Land ownership is a government-granted monopoly, subject to certain limitations. Owning land isn't the same thing as owning a computer - it's more like owning copyrights or domain names. It necessarily requires a force ("threats of violence" in ALawPokerese) for the ownership to be maintained. Thus the entitlement goes both ways.

It's funny how right after I said kookiness is common, everyone jumps in to volunteer their ridiculous political thoughts.

its funny how if anyone did an analysis of your posting history theyd find 9/10 of your posts are nothing more than insults. you can never hold back, can you. your friend to enemy ratio cant be good.

There's a difference between basic land rights (i.e. it's the government's by default and is sold in the marketplace) and central planning where something other than who's willing to pay the most deciding who gets the land.

Clearly by central planning we're talking about a decision being made by a person or entity that favored one person or another based on something other than how much they were willing to pay for the land.

But good job getting an A+ in nitpicking and trying to make people spell out exactly what they meant by their post when any reasonable person could tell what they meant.

Feel free to do such an analysis and post/pm the results. I love how people feel it's okay to frivolously insult or libel entire groups of people but get defensive when they are rightfully called out for spewing crap.

You completely missed the point. All land use is necessarily externality-laden. Basic land rights already include, for instance, provisions for eminent domain, zoning laws and other legal restrictions. Thus, your basic land rights are not being violated when any of those provisions are triggered. Blaming the law makes no sense when your rights begin with the law. The specificity here as to which laws make sense is not a ideological question you can answer in vaccum.

I completely disagree that it can't be answered ,given the foundation upon which the country was built (we're not in a vacuum). The basic premise here is the "I can"s being forced to give to "I need"s. In the specific example we are talking about, the law which does not make sense given that we're not in a vauum, we're in America, would be the law that would force upon the landowner a rent ceiling or a mandated % break on a certain person's rent based on their need of such a break.

Going back to the original spot where I jumped into this thread, what was finalized in 1913 was not finalized in a vacuum, it was finalized in America, a country with a specific foundation of ideals which have, since that point, been turned upside down.

what part of your post explains the frivolousness, the insult, libel or the crap displayed. if you dont go over this then i can only assume these descriptions apply to your post.

The foundation upon which the country was built is a set of compromises between the states. Read the constitution and consider the representational scheme (including the original ridiculous slaves counting as 3/5ths of a person each). In fact the fifth amendment specifically allows for government expropriation of private property. The constitution allows individual states to do pretty much whatever they want except what's specifically disallowed in the constitution (individual states decided whether slavery was allowed, for instance), and this includes fairly broad oversight over land use within its territory. Anything that says otherwise is romantic revisionist history.

I would lump this in as being on the same level of garbage as the 16th.

And the slaves getting counting as 3/5th of a person is definitely ridiculous. Given how things were back then, it's not particularly outrageous.

I would turn more towards the Declaration of Independence than the the Constitution to really get a grasp of what it was this country was for. Unfortunately, democracy was not the correct answer, as we are now seeing (though the fact that it took 140 years for the tumble to really begin is pretty astonishing and shows just how strong the resolve of individualism really was for the first few generations).

To be more explicit, we've exchanged absolute invididual despotism for absolute rule of the masses. The Declaration was abuot more than anti-desptosim, it was just using that as a specific form of anti-absolutism.

The country wasn't founded at the time of the Declaration of Independence. That was a war declaration. The country was founded when the constitution was ratified.

Even the declaration of independence sidesteps the issue of property rights and instead opts for a more nebulous "pursuit of happiness."

It's certain that the founders wanted to prevent the tyranny of majority, but they succeeded and that's not the situation we have here. Compared to almost any other democracy, the US is far better insulated against a slim majority imposing its will against the rest. What our system is vulnerable to is the undue influence of special interests. A small minority can easily get its way on a particular issue, provided that the majority is sufficiently indifferent. This can be true even if the negative utility on the majority is far greater than the positive utility on the minority and everyone is sufficiently rational. This explains our tax code and much of our entitlement spending, for instance.

