Posted originally on Jul 15, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Confidence in the very structure of the nation has been shaken amid this private wave where all trust in the government has been lost. A new Pew Research Center poll found that 72% of Americans believe the United States – the land of the free – is no longer a good example of democracy.
Those 72% say that America was once a good example of a democracy for other nations to follow, with only 19% still trusting in its structure. Americans over 50 trust in democracy a bit more than younger generations (11% vs 4%) likely because they are less likely to face the new reality of our broken economy where the American Dream is no longer attainable.
Those most closely aligned to America in terms of economics are more likely to say the US is no longer a good example of democracy (Canada 67%, Japan 65%, UK 63%). Younger generations everywhere now believe America was never a good example of democracy as they have only seen the nation in a state of geopolitical upheaval.
A separate poll with information from Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, and CNN surveys, Americans were if they trust the government. Trust heightened, in line with the ECM, in 1964 under President Johnson with a trust rating of 77%. Trust plummeted when President Nixon became the first president to resign in 1974, with the moving average then standing at 36%. Individual polls then showed confidence moving to a new low of 25% by the end of President Carter’s administration, in line with the economy as always.
Trust in government then peaked at the beginning of George W. Bush’s term in office, with individual polls rising to 60% in 2001 and overall stats hitting 54%. Now, 2001 marked the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers that shook the nation at its core, spreading a wave of patriotism across the United States. Everyone trusted that the government would seek revenge and keep the nation safe from future attacks. We permitted countless laws to pass, like the Patriot Act, because we trusted the government to protect us.
By the end of George W. Bush’s term, no one knew what we were doing in the Middle East and were questioning the “weapons of mass destruction” premise. Individual polls plummeted from 60% to a mere 17% in 2008, with overall sentiments not faring much better at 24%. Trust in government has never surpassed 30% on either poll since.
The moving average of trust in the US government now sits at 22%. Politics have never been more divided. The majority of the country questions in the president is mentally fit to serve. Congress is blatantly corrupt. The coronavirus pandemic changed everything and shook the nation as badly as 9/11, but the people ran from government rather than towards it.
Our computer indicates the American economy subtly slipped into a recession, and things will worsen until 2028. We find this same phenomenon of trust in government declining globally and it is all in line with the Economic Confidence Model. Distrust will only grow as economic conditions worsen. By 2032, as indicated by the models, we will have a chance to rebuild and regrow at the end of the Sixth Wave, which will be the equivalent to the fall of ancient Rome.
Posted originally on Jul 12, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I find it remarkable that your model has always been correct in predicting the economy’s direction. This latest US inflation number shows that it was subsiding, cooling down to the slowest pace since 2021, right in turn with your Economic Confidence Model. Treasuries rallied on expectations that the Fed might cut rates. It seems so obvious to a blind man that your model has done what no economist has been able to do for decades. Why does academia refuse to credit you for your discovery?
SH
ANSWER: The 1960s was a wild time when I was still in high school. In Economics class, they said everything is random, and there is no definitive business cycle, so we can manipulate the economy to prevent recessions. That was the Keynesian economics. When I went to Physics class, they emphasized that nothing was random. I concluded the someone was not telling the truth and it seemed to be in the Economics class.
For you see, this was the period when the fixed exchange rate was collapsing. It was the end of Bretton Woods, and this was a confusing period for what people call today the “Everything Bubble.” Back during the 1960s, it was the “Everything Crash.” I saw everything rise to a peak and then crash from stocks and bonds to precious metals, real estate, and collectibles. This forged my understanding of the world economy, and everything was connected.
The pressure on Brettone Woods actually began with rising inflation. President Kennedy was forced to remove silver from the coinage starting in 1965. The last silver coins produced came with the peak of that ECM wave in 1964, and by 1968, that saw the first major crash in the gold standard.
Back then, the 1968 financial crisis forced the two-tier gold market where gold began to trade openly in London in 1968.
Gold rallied to $44, finally forcing the first crash in the gold standard. The solution was to allow a two-tier market, where the fixed rate was between countries, and the private market was allowed to float.
