Barack Obama is my broker

From ABC News:

The Obama administration has defended its decision to allow Fisker Automotive to assemble its high concept electric sports sedan, the Karma, in Finland, even though U.S. taxpayers had made a major investment in the car's development -- saying none of the American money was spent on the car's overseas assembly.

That is not the scandal.  What they did with the money doesn't matter.  What matters is that they took the money from you and gave it to their friends.  No matter how many green smiley faces they slap on the sides of those cars, it was a theft.  The cars could've been built in your back yard, and it would still be a theft. 
Plus, the green companies give this money back to The Teleprompter Jesus in the form of campaign donations.  Everything else surrounding the theft is wholesome, green camouflage.
He took your money and spent it on things and people that he liked.  They'll give some of it back to him. 

But Republican critics this weekend challenged the administration's explanation, saying federal loans should have only supported applicants who would be building their cars on American soil.

No, no, no, dammit, no.  If the car manufacturer has a good plan, he can attract private capital from people who are prepared to take the risk and take the losses.  The "stimulus" system is just a wealth transfer.  Nothing more.  I would've been just as happy if Fisker had outsourced the work to elves at the North Pole. 

"The Department of Energy and Fisker executives are splitting hairs about where the money went," said Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the House committee that has been investigating the Obama Administration's "green energy" loan program. "Ultimately, American taxpayer dollars went to a Finnish automaker to build high-end luxury automobiles for Hollywood."

That doesn't matter.  The location or eventual use of the stolen money doesn't matter.  The theft is what matters.  This is what happens when you allow a Community Organizer/Law Professor to act as your stockbroker. 

The criticism came on the heels of online reports published Thursday by ABCNews.com in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, and a Friday report on ABC News' "Good Morning America" about Fisker Automotive, the recipient of a "green energy" loan in 2010. The reports quoted auto industry experts who said Fisker's loan invited comparisons to the ill-fated Energy Department loan to Solyndra, because delays and obstacles have hampered progress on the luxury electric car, called the Karma. Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer that received $535 million in taxpayer support, declared bankruptcy earlier this year. That federal loan is now the subject of investigations by the Justice Department and by inspectors general from the Energy and Treasury departments.

Speaking of Solyndra....
I go to lots and lots of auctions, and this one will be great. 
They're going to auction off the "Solyndra - Made In America" banner that was used as a backdrop for the Teleprompter Jesus when he announced that he was investing half a billion dollars of your money in that company.  Hit the link. 

I must own it. 
I want it soooo bad. 
I've picked out the spot in the warehouse where it's going to hang. 

On religious legalism

About five years ago, Lord Sauron and I went to a three-day auction in New Jersey. Bought all sorts of stuff and hauled it back to Texas. One of the more memorable people from that trip was an old Amish guy who mostly bid on hammers, wrenches, and other hand tools. He wore the Amish homespun clothes, the suspenders, a straw hat, and some boots that looked like they were made by blacksmiths. (I've always lived in Mississippi and Texas, and haven't been around many Amish people.)

I didn't pay that much attention to Mr. Amish until he started bidding on the drill presses. This seemed like a violation of the Amish prohibition against electricty, right? What was he going to do with an electric drill press? I asked a friend of his, and here's the explanation I got:

The Amish have a prohibition against electricity. Well, let's define electricity. Let's say its the presence and flow of an electrical charge. A spark, perhaps. Think Ben Franklin's experiment with the lightning. Big spark.
A gasoline-powered electric generator compresses fuel with a piston. At some point, a spark plug ignites the fuel, pushing the piston downward. This creates motion.
For whatever reason, the Amish see this spark as a bad thing.

BUT.... what about a diesel generator? Would that be ok? Diesel fuel ignites spontaneously from compression. (The oldest joke in the mechanical/maintenance industry is to send a kid out to change the spark plugs on a diesel engine. Diesel engines don't have spark plugs.)
Therefore, its ok for the Amish to run machinery and lighting from diesel generators. Go here to learn about an Amish company that actually manufactures diesel generators.

Ok, next point.... During this same time period, I was running the Jukt Micronics metal shop, and we had most of the United Nations working in the place. We had metalworkers from Nigeria. Kenya, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Mexico, Guatemala, Eritrea, and Arkansas. I wanted to do something nice for the guys, and ordered pizza to arrive a few minutes before breaktime.

