Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news we are in to the final ten days before the US Labor Day holiday and most northern hemisphere participants are taking vacations ahead of what could be an active and volatile economic period through to the end of year holiday season.
Yesterday, wholesale interest rates started to rise again in New Zealand. That was just a pre-cursor for the international bond market overnight where the benchmark UST 10yr yield jumped back to 1.35% despite some weak economic data.
Part of the reason for the turn up is the US Fed's focus on the Jackson Hole meeting and the signals Fed boss Powell will be giving. Markets suspect he will acknowledge that the current inflation impulse is likely to be less transitory and have longer term implications.
In the US, new orders for manufactured durable goods in July decreased slightly although the fall was less than expected. But non-defense capital goods orders fell quite sharply although that was from an unusually strong June. Aircraft orders were especially weak. From the same 2019 month these capital goods orders were -8% lower, so that is a poor result. It is not clear however how much the logistics supply chain constraints are having on these results.
US mortgage applications rose last week but not in a significant way, continuing its yoyoing trend around zero for the past year. US mortgage interest rates didn't move significantly either.
However, the yield on the overnight US Treasury 5yr bond auction rose to 0.78% pa from 0.66% at the prior equivalent event. Today's tender was as well supported as the prior one.
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In China, their central bank has been telling their commercial banks to lend more, especially to SMEs. And to lower interest rates. They are clearly worried about the slowing momentum in the Chinese economy.
Aluminium prices are expected to jump from already high levels as China's refiners are ordered to cut back, and a fire at a very large Jamaican refinery will also crimp global supply, especially to the US.
There were another 919 new community cases in NSW yesterday with another 741 not assigned to known clusters, so they are completely out of control. They now have 12,286 locally acquired cases all in their leaky pseudo lockdown. Victoria reported another 50 new cases yesterday, so it is still bad there too and their lockdown is extended, also with a curfew. Queensland is now reporting six new cases with growing threats there. It has instituted a two week ban on interstate arrivals, throwing many things into confusion, including scheduled sports. ACT has 9 new cases. Overall in Australia, more than 31% of eligible Aussies are fully vaccinated, plus 23% have now had one shot so far.
In the US, health insurance plans are adding premiums for members who remain unvaccinated. And employers are generally adopting a no-jab, no-job stance.
Wall Street has opened their Wednesday session with another +0.3% rise for the S&P500. Earlier, European markets were mixed with Frankfurt lagging, down -0.3%, and London leading with a +0.3% rise. Yesterday, Tokyo ended yesterday flat, Hong Kong was down -0.1% at their close but Shanghai posted a +0.7% rise for the day. The ASX200 managed a modest +0.4% rise yesterday, and the NZX50 Capital Index rose +0.8%.
The UST 10yr yield is up +6 bps today at 1.35% and extending its strong rise. The US 2-10 rate curve is steeper by +4 bps at +110 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also steeper at +76 bps, and their 3m-10 year curve is +6 bps steeper at +132 bps. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate starts today at 1.20% and another +4 bps firmer. The China Govt ten year bond is at 2.87% and soft. And the New Zealand Govt ten year is now at 1.67% and up another +4 bps.
The price of gold is lower today, down -US$17/oz from this time yesterday, and now at US$1789/oz.
Oil prices have risen again, this time by another +50 USc, so in the US they are now just over US$68/bbl, while the international Brent price is just over US$71/bbl.
The Kiwi dollar opens today firmer again, back up to 69.6 USc. Against the Australian dollar we are slightly firmer at 95.9 AUc. Against the euro we are also firmer at 59.2 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at just over 72.9 and back in the 72-74 range of the past ten months.
The bitcoin price has risen +1.9% from this time yesterday to US$48,945. Volatility in the past 24 hours has been moderate at just over +/- 2.0%.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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95 Comments
Model increased from circa 100 cases to circa 1000: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/450025/covid-19-quarantine-facilit…
If you're an order of magnitude out you don't have a model, you have been reduced to guessing.
Explain how he is an order of magnitude out.
Professor Shaun Hendy, who is a Covid-19 modeller at the University of Auckland, said the current size of the outbreak far exceeded his initial calculations.
