“Everyone in IPL is not corrupt; most owners and managers came  for the novelty, for the fun and for the possibility that legitimate  money could  be made in a new form of entertainment. By far the majority of cricketers still cannot believe their luck as they check their bank balances; their wildest dreams never foresaw such lottery-level riches for four overs of work and 20 of vigilance. But there was a price. Silence. Any leak about the T-20 underbelly would contaminate the whole tamasha.” – M.J., Akbar

The only surprising fact about most corruption stories is that anyone in authority gets surprised. Everyone in charge knew that the Commonwealth Games organizing committee was buying toilet paper at art paper prices, and turf at the rate of platinum. This was not considered unusual, let alone criminal, because the price of cream is built into public expenditure.

Every detail of the spectrum sale bazaar was public knowledge and raged in epileptic spasms across the media. Four years ago, this month, police taped conversations between lobbyist Nira Radia and other middlemen, and indeed middlewomen, to force Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Dr. Manmohan Singh to keep A. Raja as telecom minister. They succeeded.

The system knew why Santosh Bagrodia, a minor Calcutta businessman with a major genius for dipping ten fingers in the till, was made coal minister in UPA-1: to set up the coal scam.  There are two reasons why mortals become ministers: political clout and personal utility. Bagrodia’s talent was distinctly fiscal.

Similarly, everyone involved in T-20 knew that a serious stench was emanating from the underbelly from inception.

Some punters  were attracted by precisely that, the stink. One top honcho, now out of his depth as well as his league, used to brag before freeloaders that whenever his preferred team lost, he won – through bookies.

Such party talk elicited the usual oohs and aahs from priests of this religion called wealth.

Everyone in IPL is not corrupt; most owners and managers came  for the novelty, for the fun and for the possibility that legitimate  money could  be made in a new form of entertainment.

By far the majority of cricketers still cannot believe their luck as they check their bank balances; their wildest dreams never foresaw such lottery-level riches for four overs of work and 20 of vigilance. But there was a price. Silence. Any leak about the underbelly would contaminate the whole tamasha.

Now that the police investigation has gone public, reports are tumbling out about parties hosted by slurping bookies, and how so many manful, morality-intense cricketers refused to go. Why did some cricketers stay away from bookie Chandresh Patel’s party at the Country Club in Gurgaon on April 6, when general standing orders are to spread fun in all directions? The absentees knew this would be a gathering of crooks, and that some of their playing brethren were very happy indeed to sup with thieves. What did they do next? Kept quiet. Did they tell their captain, or their coach? Cheating changes a result. We do not know. Did the superiors add to the growing silence? Was everyone instructed to stop squealing for the larger good of the circus? Were owners told? They keep in close touch with the team, as everyone who watches them prance across the playing fields of Cheaton for the glory of television coverage is aware. [Apologies for the pun, but it was irresistible. If the playing fields of Eton were the epitome of character for the long-departed Duke of Wellington, then surely a scribe can coin a rotten pun when irritated.]

Was the field marshal of this glitter, sex-and-six gala, Rajeev Shukla, aware and kept quiet, for which silly fool is going to decapitate the goose that lays golden eggs every night, and often twice a night? We do not know, and you can bet your non-IPL fortune that we are unlikely to be told.

The principal culprit – at least until the moment more names are revealed – Sreesanth, a ranking idiot, might break down and admit his mistakes, but he is a wobbly child compared to the steel-faced tycoons at the top.

As the public mood shifts from popcorn exhilaration to cynicism and anger, there is a growing feeling that even this post-expose clamor is merely dust in the consumer’s face: dust that will cloud the truth, buy time, and finally settle after scapegoats have been sacrificed, in the hope that there is nothing shorter than the public’s memory. Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar has lived through torment since his appointment. He deserves our congratulations now, not just for the physical dissection of a public cancer, but for the courage in challenging the collective silence that protected this racket. That required guts.

It might be easier to take on a tottering government than a towering cricket establishment these days. Kumar knows that he has only scratched the surface. But once the police begin scratching you never know which suppurating sore will begin to bleed. This disease is not limited to 20 overs. It spreads into the national game. Test cricketers have been photographed in the obedient company of bookies, and they have kept their place with the help of an obliging captain and selectors. There is more to investigate than Neeraj Kumar has time for. In the meanwhile, keep a beady eye open for the deluge of cosmetics that will drench the underbelly in the hope that you confuse malevolent odor with perfume. – Saudi Gazette, 18 May 2013

» M. J. Akbar is an eminent Indian journalist. Write to him at letters@covert.co.in

“Yes, India was global economic superpower for 1,800 out of 2,000 years. Conceded. But what is the use of recalling past glory. Look at our current state — poverty, hunger, malnutrition and illiteracy. The present alone is relevant. Future is critical.”

This is how some react at any reference to India’s great past. Their reaction is justified. Yes. Nations cannot survive or prosper just by recalling their past. Yet, no nation, whether developed or developing, ancient or modern, gives up the sense of its past. Because sense of the past is the core of a nation.

Samuel Huntington’s last book Who are We? is an exploration of America’s past, which spans less than 300 years. In contrast, India and China have an antiquity that history dare not probe. The relation between past and present is indeed enigmatic. The present is relevant. Undeniably. But is the present alone relevant? And is the past totally irrelevant?

A deeper reflection would counsel that it would be wrong, even dangerous, to dismiss the past as irrelevant. Particularly if, in the past, a society had committed mistakes or got invaded or colonised. It needs to recall and analyse, not forget, the past so that the past error is not repeated. That is why scholars keep citing George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, who said that those who did not learn from history were doomed to repeat it.

Revisiting the past is a learning process. Also an unlearning one. But, colonial construction of its history denied India both learning and unlearning experience. The colonists’ version of India’s past harmed its present and threatened its future. Take a glaring instance, the Aryan-Dravidian theory constructed by the colonialists that virtually split India racially and regionally, almost fomenting a huge secessionist movement in the South.