I remember well that in 1970, just BEFORE the fixed exchange rate collapsed in August 1971, gold fell on the London market to $34.70 BELOW the official fixed rate after it had risen to $44 in 1969, which forced the first crack in the fixed exchange rate system.
The pressure persisted, but gold fell below the official rate in 1970, and then, by August 1971, President Nixon was forced to close the gold window. In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against the countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
It was the bias of academia in Economics that followed Marx and then Keynes. In both theories, economists advocated intervention. Thus, economists marketed themselves as all-powerful, and they could direct the government on how to better manage the economy to eliminate the business cycle.
To this very day, academia refuses to accept the business cycle, for they always want to preach EQUALITY and fairness and constantly point to the disparity of wealth as if everyone should have exactly the same. So, they will NEVER accept my research because most of the academics follow these interventionist theories. It’s not something personal, it is just the way academia operates.
Posted originally on Jul 9, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
I have often been asked the question, WHY did the Greek denomination of the stater comply with the 8.6 frequency of the Economic Confidence Model? The silver stater minted at Corinth was 8.6 grams (0.28 oz) in weight, which was divided into three silver drachmae of 2.9 grams (0.093 oz). Its rival city-state was Athens, and their silver didrachm (two drachmae) weighed 8.6 grams (0.28 oz), while their Athenian silver tetradrachm (four drachmae) weighed 17.2 grams (0.55 oz).
What we do know is that the ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking three times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for π, which is a closer approximation.
The Rhind Papyrus (ca.1650 BC) gives us insight into Advanced Ancient Egyptian mathematics. The Egyptians calculated the area of a circle using a formula that gave an approximate value of 3.1605 for π (a 0.6% margin error, extremely good even by modern standards) 4000 years before that value was fixed at 3.14. We know that the Great Pyramid’s estimated dimensions are based on Phi, which only varies by 0.025%. A pyramid based on Pi varies by only 0.1% from the Great Pyramid’s estimated dimensions.
The first Greek calculation of π was done by Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), who was one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world. Archimedes approximated the area of a circle by using the Pythagorean Theorem to find the areas of two regular polygons. Since the actual area of the circle lies between the areas of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons, the areas of the polygons give upper and lower bounds for the area of the circle. Archimedes knew that he had not found the value of π but only an approximation within those limits. This way, Archimedes showed that π is between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.
Even when we look at the coinage of Syracuse, located in Sicily, we see the same standard. This is a Dekadrachm, which is 10 drachms of 4.3 grams each. We have no ancient text to resolve this mystery. It certainly appears that the coinage was based upon this understanding of Pi.
It remains a mystery why their monetary system was established at 8.6 grams. No accounts indicate why they chose this weight. I can only say that perhaps they intentionally made this a Pi derivative.
Prehistory is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. There has long been a problem with academia in every field. Once they establish a belief, they simply defend it to the last dying man. They have done that with Historia Augusta insisting that it was fake because they did not hear of certain names of Roman Emperors during the 3rd century AD. Coins, such as Saturninus and Proculus, were discovered, which clearly established that academics were wrong. To this day, even Wikipedia claims its authenticity is questionable. “The true authorship of the work, its actual date, its reliability and its purpose have long been matters for controversy by historians and scholars…”
The NETFLIX show of Graham Hancock and his Ancient Apocalypse is an excellent show where he presents his “pseudoarchaeological theories” about the alleged existence of an advanced civilization active during the last ice age. What I can say is that Scientists have recorded five significant ice ages throughout the Earth’s history: the Huronian (2.4-2.1 billion years ago), Cryogenian (850-635 million years ago), Andean-Saharan (460-430 mya), Karoo (360-260 mya) and Quaternary (2.6 mya-present). In addition, there have been about a dozen major glaciations that have occurred over the past 1 million years. These appear to be natural cyclical events that also align with the Earth’s passage around the universe. The largest such event peaked around 650,000 years ago and lasted for 50,000 years.
