 Professor from UVM with the name of Jane Nodell, a well-known economist. And as I said, a professor at UVM who's agreed to talk to us tonight about the state of the economy. And thank you, Jane, for being here. And I'm very happy to see you, especially tonight. But things are in such flux about our economy. I have no idea even where to begin. So maybe I should let you begin and have you give us some kind of an assessment of where the United States is at. I don't know how you can comment yet on what the current changes about this war are going to be, but I'll let you say whatever you would like to say about the state of our economy, okay? Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you very much for inviting me, Sandy. It's given me a chance to kind of try to organize my own thoughts. And as you say, we're in a period of a lot of change and a lot of flux and it's hard to know exactly the direction we're headed. I'm going to try to share my screen. Okay. Okay. So Jane, I think I just need to make you host. Okay. So just hold on for one second and that should come through now. Okay. So let's see if I can. Is that being big too? By the way, I also want to say about Jane, she's actually, I would say more than a professor. She is also an activist, a political activist in our town, has served on city council for years, is no longer on city council, but still is very active and it was thinking about local politics and the local economy. And that's how, I guess how I know her best is as an active thinker and an activist in terms of local politics, which are very important. Anyway. Thanks, Annie. So I had to change my preferences on Zoom here. So I'm just going to talk through my comments. And I'd love, let me know if you want to break in at any time or if anything I'm saying doesn't make sense. I'll be the case. So I guess my question for myself is whether we are heading into another supply side global economic crisis. So let me just say something about aggregate demand problems and aggregate supply problems. So I'm like a 20th century Keynesian slash Marxist kind of economist. And I always use the kind of Keynes's framework to think about the economy, which in the 20th century US economy, the problem was how do you deal with unemployment? And the fact that you are really using the full productive capacity of the economy to employ people and to provide people with incomes. So like the Great Depression, right? Was an aggregate demand crisis, collapse of aggregate demand, lots of people out of work because no one had, people had less income to buy goods and services. So firms were producing less output, right? Same kind of problem with the global financial crisis of 2007 to 2009. But the pandemic was a supply side crisis, right? Because that started in the service sector where we were all shut down, we weren't like going out to eat, we weren't going to movies, we weren't going out to working out in gyms, that kind of thing. And so there, there's a contraction of people's incomes that's coming from the supply side of the economy, starts in the service sector and then kind of spreads to other sectors. So when we think of this, in terms of the timing of things, so in 2020 was when the pandemic, the initial shutdown started, and then we had these multiple ways, right? Of the pandemic economy would kind of start to come back and then we would like retreat back and there would be a fall in supply, a fallen incomes again. In 2021, there, we kind of started to loosen up a little bit, especially towards the end of the year and the aggregate demand started to pick up. So we started to feel like, oh, we're kind of getting back to normal. But we had these labor shortages, which were a legacy of the pandemic, where many people in the service sector were actually had higher incomes being unemployed and getting federal government relief payments, right? They were making more income than they were when they were working. So that created this awareness of, why am I working for these lousy wages? I'm gonna find some other way, try to get by some other way. And so we know that there's been all these labor shortages and that we're seeing in Vermont and they're throughout the US economy. This is gonna be my phone ringing. Hang on, let me just tell her I'll come back. I gotta call you back, Kurt. Okay, good, okay. That always happens. Phone rings in the middle of the presentation. So in 2021, demand picked up, but we had these labor shortages and then also transportation bottlenecks, right? Like the poor. Could I ask you something? So this labor shortage, was it because people didn't feel like going back to work? Because as you said, they were getting more money without going to work. Is that true? I think it's true. I think maybe, of course, you can only do that for so long, but maybe they decide to go and get some kind of new certification, do some more education to get some other job, right? So we started to see consumer prices start to rise last year. So it was already something that people were talking about. So here we are in February 2022, February 25th, right? The invasion, the assault of Ukraine, which is a catastrophe, a tragedy. Here we're talking about just the economics of it, which almost feels like absurd to even talk about it, but I will anyway. So this is another supply shock, but it's a shock to basic commodities. Energy and food, right? So we're seeing all these rising oil prices, rising gas prices, that's due in part to buyers not wanting to buy the Russian product, right? But also speculators in the market that are driving up the price of oil because they think the prices will continue to go up and they wanna buy by now, hold it, sell it later and make a speculative gain. We have those two things going on in the oil price and the