The 19th century colonial version of the theory testified to “civilised Aryans” from outside invading India and building a high Vedic civilisation. But after Harappan excavations, the colonialists shockingly made a U-turn. They relabelled the Aryans as “nomadic”, “pastoral” and even “barbaric”. And alleged that the uncivilised Aryans invaded and violently ran over “civilised Dravidians”. With ‘violent invasion’ theory soon losing steam for lack of archeological support or oral traditions — the theory was repackaged as “peaceful Aryan immigration” post-Harappan collapse. Soon, with Harappa throwing up more and more ingredients that correlated to Vedic culture, the pre-Aryan construction of Harappa began to fade away. Further, with the rediscovery of Vedic Saraswati river, studied by satellite imagery and its palaeo-waters (from Himalayan glaciers) tested in Rajasthan deserts by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the so-called ‘non-Aryan’ Harappa is now Indus-Saraswati civilisation with Vedic confluence!

The Vedic Saraswati was real, not mythical as the colonialists had dismissed. The Saraswati shifting its course and merging into Sutlej and Yamuna and its main flow drying up as the result were  major factors for the collapse of urban phase of Harappa. Relentless interrogation of colonialist construction of India’s past by national and international scholars only could expose the canard of Aryan invasion. Here the recall and review of India’s past were of great relevance to the present and future social relationships within India and national political discourse. So, the past and the correct view of it are important. But the question is not why, but when, should a society recall its past.

A society should not get obsessed with its past just for pride. Nevertheless it becomes inevitable for colonised societies to review the colonialist version of its history that demeans its faith, philosophy, forefathers, traditions and economy, and pervades the society’s academic, intellectual and public discourse. After an in-depth study, Kaisa Illmonen of University of Turku writes: “Post colonial subjects will be imprisoned in their colonial history unless they can find or figure out their own place in history. History must be retold and rewritten in such a way that a person excluded from the records of the Western history can still have knowledge of his or her own past.” This not just about the history of identity. A society’s economic history is critical in a world that is increasingly driven by global economic agenda.

The Indian people ought to know whether they have a history of worshipping poverty as the colonialists had made their elites believe or do they have a tradition of building prosperity. Modern Western history has universalised the perception that prosperity building was the preserve of the West. The rest of the world, particularly Asia, including China and India, was ever steeped in poverty — almost claiming that colonialists had actually improved their lot!

This disgusting colonial discourse almost took rebirth in 1990s when, to drum up support for globalisation, the likes of Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia began arguing that India did not have the tradition of wealth-building; so it needed to learn that culture from the West. As late as in 2007, Chidambaram said “whoever propounded the myth about India being a rich country is wrong and the books that propounded the glorious past of India are liable to be burnt” (Business Standard, 27.8.2007). This is long after Bairoch-Maddison studies had nailed the lie, and independent researches (See ‘Boss, read the true history before talking’, TNIE April 6) had corroborated Bairoch-Maddison’s view that Hindu India was the topper in global economy. Imagine Bairoch-Maddison had preceded Marx, Weber and Raj Krishna. Weber would not have dared to disqualify India for market economics for following ‘world denying’ Hinduism; Marx would not have called Indians ‘semi-civilised’ for worshipping Hanuman and cow; and Raj Krishna would not have dared to point at Hinduism for India’s slow growth. They all spoke the way they did, because they believed India was economically an underperformer. But, their Indian intellectual heirs who hold — or choke? — the national voice, continue to demean India’s past. To answer them, India’s past needs to be recalled, again and again.

The 2008 global crisis has shaken the world to realise the need to study economic history. Till then, modern economists had dismissed the past as irrelevant for the present or future. But the global meltdown has questioned all modern economic theories grounded in the present. The 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman said “much of the past 30 years of macro economics was spectacularly useless at best and positively harmful at worst”. Barry Eichengreen, well-known economic historian, said “the crisis has cast into doubt much of what we believed to be economics”. Result: economists are now scrambling back to study economic history. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics, University of California, declared “it is not economic crisis, but economics in crisis” and pleaded “we need historians of economic thoughts”.

A conference organised in early 2013 by Project Syndicate, a think tank of highly influential thought leaders, including economists, has called for intense teaching and study of economic history. Any more evidence needed about the relevance of the past to the present, including in economics? – The New Indian Express, 13 April 2013

» S. Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues. Email: comment@gurumurthy.net

See also

• Rahul Gandhi: Boss gets the Hindu rate of growth wrong at the CII meet – S. Gurumurthy

“Another person who carried on the tradition of Marx-Weber-Raj Krishna-McNamara to trivialise Hindu India was Montek Alhuwalia who endorsed Raj Krishna’s description of India even after the 21st century opened. The only exception in the present establishment is Shivshankar Menon, the National Security Adviser, who profoundly called India’s rise a “re-rise”. Will the Boss begin learning the true history of Hindu rate of growth, not repeat the spurious history when he talks to the FICCI or elsewhere later?” – S. Gurumurthy

Nine years after advent in public life, Rahul Gandhi addressed the Confederation of the Indian Industry (CII). Media conferred on him the title ‘Boss’. The Boss told captains of industry: “They used to look at India and say, Boss, the Hindu rate of growth. They have been saying like this for 3,000 years. Now the Hindu rate of growth is like the European rate of growth.” This less serious comment calls for a serious response. Otherwise illiteracy about India will continue to persist for lack of literacy among Indians who speak for India. But, it calls for a peep into the world and the Indian economic history which most Indian academics, particularly economists, seem to be least interested in and therefore less aware of.

The label ‘Hindu rate of growth’ was coined by Professor Raj Krishna, a socialist establishment economist, in 1978 to rationalise why India was growing ‘slowly’ despite following the socialist prescriptions. Raj Krishna’s label was original but its philosophy was borrowed. It all originated in the colonial discourse on India. A notable victim of colonial discourse on India was Karl Marx. Even before he brought out his magnum opus Das Kapital, Karl Marx wrote an article on the Indian economy (June 25, 1853) in the New York Harold Tribune. In his article, he was generally positive about the distinct ‘Hindoo’ India’s village system of agriculture and manufacturing which, he said, gave to people their independent organisation and social life. But he said that that had made India changeless for two thousand years. So the British, he said, were doing the right thing, though painful, causing a social revolution by demolishing the village system which Marx described as ‘semi-barbarian and semi-civilised’. Why semi-barbarian and semi-civilised?

