meanwhile, in Taiwan...

[RollingWave]

http://static.nownews.com/newspic/1915/i1915529.jpg

Recently reelected President Ma Yin Jio jogging in the Saharen desert for some reason :tongue: (he's on a diplomatic visit there, where they gave him a white horse , which must be some kind of a well diviced joke since his sure name Ma = Horse in Chinese and as you can see he's rather pale. )

But a few interesting recent domestic policy debates that can be reflected to some degree on the US.

1.The price of gasoline shot up by 10% overnight after government ended a subsidies, the Subsidy have been on and off since 2007 (mostly on) starting from the end of the last government in reaction to the huge gas prices just before the financial bubble blowup. Taiwan's gasoline is mostly under state control, there is only 2 company that import crude / refine gasolines in Taiwan, one of which is state owned and the other one esssentially goes along with the state company's price. raising many debates, obviously most drivers aren't happy, but the state company was running huge losses as over 70% of their cost is on importing crude. which have obviously shot up in recent months again.

2. along with the gasoline price, electricity bill will probably shoot up soon for similar reasons, as Taiwan's power predominately relies on imported oil and coal.


3.A capital gains tax is in the talks, Taiwan currently have no formal capital gains tax for financial investments, though there is a exchange tax for stocks, this issue was brought up nearly 20 years ago which resulted in Taiwan's stock crashing for 20 strait trading days, and the resignation of the minister of finance . this time the shock isn't quite as crazy though obviously a lot of opposition is heard too.


4. meanwhile, a revised public healthcare bill will probably set in next year, which lowers expenditures for most folks, though probably add in additional oncse for some, primarily it address the issue of folks with no to low fixed income (but is making a lot of money, such as entertainers, folks in stocks etc..) getting away from paying the bill. though the obvious complication of how such laws can be enforced remains to be seen. (for the most part, seeing doctors here is pretty cheap, a run to the hospital on most standard problems will cost you under 20 bucks USD. even the more major problems are at least partially covered. though unless you have your own private plan the most serious onces will probably still be quite devastating for the less well off. fees are relatively acceptable, employers pay around 5% of the employee's salary, employee pays about 1%, though it can get complicated for non-standard employeed and also needs to factor in family and stuff. )

So hey, a government actually wanting to make realistic efforts to reduce deficits (Taiwan actually don't have a huge debt problem, it has 0 foreign debt and public debt isn't on Japanese level absurdity anyway, though it is trending poorly, and many worry in particular the huge losses publicly held companies run.)

[Mister D]

10% overnight is a big jump. I'm paying about $3.70 right now which stinks but it takes weeks for the price to fluctuate by 40 cents. If it went from $3.33 to $3.70 overnight it would get shock a lot of people into cutting their consumption.

[RollingWave]

10% overnight is a big jump. I'm paying about $3.70 right now which stinks but it takes weeks for the price to fluctuate by 40 cents. If it went from $3.33 to $3.70 overnight it would get shock a lot of people into cutting their consumption. well price of oil here adjust on a weekly basis, by overnight I mean that they announced the end of the subsidies and the weekly price blew up 10% (and only dropped like than 1% since)

[Mister D]

well price of oil here adjust on a weekly basis, by overnight I mean that they announced the end of the subsidies and the weekly price blew up 10% (and only dropped like than 1% since)

Still kind of a jolt.

[Conley]

I'd jog to work too if gas went up that much! :grin:

[RollingWave]

Still kind of a jolt.
Yeah, this is the real point though, Taiwan's subside were not in place that long nor actually that big compare to alot of other places , and even then taking it out resulted in a pretty significant jolt. You can see why Nigeria almost went up in revolution when it's current President Goodluck Jonathon (what a name BTW) wanted to cancel a subside that would have essentially resulted in gas prices *doubling*

Indonesia and a couple other places also faces similar issue.

[Mister D]

Yeah, this is the real point though, Taiwan's subside were not in place that long nor actually that big compare to alot of other places , and even then taking it out resulted in a pretty significant jolt. You can see why Nigeria almost went up in revolution when it's current President Goodluck Jonathon (what a name BTW) wanted to cancel a subside that would have essentially resulted in gas prices *doubling*

Indonesia and a couple other places also faces similar issue.