oil and oil markets. And then also there's a big food shock because Russia and Ukraine are like breadbasket, global economy. Ukraine, Ukraine, grain, wheat especially, corn, sunflower oil, these kind of essential products that are especially developing certain development economies like India consumes a lot of. So this supply shock is being felt as higher prices, right? And energy and food, and this is particularly problematic for low and moderate income households, income households for whom food and energy make up a very large proportion of their household budgets. So it's gonna have a hugely adverse distributive effect that is just gonna make the distribution of real living standards. It's gonna press living standards for large numbers of households while others will barely feel it, right? Barely feel it. So I mean, what should the economic policy be? And what will probably happen is the Fed will very moderately raise interest rates. Why, why? Well, because they're worried about core inflation. So they make a distinguish between fluctuation in energy and food prices. And then when you remove that, you have all the industrial goods, manufactured goods. So I think they're thinking is that as long they wanna watch that core inflation, they think that maybe the oil and energy stuff will be short-lived and they don't really have to respond to that. But if there's inflation in these other commodities, they wanna slow that down a bit. Remains to be seen, but I think that they will do something. It won't be a drastic increase in interest rates. But as a general rule, we don't have very good tools, policy tools for dealing with inflation. That's just the fact. I mean, the way that we manage the inflation of the late 70s was by engineering a very deep recession, right? What do you mean, engineering? Well, Fed, this is what Volker said. They brought about a huge increase in interest rates. They're a double-digit interest rates. Wow, yeah. So at some point, if you increase interest rates enough, eventually you will produce a recession. Reduces demand and then prices come down. Demand is lower. Very blunt instrument to put it mildly. We don't have great policies for dealing with inflation, although in World War II, we did use wage price controls. Price controls, right. Price controls, which is combined with rationing. Well, yeah. Which, you know, people don't like price controls, but if you can administer them with some competence, it means that you can manage the kind of, the unfair distributive impact of the higher prices, right? You can say, if everyone got rationed tickets, so you got so much gasoline at X price that people could afford. It would be a way of managing it, but we're probably not gonna do that. So we don't have a good way to cushion the impact of higher prices on income-constrained households. We just don't. Unless we, you know, go back to the relief checks, you know, the business business checks just to help people with the added cost. But that will cause further inflation, right? Well, I don't really think so. No? I don't really think so. I mean, if you, I mean, low income, income-constrained people are buying food, they're buying heat for their homes, they're buying medicines, things like that. You should possibly, you know, then there is the whole supply side of it, right? Do you try to increase energy production in the short run? You know, we probably should do that, but some kinds of, you know, is it gonna be oil and gas, which is probably easiest to scale up very quickly versus the renewables? You know, there's gonna be a big debate about that. Right, right. Could you explain that? Is that the debate about renewable energy and green energy and all that? Is that what's really happening? Like the climate change people are arguing against fossil fuel, correct? Yes. And so is that the nature of the debate? If you increase production as, I guess the Republicans would like to do, correct? Yes. But the Democrats and the green energy people really don't wanna increase production. Is that fair enough to say? Yes. Okay. I mean, they would like to see an increase in production of renewable energy, right? Wind and solar. Right. So I'm not an engineer. I don't know the, you know, but there's arguments about whether in this short run you'd be able to increase output of those forms of energy. Right. Which also need to get, you know, input into the distribution system. So you need the capacity, you need the storage, be able to store it, you know. So we're gonna need some kind of increase in energy supplies domestically if we wanna moderate the effect on prices, I mean. Okay. Right. Right. Or you're gonna buy it from Venezuela. You're gonna buy it from Iran, you know, and these other countries that have, you know, arguably problematic, you know, human rights into, you know, democratic governance kinds of records as well. Well, I think the most shocking proposal is that we buy it from Saudi Arabia. I mean, that to me is really a country that has not a great human rights record, right? Right. But anyway, go ahead. Sorry. No, that's okay. And then, you know, food policy. We don't, you know, when did you ever hear as a having a food policy? I mean, in Vermont, we've got lots of actually really, really good plans around energy and also the food system. Do we need to resume some of the food security programs of the pandemic, you know? I think there's gonna be more, you know, food insecurity out there, you know, the longer this goes on. Of course, a lot depends on how long this war goes on and just how much disruption to the flow of these supplies of energy and food that happen, right? So let me just, I mean, a kind of thinking beyond just what's going right now. I was like, well, what's going, are there some major shifts going on