Not because the village economic model was wrong per se, but, because, Marx said, the Hindoos were worshipping cows and monkeys and were even claiming antiquity greater than Christianity’s! Karl Marx, who never came to India, never met any informed Indian, nor read any worthwhile Indian literature dismissed India as semi-barbarian. His knowledge about India was limited to colonial records on India. Then came Max Weber. He had theorised that only Protestant Christian societies could progress under the modern capitalist model since Protestantism alone promoted individualism and enterprise. He was entitled to his comment because he had studied the rise of America and European Protestant nations as compared to the Catholic countries which had stagnated. But he impertinently wrote in late 1920s that India and China, which followed Hindu-Buddhist faiths, would not succeed under capitalist model because they believed in karma, rebirth and caste. He too never went to India, perhaps never met a proper Indian, but still adversely commented on Hinduism and Buddhism. Studies have established that the Marx and Weber theories had exerted the greatest influence on Indian academic, sociological and economic thinking. In the same stream of thought, Winston Churchill called Indians anarchic and barbaric. After freedom J. K. Galbraith described India as a functioning anarchy. Professor Raj Krishna’s remark was the Indian affirmation of this thought stream that held Hinduism guilty for keeping India semi-barbaric and under-developed. This is what the Boss also has recalled in his CII speech.

But this colonial theory was proved fake in 1983 — exactly five years after Raj Krishna trashed Hinduism for India’s low growth. In that year Paul Bairoch, a Belgian economist, came out with his study of the world economy and his findings astounded the West. He said that in 1750 India’s share of world GDP was 24.5 per cent, China’s 33 per cent, but the combined share of Britain and the US was — believe it — just two per cent. Yes only two per cent!

India’s share, Bairoch found, fell to 20 per cent in 1800; to 18 per cent in 1830; and finally crashed to 1.7 per cent in 1900, while China’s crashed to 6.2 per cent from 33 per cent. In these 150 years, the combined share of Britain and the US rose to from 2 per cent to over 41 per cent. Bairoch shook the West by saying that in middle 19th century, the West had a lower standard of living than Asians — read Indians and Chinese. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], network of rich nations, forthwith constituted a Development Institute Studies under Angus Maddison, a great economic historian, to conduct a comprehensive research into economic history — the implied agenda was to prove Bairoch wrong.

Angus Maddison postulated, “if Bairoch is right, then much more of the backwardness of the third world presumably has to be explained by colonial exploitation” and “much less of Europe’s advantage can be due to scientific precocity, centuries of slow accumulation, and organisational and financial superiority.” After two decades of hard work, Maddison published his studies titled World Economic History – A Millennial Perspective in 2001.

His study confirmed Bairoch’s study of 150 years and more, as Maddison studied the entire 2000 years economic history. Maddison showed that India was the leading economic power of the world from the 1st year of the first millennium till 1700 — with 32 per cent share of world’s GDP in the first 1000 years and 28 per cent to 24 per cent in the second millennium till 1700.

China was second to India except in 1600 when China temporarily overtook India. India again overtook China in 1700. The global economic play was in the hands of India and China till 1830. And two nations disqualified for development by Weber for following Hindu and Buddhist religions. Maddison confirmed, actually confessed, that [Hindu] India fell only due to colonial exploitation. Now the Maddison study, endorsed by OECD, is the most authentic economic history of the world. What does it prove? The Hindu rate of growth had kept India going as the most powerful economy of the world for 1850 years out of 2000 years. That is why William Dalrymple described the rise of India “as the empire striking back” — meaning that India’s rise was not a rag to riches story.

The Bairoch-Maddison studies have sealed the discourse decades back. Their studies have also been corroborated by other studies and records. Some of them are: studies into the Mauryan export-led economic Model Hindu India (The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, April 1993); study into consumption during Akbar’s regime as being higher than in Europe by Centre for West Asia Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia University; the Economic History of Greco-Roman World which described how two thousand years ago India was bankrupting Roman Egypt of its gold reserves by its export surplus; the history of Indian merchant navy which had a fleet strength of 40,000 ships in Akbar’s time and as many as 34,000 ships before the British arrived and the Bank for International Settlements [BIS] Annual Report of 1934-35 which said that between 1493 and 1930 India absorbed 14 per cent of world gold production — which meant that it earned that much export surplus for five centuries continuously.

QED: Hindu rate of growth had made India a superpower. Colonialism did India down to poverty. Nehruvian socialism made it stagnate even after freedom.

The slow growth of India was due to Nehruvian socialism. But thanks to Raj Krishna the label Hindu rate of growth was globalised by the World Bank President Robert McNamara in 1980s. He said that India would always be in need of aid and it would ever be a burden on the world.

Another person who carried on the tradition of Marx-Weber-Raj Krishna-McNamara to trivialise Hindu India was Montek Alhuwalia who endorsed Raj Krishna’s description of India even after the 21st century opened. The only exception in the present establishment is Shivshankar Menon, the National Security Adviser, who profoundly called India’s rise a “re-rise”. Will the Boss begin learning the true history of Hindu rate of growth, not repeat the spurious history when he talks to the FICCI or elsewhere later? – The New Indian Express, 6 April 2013

» S. Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues. He can be contacted by email at comment@gurumurthy.net

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Additionally, some community forums can even allow users to write links within your body of your message. This provides you with the business owner the chance to offer his link responding to questions and comments when you are performing in final summary is relevant and gives something of worth for the online conversation. However, care needs to be delivered to carefully assess the terms of service and guidelines for the message board before posting links to make sure this is simply not an infringement of your policies in the forum. Failure to adhere to forums policies could lead to removal on the forums and the posts being considered as spam by other users.

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Okay, let me go back a bit so we are on the same page: I want to write about creating the life you want to live, about being happy, healthy and joyful, whatever that means to you. The question is: if everyone is uniquely individual, with a different set of gifts to share with the world, in a different set of circumstances, with varying degrees of ability to deal with challenges, changing moods, dreams and expectations…you get the idea, we are all individual. So, is it possible to use one common solution?

Now that I think about it, there is a better question to ask: is it possible to find a common approach to finding solutions? This would make more sense because an approach is different from a set tool. After all, you are likely to need different tools for different jobs, imagine a tool box with ONE UNIVERSAL item in it. It would be like putting your hand into the magic box and taking out the perfect implement for the job at hand, no need to check, it’s the right tool all the time, every time. I would love that! Would you?

