“…Despite the pomp and circumstance surrounding full-bodied, powerhouse cigars these days, milder cigars still rule. This gorgeous creature is crafted with extensively aged tobaccos, including a beautiful, almost shimmering Connecticut shade leaf with a rich satiny texture. This charming blend is the big easy…”

See, in both cases the writer is intent on getting you to buy something – and in this comparison both are just blowing smoke up yer butt

Note especially those receiving monies for ‘Speaking’ as opposed to ‘Research’ – then check what they were speaking about!

Wanna bet your test results would be close to mine?

Review the management, organization and functioning of all these 501(c)(4) groups in the last general election and see how much was spent by political orientation, what they supported, and what they attacked in their publications and advertising. If they fail the current IRS rules, slap them with punative penalties that will dissuade them from breaking the law in the future. And get Congress to actually (re)write the regulations so there will be no doubt about the applicability of tax exempt status rules and guidelines. It’s bad enough when religious organizations that enjoy tax-exempt status expouse political positions; but when overly anti-establishment, dogmatic, and schismatic organizations get into the game in a similar fashion it makes a mockery of enlightened laws and citizenship.

Conformity with the legislation will depend on seller compliance, and seller-provided data. It also ignores one of the realities of online sales – many online retailers sell in more than one venue: a company website, and eBay, and Amazon, and Buy.com, and Etsy, and Overstock, and, etc, etc.

Which agency is going to expend the effort to verify the collection and distribution of sales taxes collected by sellers on all these venues? Not one. The proposed law will simply provide another incentive for larger companies to fudge results, to lie to regulators.

Grocery stores, and many online sales outlets operate on a single-digit profit margin, so the 5-10% tax collected on a million in sales which if successfully hidden means the company can hold onto $50-100K suggests the underground economy will be an inadvertent winner if this proposed law is enacted.

There is a much simpler alternative if the goal is to actually have all parties in the marketplace pay their fair share in taxes: assess a Federal tax based on gross sales which is then distributed to the “9,600″ jurisdictions. Verifying compliance would be a piece-of-cake compared with the implausibility of the MFA. And make sure companies cannot evade taxation with multiple venues, off-shore facilities, industrial code segmentation, and other business constructs.

And this should not only be for online retailers – it should be for every business entity, including service providers, charities, and religious organizations.

But one thing is sure about this latter proposal – it’s never gonna happen due to concerns about big-state-ism in America. Instead we get treated to the MFA, minus of course, the fairness.

Instead, heed the voice of reason: ignore the trolls – cause if you engage with them you just sink into their slime – and it doesn’t easily wash off.

Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes
By Richard Goldstone,April 01, 2011

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
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The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

As I indicated from the very beginning, I would have welcomed Israel’s cooperation. The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.

Some have charged that the process we followed did not live up to judicial standards. To be clear: Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding. We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.
************************

Note: Ah so…Goldstone recanted because the evidence he was presented with by Israel demonstrated that Israel and the IDF was not guilty of the crimes referenced in the original “Goldstone Report”. Since Hamas did not “show up for trial” the ‘court’ ruled in favor of Israel. BOGUS !!!

ON APRIL 1 2011, in the pages of the Washington Post, the international jurist Richard Goldstone dropped a bombshell. He effectively disowned the massive evidence assembled in the United Nations’ report carrying his name that Israel had committed multiple war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Gaza during its 2008-9 invasion.

Israel was jubilant. “Everything that we said proved to be true,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crowed. “We always said that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is a moral army that acted according to international law,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared. “We had no doubt that the truth would come out eventually,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proclaimed. The Obama administration used the occasion of Goldstone’s recantation to affirm that Israel had not “engaged in any war crimes” during the Gaza assault while the U.S. Senate unanimously called on the United Nations to “rescind” the Goldstone Report.

Some commentators have endeavored to prove by parsing his words that Goldstone did not actually recant. While there are grounds for making this argument on a technical basis, such a rhetorical strategy will not wash. Goldstone is a distinguished jurist. He knows how to use precise language. If he did not want to sever his connection with the Report he could simply have said “I am not recanting my original report by which I still stand.” He must have known exactly how his words would be spun and it is this fallout—not his parsed words—that we must now confront.