Some African leaders have great names. :grin:

Doubling!? Unimagineable to me in a short period of time. Our gas prices have doubled but it took a relatively long time.

[RollingWave]

Well gas have since fell back down quite a bit (in line with international crude prices) but Ma's approval rating have fell even more before he's even inaugurated for his second term (he did last weekend). Ma's government have had a string of horribly hatched policy proposal these few weeks, non of them are bad in principal (such as proposing a serious capital gains tax reform, right now Taiwan only have a transaction tax on buying / selling capital asset which have long been slammed as this means folks who makes most of their money in investment rarely pay nearly as much taxes as wage earners.. hmmmm sounds familiar :rollseyes: ) but his team have presented in terriablly naive and/or autocratic fashion, thus sending his own parties legislator up in flames (let alone opposition onces) and Taiwan's stock, already reeling like the rest of the world, only took he news even worse.

It's be interesting to see what happens from here, most commentary after slamming Ma for weeks now grudgingly admit that the principal of those policies are sound and should have been done ages ago. and really a couple weeks of terrible policy communication hardly make or break a presidency. we'll see how things goes, the real problem for him and Taiwan now is that with all the countries around us lining up into FTA pacts we're lagging behind pretty seriously, as the opposition has a pretty strong protectionism bent while the ruling oncse aren't exactly the most liberal economics theory advocates either. so trade talk is going nowhere especially with the US, where it's still stuck on the subject of beef imports (not helped by the new wave of mad cow fears in the US) . and trade talk with China have been slow to make additional progerss.

There are some good news for him of course, unemployment last month is 4.1%, the lowest in quiet awhile, tourism continue to explode in Taiwan these few years, though the export figure is quite worrisome.


Meanwhile, inflation is creeping up a bit again in Taiwan (though probably exaggerated by the media / opposition to some degree). while wages remain fairly stagnant. (though some major onces like Foxconn have annonced pretty signiciant wage hikes..)

[Goldie Locks]

I'd jog to work too if gas went up that much! :grin:


Didn't know sloths could jog.

[Conley]

Didn't know sloths could jog.

Yes, just very, very slowly...

Sloths can do amazing things!

[Conley]

(such as proposing a serious capital gains tax reform, right now Taiwan only have a transaction tax on buying / selling capital asset which have long been slammed as this means folks who makes most of their money in investment rarely pay nearly as much taxes as wage earners.. hmmmm sounds familiar :rollseyes: ) but his team have presented in terriablly naive and/or autocratic fashion, thus sending his own parties legislator up in flames (let alone opposition onces) and Taiwan's stock, already reeling like the rest of the world, only took he news even worse.

What are the tax brackets like there? What kind of CG tax do you have now and what percentage is Ma looking to raise it to? This is what ours is looking like going forward:


Capital Gains Taxation in the United States from 2003 forward[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_United_States#cite_note-0)
2003–2012
2013–



2003–2007
2008–2012
2013–


Ordinary Income Tax Rate
Short-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
Long-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
Short-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
Long-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
Ordinary Income Tax Rate
Short-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
Long-term Capital Gains
Tax Rate
5-year Capital Gains
Tax Rate


10%
10%
5%
10%
0%
15%
15%
10%
8%


15%
15%
5%
15%
0%


25%
25%
15%
25%
15%
28%
28%
20%
18%


28%
28%
15%
28%
15%
31%
31%
20%
18%


33%
33%
15%
33%
15%
36%
36%
20%
18%


35%
35%
15%
35%
15%
39.6%
39.6%
20%
18%

[RollingWave]

Well in terms of income tax bracket it looks like this (very rough translation to US dollar)

(In USD, yearly income)
< 17K = 5%
17K-35K = 10%
35k- 70K = 20%
70K-141K = 30%
over 141K = 40%

Youngish wage earner usually falls in the first bracket, if your in the 3rd bracket your make a lot of money already by the standard here.

Right now we have no capital gains tax on anything except land, (which is also not a true capital gains tax either but a rather weird value added tax calculated in some arcane matter that few understand well). but stock and similar exchanges have a transaction tax which is sort of like a capital gains tax in that you pay 3% of the stock (or similar financial product's) value in taxes. but thats only upon purchase. where as capital gains tax usually is calculated upon sell. in another word the transaction tax is basically a sales tax on financial products.