The person who invents such a tool will be honoured beyond measure by the legions of people who have ever experienced the joy of opening a toy battery container with a butter knife!

…back to present life challenges. I would like to know if there is such a tool for life’s situations. Mind you, I’m not saying I would like to have no challenges at all, where would the learning come from? What would be really helpful is to enjoy the frame of mind that allows you to face any “problem” with the certainty that:

1- It is the best possible challenge for your growth.

2- You have or can acquire the resources to deal with it.

3- Once it is dealt with, you will be ready for your next evolution step.

Imagine what it would feel like to be able to do all this with joy, not as if it were an imposed and tiring chore. And that’s where Dr. Hew Len’s statement comes in. “Have you noticed that every time there is a problem, you are there?” If that is the case, and it is. How about you take a bold step and do something about it. Here is the true challenge: whatever you do, don’t solve it right away! I will repeat this because it is important. If you have a problem, don’t solve it. Okay, here it comes again. Do-Not-Solve-It.

- “Come again”.

- “Do not solve the problem, learn from it“.

- “Learn what?”.

- “That’s the thing for you to figure out. Each problem comes with the solution, the seed for a benefit of, at least, equal value AND a lesson that will help you in future. Each situation will have a specific set of elements attached to it. The more you get into the habit of learning from your challenges, the less chance of them happening again and the better equipped you will be to fulfil your life’s mission”.

- “Mmmm”.

- “Don’t take my word for it, give it a try and let me know what results you get”.

Here is a quick start guide:

1- Be grateful for what you already have, are and do. Including the challenges.

2- Be even more grateful for what you can have, be and do.

3- Develop a “responsible” mind frame. If it turns up in your life, it is yours.

4- If you don’t like something, be grateful for the learning you can gain by dealing with it.

5- Create the habit of cleaning your attachment to dreams, goals and desires, while taking consistent action towards them.

Happy learning and growth!

If anyone thinks that issues like MF Global going tits-up are unrelated to the central banks and practices that closely mirror fractional reserve banking, they’re kidding themselves.  Unfortunately, central banks like the Fed and the ECB just feed the monsters.  Fractional reserve banking is nothing but a swindle, and this type of investment practice is the same thing: embezzlement.

Let’s start with fractional reserve banking made easy.  This will give you a fair idea of how the system works.  Let’s say I go to Bank A and deposit $100 in cash.  According to fractional reserve guidelines, the bank is required to keep 10% of my deposit on-hand at any given time.  They also make that promise to pay me back all of my deposit, should I ever wish to withdraw it.

We then move on to Mr. Jones, who either borrows $90 that Bank A lends him, or he receives it from another borrowing individual or entity, who pays him the money.  Mr. Jones then goes to Bank B, where he deposits that $90.  Bank B again loans out $81 to Mr. Smith, and the same story keeps repeating on down the line.  $90+$81+72.90+$65.61 = $309.51.  Thus, we can see that four transactions down the line, approximately $300 has been loaned out based upon the original $100 investment.  This is no problem, provided that there are many customers and none of them recall their deposits at the same time (a bank run).  It bears noting that, once the bank loans out a certain amount of money, they are no longer capable of paying back all of their depositors.

Why is this problematic?  Simple.  Banks are creating counterfeit claims to real wealth, which remains unchanged.  Yes, one can make the argument the banks, and therefore customers, are benefitting from interest paid on the loans, but this is a foolhardy notion.  Inflation will eat away whatever is gained through interest payments.  The creation of fake receipts doesn’t create more true wealth.  And if you hold claim to 10% of the real wealth before the loan goes out, you’ll claim even less later, after inflation is through with it.  You can make the argument that the banks are making life more convenient, but it always comes at a price – a cleverly disguised one, at that.

Why is this important to our discussion on MF Global?  Well, they were sort of doing the same thing.  They were putting up assets as collateral against bonds they were buying up – mostly European bonds, funnily enough.  According to Doug French of the Mises Institute, MF Global was using a neat little trick called a “repo,” which is basically putting up collateral that has the same maturity date as the loan. (The assets can be repurchased.)  Therefore, the transaction can be considered a “sale” and moved off of the balance sheet.  Ah, those off-balance-sheet transactions.  God love ‘em.  The Fed sure does!

In any case, the customers were essentially taking the risk on the investments while MF Global sat back and collected the money.  French’s article states that the company moved something like $16.5 billion in assets off the balance sheet and went on to expose itself to debt that was worth more than five times the total value of the company.

The company also practices something called rehypothecation – pledging collateral for a loan, similar to a mortgage.  The company uses assets to secure its trading and borrowing.  In the US, companies can rehypothecate to the tune of 140% of the client’s liability to the broker.  This creates liquid capital, but there is nothing behind it, should the house of cards fall in on itself.  And the collateral ends up being promised to multiple creditors.  So what happens when four or five different creditors are fighting over the same piece of pie?

I highly recommend reading Doug French’s article for a clearer understanding of what’s really going.  I hope that MF Global isn’t the new Lehman Brothers, but with some economists predicting that rehypothecation is the newest and most dangerous credit bubble, it seems like that could be the case.  I suggest you look at the numbers in the article, because MF is the new Lehman Brothers, we are going to be in for a world of hurt – more so than we already are, financially speaking.

I think I’ll end this article with a nice little quote from Atlas Shrugged: ”Look around you: what you have done to society, you have done it first within your soul; one is the image of the other.  This dismal wreckage, which is now your world, is the physical form of the treason you have committed to your values, to your friends, to your defenders, to your future, to your country, to yourself.”

Check out Doug French’s article “MF Global’s Fractional Reserves” at The Mises Institute online.

You may agree with my interpretation (or not). My main interest is personal health and I am looking at this quote from that point of view. It could read something like this: The health system (formal) will keep you alive, self-help health practices will keep you at your best.

The way things go, we only see health providers when we are in need to return to our daily life. A quick visit, a quickly jotted down prescription and you are on your way, next! Imagine how different it would be if you worked regularly to maintain vibrant health, consulting with others who are experts in specific health fields, and then making decisions based on what you learnt. Your purpose would be to maintain your body, mind and spirit in the best possible condition, so you can do your life’s work. Just imagine.