Zogby American Poll:
I.G.2. Position on war in Iraq:
Date Taken: March 14-15, 2003

Amount Polled: 1,129 Likely Voters1

Support: 54%

Oppose: 42%

Not Sure: 4%

I.G.1. "Would you support or oppose the war against Iraq if the US waged war without significant UN or international support?"
Date Taken: March 14-15, 2003

Amount Polled: 1,129 Likely Voters1

Support: 47%

Oppose: 49%

Not Sure: 5%

isnt that what i said but told by you that i was frivolous blah blah for saying?

Aside from the fact that polls are a poor reflection of public opinion for various reasons, tyranny of majority =/= majority rule. This is not one of those instances where a small benefit for the majority was favored over a larger benefit for the minority (which is a necessary condition for the inefficiency of a majority rule), unless you consider soldiers a critical constituent for the anti-war side. A collective decision making failure can have many causes.

No. Please think more critically before you post.

it doesnt really matter much how little the benefit for the majority or how large the expense to the minority with regards to your sufficiency argument. If a majority gains 10 for doing something and a minority only loses 1 it still is more efficient for the majority to embark alone than to drag the minority along with them. however, if the majority only gains 8 if they embark alone versus forcing others then you could argue for the efficiency of mob rule in that case. However, in reality, you cant make these interpersonal comparisons for people nor can you aggregate them to a practical democratic system that isnt voluntarily based.

interesting tidbit to add to the topic. as bryan caplan would say, if 51 people are willing to jump off a bridge and 49 say no, should 51 have a right to push the other 49 rather than just jump themselves? even if this is 99 to 1 should the situation change?

stop talking vague non sense and respond directly to something with substance for a try instead of these odd deferments

There's an entire list of complaints which make it far from nebulous and which can be gathered into a readily identifiable underlying theme.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm explaining the concept of the tyranny of majority and why your example doesn't fit the concept. And your "embarking alone" idea is also irrelevant - if the majority gains 10 for doing X themselves and 10 even if they force everyone to do X, they gain 0 from the decision to force this upon everyone (and the opportunity cost is 1, thus it's an inefficient decision). Thus not only do you not have the tyranny of majority, the majority won't even bother with forcing everyone. If it's 2, you have the efficient form of the tyranny of majority; if 0.5, you have the inefficient form.

Regardless, the point is that the collective decision making failure in Iraq had nothing to do with the majority who were for the war benefitting more than the minority who were against the war were suffering. It had to do with the fact that the war was likely bad for all but very few but a large number of people didn't realize this at the time. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the tyranny of majority. It appears to me that you completely missed that, in an effort to nitpick and/or insert your "do-it-alone" idea, which has also been shown to be irrelevant. And to reiterate the point, the US has a political system that is highly resistant to the tyranny of majority problem and your example, which seems to have been floated in order to dispute that point (not that a single counterexample proves a general statement of that nature) is simply irrelevant.


I don't see why my own normative judgments here would add anything to this discussion. You're so used to throwing your own idiosyncratic and generally irrelevant moral views out there that you don't know what to do when someone doesn't offer their own.


It's more likely that your understanding of the subject matter is highly suspect, much like when you were writing posts about monetary supply without knowing what M0 is.

In a turn of irony, I now respond to Barron on topic:

lol, I get this. Their money will be worth more, so they can buy more stuff.

The part in bold though doesn't really make sense to me, since I would see this as "it lost half its value" rather than having some true value that is different than what it is trading at. It's irrelevant to this paragraph, but I think critical to where I disagree with what you're saying.

Right, I get it. But my point is just that they will still have to see value in our assets before they will buy them.

It's like saying your house might catch on fire but then your neighbors will want to buy your property, especially at its reduced price. Sure, makes sense. But if the usefulness of that property goes down a lot, people will of course bid less.

So yes, I see what you're saying. But what I'm saying is if US assets do not contribute to the global economy in the way current prices suggest they do, a readjustment is of course inevitable. There is no avoiding that. In the long run, a market rewards assets which satisfy needs. Foreigners will surely buy our stuff, but not necessarily for something close to what current prices suggest it is worth.

The "floor" effect of foreigners having increased purchasing power will, imo, only have a substantial impact if our assets don't have that far to adjust anyways.

I don't know much about Japan. But they're not so twisted politically. Not having 737 military bases and 2 wars to feed means that right there they have a very different situation than the US. (I'm not trying to be political -- I'm just saying, no, I have no opinion whatsoever on Japan.)