I ordered Pizza Hut Meat-Lovers pizza. I ordered Sausage pizza. Pepperoni pizza. Italian Sausage. Ham. And guess what? It was the middle of Ramadan. At least a third of my employees were Muslim, and I might as well have ordered everybody some pig-on-a-biscuit. Well, like I said above, I'd lived my whole life in Mississippi and Texas, and wasn't really tuned in to Muslim dietary requirements.

But here's where it got interesting: A small contingent of the Croatians (?) took some of the forbidden pizza to a corner, and they did something to it. I don't know what. Some kind of Mojo. When the pizza came out of the corner, it was ok for Muslims to eat, and a lot of them ate it. I wish that Baptists had a similar ritual to purify Jim Beam.

There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago about Shabbos elevators. You don't know about Shabbos (or Shabbat) elevators? Here's the Times:

Does that elevator “know” how many people are on it?
The question is at the core of a ruling issued by a group of prominent rabbis in Israel on Sept. 29 that seems to ban the use of many so-called Shabbos elevators: elevators fixed to stop on every floor from Friday evening until Saturday evening so that observant Jews do not have to press any buttons.
Since the 1960s, when high-rise apartment buildings became ubiquitous, the Orthodox rabbinate has made such elevators one of the few exceptions to Talmudic rules prohibiting 39 categories of activity on the Sabbath, including manual labor or the use of electrical devices. Like flipping a light switch, pressing an elevator button is considered the use of an electrical device.

You would think that if someone went to the trouble to program an elevator stop on every floor during the Jewish Sabbath, he ought to at least get credit for trying. Not so. Here's the "Ask A Rabbi" website:

One of the common misconceptions about how elevators work, is that they are moved by a powerful motor which works equally hard no matter how many passengers have boarded, or even if no passengers have boarded at all. If this were the case, then the added weight of the passenger is not a contributing factor in any of the functions of the elevator and he wouldn't be considered responsible for those violations of Shabbat caused by use of the elevator. This assumption though, is false.

The assumption is false because elevator motors do not use the same amount of power regardless of the number of passengers or weight. The following is an explanation of how the majority of elevators work, illustrating just a small number of Halachic issues surrounding the use of elevators on Shabbat:

1. Most elevators are the traction type: consisting of a car and a counterweight on opposite ends of a cable hanging from a pulley;
   
2. The pulley raises or lowers the car by using a motor, and stops by using a mechanical brake;
   
3. The motor only requires enough power to lift the difference between the counterweight and the car, and to overcome friction;
   
4. The weight is equal to half capacity of the car, thus the motor operates to counteract the pull of the weight when the elevator is less than half full, and does not operate when the elevator is more than half full, when the car is descending.

Since the weight of the passenger is partly responsible for the motion of the elevator, he becomes liable for any infractions caused by the elevator's descent. In a typical non-Shabbos elevator, these are some of the many problems that one could encounter:

• Letting your weight trigger the mechanism that slows the elevator down and stops it at the next floor.
  
  • Causing the light that indicates the floor that the elevator is presently on to illuminate.
    
  • Activating the system (resistance sensitive pads, photoelectric device, or proximity detector) that opens the elevator doors.
  
  

  
  

  The Institute for Science and Halacha has spent many years working out the various Halachic problems and have designs for Shabbat elevators that meet the most rigorous Shabbat standards. Don't just use any automatic elevator - check with a Local Halachic Authority and find out whether it really is Shabbat safe.
  

Get it? If anything about your body - your weight, your leg breaking a light beam, your sinful desire to press a button - causes the elevator mechanism to change its scheduled starts and stops, then you've desecrated the Sabbath. It's like "step on a crack, break your mother's back" times ten.

Which gets me to the new Eruv in Baltimore. An Eruv, according to Wikipedia, refers to the legal aggregation or "mixture" under Jewish religious property law of separate parcels of property meeting certain requirements into a single parcel held in common by all the holders of the original parcels, which enables Jews who observe the traditional laws of Shabbat to carry children and belongings anywhere within the jointly held property without transgressing the prohibition against carrying a burden across a property line on the Jewish sabbath.

