Friday Wrap-Up March 16, 2001February 17, 2017 THE MESSAGE OF LIFE Martin Dauber: ‘Today [March 9] is the Jewish holiday of Purim, and I’d like to wish you and yours a happy Purim. In reviewing the comments of our sages in regard to Purim I realized the ultimate underlying message of Purim, and perhaps of life itself, is that God is happiest when our poor brethren are happy and their needs are met. You see, God himself is a Democrat (… and probably wants Jonathan Pollard freed, but that’s for another election). Shabbat Shalom to all.” ☞ Well then, couldn’t he do something about Florida? REPLAY Bill Davis: “Warn against anybody buying a Replay unit – they have recently announced that they will no longer make the units. I question whether they will support their existing customers when something goes awry.” ☞ Replay does seem to have many very strong backers. I hope they’ll do right by their customers. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY, TUESDAY We were remarking on the order of the days of the week – named after the seven then-known celestial bodies – and how, in cultures as diverse as ancient Egypt and ancient Japan, the order was the same. What did they have – ancient global conferences on this stuff? At the Cairo Hyatt? How did the Japanese get there? Jambardi Maheshkumar adds: “Ancient Egypt, ancient Japan and also in ancient India (as well as today’s Indian languages) – the order of the days of the week and the ‘planets’ they stand for are exactly the same!” ☞ I repeat: Time heals everything, TIME HEALS EVERYTHING! . . . but lov … ing … you . . . . HONEST TEA Robert Verzi: “I tried it for the first time yesterday at a health food store in Greenville, SC. I loved it. You were right!” ☞ Music to my greedy little ears. Once it turns hot, go to a Barnes & Noble Café and see if an iced cold bottle of Honest Tea doesn’t quench that parching Death Valley thirst of yours in a sophisticated, lightly-caffeinated way. Mmm, mmm, good. Mmm, mmm, good. I own Honest Tea, so . . . mmm, mmm, good.
Hoes, Butts, and Haikus March 15, 2001February 17, 2017 HOES In response to Monday’s gloomy column and ‘the tough row we could have to hoe,’ Craig Furnas writes: ‘Looks like we should all invest in hoes, then.’ ☞ Good plan. BUTTS Joe Cherner, founder of Smokefree Educational Servies writes: I am very saddened by the recent death of Morton Downey, Jr., age 67, from lung cancer. Years ago, Mr. Downey had a very popular TV talk show, particularly with young people. As a repeat guest, I had heated debates with Mr. Downey. Mr. Downey smoked throughout his show and often blew smoke in the face of guests who opposed him. Most of it was done for sensationalism, theatrics, and to provoke his opponents. Unfortunately, Mr. Downey was idolized by young people, many of whom probably started smoking to imitate him. Mr. Downey constantly screamed that all his aunts and uncles smoked and lived to be 100 (which I doubt was true), and that he would live to be 100 too. In any case, it was a terrible message for young people who clung to his every word. About seven years ago, Mr. Downey was diagnosed with lung cancer. He publicly apologized for his past antics and did some public service announcements against smoking. Unfortunately, as is often the case, he was no longer a youth icon. His apology didn’t come close to making up for the damage he had caused. A list of famous celebrities who have died from smoking can be found on our website. Just click on “documents” when you get there. As usual, these celebrities influenced millions of young people to start smoking (many even appeared in cigarette ads), and by the time they died, they were almost unknown to the next generation. In other words, their lives influenced young people to start smoking but heir deaths didn’t prevent young people from smoking. I will miss Morton Downey, Jr. and I know he is sorry for what he did. GOTTA LOTTA HAIKUS Sharon Barowsky: ‘Not positive because I haven’t read the whole book, but the likely source of those wonderful Jewish Haikus is Haikus for Jews: For You, a Little Wisdom by David M. Bader.’ These are some of George Berger‘s excellent canine haikus. He’s not sure who wrote them, either: I love my master; Thus I perfume myself with This long-rotten squirrel. I lie belly-up In the sunshine, happier than You ever will be Today I sniffed Many dog behinds — I celebrate By kissing your face. I sound the alarm! Paper boy-come to kill us all Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! I sound the alarm! Garbage man-come to kill us all Look! Look! Look! Look! Look! How do I love thee? The ways are numberless as My hairs on the rug. My human is home! I am so ecstatic I have Made a puddle I Hate my choke chain Look, world, they strangle me! Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack! Look in my eyes and Deny it. No human could Love you as much I do Dig under fence — why? Because it’s there. Because it’s There. Because it’s there. I am your best friend, Now, always, and especially When you are eating.
