Read this and then this and then this.
I think the most awesome thing is going to be listening to Republicans attack Democrats over the economy. When doing nothing is labeled socialist, then you know the only solution is tax cuts for Jesus. Idiot blue dogs.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
I think the dirty little secret here is that a lot of interests are pulling for deflation, but they’re being dishonest about it. At least Ron Paul was honest enough to say that part of his idea with bringing back the gold standard was massive deflation…
When the banks can make money just by holding on to cash, why would they want to change things?
Third Eye Open
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Luckily, I know how to weave rope. How many chickens can I get for a quarter-inch tri-weave?
Adam Collyer
This unemployment benefits thing boggles the mind. In a strong economy, it seems possible to make a case for limiting unemployment benefits. But in this economy, it’s not like people don’t want to work.
I’d like for someone like Ms. Angle to go talk to those “real Americans,” the blue collar workers in the midwest and the south, about how they’re too lazy to find work.
Linkmeister
@Adam Collyer: Or those of us over 50.
demimondian
Um, yeah. Head and shoulders patterns have predicted eight of the last zero depressions.
Don’t get me wrong — Krugman is right; we need to extend unemployment benefits, since a deflationary spiral is not by any means impossible to imagine. However, hyperventilating talk about “Depressions” is the economic Godwin: when you’re trying to substitute demagoguery for discourse, you talk about “the Great Depression”.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Ran into a beady eyed tea bagger with his sidearm strapped on today in Walmart, something that is happening more and more in this area. Like all lizard brains that run on primal instinct, maybe they see the end game to all of this, where half normal humans don’t.
We are not only fucked, but the Supreme Court delivered a solid gold dildo with it’s United decision. The Plutocrats were given the keys to the kingdom, to be guarded by half whit wngnut thugs like the dude in Walmart. the rest of us will only be furniture.
jwb
@Adam Collyer: Not extending unemployment helps promote the meme that the government is ineffectual. The subtext here is that the Dems can’t handle the problem, so vote for someone else. With the help of the media, the goopers have actually been fairly effective in pushing this line. The unemployed themselves will probably mostly be too depressed to vote in numbers; others in the Democratic base are also rightly or wrongly feeling disenchanted with the Dem politicians, whom the base stupidly feels are little better than goopers, and so the turnout is likely to be subdued. The independents are susceptible to the “don’t like the status quo, vote for the goopers line,” especially when coupled with nonsense about the deficit (so long as the goopers keep the crazy under control). Now, it seems like we could well be headed for another financial meltdown. None of this bodes well for November.
Lolis
At least the Blue Dogs are usually the first to go in close elections. All I care about is retaining the majority, but a lot of these losers can go, for all I care.
Warren Terra
It’s “I got Mine Jack” as fiscal policy. Deflation and high unemployment are good for the wealthy and (assuming their pensions remain intact, and especially that the Republicans’ lust to loot Social Security are restricted to the young and the incapacitated) can be good for the retired.
Deflation and high unemplyoment are bad for workers, especially but not by any means only the less educated workers. They’re bad for the coming generations, unless they stand to inherit enormous wealth. But the Republicans’ paths to getting votes from workers in the post-LBJ era have never been to honestly appeal to the pocketbook. Leaving aside the repeatedly discredited Trickle Down theories, the Republican strategy to get the yokels’ votes has been God, Guns, and most especially Fear – fear of the Russian Bear; fear of the Muslim, Atheist, Jew, or other infidel; fear of the Commies and the Socia|ists; fear of the Scary Black Man (now with added Scary Black President!); and fear of the Latino Hordes. Sad thing is, the strategy works pretty well.
Warren Terra
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Can you blame him? I’ve seen the television advertisements – there’s some frighteningly cheery flying demon that infests the Walmart stores, laughing as it adjusts the prices downwards. You shouldn’t approach anything with that big and perpetual a smile unarmed!
Martin
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Nah. The GOP is making Dems own this outright and making sure nothing happens is exactly the electoral tactic they want. The Blue Dogs are too afraid to cut against the GOP spin, and wind up killing the whole deal.
If the GOP wins majority control in November, expect stimulus and tax cuts galore. If the GOP fails to get majority control in November (almost certain to happen), I’m not sure what, but my guess is they’ll go along with Dems for about 6 months before it’s time to start campaigning for 2012, and then put the brakes on everything once again.