He said most of the cases being reported were still people who became infected prior to lockdown.
"This is telling us: we have got quite a large outbreak on our hands."
Hendy's initial modelling suggested up to 120 cases could have been circulating in the community before the level 4 restrictions kicked in.
He said he now thought that number could be as high as 300 given the number of young people infected and the "super-spreader" church service in Māngere.
"We're really looking at an outbreak now that is similar to one that we dealt with in March and April last year which was of the order of about 1000 cases.
Hendy said several days ago it could be up to 1000 cases.
The prediction derived from a model will change as new information is added to it.
It is not static but a best estimate based on the current information available. That info such as clusters, sub clusters and R rate is dynamic and changing each day. The more information you have the more accurate the prediction will be.
Tom
Agreed.
The significant AOG super-spreader event with 500 in very close contact for over five hours can be considered an abnormal event and would have provided sufficient new information to change original predictions.
As an aside, that event was quite proper and my understanding is that Pasifika are supportive and vaccination rates around the country are high.
I truly don't know what the higher ups are thinking at the moment. It just isn't mathematically possible to suppress this outbreak. We are playing checkers delta is playing chess.
The next week should be make or break. I think one or 2 things will happen. Either NZ will will bring the army into Auckland to double down on level 4, alternatively we will give up & move suppression. August 31st will be a good date politically to move to suppression as the global media will be focused on the final withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Bullshit.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/25/taiwan-zero-covid-cases-o…
> This week, the government announced increased measures to avoid an outbreak of the Delta variant. In June, a handful of Delta cases in southern Taiwan were quickly contained but the island has not yet had to deal with rampant spread of the much more infectious strain.
Thaiwan had a small outbreak delta outbreak of presumably 5-10, which they caught early so were able to contain. We have an out-break which is all ready at 210. FYI Melbourne were also able to contain a small delta outbreak the "removal company" one this got to I believe about 10 cases. Before they had their 2nd delta outbreak which is so far not contained.
My point is nobody has contained a significant outbreak of delta. All the outbreaks have been contained have been nabbed in the butt very very early. You are comparing apples with oranges. By comparing Taiwan's tiny delta outbreak with ours.
delta all starts at one person, sydney had one person and we had one person, it is right to compare how it started, they were much faster than we were picking it up and managed it better, as for sydney to many nevilles over there so they have given up, hospitals already straining to cope and we are able to watch and learn if you can open up and keep your hospital functions going for people other than covid cases
... the same Prof Shaun Hendy who 18 months ago , prior to the first lockdoom , said his computer modelling showed that 80 000 NZ'rs were likely to die from Covid-19 ... sending the media into a frenzy .... the public into panic .... the government freaked out ? ...
GBH can you answer this? If in say 6 weeks time the lockdown has worked & all of NZ returned to level one, but Mr Delta comes again through either a MIQ failure or a customs area, port, airfreight etc, does that not mean all of NZ is immediately back to level 4 a lockdown? In which case lifestyle in NZ has the potential to be like a set of revolving doors day by day.
... yes ... if Ardern persists with her " elimination " strategy .. we will continue dropping into lockdoom & easing out ... until : the economy crashes as theres no sugar left for Robbo to juice the system ... or , the populance uprise and openly revolt ... Covid ain't going away , here to stay ... vaccinate , get a booster , get used to it ....
... right now , we're in a whole heap of trouble if lockdoom 4 doesn't eliminate the current Delta outbreak ...
We have been let down badly by a smug , complacent government .... our vaccine roll out has been dreadfully slow ... worst in the OECD ... 118'th in the world ... up from 126 'th ... and , they've ruled out other vaccines which were offered to us , Astra Zenica & Moderna .... incompetence of the highest order ...
Certainly the present lockdown is necessary but it is a fair to question why it became necessary though. Much has been quoted about the now infamous “front of the queue” quip but the government has explained that off by more or less saying it became unnecessary because NZ had zero cases. Therefore because of that, not ordering in vaccines early or in numbers or even variety the government was relying totally on maintaining that status quo and resultantly asking NZrs to trust in that, full stop. But the border was breached on occasions and finally the arrival of Delta simply meant of course there was no longer zero cases and vaccination progression was way too small. Yes there might have been elimination but there was no guarantee that might not disappear overnight at any time.
mfd, to develop that a bit then. Assuming there is a target reached of vaccinations, that will though still leave a percentage of those who cannot or will not be vaccinated. So if that number remains large enough to potentially overrun health services what then. In other words if that is a priority now then it must remain so, as long as that threat is present.
That is quite possible. At the moment I strongly support a heavy lockdown to try to eliminate and give us another few months of freedom while vaccines roll out. After we've got as many vaccines into arms as we can I think we have to open up and take the consequences, if there's no more real ammunition to hold out for. Perhaps we'll have to keep mask mandates, some social distancing and working from home where convenient just to slow things down and make it manageable.
OK so what is pivotal in this whole question, and our future lifestyle, is the fact that our health systems abilities are going to determine what level or however everyday life is conducted. As my understanding is that little has been done to supplement the health system, make it more robust surely that must be addressed now to balance the scales so to speak. We have stayed in touch in our old neighbourhood in New Jersey which has some counties with much the same already stretched hospitals. There was of course a great onslaught of CV19s beyond their abilities. What they did was adapt and equip existing structures, even a moth balled casino in Atlantic City for instance, to triage, seperate and medicate the patients. Surely NZ needs to be thinking along similar lines by now.
The media have a bad wrap, in the past technology has not been available to share bad news. Now we have it force fed via numerous real time channels and in fact it is all bar the occasional "cat up tree" story editors throw us, mainly to give themselves a break.
We are wired intellectually to give more weighting and interest to negative news, this used to keep us safe and now it hurts us (mental health has never been worse)
"...negatively framed statements were shown to receive substantially higher truth ratings than formally equivalent statements framed positively."
https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/10.1027/1618-3169/a000124
I wish I knew what the chances were of New Zealand employers instituting vaccine requirements for workplaces. Sounds like my company is exploring it but they are a large multinational.
Any lawyers out there? I'm assuming you would need to be able to demonstrate just cause etc. They have implemented requirements for border workers but I'm sure they would have had to be careful about implementation.
Difficult not to see many non vaccinated employee(s) being barred from work not ending up somehow in the employment court at least. For a start there will be a number who through pre-existing health conditions can’t be vaccinated anyway. Even if the government introduced good and proper legislation for an employer to enforce such policy there would be avenues to the international human rights etc to appeal. Very complex and challenging subject for the future, bit of a minefield looming really.
Just found a relatively good article on it.
https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/other-types-of-leave/…
So yes a relatively long and complex road ahead if you were going to pursue that as an employer but also on the flip side employers have requirements under the health and safety at work act.
A scenario I would be interested in is if you were an NGO providing counselling to young families in compromised social situations. A 65+ counsellor says no vax but their role is as a client facing counsellor with families where the adults already have poor health outcomes due to poverty, so high risk, and children not of an age to receive immunisations. Also returning home to elderly family members with poor health, that maybe can't get vaccinated due to health contraindicators.
As an employer what are your obligations to provide a safe service for your vulnerable clients? Interesting questions.
Also a workers ability to "stop work" under the h&s @ work act. Because they feel compromised by unvaccinated colleagues. What if they cannot be vaccinated due to legitimate contraindicators and are vulnerable health wise. Are they therefore run out of their normal working office because they can't reasonably expose themselves to that risk? Yes their employer may offer them working from home, but what if that doesn't fulfill their normal working role or they just aren't as good at the modified role they are given as a result and are unable to meet their kpis so get disadvantaged by this. So many questions...
Is that a question you have? Because it's not one I'm asking. I'm currently pregnant and still in my first trimester. Unvaccinated. I would not be comfortable in my workplace at the moment.
If I was vaccinated but still capable of transmitting, as is possible, and had vulnerable unvaccinated people (and children) at home I may also have some misgivings, but I think that's starting to get into the highly risk averse rather than pragmatically risk averse. Although diff people may have their reasons for that.
... I do wonder if we shouldn't change this narrative , because covid running amok in the community is inevitable , and just tell the antivaxxers that they choose the far greater risk of permanent damage from covid if they catch it ... or death ... and that's been known to be permanent too ....
theres plenty of "experimental injection" resistance people who are pro vaccine. Calling them anti vaxxers is a misnomer.
They are just waiting for the research study to run its course - mid 2023. (i assume you were aware of that when you received yours?)
Until then the "long" (ie very near term) term effects of this injection are to be confirmed.
.... great link ... a mate in the USA , 6 ft 5 ... military , fit as a fiddle , early 40's ... nearly died from covid ... only being rushed to a military hospital to be put on a ventilator saved him ....
It's a no-brainer... take the jab , or roll the dice : your choice ...
It not an either OR ... "Roll the dice" also applies to injections in the experimental phase (remember its under emergency use at present... )
A no-brainer ... hmmm. That may sum up whats required.
But it is becoming apparent we are stepping on to a Booster shot to infinite treadmill with leaky vaccines
... recall , we are offered Flu jabs each autumn ... for regular Flu viruses ... and its voluntary to accept them or not ... covid is a related virus ... which explains how quickly vaccines were found .... perhaps next year's regular Flu jab will include an anti Covid-19 component .... again ... your choice ...
oh no
we arent back to the old Flu line of argument again ... sigh
Anyway, as an aside I see we are still on 26 official deaths from covid
which coincidentally exactly matches the 26 deaths following vaccine in latest medsafe report.
hmmm.
https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/safety-report-23.asp
Yeah totally understand that. If I had a small or medium sized firm I would probably lean the same way but I'm not convinced the different legislations paint a cohesive picture here. In particular the health and safety at work act which squarely places obligations on the employer (PCBU) to ensure a safe workplace for workers and visitors in a no excuses, you carry out your own risk assessments and we'll assess in a court if you did enough later on if something goes wrong kind of approach. It has such a far reaching basis, I just think vaccinating your workplace might not be such a simple question in relation to that, as the medical and population studies are there now to show how dangerous covid is, the effectiveness of the vaccine, so can you reasonably disregard that. It's an interesting legal environment.
The requirement for border workers to be vaccinated falls under a specific Health Order, doesn't it?
As far as I can tell, there's scant ground for an employer to require vaccination in New Zealand unless you are a worker under that Health Order (in which case it isn't actually the employer requiring the vaccination, but the government ... at least in effect).
The Government Employment site has some good info on this, and is fairly unequivocal about the question "Can I make my employees get vaccinated?" to which they say 'No. You can only require that certain roles are performed by employees who are vaccinated, if the work is covered by a Health Order, or if a risk assessment shows that there is a high risk of getting and/or infecting others with COVID-19. There are very few types of work in New Zealand where this would apply.'
There is also some excellent advice on this document from the Auckland Business Chamber: https://www.aucklandchamber.co.nz/media/53977655/guideline-for-employme…
So unless your employment falls under a Health Order it seems very hard to argue for mandatory vaccination.
Presumably if you are working for a large multinational they will be seeking consistency across their workforce (e.g. America seems to be going "all in" with vaccine mandates now), and if they are anything like any multinationals I have experienced they'll probably have zero respect for New Zealand law anyway.
Secondly (and perhaps just as importantly) I would imagine there is nothing in your contract that allows for your employer to require vaccination. That would presumably involve a unilateral changing of your contract/terms of employment, which I can't imagine is particularly legal.
Finally - and this is a bit more of a hypothetical point - what is the position if an employer requests vaccination and then the employee suffers an adverse side effect? Considering the employee cannot pursue the vaccine manufacturer for compensation (and presumably cannot pursue the government either) could this be a potential minefield?
I suspect there will be some employers who will "try it on" and probably find themselves on the wrong side of an employment dispute - will be interesting to see this play out. Could even making noises about mandatory vaccination in the workplace potentially risk issues around constructive dismissal?
Put another way, I won't be asking anyone who does business with me in any context (employee, contractor, visitor or otherwise) what their vaccination status is.
I also imagine employment lawyers will be rubbing their hands together with glee at the thought of upcoming legal issues in this space.
Also considering the tight labour market at the moment, you'd have to be crazy IMO to mandate anything that could lead to employees leaving - especially if you have specialist staff who might be hard to replace.
Nothing wrong with employers encouraging vaccination of course, but mandating is a different ballgame entirely.
Of course if the government comes along and changes legislation to allow for mandatory vaccination, then that changes things.
Thanks for the links. Yeah I'm probably mainly interested in the implications for the health and safety at work act where you are expected to front foot best practice by doing your own risk assessments and proactively acting accordingly. This piece of legislation potentially opens itself up to employers interpreting their obligations differently depending on what industry they are in. Probably worth the government doing a legal review of how all the different legislations may tackle this issue, as I suspect it's not at all that simple to do the "right" thing now by everything. Perhaps they are already doing this.
I suspect the government will want to "have a bob each way" and beyond the employees covered by Public Health Orders avoid legislating or giving too much guidance here.
Much easier to pass the buck to private employers and their employees and have them duke it out. A bit like mandatory scanning in at hospitality venues etc ... leave it all up to the businesses and their workers to bear the brunt of responsibility.
Also the links all assume a scenario where high risk workers are border facing, healthcare, aviation etc.
If there was widespread community transmission, this could potentially challenge this basis, if visiting clients etc created a reasonable risk that you could contract it. Anyway keen to see where this all ends up
This is worth discussing as I can see it being a very real issue for some.
At the moment the US organisations are using health insurance premiums as their reason for requiring a vaccination. This works well in that market due to the organisation wide premium effect. In effect organisations will have to choose between compelling vaccination for their workforce and offering health insurance or not being insured. This is a very big deal in the US.
Here I suspect work places will use the health and safety legislation. Directors (or other PCBU) are accountable for workplace safety and so it will be on them to decide whether it is compulsory. People can choose to resign of course and this labour market is buoyant at the moment.
Yes the American system is very different indeed (for example I note Delta is now charging non-vaccinated employees $200 per month if they are on the Delta employee health insurance plan, to compensate for the higher insurance premiums they are presumably paying at their end).
I guess here it will come down to the health and safety legislation and interpretations of that ... I wouldn't want to be the first employer who fires someone for not being vaccinated here in NZ, let's put it that way.
Bad news from Israel
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination…
It does seem that we have to learn to live with Covid sooner or later (unless you are China with an army willing and ready to kill your own people). You can vaccinate to soften the blow, but eventually you would need additional capacity for hospital care of people who get it, efficient treatment protocol and similar measures.
It is an extremely difficult task of course as you do not grow competent medical professionals on trees, medical items are all in short supply etc. but that seems to be the only way forward. NZ has been very slow to vaccinate, and I bet they have been even slower in increasing their care capacity. NZ health system operates on the basis of turning people away, any change in that would result in it collapsing.
we could of built a specialized facility with amount of $ we have thrown around, even to take 2 billion out of the $50 billion would of given us a fairly decent facility to deal with covid cases outside of mainstream hospitals, as you are right covid is not going anywhere, just like many other viruses we will need to learn to live with it and the effects.
The article is a bit outdated...
Here is some good news from Israel
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-finds-covid-19-vaccine…
the BBC reported this more than a week ago... which is good news. What isn't so good is the reality of the most vaccinated country, with now the most booster shots given having a daily Covid report of 10,087 new cases and 24 new deaths - in one day - two days ago. Yes they have a larger population (not quite twice as large as NZ) but also have demonstrated that vaccines and boosters are not the entire answer to a balanced national covid response.
... agree that a multi-pronged approach is necessary ... but , our experts ( Hendy / Bloomfield / Little / Hipkins ) gave us just one ... Elimination !
And then it turns out the perspex partitions in the Orc Land MIQ centre neither extend to the ceiling nor to the floor .... d'uh !
Yes they told us to trust in elimination and in so doing put all their trust in the security of the border. But they failed to realise vaccination was required as a back stop if that border was breached. Not only has vaccination been slow it was started far too late. This could have been prevented by not selecting just the one vaccine. What seems to be being overlooked is that vaccination is not all about reducing or stopping transmission it is more about the actual protection it gives and which in turn would reduce the potential of hospital admissions. Given that was quite rightly the government’s greatest concern then it surely was obvious that vaccination needed to be started pronto. The reliance on the border being unbreachable was simply not feasible.
All I'm saying is I watch Israel to see our future. That's reality enough for me. The PM today is saying double vaxxed is nothing. Triple vaxxed is required. Lockdowns persist. Case numbers are high. Deaths moderate, but high comparable to unvaccinated Lebanon next door. It goes on and on. What's your 'reality' I should be dosed with because it seems pretty clear where we are headed. Wait. Are you saying when we're all vaccinated it's over and we go back to normal? Because I want what you're smoking.
" You got dumbthoughts ? "
" Yes ... oh yes ... "
" How dumb ? "
" Really dumbthoughts ... like , so dumb , man ! "
" You up to a really deeply dumbthoughts challenge ? "
" Sure thing ... yup , really dumbthoughts ... ummm ... what's ' challenge ' mean ? "
" Welcome to the Labour government cabinet ! "
UST 10yr yield jumped back to 1.35% despite some weak economic data.
Part of the reason for the turn up is the US Fed's focus on the Jackson Hole meeting and the signals Fed boss Powell will be giving. Markets suspect he will acknowledge that the current inflation impulse is likely to be less transitory and have longer term implications.
Fitch sovereign debt rating. US getting closer to be downgraded. That’s the real risk for bonds. Not #taper Link
Just As Stocks Dropped Below A Critical Support Last Week, Banks Unleashed Record Buybacks
According to Bank of America, buybacks by corporate clients accelerated from the prior week to the highest level since mid-March, driven by Financials. As BofA's Jill Carey Hall writes in her latest Equity Client Flow Trends note, financials has now overtaken Tech as the sector with the largest dollar amount buybacks so far this year:
What she noted next will come to no surprise to anyone except those gullible (or mendacious) idiots who defend buybacks, ridiculously claiming they aren't the main reason for stock upside: "based on our flows data from 2010 to today, we have found that the S&P 500 sector buying back the largest dollar amount in a given week have tended to outperform over the next several months (cover chart) with a >50% hit rate."
How much is defending a stock value and how much is personally enriching themselves is the question. The stock buy-back story, "our free cashflow allows us to support the stock price" is better read "we haven't the gumption to invest in anything, our strategy is empty and the upside to me personally closes the deal".
Also - we talk about the China "home team" with derision but that is simply racist - this is how the US "home team" works to manage their stock price.
The emissions will be the thing they will object to. Green policy is a matter of selecting what of the almost infinite number of polluting activities we do that they object to most. The cognitive dissonance between knowing a polluting activity is occurring elsewhere on this shared planet, probably increasing elsewhere, and needing to stop our almost immeasurably small contribution is not something they can recognise.
What the Greens don't realise is that all the luxuries we enjoy in the West are a direct result of military strength. I find it ironic that they want to ban investing in military equipment but will happily support and wear the latest fashion labels made by slave child labour in Bangladesh.
Read an interesting study last night on how certain antidepressants might strongly help to prevent covid infection. From credible researchers. They acknowledged need for clinical trials.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(20)30186…
What's the point you are making?
A genuine question, or a cynical one?
The study I refer to is interesting and potentially significant, published by credible researchers in a credible journal. They don't talk of one antidepressant, but several, so less likely to be conflict of interest.
It's balanced, and acknowledges the need for clinical trials. Bundled up implicitly in that is acknowledgement it might not work out.
I might contact them to see if they are advancing trials.
Nigeria’s diaspora may have switched to cryptocurrency, as official remittances fall by $6bn
Is Nigeria's rich and tech-savvy diaspora using cryptocurrencies to circumvent a struggling naira when they send money home to support family or invest? The Nigerian Central Bank seems to think so -- it is even launching an e-naira to compete with Bitcoin et al from October.
Diaspora remittance inflow into Nigeria declined by a consequential 27% to $17.2bn, down from $23.5bn last year.
Afghanistan will have to join them as soon as all their foreign aid gets pulled. Still they could just ramp up their drugs trade instead and watch the money flow in that way. Make the payments for the drugs in USD as the ultimate FU. Many countries will be forced to adopt a different currency, there is quite a few building up at the bottom of the heap, whole continents of them in fact.
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