What many people, including libertarians, miss about the alcohol Prohibition and other government policies that are can be seen to be spectacular failures that generate profound disruption and criminality is that such policies are, in fact, very SUCCESSFUL — in aiding the growth of government and in serving a legion of #CronyCapitalists.

These important but understandably unheralded “successes” are why policies like the #DrugWar and “War on Terror” continue; the Drug War has a profoundly racist and socially disruptive impact and is a tool for both looting the middle class and social control, while the GWOT has paid dividends in spades to Govt, to the 1% and the Military-Industrial Complex of crony-capital firms, who are raking in trillions, disheartening young soldiers, sowing Dragon’s Teeth of hatred against the US that will bear fruition in decades to come, and justifying extensive locking down of and spying on America:

http://tokyotom.freecapitalists.org/2011/12/18/cato-held-conference-war-drugs-massive-failure-noted-feds-benefit-spectacularly-costs/
http://tokyotom.freecapitalists.org/2012/09/13/blowback-39-bug-39-feature/

Think, too, of the enduring dividends to Government and the 0.0001% that flow from the creation and regulation of #LimitedLiability corporations. Corporations, truly, are the Health of the State.

[Reworked from a Facebook thread]

I think one of the many problems with political discourse is that liberals/progressives insist on seeing libertarians as monolithic supporters of the corrupt status quo, when in fact most of us are trenchant critics of corruption who seek allies in creating a more just and free world. Likewise, too many conservatives and libertarians fail to see or seize opportunities to make allies with liberals and each other, preferring to see knaves and fools, rather than fellow citizens who are dismayed by spiralling corruption and economic difficulties.

Call the current system “capitalism” and “free markets” if you want — even when it is a form of heavy-Govt corporate fascism that protects a few and, via #LimitedLiability and extensive, heavy economic regulation, shifts risks/losses to society and reduces the ability of the rest of us to cooperate and to work — but it is NOT AT ALL the capitalism or freed markets that libertarians favor.

Sadly, the breakdown of society that our crony-capitalist system is producing leads to even less mutual trust and greater partisan animosity. This deterioration makes fighting over government even more important — and makes it harder for both liberals and conservatives to hear what many libertarians are saying, and leaves many on both Right and Left reflexively defending counterproductive policies that do little but favor an ever-more powerful and intrusive Government, thus make themselves tools of the crony elite parasites running the show. Yet we must build bridges to mutual understanding and to changes in institutional and legal structure that will enable us to revitalize our society, our communities and our economy.

Discerning libertarians want to empower PEOPLE, not Government or Corporations — both of which are now thoroughly intertwined institutions that, by their very NATURE, incentivize insiders to make decisions that benefit themselves while shifting costs to others outside of the organization.

What are the ways we can EMPOWER people to keep each other (and the kleptocrats) in check?

They largely involve restoring accountability, by reducing #MoralHazard, through the approaches of freeing up small and accountable businesses, and strengthening society and by restoring pitchforks — by gradually winding back the false “protections” by Government that serve instead to put foxes in charge of chicken coops//wolves in charge of sheep. Here are a few ideas:

– STOP making new #LimitedLiability corporations (one state at a time) — they are the very reason for the vast regulatory states that the corrupt have captured;
– DEREGULATE at the state and federal levels for existing and NEW SMALL, LOCALLY-OWNED businesses — they will then be able to compete with and tame the dinosaurs, via “Creative Destruction”;
– REDUCE shareholder “protections” for NEW listed/public companies — the shareholders will know what they are getting into and will be more incentivized to control plunder and excessive risk-taking by executives;
– LOWER #DepositInsurance for NEW and small banks and slash their Govt-imposed regulatory burdens (and deregulate banking entirely for non-corporations, like mutual companies) — depositors will vote at least with their feet to better-controlled banks, which will succeed and will supplant the “Too Big To Fail” banks that both plunder and debase society and, because they are insured, are the subject of plunder by their execs/traders and the investment banks, rating agencies, accounting firms and traders that help them win big bonuses by loading up on risk;
– END the cursed #DrugWar and many other Govt policies whose chief purpose is to provide illusions of “protection” but IN FACT are just devices of looting and controlling WeThePeople.