The reason why Ma and his team is getting slamed is because they have been going back and forth on what they want to do. currently the purposed is something like 15% rate for profit on sale, with around 11K USD worth of basic deductable (so small time stock buyers are less effected) , but the problem of enforcing this remains questionable , and probably what's worse is that there seem to be a complete lack of cordination between the different branchs as the news of this tax plan is announced almost exactly at the same time as the announcement of the previous fuel and power tax hike, obviously horrible politics.

[Trinnity]

I'd jog to work too if gas went up that much! :grin:
Not many people can do that. My hubby has a thirty five minute drive, for example.

[RollingWave]

The good news is that since the 10% gas price hike a few months back the prices have alerady fallen to basically the same as pre-hike level. mostly thanks to the falling global crude price, so luckily for us to some extend we managed to get out of a subsidy without a huge pain period.

not so good news, the parliment voted on a bill which basically opens up American beef imports further, which have been blocked down by the oppostion using some rather annoying methods (essentially they hijacked the chairmen's seat so he can't start the proceeding. ) now they either need to use executive order to solve this (not a great precedence obviously) or open a special session to let it pass, the bill isn't too popular since it involves legalizing the import of enhanced meat from the US which have some health concerns. but it seems quite neccesary if we're to go anywhere with the US on trade talks. as unforunate as that might be.

Meanwhile the PRC announced the latest round of economic opening in cross strait relationships, mostly symbolic but still it's a move, (mostly it involves making it easier for citizen here to work and study in the PRC, and that we can export rice to China, which may or may not be helpful)

[MMC]

The good news is that since the 10% gas price hike a few months back the prices have alerady fallen to basically the same as pre-hike level. mostly thanks to the falling global crude price, so luckily for us to some extend we managed to get out of a subsidy without a huge pain period.

not so good news, the parliment voted on a bill which basically opens up American beef imports further, which have been blocked down by the oppostion using some rather annoying methods (essentially they hijacked the chairmen's seat so he can't start the proceeding. ) now they either need to use executive order to solve this (not a great precedence obviously) or open a special session to let it pass, the bill isn't too popular since it involves legalizing the import of enhanced meat from the US which have some health concerns. but it seems quite neccesary if we're to go anywhere with the US on trade talks. as unforunate as that might be.

Meanwhile the PRC announced the latest round of economic opening in cross strait relationships, mostly symbolic but still it's a move, (mostly it involves making it easier for citizen here to work and study in the PRC, and that we can export rice to China, which may or may not be helpful)


Wouldn't getting into those Chinese markets be beneficial. Once in then one can look to expand. Gas here is the same where prices have dropped.

[Trinnity]

American beef imports further, which have been blocked down by the oppostion using some rather annoying methods (essentially they hijacked the chairmen's seat so he can't start the proceeding. ) Thinking outside the box now.....maybe we can get the secret service to lock Obama out of the White House. lolololol

[RollingWave]

Thinking outside the box now.....maybe we can get the secret service to lock Obama out of the White House. lolololol

yes, but it's a very very bad precedent to set, since it wouldn't stop them from doing the same thing to other POTUS. it generally violates the fundemental concept of democracy if the side that can't get their agenda across by the rule decides to do it outside of the rule.


Wouldn't getting into those Chinese markets be beneficial. Once in then one can look to expand. Gas here is the same where prices have dropped.

We're already in China big time forever, Taiwan is the single largest foreign invester in China since the 80s and still is (it just doesn't "count" as foreign investment ;) ) it's just that, these moves announced last week is basically tiny in the scope of what we're already operating in China anway. Foxconn for example is a pure Taiwanese company. and it hires more Chinese than most country have people :grin: (not much of an exaggeration, Foxconn has a staff of at least 1.2 million people!!!!! majority of them are mainland Chinese on assembly lines)

A truely significant change in scope would be a FTA between th two side, or something equalling that, it's the same thing with Taiwan and the US, the economic relationship is already huge between the two side to make it sigifnicantly bigger requires pretty drastic measures.