Jewish Haikus March 14, 2001February 17, 2017 I’ve gotten this several times now, and you probably have, too. But can we risk that you have not? Here they are, 17 syllables apiece, 5 – 7 – 5. I have taken the liberty of highlighting a couple of the most important ones: Hey! Get back indoors! Whatever you were doing could put an eye out. Testing the warm milk on her wrist, she beams — nice, but her son is forty. Lovely nose ring — excuse me while I put my head in the oven. After the warm rain, the sweet scent of camellias. Did you wipe your feet? Wet moss on the old stone path — flat on my back, I ponder whom to sue. Today I am a man. On Monday I return to the seventh grade. Left the door open for the Prophet Elijah. Now our cat is gone. In the ice sculpture reflected bar-mitzvah guests nosh on chopped liver. Beyond Valium, the peace of knowing one’s child is an internist. The same kimono the top geishas are wearing — got it at Loehmann’s. Jewish triathlon — gin rummy, then contract bridge, followed by a nap. Would-be convert lost — thawed Lender’s Bagels made a bad first impression. Today, mild shvitzing. Tomorrow, so hot you’ll plotz. Five-day forecast — feh. Yom Kippur — forgive me, God, for the Mercedes and all the lobsters. As always, if anyone knows who actually wrote these, I’d love to give credit where credit is due. Here are three financial haikus: Winter of the bear. What fun is there in bonds? None. Boy needs some action. Priceline – ice cold ego. Bezos could have a shot, though No more big discounts. Stock market deep freeze, Taxes kept me from selling. I’m an idiot.
Is THIS the Bottom? March 13, 2001February 17, 2017 I’d like to tell you we’ve hit bottom, and that’s always possible, but remember that the Dow was at 6,500 or so when Alan Greenspan first floated that phrase ‘irrational exuberance’ in 1996, I think it was. Today, we’re shocked at the prospect of its retreating below 10,000. In those intervening five years or so we’ve all worked hard and grown the country and its assets some, so what might have seemed irrational in 1996 with the Dow at 6500 (and the NASDAQ around 1250) may not now be so irrational at all. We may have grown into those valuations. But that would still mean the Dow’s slipping another 3,500 points and the NASDAQ dropping another 40% or so. I am not predicting these things, vouching for much accuracy, nor forgetting the fact that Greenspan’s remark was based on the Japanese experience, not explicitly presented as Greenspan’s opinion of U.S. stocks at the time. So this is all very vague, and we may not need to see the markets fall that far, let alone farther. Indeed, yesterday may someday be looked back on as the all-time low for this century! But I doubt it. Sure, AIG, a terrific company that I own, is down from 104 to 78. But it’s still selling at 34 times trailing earnings – and its brilliant, tough-as-nails CEO is 74 or 75 – will his successor be able to justify a multiple like that? Maybe, maybe not. So the first thing to say is that there’s a possibility that it will take many years before we get a great stock market again. (Or it may not – I don’t claim to know.) The second thing to say is that, happily, you escaped a lot of the misery, because you had dumb little stocks like CN, which sells for about half its cash, and which actually went up a penny yesterday. (I’m not recommending anyone buy it here. But neither would I sell $7 of cash, which is roughly what the company holds, for $3.50, which is roughly what the stock is selling for.) Or A&P preferred G, suggested here in early January at $12 – it was up a nickel yesterday, to $19.70. (Again, don’t buy it here just because it got a lot more expensive.) You were too smart to own Amazon or Priceline or any of that – let alone on margin – because you saw that the relative values were just nuts. Likewise Juniper or Cisco. ‘The truth is,’ you read here last October, ‘Juniper may one day be valued more highly not just than GM, Apple, Amazon, and the New York Times Company, combined, as now, but more highly than all those plus (are you ready?) Federal Express, Ford, AT&T, Kodak, Yahoo, and the entire U.S. airline industry. Why not? Cisco already is.’ This is not to say some of these aren’t fine companies. There may come a price at which Cisco and Juniper and Yahoo and Amazon are a steal. Maybe we’re already there. You could start to nibble. But they were wildly overpriced — and I’m not sure they’re screaming bargains even today. That’s important, because markets often go to extremes. If we’re headed for the gloomy extreme, we may have a way to go. One Internet company I don’t own that one day I might, because it stands out from the others, is eBay. Down 75% from its high, eBay still sells at 200 times earnings and sports an $8.5 billion market cap. Too rich for my blood. But eBay is a monopoly of sorts – because everyone wants to sell or buy where everyone else is selling or buying – and monopolies have a unique advantage. If you’re in the market, don’t rush to sell now, just because stocks have fallen so much. But neither should you assume that a few months from now the Dow is going to be back at 13,000 or the NASDAQ, anywhere near 5000. My guess is that we have a long row to hoe.
