Treasury Secretary Geithner “has been a lightning rod for the Obama administration even longer than he's formally held his position,” says the Washington Post. The story traces through Geithner’s history with Obama and the department and notes with some alarm the latest breakdown of comity in Washington: Geithner’s treatment at the hands of House Republicans this past week. Even some conservative Democrats have refused to support the secretary, but, because he has the full support of the administration, calling him ‘embattled’ seems completely incorrect. Geithner, as the article notes, was given credit for defending himself and the president, saying, in one case, that Republicans in the House "gave this president an economy falling off the cliff."

Ohio is going after the credit-ratings agencies in court, suing Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch, says the New York Times. Specifically, the state claims it lost $457 million from its pension and retirement funds thanks to the agencies being in cahoots with the issuers and banks behind much of the bad debt responsible for the losses. The case is not a slam-dunk—if the courts find issuing ratings to be protected free speech, things could get messy. The agencies have long claimed their work is more like journalism than consulting, despite the quasi-official status and importance that the grades have on Wall Street. The California pension fund Calpers is also suing, but the ratings agencies are famous for an almost completely unblemished court record dealing with these kinds of charges.

The massive but conservatively managed Hershey (HSY) is deciding whether it wants to let Kraft (KFT) have an uncontested shot at acquiring British chocolate maker Cadbury (CBY), as has been the case. “Kraft has so far emerged as the only suitor for Cadbury, and were it to succeed it would become an international food giant that could threaten Hershey’s expansion prospects,” says the paper. But it turns out that Cadbury execs don’t really fancy working for the food conglomerate, providing an opening for another interested company. Hershey, meanwhile, has little debt, making an acquisition possible, but little cash, making it harder. Complicating the issue is that Hershey is 79 percent owned by a trust that serves the town of Hershey, Penn., workers, a local school, and other charitable institutions. A previous decision by the trust to buy Wrigley completely fell apart and led to mass resignations by members, and criticism from elected and judicial officials. Hershey executives seem to be acutely afraid of making the same mistake again but still sense an opportunity to steal Cadbury from Kraft controlling shareholder Warren Buffett, whose $16.7 billion bid would have to be trumped by at least $300 million to be considered.

Speaking of $300 million, that’s how much a Florida jury has awarded to “a former smoker who says she needs a lung transplant.” An expert tells the paper that the ruling, against Philip Morris, “would be the nation’s largest award of damages to an individual suing a tobacco company and could encourage thousands of plaintiffs who have filed similar cases in Florida.” Her lawyer said, “She’ll get paid, I would hope, within a year or two. The question is will she live long enough.”

The Japanese “lost decade” meme is re-entering discussions, with the latest comparisons being made to Britain, reports the Times. In fact, analysts have thrown out American comparisons and say Britain, for a variety of reasons detailed in the article, represents the greater risk. It was Adam Posen, an American, who gave a speech at the Bank of England on the similarities, which are recounted at length. Although Posen stresses the views are his alone, the klaxon appears to have been sounded.

Finally, a recent survey says the stimulus was “a worthy step.” The Times interviews experts from the many fields the wide-ranging package dealt with, and the consensus seemed to be that even if the stimulus wasn’t perfect, things are still far better because of it. Most conservatives, meanwhile, remained skeptical.

Their cars, that is. General Motors is updating the world on how many buyers have returned their vehicles under the company’s “May the Best Car Win” 60-day satisfaction guarantee. And the number is [drumroll]...193. Out of 220,000 cars sold so far, in the month since the program debuted. Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? Autoblog’s Chris Shunk takes a closer look:

“[W]while 193 appears to be fairly insignificant when compared to overall sales, it also represents 30 percent of the 653 people who actually opted for the 60-day option in lieu of a $500 discount. While some would say that the 30% number is very bad for GM, we'd say that it isn't much of a surprise given the fact that those 653 customers obviously weren't very sure about their purchase decision to begin with.”

In other words, those customers wanted a safety net and used it, while the vast majority of other purchasers were confident enough going in to their deals to see that a $500 discount made more sense.

