Illegall Scofflaws

American Scofflaw
Illegal immigrants who lack Social Security numbers could not get tax credits under the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package making its way through Congress.

Two senior GOP congressional officials expressed concern Thursday that the bill could steer government checks to undocumented workers, but in fact the measure indicates that Social Security numbers are needed to claim tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple. It also expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens.

The Republicans spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But Democrats were quick to reject the notion.

"This legislation is directed toward people who are legal in our country. It is about time the Republicans got a different piece of reading material and get off this illegal immigrant stuff," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This bill has nothing to do with anything illegal as far as immigration. It creates jobs for people who are lawfully in this country."

A revolt among GOP conservatives to provisions of last year's economic stimulus bill, which sent rebate checks to most wage earners, forced Democratic congressional leaders to add stricter eligibility requirements. That legislation, enacted in February 2008, required that people have valid Social Security numbers in order to get checks.

This Man Knows Where The Bodies Are

After keeping mostly out of the public eye since it was announced he is facing federal corruption charges, embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is reversing course.

He's recently held a series of interviews and made statements portraying himself as the victim of vengeful lawmakers who can't wait to toss him out of office.

"The heart and soul of this has been a struggle of me against the system," Blagojevich said at a news conference Friday.

He denied any wrongdoing but wouldn't discuss the federal corruption charges filed against him last month. Instead, he focused on his efforts to expand government health care programs without raising taxes.

He has chosen not to mount any defense in the Senate impeachment trial that begins Monday and could remove him from office within days.

The governor, a fan of Western movies, drew a long analogy between his situation and that of a cowboy accused of stealing a horse. His story ended with one cowboy suggesting that the accused thief be hanged, but the other suggesting he first be tried, then hanged.

"Under these rules, I'm not even getting a fair trial; they're just hanging me. And when they hang me under these rules that prevent due process, they're hanging the 12 million people of Illinois who twice have elected a governor," he said.

On Thursday, the governor turned to the history books to describe the emotional strain on him and his family, comparing his arrest last month to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Dec. 9 to my family, to us, to me, is what Pearl Harbor Day was to the United States," he told The Associated Press. "It was a complete surprise, completely unexpected. And just like the United States prevailed in that, we'll prevail in this."

The two-term Democrat said there was no chance he would resign before his impeachment trial.

"I'm going to fight this to the very end," he said.

Also Friday, Blagojevich's lead attorney, Ed Genson, says he plans to resign from the Illinois governor's criminal case.

Genson is one of Chicago's best-known lawyers and has represented such clients as rock star R. Kelly and Canadian-born press lord Conrad Black.

It's All True

Thank You, May I Have Another

Rubin's alleged Ponzi scheme dwarf's Madoff's

American Scofflaw
So why isn't this story getting more coverage?

By PAUL THARP

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking.

Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.

Investor-plaintiffs in the suit accuse Citi management of overseeing the repackaging of unmarketable collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that no one wanted - and then reselling them to Citi and hiding the poisonous exposure off the books in shell entities.

The lawsuit said that when the bottom fell out of the shaky assets in the past year, Citi's stock collapsed, wiping out more than $122 billion of shareholder value.

However, Rubin and other top insiders were able to keep Citi shares afloat until they could cash out more than $150 million for themselves in "suspicious" stock sales "calculated to maximize the personal benefits from undisclosed inside information," the lawsuit said.

The latest troubles for Rubin, Prince and others emerged in a 500-page investigation by Citigroup investors represented by law firm Kirby McInerney.

The probe was used to amend and add new details to a blanket investor lawsuit filed against Citigroup a year ago. The amended suit called the actions of Citi leaders "a quasi-Ponzi scheme" to hide troubles - and keep Citi stock afloat while insiders unloaded about 3 million shares between Jan. 1, 2004 and Feb. 22, 2008 for huge profits.

In addition to Citigroup, Rubin and Prince, the complaint names Vice Chairman Lewis Kaden, ex-CFO Sallie Krawcheck and her successor CFO Gary Crittenden.

Rubin cleared $30.6 million on his stock sales, while Prince got $26.5 million, former COO Robert Druskin got nearly $32 million and former Global Wealth Management unit chief Todd Thomson got $25.7 million, the suit said.

Citi denied the allegations and said it "will defend against it vigorously."

