Some Fair Tax Math

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Although I have not yet read Neal Boortz’s book on the Fair Tax, I understand a bit of what he means and wish to provide a simple illustration. I think if people see the math and understand the arguments, they will unite behind the movement. First, we must understand its implications and the barriers standing in the way thereof.

How the fair tax empowers the people

When I heard Neal Boortz endorse the tax, he explained that the Fair Tax empowers the people with another redress against tyranny. Under his plan, the government provides a rebate based on consumption and household size to reimburse you for tax paid on the staple necessities (toothpaste, toilet paper, food, etc.) similar to that in existence in Idaho. If you object to the policies of the government, you refrain from purchasing anything from a vendor that charges tax (does not include private parties and the like), thereby reducing revenues to the government and arresting their ability to reappropriate your money. Right now, nobody can escape paying taxes, so we are FORCED to support programs with which we disagree (see an earlier post of mine on the breakdown).

How the fair tax is a reduced tax
When you buy an item, there is already an embedded portion of the price that constitutes tax. When Senator Clinton (D-NY) told reporters last week she wanted to transfer the obligation for federal gas taxes to oil companies, Mark Levin pointed out that oil companies will simply raise prices to accommodate the burden, yielding no net change to the consumer in the end. Her policy simply changes from whence taxes come, as does the Fair Tax, except that the Fair Tax reduces an individual’s total tax obligation. If you purchase more goods, you pay more tax. This phenomenon accounts in part for the fact that when you buy a car and drive it off the lot, it depreciates so much- the car price includes a sum that represents the taxes paid by the corporation in order to provide you the commodity.

Under the Fair Tax, the only taxes corporations pay are in acquisition of raw materials they purchase. Since raw materials cost much less than finished products, corporations can cut prices under this tax system, reflecting their reduced tax burden. The corporate income tax rate currently sits near 40%, meaning that a federal sales tax of 20% constitutes HALF the current estimated tax burden paid by consumers at present.

Therefore, even in Nevada, the total effective tax rate for an individual becomes 27.75% (20% federal and 7.75% Clark County NV sales taxes), instead of the 50+% paid currently (15% Federal Income Tax plus 40% corporate tax burden and the 7.75% NV sales tax) when buying the same good. Now, granted it's not that easy, but if you don't have to compensate for a corporation's income taxes when buying a new product, the price of the item will be lower and the total tax paid will be lower even though it seems you're paying more. There is an embedded tax in the price of everything that is not itemized as a tax. So, you pay it but just don't know.

How it affects the Poor
First and foremost, the Fair Tax abolishes all Federal Withholding. Therefore, every cent you earn goes home with you. One complaint the poor have against the system as presently constituted is that if they go get a job the government takes enough from them that it acts as a disincentive to get off welfare. Under this program, you keep everything you earn. If you do not buy things that include tax, you pay no tax. Therefore, the poor, who typically don’t buy new cars or homes or fancy clothes etc., and typically only buy staple goods, for which the Fair Tax requires no sum cash outflow, pay ZERO tax. Plus, everyone is spared the pain and anguish associated with filing in April.

How it affects government revenues
Some argue that if the price drops, government revenue drops. While on an item by item case basis, this may be the case, except in cases where the savings on a commodity find their way into savings the government receipts will not decline. The money one person saves on one item allows him to buy more items, each of which comes with a tax burden. Thus the sum tax potential is not reduced but rather spread over a larger number and variety of goods and services, each having lower total cost, but the total spend, where expenditures are fixed as we assume since wages are fixed the total sum of tax will not decrease.

How to implement the Fair Tax
The biggest obstacle to the Fair tax is the 16th Amendment, which establishes the federal income tax. In order to implement the Fair Tax, we must concurrently repeal that amendment and replace it with a new tax via amendment. The reason why so many people feel that this is a pipe dream is the scope of the amendment process.

In 1976, the Equal Rights Amendment died at the state level. Despite having passed super majorities in both houses of Congress, it didn’t even make it onto the ballot in most states, and where it did it failed to be ratified by the people at large. Amending the Constitution requires:

• Passing of an act via supermajority (60%) in both houses, especially in the event of a presidential veto
• Ratification of the act in the states at the next election via sufficient signatures that get the initiative on the ballot
• Passage of the amendment in 75% of the states before the 10 year expiry period

Otherwise, the amendment dies. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s our last bastion of hope against tyranny.