This is more good news for GM, on balance. The company’s confidence is growing, even as odd things are happening in its boardroom and executive offices. Its market share is expected to slightly increase this month, and it’s edging closer to making money in the U.S. On the downside, discounted inventory season is coming, so that dealer lots can be cleared for 2010 models. And an important number looms: the size of the North American market next year. Will it be 10.5 million new vehicles? 11.5 million? 12.5 million? GM is supposed to be able to make money in a 10-million market. That would be squeaky, however. 12 million or more could enable GM to get its market share above 20 percent and hold it there, making a good case for an IPO before next fall.

Ron Paul has finally won. Buoyed by a crappy economy, a distrustful public, and a nervous legislature, he has convinced his colleagues to audit the Federal Reserve. His bill calling for more transparency at the Fed has, for all intents and purposes, cleared the financial services committee. And from here on it’s in good shape. The bill has massive support in the House—the majority of the chamber has signed on as co-sponsors—and 30 co-sponsors in the Senate. It’s an epochal development in the relationship between the government and the country’s quasi-governmental central bank. A man who wants to kill the Fed altogether may have convinced Congress to hasten its demise.

When I wrote about Paul’s bill back in July, I wondered whether it was the biggest threat to Obama’s regulatory overhaul. Obama wanted to invest the Fed with more powers while Paul and the House wanted to monitor the ones it already had more closely. But the regulatory debate has taken different turns in Washington, with Chris Dodd and Barney Frank moving away from Obama’s vision. Perhaps the support of Paul’s bill furthered the divide.

But Ron Paul’s principles are about to get conflicted. The bill will likely be mashed-up with the broader regulatory overhaul that Barney Frank is preparing. But a libertarian like Ron Paul believes in free markets no matter what, which would make him opposed to regulatory overhaul. But he supports his own legislation to audit the Fed! He’s stuck between a free market and a transparent one.

Liberty Maven suggests he’ll vote for the bill since regulatory reform will likely pass even if he votes no. It’s a rare compromise for Paul. This time, he’s determined to secure a win, even if it means taking a philosophical loss.

Paul Krugman attacks the "deficit squeamishness" of the Obama administration again. The issue, as he understands it, is that government officials "don’t trust the demand for long-term government debt, because they see it as driven by a 'carry trade,' " which, as TBM explained this week, is when players borrow cheaply in the short-term and use that money to buy long-term bonds. The fear is that long-term interest rates may rise, resulting in losses for those doing the carry trade, forcing them out and crashing the Treasury market. But as Krugman says, "The whole problem right now is that the private sector is hurting, it’s spooked, and it’s looking for safety...[m]eanwhile, the public sector is sustaining demand with deficit spending... ." Further, he asserts that the relationship between public and private borrowing isn’t dangerous because we are facing a prolonged period of near-zero short-term interest rates. In fact, he says, it is the thing that will help the nation climb out of unemployment.

Brad DeLong turns his sights to the interest rates as well and applauds Paul Krugman on a thorough analysis. But he doesn't really agree with Krugman. DeLong narrows in on Krugman's assertion that the underlying problem is a "a technical matter of maturity mismatch." DeLong points out that our read on the market may not be so straightforward. He says, "The long Treasury market is thinner than many people think: it is not completely implausible to argue that it is giving us the wrong read on what market expectations really are." All in all, DeLong is just more hesitant than Krugman. DeLong says, "[t]his is something to think really hard about."

Felix Salmon wags his finger at the SEC today. He cites a report put out by oil consultant Alan von Altendorf that lays out the commission's plan to allow oil companies to "to use internal, proprietary computer models to essentially pull their 'proven reserve' numbers out of thin air." Salmon asserts that this is just another failure in accountability and regulation, by the institution whose job it is to ensure just those things. He says, "Frankly, it’s not thinking at all: this is just another case of regulatory capture. And a sign that, so far at least, nothing has changed at the unsalvageable and dysfunctional institution."

Barry Ritholtz doesn't say too much today. Instead, he makes two recommendations: one book (The Greatest Trade) and one Web site (Innumeracy.com).

A government report released this week said that the New York Fed mishandled last year’s bailout of American International Group (AIG). According to the report, the Fed “refused to use its considerable leverage” in negotiations over how to handle the beleaguered insurer’s obligations to various trading partners. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the TARP, accused the Fed of giving a “backdoor bailout” by allowing these partners to get paid in full. What’s a backdoor bailout? Well, a lot of the money that the government handed over to save AIG ended up going straight to other too-big-to-fail banks to which AIG owed money. Instead of getting an infusion of taxpayer funds the old-fashioned way, some of these big firms didn’t even have to ask.