Keep Flying, Boys, Yee Ha

American Scofflaw
Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded.

Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.

The jets serve as airborne offices, time-savers for executives for whom time is money - lots of money. And some firms are cutting back, either by selling the planes or leasing them.

Still, Wall Street's reliance of the rarified mode of travel has largely escaped the scorn poured on the Big Three automakers.

Insurance giant American International Group Inc., which has received about $150 billion in bailout money, has one of the largest fleets among bailout recipients, with seven planes, according to a review of Federal Aviation Administration records.

"Our aircraft are being used very sparingly right now," AIG spokesman Nicholas J. Ashooh said. "I'm not saying there's no use, but there's very minimal use."

To cut costs, AIG sold two jets earlier this year and is selling or canceling orders for four others.

Five other financial companies that got a combined $120 billion in government cash injections - Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley - all own aircraft for executive travel, according to regulatory filings earlier this year and interviews.

A cross-country trip in a mid-sized jet costs about $20,000 for fuel. Maintenance, storage and pilot fees put the cost far higher.

Many U.S. companies are giving up the perk. The inventory of used private jets was up 52 percent as of September, according to recent JPMorgan data on the health of the private aircraft industry.

A few big U.S. companies have shunned jet ownership. Chip maker Intel Corp., for example, requires executives and employees to fly commercial. Intel occasionally charters jets for executives on overseas trips for security reasons, though.

For automakers, the public relations nightmare exploded last month when the chief executives of Ford, GM and Chrysler were criticized for flying on corporate jets to Washington to ask Congress for federal bailout money.

"Couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled, or something, to get here?" Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., asked the CEOs.

When the executives went back to Capitol Hill two weeks later for a second round of hearings, they traveled by car.

So why were Wall Street executives spared from the corporate-jet backlash? One reason is that they didn't have to go before Congress to request bailout money, so no one asked how they traveled to Washington.

But an AP review of Securities and Exchange Commission filings and FAA records offers a glimpse of Wall Street firms' ownership and use of private aircraft. Among the findings:

- CITIGROUP: Has a wholly owned subsidiary, Citiflight Inc., that handles air travel for executives. Citi spokeswoman Shannon Bell refused to comment on the size of the firm's fleet but said it has been reduced by two-thirds over the past eight years. FAA records show four jets and a helicopter registered to the company.

In 2007, then-CEO Charles Prince used company aircraft for personal trips for security reasons. Those trips cost the company $170,972 for that year. Current CEO Vikram Pandit began reimbursing the company for all personal travel on company planes since being appointed in November 2007.

Use of Citigroup's aircraft currently is confined to a "limited number of executives," Bell said. "Executives are encouraged to fly commercial whenever possible to reduce expenses."

- MORGAN STANLEY: Has reduced its executive jet fleet size from three planes to two since 2005, company spokesman Mark Lake said. FAA records show two Gulfstream G-Vs as registered to the company.

In 2007, CEO John Mack's personal use of company aircraft totaled $355,882, according to a February proxy filing. Mack is required to use company aircraft for personal trips for security reasons.

- JPMORGAN: Registered as the owner of four Gulfstream jets, including a 2007 ultra-long range flagship G550 model, FAA records show. A G550 ordered for delivery that year would have cost roughly $47.5 million.

CEO Jamie Dimon is required to use company aircraft for personal trips; In 2007, his personal use of company jets totaled $211,182, according to a May filing with the SEC. Company spokesman Joe Evangelisti refused to comment on whether the bank has changed its policy on corporate aircraft use since accepting $25 billion in TARP money.

- BANK OF AMERICA: Registered as the owner of nine planes, including four Gulfstreams, FAA records show. Company spokesman Scott Silvestri refused to say whether the company has changed its policy on corporate aircraft use since taking $15 billion in bailout money.

CEO Kenneth Lewis, also required to use company aircraft for personal trips, racked up $127,643 in such travel last year, according to a March filing with the SEC.

- WELLS FARGO: Owns a single jet that "is strictly for business purposes under appropriate circumstances," spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said. "No (government) funds will be used for corporate jet travel," she added.

SEC rules require publicly held companies to disclose executives' personal use of corporate aircraft. But there's "a lot of gray area" in how they do it, said David Yermack, a finance professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University who has studied the matter.