Hancock’s theory of civilization prehistory being destroyed by the last Ice Age, also appears to align with the legends of the Great Flood that in the Bible is said to be Noah. That most recent glaciation period or Ice Age, reached peak conditions some 18,000 years ago before giving way to the interglacial Holocene epoch 11,700 years ago. There are accounts of a great flood that appear in virtually all the earliest recordings of history.
The story of Noah’s Ark landing in what is a region of Turkey known in ancient times as Phrygia is even celebrated on Roman coins. The Ark depicted on this coin from the 2nd century AD even has the name inscribed “NOAH” on the vessel in Greek. It is entirely possible that this story dates back to the 10,000 BC era and represents the previous civilization of which Hancock has concluded existed.
What we do know is that the ancient is often built upon the ruins of the previous. The ancient city of Troy has several layers. The orientation and dispositions of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramids, and the Nile River relative to one another on the ground accurately reflect the constellations of Leo, Orion (specifically, Orion’s Belt), and the Milky Way, respectively. That does NOT mean that they were constructed 10,000 BC, but something was there previously. The Sphinx does show what appears to be water erosion marking from that period when the area was tropical. It cannot be ruled out that it was originally a lion recarved by the Egyptians thousands of years later.
About eight civilizations collapsed, with the exception of Egypt post-1250 BC. This was caused by a major shift in climate that led to droughts, which resulted in widespread famine that inspired migrations/invasions. This event of 1177 BC was the Bronze Age equivalent to the fall of Rome, for they both were followed by a Dark Age.
Many have attributed this collapse of the Bronze Age to the Sea Peoples, which were most likely northern Mediterranean mass migrants due to the colder climate in Europe. Cline has assembled a nice assembly of sources but missed the climate change. He assumed there was a migration southward. However, we can see that the first dip to the cold came about 1,800 years ago. We can see that the all-time high temperature was about 3,300 years ago.
The collapse of the Bronze Age was mostly complete by about 1100-1000 BC. Our computer has identified a 1720-year cycle beginning in the Dark Ages with the fall of Rome in 476 AD when the last pretend Emperor reigned (Romulus Augustus (575-476AD)). Our model highlighted the cycle between the Dark Ages of 1720 years, which brings us to 1244 BC — right on target for the beginning of the collapse of civilization.
All other civilizations collapsed, with the exception of Egypt post 1250 BC, but even that was greatly diminished. In school, they taught the linear version of the Sea Peoples who invaded to destroy. That storyline has long been way too simple, and Eric Cline brought a new perspective, linking it to drought and famine and the Sea Peoples, which he believed was more of a mass migration southward.
However, in addition to that, there is a major cycle on a fractal basis, which is 3096 years. Our computer has projected that there would have been a warming period of about 10,465 years again, which would have probably coincided with the thaw of the last Ice Age, which may have produced the Great Flood.
The Tropic Belt has been gradually moving northward since 1970. There is debate over what is even causing that. Nevertheless, we now understand that even the Tropic Belt is subject to cyclical movement, which may also explain the shift from a lush green environment as late as 6,000 years ago, which then turned into a desert in the Sahara. Curiously, this is about the length of recorded history. This, too, may be contributing to the illusion of global warming created by man.
All I can say is that the monetary system to have aligned with our 8,6 ECM frequency might be that this was ancient knowledge that has also been lost. They did not have TV back then and spent much time mapping the heavens. They may have discovered that Pi was indeed the secret cycle of the Universe.
Posted originally on Jun 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Marty, they called you Mr. Yen for good reason. I remember in 1998 when you sold $1 billion at 14700 on an MIT order (Market if Touched), and the dollar declined for 11 years thereafter. That 147 was your Yearly Bullish Reversal, which we blew through here in 2024, also on schedule. I remember that trade very well, and you said that if 147 were exceeded, the next stop would be 262. OK. We just hit 161. Are those forecasts from back then still valid?