[Trinnity]

Thinking outside the box now.....maybe we can get the secret service to lock Obama out of the White House. lolololol


yes, but it's a very very bad precedent to set, since it wouldn't stop them from doing the same thing to other POTUS. it generally violates the fundemental concept of democracy if the side that can't get their agenda across by the rule decides to do it outside of the rule.
Uhhhhh, I was just kidding.

[MMC]

yes, but it's a very very bad precedent to set, since it wouldn't stop them from doing the same thing to other POTUS. it generally violates the fundemental concept of democracy if the side that can't get their agenda across by the rule decides to do it outside of the rule.



We're already in China big time forever, Taiwan is the single largest foreign invester in China since the 80s and still is (it just doesn't "count" as foreign investment ;) ) it's just that, these moves announced last week is basically tiny in the scope of what we're already operating in China anway. Foxconn for example is a pure Taiwanese company. and it hires more Chinese than most country have people :grin: (not much of an exaggeration, Foxconn has a staff of at least 1.2 million people!!!!! majority of them are mainland Chinese on assembly lines)

A truely significant change in scope would be a FTA between th two side, or something equalling that, it's the same thing with Taiwan and the US, the economic relationship is already huge between the two side to make it sigifnicantly bigger requires pretty drastic measures.

What is Foxxconn into that requires them to keep a staff so large? Moreover do you see Taiwan and the rest of the East looking at what is taking place in the EU? Isn't the East looking to trade more with the likes of Vietnam and or I should say more robustly with each other? Looking more to the US and South America?

What about South Korea and their expanding Economy?

[RollingWave]

Foxconn is basically the king of the assembly line, a very very large portion of the world's electronics are assembled by them, including things like Iphones, Play Stations, Xbox, just to name some, so chances are you used a few Foxconn assembled stuff in your life.

Most of the assembly are done with a very large degree of manuel labor, taking advantage of the very large and relatively cheap pool of workers in China, they have huge factories (essentially a freaking city by itself) where hundreds upon hundreds of folks assemble various parts of those electronics into finished parts.

They started out in Taiwan doing mostly the same stuff, but obviously you can not achieve that sort of crazy scale without being in China, they also have operations in Eastern Europe and soon to be South America. they have a huge advantage in terms of production of scale, as they're basically the only company that has the capacity to handle big product assemblies, if you don't go to them then you need to find several other company at the same time which runs a higher risk of one of them messing up.

And of course, when you employ so many people it gives power on its own ;)

In terms of the EU, there's no real collective agreement on this thought, its not like the EU is comming to beg us for aid and that isn't really the key issue either (since the EU can print itself out of trouble if they want, the problem is that the better off places doesn't actually need it.) we're not about to budge into other people's problem espeically when no one's asking us to do it.

Yes on a general level pretty much all the East Asian countries here are looking to go more into free trade and thus expand our economies further, so far Korea's basically a step ahead of everyone else for better or worse. the Koreans have a reputation of being rather extreme folks. their economy reflect that to a degree as well as they were the onces most devastated by the 97 financial crisis but have also bounced back extremely strong since. I'm generallly luk warm of their method of proping up big private busniess using state tools, and think it'll eventually backfire down the road. though how far down is questioanble.

Out of the East Asian countries Singapore and us here in Taiwan have the least state / busniess establishment tieup, where as China / Korea / Japan are all pretty deeply entrenched (though in rather different methods) Japan is already getting burned pretty badly by such connections, the problem of such connections in China is pretty obvious but different in nature, while Korea seem to have been shown the downside of this in 97 but remain in the same situation to much extend, where companies like Samsung seems well above the law in Korea. and have unreasonablly high political leverage.

Most of Taiwan's company are smaller and those that are huge tend to have their operation centered outside of Taiwan (such as Foxconn, HTC, ACER, ASUS etc) so it's helpful in the sense that our policy isn't as clearly driven by cooperate interest . though in reality Taiwan has not performed well relatively speaking in the last 2 decade in terms of economic growth.

[MMC]

Thanks for the assessment RW. Truly I for one, would like to see more Issues coming out of the East around here. Appreciate you taking the time to bring us up to speed.

[RollingWave]

ahhh summer, the time when this is a common sight...
http://210.244.31.133/ftpsrc/ftpsv.cwb.gov.tw/pub/satelliteu/s1p_0.jpg

[RollingWave]

http://udn.com/NEWS/MEDIA/7168828-2831770.JPG
Probably not Foxcon founder and chairmen Terry Guo's better mug shots...