"If you use the plane for a personal trip but make one business call, should you report it?" he said. "Or if you're playing golf with potential business partners, does a company report that as business or personal?"

As mounting losses force companies to cut costs, some are becoming stingier about personal use of the company plane. Merrill Lynch & Co., for example, has banned such trips, according to company filings.

Experts say other companies that took bailout money will probably follow suit.

"The personal use of these planes is virtually indefensible at this point," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel at shareholder advisory firm RiskMetrics Group. "Once you're on the federal dole, the pressure is going to become immense on these firms to cut these costs."

Private jet manufacturers say the debate over executive travel has been overblown.

"What people don't understand is that business jets are mobile offices," said Robert N. Baugniet, Gulfstream's director of corporate communications. "If time has any value to you, then you'll understand why people use business jets."

He said the dustup hasn't hurt orders for new planes.

Still, some firms have avoided corporate jet ownership. Goldman Sachs Group, whose executives in past years have been among the highest-paid in the industry, has never owned its own aircraft since going public in 1999, spokesman Michael DuVally said.

The company does make private planes available to some executives through a fractional jet agreement, a timeshare-style arrangement, according to filings. Duvally refused to say how much the company spends on its fractional agreement.

Wary of being perceived as opulent, most companies fly in unmarked jets. Aviation buffs can usually track planes over the Internet using aircraft tail numbers. But many companies, including AIG and Citigroup, have blocked the public's ability to do so for security reasons.

Some corporate chieftains make no excuses for flying the private skies.

After years of railing against such costs, billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffet broke down in 1989 and bought a Gulfstream IV-SP using $9.7 million in company funds. He named the aircraft "The Indefensible."

Madoff Moved The Money To Israel: Amount May Be Closer To $100 Billion

By Mark Graffis

As more info comes in regarding the Madeoff scheme, news from several sources say that Madeoff and his clients were the largest bank account holders listed on a computer disk leaked by a Swiss bank worker regarding US persons with hidden Swiss bank accounts.

As the IRS approached him regarding the repayment of taxes from his hidden swiss account, Madeoff reportedly became admamant that his wealth would not be taxed by the US. He also realized that once the swiss records were exposed that his and his client's wealth were also within reach of seizure or judgement by a US court regarding past frauds of him or his clients.

Realizing that he was be certain to arrested on other securities and market making fraud issues in the near future, insiders say that it was at this point he made the decision to just say it was all lost in trading and move it directly to Israel. Insiders also report that he was ready to pay the taxes on the money in Israel but was adamant that taxes in the US would not be paid nor would any of the money be available for US court judgements in subprime, fraudlent trading and misrepresentation charges in the future.

Sources say that most of his and his clients wealth were gained through issuing subprime mortgages to unqualified borrowers and then tranching the mortgages into CDOs and circulating the CDOs among US pension funds including GM, GE, IBM and Califorina's State pension fund. Some of the wealth was also gotten through investments in Vegas housing sub divisions and Miami condo projects at the height of the real estate bubble.

Finally, sources say that the wealth from Madeoff's scam has been fully transfered to Israel and that "most if not all of the clients have been made aware" that their money is available to them in Israel and that it was felt that this was a necessary measure in protecting certain high level clients in the face of a collapse of the USA.

A European bank executive has said early this morning that the Banks involved in Madeoff's fund were exposed through loads and leveraging and that these loans will be repaid in full from Israel.

All of the charities involved have Israeli offices, so they also are of an understanding that their money is now available there.

Sources say that Madeoff has a base in Israel and that he will offer all clients his services there as a continuem to his services in New York.

Speculation has it that he is advising transfer of client's funds into physical gold holdings in coded safety deposit boxes. This advise jives with the notion that the money needed to be taken out of the US on fear of collapsing US dollar and seizure of funds by IRS and courts for frauds committed during the sub prime bubble.

The Swiss bank client leak has caused these banks to no longer be viable avenues for asset concealment.

Madeoff's clients are not just in the US. He has moved funds to Israel for clients in Russia, France, England and Swiss in the scheme in which he is involved.

Some insiders are saying the amount involved may be closer to $100 Billion.

Let Them Eat Shit

America Scofflaw
Records involving Fannie Mae, the largest source of U.S. home-loan money, were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury as part of a criminal investigation into claims made in a $7 billion civil lawsuit against the company.