Orthodox Jews can't carry property - i.e., books, keys, kids - across property that isn't theirs on the Sabbath. So they put a wire around a massive amount of land, theoretically enclosing it within the communal property boundary of the wire, and this means its okay to carry your textbooks from point A to point B on the Sabbath. As long as you stay inside the wire. Step outside it, and God gets pissed. Here's another section of Wikipedia on "coping without an Eruv":

Loose medicines may not be carried; most authorities have agreed that it is preferable that one who constantly needs medication remain at home rather than transgressing Shabbat by carrying medication. But if such a person leaves home, then comes in need of medication, it is permissible under the laws of Pikuach nefesh to break Shabbat and bring the medication to the person. A small number of authorities in recent years have been permitting carrying the medication, though, since such a person may be tempted to leave home without it, and then his/her life may be endangered thereafter.

I first learned about the concept of the Eruv in Harper's magazine. The Eruv in the linked article is more than 4,000 acres, and encloses much of Manhattan. That's one heck of a household. Various committees and experts inspect the wire from time to time, and ensure that it remains unbroken. Otherwise, those inside the magic circle would be doing forbidden work on the Sabbath.

My wife is a Baptist Youth Minister. Our church prides itself on being "moderate" Baptist, which these days is kinda like being a "moderate" jihadist. We like gays and lesbians. We have female deacons and ministers. We don't believe that the Republican Party speaks for God. (Some of us even think that you can disagree with us and not go to hell, but don't tell anybody.)

My wife is having another carpal tunnel surgery tomorrow.
According to long-standing tradition, Baptists don't consume alcohol.
People from the church are bring food to our house every other day for the next two weeks, since the church members know that my wife can't survive on my diet of Bud Lite and Chili. (Great folks, all of them.)
But I have at least a 12-pack of Bud Lite in the fridge.
According to my calendar, we're in the year 2009. We've put a man on the moon. We're mapping the human genome. If we could stay out of religious wars in the Middle East, we would've sent a man to Mars by now.
With the exception of maybe three people, every member of the church that I know is at least a social drinker. They're going to be putting stuff in our fridge.
My Bud Lite is now in the salad bin of the refrigerator, stored out of sight.

The Amish prohibitions against electricity, the Muslim ban on pork, and the Jewish regulations against work outside the household on the Sabbath? Those are all silly religious beliefs.
But the Baptist drinking ban is a tradition. We all know and acknowledge that Jesus turned water into wine, and that Paul said a little wine is good "for the stomach's sake".

None of that matters. Baptists don't drink. I can't be too careful, and I better consume that 12-pack tonight.

The picture of the Amish generator came from here.
The picture of the Shabbat elevator came from here.

Iowahawk takes over the GM marketing department

This is a continuation of the previous post.
I've been having these recurring dreams about going to the final G.M. bankruptcy auction in the year 2014. These dreams have been curiously episodic, with each one beginning where the previous dream ended.....

As I wonder how I'm going to explain spending two grand on a "Hillary" doormat, I begin to wonder what it was that finally put G.M. out of business in 2014. Was it the fact that design changes had to go through the Deparment Of Commerce? Was it the Imperial Decree from President (of the U.S.) Obama to the President (of G.M.) Obama that all vehicles must get 83 miles per gallon? Was it the lawsuit over red cars not being "green" enough?

One of the many, many reasons for the G.M. bankruptcy: They didn't have a decent marketing department. The ads were curiously unappealing, despite being produced by my online friend Iowahawk. Check out this one, about the Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition:



I woke up at 4:14 this morning, screaming about the horror of late 1970's dance moves.
I've got to stop obsessing over this. Yes, the president of the United States has fired the President of General Motors.
Yes, he knows nothing about running a car company.
And no, it can't possibly end well.
Their problems are not my problems. Deep down inside, I know this. Its just the principle of the thing. Presidents shouldn't install themselves as CEO of corporations whose donors are in trouble.
Am going to try Vicodin, just to see if the dreams stop.

I Have A Dream ! (And Buy Some Stuff I Don't Need)

This is a continuation of the previous post.
I've been having these recurring dreams about going to the final G.M. bankruptcy auction in the year 2014.


These dreams have been curiously episodic, with each one beginning where the previous dream ended.....


In my dream, I wipe my feet on the Hillary doormat and go into the former office of General Motors' CEO Barack Obama.