It's like if I was a doctor I might look at two men who have roughly similar heart conditions. But if one of them hasn't exercised in 10 years, eats at McDonald's every day, and refuses to change this behavior, then his situation would be one I find more dire.

There's the science of the matter, but also important is the context of the patient's behavior. An objectively similar condition might mean very different things for different lifestyles.

Shopping malls are not "worth" what Barron says they're worth. They're worth whatever bid wins in a fair marketplace of offers. So if they are selling for X-Y, on what basis are they ever "worth X"?

And who determines whether or not an asset has value?


Let's say Bernanke doubles the money supply. Humor me and pretend this happens. Assume also that he's straightforward about it, so everyone is aware of the information and prices can reflect it.

What do you think happens to the price of a shopping mall previously worth $1 million?

When a currency is inflated, not everyone has equal access to use the money first. The consumer class is disadvantaged, and they can afford less as a result of the added money.

People don't buy shopping malls so that they can jack off in every store (or if they do, they probably get over the thrill and sell it fairly soon). People buy shopping malls because they are an opportunity to profit. So, if consumers can afford less from this mall, it will have less value to prospective buyers (even if they can afford it).

A European may still buy it (since he indeed is in a better situation to be able to afford it), but surely it would be wishful thinking to assume he'd pay the Euro equivalence of $2 mil. The mall has surely lost value to investors.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Because we had so much freedom and relatively little intrusion from government, we were able to become so prosperous and become so rich. The purchasing power follows the wise habits.

But I don't think the greater than 1-in-100 Americans who live behind bars today think they are very free. At least not free to smoke pot and be black at the same time. I don't think trillions of debt and worldwide resentment is the sign of a stable government. I think a country like Switzerland is a good example of the type of government most Americans think we have.

Sure. What you are basically saying is that foreigners will buy malls and the ilk in order to keep the US economy steady, so that they do not lose the value of their dollars, right? (I know that's an oversimplification, but I'm just trying to make sure I understand your point.) I agree this would have some short-term merit to it and is probably exactly what they will do. For a little while. To give them time to unload their dollars.

But that doesn't make it viable long-term. It's just yet another short-term patch before we have to face the reality that our assets are not worth what we thought they were, imo.

Eventually the price that people are willing to pay for US assets will have to fall in line with what that asset actually produces. So what you're saying will cease to mean anything if the cost of "propping up our assets" is greater than what foreigners have to lose by allowing the dollar to fall. I mean, they could buy up everything right now if they really wanted to. But the question is whether or not these assets will actually produce enough to make buying them at their current price a good investment.

If my chickens stop laying eggs, someone who holds a lot of "Andrews" might want to buy my chickens (even though he knows they won't produce much) to maintain confidence in me, so that he has time to get rid of his credit notes. This might work for a little while. But eventually the only way my chickens will maintain value is if they lay eggs, right? (And if that were the case, I wouldn't *need* other people to buy my chickens in the first place -- confidence would naturally be maintained in me because my chickens would be laying eggs.)

That foreigners can more readily afford our assets does not mean the assets necessarily produce enough to make them good long-term investments at their current price.

I meant that central banks prop up the dollar by joining the inflation. It's funny, because some countries that are pegged to us have much more honest government inflation measures. So China and Saudi Arabia might report like 10-14%, and we still try to get away with 4 or whatever it is lol.

The kink here is the assumption that someone will see something as "worth X" when the trading price is something different. If enough people think it is worth X then its price will change to reflect that.

The value of the asset imo (call me old fashioned) is what someone is willing to pay for it in a market.

Yes, I still think I am correct that what you talk about is not a viable long-term solution to the declining value of our assets. The only viable long-term solution is holding assets that people find useful.


Also, the power went out after I wrote this the first time and I had to try to recreate it. I hope you're happy, Barron.

where is the explanation?

yes, and again, my point is this quantification of value to a comparable base is illusionary drivel with regards to reality.

going through this is also like saying its most efficient for 99 people to gain 1 point each for harming one person who loses 98 points as result and that isnt clear at all.

i agree and i dont know why you brought it up. the collective decision making failure in iraq is besides the point, and the american citizens for the most part arent managing the war.

the point is going in only half wanted to invest in the venture with everyones money etc. and a slightly smaller half did not want to join in, however they all had pay to the price.

im more concerned that its far from more optimal solutions

if the argument hand't turned sour i could've eventually explained myself. i really didnt see what angle you were coming from because the main part of the post was just about initial distortion effect. I only made a small reference to M3 at the end and was referring to any broader changes. I was going to go into an equal discussion about M3 as i did for the repo's initial effect but thought the post was too long by the time i was done the repo section that i just added the note to the top that i wouldnt discuss the multiplier effect. I probably should've taken m3 out of the tile since it wasnt the substantive part of the post by the end so i understand your misunderstanding but by no consideration do i get your attitude.