globally? And this is all just speculation, but, you know, I think a lot depends on what China decides to do, right? If China goes ahead and cozies up to Russia and says, you know, strategically, it's wise for us to help them, right? To keep buying their oil and gas and to, then I think we're gonna see, see Russia and China form kind of a real trading block that will have a lot of influence in the Far East, South Asia very possibly. And then there would be these trading blocks that are based on geopolitical military kinds of alignments, right? And so it's kind of like so much for globalization. Of course, many people thought that was a mixed bag anyway. Right. But that's definitely something that could take place. Could with some possible effects on the dollar. I mean, I'm gonna come back to that. Yeah, right. Very interested in the dollar losing its shine. I think we're gonna see national governments say we need to do more about energy and food security, right? Then we need to produce, we need to try to be more self-sufficient or shift our supply to sources that we feel are reliable long-term friends and partners. Certainly many in Europe are wishing that they had not opened up so much and gotten so reliant on Russian energy supplies, right? And then I think we're gonna see, unfortunately, growing defense budgets. People say we need to be ready for anything. If this can happen, who knows what's gonna happen next? Probably the last thing. Not moving in the direction that we'd wanted, but increase emphasis on just securing our, the supplies of things that our people need. It's like a shift to a shortage economy. Well, and that happened obviously in World War II, correct? That's correct. Right, so anyway, okay. So if I'd love to hear what other people think, and are you, I didn't talk much about housing, but it's just, I think I'm really thinking about these basic commodities. And like I said, the impacts will be very unequal. A lot of people will really feel it, and others won't really notice it, but that's probably the way. That's the way it always is though, isn't it? The way it always is. That's right. Does anybody else have any thoughts? I did have a question, but does anybody else have a question or a comment? No? Okay, well, Biden announced, as everybody knows, that we are no longer gonna buy Russian oil, correct? So what does that all mean? I mean, is that, and most people are predicting therefore that the price of gas for our cars and all of the need for oil is gonna skyrocket. And we as the American people are going to be asked to pay for that, right? I'm not certain, and I guess it's assumed that we'll all be okay with that because we are protecting Ukraine. So there's two questions. What will happen as a result of this cutoff of purchase of Russian oil? And secondly, are Americans willing to pay that political price to protect Ukraine? Essentially, isn't that what we're trying? The policy it appears to me is a political decision that Ukraine has to be protected. That might be good or bad. I'm not suggesting good or bad. I'm just asking, do you think that Americans are willing to pay to protect Ukraine with higher prices? That's a good question, Sandy. I mean... I don't think so to tell you the truth. I don't think so. No, I don't. I mean, we've got obviously a bipartisan consensus. Yes, we do. I know it. To the extent that those people are in touch with their people back home. That's what I'm talking about, yeah. To the extent that they are in touch with their people back home. Now, remember a lot of them, a lot of Republicans represent states that have a lot of agriculture and energy. So producers of energy and food are gonna be better off. A lot of redistribution that goes on in an inflation like this. And if you're producing these now scarce commodities, you're gonna be good. People who grow wheat in the United States are gonna have a good year, right? So it may be that that may be part of what's behind this bipartisan consensus. Now, what people who are gonna be really hurt by it are world vermoners who need to drive a lot every day to get to work and it's gonna just really eat into their household budgets. But how does that really translate into the centers of power in Washington, DC? They don't care, probably. What you said is really, I think, true. Is they are not interested in reality. They're not, the politicians as I see it, and this is my, I suppose, value judgment. The politicians are acting as if poor people don't exist. I mean, they always have. Let's face it, probably they always have. Poor people and working class people, they're expecting those people to pay these prices without even asking us. They're deciding these issues without any sense of how people are already living because of the pandemic. And I find that that's gonna be, in my mind, a political crisis, not just for the Democrats, but also for all of the politicians and will lead to a failure of confidence in the government. They act as if all of us are willing to, or can even, are able to pay these higher prices and most people can't. Yeah. What's interesting is, like in developing countries, they have, they're actually better positioned to subsidize household purchases of key commodities for low-income households. Like they have programs in place, right? So we don't have anything like that. So it'd be one thing if we did have that, that you could say, we need to do this because we can't let Russia prevail, right? So we are bound by, because we don't wanna start a nuclear war, there's a limit to what we can do militarily. However, the whole economic sanctions strategy seems to be that eventually we will inflict so much economic harm on Russia that they'll have to stop the war. Do you believe that? I think that's the thinking behind the sanctions. I know, I do too. I think that is the thinking. I'm asking if it's, I don't think it's real. Well, I think it all depends. We need some, we need a Russia specialist. I think you need to go on Russia and Ukraine. Because like what is the mechanism for getting Putin out of power? I mean, you know. Well, there are elections obviously, but I don't think Putin's gonna get out of power because I think he's fairly popular. Of course that's another bit of information that we are being told by our government that the people of Russia will eventually rise up against him and kick him out. I think he's quite popular in Russia. And finally, somebody in our media said that today, that he has the support of the Russian people even in this war. Now it might be based on his disinformation because he is saying about this war that it's because he wants to denazify Ukraine. Most Americans don't believe that. Russians might. Yeah, no, I get it. Well, then I guess the other part of the sanctions theory is that at some point he needs resources to continue to wage the war, right? So once he has no resources to keep, you know, pouring munitions in there, whatever, you know, he needs to, then he has to stop and he can't keep going. But I think that will probably take a very long time. Me too, me too. I'm glad you said that, me too. I think so too. Look at how they performed in World War II with very few resources. They have a lot of people though, right? People. So anyway. Yeah. So, I mean, but politically, you know, I think they're gonna, if the higher oil prices have go on for a long time, I think they're gonna have to come up with some way of helping income constrained households deal with that hit. Ooh, which side? Us or them? The us. Yeah, me too. Yeah, right, right. Exactly. But will that happen? I mean, do you see that? Where is all this heading? The economic, I mean, the economic collapse to me began also during the pandemic. You shut down the entire economy, right? I mean, isn't that really what happened? Yep. Almost. Yep. I mean, it was mainly the service sector, right? But it, you know, that's a big part of the economy. Right. And you gave people, essentially you gave people money during that period of time. Was that, I mean, I have, has the United States recovered from that in the first place? You're still talking about labor shortages. Is that still happening? That people aren't... I mean, actually that's a little bit of a kind of a bright spot in an odd way, which is we have tight labor markets, right? Okay. So when you have tight labor markets, employers have to pay people higher wages and better benefits to get them to work for them. So, and people are expecting better wages and benefits coming out of the pandemic. So, when there's a tight labor market, that will lead to a redistribution, I think, away from capital and to labor. So I think that that's not all bad. Business is having to bid up wages and benefits in order to get people to work and improve their working conditions and let them work remotely if they want to. So that's the bargaining power of labor is actually good right now, which is quite different from, you know, previous to, you know, the past, really. Except during World War II. Right. That was also kind of a tight, you know, kind of... So we always, you know, as Keynes and economists would always point to, say, you know, Sweden, these kind of countries, they have perpetually tight labor markets by policy. And that's good for labor. But that's a bit of a bright spot and I think that's that will end up being a good thing in the long run. Okay, does anybody else have thoughts or questions? Anyone? Because I wanted to talk to Jane also about, I think, an emerging financial system that's also emerging out of this war, but prior to the war. I have a friend in New York City who trades gold and he has for a long time asserted that Americans dollar is really losing its power. One of the things also that he emailed me recently was the fact that he believes that China and Russia are going to develop a whole new financial system that de-dollarizes our dollar. In other words, we'll try to make the dollar not as universally valuable in international trade and that they're going to have some kind of a currency that will be, I guess, more valuable and that will get around the dollar. Now, is that in any way coming or what? What is your thought about that? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, Russia right now has been cut off from MasterCard visa. We froze the assets of the Russian central bank that we're sitting in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Whatever that means too, but... Well, their bank, the Russian central bank had a deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They kept some of their reserves, cash reserves there at the New York Fed and that's why we were able to freeze that. They had some reserves as gold and we can't really touch that. That's a global commodity, right? So it is the case that Russia now is being able to sell is being able to sell and buy with China, which would be the beginning of that trading block which always has this monetary or financial aspect to it. Right. Because if you're trading goods and so you need some way of paying for it, some kind of money. So I could see that happening, and then the dollar, to the extent that those parties are using dollars, they wouldn't be using dollars anymore, but that doesn't mean that the Chinese currency would become like a global currency. It would be like the dollar, right? Right, yeah, I guess, yeah. The thing about the dollar, it should be a reserve currency like that where like everyone wants it and everyone wants your dollar denominated, federal government debt and stuff is that you can move in and out of it