Please register right away – we have already received over 500 women into the WOW Project Community!  Won’t you add YOUR energy and POWER to this call today?

Here’s the link:  http://www.worthyofwealth.com

We’ll be on twitter too! Here’s the hashtag:  #wowcall – we’d love to interact with you there during the call and get your live FEEDBACK!

In gratitude and service to the Feminine Divine!

Peace is IN YOU!!

Suppose a company is sold in its entirety, or decides to sell some or all of its book of business. You, the customer, can be sold as part of that deal irrespective of whether you would choose to deal with the buying company. If you have a long term contract for a service such as utility supply, it is highly unlikely that any such sale will trigger a get-out clause in your contract. But the selling company is making money by selling you.

If your employer is sold, again you have no freedom of action. Some roles may be made redundant, others retained. If you occupy a retained role which is unchanged by the takeover you have no right to redundancy, not even if the new employer is one you might never have chosen to work for. Again the seller makes money by selling you.

The bureaucracy collects data on its citizens. Should you be born, or marry, divorce, or die, it becomes a matter of record and those personal details can be sold. Should you become a company director, your details may be sold. Should you decide to exercise your right to vote, your details will be sold unless you opt out, and that doesn’t provide a 100% guarantee. If you require hospital treatment, the consent form hides a proviso that your details will be passed on to a commercial benchmarking organisation called Dr Foster. Yes, our bureaucracy is selling our personal information.

Try being economically active, and it’s no longer a matter of exchanging currency for goods. The seller will move heaven and earth to acquire as much data as they can about you in order to boost their profits. We have become so used to loyalty cards we no longer think of how these little plastic objects are used to capture our likes and dislikes so that we can be targeted with marketing. Buying car insurance? Try doing that without giving away details of your house insurance. Buy a one-off gift online from Mothercare for a friend’s new baby and you have to set up an account which demands a much wider range of details than are needed for the transaction. Set up an Amazon account and every time you log in your transaction history is used to try and make you buy Amazon’s own products and that of the many organisations which use Amazon as a trading platform. Buy an iPhone and you give Apple a record of your movements.

Organisations tend to justify the commercial extraction of your data by saying it is used to give you a better shopping experience. In the DeliveryDemon’s experience, most people are capable of making their own shopping decisions. And targeted marketing models are usually based on such unsophisticated assumptions that random recommendations may well be as effective as their targeted suggestions. The only exception the DeliveryDemon has noticed is in the case of small specialist organisations whose principals have a great deal in common with their customer base.

So who’s making money out of you? And are they paying you for the value they get from you?

Genesis 2, 7-9
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.  And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

A little more knowledge about the mechanics of why people who invest in land tend to be wealthier over time…

Land is a very effective hedge.  A hedge is something that protects something of value.  In the case of land investing, it hedges against loss of purchasing power.  When one has gathered purchasing power, they tend to want to keep that power, and investing in land gives them a vehicle to do just that.  Investments in commodity-producing land, land that is only valued for it’s ability to produce a commodity, generally does that.  It protects the real value of the purchasing power that it takes to own the land.  Real value is the purchasing power that owning an asset gives its owner.  Land generally does this while producing income from the production of the commodity.  As a society, we tend to think of our purchasing power in monetary units…dollars, euros, yen…  Monetary units are not purchasing power.  These units simply represent the purchasing power that an asset currently has.  This is the nominal value.  The value of an asset expressed in a monetary unit.  Hedges protect real value.  Effective hedges, such has land, protect purchasing power against inflation and deflation.

Wikipedia – Real versus nominal value – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_versus_nominal_value_(economics)

For example…

In 1975 Mr. Brown had $12,000.  This $12,000 represented enough purchasing power for him to buy a new car for his wife, a new pickup for him, a new tractor for the farm, and a small fishing boat, or he could buy 60 Acres of Timberland in Clay County, Alabama that was for sale and joined US Forest Service owned land in the Talladega National Forest.   Mr. Brown had to decide which to spend his money on.  Mr. Brown was still young, just 30 years old, but he knew he needed to be thinking about financial security for him and his young family.  He decided to buy the 60 Acres of timber land and forego buying any of the other things for the time being.  He really wanted the new car and the new pickup, but the ones they had were paid for and still in good working order.  He did not really need the fishing boat and he could get by with the tractor his dad had given him several years before.  The 60 Acres of timberland had just been cut about one year previous, and the seller was willing to have the trees replanted.  The land had frontage on a county dirt road, and was well away from any houses.  He reasoned that he could use the property to teach his children to enjoy the outdoors…maybe hunt the land, and fish the pond that he thought he might build on it some day.  He negotiated with the seller, and walked away from closing with a property that was newly planted in pine trees, and $1,000 left over to build that pond he was thinking of.  There was a nice little stream on the back of the property that was situated just right for a small dam and a small 1 acre pond.  10 years pass.  In that time, Mr. Brown and his son have hunted on the property every year.   His daugther grew to absolutely love fishing in that pond.  Mr. Brown’s wife liked that he was no longer spending money to be a part of that hunting club anymore too.   It was valuable time that Mr. Brown was able to spend with his children there.  Much more valuable than any of the things he could have bought with the $12,000.  In that 10 years the trees had gotten much larger.  It would soon be time to thin the stand to reap a little of the benefits of timberland ownership.  He waited another year for the pulp market to reach a peak and then sold 1/3 of the timber on the 60 acres.  He sold the timber for enough to finally buy that new tractor he had wanted.  Another 10 years go by…its now 1995.  Both of Mr. Brown’s children are now in college.  His son took a nice 8-point buck on the property when he was 16 and his daughter still loves spending time with her dad down by the pond at the ”old woods place”.  Mr. Brown knows that it’s time to cut the timber and start the process over again, and he sure could use the money to help fund college expenses.  He sells the timber, except for 5 acres around the pond, and  gets enough to pay for his childrens college tuition.  He has to scrape together a little money to replant the timber, but he looks back and figures it is a good investment to do so.  A few years later, Mr. Brown gets a call from a local real estate agent.  The agent tells him that he has someone looking to spend about $100,000 to buy a hunting / timber property.  Mr. Brown’s seemed to fit what the buyer was looking for.   Mr. Brown told the agent he wanted to think about it for a day or two, and get back with him.  Mr. Brown went down to the place and looked at his young, growing investments.  He looked at the pond, and the small field where his son missed his first deer.  Then he though about what that $100,000 would buy him…the purchasing power that owning that land gave him.  He reasoned that for $100,000 he could buy a new car for his wife, a new pickup for him, a new tractor so that he could give his to his son, and a fairly nice fishing boat.  On his way back home, he thought about what other things that invesment had provided him with through the years.  Money for that now aging tractor, money for his children’s college education, time spent with his family that no amount of money could buy.  And he reasoned that he had gotten all of that and the land was still worth, in real value,  about the same amount since he could still buy the same things with that purchasing power.  So he promptly called the agent back when he got home, and told him that there was no way that $100,000 would ever come close to the true value of the property.  He went on to say that he was going to keep the property to give it to his children, so that they could reap the benefits of it’s true value. 