The animosity you showed to the TAF question also needed more explanation. there is quite a controversy over whether or not they effect the real value of the thinest money supply through improper accounting or effective offsetting through other actions. Further the note about not discussing the money multiplier really only applied to the repo analysis and not to my final comments. i realize this wasnt clear looking back.

and regardless, lets say i didnt understand it. why do you have to react the way you do? would not understanding one thing invalidate everything else? i wasnt posting to say look at what im saying i know everything and take this as a message from god. i actually noted that i may not have this all right and was inviting a discussion. for as much as you think others are bad at economics and finance you're way behind them in how to be a reasonable participant in social discussions.

That is possible, but that would defeat your and CrushinFelt's entire position that there is any sort of problem whatsoever with the current system or any political system for that matter. Without quantification, there is no basis for saying X is better than Y, so there's no point in talking about problems, inefficiency, optimality, etc. Nice try but once again, I'm not saying this or that exists, I'm only explaining the theoretical basis.


It is absolutely clear - othewise you don't understand the definition of efficiency. Efficiency =/= fairness. In fact the beauty of capitalism is that it is an efficiency maximizing system - nothing about capitalism ensures any sort of fairness.


That's just politics. Has nothing whatsoever to do with anything CrushinFelt or I were talking about, unless the smaller half didn't stand to share the benefits from the collective investment. One other way to look at is that every single law and every single government action is either supported by a minority or a majority. So either there's a tyranny of majority or a tyranny of minority for every single government action? You may define it that way, but since I brought it up and I clearly didn't define it that way (and that would've made no sense in light of what were talking about - entitlements), you're just interjecting your irrelevant thoughts.


Funny now that you're still talking about optimality, having completely disregarded quantification.


I have no idea what you're talking about. There's absolutely zero controversy on the impact of TAF on M0. None. That your mind is clouded regarding this matter, doesn't mean the matter itself is controversial. It's as clear as their open market operations affecting M0 or the discount window borrowing affecting M0 (now that I think of it, you probably didn't know this either). The other thing is that you asked which monetary aggregate is affected by TAF, not whether M0 is affected by TAF. That really speaks volumes about your understanding. It's like the terms don't mean anything to you.


Yes. If someone shows complete and utter misunderstanding of newtonian physics, I wouldn't bother looking at his explanation of the string theory. Anything short of deep understanding of the present monetary framework would not qualify you to have any sort of informed opinion about how to construct an alternative, sounder monetary system. And it's not just one thing - you've demonstrated approximately zero understanding so far and got things wrong on almost every count where possible. I don't even know how it's possible, because all it should take is spending a couple of weeks of reading and maybe some mental step-by-step simulation get all of this right, which is certainly less than the amount of time you spent reading criticism of the present system, all of which has mostly gone over your head.

In light of your several paragraphs-long dedication to my posting style, I find it highly amusing that those who complain most about insults are the ones who throw them around most often.

In either case, if you paid careful attention to even this abortion of a political discussion, you may learn a thing or two about economics. Of course this is hard for most people because one needs to throw every single normative judgment out the window, before they see the structure of politics and in what ways the game resembles purely economic systems and in what ways it doesn't.

andrew,

you wasted your breath and time with the above response.

i know this because you wrote this:

you did not read my posts, understand their points, or even come close to hitting the underlying economic concept if you believe what is quoted above. it is one of those three things b/c rereading my posts i feel i was very clear about the concepts and points. the above summary is far enough off as to nullify your efforts.

i'm relatively disappointed

Barron

im not saying there is no quantification. im saying there is no inter comparable quantification and we can quantify that which means we should throw out attempts to base a system on such nonsense.

no, its not clear. for one, again the comparable base doesnt exist. for two, the marginal effects per individual can arguably justify not engaging in the action unless we're really talking about absolute societal gains, but this so unrealistic that its not worth considering beyond mind games.

you're wrong. like i said, possible accounting issues and whether or not they offset the positions (which theyve essentially pledged to do) will effect M0 differently and the predicted net result over time is controversial.