But Guo have been making quite a bit of wave in recent years, he nows has a very large share in the Japanese company Sharp amongst other, he vows to "defeat Samsung" so to speak, not sure what he means exactly but the Korean firm have gotten on plenty of their competitor's nerve in recent years

[MMC]

ahhh summer, the time when this is a common sight...
http://210.244.31.133/ftpsrc/ftpsv.cwb.gov.tw/pub/satelliteu/s1p_0.jpg

Typhoon and Monsoon weather.....huh? Whats the Temp like. Today we are going to be up to 97degrees in Chicago. So more than likely we will go over a hundred with the heat index too.

[RollingWave]

well actually the big cloud in the south SE is also a typhoon now... we don't have a lot of real monsoon per say, we just kinda rain all year long ;)

It's usaully around the mid to upper 90s when it doesn't rain here as well. obviously a bit cooler when it does

[MMC]

well actually the big cloud in the south SE is also a typhoon now... we don't have a lot of real monsoon per say, we just kinda rain all year long ;)

It's usaully around the mid to upper 90s when it doesn't rain here as well. obviously a bit cooler when it does

So what about like the Phillipines and or Cambodia.....Vietnam. Think they will be able to work together with the rest in the aspect of trade and treatises? Maintaining territorial waters for those that have that advantage?

[Trinnity]

I'd like to know more about that too.

[RollingWave]

well the problem with Vietnam / Phillipine's claim on the South Sea is the somewhat simple matter that they have no real navy to speak of.... those places are just as / even more poorer than China per capita and can't make up for it with total numbers.... also the government of Indonesia / Phillipines is very weak at best. Vietnam is better in this regard but they'er also connected to China by land (and have been invaded by them in the past). so for them it's far more risky and complicated.

[MMC]

well the problem with Vietnam / Phillipine's claim on the South Sea is the somewhat simple matter that they have no real navy to speak of.... those places are just as / even more poorer than China per capita and can't make up for it with total numbers.... also the government of Indonesia / Phillipines is very weak at best. Vietnam is better in this regard but they'er also connected to China by land (and have been invaded by them in the past). so for them it's far more risky and complicated.

Have you ever been to Hong Kong RW? Or traveled around there in the East?

[RollingWave]

Hong Kong no, China once a long time ago.

[Trinnity]

well the problem with Vietnam / Phillipine's claim on the South Sea is the somewhat simple matter that they have no real navy to speak of.... You can't rule the ocean off your shores without a Navy. Dang~

[MMC]

well the problem with Vietnam / Phillipine's claim on the South Sea is the somewhat simple matter that they have no real navy to speak of.... those places are just as / even more poorer than China per capita and can't make up for it with total numbers.... also the government of Indonesia / Phillipines is very weak at best. Vietnam is better in this regard but they'er also connected to China by land (and have been invaded by them in the past). so for them it's far more risky and complicated.


Do you think they consider themselves part of that global economy? Or place much significance on such?

[Trinnity]

I kinda doubt it.

[RollingWave]

Do you think they consider themselves part of that global economy? Or place much significance on such?

Well, Vietnam seems more geniuely interesting in advancing up the development ladder (one of my uncle is working there now trying to build a huge factory city in the middle of a freaking marsh), a good number of cheap factories Taiwanese / Hong Konger open in China is already moving to Vietnam now as wages in China continue to grow at breakneck speed.


where as Phillipines espeically is a tragic story of how not to run a democracy...

It is hard to imagine nowadays, but in the 1950s the Phillipines was the wealthiest country in East / SE Asia.... today they're everyone's maid and construction / assembly line worker.

Indonesia meanwhile, is simply too seperated internally as the country is formed simliar to most Sub Saharen African states... the result of the former colonial ruler just randomly drawing lines and putting everything into one state, when in reality it should be more like 4 to 5 state if not more. it has a insanely diverse population (from large number of Chinese to muslims to catholics to buddhist etc.. you name it they have it.) and politically that's simply a nightmare, see East Timor, and that's just the better known case..... before that Tsunami completely wiped out Aceh a few years ago it was the site of endless civil war. the Tsunami kinda did the Indonesian government a favor by wiping out most of the rebels ....