Mr. Brown took $12,000 dollars in 1975, that would have bought many things for him and invested it in land.  He reaped both economic and non-economic values from the investment during his ownership of the invesment, and still had the same amount of purchasing power 25 years later.  This is not a far-fetched example.  This does happen.  Land was an effective hedge for Mr. Brown.  It protected his purchasing power, the real value.  He learned that the nominal value of $12,000 in 1975 was about the same in terms of real value as $100,000 was in 2000.  He learned that the true value could not be expressed in 1975 dollars or in 2000 dollars.  He did all of this while being a good steward of what God created and of what sustains him.

As Ben Pile points out in his excellent article in the Register, there are countless reasons to question the investments being made in the creation of green jobs.  To take one example, the creation of 25,000 jobs in the Waste Management and Recovery & Recycling sectors will come at a cost of £1.2m per job since as is very often the case with the green sector it absorbs rather than creates wealth.  For this reason, I think it is highly doubtful that such investments will create meaningful jobs or use resources rationally.  So then is this really the best way of spending money if the main aim is to boost the economy?  I think not.

This is why a focus on economic growth as an objective of economic activity is far better than a focus on environmental outturns.  Again, as Ben Pile points out, even the limited success of recycling activity in the UK is due to demand from the dynamic Chinese economy for raw materials.

When demand is high and economies are growing, common sense tells us that the use of resources, whether raw materials or labour, will be more efficient and therefore more productive.  The market may not be the most imaginably efficient way of doing things necessarily, but it is more efficient than an economic agenda which is led by ideology; what the GND is becoming.

“If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.”

So if you invest in your learning, you invest in your mind. Quite simply, the knowledge in your head and the way you control your mind cannot be taken away from you. In contrast, everything physical that we have can be taken away in some way. Invest in your mind and even if your worldly possessions were taken away from you at least you’d have the knowledge an right mind set to build it all again.

In my opinion, personal development is key to wealth generation and all round success. Find out more about my thoughts on my personal development website

Posted by Sara Brown, 06/03/2009

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A closer look, however, reveals that the rich have been badly shaken. Their fortunes may be returning, but they have lost their sense of stability, control and trust in institutions. And such changes could have a big impact on their spending, investing and philanthropy in the coming years.

The Economist Intelligence Unit, with sponsorship from Société Générale, has produced one of the best summaries to date of these potential changes.

The report, titled “The New World of Wealth: Seven Key Trends for Investing, Spending and Giving Among the Very Rich,” argues that some impacts from the financial crisis may be endure. “My impression is that most of the very wealthy are feeling completely at sea right now,” said one wealthy investor interviewed for the report.

Continue to The Wealth Report to read the full copy, including a summary of the seven key trends.

“It’s filling the space in between this historical space around philanthropy — charitable giving to fight poverty and alleviate misery — and the traditional investing space that is return-driven,” said Julia Sze, director of investments at Wells Fargo Family Wealth, who ran an impact investing conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

While most of the money is going into areas like helping to reduce poverty and improving the climate, it is not philanthropy. Investors expect at least a return of their capital with an adjustment for inflation and, in many cases, a lot more than that. And while microlending is a part of it, impact investing is different from what is offered by Web sites like Kiva. With minimum investments often around $1 million, it is also more sophisticated. In addition, these investors have a defined plan to sell their investments after a specific amount of time.

I came to think of impact investing as a private equity fund for social change. This may sound like an oxymoron, given the criticism that private equity funds have faced recently over their management of companies they have taken private. But the structure is similar: there are three or four capital calls in the first year, and the fund is not fully invested until the fourth year. As the end of its investment period nears, the fund then starts to look for ways to sell its investments. Doing good matters to investors, but they also hope for private equitylike returns of close to 20 percent a year.

Continue to The New York Times to read the full article

Simply put, the main issue I have been thinking about, is whether it is better to create efficient laws that enable the creation of jobs and wealth, rather than creating programs which essentially function as doles.  Take NREGA for example.  It is touted to be the largest social-welfare scheme in the country.  Its purpose is to provide employment, and in doing so, create infrastructure and assets.  However, as many critics point out, the NREGA provides jobs, not creates them.  There is no target on how people will be employed to build a certain amount of infrastructure.  It merely mandates that whoever cannot find a job, has to be given one.  This may involve digging a pit for 50 days, and covering it up for the other 50.

The scheme is not generating employment, or infrastructure.  It is merely handing out cash to poor unemployed farmers, while not really creating any long-term assets that will be useful to them in the long-run.  Agreed, it puts more money in the hands of rural Indians.  But it’s merely taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other!!  This does not generate more wealth in the country.  It just makes rural India richer at the expense of taxpayers!!

Another example could be that of the Factories Act.  The professed reasons for having the same is to regulate factories and the conditions of workers employed in them.  However, many critics point out their inherent inefficiencies.  Factory owners deliberately evade the provisions of the Act because it is so difficult to comply with.  There are innumerable anecdotal stories where one hears of factory owners running four different establishments (instead of one) with less than 20 workers to avoid coming under the Factories Act. Therefore, a law which is ostensibly a welfare legislation, is so difficult to comply with that owner prefer to stay outside its purview, defeating its very purpose.