Restaurateurs are going through hard times. So hard that some of them are starting to lash out, either at their customers or at their own employees.

In Bethlehem, Pa., two college students received what they said was terrible service at the Lehigh Pub. That establishment, like many others, tacks on an 18 percent "gratuity" to every bill for large parties—in this case, six or more. The two students, who were with four friends, refused to pay the tip, and were arrested.

As Larry David hilariously pointed out in a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, such gratuities are gratuitous. They shouldn't exist, and waiters should be tipped according to the level of service they provide, no matter how large the party. That, after all, is the operant idea behind tipping.

From what the college students—Leslie Pope and John Wagner—said about their experience at the Lehigh Pub, the waiter deserved nothing. They had to fetch their own silverware and napkins while their waiter was out smoking. They had to ask the bartender for soda refills. They waited more than an hour for their meals.

The bill, sans the "tip" of $16.35, came to $73.87. The Lehigh Pub took the money but then called the cops, who arrested the two for theft of service.

"Gratuity is thanking you for your service," Pope told the Lehigh Valley Express-Times. "You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip."

According to the NBC affiliate in Pennsylvania, the restaurant offered to comp the meal itself, but the couple refused, apparently on principle. Dan Jaffe of the DUI Attorney blog wrote: "On what planet does the logic of offering a $73 dollar comp, which was declined, justify going after the couple for paying the $73, but then refusing to pay the 'required' $16 tip?"

Since news of the arrest broke a few days ago, people poured onto the Lehigh Pub's Yelp page to give bad reviews. As of this writing, there are 381 reviews with an aggregate rating of one star. The overwhelming majority of those came since the arrest, but earlier ones, written by people who had actually dined there, rated the place anywhere between terrible and mediocre.

The couple have pending court dates.

In terms of sheer rage, however, no restaurateur beats Vadim Ponorvsky, owner of Paradou in New York's meatpacking district.

Gawker got ahold of an e-mail Ponorvsky sent to his employees, berating them with abusive language and threats for not collecting enough e-mail addresses from diners. Presumably, he wants to spam his clientele, which just makes the whole thing that much more insane. (Who wants their waiter asking for their e-mail address?)

The language in Ponorovsky's lunatic rant is probably too blue for my editors to accept, or else I would paste in some of the e-mail here. But check out the Gawker post and feel the rage. It's really quite something.

Yesterday, the engineers at Google (GOOG) announced more details for the company's new operating system, dubbed Google Chrome OS. It's like Android, except it's for the personal computer and it's not out yet. But, as Googlers emphasized yesterday, it promises to be "blazingly fast."

In fact, as Wired reported yesterday, the new operating system is designed to load within seven seconds and "boot up like a TV," said vice president of product management Sudar Pichai. Unfortunately, you won't be able to download it off the Intertubes and load it onto your own computer. If you want the chance to test-drive the Chrome OS, you'll have to buy a new computer—typically a cheap netbook—and you won't get the chance to do that until late 2010, when the first generation of Chrome-powered netbooks are released by Google's partners.

Again, this is part of Google's effort to remake the world of information toward a cloud-based orientation. Microsoft (MSFT) has long dominated the present tech world, with software directly installed into the hard drive of your computer, servers to support said software, and periodic updates you must restart your computer to install. But as Inforworld blogger Neil McAllister points out, Chrome's Web-based platform frees up netbooks from having installed hard drives to run so much software. All they need, he says, is a screen, a keypad, and a Web browser. Google will do the rest.

It's an utterly fascinating idea; from now on, hardware will be cheap, and you won't have to contemplate a $2,000 bill when your Web machine finally gives up the ghost. But again, you get what you pay for. If Google is partnering with cheap knockoffs that offer low quality for low prices, consumers may well get irritated at the general shoddiness of the physical product. And they may well transfer that irritation to Google's grand Chrome scheme. We'll just have to wait a year and see what kind of hardware partners Google has chosen to hitch its wagon to.