TP
REPLY: Wow. You are still at it. My hat is off to you, as they say. Oh, I remember that trade very well. It was during the liquidity crisis with the collapse of Russia. Here is the Yen chart back to 1900. The primary resistance stands at the 210-212 level. We need 2024 to close above that Yearly Bullish Reversal at 147. Then, resistance will be below the Yearly Bullish Reversal of 262. It will form between 246 and 260. It appears to be a war on the horizon. Once the 262 level is exceeded, this points to 363, followed by 397 by the time we reach 2032.
Posted originally on Jun 25, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
COMMENT: Marty, you are by far the greatest long-term forecaster ever. I worked on the floor in 2007 when the market crashed on the exact day of your ECM. Everyone called it Armstrong’s Revenge. That was the very day of the high in the Shiller Real Estate Index for 2007. I know you say the short term is noise, and you are not known for short-term day-to-day forecasts, which you avoid. I put my house up for sale and just sold it based on your May 3rd post where you said, “Home prices in the US are near all-time highs. ” The realtor told me that sales have started to decline, and I sold the high.
Amazing.
Thank you
Mike
REPLY: There is always a time to buy and a time to sell. The short-term is just noise. If the Dow or Gold rallies for two weeks and then declines, that does not alter the long-term course until we have reached a turning point. But people want to see you as a forecaster daily, which is nonsense. The more someone trades, the lower their performance, and the risks increase exponentially. I have done the long-term because we were the largest institutional adviser. They are not day traders.
Yes, the 2007 high on the Shiller Index was the precise day of the Economic Confidence Model. So far, all the indicators have confirmed that we should have a recessionary trend into 2028 with this turn in the model on this wave. With the prospect of war on the horizon, people will contract in their spending because of uncertainty.
We have gone through a period of a boom, but with war on the horizon, people will pull back on their spending, and we will generally enter a recession from May 2024 into August 2028. The shift from the Blue to the Red states is still occurring. So, real estate in the blue states will fall in price rapidly. The decline will vary from place to place.
Now we should enter a BUYER’S market whereas from 2020-2024 was a SELLER’S Market.
I just returned from a trip to Venice, Italy, and a local tour guide informed me of the following about the Venetian Republic, some of which is similar and some of which is slightly different than what you’ve mentioned in the past:
1. it was the longest-lasting republic in the history of the world, lasting about 1100 years, abolished only by Napoleon’s threat, to whom it surrendered
2. its longevity was attributed to its ability to keep corruption in check, which it did by several methods: its senators were given one term, and were chosen by randomly drawing names out of a bowl, which contained the names of all the eligible citizens of Venice; in summary, about 200 of those randomly drawn names were chosen to be in a pool of candidates, of which only about 50 of those were chosen to be senators for that term, based on a selection interview.
3. the Venetian mouth, which you have represented in the past, was only used to submit names of people who were committing crimes against the republic, and any accusation had to be signed by two witnesses; if the accusation was false, then the accusers would/could be put to death.
I found #2 above particularly interesting, as it would be akin to the US randomly selecting names out of a phone book to be representatives or senators. . .
Take care,
L
REPLY: Yes, there has always been a rivalry as to the longest-lasting Republic claimed by Venice. That is true only because Rome from 750 BC to 476AD went through being ruled at first by kings, then a republic in 509 BC, and Imperial Rome began eclectically with Augustud being granted that title in 27 BC.
The Mouth of Truth began with anonymous tips, which were obviously abused and eventually reformed. Venice had its corruption. The Dige was for life, not one year. After he died, his estate was seized and investigated, and any uncovered corruption saw whatever assets were given to the Treasury.
I’m sure you also saw the famous “Bridge of Sighs” because once convicted of any crime, you crossed that bridge and went directly from the court to the prison or from their dungeon (from the torture room) to the court. Venice did not turn the other cheek.
What he did not tell you is that Venice was a quasi-fascist State insofar as the entire fleet was owned by the government, but there was some private ownership.
I’m unsure if he also told you that the Venetians were notorious pirates. Venice engaged in trade beginning from the late 8th Century, but this was the slave trade. During this very early period, Venice was engaged in the selling of slaves to the Arabs from the Carolingian-Sclaveian wars. The name of the “Slavic” people means servitude or slave. In the pactum Lotharii of 840 between Venice and the Carolingian Empire, Venice was finally forced to reform and promised not to buy Christian slaves in the Empire and not to sell Christian slaves to Muslims.