What follows is a Facebook post, prompted by this piece at NYT: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/activism-is-going-global-citi-warns-clients/

Govts everywhere have done a GREAT job of protecting established, crony-capital firms, to the point that job-growth, entrepreneurship, youth and society are being squished, even as elites resort to bread-and-circus welfare/dissent-control policies to keep the situation under wraps.

Yet, where there is opportunity, people will seek to innovate around obstacles–or to leech off of the bloated, Govt-protected parasites (as Japan’s Yakuza gangs do).

There is opportunity in “shareholder activism” because large, publicly-listed firms are wasting assets and performing poorly–ROE and ROA have been steadily falling–even as compensation for the CEOs has been rising. This situation has been set up both by regulations that protect these firms and, ironically, by regulations that “protect” the public/clueless/Joe Schmoe investors.

The answers come both by (1) freeing up competition, as the US has just embarked on via the JOBS Act, which allows small, growing companies to get PRIVATE funding (including crowd-sourced) and to get much larger before they are forced onto the public market, and (2) letting shareholders take their lumps and figure out how to protect themselves — as I have argued to Robert A.G. Monks, a veteran shareholder activist: http://tokyotom.freecapitalists.org/2011/12/10/leading-republican-corporate-governance-expert-throws-towel-shareholder-oversight-public-corporations-decries-unaccountable-ceos-excessive-corporate-power-government-capture/

Likewise, while we should maintain regulation on existing firms, we can greatly enliven the economy and bring banks under real control by freeing up regulations on NEW
businesses whose owners do not socialize risk via #LimitedLiability, and banks that do not socialize risk via Govt-rune #DepositInsurance.

[Cross-posted from Facebook]

Fighting over the wheel of Government is ultimately inevitable when it does so much damage and/or its benefits or costs are so central to people’s lives.

Formal, state-backed government by its very nature interferes with people’s ability to cooperate and to settle problems between themselves, and very easily becomes a tool/enabler of special interests.

The silver lining is that “political warming” and eroding trust in government also signify that increasing numbers of people realize that they CANNOT safely “leave things to government” and must get more PERSONALLY INVOLVED in regaining control over their own lives.

We at WBOS are engaged in the exercise of seeing if we can keep our heads about us, build shared understandings, and direct our anger productively.

Worth a read (emphasis added):

Cato’s Letter No. 17

What Measures are actually taken by wicked and desperate Ministers to ruin and enslave their Country

John Trenchard (Saturday, February 18, 1721)

SIR, As under the best princes, and the best servants to princes alone, it is safe to speak what is true of the worst; so, according to my former promise to the publick, I shall take the advantage of our excellent King’s most gentle government, and the virtuous administration of an uncorrupt ministry, to warn mankind against the mischiefs which may hereafter be dreaded from corrupt ones. It is too true, that every country in the world has sometimes groaned under that heavy misfortune, and our own as much as any; though I cannot allow it to be true, what Monsieur de Witt has long since observed, that the English court has always been the most thievish court in Europe.

Few men have been desperate enough to attack openly, and barefaced, the liberties of a free people. Such avowed conspirators can rarely succeed: The attempt would destroy itself. Even when the enterprize is begun and visible, the end must be hid, or denied. It is the business and policy of traitors, so to disguise their treason with plausible names, and so to recommend it with popular and bewitching colours, that they themselves shall be adored, while their work is detested, and yet carried on by those that detest it.

Thus one nation has been surrendered to another under the fair name of mutual alliance: The fortresses of a nation have been given up, or attempted to be given up, under the frugal notion of saving charges to a nation; and commonwealths have been trepanned into slavery, by troops raised or increased to defend them from slavery.

It may therefore be of service to the world, to shew what measures have been taken by corrupt ministers, in some of our neighbouring countries, to ruin and enslave the people over whom they presided; to shew by what steps and gradations of mischief nations have been undone, and consequently what methods may be hereafter taken to undo others: And this subject I rather choose, because my countrymen may be the more sensible of, and know how to value the inestimable blessing of living under the best prince, and the best established government in the universe, where we have none of these things to fear.