So Indonesia's kinda in the same boat as the Phillipines right now but at least they have a more reasonable excuse...

[MMC]

I heard the Chinese are like closing tourism to Tibet? Hear anything thats going on with that? Something about a couple of Monks who lit themselves up.

[RollingWave]

I heard the Chinese are like closing tourism to Tibet? Hear anything thats going on with that? Something about a couple of Monks who lit themselves up.
That's sort of an on and off thing in Tibet yes, though not really that common, since tourism is basically the main money maker in Tibet and virtually responsible for all it's growth, the only thing that could make the Tibetan situation even worse for the PRC now would be to ruin it's economy obviously.

IIRC, the close tourist area is actally not in the Tibet autonomous region, but in the Province of ShiChuan (the place that had that huge earth quake a few years back). there are areas in the province with large predominant Tibetan settlements and those places aren't quite as reknown in terms of tourism which is why the PRC was willing to close it down, since only the rare back packers venture there anyway... so almost everyone else going there is noisy foreign journalist ;)

Tibet's economy's growth is essentially tied to 2 area these days, Tourism, and economic crops (surprisingly, for the biggest mountains in the world Tibet doesn't have much of a mining industry.), Tibet is home to some of the most high priced Chinese medicines around and a lot of "farmer" these days are just farming / collecting those stuff. so the fact that Tibetan Agriculture sector is still it's lead economy area can be misleading, because it's no longer the same as everyone farming millets. most people make their money farming / finding...

The Saussurea ... something that even the Romans traded for a lot in Antiquity.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Saussurea_pygmaea.jpg/180px-Saussurea_pygmaea.jpg

And the far more exotic caterpillar fungus

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Cordyceps_Sinensis.jpg/180px-Cordyceps_Sinensis.jpg

These uhhh... exotic looking fungus fetch a kings ransom, one killoram of this stuff goes for over 2000 bucks USD(!!) at times. so if a farmer in Tibet manage to find a couple KG of it he's basically set for the year.

[MMC]

Yes that was the Province they mentioned. I heard there was a lot of Tibetans in China working as well. Is China still having problems with those Monks? Do these Monks even fall in under the Dalai Lama's Control? I heard another was in Gansu. Is it true that Kublai Khan was the first to give out the title Dalai Lama?

Hopefully you can get some news threads going with whats happening in the Far East. I am sure you will have many interested. Moreso than the usual garbage out of the ME. Looks like people are getting burnt out with those issues.

[RollingWave]

The First Dalai lama was around after Kublai Khan's time, though IIRC Kublai Khan did grant official recognition to certain monk but it's not Dalai. though both Dalai and Pengchen started not long after the Yuan period.

Well the burning thing seems rather pointless to me, the PRC government isn't exactly the softest folks around . though I guess their point is to continue the awareness of Tibetan's plight and also to keep Tibetan's themself from being aware of the plight.

Dalai didn't really have that much control over the monks even when he was still in Tibet, the nature of the Dalai Lama is not the same as the Pope, it's more like the same as the leader of a Protestant Church.. aka relavent but with many competitors . but he's the most well known and outspoken so he is something of a symbol now that trencends the rivalry that typically exist amongst different Lama sects.

Yes there are Tibetans working elsewhere in China though they're typically at a disadvantage as China have amusingly been quiet consistent in keeping primary Tibetant education in Tibetant instead of Mandarin (despite all the claims of cultural genocide, in this record even the US can't claim for the Native Americans... though that's partially due to the nature of their language.)

The ironic downside is that this causes Tibetans to be at a huge disadvantage as only the well educated speak mandarin Chinese well (and those aren't going to be the folks working at assembly lines obviously) while those that have the most motive to seek job elsewhere are severly hampered by their inadequent fluency in Chinese, this is true in Xin Jiang as well, so the PRC face an amusing ironic dilema, to solve the problem they probably should educate them in mandarin from the start, but that'll be slammed as cultural genocide, but if they preserve their culture they'll make them at a huge disadvantage in gettign jobs elsewhere.

Still, Tibet's own employment prospect hasn't been too terrible in itself, tourist industry create a lot of jobs and Tibet is obviously a world class attraction.

[MMC]

I will try and get some Threads up on the East going too. :wink: