We have met the enemy and they are liberal.

[dude1394]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080201253.html

California's budget debacle holds a lesson for America, but one we will probably ignore. It's easy to attribute the state's protracted budget stalemate, now temporarily resolved with about $26 billion of spending cuts and accounting gimmicks, to the deep recession and California's peculiar politics. Up to a point, that's true. Representing an eighth of the U.S. economy, California has been harder hit than most states. Unemployment, now 11.6 percent (national average: 9.5 percent), could top 13 percent in 2010, says economist Eduardo Martinez of Moody's Economy.com. Meanwhile, the requirement that any tax increase muster a two-thirds vote in the legislature promotes paralysis. Democrats prefer tax hikes to spending cuts, and Republicans can block higher taxes


All this produced the recent drama: plunging tax revenue and the state's resulting huge budget deficits; endless negotiations between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders; the deadlock that led the state to issue scrip (in effect, IOUs) to pay bills; and a final agreement on a 2009-10 budget. But there is also a bigger story with national implications. California has reached a tipping point. Its government made more promises than its economy can easily support. For years, state leaders papered over the contradiction with loans and modest changes. By overwhelming these expedients, the recession triggered an inevitable reckoning.


Here's the national lesson. There's a collision between high and rising demands for government services and the capacity of the economy to produce the income and tax revenue to pay for those demands. That's true of California, where poor immigrants and their children have increased pressures for more government services. It's also true of the nation, where an aging population raises Social Security and Medicare spending. California is leading the transformation of politics into a form of collective torture: pay more (higher taxes), get less (lower services).


Make no mistake: The spending cuts and tax increases the state enacted to bridge its budget deficits are not cosmetic. In February, the Legislature agreed to a penny increase in the state sales tax, bringing the total -- including local sales taxes -- to about nine cents or more. Top income tax rates, already among the highest in the country, were raised. So were motor vehicle registration fees. Spending cuts approved in February and July are deep. Together, the cuts equal almost 30 percent of the general revenue fund and will affect schools, prisons, colleges and welfare.


The state's liberal establishment is in mourning. "Reversing 40 years of progress" is how Jean Ross of the California Budget Project, a liberal research and advocacy group, put it in one blog. Some welfare benefits will be cut by half. California's student-teacher ratio, now about a third above the national average, will probably go even higher. The University of California system lost 20 percent of its state payments. It's raising tuition and student fees 9.3 percent, imposing salary reductions of 4 to 10 percent on more than 100,000 workers, and delaying faculty hires.


National parallels again seem apparent. Federal budget deficits -- reflecting the urge to spend and not tax -- predate the recession and, as baby boomers retire, will survive any recovery. Amazingly, the Obama administration would worsen the long-term outlook by expanding federal health insurance coverage. There's much mushy thinking about how we'll muddle through.


California has pioneered this sort of delusion. The presumption was that a dynamic economy would pay for expansive government. But California's relative economic performance has actually deteriorated. In the 1980s, the state's economy grew much faster than the national economy; annual growth averaged 5.1 percent vs. 3.1 percent nationally. In the present decade, the gap is smaller -- 2.9 percent versus 2.3 percent -- and much of the state's advantage reflects the unsustainable housing boom, of which California was the epicenter.


On paper, the state could solve its budget problems by raising taxes further. But in practice, that might backfire by weakening the economy and tax base. California scores poorly in state ratings of business climate. In a CNBC survey, it ranked 32nd overall but last in "cost of business" and 49th in "business friendliness." Information technology (Intel, Google, Hewlett Packard) and biotechnology remain strengths, but some traditional industries are struggling. High costs, as well as tax breaks from other states, have caused movie studios to shift production from Southern California. In 1996, feature films involved 14,500 production days in the Los Angeles area, says FilmL.A.; in 2008, the figure was half that.


So California is stretched between a precarious economy and a strong popular desire for government. The state's wrenching experience suggests that, as a nation, we should begin to pare back government's future commitments to avoid a similar fate. But California's experience also suggests we'll remain in denial, prisoners of wishful thinking, until the fateful reckoning arrives in the unimagined future.

[92bDad]

dude1394,

Can you add to this report? Can you find any reports on where business that had been in California at one time, but has later moved...where did they move to?

With California being ranked so low in terms of Business Friendly, can we determine which states are Business Friendly and perhaps see a "Political" trend?

[mcsluggo]

California has the most disfunctional state government in the country for two primary reasons.

First so much of its laws come from direct ballot initiatives... which are written by one of two groups, self-interested groups with deep advertisement budgets that can easily fool the majority of the public to vote for any idiotic thing by labeling it the "apple pie and milk for all intiative", or well meaning but niave small groups that write laws with no concept of what the true effect of their in-expert wording will be.

it is no insult to most people to say that they simply have neither the expertise nor the dilligence to understand and vote on 10 specific amendments to the california constitution each time they go to the polls... yet that is exactly what the initiative system has them doing. It is an idea that sounds GREAT on paper (i was really psyched when i first heard about it) but is a NIGHTMARE in reality.

as a result of past initiatives, the assempby has very littly discretion... on BOTH revenue raising AND spending. It all comes straight from capital gains taxes (which are hugely cyclical) because they can't tap normal sources like property taxes efficiently.


Second, (and this one is is a DIRECT warning to Texas)... California is seriously over gerymandered. as a result almost all of the seats in both congress (ie washington), and the assembly (ie sacramento) are "safe" conservative or liberal, and they get the biggest moonbat idiots from both sides of the aisle. These guys are morons to start with AND they simply can't work with each other, either. Arnold is actually working hard to reverse at least THIS, if he is successful in reducing gerrymandering, then no matter what else goes down, you would have to view his overall term with some degree of favor.

Texas has actually surpassed California in the Gerrymandering circus... frankly, y'all better get the ideological sticks out of your asses and fix this, or you will head down the exact same moonbat highway as california in the years to come. Seriously.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

dude1394,

Can you add to this report? Can you find any reports on where business that had been in California at one time, but has later moved...where did they move to?

With California being ranked so low in terms of Business Friendly, can we determine which states are Business Friendly and perhaps see a "Political" trend?

well not really..A couple of quick google searches show the below. I expect it is difficult to track where small businesses go for sure. Large companies would seem to be going to tejas.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/15/bes...eststates.html

If you take their thoughts on the number of companies with 1Billion in sales, they've moved to texas.

Virginia scored well across the board. In fact, it ranked in the top ten in all six big categories we looked at. No other state scored in the top ten in more than three categories. The individual metrics Virginia scored well in included taxes, where it ranked seventh, at 15% below the national average according to West Chester, Pa., research firm Moody's Economy.com. Pollina Corporate Real Estate, a commercial real estate consulting firm, examined each state's incentive programs for Forbes.com and found Virginia's to be second best behind South Carolina. That ranking combined with its solid tort climate propelled Virginia to the top spot in the regulatory environment category.


Our second-ranked state, Texas, experienced a boom and bust in many categories similar to what it's economy has witnessed with oil, real state and banking over the years. Texas was among the best when it came to population growth, transportation, tort climate and cost of living. It also has the largest number of companies with $1 billion in sales at 110, including ExxonMobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ), Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and AMR (nyse: AMR - news - people ). But it ranked last in high school attainment (78% of the adult population has a degree) and scored poorly on unemployment, crime and poverty rates.
Mississippi, West Virginia and 50th-ranked Louisiana bring up the rear of the ranking (to be fair, Mississippi and Louisiana were hurt by the devastation that Hurricane Katrina inflicted). All three states suffer from weak labor pools and growth prospects as well as a poor quality-of-life ranking.

And this one looks at small business growth but only as compared to tax rates. It does have the %unemployed as well as the business + ranking. Interesting.


http://blog.bestandworststates.com/2...-for-jobs.aspx

Are Business Friendly States Best for Jobs?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March State Unemployment rates this week. Ugly again.

We now have 8 states with unemployment above 10%. Michigan is the Worst State for Jobs with an unemployment rate of 12.6%. Oregon is also very bad for jobs with a rate of 12.1%. California, our most populated state, has an unemployment of 11.2% meaning that 1 out of 9 people are out of work. South Carolina also is a Worst State for Jobs with unemployment of 11.4%.

The Best State for Jobs in March was North Dakota at 4.2%. The other Top 5 States for Jobs were Wyoming at 4.5%, Nebraska at 4.6%, South Dakota at 4.9%. Iowa and Utah were tied for fifth with 5.2% unemployment.

We thought we would take a look this month also at how states that are ranked for small business are doing on the job front. In theory the better the small business environment the better the job environment. We used the recently released SBEC report. See: Best and Worst States for Small Business

The data shows that the Best States for Small Business are not all the Best States for Jobs at this moment. 5 of the top 10 Best States for Small Business, for example, have below average i.e. higher, unemployment. 45th ranked Iowa for example has the 4th best employment in the U.S.

As mentioned in the previous post, the SBEC index is primarily a tax based system and high or lower taxes are not the only reason companies grow and create jobs. It would appear intuitive over time business friendly states should create more business and jobs. We will continue to watch this during the cycle as the better states may grow first and faster.
















Small

Rank State %Unemp Biz Rank
1 NORTH DAKOTA 4.2 36
2 WYOMING 4.5 3
3 NEBRASKA 4.6 40
4 SOUTH DAKOTA 4.9 1
5 IOWA 5.2 45
5 UTAH 5.2 24
7 LOUISIANA 5.8 26
8 NEW MEXICO 5.9 27
8 OKLAHOMA 5.9 15
10 KANSAS 6.1 33
10 MONTANA 6.1 31
12 NEW HAMPSHIRE 6.2 25
13 ARKANSAS 6.5 23
14 TEXAS 6.7 5
15 VIRGINIA 6.8 16
16 MARYLAND 6.9 35
16 WEST VIRGINIA 6.9 39
18 IDAHO 7 41
19 HAWAII 7.1 37
20 VERMONT 7.2 43
21 COLORADO 7.5 8
21 CONNECTICUT 7.5 30
23 DELAWARE 7.7 21
24 ARIZONA 7.8 17
24 MASSACHUSETTS 7.8 42
24 NEW YORK 7.8 46
24 PENNSYLVANIA 7.8 29
28 MAINE 8.1 48
29 MINNESOTA 8.2 49
30 NEW JERSEY 8.3 50
31 ALASKA 8.5 7
31 WISCONSIN 8.5 32
33 MISSOURI 8.7 14
34 ALABAMA 9 9
35 ILLINOIS 9.1 18
36 GEORGIA 9.2 19
36 WASHINGTON 9.2 4
38 MISSISSIPPI 9.4 12
39 TENNESSEE 9.6 13
40 FLORIDA 9.7 6
40 OHIO 9.7 10
42 DC 9.8 51
42 KENTUCKY 9.8 28
44 INDIANA 10 22
45 NEVADA 10.4 2
46 RHODE ISLAND 10.5 44
47 NORTH CAROLINA 10.8 38
48 CALIFORNIA 11.2 47
49 SOUTH CAROLINA 11.4 11
50 OREGON 12.1 34
51 MICHIGAN 12.6 20

[dude1394]

You just cannot make this stuff up.

Courthouse News - California won’t accept its own IOUs for payment:

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors’ federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.


Lead plaintiff Nancy Baird filled her contract with California to provide embroidered polo shirts to a youth camp run by the National Guard, but never was paid the $27,000 she was owed. She says California “paid” her with an IOU that two banks refused to accept - yet she had to pay California sales tax on the so-called “sale” of the uniforms.

[Mavdog]

nancy baird should give the state her tax payment in the form of an IOU....

[wmbwinn]

7 out of the top 10 in your list of business friendly states are solidly Republican states. Nebraska and Iowa are Farmer Democrats (my own label, they are socially conservative and otherwise tend to be conservative in most areas EXCEPT they want the farm subsidies). Iowa is a toss up with both parties well represented. Nebraska is mostly Republican but Ben Nelson is a Democrat. Ben Nelson frequently votes with Republicans but gets those farm subsidies.

So, you looking for a trend????

[mcsluggo]

That list ranks states according to their unemployment rate...

so yeah,,, at first glance the trend that I see is that primarily rural states appear not to be seeing their unemployment rates rise as fast... and that primarily rural states tend to vote Republican...

Is that the trend you were indicating...?

(by the way, according to that chart only 2 of those "top states" you cite appear to have top business climates, according to whatever criteria they are reporting....)

[dude1394]

Barry...making even the humongous sound trivial.


[quote]
Friday, August 14, 2009

The science narrator who once voiced awe at astronomical size now sounds rather silly.

In last night's Sunset Tavern, rhhardin wrote:

The science narrator genre, made popular in the late 60s.

"There are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Simply saying that number doesn't mean much to us because it doesn't provide any context. Our brains have no way to accurately put that in any meaningful perspective."

RH goes on:

100 billion is a twentieth of the 2009 Obama deficit.

It's doesn't seem so big now, astronomers.

Needed, a government narrator genre replacing the universe with the deficit.

[dude1394]

So 19,000/student isn't enough? It will NEVER be enough for public schools. Blow 'em up.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/...-run-a-school/

Time for another “THE SCHOOLS HAVE NO MONEY!” report from the WaPo:

The largest-ever infusion of federal cash is flowing into public school classrooms this year in the form of new programs and thousands of restored jobs. The stimulus package — $100 billion over two years — comes with similarly sized expectations. . .
Even with the extra cash, the survey found, many schools are focused on survival. . .
In Fairfax County, stimulus funding saved about 274 positions, but class size ratios still increased by half a student

Poor schools!
And Fairfax. Desperate, struggling Fairfax only has about $3.3 billion to play with this year. How are they supposed to keep the system running with just $19,000 per student?
Considering the fact that the estimated national median private school tuition is around $4,800 $6,200, maybe they could just let parents and taxpayers keep, say, a third of that money to spend on education themselves.

[dude1394]

Good grief...

FTC to Protect Us from Multi-Colored Beer Cans

Posted by Mark A. Calabria
Recently Anheuser-Busch hit upon the marketing idea of selling Bud Light beer in cans decorated with the college-team colors. As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) doesn’t have much else to do - it’s not like there’s been say fraud going on in the mortgage market – it quickly turned its attention to the issue, expressing “grave concern” that these team-colored cans would encourage underage and binge drinking.


As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, FTC attorney Janet Evans said “this does not appear to be responsible activity.” What’s not responsible is the FTC wasting taxpayer resources wondering what color beer cans we are drinking out of. When I was an underage drinker, the last thing on my mind was the color of the can. The ultimate purpose of the marketing campaign is to shift demand away from boring, non-team color beer cans toward team color cans. If beer drinkers (or can collectors) get some pleasure out of a certain colored can, where’s the fraud or deception in that?


The real purpose of FTC’s interest is revealed in the comments of the Licensing Resource Group, which represents the colleges in protecting their logos. Almost all the colleges that have asked Anheuser-Busch to stop selling the cans have cited trademark concerns. Yet none of the cans have any team logos. While no one would dispute the right of a college to control the use of its team logo, is it really reasonable to conclude that the colleges also own the rights to the use of certain colors?

[Mavdog]

his "fact" on tuition is inaccurate, that is for elementary grades in a church affiliated institution in 2000. he compares that to costs per student in all grades for fairfax today.

the median private school (nonreligious) tuition was $14,628 in 2000 for secondary levels. many private schools here in dfw have tuition over $20,000/yr today for secondary grades.

the question should be how well the fairfax school district is doing in their mission. are the students graduating? do they have the skills to do well in college? how do they perform vs the national average on the testing?

[chumdawg]

Even with the extra cash, the survey found, many schools are focused on survival.

Who the F isn't focused on survival? I mean, really, what does this claim say? We give them some cash, and by God, we still can't get them to focus on anything besides survival.

What the hell did you want them to focus on?

[dude1394]

Another sterling example of...well I'm not even sure what to call it..Blow it up..
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...1fa_fact_brill

In a windowless room in a shabby office building at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street, in Manhattan, a poster is taped to a wall, whose message could easily be the mission statement for a day-care center: “Children are fragile. Handle with care.” It’s a June morning, and there are fifteen people in the room, four of them fast asleep, their heads lying on a card table. Three are playing a board game. Most of the others stand around chatting. Two are arguing over one of the folding chairs. But there are no children here. The inhabitants are all New York City schoolteachers who have been sent to what is officially called a Temporary Reassignment Center but which everyone calls the Rubber Room.
These fifteen teachers, along with about six hundred others, in six larger Rubber Rooms in the city’s five boroughs, have been accused of misconduct, such as hitting or molesting a student, or, in some cases, of incompetence, in a system that rarely calls anyone incompetent.


The teachers have been in the Rubber Room for an average of about three years, doing the same thing every day—which is pretty much nothing at all. Watched over by two private security guards and two city Department of Education supervisors, they punch a time clock for the same hours that they would have kept at school—typically, eight-fifteen to three-fifteen. Like all teachers, they have the summer off. The city’s contract with their union, the United Federation of Teachers, requires that charges against them be heard by an arbitrator, and until the charges are resolved—the process is often endless—they will continue to draw their salaries and accrue pensions and other benefits.


“You can never appreciate how irrational the system is until you’ve lived with it,” says Joel Klein, the city’s schools chancellor, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg seven years ago.


Neither the Mayor nor the chancellor is popular in the Rubber Room. “Before Bloomberg and Klein took over, there was no such thing as incompetence,” Brandi Scheiner, standing just under the Manhattan Rubber Room’s “Handle with Care” poster, said recently. Scheiner, who is fifty-six, talks with a raspy Queens accent. Suspended with pay from her job as an elementary-school teacher, she earns more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, and she is, she said, “entitled to every penny of it.” She has been in the Rubber Room for two years. Like most others I encountered there, Scheiner said that she got into teaching because she “loves children.”


“Before Bloomberg and Klein, everyone knew that an incompetent teacher would realize it and leave on their own,” Scheiner said. “There was no need to push anyone out.” Like ninety-seven per cent of all teachers in the pre-Bloomberg days, she was given tenure after her third year of teaching, and then, like ninety-nine per cent of all teachers before 2002, she received a satisfactory rating each year.

[alexamenos]

I often leave my dogs at a kennel during the day. I'd guess the attention and education they get rival your typical public school.

Public education is over-rated. It's mostly just overpriced day care. I'd bet 99 parents out of 100 could give their kids a much better education if they'd do it themselves.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Another sterling example of...well I'm not even sure what to call it..Blow it up..
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...1fa_fact_brill

The solution is simple: put the same organization in charge of healthcare.

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I often leave my dogs at a kennel during the day. I'd guess the attention and education they get rival your typical public school.

Public education is over-rated. It's mostly just overpriced day care. I'd bet 99 parents out of 100 could give their kids a much better education if they'd do it themselves.

It's become pretty clear that placing the responsibilities of instilling social values while punishing educators who have the audacity to actually use discipline to carry it out is a big fail. Let the children see the absolutely best way to resolve conflict isn't by working out differences directly, but by threatening and filing lawsuits. And just like health care, high self esteem is a civil right.

Pile on large chunks of paper shuffling, largely worthless administrative burdens to keep the Fed spitting out those funds, and those boat rocking malcontents who just want to teach will find another vocation or defect to private schools.

But at least we have a Public Option.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I often leave my dogs at a kennel during the day. I'd guess the attention and education they get rival your typical public school.

Public education is over-rated. It's mostly just overpriced day care. I'd bet 99 parents out of 100 could give their kids a much better education if they'd do it themselves.

don't have any kids in school, do you?

[Dirkadirkastan]

If your public school kids are smarter than you, then that's just a bad example.

Anyway, public schools only have a case to receive more funding as long as they're doing poorly. If they did well, then we would no longer have a reason to keep throwing so much money at them. I don't see any incentive for them to produce smart kids whatsoever.

[92bDad]

Why don't we have all these "Liberal" education policy makers (I'm not talking about teachers in general, just those in the system who make the rules)

Send them out and have them conduct the Terrorist Interogations.

We could then see terrorist ROFL at why things are so screwed up over here.

To be fair, teachers are limited by the various systems they teach in. A large majority of them are quality individuals with their hearts in the right place...to educate kids. But it is clear that Administrators are more focused on the bottom line and on squelching out any alternative thought, to the point that they limit what teachers can and can't do.

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

his "fact" on tuition is inaccurate, that is for elementary grades in a church affiliated institution in 2000. he compares that to costs per student in all grades for fairfax today.

the median private school (nonreligious) tuition was $14,628 in 2000 for secondary levels. many private schools here in dfw have tuition over $20,000/yr today for secondary grades.

the question should be how well the fairfax school district is doing in their mission. are the students graduating? do they have the skills to do well in college? how do they perform vs the national average on the testing?

I live in Fairfax county. Without exaggerating, it is probably the very best public school system in the country. But yeah, it ain't cheap--- we paid over $10k in property taxes last year.

[dude1394]

Priceless...

Pay As We Say

Not as we do. Actually, that probably should be “booze as we say … ” A Massachusetts Democratic state rep who voted to raise alcohol taxes and slap the increased state sales tax on hootch on top of that is caught buying bottles across the border in New Hampshire. A classic tabloid gotcha, it’s a thing of beauty. Boston Herald:

A Westport lawmaker who voted to hike the state sales and alcohol taxes was spotted brazenly piling booze in his car - adorned with his State House license plate - in the parking lot of a tax-free New Hampshire liquor store, the Herald has learned.
Michael J. Rodrigues’ blue Ford Crown Victoria, emblazoned with his “House 29” Massachusetts license plate, was parked outside a Granite State liquor store on Interstate-95 South over the weekend, according to a witness who provided pictures to the Herald.
The witness, who requested anonymity, claimed he approached Rodrigues, noted his State House plate, and asked if he was on personal or official business. Rodrigues, who was loading booze into his car, snapped “mind your own business,” the witness said.
The witness’ account was also posted yesterday on Citizens for Limited Taxation’s Web site.
A member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Rodrigues did not return several phone calls yesterday. But in an online interview with The Standard-Times in New Bedford, he acknowledged buying the booze during a bathroom stop while he and his wife were on a weekend getaway in New Hampshire.
He also blamed the brouhaha on “Republican demagoguery.”

[dude1394]

Yup...this outta work.

YOU THINK? Florida Exodus: Rising Taxes Drive Out Residents. “There are many things public officials probably shouldn’t do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida’s government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida’s public utility is doing.”

[Robillion]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

I live in Fairfax county. Without exaggerating, it is probably the very best public school system in the country. But yeah, it ain't cheap--- we paid over $10k in property taxes last year.

No joke... my sister would have been a Jr. in HS in Fairfax County, but we moved to Ohio from there, and she graduated within 18 weeks afterwards.

[dude1394]

A pretty interesting article about how Kalifornia has gotten to where it is.. (broke basically). And certainly a warning to the rest of this country.

http://nationalaffairs.com/publicati...led-california

What is increasingly clear, however, is that the Golden State's troubles offer a warning to the rest of the country. If America continues its long tradition of following trends begun in California, it will be brought to grief. And the state's recent history bears directly on some ongoing national political debates.


There is little in President Obama's legislative agenda that hasn't already been tried in California. Need a model of runaway spending with no regard for growing debt? Look to California, whose bonds currently hover just above junk status. Want to insist on restrictive carbon-emission controls? Note the example of California's 2006 greenhouse-gas law, which is expected to reduce the state's economic output by 10% and destroy 1.1 million jobs. Want to put the government in charge of health care? Look at California's repeated legislative pushes for a single-payer system of health-insurance coverage, each of which ended in failure.