Such traitors will probably endeavour first to get their prince into their possession, and, like Sejanus, shut him up in a little island, or perhaps make him a prisoner in his court; whilst, with full range, they devour his dominions, and plunder his subjects. When he is thus secluded from the access of his friends, and the knowledge of his affairs, he must be content with such misrepresentations as they shall find expedient to give him. False cases will be stated, to justify wicked counsel; wicked counsel will be given, to procure unjust orders. He will be made to mistake his foes for his friends, his friends for his foes; and to believe that his affairs are in the highest prosperity, when they are in the greatest distress; and that publick matters go on in the greatest harmony, when they are in the utmost confusion.

They will be ever contriving and forming wicked and dangerous projects, to make the people poor, and themselves rich; well knowing that dominion follows property; that where there are wealth and power, there will be always crowds of servile dependents; and that, on the contrary, poverty dejects the mind, fashions it to slavery, and renders it unequal to any generous undertaking, and incapable of opposing any bold usurpation. They will squander away the publick money in wanton presents to minions, and their creatures of pleasure or of burden, or in pensions to mercenary and worthless men and women, for vile ends and traitorous purposes.

They will engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars, to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them both of leisure and inclination to look into publick miscarriages. Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence, and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying them.

When they have served their ends by such wars, or have other motives to make peace, they will have no view to the publick interest; but will often, to procure such peace, deliver up the strong-holds of their country, or its colonies for trade, to open enemies, suspected friends, or dangerous neighbours, that they may not be interrupted in their domestick designs.

They will create parties in the commonwealth, or keep them up where they already are; and, by playing them by turns upon each other, will rule both. By making the Guelfs afraid of the Ghibelines, and these afraid of the Guelfs, they will make themselves the mediums and balance between the two factions; and both factions, in their turns, the props of their authority, and the instruments of their designs.

They will not suffer any men, who have once tasted of authority, though personally their enemies, and whose posts they enjoy, to be called to an account for past crimes, though ever so enormous. They will make no such precedents for their own punishment; nor censure treason, which they intend to commit. On the contrary, they will form new conspiracies, and invent new fences for their own impunity and protection; and endeavour to engage such numbers in their guilt, as to set themselves above all fear of punishment.

They will prefer worthless and wicked men, and not suffer a man of knowledge or honesty to come near them, or enjoy a post under them. They will disgrace men of virtue, and ridicule virtue itself, and laugh at publick spirit. They will put men into employments, without any regard to the qualifications for those employments, or indeed to any qualifications at all, but as they contribute to their designs, and shew a stupid alacrity to do what they are bid. They must be either fools or beggars; either void of capacity to discover their intrigues, or of credit and inclination to disappoint them.

They will promote luxury, idleness, and expence, and a general depravation of manners, by their own example, as well as by connivance and publick encouragement. This will not only divert men’s thoughts from examining their behaviour and politicks, but likewise let them loose from all the restraints of private and publick virtue. From immorality and excesses they will fall into necessity; and from thence into a servile dependence upon power.

In order to this, they will bring into fashion gaming, drunkenness, gluttony, and profuse and costly dress. They will debauch their country with foreign vices, and foreign instruments of vicious pleasures; and will contrive and encourage publick revels, nightly disguises, and debauched mummeries.

They will, by all practicable means of oppression, provoke the people to disaffection; and then make that disaffection an argument for new oppression, for not trusting them any further, and for keeping up troops; and, in fine, for depriving them of liberties and privileges, to which they are entitled by their birth, and the laws of their country.

If such measures should ever be taken in any free country, where the people choose deputies to represent them, then they will endeavour to bribe the electors in the choice of their representatives, and so to get a council of their own creatures; and where they cannot succeed with the electors, they will endeavour to corrupt the deputies after they are chosen, with the money given for the publick defence; and to draw into the perpetration of their crimes those very men, from whom the betrayed people expect the redress of their grievances, and the punishment of those crimes. And when they have thus made the representatives of the people afraid of the people, and the people afraid of their representatives; then they will endeavour to persuade those deputies to seize the government to themselves, and not to trust their principals any longer with the power of resenting their treachery and ill-usage, and of sending honester and wiser men in their room.