GM's President Obama had the strangest career path in automotive history. From his early days as a failed community organizer, then his unremarkable tenure as a constitutional law professor, to his generic stay in the Illinois state senate, and a brief pit stop at the U.S. Senate., Obama finally used all of his non-experience as a launching pad to become leader of the free world for about six months.

But what Obama really wanted to do was make cars. Using his status as president of a less vital organization to mount his hostile takeover, Obama forced Rick Wagoner, GM's Old School president, to resign.

Then Obama started rebuilding every element that mattered in the GM organization - the union, the lobbyists, the environmental compliance officers, the get-out-the-vote specialists, the Card Check goons, the retirees' pension fund administrators, the rent seekers, the UAW liaisons, and the company logo.

Judging by campaign contributions from employees and vendors, things went well at first. But then it became necessary to sell some cars, and the government could only purchase so many for itself. So the government began issuing new coupons to low income families. These coupons were good for Agricultural College staples like eggs and cheese, or could be traded in for a Chevy Cavalier.

Within a few months, middle schoolers were calling all GM products "Loser Cruisers". No amount of marketing (Tipper Gore was brought in for a YouTube video in a failed attempt to revive the GTO) could restore any level of coolness to GM automobiles.

There was a failed re-branding campaign....

....and then the company continued its sad slow decline.

I slid into the chair behind Obama's desk, and put my feet up. To my left was the famed trophy case, still containing Hillary's pride and Larry Summers' integrity. To my right was a large bookcase displaying titles like CEO For Dummies, Auto Design For The Complete Idiot, and several hundred copies of Dreams Of My Father. The office had a massive picture window looking out over the now-quiet assembly line, and I could barely hear the auctioneer droning away.

How sad it would have to be, to work one's entire life to become President of a major car company, only to have it go out of business.

I make a note to bid on the trophy case, and go back into the hallway toward the production floor. The auctioneer is on a rolling platform, obviously frustrated that there is no longer a market for much of what he is selling....

"Ok, let's move on to the next lot," he says. "Who'll give me three million dollars for this inline paint system? Who'll give me two million? Somebody start us off. One million? 500K? Somebody get us going...."

Mr. China looks at his shoes. Mr. Japan heads to the restroom.

"What do you want to pay for this system? Somebody start us off. It cost 40 million when they installed it in the nineties. Who'll start us off at fifty thousand?"

Mr. China says something about not having enough carbon credits. Mr. Taiwan is unseen, remaining the silent online bidder. They both look at me, and I have to explain that I'm not registered with the cap-and-trade system. Eventually I offer $500, out of guilt more than anything else, and the auctioneer immediately says "Sold". If I'm lucky, I'll clear enough from a scrap dealer to purchase a McDonald's Value Meal.

No one bids on the welders. They emit gases into the atmosphere.

No one bids on the shears or machining centers. The insurance is too expensive. Lawsuits waiting to happen.

No one bids on the giant punch presses - they're now White Elephants. With permits, fees, sin taxes, and other regulations, no one can afford to drive any of the large cars this machine once created. Most new model 2014 cars are small enough to be made on an anvil.

The auction goes on and on, with most of the lots going unsold, or selling for pennies on the dollar. And then I find myself raising my hand for one more irrational purchase.

I woke up at 6:00 this morning, wondering how I was going to explain paying $2,000 for a "Hillary" doormat. Thank God it was a dream. I get a feeling I'm going to dream about this damn auction again tonight.

The G.M./Obama logo came from Black & Right, an African-American blogger who makes me seem calm and reasonable. The Obama cap was emailed from The Moxie Mom.

I Have A Dream ! (of General Motors in 2014)

I go to a lot of auctions.
A few of these are held at workplaces that are selling off surplus equipment, but most of the time the company has simply gone bankrupt. Auctions are the best way to determine fair market value when selling assets to pay back creditors.

At some point during the sale, I usually find some excuse to visit the CEO's office, sit down in the chair from which he directed his vast empire, and wonder what went wrong.

Some places suddenly go under with 6 months' worth of orders still waiting to be manufactured. Others are slowly starved out of existence. Sometimes, there's a lawsuit that shuts them down.

Occasionally I can stroll through the maintenance area and understand the big picture. There will be a vast collection of hot rods, boats, classic cars, 4WD hunting vehicles, plus lots of other toys the owner purchased with company funds. Never a good sign.

Last night, I had a dream....

I'm walking down Highway 360 in Arlington, Texas. It's sometime in the year 2014.

The weather is pleasant, considering that the earth is supposed to already be past Al Gore's "Tipping Point" in 2014.

I follow the "General Motors Auction" signs to a vast factory.....

The parking lot isn't very crowded, considering that billions of dollars worth of equipment is about to change hands. Several of G.M.'s infamous 48-year old retirees are milling around the entrance.

"Want to buy our pensions?" one of them asks. "Sorry, but I'm already on the hook for them," I apologize.

I fight my way past several Union Organizers who are still trying to register passersby for Card Check, and am surprised to see that there's no waiting line at the registration table.

This is unusual.

I give the clerk my business card, and a letter of credit for $350 million dollars. (Remember, its the year 2014, and the bailout and stimulus money has now infiltrated our financial system. It now takes at least fifty grand to get a pizza delivered.)

"Here's your auction catalog and bidder number," says the clerk. "You'll be bidder number 4."

"There are only three other bidders here?" I ask.

"Well, the gentleman from China registered yesterday, the Japanese representative arrived sometime this morning, and the Taiwanese government is bidding online. This could be your lucky day !"

I walk past the registration desk toward the famed G.M. assembly line. It's a manufacturing geek's paradise. There are robotic welders that could weld Juicy Fruit wrappers to a Coke can. There are massive punch presses that could stamp a block of steel into a Chevy Tahoe. These machines demand respect and reverence as you approach them. These are the machines that made the parts for Buicks, Cadillacs, Saabs and Saturns.

I'm walking down the assembly line that for the last five years has manufactured the Michelle 4x4, the Sasha 401K, the new GTO (Malia edition), and the Biden Gaffemaster convertible. Incredible.


With nothing on the assembly line but chassis assemblies, it's hard to tell what particular car was in production when the line shut down. Possibly the Geithner Evader 4.0

"All right, everyone, it's time to get started," I hear the auctioneer say.
This is surreal. There's no one in the plant but the Chinese bidder, the Japanese bidder, and me.

"We're here this morning to sell off the assets of the General Motors Arlington Texas Facility, at the request of the United States Government and President Barack Obama. Getting a facility of this size ready for an auction isn't easy, and we're thankful for all the help and cooperation we've received from General Motors President and CEO, unhhh, Barack Obama."

"All goods are sold 'as is, where is, and with all faults noted', and all sales are final. You will have 10 days to remove your purchases from the factory unless you are high bidder on the building and surrounding real estate. The real estate is part of a package bid that will include The George W. Bush/Texas Rangers Ballpark, the Dallas Cowboys' Arlington Stadium, the Jerry Jones Triumphal Arch, and several other bankrupt taxpayer-funded boondoggles."

"Any questions before we begin?" the auctioneer asks. "Good. Let's get started. Lot #1 is a Kyoto brand emissions tester....Who'll give me $50,000 Who'll start the bidding at $50,000?"

I wander away, leaving the Chinese, Japanese, and Thai bidders to fight it out for the regulatory equipment. I look into the design rooms. The progression from drafting tables to Autocad to Solidworks to Feng Shui Lao Tzu (3.0) has made these auctions a lot less interesting. There are never any leftover drawings to burrow through. But I do find a clay mockup of the prototype Lewinsky Hummer, a model that never made it into production. Everyone said it sucked.

I journey down another hallway, trying to find President Obama's office. This is one of those dreams where each hallway leads to another. I go past the Office Of Regulatory Oversight. I see the Office Of Parallel Authority. I accidentally wander into the lair of the U.S. Government Dispensers Of Red Tape, whose jobs required them to keep the U.S. Government Red Tape Elimination Bureau in business and running at full capacity. I spend an hour trying to find my way out of the Department Of Diversity, the Chamber Of Change, and the Hall Of Hope. Everywhere I look are papers. Filing cabinets full of papers. Reports about papers. None of them have anything at all to do with making cars. The auctioneer's voice begins to fade in the distance as my walk carries me closer and closer to Waco, Texas.