Maybe you enjoy making up insults of me, i know it was clear originally but i had just explained that i was referring to m0 and any effects that ceep into further aggregates. I was curious to which aggregates capture the depth of the TAF's effect on the money supply.

i guess we're different people and i suspect you'll miss out a lot in life, but to each their own i suppose.

lol. the defintions for a few monetary statistics (that have changing definitions) hardly equates to knowing or not knowing the present monetary structure.

lol. zero understanding.... you dont even know what money or interest rates ARE yet i still dont think you have zero understanding.

except you refuse to point these out. you look for one little thing you think you know better and try and nail it on and on. other than you saying "theres too much for my mighty mind to go over the infinite mistakes youve made" id really like you to point out lost more than one and hopefully something more substantive to thinking, rather than quiz-type knowledge. and im not saying i havent made mistakes, because unlike you i admit im stilling on learning curve, and wil be on one till the day i die, and i alo leave room for error in any analysis. In truth though, youd have to show that all my statements are entirely erroneous to match your claim and im willing to put up 25K for whoever shows it to be so.


lol, see. there you go again.

you insult everybody. i only insult you as a result.

you have no idea what economics is in a politically invariant format. You only understand the normative way it is exists today at best. you keep claiming economics would break down essentially if the exact way it was run today was somewhat different (like it has been many times in the past)

I don't care how you twist the words, if you can't quantitatively compare two situations, you have no basis for saying one's better than the other. You're also throwing out the basis for capitalism. Once again, you keep forgetting that I'm supplying tools for you to argue your side. If you reject these tools, you have no point.


Once again, all these judgments (arguably justify, marginal benefits, societal gains, etc) lose meaning unless you can quantify effects. You keeping forgetting that efficiency is a descriptive term - I'm not arguing that efficiency is good or it's fair. You may use the phrase aggregate-utility-maximizing, if you want. If you're saying that you can't aggregate utility, but then you're throwing out the basis for capitalism and the basis for any sort of comparative analysis, which means all your criticism becomes moot.

So pick your poison.


There's no accounting issue and offsetting the positions is irrelevant. I have no idea what you're talking about "pledging" to offset the position and the predicted net result over time has nothing to do with present effect on M0, which they control completely at any given point in time. You're likely just confused on what a repo is - there's no difference in terms of effects on the monetary base between the fed using repos for monetary policy and outright purchases since the fed can always sell securities it owns as well, which is the same thing as not rolling the repos. The difference in that purchases manipulate prices of the particular securities purchased directly. Another way to think about it is what would happen if the Fed didn't issue currency except through TAF. Is M0 0 then?


M0 isn't just a statistic - it's a concept. If you don't understand monetary base, you understand nothing about the monetary system.


I did point those out - like when you were talking about what would happen to interest rates if the fed doesn't do anything, etc, etc. It's amazing how everything you think you know is based on pervasive misunderstanding (non-understanding?) that nothing makes any sense to you.


Most of your statements are nonsensical - your understanding is erroneous. And contrary to your claims, you're not interested in learning. Otherwise you would've done what I suggested and understood how money works in this system already.


Economics is not politically invariant and I don't think you understand either the word "invariant" or "normative" (neither use makes any real sense, which again is not surprising) - I haven't claimed that economics would break down if things were changed, I'm claiming that none of the changes you suppose make sense. Economies can function just fine under a fixed inflation-targetting regime, a fixed-monetary-base-growth regime with full-reserve banking, a fixed-basket-of-commodities regime, or gold standard or any hybrid. This doesn't qualify you to speak of the implications, since you don't understand the present regime.

I wrote that in response to a specific point I thought you were trying to make in one of your paragraphs. That was not a summary of your entire post. Since that paragraph was neither at the beginning nor the end of my post, I'm a little confused why you thought it was supposed to sum up everything you said. Obviously I was quote/pasting and responding to specific parts of your post.

If you're just going to flat out ignore every response I made to you and claim one paragraph means I didn't make a worthy enough post or something, then yes you're right, I am wasting my breath.