Venice was also at the head of the Fourth Crusade, but instead of going after the Muslims, they laid siege to and conquered Byzantium. This is a painting of the “Latin Rulers” conquering Byzantium.
The Venetians even issued Their versions of Byzantine coins between 1204 and 1261AD.
Enrico Dandolo (c. 1107–1205) was the doge of Venice from 1192 until his death. He is remembered for his corruption and shrewdness. He is the Doge who killed Christians in the Sack of Constantinople. Dandolo died in 1205 in Constantinople and was buried at the Hagia Sophia, which today is the Blue Mosque.
You probably visited the Cathedral in St Mark’s Square. The Turks stole St Mark’s body from Egypt, and the four horses you see stood on a chariot of Constantine the Great in Byzantium. They also liberated them.
Nevertheless, Venice became a powerful maritime power. Thanks to its bankers, its coinage became the dominant coinage and was only eclipsed by Florence. The fact that its coinage was recognized in international trade much like the US dollar is today confirms that in India, after imitating Roman coins for hundreds of years, they imitated Venetian gold ducats as well.
We have an extensive database, and the debt crisis of Venice, which nobody seems to want to talk about, is included within it. The Venetian gold ducat, meaning the Duke’s coin, was probably the most famous, thanks to the commercial and maritime power of the Venetian Republic. However, before 1284, Venice used the coinage of Byzantium in trade – namely the Byzantine gold hyperpyra. The Venetians imported goods from the East and sold them at a profit north of the Alps.
Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (1261-1282) backed the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, and the cost of that war forced him to debase the hyperpyron. This was just one more in a series of debasements, and the Great Council of Venice responded with its own coin of pure gold in 1284. The practice of debasement has preceded him.
The major debasement of the Byzantine coinage had begun under Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-1055), with the purity of the gold coinage falling from 24 carats to 18 carats during his reign. In 1041, the year before he came to the throne, the Histamenon Nomisma had a weight of about 3.96 grams with a gold content of about 90%. The very first year in 1042, the gold content was reduced to 87.5%. Constantine IX did not take his responsibilities as Emperor very seriously. He seems to have assumed that the wealth of the nation was his to spend as he desired. He squandered money profoundly and this appears to have been the initial reason for the beginning of the debasement. The gold nomisma fell to 87%.
Minted in Venice from 1284 onwards, the Ducat competed with the florin, the reference currency of Florence, minted since 1252, which until then had dominated financial exchanges in Europe. It weighed 3,545 grams and was 98.6% fine gold, a very high purity for the time.
We saw banking start to rise in Northern Italy, especially during the 13th century. In 1282, the Republic of Venice organized most public finance activities under its Grain Office, which subsequently did a banking business on behalf of the government. It was the start of what we might call a Treasury today. It accepted time deposits from wealthy citizens as well as foreigners. Like the US Treasury, the Grain Office advanced loans to government departments and private enterprises. It was not until 1587 that Venice established a public bank on the Rialto. It would take until 1619 before it created a public Giro Bank, where funds were paid between accounts. That is what Giro means. I can write you a check, and we both have accounts at the same bank. Venice was too attached to trade, and the government sought to monopolize it. Venice clearly did not rival Genoa or Florence in capital management matters because it was essentially a quasi-fascist state where the government sought to engage in trade business, and thus, entrepreneurship was lacking. Interestingly, the city of Venice won an exclusion from the Sin of Usury and was allowed to trade with the Arabs, including the slave trade.
Venice was not a Papal State, and it often opposed the Vatican. Venice, Tuscany, and Modena formed an antipapal league to protect Parma, and France intervened. Peace was concluded in Venice on March 31st, 1644, and Pope Urban died soon afterward.
So, while Venice is the longest Republic, the practice of one term of office and out was prevalent in Nothern Italy with republics in general. As far as the random selection of a representative, this was taken from Athens. Here is a Kleroterion where names would be selected at random to be a representative in government and even to serve on a jury.