Or take the Minimum Wage Act.  Workers under it are to be provided as minimum of Rs. 100 a day for every day’s work.  If one works 20 days a month for 12 months a year, one’s earning would be nearly Rs. 25,000 for the year.  However, there must be an analysis of whether minimum wage actually reduces potential for more people finding employment.  The argument is that if it is cheaper for a factory owner to invest in machinery than to pay workers Rs. 100 a day, he will mechanize his factory, thus reducing employment.  This conclusion was also reached by a Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress during the Clinton Administration.

While Rs. 100 seems like a paltry sum, what needs to be considered is whether there is a large number of people willing to work for say, Rs. 70-80 per month, who would otherwise have been employed, but now cannot find work because of our minimum wage law.

I am not proposing that this is indeed the case, but the truth is that in our country, there seems to be no strong alternative view to the dominant view of handing out welfare-based sops, rather than create an efficient and enabling state, which will help job creation, while also preventing exploitation.

The Siemens SGT-300 VOC CHP Solution 

Steven E. Sexton

The Siemens VOC CHP gas turbine solution defines the future of integrated plant design and sustainable industry via a remarkable economic model. 

 The high destruction efficiency of regulated volatile organic compounds (VOC) by Siemens 7.90MW(e) SGT-300 significantly enhance the value of a typical economic sensitivity model for a cogeneration plant operating with fixed and variable output. This is good news for industry.

 Thousands of existing facilities that use VOC abatement equipment and many more with the potential to use VOC abatement equipment represent a ready replacement market for the SGT-300 VOC CHP Solution. Given the goals of the USEPA and the USDOE to strategically deploy distributed generation (DG) throughout the power grid, the opportunity for energy efficiency and superior economics is at hand.

 Preliminary data suggests there may be over 25,000 industrial facilities in the United States that might be able to take advantage of this alternative technology.  If 60 percent of these facilities adopt the technology by 2030, the primary energy savings might exceed 1.25 quads of energy.  This is equivalent to the petroleum production that might be provided by opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

 Introduction

The Siemens 7.9-MW(e) SGT-300 VOC solution is a stationary industrial gas turbine technology featuring advanced combustor designs that enable the gas turbine engine to ingest volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the form of vapors and gases and thermally oxidize hydrocarbons to the end products carbon dioxide and water. VOCs originate from various solvents and fuels when used in industrial processes. Waste VOC emissions are ingested into the air intake of the gas turbine and are utilized in the gas turbine combustion chamber as a supplemental fuel in addition to the natural gas that is directly injected into the combustor to fuel the operation of the engine.

 Now that the United States and the world are determined to conserve valuable energy reserves and reduce climate change gasses via energy efficiency, high-Btu value solvent and fuel (VOC) emissions are a promising opportunity fuel. This is because VOCs have high heat value and can now be utilized by industrial gas turbines incorporating advanced designs. Therefore, VOCs can be sensibly used in the generation of electricity and valuable waste heat onsite. This technology solves a pollution control issue; conserves energy and reduces GHG via energy recycling. It replaces legacy VOC abatement equipment and the associated life cycle costs and promises to be a catalyst for long-term investment in onsite combined heat and power for industry.

 Regulatory Drivers

Combined heat and power systems result in energy conservation, efficiency, reductions of greenhouse gases, and reliable and uninterruptable power and steam for heating and cooling for industrial facilities when connected to an interactive grid; and CHP answers the call for Homeland Energy Security. The benefits of energy conservation and reductions of greenhouse gases are social benefits not included in break-even analysis when considering contributions of revenue vs. total fixed cost of a VOCGEN CHP system, yet these social values are drivers of change. In addition, the United States Department of Energy and the United States Environmental Protection Agency has determined that combined heat and power (CHP) fueled by clean-burning natural gas is a best available long-term strategic plan for American industry based on energy efficiency.

 The Market

Because combined heat and power systems comprising gas turbines are capital intensive, to date, combined heat and power have found limited applications with the exception of large-scale downtown heating districts, and university, medical and military institutions. In the United States, Con Edison distributes 30 billion pounds of 350°F (180°C) steam each year through its seven (7) cogeneration plants to 100,000 buildings in Manhattan, which is the largest steam district in the world. The peak delivery is 10 million pounds per hour (corresponding to approx. 2.5 GW). This steam distribution system is the reason for the steaming manholes often seen in New York-based movies (Reuters: Research and Markets).

To make economic sense of many of these type of projects, government or “public” funds and tax incentives have been applied as a means to create workable project financing solutions for investors, lending institutions and the end user/owner. Large scale industrial users of energy like wood, pulp and paper mills and mining operations will justify and build onsite combined heat and power systems, but it is not entirely common. Past breakthrough applications, featuring smaller scale systems include publicly funded landfill and municipal digester gas; convention and conference centers, hotels, casinos and biomass, which are currently in hot pursuit. The financial viability of commercial projects typically depends on government subsidies and incentives, stable electricity and natural gas prices and recently “guaranteed savings” by developers,  however, these are commercial applications as opposed to industrial applications. Industrial applications are small scale CHP in the range of <50MW such as well field; distribution and storage; transportation and transfer; and manufacturing, which is the focus of the Siemens VOC CHP Solution.

 Economics

Economics are the key to the implementation of new energy and environmental technologies and businesses.  We have witnessed the recent surge of investment in renewable clean energy alternative fuels and technologies. We also have seen many investors pull back from their optimism and investments in renewables after witnessing the actual cash flows and balance sheet results from these popular clean energy projects and businesses. A good energy idea in today’s marketplace must demonstrate compelling economics to justify investment. From the big picture, investing in new technology without real savings is just trading dollars. It may move the economy along but that is the type of short term thinking that has contributed to the existing economic issues we face with energy today. What is needed is real lower costs and greater returns that result in wealth generation and result in long term projects that create jobs.” Many believe that widely deploying combined heat and power in industry can create jobs, real wealth and can be a very positive change for industry.

 We must wisely put into practice long term sustainable planning and projects using energy efficient equipment and systems; projects that we can put into operation now to eliminate energy-intensive and expensive combustion technologies.

The leaders in combined heat and power, including industry associations and state and Federal agencies are accurate in their approach and thinking about combined heat and power and they are on target to deploy combined heat and power. I urge investors and industry leaders to get involved in financing combined heat and power projects because “efficiency” means savings and that translates into long term projects, long term profitability, competitiveness and meaningful change in the American economy.