You said some things that seemed really weird to me, and I assumed you'd respond and clear them up. You asked me to make that post twice, and I did. But I guess misunderstanding one of your points means that now you are no longer interested. Strange.

Should I fly into NY to collect my metals, or should I be sure to get my goldmoney.com account set up?

please read this before you criticize:

http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap7sec1.asp

http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap4sec4.asp

"The difference between the value of the price paid (the costs incurred) and that of the goal attained is called gain or profit or net yield. Profit in this primary sense is purely subjective, it is an increase in the acting man's happiness, it is a psychical phenomenon that can be neither measured nor weighed. There is a more and a less in the removal of uneasiness felt; but how much one satisfaction surpasses another one can only be felt; it cannot be established and determined in an objective way. A judgment of value does not measure, it arranges in a scale of degrees, it grades. It is expressive of an order of preference and sequence, but not expressive of measure and weight. Only the ordinal numbers can be applied to it, but not the cardinal numbers.

It is vain to speak of any calculation of values. Calculation is possible only with cardinal numbers. The difference between the valuation of two states of affairs is entirely psychical and personal. It is not open to any projection into the external world. It can be sensed only by the individual. It cannot be communicated or imparted to any fellow man. It is an intensive magnitude."
the pledge is to offset the amount lent with treasury sales is how i understand the situation. this is all off topic though and if the discussion were to occur it was meant to be deeper than just what aggregates reflect the changes. that was just a question i figured worth throwing out there because the intuitive notion is that TAF's relevant monetary implications are fully and easily reflected in the money base but this isnt entirely clear (depends on the accounting) or whether it leaks out and whether or not a change or no change in the statistic(s) can still imply some distortion.

okay, so what? also you should realize the the specific printing of m0 or any other statistic may not achieve the goal of the definition.

no and i dont really see the point of the qustion. why do you think i would have answered that is a better question.

exactly and the statistic doesnt always reflect the concept, even for m0. either way you dont have good reason to think the concept was misunderstood, especially now.

further, when are you are going to show that the total securities the fed has, nevermind just the treasuries, isnt smaller than the money base?

until you understand this you wont understand how we can liquidate the fed.

where did you point an understanding of what interest rates are?

please explain CLEARLY how i misused invariant and normative then if you have time please just list a few points about the current regime that i misunderstand.

Then the effect on monetary supply is zero. Again, there's nothing complicated about this whatsoever. Issuing currency is issuing currency and retiring currency is retiring currency.


What on earth are you talking about? Here's the balance sheet if you care to look. And note the positive equity, in case that's what you're referring to.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/

"Invariant" refers to something that is unchanging with respect to change in something else - politically invariant means something that doesn't change with respect to politics. Since economics changes depending on the political framework you're operating in, there's no such thing as an invariant form. The only way you can begin to talk about political invariant form of economics is to retreat all the way to game theory and analyze all avenues where bargaining or potential bargaining comes into place. This way, economics subsumes politics. But ironically, I'm the only person here who even explores that sort of thinking - everyone's too busy talking about their god-given property rights to even contemplate economic systems where property rights don't exist or exist in dramatically different forms.

"Normative" when applied to economics refers to incorporating value judgments. Thus economics doesn't exist in a normative way today or any other day. That's just extremely poorly put (perhaps you meant normal?) And if you meant to say that I practice normative economics (as opposed to positive economics) you'd note that that is in fact the exact opposite of true. You and ALawPoker and CrushinFelt all come from normative economic thinking - I'm on the positive side. That is a large part of the disagreement here. You may think this is an isolated incident, but this sort of sloppy use of words and sloppy thinking are just endemic on your end.

This is another way of saying that there's no objective way to compare two different political systems (since there's no canonical ordering for a set of k-tuples where each component is a member of a distinct ordinal set). Thus, this props up my original contention that normative judgments are irrelevant and that capitalism is not efficient.

You keep talking like I'm arguing for this sort of quantification - as I mentioned, I threw it out there because it's the only way to coherently argue your positions (you, ALawPoker, CrushinFelt, etc) and establishes the only framework in which to argue for why the way things are isn't efficient or optimal or whatever. Then now you're saying that framework doesn't work - then, well, you have absolutely nothing to stand on.