But if the constitution should be so stubbornly framed, that it will still preserve itself and the people’s liberties, in spite of all villainous contrivances to destroy both; then must the constitution itself be attacked and broken, because it will not bend. There must be an endeavour, under some pretence of publick good, to alter a balance of the government, and to get it into the sole power of their creatures, and of such who will have constantly an interest distinct from that of the body of the people.

But if all these schemes for the ruin of the publick, and their own impunity, should fail them; and the worthy patriots of a free country should prove obstinate in defence of their country, and resolve to call its betrayers to a strict account; there is then but one thing left for such traitors to do; namely, to veer about, and, by joining with the enemy of their prince and country, complete their treason.

I have somewhere read of a favourite and first minister to a neighbouring prince, long since dead, who played his part so well, that, though he had, by his evil counsels, raised a rebellion, and a contest for the crown; yet he preserved himself a resource, whoever got the better: If his old master succeeded, then this Achitophel, by the help of a baffled rebellion, ever favourable to princes, had the glory of fixing his master in absolute power: But, as his brave rival got the day, Achitophel had the merit of betraying his old master to plead; and was accordingly taken into favour.

Happy therefore, thrice happy, are we, who can be unconcerned spectators of the miseries which the greatest part of Europe is reduced to suffer, having lost their liberties by the intrigues and wickedness of those whom they trusted; whilst we continue in full enjoyment of ours, and can be in no danger of losing them, while we have so excellent a King, assisted and obeyed by so wise a Parliament.

T. I am, &c.

I think this is worth talking about: Calling a nationwide Constitution convention on fixing broken government.

Here are some relevant materials:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTEFbbxMXyo&feature=youtu.be
http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan

http://my.firedoglake.com/…/
http://www.law.harvard.edu/…/Vol30_No3_Rogersonline.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/article-v-convention
http://www.conconcon.org/ (Harvard Law conference)
http://www.foavc.org/
http://www.foa5c.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=2
http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/342
http://www.foavc.org/reference/GOP_2012_Resolutions.pdf (GOP opposes; see p 6)

[Cross-posted from the “we build our society” Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/webuildoursociety/permalink/426592164111339/]

Doug said: “I honestly don’t know how to punish or hold those responsible for screwing up the economy. I don’t know the best recommendations. I don’t know what should be regulated and what shouldn’t. I do know that I want the violence to end, because that approach, I believe, has gotten us here. My approach would be this: first, let’s take away the moral hazard created by government regulators and the Fed. Maybe in so doing, we would make things like derivatives completely obsolete because they wouldn’t be profitable. In fact, in that sort of environment, I don’t even think we would have a financial sector, at least, in the form it is in currently.”

Terry then added (my responses in brackets inside):
“There is no first; it’s all or nothing. Maybe you don’t know what business has done, but I surely do. And I just as suredly know what would be the right medicine.
[There is no perfect knowledge, so in general, economies do well that leave problems and solutions in the hands of the people who have the most skin in the game, rather than centralizing them.]

The gov’t didn’t initiate moral hazard in instituting regulation, moral hazard is “in economic theory, a moral hazard is a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the risk.” Moral hazard was exclusively created by the business activity of risk reduction by uncontrolled credit default swaps of structured debt that backfired and caused 2007-2009. The gov’t didn’t create the moral hazard, business did. And it influenced the regulations in order to get away with it.
[Wrong–the #MoralHazard in the banking/financial sectors was very much created by government, though of course the self-interested within the regulated firms did their best to influence what government did. I will comment on the roots of MoralHazard separately. What those within the regulated business (and government) did was to act in their own self-interest, freed from much concern that they would be help personally accountable by depositors, shareholders, counterparties or citizens for what they did.]

We have to address gov’t snippings and business snippings at the same time. And I would argue, I think largely rightly, that the violence the gov’t perpetrated on us was in the bailout.
[The roots are much deeper, but the bailouts were certainly wrong, both morally and as a “cure” for the “crisis”.]