The public never seems to understand that their suffering is, and always has been, the lynchpin of the GOP electoral strategy to regain power.
Bill E Pilgrim
And read this. Then read this.
I just wonder, if someone said:
“Blue Dogs are arguing that we need to reduce deficits right now, though we can assume that they’re taking this position as a political ploy because the right has everyone stirred up about “outta control spending”, even though the Blue Dogs know that it’s the last thing to be doing in a downturn as serious as this”
You can just imagine the scorn and abuse that would be heaped on them by John Cole, DougJ, and most of the commenters at this blog.
Now replace “Blue Dogs” with Rahm Emanuel or David Axelrod and watch the difference.
Brachiator
The odds are that the Senate will ultimately agree to extend unemployment benefits. But they won’t take this up until after July 12, with an inevitable round of political posturing.
There is one thing in Krugman’s column that I disagree with:
I just don’t see unemployment benefits as doing much to increase consumer spending. More likely, these benefits are used for basic living expenses and to pay down debt. And because unemployment benefits can be taxable, the jobless can still end up in a substantial financial hole.
The economy is bad enough without answering the somewhat philosophical (to the average person) as to whether or not we are in a Depression. And past historical charts are not the same as economic analysis. It is hard to predict the future (or even analyze the past) from sets of graphs.
By the way, the Times has an interesting article about a pair of economists who have looked at over 800 years of financial data to demonstrate how often the smart guys fail to predict financial collapses (“They Did Their Homework (800 Years of It)“)
But there is even less agreement as to what a solution might be. The Brits are combining tax increases with cuts in spending. In the US, the last stimulus may not have been broad enough to do much good, but even here a lot of the money went toward shoring up weak state budgets, delaying problems and not doing much to jumpstart the economy.
Justin
The Democrats should use this as an opportunity to exercise the nuclear option: End the filibuster procedurally, and start passing whatever aid/stimulus packages they need. Any and all Republican whining can be met with “We had to do it to stop the Republicans from screwing the unemployed.” It’s bitchslap politics on an institutional scale, and going into November the Dems would look strong, in addition to having actually done something to ameliorate the problem.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Warren Terra:
And this is a pretty peaceful community, or small town. I met him going in as I was leaving, and I had thought Walmart didn’t allow non law enforcement with firearms despite this being an open carry state and had not seen anyone packing in there before, although out on the streets there are plenty of people with them, but with private business having the option to ban them from their property. I wonder if this guy wasn’t maybe testing the recent SCOTUS case, or something. But I don’t really know if that case put in doubt exemptions from private property owners.
jwb
@Justin: Won’t happen because it will upset too many of the very serious people(r).
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brachiator:
Adam Collyer
@jwb:
There are two things that are amazing here. One is that I know this is the case and yet am still somewhat surprised about it. Two is that it actually works.
In that regard, you’d imagine that, at some point, people would recognize sound policy. It’s easy to disagree over tax cuts or government spending when we’re running a surplus. It’s fair to disagree about it too, I think. But we have a general consensus that unemployment benefits shouldn’t lapse in a recession with our job figures. That Republicans choose to make the case is ridiculous enough. That smart people actually buy it is miraculous.
I mean, think about this logically for a minute. Many college and post-grad degree earners will go to the polls in November, and plenty will vote for Republicans after listening to Republicans get on TV and yell about how the government “isn’t working.” And yet, the reason the government isn’t working is because Republicans are making it so.
For people who think that government isn’t working because things aren’t going through, the correct response is to elect more Democrats. Why is it so hard to get smart people to see that anything they want is being blocked by a southern regional party?
amorphous
Case in point of why I am not under any circumstances going to leave my job unless they fire me – because I can almost surely take care of my family short-term and long-term if I keep it, even if they leave.
jwb
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: They could actually be fun: a fight between the rights of private property owners and the second amendment.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@amorphous:
Very wise, I once quit a job on the spur of the moment from the nasty breakup of an in office romance/shack up. Bad move without having something else lined up. That one rated about 6th or 7th on my long list of stupid life moves, especially when i was younger.