 Market Barriers and Barrier-Breakers

Combined heat and power has not been widely deployed in the past for several primary reasons, but regulations and policies are shaping up.  Some barriers and barrier breakers include:

1. Electricity and natural gas prices must exceed certain price thresholds to justify the capital investment and the difference between purchased electricity and purchased natural gas.  This “spark spread,” condition must be perceived to trend over time to realize a return on investment acceptable to investors and industrial operators and owners.
2. Throughout the period of electrical deregulation, electric power monopolies have resisted combined heat and power by offering low rates for electrical power to industry and they charge tariffs and other standby charges needed for demand response to maintain generation assets in case of DG power system failures and unexpected demand for power.
3. Electricity and natural gas prices have been “volatile” in that prices trend up and down based supply and demand and money market conditions and this makes it difficult to predict and guarantee that a combined heat and power installation will be able to achieve the “savings” anticipated at startup.
4. Standard grid interconnect switchgear has just recently been developed thanks to changing standards, new Federal legislation and policies. This has helped the states to make the changes they needed to standardize the design of switchgear technology and to begin to build the new “smart grid.”
5. The Federal Government has led the way for out-put based environmental regulations for energy efficient technology that has lower emissions because it burns less fuel. Some states are modeling from that example by incorporating new provisions in their rules and regulations.

 20-Year Plan

My proposed 20-year plan to deploy the VOC solution involves replacing approximately 100,000 boilers, chillers, pollution control thermal oxidizers, flares and other combustion and thermally activated devices that are utilized at manufacturing, petrochemical and synthetic organic manufacturing facilities; including bulk oil, gasoline, ethanol and biogas at loading and unloading facilities in truck, train, and shipping terminals. There are approximately 100 EPA-regulated industrial categories subject to the Clean Air Act that are major sources of VOC emissions. These industries have emission sources from operations such as paint and coatings, plastics, semi-conductor, pharmaceutical manufacturing, etc. Remarkably, many major source facilities enjoy “grandfathered” air quality permit status and are able to emit 50 to 100 tons of VOC annually.  The good news is that the Siemens VOC CHP solution can be an attractive economic proposition and energy efficiency opportunity for these industries.  The result can be a true net reduction of ozone and carbon emissions in air shed inventories wherever the application is deployed.

Regardless of the fact that we have a VOC destruct gas turbine technology and a well-defined niche market, it does not guarantee that our plan or the government plan for combined heat and power will be implemented as widely and quickly as needed to turn around energy efficiency economics for industry within the United States. As of now, the economy is in a recession, credit is not flowing and investors are apprehensive, but we must consider the future and agree that the economy of the United States and of the world may not change for the better unless we work together to change it.

 Combined heat and power is well-understood and practiced. The technology consists of off-the-shelf system designs together with pre-tested, pre-certified and pre-packaged equipment designed for rapid deployment once project development details, including risk and feasibility assessments, permitting and contracts are in place.

 Market Projections

Gas turbine combined heat and power technology, the compelling economics are not just highly efficient energy generation and greenhouse gas reductions, but VOC abatement. On the surface, it sounds like a very nice emerging waste-to-energy technology but it significantly represents better economics. That is because it can also eliminate the life cycle costs of legacy boilers, chillers, flares and thermal oxidizers. What we have then is a new economic model for air pollution controls. It is a wealth-generation model created by increasing income and decreasing spending; where payback periods can be less than 1-2 years, it produces excellent internal rates of return and excellent savings for large scale industrial end users. No other air pollution control or CHP technology have claim to this economic model.

 Preliminary data suggests there may be over 25,000 industrial facilities in North America that might be able to take advantage of this alternative technology. If 60 percent of these facilities adopt the technology by 2030, the primary energy savings might exceed 1.25 quads of energy. This is equivalent to the petroleum production that might be provided by opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge^[1].

I have projected that 20 years from initial commercialization, the conversion to industrial combined heat and power technology throughout American industry could contribute an estimated $3.0 trillion USD or more of wealth to the country including jobs, tax base, environmental and health benefits and the value of a decentralized grid and grid security.

 Summary

I am certain that most people understand by now that biogas, geothermal and solar (including wind and wave) may never be able to widely power our growing American industry; and nuclear power does not seem to be a sweeping option with uranium supplies low and the overwhelming environmental and health concerns for its use. As fossil fuels reach peak use rates and oil and gas reserves decline around the world, other nations may covet their fuel supplies and we may find the global energy situation to be highly competitive and expensive. If this happens, our concern here in America will be the production of our own energy, conservation of valuable energy reserves and the energy efficient design of sustainable industry to ultimately influence the transformation of our future job market and our economy.

 This communication contains statements expressing expectations of future events and/or results, which may include, without limitation, statements concerning anticipated financial performance, business prospects, technological developments, potential markets, new products, research and development activities and similar matters.  Such statements constitute forward-looking statements.  A projected financial statement based on management expectations.  A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  All statements based on future expectations rather than historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and S.E. Sexton cannot provide assurance that such statements will prove to be correct.   S.E. Sexton undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

[1] This estimate is derived from calculations by Laitner (2004) and compared to ANWR production potential found in Koomey et al. (2003).

]]> http://vocgen.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/cogeneration-applications-for-over-100-industrial-categories/ Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:50:54 +0000 vocgen http://vocgen.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/cogeneration-applications-for-over-100-industrial-categories/ I invite readers to review our website at http://www.vocgen.com and learn more about our environment and power solution for industry. The EPA regulates about 100 discrete industrial categories that generate volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.  VOC emissions are generated in processes (sources) that use solvents and fuels, etc., at manufacturing, petrochemical and synthetic chemical facilities including ship, rail, and truck; and tank, piping, well field and platform infrastructure.  VOCs are an energy-recycling opportunity for over 25,000 facilities in the USA.

Replacing legacy air pollution control technology at facilities that use air pollution controls to comply with air quality permits will definitely benefit the user and society. We also build winning economic models for industries that have never used air pollution controls, but emit thousands of tons of VOCs annually under grandfathered permits. Imagine that! Let’s go to work!