Power Shift March 12, 2001January 27, 2017 Let’s see. That’s $391 for you, $28,000 for me. A thousand for you (except that your mortgage and car payments may be $1,100 a year higher), seventy-five thousand for me. Something for everybody! Who could complain?It’s breathtaking: a concerted effort to shift the balance of wealth and power away from the middle class and disadvantaged to the wealthiest and most powerful. The party of the rich – controlling all three branches of government, despite a slight minority in the popular vote – does the following: Issues an order cutting family planning services to poor women around the world. Its effect is not to halt U.S. funding of abortions – that was done in 1973. Rather, it is to gag free speech and sex education where they are needed most – Third World countries where the population continues to explode, where women most need to be empowered, where poverty and AIDS are epidemic. (If this, or any of the other items that follow, bother Ralph Nader, I haven’t seen him storming the TV stations to talk about it.) Decides against adjusting the census statistically to include an estimated 3 million citizens missed in the door-to-door count. Reconsiders Clinton/Gore efforts to crack down on off-shore tax havens. Passes legislation to make bankruptcy tougher on the little guy, as advocated by the big banks. (It is widely noted that the number one contributor to the Bush campaign was MBNA, the country’s largest credit card issuer, and that the first major legislation passed by the House was this bill. “You’ve got to admit, there is a poetic symmetry at play when the No. 1 contributor gets the No. 1 bill,” writes Arianna Huffington.) Yes, people should be responsible for their debts. But where’s the balance in this bill? Where are the clear disclosure and warnings long sought by consumer advocates? Includes in it a special provision for 300 American members of Lloyd’s of London. BANKRUPTCY BILL BENEFITS CHOSEN FEW, reads a front-page headline in Saturday’s Washington Post. Confronts our dependence on foreign sources of oil – now 56% of our total consumption – by proposing a 22% cut in the budget for alternative energy sources like wind and solar. It’s almost as if our government were run by a handful of rich oil industry executives, out to pinch the competition. (I am doing these numbers from memory. If some of you have better ones, please correct me.) Halts the Korean peace process. Ally South Korea is disappointed, as must be the poor people of North Korea. I’m sure the decision makers are sincere in their reasons – but, as a side-effect, this can’t hurt the guys in what Eisenhower dubbed “the military industrial complex.” (Last year, the Republicans went out of their way to kill the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty.) Passes a bill to wipe off the books the workplace safety regulations Clinton/Gore put into place in the waning days of its administration. (Sixteen hundred pages of federal regulation do not warm my heart, either – maybe the House should have directed OSHA to simplify or moderate some of this, and/or allow for a streamlined “waiver” process in cases that clearly make no sense. But you only had to listen to the calls coming into C-SPAN during the House vote to know that the problems are real, and that regulation is needed. Why? Because there are many situations in which a company would be more than willing to clean the air, say, or, in this case, make its workplace safer — so long as it can be sure its competitors will face the same costs. But without a uniform government standard, how can it be sure?) Advances as its highest priority a tax cut that gives 43% of the benefit to the richest 1%, those making roughly $370,000 a year or more (some of them, much, much more). We should cheer for our top 1% – good for them! – but give them little or no tax relief at all. I say that not because I dislike the rich. Some of my best friends are very rich. I say it because the top 1% already have a 0% tax rate on municipal bonds and a 20% tax rate on long-term capital gains . . . because the top 1% already saw their tax rate cut from 90% under Eisenhower to 70% under Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter to 50% under Reagan in his first term – all of these rates, I would readily agree, too high – to 39.6% now. This is a rate that seems to have worked. At lower rates, we racked up $4 trillion in additional debt. But at this rate, we broke into surplus. And still the income of the top 1% — the after-tax income – rose far faster than that of the man or woman on the street. Never fear: the gap between rich and everyone-else grew ever wider. But not enough, apparently. Still the poor and middle class have too large a slice of the nation’s wealth. So 43% of the tax relief should go to the top 1% and their heirs. I would argue that we should first reduce the tax rates of “everyone