Don't expect impartial coverage from MSNBC on this one. David Gregory's wife is Beth A. Wilkinson, who is Fannie Mae's executive vice president - general counsel and corporate secretary. She reports directly to the chief executive officer.

Wilkinson has oversight and management responsibility for all legal issues, strategies, services and resources. Additionally, she serves as the business-oriented, senior legal advisor to the board of directors, chief executive officer, and members of the senior management team.

Ponzi Madness

American Scofflaw

"It's all just one big lie."
- Bernard Madoff to his sons about his $50 billion "Ponzi" scheme

Here is the important point. Most white-collar fraud goes unreported. Corporations often see simply concealing the losses with creative accounting as preferable to the public admission of having been duped. As a result, only a small percentage of frauds ever become publicly know, fewer still result in prosecutions and convictions.

So, for every Bernard Madoff caught and jailed, it is safe to assume there are others just like him still operating and playing their games. White Collar crime costs Americans ten times as much as street crime (but street crime gets the press coverage).

And the comment about Bernard Madoff's scam being the largest may also be untrue. There are currently allegations against Citi, involving former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, of a ponzi scheme where the losses have reached into the trillions of dollars and may have been a major factor in the take down of the American economy!

It's All Good, Scofflaw, All Good

American Scofflaw
It's about freaking time, the feds have been unconstitutionally doing it for decades and decades and decades.

Milwaukee neighborhoods could print own money

They may be talking funny money, but it's not funny business.

Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.

"You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store."

Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.

It's not a new concept—experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world—but it is a practice that tends to burgeon during economic downturns. During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies.

And it's completely legal.

As long as communities don't create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks—and they'd don't even have to be green.

In Wisconsin, could that mean dough that looks like cheese?

What's The Difference

By The Balls

Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” — a threat made last summer by Vladimir Putin, according to an account that emerged yesterday from the Élysée Palace.

The Russian Prime Minister had revealed his plans for disposing of Mr Saakashvili when Mr Sarkozy was in Moscow in August to broker a ceasefire in Georgia.

Jean-David Levitte, Mr Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, reported the exchange in a news magazine before an EU-Russia summit today. The meeting will be chaired by the French leader and President Medvedev.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Mr Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy yesterday, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. “I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It’s funny, all the same,” he said.

Mr Putin’s remarks confirmed that he was calling the shots in Moscow and not Mr Medvedev, who was Mr Sarkozy’s official host at the Kremlin meeting. The language was in keeping with Mr Putin’s fondness for coarse imagery: in 1999 he vowed to chase down Chechen separatists wherever they were — “we will rub them out in their s***houses,” he said.

In Brussels in 2002 he threatened a French journalist with circumcision — remarks that the news conference interpreter failed to translate. “I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that nothing grows back,” he added.

Mr Sarkozy’s team leaked their exchange to bolster their claim that the French President’s intervention saved Georgia — or at least its leader — from further torment. They want to counter charges that he ceded too much in Europe’s name by accepting the Russian annexation of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Mr Saakashvili denounced Mr Sarkozy for that, saying Europe’s acquiescence over Georgia was identical to its appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938 after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. “I never imagined that I would be saying such things but unfortunately those are the facts,” he said.

Mr Sarkozy, who is under fire for his cosy relations with the two Russian leaders, hit back with sarcasm and an attack on Mr Bush for his supposed impotence towards Russia. Mr Bush had telephoned him and urged him repeatedly not to fly to Moscow to negotiate a ceasefire, he said. “When someone had to leave for Moscow or Tbilisi, who defended human rights?” Mr Sarkozy asked.

“Was it the President of the United States who said, ‘this is unacceptable’? Or was it France which kept up the dialogue [with Russia]? . . . We were in Moscow and, as if by chance, the ceasefire was announced.” He was speaking after receiving an annual Political Courage Prize from a French review.

Loot First, Pay Later

American Scofflaw

The ultra-rich were ready to grab the largess of the Bush bailouts, but now that the bill has come due they are terrified that those who gained the most from the bailouts shall be required to bear a fair share of its costs.

The sad reality is that it does not matter who won the election, the next President has to raise taxes significantly to repay all the loans the Federal Reserve made to hand those billions to corporate America or risk the collapse of the economny and the government.