Brachiator
@Warren Terra:
But it’s not just wealthy people who have pensions, and you certainly can’t assume that they are unaffected by the economic downturn. The gameplaying by bankers and the financial industry has resulted in a big hit to pensions. Anyone who has pensions invested in the market, from teachers to firefighters and others in both the public and private sectors, have seen the value of their pensions drop tremendously. And older workers and those who have already retired are less able to make up the losses to their retirement savings.
High unemployment and economic stagnation indirectly loots Social Security since there is a decrease in both employees and employers who are paying into the system.
I agree with you here. It amazes me that this strategy would work, but the GOP has done a great job in getting people to ignore their past failures, especially when they promise nothing but more of the same.
The Raven
…wait until the health care mandates kick in…
Warren Terra
@Brachiator:
In other words, consumer spending (you went on to say “to pay down debt”, but I don’t think unemployment benefits are so generous that many eligible people can live off them and use them to make a significant dent in their debts – it’s more likely the case that the unemployment benefits let them keep on buying groceries, clothes, and engage in other “consumer spending” without getting much deeper in debt).
I agree with you for the first part – but many of the Republicans’ working-class voters are collecting Social Security or other pension income that’s less directly vulnerable to the stock market; after all, the shift away from defined-benefit plans has been a relatively recent development. As to high unemployment “looting Social Security”, the looting of Social Security has been achieved by cutting the income tax, especially the higher brackets (and still greater looting was attempted when Dubya announced that he thought the country should default on those treasury bonds bought by the Social Security trust fund). Social Security was still running a huge surplus last time I looked – that was before the economic collapse, to be sure, but I suspect it’s still taking in more than it spends, although it is likely buying fewer treasury bonds than before. In fact, Social Security can’t be running a deficit, as it has no legal authority to borrow money, only to loan it to the federal government.
maus
@20 The NRA will win over the rights of private property owners without any conflict among Republicans or blue-dogs.
Brachiator
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Thanks for the reference links. Many of the economists quoted were giving their opinions in 2008, and I am not sure that their recommendations have paid off to the degree that they thought that they would.
The CBO report is more recent, and I haven’t had a chance to go through the entire thing yet. But it is amazing that they would suggest that a one-time payment of $250 to Social Security recipients would have a significant impact on the economy.
It’s interesting that the CBO report suggests that reducing payroll taxes (a big GOP favorite) would have almost as great an effect on stimulating the economy as increasing unemployment benefits, which demonstrates the CBO’s general nonpartisan approach.
By the way, I strongly support extending unemployment benefits. But I think this can be justified by any number of reasons apart from providing economic stimulus.
frankdawg
@Justin:
How can they do that when they can’t get all the Dems on board? We are being fucked by the blue douches harder and more completely than by the scum-sucking Republicans.
And at the risk of being branded a firebagger, the chosen one is also part of the problem. AS the President he is the titular head of his party & should be arm twisting, brow beating and using campaign carrot & stick extortion to try to get those bastards in line. This is not the time to sit back & wait for the Congress to lead, or to seek compromise with assholes that will not compromise. Now is the time to lead.
Brachiator
@Warren Terra:
I disagree with you here. Anyone who has a profit sharing plan (e.g. 401K plan) in addition to Social Security has taken a hit in their retirement portfolio. In California, for example, and other states, there are large numbers of workers who do not participate in the Social Security system. A July 21, 2009 LA Times story reported the following:
I don’t understand what you mean here, unless you mean that a decrease in tax rates decreases the overall amount of tax revenues. Otherwise, a decrease in income tax rates don’t much affect FICA rates. On the other hand, if you have fewer people working, you have fewer people paying into Social Security.
Tecumseh
I don’t understand why the Democrats don’t hammer the Republicans over the head for every attempt at denying unemployment benefits. I also don’t understand why they don’t hammer the Republicans over the head for every attempt at fighting off a job bill. Then there’s my lack of understanding of why all the Village seem more concerned about deficits or nobody really points out that one way to starve off all the cuts and fee increases at a state level could be changed if the Federal Government helps bail the state capitols out. It’s like Paul Krugman vs the World out there right now.
And finally, I find it amazing that with all the fee increases, service cuts, teacher lay offs, worker lay offs, people seem to just shrug it off like it’s no big deal. Say what you will about all those crazy “socialist” Europeans but people who live there fight tooth and nail over any of these things even if it sounds silly. It’s like we’re programmed to accept all of this or don’t have the brain capacity and imagination to realize that this doesn’t have to be how it is.
jwb
@maus: I’m actually not certain on this point. In a place that required a public license like a bar, I’m sure you are right, otherwise you have an infringement of private property and and an issue of corporate control, so I think the issue becomes less clear cut politically (depending on how the corporations feel about guns on their property, of course).
Allison W.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
ALLISON W. Says:
Let me know when Senators Rahm and Axelrod with Republicans vote against unemployment benefits. What I find curious is that Obama’s economic team – the one so despised by the Left, the one they keep demanding should step down – is not getting any credit for being on the right side of the issue.
What confuses me about this article is that if Rahm and Axelrod are the poll watchers and polls are saying that Americans want more stimulus and recovery, why are they telling the President to focus on deficits? Does that make sense to anyone here? It doesn’t to me. Also, too, these same advisers were telling Obama not to do HCR and he didn’t listen. So lets hope Obama listens to his economists (ain’t it funny? first Obama was listening to too many experts, now its “please listen to the experts”).
Nick
@Adam Collyer:
26% of the country doesn’t even know who we won our independence from and you want Americans to recognize sound policy? They wouldn’t recognize it if it came on a reality show.
In the end too, a good portion of this country’s population are selfish children of exceptionalism. Remember all that “you can be whatever you want to be if you only try” bullshit. a lot of lucky people believe that and that if you’re someone not as successful as they are, something is obviously wrong with you.
I’ve been there. I’ve been on unemployed and had people tell me “you went into the wrong industry” and “if you just exert yourself, you’ll get a job” and “be more outgoing, send me resumes”
My mother wants wanted me to put on a suit and march into the HR office of every company in Manhattan begging for a job. “You’ll get one that way” she said to me…so to humor her I did it.
Guess what? Didn’t get a job. Often didn’t even get into the building.
Nick
@Tecumseh:
They do, no one is paying attention to them and the media is blocking them out. Nearly every weekly address has been about this, the President skewered the GOP twice last week. It just isn’t getting through.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Allison W.: I don’t think anyone really knows what the right side of this issue actually is. The political people are going to argue whatever the prevailing political mood of the country is, especially in the runnup to an election.
The economists will scream for more fuel because in normal recessions a degree of government spending can make some difference. But it has always been dubious to me that more is always better with stimulus spending. I think we need to take care of the individuals out of work with extending unemployment benefits for as long as it takes, and other safety net programs to keep them from drowning. And all of that is stimulus.
But other than that, the other kinds of so called stimulus has limited effects in a structural reconstitution of our economic system which seems evident as occuring. Bubbles will burst till they are spent, and the CRE and second wave of home foreclosures has to occur and businesses are not going to start hiring new workers till all this is played out.
We have fed the supply side for the past 30 years and starved the demand side of our economy for just as long. It is not going to automatically respond to a few billion in tax breaks and or government works projects overnight, in a 14 trillion dollar economy.
And I happen to agree with Axelrod about paying more attention to the deficit, not only for the coming election, which if lost means the wingnuts will get a whole new set of rocks to smash dem initiatives, but also because of the depressing psychological effect of ballooning debt has on the business community, that may or may not be actually detrimental in the short run. But at some point in the future, those huge debts are going to come home to roost with inflation.
Bootsie
I don’t mean to sound callous, but I would wager a good bit of money that 2/3 of the long term unemployed Krugman is talking about have voted a straight Republican ticket for many years, and will continue to do so despite the fact that they have been left high and dry by these guys. Somehow, they will talk themselves in to believing it’s the liberal’s fault. Really, it’s the same thing in the gulf. The massive oil spill has NOTHING to do with the Reaganistic policies many of these people who are now on the brink of losing everything have supported for years.
I wish it were different, but people in a democracy get the government they ask for.
Nick
@Bootsie: I don’t think it’s 2/3, but certainly some would, yes. Just so those gays don’t get married, you know.
El Cid
The real threat our economy faces, though, is inflation, because of all the spendin’, even though there isn’t any inflation and no one is predicting any, because shut up.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
And then this.