When electric cars and plug-in hybrids begin hitting the U.S. market in bigger numbers next year, a significant barrier to entry for consumers who don’t live in places where people have garages with electrical outlets will be where to obtain juice. True, you could run an extension cord out of the apartment window—although if you live in a 40-story high rise, that will need to be a pretty long cord.

Obviously, this means a market for charging stations, which will also help alleviate “range anxiety” issues by supplying plenty of locations to juice up. These stations have an advantage over your basic household outlet in the sense that they can deliver higher voltage and charge an electric car or plug-in hybrid faster. Some manufacturers are saying that owners will be able to get an 80 percent recharge in 15 minutes. This has led to speculation that charging stations should be located in the parking lots of Starbucks (SBUX) and Wal-Marts (WMT) (as well as in parking structures). In denser urban areas, streetside stations are an option. But who will provide the technology?

In England, a company called Elektromotive has begun to define the space, with its Elektrobay product, described as “an exquisite, sophisticated piece of design engineering offering a safe and user friendly means of charging electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. We are sure you will agree.” It’s essentially a pole, hooked into the grid, that users can access wirelessly. Users can be billed by having charges applied to their power bills or through prepaid services. As of now, it doesn’t seem that a credit-card option is available.

But that will have to be added in if the system comes to the USA, where drivers are accustomed to dipping and swiping cards at gas stations. Drivers also have to tote around a charging cable, as the Elektrobays don’t have one that extends from the unit. Elektrobays were debuted in London and have now spread to the rest of the United Kingdom. It would be nice, obviously, if a U.S. company could offer a similar product, but Elektromotive seems to have the best technology, so an export deal with U.S. cities and power utilities looks more likely. So there you have it. In our electric car future, we’ll be dependent on Asian batteries and British charging stations. Oh, the humility.

Microsoft Office is already pretty useful, as evidenced by the fact that almost everyone who works in an office uses it in some way. But its competition is growing. That put extra pressure on Microsoft (MSFT) to make the latest version of Office particularly good:

Office 2010 offers lots of new features and several user-interface improvements over previous versions. One nice addition allows you to preview how text or images you're copying will look before you paste them. (Watch this video for a better idea of how this works.) Microsoft has also expanded the "ribbon" interface first seen in Office 2007—the tab bar across the top of the screen that replaces the cumbersome drop-down menu commands found in old versions of Office. The ribbon takes a bit of time to learn, but once you get the hang of it, it speeds up a lot of what you do in Office. Perhaps most importantly, Microsoft has built several collaborative features into the new Office. Co-workers can now simultaneously edit Word and Excel documents—something that many people now turn to Google Docs to do.

Read more about the pros and cons of Office 2010 here.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sharply rejected a call to resign from his job and told a Republican congressman, "You gave this President an economy falling off the cliff."

You can add some of Goldman Sachs' (GS) most important shareholders to the growing list of agitators who do not approve of the firm's plans to pay out record bonuses this year. The Wall Street Journal scoops the field this morning with an article about some of the firm's largest shareholders who believe Goldman should not be lavishing vast sums on management but instead should be turning over some of its "blockbuster earnings to investors." This truly is new ground for a normally staid investor group, the newspaper points out, adding that "their complaints in private conversations with the company and at analyst meetings show how anger over its big-money culture is spilling into the ranks of investors who typically shy away from debates over Wall Street pay." One major beef: Goldman is planning to pay out record bonuses even while earnings per share at the firm will come in 22 percent below the 2007 level. "Shareholders have said that reining in the bonus pool would deliver an upward jolt to per-share earnings and the share price, according to people familiar with the discussions," the newspaper writes, citing people in the know.

The Financial Times adds further analysis this morning to Goldman's much-criticized announcement earlier this week to launch a $500 million fund to help mom-and-pop businesses. What many see may as a questionable attempt to defuse public anger over gaudy bonuses may have another motive. Now, the FT wonders, was it merely a ploy to help the firm satisfy a 32-year-old law "designed to prevent banks from discriminating against minorities and poorer neighborhoods?" 