Finally, I see what I'm looking for. At the end of the hallway is a door labeled "Barack Obama, CEO, General Motors". I wipe my feet on the "Hillary" doormat, and go inside.

I just woke up and hit my alarm clock. This dream will probably continue tonight.

Photos from here and here.

Dear Taxpayers, Thanks For The Forklifts ! ! !

Dear Taxpayers,
Thank you for the forklifts you so graciously purchased for me.
What? You don't remember buying me any forklifts???? Then let me explain....

I've always taken a lot of pride in finding good deals at auctions for my employer, Jukt Micronics.
Since we have multiple factories and warehouses, I've bought a lot of used forklifts over the years. With only one exception that I can remember, they all ran ok and were worth about what I paid for them.
They usually looked something like this, but with worse paint....


Then something came along called the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, a government program designed to increase sales of new forklifts manufactured by campaign contributors to reduce NOx emissions (Nitrogen Oxide). This plan, supervised and implemented by The Texas Railroad Commission, featured something called the Low Emission Propane Forklift Initiative Program.

In a nutshell, this program allowed us to scrap our old forklifts since they weren't environmentally friendly, and gave us a huge rebate on the purchase of new ones that supposedly meet the new emissions standards. If you look at the Propane Forklift Initiative Program link, you'll see that the average rebate is around $9,000.00.

I think we got 12 forklifts.

I've never paid $9,000.00 for a forklift in my life, much less received a $9,000.00 rebate on a new one that costs even more. So all I can say is "thank you". These things are great.

In my opinion, there's not a cow's fart per decade's difference in the emissions from the old ones and the new ones, but I'm still glad to have all these new puppies at my disposal. Instead of travelling to auctions, having to repair old forklifts, or, hell, instead of having to spend company money, you folks bought us these. And don't think I don't appreciate it.

Thanks to your good friends at the Texas Railroad Commission, I have a lot more free time.

I spend a lot of this free time Googling the term "Regulatory Capture" an economics term stating that “regulation is not about the public interest at all, but is a process, by which interest groups seek to promote their private interest ... Over time, regulatory agencies come to be dominated by the industries regulated.” In this case, the industry is forklift manufacturers.

If this post makes you angry, I'm glad. But it doesn't make you angry enough to stop voting for Republicans and Democrats, does it? You still won't vote for Libertarians, will you?

Good. Because I want some new semi-tractors next, and I want you to buy them.

Pics of old forklift came from here. Pics of new Yale forklifts came from here.

All I Need To Know, I Learned At Auctions Part 1

I'm at an auction in Houston this morning.
These things are one of the greatest learning experiences available. I don't think you should be able to graduate from the Fort Worth ISD without going to a Richie Brothers auction. There's much to be learned there. Had I started going at age 17 instead of age 35, I'd be in better financial shape now.

So along with the monthly wisdom of Thomas Sowell, and the monthly deconstruction of the advertising in Harper's magazine, I'm going to add.....

All I Need To Know, I Learned At Auctions, with apologies to Robert Fulgham's bestseller with a similar title about kindergarten.

Lesson #1 - Nobody has any idea what anything is worth.

Things are worth what people will give for them, "as is", "where is", as the auction saying goes. Appraisals don't mean a thing, except as a marketing tool. The only way to determine the value of something is to sell it.

The Reverend Doctor Karl Marx advocated something called the Labor Theory of Value. I'm oversimplifying here, but this is the idea that things are worth the amount of labor that went into them.

Equal amounts of labor went into the latest Kanye West and K-Fed CD's. One of them sold well, and the other couldn't be given away with McDonald's Happy Meals.

The labor of Bill Gates would be worth very little in a Mississippi Rice Field. The same labor was almost priceless on the west coast.

Ditto for VHS vs. Betamax video players.

Nolan Ryan rookie year baseball cards vs. Ned Yost rookie year baseball cards.

Don't get me started on Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Dolls, and other now valueless, once priceless, collectibles.

So far, I've seen things sell for pennies on the dollar, relative to the original price. I've seen other things sold for 80% of the cost of a new equivalent item.

Rev. Dr. Marx lived in a fairly simple society.

Today I'm trying to buy some forklifts. I know what I think they're worth.

They're worth what people in Tomball Texas are willing to give for them on May 6, 2008. Not a penny more, not a penny less.