Proportionality

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I spoke with a coworker today about changes in prices over my lifetime. I remember at the tender age of 12 buying stamps for $0.19 and at the age of 16 buying gas for $0.85/gal. Since I like math, I wanted to see how these commodities compare.

Toward this end, I established a simple ratio coefficient to describe the price relationships. When I was 16, oil cost roughly $30/barrel, compared to $125/barrel today. If we run the numbers, you find an interesting correlation of proportionality.

Computing the ratios, we find the following:
1995: $30/$0.85=35.3
2008: $125/$3.65=34.3
The ratio relating the cost of a barrel of oil to the comparable cost of a gallon of gas, DECREASED in the last 13 years, and at a rate of 3% over that time period.

During that run of time, several outlying periods exist. Periods of supply interruption associated with rationing skew the data, so depending on from where you measure, the math yields different results. Over a longer period, however, the data normalizes to a trend, as you can see from the math, closely equating the rate of inflation.

As such, anyone who tells you gas companies like Chevron/Texaco and Exxon/Mobil are reaping windfall profits is selling something.

Problems With Public School I

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I heard tell Wednesday on Mark Levin’s radio program about a teacher who told his students that Conservatives were all going to hell. The mother of the child, once Mark pulled her on air, promised she would “educate” herself so she didn’t sound uninformed when she complained to the principal. Were that I, I would waste no time going down and striking down that kind of behavior. I don’t care who you are, whether your parents gave you a WII or if you ate too much or if the kids didn’t pick you for kickball or if you wore mended jeans or had buck teeth, etc. Nothing gives you the right to talk to my son like that.

In high school, my AP History teacher showed us a rated-R movie in class despite my religious preference to not watch movies of that rating. When I went to complain, the principal listened, and the teacher was promoted to dean. At least he wasn’t imposing his beliefs on students in class anymore.

A friend of mine called me frantically one day a few years ago asking where the school district offices were. One of the teachers at her daughter’s school had taken her daughter forcibly by the arm, manhandled her to the end of the line, and verbally lashed her for an imagined transgression of which the girl was not guilty. My friend wanted to file a complaint, and I accompanied her and her children.

It is incumbent on parents to look out for their children. I know plenty of people who don’t care about their kids, wanting the prestige of having posterity without the responsibility associated therewith. Some people have no business bringing children into this world. Some others have no business teaching them.

Not For This World

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In response to a request after a previous post, I want to address the prospect that men were not made for this world, and that's why so many things here don't make sense.

Ghandi warned in his day of the evil desires of the heart: Politics without principle; Pleasure without consequence; Knowledge without effort; Wealth without work; Business without morality; Science without humanity; and Worship without sacrifice. Look around you at the themes of television programs, sitcoms, theater, cinema, and literature, and you will see the majority depict search for thrills and gratification, irrespective of consequence. Remove personal responsibility, and you abolish morality. Moral principles are based on a set of beliefs, values and norms of behavior agreed to between members of society. If nothing we do is wrong, there are no morals, and we truly are Australopithecines. There is no self-control, no discipline, and hence no growth. Rising popular movements and pseudo religions seek to abrogate the thought of eternal consequence and declare that this life constitutes all there is. Morays of man invite us to surrender to the animal impulses and selfish desires of our hearts on the auspices that we live only once.

I, by contrast, believe that life consists of much more than mortality, a concept that I feel is best described as a play in three acts. Shakespeare first coined this image in written word as he declared that: “All the world is a stage, and the people, merely players. They each have their entrances and exits…[1]”. Just like in his plays, the departure of a character from the play means only an absence from the story, not a cessation of existence on the part of that person. The actor has simply walked offstage. We pass from this story into another of different scope and cast but paralleled in importance to the plots in which we play a part as players in this story.

The concept of a life after this and an existence that lasts beyond the grave is not a new one. When we stop to consider the implications of this concept, it behooves us to consider the implications of our choices and our interactions with one another on the stage of life. CS Lewis says it best:

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit[2].

Most of the edicts of the Almighty, that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and all commandments acting as appendages thereunto revolve around the eternal nature of the soul.