So, get rid of what I have suggested both in business and gov’t. My plea was for proper regulation (ie, addressing business fraud, derivatives — credit default swaps — and infrastructural items such as microfrequency trading, a freeze on all new negotiable investment banking instruments until economists have had time to work out the consequences, kicking business out of gov’t regulation, possibly doing away entirely with the non-commodities side of Wall St except as information providers for individual decisions, and prosecutuon for those responsible for 2007-2009) and infrastructural changes. Both parties must be operated on at the same time. Absolutely. Swiftly.
[I am for strict regulation of financial firms, for as long as government is holding the rest of society hostage to its false “protection” of us. But the REAL solutions involve in making everyone involved in the sector, starting with the depositors and shareholders, more personally responsible for looking out for their own financial interests. This may only happen if we free up responsible, well-managed competitors, such as offering lower regulation for banks that have lower deposit insurance, or that are operated as partnerships rather than as corporations.]

[Cross-posted from the “we build our society” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/webuildoursociety/permalink/426592164111339/]

[Brackets are my comments; some edits.]

Terry said this (edited) https://www.facebook.com/groups/webuildoursociety/permalink/426292260807996/?comment_id=426402304130325&offset=0&total_comments=33:

“Now, I don’t know if you’ll so much like the following, because it is taking scissors to how business is done. The regulation that gov’t can do on business.
1) Business cannot be too big to fail, and ever hold America hostage again.
[Okay; how to de-link businss and politics is a deep issue.]

There must be complete and utter transparency in all negotiable instruments, nothing can be hidden in the books. Anything else is fraud.
[No–the problem isn’t lack of complete transparency, but lack of ACCOUNTABILITY. In the case of privately-held/not publicly-listed/not govt-insured business, those who own the company or deal with it on a voluntary basis are entirely capable of being satisfied with the financial condition of the company, or choosing not to deal with it.]

2) There must be a review of derivative trading. It must be either tossed or highly regulated. Trading should be on intrinsic value.
[We care about banking, finance, securities and publicly-listed companies only because government has stepped in to “manage” these particular businesses (in response to risks flowing from the MoralHazard set in motion by their govt-granted LimitedLiability status), and to “protect” ordinary people, who no longer pay much attention or have much if any of a personal voice. Besides that, there is no such thing as “intrinsic” value; things physical or not have value only because people value them, based to their use to such persons–and everyone has different purposes and values things differently.]

3) Uncontrolled swaps of structured debt should not be allowed. [No; this doesn’t address the real problems.]
4) There should be immediate and thorough review of any new proposals for contracting of negotiable instruments. None of this going ahead with credit default swaps like JP Morgan did without submitting itself to review.
[No–we should remove the public support for banks/investment banks, and for their shareholders, and let them manage their own risks.]

5) NO businesses writing regulation. They can have input, but they can’t be, or buy off. or put pressure, on regulators.
[Nice to say, but the fact of the matter is that the more regulation their is from government, (1) the greater the incentive of regulated business to invest in influencing/controlling the rules of the game, (2) the greater the corruption/unaccountability of public figures and (3) the less the influence that We the People actually have/the more hostage we are to a corrupt process.]

6) I don’t suppose too many people have entertained the notion that Wall St may not need to exist in a form other than regulated informative, with liars being held accountable (jail time) for Ponzi-ing us, or even misleading us about investments (non-transparency). We have the internet, we ourselves can decide what to invest in, and should then be able to invest by ourselves. I don’t think there should be a class that can decide how to invest our money. They should be there to give us all the background. Let us make the decision, not build their porfolio quotas or fund their schemes.
[YES! Agree 100%.]

7) We need to stop high frequency microsecond transactions. They leverage the market, and cause market computer failures. Sorry to put you out of work, you who work in that little building 300 yards from Wall St central, but you should have gone to work at CERN, where your skills would have been used better.
[This IS a problem, but only because of govt regs that purport to “protect” shareholders in publicly listed companies, but instead leave them at the mercy of smarter men to be gamed. Shareholders are at the mercy not only of the listed companies, but also to the securities companies that once used to own the markets and have incentives to make them relatively safe places. Now, they prey on the investors that government purports to “protect.”

And finally, (8) prosecution of the fraud and robbery that was 2007-2009. In short, either there has to be a complete review of how Wall St does business really, or Wall St should be shut down entirely. This of course would require potential investors to educate themselves.
[YES.]