It may happen anyway, but the populace must be looted first. It is the natural order of things, you know.

Profiteer

A new study details how spammers – the bane of our email inboxes – still make pots of money, despite only receiving a response to one in every 12,500,000 emails they spam out.

The study, by a team of seven computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) infiltrated the Storm network, which uses hijacked home PCs to relay much of the junk email you spend your days wading through while wondering 'who the hell responds to this stuff?'

Well. Now you know. One gullible idiot in 12,500,000 recipients. Or thereabouts.

Spam the spammers

"The best way to measure spam is to be a spammer," claims the study. And they certainly picked the right network to hijack, with the Storm network having over one million machines under its control at one point.

Using 'proxy bots' the team of researchers managed to control 75,869 hijacked machines to conduct their own fake spam campaigns.

The researchers used two of the most popular ploys currently used by spammers – firstly offering a fake pharmacy site and, secondly, offering a herbal Viagra-style remedy to boost libido.

"After 26 days, and almost 350 million email messages, only 28 sales resulted," says the research paper.

Yet even with this apparently abysmal response rate of less than 0.00001 per cent, the researchers still estimate that the controllers of a network the size of Storm are still bringing in about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or $3.5m (£2.21m) over a year.

Both baffling and incredibly annoying, we're sure you will agree.

You Have Been Screwed

Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its £6bn bail-out

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.

The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.

Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.

As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.

News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance.

The same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years.

Gordon Brown has vowed to crack down on the culture of greed in the City as part of his £500billion bail-out of the UK banking industry.

But that won't affect the estimated 100 London partners working at Goldman Sachs's London headquarters.

The firm - known as Golden Sacks for the bumper bonuses it pay its top bankers - is expected to cut the payouts by a third this year. However, profits are

falling much faster. Earnings have plunged 47 per cent so far this year amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

This has wiped more than 50 per cent off the company's market value.

American Scofflaw
Here's More If You Need It

All American Theft

Vote Machine, how might I hack thee?

Let me count the ways!

With Proof of Stolen Election 2004

THE FIX IS IN!

The vote swapping software is already operational in the early voting. We are hearing from Broward county in Florida that vote swapping is already going on in the early voting:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/31/florida_terminals_dont_cooperate/

From Jefferson County, Florida:

ttp://www.kfdm.com/engine.pl?station=kfdm&id=17343&template=breakout_dayportvideo.shtml&dateformat=%25M%20%25e,%25Y

And Jesus! These incidents are popping up EVERYWHERE. And NOWHERE is there a report of the votes being switched to anything but republican!

http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp

So if you think that they are not going to steal the 2006 elections, think again. After getting away with stealing two presidential elections, stealing this one is supposed to be a snap for them. And think about this: The republicans have GOT to steal the election to keep the Democrats from getting subpoena power and exposing everything from the stolen election to torture to NSA illegal activities, etc.

Of Course, What Else?

How Washington's Bailout Will Boost Wall Street Bonuses

Uncle Sam has a new name on Wall Street — Sugar Daddy. Bonuses for investment bankers and traders are projected to fall by 40% this year. But analysts, compensation consultants and recruiters say the drop would be much more severe, perhaps as much as 70%, had it not been for the government's efforts to prop up the financial firms. "Year-end pay on Wall Street will be higher than it would have been had it not been for the government and mergers," says Alan Johnson, a leading compensation consultant. "You would expect it to be down much more."

My Fascist economy

American Scofflaw

It's is NOT "The Government's Money", it is YOUR money and when the bailout was ramrodded through Congress, we were all told that the money was to be used to buy up defaulted mortgages so that we could go back to buying homes.

Then we find out that the money, YOUR money, $700 billion of it, is being given to the banks and they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. Which means that loans to We The People, who were forced to cough up $700 billion (that is $1700 per household, BTW) will not see any benefit from this bailout after all. The banks are holding onto the money.

Folks, we have been HAD. While the DOW is down today, it is not down consistent with the massive liquidations required to cover $360 billion in Lehman Brothers credit defaults. So, what must be happening is that the $700 billion of YOUR money handed to the banks is being used to cover these losses.

In other words, Wall Street made a killing in the bull market with derivatives, and now that the market has turned bear, We The People get the losses.

When profits remain private, but losses are socialized, THAT is a fascist economy!