The first act constitutes a pre-earth existence. Whatever experiences, education, and activities common to our immortal nature appertain thereunto define the events of the first act. The choices we met in that act drove the events under which we entered this second act. Although short, by comparison, in duration, the second act determines all subsequent plot developments in the final act of our immortal progression. However, all memory of Act I remains inaccessible to us during Act II, and people, left in the dark thereby, fall prone to tendencies to complain and misunderstand the events of this life. Apparent unfortunate events lead men to complain to God, eventually losing faith in Him because they see no evidence that His plan will be actualized. During the crescendoing climax of Act II, much of import occurs: upheavals of character and nature, pacts and betrayal, surprise and disappointment. Men are prone during such times to lose faith and heart. People need to remember under these circumstances that the happy ending comes at the end of Act III.

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[1] “As You Like It”, Act II Scene 7

[2] CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory, McMillan 1980

Global Warming is Bad Science

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As I listen to the weird science associated with global warming, it reminds me of problems I had with students while teaching Introductory Biochemistry Laboratory and Biochemical and Environmental Measurement courses to undergrads as a graduate student. Like those poor souls, people try to extrapolate beyond the mark and interpret data in a way that’s both inaccurate and misleading.

Part of our experiments involved teaching them how to use internal and external standards. Given that the global warming debate cannot possibly incorporate an internal standard, I will restrict my stories to the latter type. Students measured out carefully portions of a standard of known concentration and measured the responses of instrumentation in the presence of those standards or their eventual derivatives. Then, they extracted and measured the unknowns and compared it to the standard curve.

For the protein concentration assay as an example, they measured bovine serum albumin from 5mg to 40mg per tube. Nobody actually measures protein in a tube; they care about the ratio of protein to carbohydrates or fat or other metabolites on a volumetric or mass basis. In this particular experiment, they mascerated a portion of a rat organ, separated out each of the biochemical fractions and then purified them prior to measurement. As each fraction became more pure, it became necessary to measure using a nonstandard concentration unit, in our case mg protein/tube.

This created two problems. First, when students forgot the measurement conventions, they faced trouble rectifying the final answers to rational answers. When you use alternative conventions in presenting your data, you must convert it into a convention that makes sense to those interpreting your data. Secondly, some of the samples yielded concentrations outside their standard curve. Many students simply extrapolated the curve beyond the original limits and assumed their measurement accurate. Outside the confines of those standards, however, they do not know how the concentration corresponds to the measurement in use. A sigmoidal, parabolic, or asymptotic relationship might exist, thereby negating the value of their data.



Most global warming data excludes outliers and covers a limited period. Most measurements lack good controls. Most experiments include too many variables. As such, their data usually falls outside their standard curve. To compensate, they simply extrapolate data from times when measurements exists to distal time periods of exigent scientific relevancy. The problem is that most scientific events involving energy, including global warming, follow the pattern of a wave, meaning that if you track along the rise or the fall of the curve, you assume a pattern of behavior that doesn’t even come close to telling the true story.

This is just another example of bad science.

I'll Get You My Pretty...

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While some shout with jubilation over the prospect that Senator Obama may put away Senator Clinton forever, it behooves us to move with caution. Dick Morris wrote an article on Friday that he thought she intended to duke it out with Obama so as to weaken him against Senator McCain and set herself up for the 2012 election. Rush Limbaugh warns constantly that he refuses to count Clinton out until he sees her legs curl up under the house. Borrowing from that analogy, I wish to comment on this prognosis.



No sooner did the Munchkins begin celebrating the demise of the wicked old witch under whose tyranny they lived than her sister appeared. While the good witch reminded her that she had no power there, that restriction lasted for only a brief time and in the confines of Munchkinland. As soon as Dorothy embarked down the yellow brick road, she was subject to the buffetings of the evil one’s power, and thus the story begins.

For these reasons, I concur with Mr. Morris and Mr. Limbaugh that counting Clinton out ahead of time is a bad place to be. I watched this week the “Doomsday Machine” episode from Star Trek: TOS Season II, where Commodore Decker engages in fisticuffs with a security officer. At one point, he feigns defeat and fatigue, and when the security officer drops his guard, the Commodore quickly subdues him. As soon as we let our guard down, the Clintons may overpower us. Therefore, I refuse to count her out until she’s dead and buried. Even then I may remain reticent.