And then this.
If Krugman is right, and the reporting in these articles is right, and we follow John’s logic to its conclusion…
Brachiator
@Allison W.:
The polls are kinda worthless here. Most people want jobs and some degree of economic security. Whatever gets them there is just a matter of detail.
But to poll the public about macroeconomic issues (stimulus vs deficit reduction) is political gamesmanship. The answers may provide ammunition for talking points, but don’t help with crafting actual economic policy. The Republicans are on record as saying that deficits don’t matter when they were in charge and were spending hand over fist on Iraq, and I’m not sure what voter polls were saying at the time. They certainly didn’t influence policy.
liberal
@Allison W.:
LOL! Just because they get one thing right, I can’t despise them?
monkeyboy
@Brachiator:
You are forgetting the fiscal multiplier effect, where if you spend money in a community it goes to the wages of people who will respend it, etc.
It turns out that you get one of the higher multiplier effects when you give money to people who will immediately spend it on necessities or debt payment.
If you gave money to better off people, it think in these times they would be more likely to hold onto it rather than spend it on non-necessities or luxury items such as a motor boat which seems to be your idea of consumer spending.
liberal
@Brachiator:
He means that cutting income tax rates has led to higher deficits, which lead to calls to cut SS which might be heeded.
liberal
@Brachiator:
I think Krugman reprinted a summary of study of polls a few years ago which shows that people have no idea who got the deficit down (answer: Clinton of course).
So the notion that voters give a rat’s ass about the deficit is nonsense.
Nick
@liberal: No, I think they do care about the deficit, but only when Democrats are in charge, because they’ve been led to believe that Democrats “tax and spend” while Republicans are fiscally responsible. So when Republicans are in charge, they don’t ask questions, and if someone brings up the deficit, they blame it on the previous Democratic administration.
The Truffle
@Tecumseh: I suspect that when election season really kicks off, there may be a lot of attack ads about this. (Hope so, anyway.)
Nick
@liberal: You can at least give them credit and back them up. I mean it’s a pretty big thing they got right.
Brachiator
@monkeyboy:
I think the multiplier effect works less well in reality than in theory, or that other factors complicate the effect.
The plain fact is that national income hasn’t risen significantly, and unemployment is still stagnant. If you have large numbers of people unemployed, and increasing unemployment, and large numbers of people who have given up looking for work, the stimulating impact of unemployment benefits becomes minimal.
This is not borne out by the economic data since the stimulus went into effect.
In fact, I would argue that because the stimulus was channeled narrowly, the impact almost had to be minimal. For example, much of the stimulus went to taxpayers in the form of increased earned income credits and increased child tax credits (thresholds were adjusted). However, if you were an unemployed single male, or an unemployed childless couple, you got zilch.
By the way, one of the best things about Obama’s past tax policy was not just making sure that unemployment benefits were continued, but in excluding a portion of unemployment benefits from taxation. Unfortunately, the partial exclusion appears to be a one-time benefit.
I don’t believe in trickle down in any way, shape, or form.
Unemployment benefits for almost all recipients were less than their job-related earnings. In addition, many who were laid off either lost their medical insurance or had to pay higher COBRA payments. But they still had rent, mortgages, consumer debt. They still have to buy groceries, but have less to spend on restaurants. And even here they were often still treading water. I haven’t seen official government figures yet, but an unofficial poll of tax practitioners easily shows that many of them dealt with more situations in which people had cancellation of debt income in the past year than in all their years of tax practice. Much of this debt was not just related to home mortgages, but also various types of consumer debt. Quite a few of these people also received unemployment benefits.
Multiply this by hundreds of thousands of individuals and I think that you will find that this greatly offsets the benefits of the multiplier effect.
Note that this does not in any way argue against the value of unemployment benefits, but just suggests that, depending on the overall state of the economy, the stimulus value of unemployment benefits is variable.
TenguPhule
Let us no longer insult dogs by Comparing the Blue Rat Democrats to them.
monkeyboy
Gee, my reply to Brachinator seems to be blocked because I included 3 external link, all to Wikipedia.