else,” who have not enjoyed commensurate rate decreases but have, rather, seen their payroll tax go up and up and up . . . that we should then wait until we’ve made a much larger dent in paying down the national debt . . . and that, if all goes well, we should then revisit the possibility of doing more for the top 1%. But not now. The tactic seems to be – go in for the moon, with a straight face, and then “settle” for something that’s still more than you could ever have dreamed of if people weren’t still in a state of shock. It’s a tactic that can work when you’re in a position of power. Say you see a plot of land you think the seller pretty badly needs to unload. He’s asking $100,000 and you secretly think it’s worth about that. You offer not $90,000 or even $70,000 – you offer $28,000. The seller is shell-shocked, insulted and says no. You come up to $35,000. He can’t believe you’re even throwing out numbers so patently crazy and says no. But by the time you finally get up to $63,000 and he’s down to $85,000 and you offer to split the difference, he’s so shaken, and so worried he might not do better in time to meet his needs, he accepts. What position of power are the Republicans in? Well, they control both Houses of Congress and the White House and the Supreme Court. It’s a start. Look. There are a lot of fine Republicans in Congress, and I don’t think any of them want to make poor people poorer. They’re just focused on making their friends, who are the best off, better off still. Yes, they would like to see the wealth “trickle down,” as it was supposed to under Reagan, and, yes, they may have persuaded themselves that “we can do it all” without running up the debt, as Ronald Reagan argued we could when he reduced the top bracket to 28%. But by the time it finally got pushed back up to 39.6%, we had in fact added $4 trillion to the national debt, and have only lately begun to pay it down. We can’t do it all, we have to set priorities. The Republicans’ number one priority appears to be the tax cut for the top 1%. The Democrats, rightly or wrongly, put a lot of things – including debt reduction – ahead of that. A final note and a disclaimer: Note: Republicans will argue that huge budget deficits were racked up under Reagan and Bush not because rich people’s tax rates were slashed, but because of the spendthrift Democratic Congress. Yet today they argue that a tax cut is preferable to debt reduction because if taxes weren’t cut, the debt wouldn’t be reduced. Congress would just waste the money – by which I suppose they mean the spendthrift Republican-controlled Congress, despite veto power by the spendthrift in the White House? No, it doesn’t compute. They just desperately want the rich to get that huge tax cut. Disclaimer: Yes, I’m still treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. But, no, none of this is written in that official capacity, or has been vetted or approved. I write this in the middle of the night, as a private citizen, because I think it’s an important debate and that we should all chime in.
Tainted Money March 9, 2001March 25, 2012 “There are only two things tainted about money,” an old Georgia governor once said — “taint mine and taint enough.” See you Monday.
Tidbits March 8, 2001January 27, 2017 SURFER TRICKS Paul Lerman: ‘Great space-bar tip Monday (I didn’t know that one either) and I didn’t know this one until last week: If you type, e.g., qb into your address bar and then hit CTRL-ENTER, the rest will be inserted automatically at the appropriate places. No need to type ‘http://www.’ or ‘.com.” ☞ That works in Internet Explorer. In AOL 5.0 it does not (maybe in 6.0?). But if you type anything.com (or .org or .gov) and then Enter, AOL usually does the rest. Tom Mathies: ‘Another trick when browsing: use the ESC key to freeze flashing ads….works at least for Netscape and Internet Explorer.’ Craig Wiegert: ‘Tab-Space doesn’t scroll up for me (Netscape/Linux). Backspace, however, does.’ REPLAY! George Berger: ‘I hate to nitpick, but after one more in a long stream of TiVo articles I had to say something. TiVo has a competitor that I have never seen you mention – Replay TV. I’ve had one of their units for a little over a year now and I love it. I think it has a slight edge over the TiVo in that it has the 30-second skipahead feature you mentioned will be available on the Microsoft version. Otherwise I think it’s pretty much equivalent. With all the attention being lavished on TiVo to the neglect of Replay, I’m worried that I might end up with tomorrow’s Betamax.’ ☞ I did buy a Betamax, years ago. That’s why I bought a TiVo and not a Replay. It just seemed to be the one catching on. But I’ve heard that Replay is great, too – enjoy! ELUSIVE TIME Inspired by Bryan Norcross’s riffs on keeping time – the most recent of which some of you missed because Q-Page delivery was down Tuesday (sorry) – Mark Langenderfer points us here.