very easily. Right? That you have all these US government securities. You're the Belgium big company in Belgium. You're holding some of your cash as US government securities. If you need to turn that into money to go invest in something, you can do it. You don't have to worry about the US like closing it's closing down and erecting barriers to movements of capital. China does not allow free and open movement of finance in and out of its country. It's all, you know, it's regulated. They'd have to, but you know, the two of them could definitely, you know, get together and do something. I don't think it would affect us too much. Yeah. I actually think that the US, the US has, being the reserve currency has allowed us to avoid making hard decisions. What do you mean? Because we run trade deficits. For the past 40 years, we've run trade deficits virtually every, with a couple of exceptions in the 90s, I think under Bill Clinton. What that means is we're always spending more than we earn. Okay. Because the rest of the world is happy to hold these dollar denominated deposits. Mm-hmm. And, you know, US government debt. And if that weren't the case, we would have to, we'd have to, you know, we'd be more constrained in what we spend money on. And maybe we would make better choices, I don't know. So you don't, this, as I said, my friend who's a cold reader said, in fact, that the Russia and China had really teamed up. One, that China would back Russia in this current war. And secondly, that they would begin to establish their own financial system. And based on what, I don't know, some kind of a cryptocurrency, I don't know that either. And I don't know, honestly, I guess none of us know what any of this really means. But when the allegation is that Vladimir Putin has not thought this through and that he, I think, understood all the risks. So my question is, he must have understood in some way that China was gonna back him and that they were going to emerge as a new kind of, as you say, trading block at least or at least as an alternative to the Western monopoly, by the way, in a way of Western capitalism or something. I don't know, what do you think? He's not a moron, Putin. No. And we know that he was, you know, I was, many of us have read these stories that, you know, talk about Putin's writings over the years. Yes, right. And it's all, none of this is very surprising when you come. Oh, it shouldn't be surprising. And he spends very surprising to the elites in this country, which is terrible, the thought of that, that they are surprised by this, right? Yeah, I agree. I mean, he just feels that it's just not good to have one superpower, you know. Right, right. The US and that there need to be, maybe I'll argue that the Cold War was kind of a, there was this balancing out of, it was stable in a way, right? Because even though it was a Cold War, you know, both sides were kind of constrained by the other and, you know, we kind of knew what the game were, you know. Right, exactly. But now it's like, and I think this is what is destabilizing is kind of, well, what are the rules? You know, now we don't, we don't have, there was kind of an implicit almost understanding with the Soviet Union, you know. It was, yeah. Of what each side would and wouldn't do, right? Right. And now we've lost that. I mean, that's what's fundamentally destabilizing about this situation, that no one knows, you know, just how far it's gonna go. Or how it's gonna affect the United States of America, either. I mean, I think that, I don't, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't look to me, it looks to me in a way that Russia has kind of put us in the situation of not being able to do much, not being able to control the situation very much. I don't know. You know, he's a sly fox that one. I know. Well, yeah, crazy like a fox, you know. Crazy like a fox. I mean, he's able to do what he's doing, knowing that NATO will be restricted. Yeah, it seems to me, I hope so. Don't you? I mean, I hope so. We all hope so. I know it. And knowing that NATO really can't, there's a limit to what NATO can do, you know. And so, but I think that it's, I'm seeing, I'm not seeing a clear met signal from China that they're on board with all this. I think they're trying to figure out, are they? Well, I maybe, maybe, but this is also a huge, I hope, I don't know if Eric on your own is still here. Eric is from Ivory Coast, and he had a very, he's a colleague of mine we're trying to build together something called the People's Law School. Anyway, he was just in Africa. And he was very surprising in what he told me about that visit. I had not expected this information. When he was there, he saw overwhelming support for Putin, overwhelming. And if you think about it, the support for Ukraine and policies which would favor Ukraine is largely in the white European capitalist West. We haven't heard anything about how Latin Americans feel about this or their governments. We haven't heard really much about what Africans feel. We haven't heard much about the Asians except that I have at least read that China is backing Russia. So we have most of the world that we don't even know what they think about this war. And then he tells me that in Africa at least what he observed were posters for Putin all over the, what does that mean? What does it mean when if the entire third world has been ignored by the West in this struggle, which I think it has, including the fact that now Biden has to go to Maduro, a man that he had a country that I think haven't all the presidents sanctioned Maduro and made their life in Venezuela miserable. And so now all of a sudden they're going hand in, you know, with a handout to Maduro and Saudi Arabia and who's the other one? There's a third, right? What? Nicaragua, no, not