When the software gets overhauled can it be at least be made to whitelist Wikipedia links so that they don’t trigger the spam filter?
monkeyboy
here it is without links:
Brachiator, if you don’t appreciative the multiplier effect because I guess you think it reeks of trickle down economics, just look at Cañon City in Fremont County, Colorado. That area was rather nothing until it decided to become the prison capitol of Colorado with 9 state and 5 federal prisons. The area has bloomed (in a rather depressive way). The main drag of Cañon City is lined with store fronts for lawyers, bail bondsmen, and fast food shops, presumably for the family member who visit prisoners. All of the money that drives their economy comes from the outside and the people employed by the prisons or by the prisoner’s families need services such as dentists, food stores, utility companies, dry cleaners, bars, construction workers to build houses, etc. I would guess that the non-incarcerated population that is not directly employed by the prisons is much greater than those directly employed. I think this is a fairly classic example of the multiplier effect particularly since since most prison employees are not highly paid and probably don’t hold onto money for long.
A similar example is Colorado Springs (pop 626,227), which used to have a tourist economy. Now they still produce very little but instead rely on DOD trickle down from the Air Force Academy, and Air Force and Army bases. There are a bunch of defense contractors there but mainly for access to Air Force program offices – their only local product is paper analysis while any defense manufacturing occurs elsewhere. If you removed all DOD funding from Colorado Spring the whole city would shrivel up with the major remaining businesses being retirement centers and maybe call centers (CS has good fiber connections (for the military) and has relied a pool of military spouses).
Both Cañon City and Colorado Springs are examples of multipliers on outside money trickle down. This sort of trickle down is different than that assumed to happen from giving wealthy people money (in the form of tax breaks).
I’ve heard that 1/3 of Americans pay no Federal taxes because they are too poor. For the government to give out money in the form of tax breaks makes no sense because it ignores the lower 1/3 who will hold onto it the shortest and inject it back into the economy the fastest.
ondioline
Linking Ambrose Evan-Pritchard pieces is like putting a gun to the mouth of your credibility.
He’s a bear, has been for a decade, is linked with elements on the racist/revolutionary right (that guy from Sipsey for one), was super-into taking Clinton down by any means necessary in the 90s, etc., etc., etc.
Read his articles extremely carefully. He’s very clever at exaggerating, inserting unsourced falsehoods, and ratcheting up fear. It’s nothing new.
Brachiator
@monkeyboy:
No. I said that the multiplier effect is not useful when considering the effect of unemployment compensation on the overall economy during the current recession.
In short, most people who are unemployed have already experienced a reduced standard of living. If unemployment is rampant, and others in the same area are also unemployed or under-employed, then the stimulus to consumer spending directly related to unemployment compensation is offset by the real decline in income experienced by those who are unemployed. In the current economy, right now, despite unemployment compensation, hiring is not only still stagnant, but there may be a new round of layoffs coming, especially in states like California, where persistent budget deficits are wreaking havoc on state, city and county governments.
It’s more complicated than that. A married couple making $50,000 in wages, with 2 kids would pay zero income tax in 2009. If the same couple earned $100,000 from stock sales or dividends, they would pay zero in income tax.
I’m not arguing for tax cuts. However, much of the stimulus was “tax breaks” as you call them, in the form of credits, which are targeted tax cuts. And because these credits could only be claimed when people filed their tax returns, they really did not quickly inject money into the economy. I think the stimulus should have been more broad.
But the bottom line is that I think that unemployment benefits are necessary. I just don’t think that they can always be tied to stimulating the economy. Nor does it need to be.
Wile E. Quixote
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Not me pal, I intend to take a lot of wingnuts with me. Liberals need to stop being such useless defeatist pussies, start buying guns and start cranking up the eliminationist rhetoric. The wingnuts are like the Nazi Germans or the Imperial Japanese, they’re crazy tough and phony brave and will be until someone stages a Doolittle raid on their asses and then steps it up with a few Tokyo/Cologne firebombings.
jwb
@Brachiator: “I’m not arguing for tax cuts. However, much of the stimulus was “tax breaks” as you call them, in the form of credits, which are targeted tax cuts. And because these credits could only be claimed when people filed their tax returns, they really did not quickly inject money into the economy.”
I don’t think this is quite right. IIRC, they changed the withholding tables to reflect the tax credit, so in fact for most people it was doled out monthly over the course of the year.