To Washington now, where the question has been raised: Should Congress have the power to audit the Federal Reserve? Such a move is one step closer to reality now after the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday voted "to carry out sweeping new oversights of the central bank’s policy decisions and operations," the New York Times reports. The proposal, conceived by the GOP's chief Fed-basher, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, comes despite fierce opposition from the Fed itself, which fears such a move "would undermine the central bank’s political independence and gravely threaten its credibility as a bulwark against inflation." Another House Republican from Texas, Rep. Kevin Brady, meanwhile, took aim at Timothy Geithner, demanding the Treasury Secretary's resignation yesterday. The WSJ reports that "Mr. Geithner, in an unusual public display of pique, fired back. 'What I can't take responsibility is for the legacy of crises you've bequeathed this country,' he told Mr. Brady." Both publications attribute the populist attacks to growing frustration over rising unemployment and lingering anger over the bailout of Wall Street.

The tech sector in general thinks it's on the road to recovery, but none of that upbeat feeling is being felt at Dell today. The PC maker saw its quarterly profit drop 54 percent, "raising questions about the personal-computer maker's strategy of focusing on profitability at the expense of market share," writes the WSJ. Dell's (DELL) results are thrown into greater relief when you consider that Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM (IBM), Cisco, Intel (INTC), and Microsoft (MSFT) all have reported positive results in recent weeks. Talking of a certain Redmond, Wash., behemoth, Microsoft is delighted to report that its new operating system, Windows 7, is both performing and selling well—so well, in fact, that Microsoft has moved "twice as many copies of Windows 7 in its first few weeks than any previous version of the operating system," another WSJ piece notes. It's the sort of good-news Microsoft story that makes veteran tech watchers hark back to the software glory days of the late 1990s ... a period AOL would dearly like to return to. Instead, the former online powerhouse announced yesterday that it will cut one-third of its work force once it has spun out of its disastrous merger with Time Warner (TWX) next month. Some 2,500 jobs will go at the company that failed to adapt to a non-dial-up age, reports the NYT. In 2004, far past the peak of its perceived powers but when it was at its most bloated, AOL had more than 20,000 employees.

Staying in the world of disruptive media, Oprah Winfrey will pull the plug on her syndicated TV chat show in 2011 as she turns her attentions purely to a new cable channel she intends to launch, the WSJ writes. Oprah's been propping up daytime free-to-air TV since 1986, and her show still averages 6.6 million viewers per week. Her leaving will create a huge advertising hole that local TV stations will struggle to fill and will also hit CBS, which syndicates the show. But the move is also a risk for Winfrey herself, as she bets "that her popularity and golden touch with programming can sustain an entire cable channel and that she’ll remain a central cultural figure even without the mass exposure of broadcast television every day," the NYT notes.

For fiscal hawks, we're about to enter a lost decade, as Uncle Sam is now expected to rack up $9 trillion in public debt between 2010 and 2019. CNNMoney.com calculates much of that gaudy sum will be in the form of interest. "More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion" will be nothing more than interest payments, CNNMoney.com bluntly writes.

Wednesday Nov. 18, 2009

Large image:

Photo illustration by Holly Allen.

All small images are credited inside the article page.

Wednesday Nov. 18, 2009

Large image:

Photo illustration by Holly Allen.

Small images:

Photograph of a smile by Getty Creative Images.

Photograph of money by Comstock/Getty Images.

Photograph of chair in space is a video still..

Photograph of foreclosed house by David McNew/Getty Images.

Photograph of Warren Buffett is a video still.

Photograph of Penny is a video still.

Photograph of Pontiac Aztek by GM/Newscom.

Today's Business Press illustration by Robert Neubecker.

Feeling Lucky illustration by Natalie Matthews.

Shifting Gears illustration by Natalie Matthews.

Daily Bread illustration by Natalie Matthews.

No doubt about it, Ford (F) came out of the springtime auto bankruptcy follies looking a whole lot better than its Motown rivals, General Motors and Chrysler. Now we learn that billionaire investor George Soros took a big stake in the company. Soros. Ford. CEO Alan Mulally has to feel like he’s on top of the automotive world right now.

Sure, there are regrets. If only I had bought Ford when it was at its “You want fries with that?” price of $1.26 per share, laments Autoblog’s Jonny Lieberman. I’ll admit that similar thoughts crossed my mind, but I believe I’m technically prohibited from directly investing in any automaker (ethics!).