Step Right Up March 7, 2001February 17, 2017 I-Bonds, you will recall, are US Savings Bonds that protect you from inflation and grow deferred from taxes. Currently, they yield 6.49%. They will not make you rich, but they’re completely safe. Death, you will recall, is currently a way to escape the capital gains tax. Your heirs have the option of ‘stepping up the basis’ of the stuff you leave them to its current value when you die. This applies to real estate, jewelry, and just about anything else, but most commonly to stocks. Say Gramps bought 100 shares of Johnson & Johnson at $28 and when he died, it was $80. You inherit those shares and, a while later, sell them at $90. Your taxable gain, if you elected the step-up in basis, is just $10 a share. Sell at $65 and – far from having to pay tax on the gain – you get to take a $15 a share loss. Much is made of people jumping out of windows when the market crashes. Tax-wise, it would be far more advantageous to defenestrate at the peak. OK, that’s a bit extreme. But people do, understandably, look for every tax advantage, which is why it has rankled some of you that with Savings Bonds (as opposed to ordinary corporate or government bonds), heirs get no such step up. (If at any point in this column you get bored, click here for something completely different.) Diane Anderson: ‘Could you deal with the lack of a step-up by having the I-Bonds owned by a trust instead of directly by the mother-in-law? Then, the bonds wouldn’t get the step-up, but they still wouldn’t be taxable until the end of the 30-year term (because they’re not being transferred or retitled at the grantor’s death).’ ☞ Why bother? Savings Bond owners, and their beneficiaries, may already elect to defer tax on the interest until the bonds are redeemed. Jerry Avillion: ‘Regarding the non-stepping up of I-bonds at death, would you be able to avoid that by buying shares in Vanguard’s inflation protected securities fund?’ ☞ Nope. If the shares were held in a taxable account, you’d be paying income taxes annually on the growth in principal value already. Yes, your basis would step up every year — but that is because the income was being taxed each year. If it were held in a tax-deferred account, all distributions would be taxed upon withdrawal by the owner or beneficiary. CAPITAL GAINS TAX ON TAX-FREE BONDS While we’re at it, maybe this is a good time to explain a couple of quirks about how taxes work on bonds. The interest is ordinarily taxed as ‘ordinary income,’ just like interest from a savings account or any other kind. The interest from a tax-free municipal bond is free of federal income tax (and free of state income tax if it was issued in your state). But what of the difference in price between what you paid for a bond and what you sold it for (or the $1,000 it was redeemed for at maturity)? Most bonds are issued at $1,000 face value and are redeemed for $1,000 years later, so if you buy at the beginning and hold the whole time, there is no capital gain or less, just all those years of interest income. But: What if you buy the bond in the open market for $800 and later sell it for $950? You owe capital gains tax on the gain – even if it was a tax-free municipal bond. (If you die and leave these bonds to your heirs, they could elect to step-up the cost basis to the value of the bonds at the date of death.) What if the bond were Originally Issued at a Discount (an OID bond), like a zero coupon bond that pays no interest, but gradually rises in value from the price at which it was issued — $300, say – to $1,000 at maturity? In that case, there will be an ‘accretion schedule’ built into the bond, showing how much the bond ‘should’ appreciate each year in its inevitable climb to $1,000 at maturity. That accretion is considered interest, not a capital gain. Only to the extent your gain when you sell exceeds that expected accretion do you have a taxable capital gain. To the extent it falls short of the expected accretion schedule, you have a capital loss. It is obviously the stuff of migraines – and reason enough not to buy such bonds, except within a tax-deferred retirement account where it doesn’t matter. And now – unless you got bored and already clicked it up above – a little fun from Newt Gingrich pal, columnist Arianna Huffington (who is my pal, as well). Click here.