[Note: Cross-posted from my HLS blog.]

When Larry Lessig launched his “Anti-Corruption Pledge” last year, I commented on the Wiki page he set up for it, and left a copy in an earlier blog post.

Larry responded the next day. I copy here both his reply and my counter-comment:

But even if Limited Liability is a more fundamental problem, which I’m not convinced it is, but if: You still need the means to address it, which you don’t have till you address the money problem first. Lessig 10:44, 5 March 2012 (EST)

Larry, thanks for your comment, but I’m not sure I follow you. I think it is a fundamental mistake to ignore that corporations are created in states, despite their tendency to accept if not push for the federalization of corporate law.

Sure, we can try to address money in campaigns at a federal level, but that’s no reason to turn our back on the leverage that we have in fighting for more responsible corporations – and corporate owners. It’s alot easier to win at least one small victory when you’re also fighting in 50 smaller fora rather than just one big one. TokyoTom 14:44, 17 March 2012 (EDT)

Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow in Political Economy and Editor at Large, The Independent Review, has a piece up at The Independent Institute (last Tuesday, April 9), “Libertarian Wishful Thinking,” that is worth a “gander”.

I’d like to focus on the paragraphs excerpted below, and then give Bob and other lovers of freedom a little “goose”.

Says Mr. Higgs: 

As a rule, libertarians incline toward wishful thinking. They constantly pluck little events, statements, and movies from the flow of life and cry out, “Eureka! Libertarianism is on the march!” With some of my friends, this tendency is so marked that I have become amused by its recurrent expression—well, there he goes again!

Some of this tendency springs, I believe, from their immersion in abstract thought and writing. …

One who maintains, as I do, that the existing system may crumble little by little, having heedlessly sowed thousands of poisonous seeds of its own destruction, but almost certainly will never just roll over and admit defeat, may seem to be a defeatist. But nothing is gained by entertaining an unrealistic view of what liberty lovers are up against. Even if one believes, as I do, that the existing system is not viable in the very long run, it may last in episodically patched-up forms for a long, long time. There are no magic bullets, such as abolishing the Fed. The state can use other means in the highly unlikely event that it should no longer have the Fed in its arsenal. The same can be said about most of the system’s other key elements. …

In truth, the time for liberty lovers to make a stand that had a fighting chance of success was a century ago. But that chance was squandered, if indeed it ever packed much punch. … Wishful thinking about the impending triumph of liberty may be uplifting for libertarians, but it avails neither them nor the world anything of real importance.

But it seems to me that while there is a great deal of truth here, simply acknowledging that vested interests are large and block change is not particularly productive and suffers from a failure to see the weak points in Goliath/Leviathan. Are there really no “magic bullets”? Are there no productive and achievable ways to “patch up” the system?? No leverage to apply to overthrow “this fascistic Rome”?

So I left the following comment; your further thoughts, here or at Bob’s post, are welcome:

While I think Bob is right that libertarians should lose their wishful thinking, I also feel that the real problem is that libertarians aren’t really putting on their thinking caps and thinking creatively.

“There are no magic bullets,” Bob says. But there ARE pressure points on which to focus.

Like attacking the corporate risk socialization that has fuelled upset citizens to act as Baptists in the charade so well played by the Bootleggers in building the Regulatory State.

Like using the states as experiments to create many agents of Creative Destruction against the Federal Govt and the crony capitalists.

Some thoughts here:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tokyotom/2012/05/07/note-to-larry-lessig-on-his-anti-corruption-pledge-limited-liability-corporations-are-the-taproot-of-both-growing-government-and-anonymous-rent-seeking/

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tokyotom/2013/03/22/as-bob-monks-says-corporate-governance-has-failed-and-its-time-to-move-on-so-whats-next-unleash-the-hounds/

http://mises.org/community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=limited+liability

I don’t think we need to throw our hands up at all, or to lose our optimism. Rather, we need to start finding ways to rein in risk socialization and the “Other People’s Money” game by requiring economic actors to have MORE personal “Skin In the Game.”

Hopefully,

Tom

TokyoTom | Apr 15, 2013 | Reply