Goldstone has done terrible damage to the cause of truth and justice and the rule of law. He has poisoned Jewish-Palestinian relations, undermined the courageous work of Israeli dissenters and—most unforgivably—increased the risk of another merciless IDF assault. There has been much speculation on why Goldstone recanted. Was he blackmailed? Did he finally succumb to the relentless hate campaign directed against him? Did he decide to put his tribe ahead of truth? What can be said with certainty, and what Norman Finkelstein has demonstrated in his book, is that Goldstone did not change his mind because the facts compelled him to reconsider his original findings.

Dale MerrellBoise, IdahoNYT Pick
FLAG
If you are truly concerned about out of control spending, let’s take a look at our military. There is no government agency that is more wasteful and unaccountable. A recent NYT’s article states the following concerning the F-35 fighter jet:

“The jets would cost taxpayers $396 billion, including research and development, if the Pentagon sticks to its plan to build 2,443 by the late 2030s. That would be nearly four times as much as any other weapons system and two-thirds of the $589 billion the United States has spent on the war in Afghanistan. The military is also desperately trying to figure out how to reduce the long-term costs of operating the planes, now projected at 1.1$billion.”

The real tragedy here is that current U.S. fighters are more capable than any other in the world. Yet we would devote this amount of our resources, without consideration for the actual need or how the rest of our nation may be adversely affected, to this boondoggle more than a decade in the making?

Since we have been told repeatedly by conservatives that government doesn’t or can’t create jobs, perhaps it wouldn’t be a problem if we were to use that money for schools or for our deteriorating infrastructure. Even paying down the debt would be better use than throwing it into the black money hole of the military.
In reply to Richard LuettgenDec. 7, 2012 at 10:19 a.m.RECOMMENDED493
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windukenUSNYT Pick
“And your main argument? Certainly, jobs are the main focus: but the president’s $50 billion dead-on-arrival stimulus play won’t generate them, any more than his $825 billion stimulus did in 2009.”

Richard, really, you should do some research first and avoid posting such nonsense. The below link has what the CBO published in Feb 2012 about the 2009 stimulus package, ARRA.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43014

ARRA has been and is continuing to help creating jobs. Here’s what the CBO projected for 2012, three years after:

“Still, CBO estimates that, compared with what would have occurred otherwise, in 2012 ARRA will:

Raise real GDP by between 0.1 percent and 0.8 percent, and
Increase the number of FTE jobs by between 0.2 million and 1.3 million.”
In reply to Richard LuettgenDec. 7, 2012 at 10:21 a.m.RECOMMENDED88

TygerrrGreensboroNYT Pick
An economy is a complex organism. So is a human being. We don’t know everything about either one, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to save people from dying of cancer. Neither should it have stopped us from trying to save our future economy from permanent damage by a financial crisis and deep recession.

Given the positive effects of the 2009 stimulus bill, I wonder what your idea of stimulus that “works” is. My understanding of stimulus is temporary spending equal to the crisis drop in GDP, mostly on goods and services, to sustain business revenues by replacing lost demand, thus avoiding mass unemployment and further shrinkage of GDP with its resulting plunge in tax revenue. Government spending then tapers off as private spending recovers enough to sustain GDP by itself.

The 2009 stimulus bill spent $660 billion in state assistance, tax cuts and transfer payments like extended unemployment benefits, plus food stamps, Medicaid and welfare as incomes fell and more Americans qualified.

Just $102 billion purchased goods and services. I believe the GDP crisis drop was $1.4 trillion.

Anybody who says he believes a 10% solution should yield a 100% success is just setting a political trap.
In reply to Abin SurDec. 7, 2012 at 10:26 a.m.RECOMMENDED71

bruceSaratoga Springs, NYNYT Pick
As a small businessman why wouldn’t you be in full-freeze mode if there is no demand for your product? It has been Doctor Krugman’s point all along that this situation is unnecessary.

To heat up the economy, there has to come spending from somewhere. The masses of unemployed have had nothing to spend but their unemployment benefits and their savings to purchase your product. Their unemployment benefits are threatened, and their savings are exhausted.

Dr. Krugman’s point, made above, is that there is another party that can spend to jump-start the economy; and that is the Federal Government itself. What would would it spend? Borrowed money. Why? Because NOW it costs less-than-nothing! (at least for the time-being).

If you could borrow at less-than-nothing-interest to expand your business, it would still make no sense if there was no demand for your product. But for the economy as a whole it makes sense to spend the money on infrastructure and innovation. There is a multiplier effect from this spending. People will get jobs, spend the money they earn, maybe purchase your product, you’ll feel better, and meet the demand by hiring some people yourself.

So you may be a very good businessman but you are not a very good economist. Running the Country is different than running your business, and you are conflating one with the other. Please read Dr. Krugman’s book, “End This Depression Now.”
In reply to z828Dec. 7, 2012 at 10:30 a.m.RECOMMENDED214

TygerrrGreensboroNYT Pick
I think you have the culprits right, but you’re also buying their “government debt is the problem” self-serving propaganda. It took me a long time to get my head around this, but a government with its own currency is nothing like a household.

Look, who gets all worked up over the government printing or borrowing money? The folks who have a ton of it, that’s who! Why? Because it might cause inflation (a fall in the future worth of their dollars).

These same folks point to the higher prices of food and gas we’re paying to “prove” inflation is going wild. But Forbes said in Feb., 2012 that speculation added $23.39 to the price of a barrel of oil!

Not only that – href=”http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-bett…”>Barclays Bank made £340 million in 2010 as food prices rose, and a mere £189 million in 2011 on falling food prices.

What’s changed is deregulation of financial activities. Rich man FDR understood his class’s inability to resist greedy manipulation and put all kinds of obstacles in their way. Every time we removed one, ordinary Americans suffered and financiers got more power to remove more obstacles that kept them from getting most of the economic pie.

Government money =a bigger pie. Inflation=a bigger slice for you!
In reply to David DoneyDec. 7, 2012 at 10:39 a.m.RECOMMENDED93

RMCNYCNYT Pick
@z828. My sister is one of those public employees — a teacher — whom you claim “game the system right before retirement and then retire with incredible benefits.” She is not old, but she is not about to start a second career in her mid-50s.

My sister has a B.A., an M.A. in psychology, and two graduate degrees, including a degree in computer education. She turned down high-paying jobs in private industry to teach. Her income as a teacher, in fact, was one-third what she’d have earned at the financial institution whose offer she refused.

The reason that my sister, and others like her, chose — past tense — teaching was, first, that they saw teaching as a vocation, not a mere job and, secondly, that benefits — health care for life, retirement pensions — made up for the low salaries. Take away the benefits, and highly qualified people will be forced to accept those bank jobs. That means no math teachers who, like my sister, spend 30 years ensuring that inner city kids got Regents diplomas and go to college.

Congressional reps make plenty of money and get excellent pensions and benefits. They do a lot less to earn those benefits, and earn much higher salaries, than do teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other public employees. Bashing public employees is a cheap way to avoid facing the reality that elites are taking the fruits of middle-class labors. Marx called it “surplus value,” but I, a 2012 progressive Democrat, call it “stealing.”
In reply to John McBrideDec. 7, 2012 at 11:12 a.m.RECOMMENDED415

Dan KervickBow, NHNYT Pick
“And, to his credit, President Obama did include a modest amount of stimulus in his initial budget offer; the White House, at least, hasn’t completely forgotten about the unemployed.”

Er, yes. But you know that whole industry you described built around the promotion of deficit panic? Barack Obama is a card-carrying member of it. He pivoted toward deficit fear-mongering at the end of February 2009, as soon as the stimulus bill was done. He appointed the Catfood Commission. He spent the summer of 2011 trying to engineer a deficit-slashing Grand Bargain. He and the Republicans together gave us the Sword of Dumbocles package of automatic cuts and tax hikes now hanging over us. He’s one of the chief political architects of the Era of Harsh Limits we are now living through, which virtually guarantees that no matter what spending initiatives he might ask for, the body politic will respond “But you said we’re out of money!!!”
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:40 a.m.RECOMMENDED31

banickimichiganNYT Pick
If people believe the deficit matters than it does. It is like someone yelling fire in a theater when there is none. It causes a negative reaction for everyone in the theater. I agree we need a stimulus; however, we also need a plan the reduces the debt over time. This would add confidence that is lacking.

We are facing a “fiscal cliff” because our politicians did not solve our debt problem in 2011pushing it off to the end of this year. They put a gun to their own head. This is not a way for the government of the largest economy in the world to operate and we should be mad as hell.

Below is a quote from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that describes the current budgetary problem facing the country if we do nothing, including not enacting the above mentioned fiscal cliff agreement.

“… the persistence of large budget deficits and rapidly escalating federal debt would hinder national saving and investment, thus reducing GDP and income relative to the levels that would occur with smaller deficits. In the later part of the projection period (2022), the economy would grow more slowly … and interest rates would be higher. Ultimately, the policies… would lead to a level of federal debt that would be unsustainable from both a budgetary and an economic perspective.”

There are two parts of our nations budget that cannot be ignored if we truly expect to get a handle on our fiscal problems; defense and entitlements…. http://bit.ly/sdp1212
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:41 a.m.RECOMMENDED5

Christine McMorrowWaltham, MANYT Pick
Dr. Krugman, what’s even sadder is that the tools for long-term improvements to the economy just aren’t sexy. I’m talking investments in infrastructure (roads, rails, and energy systems), worker training, public education, and research. Things the President believes in and campaigned on.

And the reason they aren’t sexy is that they don’t provide an instantaneous payoff. While they are vital ingredients to get us on a firmer economic footing, they take time ( years, not days, weeks or even months) and money to achieve.

The American public is impatient. Politicians are impatient, and so are pundits and media gurus in search of the next quick news cycle.

Americans want jobs, and they want them right now. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. It’s common sense. But common sense is in pretty short supply these days, as you so eloquently point out, column after column.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:41 a.m.RECOMMENDED91

HowardLos AngelesNYT Pick
Didn’t the Republicans during the campaign keep talking about jobs? Oh right…just talking.
Keep up the good work, Paul, reminding us that economics is ultimately about people, and that finding jobs for people remains important even though it’s no longer a Republican talking point.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:44 a.m.RECOMMENDED78

NoSoup4UUP, MINYT Pick
Policy in brief:

Borrow cheap, Buy cheap, until you can’t, then stop.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:45 a.m.RECOMMENDED17

ScottIllinoisNYT Pick
It appears that many buy into the message the right peddles because they don’t really have their mind around the differences between macro level economic theory and their personal finances, along with the inflation fears of many who have at least a passing knowledge of the post WW1 German hyperinflation, or memories of the post Vietnam War inflation during the Carter years. The fact that so many factors are different now gets lost in all the smoke being blown at the situation by many in the media and on Capitol Hill.

We needed a 2.3 to 3 trillion stimulus in 2009 and no one even tried to sell that. So now we need the equivalent of another National Interstate and Defense Highway Act from the post war 50′s to pick up the slack. (Notice they got the word defense in there, so that made it OK, even though the roads were built in the USA).

There is no doubt that austerity now will be disastrous for unemployed people. They need jobs now, before their lives become so damaged that they are beyond recovery. The best thing about a government jobs program paid for by raising taxes is that we have the ability to spend the money here in the United States. If it was left to trickle down theory, the money may trickle over to China or be hidden offshore. We can’t waste our time on that nonsense anymore, peoples very lives are at stake, and these are our neighbors, our friends, and our family.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:51 a.m.RECOMMENDED88

RLSVirginiaNYT Pick
In a Harper’s article last year, George McGovern outlined sensible policies for boosting economic growth and job creation:

• significantly reduce the bloated military budget by ending the war in Afghanistan, closing many of our bases around the world, eliminating wasteful and expensive programs, and using the revenue to make necessary public investments
• repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and create new tax brackets
• enact Medicare for all
• revive the G.I. bill to pay for college and vocational training for all qualified students (civilian and military)

A Letter to Barack Obama
http://harpers.org/archive/2011/09/a-letter-to-barack-obama/

“President Obama should call on the Pentagon to reduce the current military budget of $700 billion—a figure that accounts for almost half of the world’s military expenditures—to $500 billion next year, and then, over the next five years, to $200 billion. In a careful and persuasive study, Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, identifies unneeded and costly programs that could be cut from the Pentagon budget without weakening our security, including the elimination of sophisticated warplanes—all of which, added up, could save a trillion dollars over the next ten years.…Savings in military spending could be used to launch valuable public investments, thereby creating jobs and stimulating the entire economy.”
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:54 a.m.RECOMMENDED107

CMCANYT Pick
Thanks for another great article. I listened to a national call this week with someone from the White House. A person dialed in to say, why is their big focus on deficit reduction, when unemployment among Hispanic and Black youth is 20 and 30% respectively, and to ask why we are not doing a major jobs bill instead? The spokesperson’s answer was 1. we need to create more confidence among business-owners that the deficit is under control so that they will start to invest their money again, and 2. the White House did put in that small amount in the latest offer for infrastructure development. (It’s hardly a major jobs bill, but it’s better than zero.)

Why is the White House keeping as their #1 focus getting the approval of big businesses? They didn’t vote for President Obama — instead they spent billions trying to defeat him. Why does the President ignore the needs and pleas of the working class, the struggling people, the unemployed and the people of color who voted for him? Latinos and others did not come out in droves to vote for him so that he could turn around and deliberately create a mini-recession for them and everyone else with this obsessive focus on deficit reduction. People need jobs. Period.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 11:56 a.m.RECOMMENDED113

Jen DNew JerseyNYT Pick
“Influential people in Washington aren’t worried about losing their jobs; by and large they don’t even know anyone who’s unemployed. The plight of the unemployed simply doesn’t loom large in their minds — and, of course, the unemployed don’t hire lobbyists or make big campaign contributions.” Thank you, Paul, for not forgetting about the devastated lives behind the numbers. It seems the unemployed have simply become invisible. This topic is very near to my heart, as my dear brother committed suicide this past July, after nearly 4 years of unemployment. At age 60, he had no assets other than his old car, he had no retirement funds or other savings, and he had no way to support himself and his SO. He also had no hope of getting a job ever again. In fact, he had been stripped of hope, period. Thank you, Paul.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 12:48 p.m.RECOMMENDED111

FranklinNorth Georgia MountainsNYT Pick
Professor…one of your better articles. I agree with most you have said but we, the employed, do not feel it in our gut. We are looking forward to a fine Christmas season with lots of food and merriment. But while we celebrate,…millions of Americans will do without and suffer. I wonder if our politicos in DC will forego a Chrsitmas vacation and stay at the helm to address the many problems we face. The truth is, Washington will be as vacant as an old tomb for the next few weeks. I guess they have forgotten that with great power and riches comes great responsibility. We need great leaders not leaders who are great.
Dec. 7, 2012 at 12:52 p.m.RECOMMENDED43

The Wifely PersonSt. Paul, MNNYT Pick
It seems the moment a person is elected to Congress, they no longer represent the folks who cast the ballots in their individual districts. Instead, they represent themselves first, their party boss second, and the power structure third. Any pretense of caring about the state of their constituency is gone….unless there’s a possibility of personally lucrative pork to be had.

Since this is not going to change any times soon, I believe the only advocates for change must be the habits of We, the People. Stop supporting companies like Walmart who support only the economy of China. Start reading labels and leave goods produced in non-economic partner countries on the shelf. Shop in your local hardware store and ask for American made products.

Our feet….and our wallets…are very strong indicators of who will succeed and who will fail. If We, the People, continue to support the monster job-exporters, then so be it. We must be prepared for the consequences.

Jobs here will happen when there is a demand for products produced here. Isn’t that really the most basic block of our economy?

http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
Dec. 7, 2012 at 1:42 p.m.RECOMMENDED52

MichaelNorth CarolinaNYT Pick
Professor, thank you for this direly needed column. As usual, you nailed it. I echo RMC’s comments – the ongoing unemployment crisis is not a function of a skills gap, it is a function of an extreme intelligence gap – in Washington. Can anyone doubt, despite the numbers dutifully churned out each month from on high, that 20% of this nation’s productive capacity is idle? Just drive around any city in this country and take a look at the shuttered factories and warehouses, then visit any unemployment office and count the number of those in line. Those jobs that have been “created” of late are mostly of the low wage variety, and the people who hold them often have no benefits. As you have pointed out time and again, the toll this takes on our long-term competitiveness is severe, not only in money terms but also in lives lost in hopelessness. We are in the middle of our lost decade, as at present I see no signs that we’re going to emerge any time soon, and precisely because it is so avoidable this is a national disgrace. Future historians will not be kind to those in leadership positions today.

Nuts! Religidiots have it wrong: man created Gods and their myths, not the other way around.