Tuesday, Thursday, Monday, Friday . . . March 6, 2001January 27, 2017 You know Mack and Mabel? That wonderful song at the end – now, don’t start sobbing – ‘Time heals everything . . . Monday, Wednesday . . . Time heals EVerything . . . Friday, Tuesday . . .’ I don’t remember the exact lyrics, or the exact mis-order of the days of the week, but the music swells at the end and it goes, ‘TIME HEALS EVERYTHING . . . but lov – ing – you.’Well, my point is . . . why do we have the days in the week in the order that we do? And so it’s time for a little music of our own – our ASK BRYAN music – and, as we did last week, turn back time. Or at least some of the mysteries surrounding it. Bryan Norcross explains: ‘It’s all very nutty, and I’ll skip some of the details, but here’s the bottom line. Remember: there were only 7 known nearby celestial bodies. The question is … in what order? Well, first you have to know the order the ancients thought they were from the earth. The list beginning with the closest was: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. ‘Not only did the Mediterraneans (Egyptians, Persians, etc.) think that each day was owned by a planet, they thought (more fundamentally) that each 7-hour period was owned by a planet… in reverse order! ‘So, beginning with Saturn getting hours 1-7 of the first day, then Jupiter hours 8-14, then Mars 15-21, then the Sun 22-28, lo and behold, the Sun gets the next day because it ‘begins’ the next 24 hours period. ‘Continuing: Venus, 29-35; Mercury, 36-42; Moon, 43-49. And there you go, the Moon gets the beginning of the next day, the 48th hour. And on you go until you get the order of the days of the week ‘ruled’ by Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus. Yes, in this scheme Saturday is first. Genesis affected the beginning-of-the-week issue in Christian countries. Bizarrely, in cultures as diverse as ancient Egypt and the ancient Japan, the order was the same.’ (I’d hit you with a chorus of ‘It’s A Small World After All,’ but I’d rather you leave humming Mack & Mabel.) Tomorrow, back to the fun stuff: Bond Taxation (Can’t wait for something more substantive? Click here.)
The Old Dog Ate My I-Bonds March 5, 2001February 17, 2017 OLD DOG, NEW TRICK Press the SPACE BAR. See that? I never knew that! Apparently, this works on all web pages, not just mine. The SPACE BAR functions just as the ‘PageDown’ key or scroll bar would, and is a lot easier. I didn’t know that! (You know the long ‘masterpages’ you get in Quickbrowse, when you have it stitch a whole bunch of separate pages together for you? E.g., the whole New York Times and Wall Street Journal on a single loooooong masterpage? Or all the items you’re interested in on eBay? The easiest way to scroll down through all that is just to keep tapping the Space Bar.) Tab-SPACE BAR scrolls you back up. I-BONDS Diane Smith: ‘You encourage readers to purchase inflation-adjusted savings bonds online with a credit card, ‘and get the frequent-flier miles or any of the other goodies that credit cards award.’ I ordered approximately $100,000 worth of bonds on my Chase cards during the past two years & received miles for them (including as recently as December), earning me four tickets to Europe on Continental. Chase Visa recently notified me that savings bond purchases are ‘cash transactions and don’t earn frequent flier miles.’ If this is false, I would strongly encourage you to dissuade people from using their Chase Visa cards to purchase bonds (or anything else!).’ ☞ Well, the FAQ section on the government’s web site states: Q: Is this considered a merchandise purchase or a cash advance? A: Your savings bond purchase is treated as a merchandise purchase. It is not a cash advance. So you may have a beef with Chase, Diane. Or maybe Chase doesn’t care what the government thinks. In any event, I’m glad you got four tickets to Europe. Maybe instead of asking people to tip me with cash (that sure didn’t work) I should suggest they send miles. NASDAQ Down a little more than 58% from its high, the NASDAQ is a lot more interesting here than it was at the top. Where the bottom will be, I have no idea. But Intel looks better at 27 than it did six months ago at 75, and Oracle looks better at 17 than it did at 46.