This is actually the root of why the three major Athenian philosophers were anti-democratic. The real objection was that these people were selected randomly and lacked experience, intellect, or any skill to be in charge of anything, no less the welfare of the people.
Posted originally on Jun 19, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it certainly seems obvious just how many governments are using Socrates. The head of Serbia has come out and said we could be in World War III in three months. Orban came out and said NATO was “getting closer to war” every week, and he refused to participate in the alliance’s long-term plan to aid Ukraine, which Budapest has called a “crazy mission.
My question is, do you think Socrates influenced the time for this?
FD
ANSWER: I understand what you mean. That is actually the same theory as to why they put me in prison to shut me up. They always assume that events can be influenced by merely forecasting them. They believe in random walks because they are incapable of seeing the patterns. They try to manipulate society by themselves, attempting to steer us through their hoops just as they have lied to start every single war starting with Vietnam. Yet, when they have constantly been wrong, and their Keynesian Economic Models are failing, all I have ever heard is that I have manipulated the world economy only because the forecasts were correct. That proved it was not the model, but my influence.
I have paid the price for my discovery, and so has my family. There are those who want to force the world to respond as they desire, and all I do is say here is the cycle, and this will be the outcome. They do not like that. This is the secret cycle as the New Yorker called it, because they do not teach cyclical theory in universities because we have to be able to manipulate the future.
I was turned off by formal education because, in real science and physics class, they said there is nothing that is random, but in economics class, I was told everything is random so they can manipulate us to create their perfect world. I figured someone was a liar.
I went with Einstein rather than the Marxists. Yes, at this stage, many governments, companies, and individuals around the world subscribe to our services. It is not that they do as the forecast states. Many who disagree still want to know what we are saying.
Many have come to realize that the forecasts are NOT my personal opinion. Real, intelligent people have realized that LONG-TERM forecasts are infallible because a single factor does not change the course of the trend. We are headed into war because we have chronic fiscal mismanagement, and they need war as a distraction and to provide the excuse to default, and then a new government gets to start fresh all over again. That becomes inevitable, but the trend is set in motion, and the government will NEVER reform to save the nation when they must relinquish power.
Most people DO NOT comprehend how forecasting works or the global economy within which we live. There is the short-term NOISE, such as the share market may be up 300 points today and then down 500 tomorrow. Some wish to try to judge you based on that nonsense. The Global Market Watch has demonstrated that there are tens of thousands of patterns that make the short-term appear to be random – but nothing is random, and only a fool makes such an argument. All the numerous short-term trends combine into a single voice, and that resounds loudly through the hall of time and circumstance. It is like politics. Raise taxes, and you get civil unrest. Just look at most revolutions – they are over taxation. Yet politicians will increase taxes always to retain their position of power, and that inevitably leads to revolution. All of the daily ups and downs do NOT alter the long-term trend for that is set in motion that stretches back decades that cannot be altered.
This is why our model is divided by TIME. You can be a 7-day bullish trend on the daily level that is no more than a minor reaction on the Weekly level. The long-term trend cannot be altered by a single event. It is forged in the furnace of life where everything from climate and war to economics and politics combine to make the trend. As they say, such people cannot see the forest because they are focused on a single tree.
Back at the 2011 World Economic Conference in Philadelphia, which you can see in the video, I stood up and warned that the War Cycle would shift in 2014, and that was indeed on target with the Ukrainian Revolution – Maidan of 2014. But in 2013, still one year in advance, I warned:
So many wars have occurred in Crimea since ancient times that the sum of all the parts enabled the computer to pinpoint Ukraine, where this would all begin. Here is a coin of Nero issued for his intervention into Crimea – the Bosporus at the time.
The LONG-TERM forecasts are much easier to do than where the Dow closes tomorrow. When I die, they should play one of my favorite songs – Sinatra’s My Way!I was lucky to see him live once at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Indeed, I did it my way, and I would not change the past, for that is what has taught me what I know today.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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