Yet before we hand Ford the keys to the kingdom, let’s remember that its market cap of $29 billion is still far less than its overall debt burden of $35 billion. Soros’ investment sends a message, but part of that message is that you need billionaire-investor tolerance for risk to invest heavily in Ford right now. Amateurs could rightly be advised to stay away until Ford manages to rack up enough consecutive quarters of profit to make its huge debt look, well, smaller.

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If you’ve searched online for a hotel recently, chances are you’ve stumbled upon TripAdvisor, the hotel review Web site. TripAdvisor ranks hotels according to crowdsourced feedback. Anyone can go to the site to rave or rant about a stay in a particular hotel. If the toilets at a certain hotel don’t flush, you can let the world know on TripAdvisor. If you’re charged extra for bacon with your breakfast or the toast is not warm enough to melt butter, you can warn other travelers to steer clear. Or if you had a wonderful stay somewhere, you can write about it in glowing detail. In fact, most of the reviews on TripAdvisor are positive.

When it popped up in 2000, TripAdvisor recognized a huge information gap between travelers and hotels. Hotel Web sites only showcased flattering pictures and sometimes too-good-to-be-true descriptions. Travel agents were expensive. And traditional hotel rating systems—typified by stars and diamonds—were widely recognizable, but few people really understood what they meant. (Most people still don’t.) TripAdvisor positioned itself as the go-to spot for straightforward and detached criticism courtesy of the traveling masses. Like Yelp and Wikipedia, TripAdvisor eschews institutional expertise in favor of the wisdom of crowds. All three Web sites flourished and grew because the public deemed them useful, and as more people used them, their authority grew.

TripAdvisor, now owned by Expedia (EXPE), took off, but—perhaps thanks to its high profile—it’s becoming yet another case study in crowdsourcing headaches. Just as people have been nabbed editing their own Wikipedia profiles, inflating their Amazon (AMZN) book rankings, and Yelp-ing false reviews about rival pizza shops, there are people who manipulate their popularity on TripAdvisor. Obviously, it’s the hotels that have the most to gain or lose from high or low ratings. They’d be foolish to ignore the site—which gets 36 million monthly visitors—and, some may say, foolish not to do what they can to improve their rankings. This past summer, TripAdvisor admitted that it was having trouble with hotel staffers posting reviews of their own properties. The company assured everyone that it has a dedicated staff who can sniff out fishy posts. It also slaps a red warning label on the profiles of any properties that it suspects have manipulated their own reviews.

Still, there’s not much that TripAdvisor can do to guarantee its credibility. Because reviewers can be anonymous, it’s not difficult for a crafty hotel marketing officer to commission underlings to post positive reviews of a property on the site. Or they can ask family and friends to do so. TripAdvisor’s top-ranked property in Miami Beach right now is a boutique hotel called the Betsy. It beat out 195 other reviewed properties for the top spot. But as one TripAdvisor reviewer points out, “I would note that we were told when we checked in that we were some of the first paying guests as march and April they had been trialling with friends and guests of the owners etc. This possibly explains why none of the reviews posted so far mentions the fact that the hotel is not completed.” The hotel management responded to this post defensively, claiming that all reviews came after this trial period, implying that friends and family had not written them. That may well be true, but, frustratingly, there’s no way for TripAdvisor readers to know who to trust. There’s also no built-in mechanism to make sure reviewers of a certain hotel have actually stayed there, which welcomes even sneakier ploys—including, apparently, reviews for hire. This now-expired job posting on Scriptlance.com, a freelance job board, offers cash for 100 TripAdvisor reviews of a certain hotel.

Crowdsourcing enthusiasts might claim that TripAdvisor’s value isn’t diminished by nefarious hotel marketers because their voices are ultimately drowned out by the rest of the community. But it seems like the rest of the industry isn’t so sure. Recently, Forbes took over licensing of Mobil Travel Guide’s old-school star rating guide and says it has plans to expand it. Oyster, a travel review Web site launched this summer, employs journalists trained as hotel critics to write reviews. Both ventures are betting that the final say on which hotels are best should fall to answerable professionals—who, before TripAdvisor, had always played that role. The pendulum seems to be swinging back that way, perhaps for good. Even if TripAdvisor is able to weed out self-promoters, a fundamental question remains: Are the rest of the 30 million reviews worth reading? That, of course, depends on who you ask.