverty rates, persistently high unemployment, a chronic sense of economic malaise, and the continual enrichment of the system's "insiders" at the expense of the system's "outsiders." More importantly, France's social model fails to deliver precisely what it proclaims to: economic justice, inter-generational fairness, economic opportunity and social protection, particularly to young workers entering the labor market, minorities, immigrants, middle-aged women and other vulnerable groups. [Jurgen Reinhoudt, "France's Broken Social Model," Real Clear Politics, 2008.07.13]

Enrichment of insiders, failure to provide economic justice, barriers to vulnerable groups entering the labor market... gee, sounds like capitalist America.

Blanchard fails to give sufficient attention to Reinhoudt's summary of Timothy Smith's argument that the problem with France isn't that it's socialist, but that it's not socialist enough. Regressive tax structure, ineffective income redistribution policies— that's a critique of cronyism and special interest politics, not socialism.

More importantly for our discussion of health care, Reinhoudt doesn't give any indication that France's health coverage model doesn't work. Blanchard thus fails to offer any direct refutation of the evidence of the superiority of French (and British, German, Dutch, and Swiss) universal health care presented in the NPR series I highlighted last week.

Blanchard mentions that socialism is all about protecting people from things like market forces. Blanchard does us the favor of not going full-bore market fundamentalist on us, but we can all stand a reminder that protecting people from market forces is actually a good thing. France protects moms and babies from market forces by ensuring they have access to health coverage, unlike America, where market forces dictate that private insurers describe a pregnant woman as "a house on fire" and refuse to offer her coverage.

We already engage in socialism to provide health coverage for senior citizens, veterans, and the poor. You could argue that health insurance in general is socialistic: we realize almost no individual can cover his or her own medical expenses, so we "unionize," paying "dues" (premiums) into pools in an attempt to protect each other from getting flattened by the free market forces that drive health care costs up (and still contribute to over half of all bankruptcies in the U.S.). It's the free-market insurers who pervert that reasonable system of cooperative protection into a system that generates its profits by denying its clients the services they've paid for.

Does the French social system have problems? You bet. Everyone's does. But, with varying degrees of socialism in health coverage, the French, Germans, British, Dutch, Swiss, Japanese, Canadians, Finns, and others spend less on health care and get better results than our bloated profit-based system.

*Yes, I know: Hitler was born in Austria. Don't be a wise guy.