Nicaragua. Venezuela, Saudi Arabia. Iran. Iran. Iran. I thought they were the bad guys, you know? So in other words, I don't know what happened in anybody's consciousness about the whole third world and what are they thinking about this? Are they going to drift into this camp with Russia and China? They might. I don't know a lot about the current African economic situation, but my sense. Obviously the same as in Cuba and the same as in the Caribbean. It's been penetrated by China. Oh yeah, I was going to say China. I think there's a lot of investment from the People's Republic. Russia more so than from Russia. But now Russia and China, what if they're really together? Well, I think that there, a lot depends again on what the People's Republic does. Yes, exactly. Are they then in the driver's seat in all of this? And is that such great news for the United States? You know? And what is, by the way, if you could just, I think I do have a further question unless somebody else says about cryptocurrency. What is this thing about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin? Is that some kind of a developing alternative currency to the dollar or what? Yeah, so you had a good presentation on this a couple of weeks ago, a month ago maybe. And I think there's different views. I mean, the person who spoke early a month ago, whenever it was, I think does see crypto as a possible emerging currency. I see it more as an asset, kind of like a stock. Kind of like gold. It's kind of like the 21st century version of gold. That if you wanna hold something that is kind of liquid, that is easy to sell, relatively easy to sell, that isn't issued by a government, isn't issued by a bank, there's also what gold is, right? Then crypto. And that maybe it's kind of a bet that if crypto takes off, then anyone who owns crypto today is gonna become very wealthy, you know? And I think it's so. So you don't see it as an alternate economy in a way, right? That would. Maybe a little parallel economy. Some people are using it to buy, but it's very specialized kinds of things you can buy with crypto, right? You're not gonna go to the grocery store and get your milk and eggs with crypto. So I don't see replacing the kind of banking system anytime soon. I don't really see that. Okay, so therefore, and there's also, I believe a move in China to develop a digitized currency, correct? Second half here? Second half in here? Well, what is digital currency? I don't know, you tell me. Is there phones to buy stuff? Yeah, right. You know, that's a digital currency, basically. But it's all linked back to a bank deposit somewhere. All right, okay, okay. It's just you're using your access to it electronically. All right. Okay, so does anybody ever have any questions for Jane? So I really need, I would love it, Jane, if you could sum up and just tell us the future, what do you think is gonna be the state of the American economy at least over the next couple of years, before the midterms too, right? The midterm elections. But I'm not interested in that big, but I am interested in what you perceive is gonna be the immediate effect of all this on the ordinary American life. Yeah. Well, ordinary Americans are gonna be spending more on energy to heat their homes, to drive their cars, and they're gonna be spending more on essential foods. Basic food, the bread is gonna cost more and that'll like spread through other kinds of goods. You know, if you buy meat, meats are probably gonna go up and people are gonna have to be, you know, cutting back in other places, maybe cutting back on the quality of the food that they buy in order to continue to keep themselves going. And that's all separate from, you know, the whole housing crisis where, you know, we have this perpetual shortage of housing, particularly, you know, affordable, deeply affordable housing. And we, that's a fundamental problem. What kind of blows my mind is that you almost never hear anyone talking about that in Washington, D.C. So Sandy, so talk about a disconnect. If we were able to deal with that, it would make all these other problems much more, much easier to deal with. And that's including in Vermont, right? And in Burlington in particular, right? Very much so, very much so. So it'd be great to have a section on maybe one of these on, you know, housing and what we should be doing, yes, that's a bit, in fact, I had a couple of homeless people come to see me today. I mean, that's a real, that's a problem even in Burlington, it's homelessness still. And you wonder about how on earth people survive. You know, how are they doing it? And because that's gonna only increase, it seems to me, right? Absolutely. So how is all this going to affect the midterms, in your opinion? Probably not good for Democrats. But the Republicans are not offering any real solutions, particularly to this war. They are, that's, as you said, the war has bipartisan support. Does it have the support of the American people? I don't think so. But who are they gonna then vote for since both parties are the same, right? There is as many people have always felt a pro war party in Washington and always has been, right? Okay, well, anybody else have any final thoughts before we thank Jane and mention that next week, we will be, Vicki, the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement and the People's Law School will be presenting an update on the situation in Ukraine with my attorney friend Kurt Mehta who will offer his scholarship. He's done a lot of research on the situation in Ukraine and will be here to give us an update. So thank you very much, Jane, and I hope to see everybody next week. Thanks a lot. Thank you, I'm sure we'll talk again, I hope. Yeah, me too. Take care, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye.