머니투데이 코로나가 중국의 새 무기? "3차대전 생물학 무기 사용" 군 문서 입수 --->히틀러 치하의 나치 독일보다 더 위험한 나라, 중국 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 국민연금과 건강보험도 사실상 세금 아닌가? 디시인저장소 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11341571694 기본적으로 사람들이 인지하고 있는 세금은 직접세인 소득세와 지방세, 그리고 물건을 구매할 때 부과되는 간접세가 있습니다. 간접세로 많이 나가는 것은 대표적으로 기름과 담배죠. 간접세와 기타 다른 세금은 일단 논외로 하고, 직접세를 보자면 소득세와 지방세 합친 금액으로 지방세는 소득세의 1/10입니다. 매달 월급에서 빠져나가는 금액을 보자면 소득이 많지 않은 직장인들 기준으로는 그 자체는 세금이 많지 않다고 할 수 있습니다. 연봉 3천의 직장인인의 경우, 매달 250만원의 월급을 받는 셈인데, 대충 계산하자면 소득세와 지방세를 합쳐도 4만원이 되지 않습니다. 그런데 국민연금은 10만원이 넘어가고, 건강보험도 8만원에 육박합니다. 그리고 어느순간 스리슬쩍 껴들어간 장기요양보험 이것도 처음에는 1~2천원 수준이었다가 지금은 몇천원 이상 납부하는 수준이 되었죠. 소득에 따라서는 몇만원 내는 사람도 있을 겁니다. 그래서 다 뜯기고 나면 실수령액은 225만원 수준이 되지요. 국민의 세금이라는 것이 나라의 살림을 위해서 징수되는 것이지만, 세금에는 부의 재분배 역할을 하는 부분도 있기 때문에 복지에도 쓰여지지요. 그런데 명목은 세금이 아니지만 국민연금, 건강보험 그리고 기타등등은 소득세보다 훨씬 많이 뜯어가기 때문에, 실질적으로는 세금과 같은 느낌이 듭니다. 자영업자의 경우에는 세금이 더 많이 부과되는데다가 건강보험의 경우도 지역가입자로 분류가 되어서 그 부담이 크지요. 직장 가입자는 국민연금과 건강보험의 절반을 회사에서 부담합니다. 그래서 직장 가입자의 부담이 자영업자에 비해서 상대적으로 적은 것이지만 월급 대비 부담이 큰 것은 마찬가지입니다. 국민연금의 경우에는 65세 이상의 나이(69년생 이후)가 되어야 수령할 수 있는 것이고, 직장인의 경우에는 강제 가입이기 때문에 선택의 여지가 없지요. 그리고 65세 이전에 사망하면 그 연금은 그냥 소멸되겠죠? (국민연금 제대로 받으려면 가늘고 길게 벽에 똥칠할 때까지 살아야 합니다) 국민연금이 고갈된다는 얘기들은 예전부터 많이 들려왔습니다. 애초에 가입과 탈퇴를 선택할 수 있면 좋았을 것을 슨상시절에 직장인 강제 가입이 논란이 있었지만 그냥 강행했지요. 어쨌거나 국민연금에 대한 문제는 이정도로 줄이고... 건강보험, 이것은 좋은 시스템이지만 지금은 내국인이 낸 돈으로 외국인이 뽕을 뽑는 제도가 되어버렸지요. 외국인(대부분 짱깨) 덕분에 적자난 건강보험의 부담은 점점 더 커지고 있지요. 역사를 배우면서 과거에 수탈이 어쩌구 하지만, 정작 지금 세금이라는 이름이 붙지 않았지 이런 저런 명목으로 실질적인 세금을 뜯어내는 것이 아닌가요? 다른게 수탈이 아닙니다. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 문 정권, 해도 해도 너무하게 세금을 거두고 있다. - 예전에는 피부양자였던 이들에게 이제는 건강보험료 부과 , 심지어 파생상품에까지 양도소득세 과세 언제나힘차게 http://www.ilbe.com/view/11341556546 재난 지원금이라고, 그것도 국민 세금으로 모아진 돈을, 이 정권이 인심이나 쓰는 듯 하면서 몇 십만원 지급하고, 차라리 그러한 일회성 이벤트같은 일을 하지말고, 힘든 국민에게 세금을 더 거두지 말아야지, 은퇴한 이들이나, 여러 사정으로 일자리를 구하지 못한 이들에게까지, 예전에는 소득이 있는 자식이나 형제의 피부양자로 있던 이들중에 상당수가 건강보험료를 갑자기 부과받게 되었는데, 실제 생활비 마련도 힘든 이들의 지갑에서 돈을 거두지 말아야한다. 올해부터는 파생상품에까지 양도소득세를 엄청나게 부담시키고 있다. 파생상품에 투자하는 것은 그만큼 위험부담을 떠안은 이들이 하는 일인데, 그렇다고 그들이 거의 빈털털이 이상의 손실을 보면, 그 손실을 보충해주지도 않으면서, 어디에서 예전에는 없던 부족분이 있는 지, 과도한 세금을 거두는 지 정말 정상적인 언론들이 있다면, 이렇게 말도 안되는 세금을 갑작스레 그 금액도 적지않은 것을 부과하는 이 정권을 제대로 비판하고, 정말 힘들어 못살겠다고 투쟁을 해야할 상황이라고 본다. 정말 심해도 너무 심하다. 이런 가혹한 징세에도 아가리 처닫고 있는 사탄파 버러지들, 국짐당 것들은 더 문제 이미 우파 정권임을 포기하고, 경제 민주화운운하고, 재난지원금 더 퍼줘라고 헛소리하고 자빠짐 사탄파 비박 버러지들과 그 하수인 위장 보수매체 퇴출이 우파 정당 정립에 첫걸음 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "유사 이래 최대 악법, 4·3특별법은 위헌이다"… 7개 시민단체 "효력정지" 촉구 "공산폭동 정당화, 대한민국 정체성 부정한 수형인에게 1조3000억 보상… 최악의 법" 한변 등 7개 시민단체, 4·3특별법 효력정지가처분결정 및 위헌법률결정 촉구 회견 뉴데일리 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 정완진TV] 원자재값 '폭등' , "최악 인플레 온다"~~[멋진아재TV] https://youtu.be/4cEix1-Icjc --->코로나 사태 이후로 세계 각국이 시장에 마구 돈을 뿌리고 있다. 시장에 돈이 몰리면 주식이든 부동산이든 사람들이 달려드는 상품은 가격이 오를 수 밖에 없다. 1차대전 후의 독일과 같은 끔찍한 인플레 사태가 오지 않기만을 기도해야 할 판이다. 세금이 오르고 물가가 또 오르면 서민들이 밥을 제대로 먹지 못하는 일도 일어날 수 있다. 베네수엘라처럼 최악의 경우 한국인들이 단체로 강제 다이어트를 할 수도 있다. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 오징어 비싸진 게 중국 때문? 울릉도 앞까지 점령한 중국 불법 어선들 출처 : SBS 뉴스 원본 링크 : https://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1005899428&plink=COPYPASTE&cooper=SBSNEWSEND ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 거짓말로 경제를 살릴 수는 없다 레이건 대통령이 “정부는 문제의 해결사들이 아니라 문제 그 자체이다”라고 했을 때, 그는 1970년대 중반 이후의 일반적인 상식을 요약했다. 하지만 자유시장만이 경제 성장의 방도라는 생각은 2007 ~ 2009년의 불황으로 금이 가기 시작했고, 우한 폐렴 사태로 완전히 몰락했다. 언론인, 정치인, 학자, 기업인 등의 좌파들은 지난 40년간 시장으로 인해 특정 문제가 발생했고, 이를 시정하기 위해서는 정부의 개입이 필요하다고 주장했다. 하지만 정부 개입으로 실시된 정책은 새로운 문제들을 낳았고, 그것은 다시 새로운 정부 개입을 초래했다. 그리고 그런 정부 개입은 또다시 실패를 거듭했다. 하지만 이런 모든 과정에 언론 매체는 시장이 완전한 자유를 누리고 있다고 말해왔다. 최근 타임지의 크리스 휴즈 기자가 쓴 기사는 좌파 경제학자인 폴 크루그먼이 정직해 보일 정도로 왜곡이 심하다. 정부가 지출을 삭감했다는 주장은 좌파들의 환상이다. 그래프가 보여주듯이, 연방정부의 지출은 특히 공화당 대통령 치하에서 급격히 상승했다. (그래프 생략) 휴즈같은 좌파들은 폴 크루그먼이 일주일에 두 번씩 발표하는 칼럼-- 정부 지출은 선이고, 개인의 저축과 투자는 악이다--을 신조처럼 받들고, 그것을 무수히 반복하는데, 그러면 그것이 일반적인 사실이 된다고 믿는다. 현재 좌파들이 하는 거짓말은 이렇다: 장기적으로 경제를 성장시키는 방법은, 수조 달러를 빌려서 그것을 일하지 않는다는 조건으로 사람들에게 뿌려주고, 한편으론 수익이 나는 사업의 자본을 막고 그 자본을 대체 에너지 사업에 돌리는 것이라는 거짓말이다. 크루그먼과 휴즈같은 좌파들은 우리가 번영하기 위해 필요한 건 정부가 돈을 빌리고 또 돈을 찍어내서 새로운 “투자”에 돈을 대는 것이라고 한다. 그러면 기후변화도 막고 그 과정에서 모든 사람이 고소득의 직업을 얻게 된다는 것이다. We Cannot Build an Economy on Lies William L. Anderson In a recent issue, Time Magazine boldly declared, “The Free Market Is Dead,” and then added: “What Will Replace It?” Of course, one always can expect Time to be disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, and as an academic economist, I have come to realize that after reading Time off and on for more than five decades, this is a publication that rarely gets it right when it comes to economic analysis. Yet, we also are dealing with a publication that effectively reflects whatever the current spirit might be. In the mid-1980s, Time gave its readers the infamous cover condemning the bacon-and-eggs breakfast and gave massive publicity to the eat-more-carbs “experts.” America’s climb into obesity followed shortly afterward, and even Time had to backtrack on its original claims in 2014, admitting that the so-called food science truths it promoted turned out to be falsehoods. One doubts, however, that Time ever will admit in any future edition that it has promoted outright economic lies while it promotes the policies of the Joe Biden administration. Instead, one figures that the publication will do what it always does when the government interventions it champions blow up: blame free market capitalism. For example, even more than a decade after the 2008 meltdown occurred, Time still claims that the free market did it: We are witnessing the most profound realignment in American political economy in nearly forty years. President Ronald Reagan summed up the conventional wisdom that reigned from the mid-1970s onward in the United States: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Economists, policymakers, and everyday Americans alike generally accepted that markets, unfettered and free, are the best way to create economic growth. (Emphasis mine) That ideology began to crack after the Great Recession, and in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it has collapsed. The rise of ethno-nationalism on the right and democratic socialism on the left testify to the growing disillusionment with the conventional wisdom of how government and economics are supposed to work. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that government housing policies, combined with the policies of the Federal Reserve System, helped drive the infamous housing and stock booms even if the editors of Time refuse to acknowledge its existence. No free market in real estate and banking would have created the utter recklessness that characterized the booms of the early 2000s, even as we see a current repeat of the housing and stock bubbles, houses of cards that have arisen in the aftermath of government’s near nationalization of the mortgage industry. The reckless behavior we observed happened because the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke made public their infamous “put,” a promise to “provide liquidity” to the markets in case of losses. With the Fed providing the financial backstop, investors were greatly incentivized (to put it mildly) to pyramid questionable securities atop each other until the whole unstable mass collapsed. Not surprisingly, the Krugmans of the economic and political world claimed the entire matter was due to rampant free enterprise. Progressives, including journalists, politicians, academics, and corporate interests, for the past four decades have claimed that markets have caused a particular problem—a problem that usually is related to a past government market intervention—and demand governmental action to fix that same problem. The proposed intervention, after being implemented, then causes another set of issues (and it also fails to “fix” the original difficulty) that now requires even more governmental action. All the time, the media assures us, the economy has operated under total laissez-faire. One is hard-pressed to understand how the onset of covid-19 discredited free markets, given that private enterprise was the entity that kept necessities delivered to American homes even while governments at all levels did everything they could to shut down the economy. It wasn’t the government that made massive adjustments on the fly to keep Americans fed, clothed, and relatively healthy. Instead, governments engineered the mass deaths in nursing homes (by ordering patients infected with covid to be put into the nursing home populations) and thoroughly botched the distribution of vaccines. But Time has spoken; the free market caused covid. The magazine is not satisfied with false claims about what happens with free markets, electing to shill for the economic plans of the Biden administration, which make the irresponsible economic policies of Donald Trump look almost Misesian in comparison. Not surprisingly, Time gives its readers a rather crabbed (and false) history of what has happened in the last forty years regarding government and the economy. While I cannot repeat everything Chris Hughes has written on the recent history of “free market” economics, what I can say is that his account makes even Paul Krugman look honest. Here are a few vignettes: A crisis in confidence in government triggered the last paradigm shift, making way for the rise of free market thinking. In the 1970s, the Vietnam War and Watergate challenged America’s faith in their leaders at the start of the decade. Meanwhile, the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and the introduction of affirmative action profoundly threatened the American racial order of the time, facilitating a narrative that government was putting its thumb on the scale for “undeserving” Black and poor folks. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East flared, causing oil prices to spike and creating long gas lines. Inflation was out of control, reaching as high as 20% on an annualized basis in 1978. Americans stopped spending, and inflation and unemployment kept rising. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, Congress, the Federal Reserve all failed to develop any coherent program to help. Far-right economists and policymakers were waiting in the wings with an explanation for the social and economic instability and a way out: government created our problems, and markets will solve them. It gets even better: Inside the academy, they aimed to demolish the intellectual paradigm that predated free market orthodoxy, the Keynesian consensus. Before the 1970s, most economists and lawyers believed that we needed robust government action—countercyclical fiscal spending, management of the currency, tactical protectionism—to create long-term prosperity. The free market apostles wanted to erase the role of the state. Their ideas rapidly caught on more broadly, in large part because of a shift in the country’s racial politics. Their supposedly “values neutral” economic framework justified an end to race conscious policymaking. Until the 1960s, numerous government policies were explicitly racist. Black Americans were unable to take advantage of the Homestead Act or the GI Bill, and they were effectively barred from purchasing homes, limiting their ability to build household wealth. But the 1960s saw a historic shift with government moving to support racial equality, through the Civil Rights Acts, Voting Rights Act, and integrated schools. Free market orthodoxy made an intellectual case that government should stop pursuing policies that might disproportionately help Black Americans, like investments in public housing or affordable health care. Any state program—even those focused on reducing poverty, providing healthcare access, or banning discrimination in the workplace—was an “intervention” in the natural economy, no matter how virtuous the intent. Political leaders cast the logic in unthreatening language, arguing that hard working Americans, whatever their race, should simply work their way to the top. But limiting government’s role in public investment and regulation only entrenched and deepened the racial inequities in the American economy. Reagan and George H.W. Bush used the same rhetoric of the free market to demolish programs that reined in private corporations and supported the middle class and poor. Their successors, Democrats and Republicans alike, continued to cut spending, pursue deregulation, and privatize swaths of the government. The scenario Hughes has presented does not exactly square with what happened since the 1970s. First, and perhaps most important, the first meaningful steps toward reversing the inflation and economic instability of that time did not come from Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, or others who might fall into the “free market” category. Instead, they came from President Jimmy Carter, Cornell University economist Alfred Kahn, and Senator Edward Kennedy, names that are not exactly synonymous with free market economics. These men were the architects of massive deregulation that effectively repealed many New Deal–era regulatory measures of railroads, trucking, passenger airlines, and finance, and they also began steps to undo the regulatory measures shackling telecommunications. Furthermore, it was Jimmy Carter who appointed Paul Volcker, who at least brought some discipline to the Federal Reserve, certainly more discipline than what we saw from Republican appointments. (Yes, these facts do disturb the modern progressive narratives that Hughes presents, which is why they didn’t make it into the Time article.) Second, the notion that governments cut spending is simply a progressive fantasy. The graph below shows that contrary to what Hughes claims, federal spending per capita has risen sharply, especially with Republican presidents. However, in 2008 all those so-called free market reforms fell apart and it was Government to the Rescue. That the current real estate and stock market bubbles are the direct creation of a nationalized mortgage system and aggressive Federal Reserve System efforts to suppress interest rates does not even begin to resonate with people like Hughes. They simply stick to the narratives spelled out twice weekly by Paul Krugman—government spending is good, private saving and investment are bad—and repeat them enough that they supposedly become established facts. So, what kind of economic future do Hughes and Time envision for the rest of us? Hughes presents a scenario: [A] managed economy on a national scale needs public investment to flourish. When government invests in public goods like roads, airports, public transit, schools, solar panels, economic growth soars—just like when you put a roof over a farmer’s market. President Biden has begun his term as President by proposing a $2 trillion infrastructure investment and calling it a prerequisite for creating growth in the future. Finally, the new managed market recognizes the need for the state to buffer shocks and surprises. The fantasy continues: At a national level, monetary and fiscal authorities employ macroeconomic policy to mitigate the blows of unexpected crises. Just last year in response to the pandemic, the Federal Reserve took rates to zero, restarted its bond buying program, and broke new ground by moving into corporate and municipal debt markets. Meanwhile, political leaders of both parties passed three emergency aid bills to keep tens of millions of Americans out of poverty and thousands of businesses above water. Without this support, economists believe we would be living through the darkest time in modern economics. “Without them, without those fiscal and monetary measures, the global contraction last year would have been three times worse,” said the managing director of the IMF. “This could have been another Great Depression.” We have always used regulation, public investment, and macroeconomic management to make our economy work, but we’ve done so sporadically and often weakly because we’ve told ourselves a different story about how the economy works. It’s time for the story we tell to match the reality of economic growth—and to fully embrace the opportunity that creates. As I read this sort of economic revisionism, I am reminded of Rod Dreher’s book, Live Not by Lies, which is based on a text written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Dreher is writing specifically to American Christians who are facing increasing hostility from progressives and the institutions that they control. His point is that much of what our political, economic, media, and educational elites are telling us are outright lies and that elites are demanding that everyone conform to them. Those that don’t are mobbed, fired from their jobs, and publicly humiliated. Likewise, we see elite academic economists and elite journalists telling outright falsehoods about our own economic history, making false claims and even trying to portray the Great Depression itself as something that was caused by failing markets and was mitigated and ultimately ended by FDR’s New Deal policies. (Krugman and other economists make the false claim that the New Deal actually created the American middle class.) The current set of lies tell us that the way to “grow” the economy over the long term is for government to borrow trillions of dollars, spend it on programs (such as paying people not to work at a time when jobs are begging) while simultaneously blocking capital development in areas that are profitable, especially in the energy industries in which the Biden administration plans to seek capital “divestment” from profitable oil and gas ventures and divert capital into the inefficient and costly “alternative energy” sectors. The Biden administration justifies such plans by claiming that “thousands of new jobs” will be created in the solar and windmill industries to replace those lost elsewhere, something that is economically impossible if the “new” technologies are more costly and less productive than what currently exists. (The bigger lie is that such destruction of the economy will reverse the dreaded “climate change,” making everything worth it.) So, the lies continue to pile up. Massive borrowing and spending by the federal government will create all sorts of economic miracles such as ending poverty, pumping vast amounts of new money will neither increase inflation nor force up interest rates (from Janet Yellen), and the government can administratively replace prices and profits when it comes to capital development and there be no negative consequences or even the dreaded opportunity cost. All it takes is vision and political will, both of which Biden and his government own in spades. We don’t need for the “build back better” economy to play out in order to know how this latest iteration of democratic socialism (or whatever one calls it) will end. Inflation already is here, even in the early stages of the so-called Biden boom. While Yellen, Biden, Krugman, and media acolytes such as Hughes are claiming that all that is needed to bring back prosperity is for government to borrow and print money, which will pay for all of the new “investments” to save us from climate change and in the process give everyone high-paying jobs, the economic adults in the room know better. Economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard didn’t live by lies, nor did they advocate replacing the truth with lies when presenting economic analysis. Mises a century ago proved that one cannot build an economy on socialist lies, and nothing since has proved him wrong. William L. Anderson is a professor of economics at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 위싱턴의 공화, 민주 양당의 무책임한 재정 정책 2020 회계연도에 연방 정부는 세수로 3.42조를 거둬들였지만, 6.55조 달러를 지출했다. 다시 말해 연방 지출의 거의 반이 부채로 채워졌다는 것이다. 그런데 바이든 정부는 이미 1.9조 달러의 “미국 구조 계획”을 밀어붙이고 있고, 초기 사업 비용이 2.2조 달러에 이르는 기간산업 재건 사업을 시작하려 하고 있다. 하지만 이 사업은 결국은 4조 달러의 사업이 될 거라는 관측이 있다. 정부는 미친 재정 정책을 밀어붙이고 있고, 위싱턴은 재정 파국을 향해 신나게 돌진하고 있다. Washington's Bipartisan Fiscal Folly Mark Hendrickson For years, I have been sounding the alarm about chronic federal deficit spending—practiced by both Republicans and Democrats—steering our country into a fiscal abyss. I feel like a broken record as I periodically chronicle the folly of it all. The process has taken on a sense of inevitability as we watch what feels to me like a slow-motion train wreck. I have remarked on various milestones along this dangerous course: Americans as a people and a polity are astoundingly indifferent to debt and have embraced it as the (temporarily) normal way to live. One significant marker along the way was the grim prospect of more of our tax dollars going to service of the national debt than to national defense. (I also pointed out that this has only been possible because a compliant central bank, the Federal Reserve System, has suppressed interest rates—the cost of borrowing money—for over a decade and, indeed, has painted itself into a corner that makes ultralow interest rates the only policy option until a financial cataclysm occurs.) I noted that populist president Donald Trump—despite adopting a number of economically intelligent policies—was completely unwilling to rein in federal spending. Unlike some Republican leaders in previous years, Trump perceived that Democrats’ big-spending agenda was unstoppable. He indicated this major concession by readily agreeing to suspend Uncle Sam’s statutory debt ceiling in the summer of 2019 and then adopted a $1.4 trillion increase in the government’s discretionary spending in December 2019. Since then, the deficit spending problem has accelerated at a dizzying pace. The pretext or trigger or (ir)rationale (whatever you prefer to call it) was the covid-19 pandemic. In my article about the December 2019 spending blowout, I underscored the simple mathematic fact of life that federal deficits were growing because even though the government’s revenue was increasing by 4 percent, spending was rising by 8 percent. Fast-forward to the present: according to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Deficit Tracker, as of this April, “[w]hile revenues have grown 6% year-over-year, cumulative spending has surged 45% above last year’s pace.” Again, the pretext or trigger for this was the enormously problematical federal response to the covid-19 pandemic. Thus, in fiscal year 2020, the federal government spent $6.55 trillion while collecting $3.42 trillion in revenue. In other words, almost half of federal spending was covered by new debt. This happened with the full support of a Republican president. It has gotten worse under President Joe Biden. Currently, more than half of federal spending is being financed by debt. Apparently determined to reestablish the Democratic brand as the party of bigger government, Biden already has pushed through his $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan.” And now he is pushing his “infrastructure” package with an initial price tag of $2.2 trillion, although the Wall Street Journal estimates that it could ultimately cost over $4 trillion. Meanwhile, having recently completed my 2020 income tax forms, it struck me that Uncle Sam is paying me more than I am paying him. I am the definition of a middle-class taxpayer, by no means a poverty case. So tell me: How can any government afford to pay its middle-income citizens more than they pay the government? This brings to mind President Grover Cleveland’s statement, “Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.” The government not only “should not” support us, it literally cannot. Government has no wealth but what it first takes from real people, so if most people either pay no taxes or receive payments from the government, the inevitable result is an unviable fiscal policy. This is folly—fiscal insanity, actually—of the first order. And yet, official Washington charges blithely on toward its eventual fiscal crack-up. Mark Hendrickson is adjunct professor of economics at Grove City College. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------