The power of the wicked witch in Oz reached far and wide, enabled by a large network the likes of which the Clintons likely have. If they wanted to destroy Obama, they would have, and therefore I can’t help but wonder where Clinton’s true feelings on the matter lie. Despite how much she wants power, she knows she cannot get it this election without tearing the party apart, but she could try again in four years after either Senator McCain or Obama botches the job.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope; we are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that syren till she transforms us into beasts. Thomas Paine warned us of the folly of wishing that our will might be so. Much as we may want to see the Clintons down and out, I suggest a modicum of circumspect going forward lest we be caught unawares. As we continue down the yellow brick road of Conservativism, looking for a way to get back to that land we love, we need watch out for the snares of that evil one who would be king.

Some material in the Clinton II administration may not be suitable for all citizens.

Syntax of the Sin Tax

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Today Congress takes up the question of new regulation of the tobacco industry. While we're at war, in the midst of an economic curfuffle, and concerned about them wasting tax money, they cannot take time to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. However, there's plenty of time for them to add regulations to industry, which can do nothing but exacerbate the current economical situation.

As Rush Limbaugh said on his program today, the legislation has nothing to do with Congress abhorring the practice, as they intend to exempt mentholated cigarettes (accounting for more than 25% of the industry's products) from the new levy (levy=tax). It's all about getting more tax money.

On the auspices that it cost so much more money to abbrogate the effects of drinking, smoking, and carousing, lobbyists won a repeal of Prohibition. While the shootings and crime associated with bootlegging and the like went away, new wickedness replaced them: DUI, DWI, spousal abuse, the lawlessness of the frontier town, gambling, the breakdown of families, etc., filled the void. These new vices arguably cost society more in absolute dollar terms than the blatant obvious costs of the underground bootleggers, but are in no way less violent or severe on their victims.

All throughout history, tobacco and other controlling substances have been subject to federal control. The so-called "Sin Tax" levied against these eccentriccal commodities ostensibly fund a myriad of healthcare programs meant to abbrogate the effects thereof, from counseling to outpatient care to increased law enforcement demands and to the medical costs associated with manslaughter DUI.

Under the same rationale, new lobbyists call for a move to legalize marijuana and bring it out of the shadows so that people are spared exposure to the criminal element. They cite the fear and loathing associated with Capone and Seagle and speak of caring for the victims, which constitutes nothing more than code for "so we can tax it." They do not intend to give health care agencies money but intend to shuttle the money into programs they want, no matter how distally associated to health care. If you doubt that posture, consider how the various states reappropriated the tobacco settlement money, and none of them spent the money on health care. Utah used it to refurbish highways for the Olympics. Nevada reformulated it into a scholarship program. Other states followed suit. The "victims" of tobacco are not better off for any of that money.

Politicians often dress their ulterior motives in the drag of care and concern. Under the auspices of altruition, those least concerned with our well-being lure us down into hell with flaxen cords. I find it highly ironic that King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) under whose reign the tobacco industry actually began criticized advocates of that industry. He came to the throne at a very bloody period of history and arguably was not among the greatest advocates of the well-being of mankind at large. At the end of his rebuke, however, he closes with the following:

Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so
basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use
thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in
person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you
by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil
nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in
contemp; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the
brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest
resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

If they really felt the practice were reprehensible, they would endorse prohibition. The trouble is, they can't afford to hate it. They make too much money.

Final Disposition of the Dead

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Before people get all bent out of shape about my vehement feelings about right and wrong, I wish to turn your minds to something I tell people often. From ideas implanted on my mercurially malleable mind at a young age in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce, I think many people will be surprised at the final disposition and composition of death and hell.

Many people among my religious affirmation automatically condemn individuals like Adolf Hitler to the damnation that awaits the sons of perdition. They forgive the thieves next to Jesus and spit on Pontius Pilate. I leave judgment to the Lord, knowing that “I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:11).

Despite what other Mormons may tell you, plenty of Mormons will not achieve what you believe heaven to be, and very few of the human family will achieve what most people picture as hell. In the end, I believe that, like at a youth dance or fancy diinner party, people gravitate to those portions of the realm where they feel most comfortable. People that come into their circle likewise share the disposition that leaves them satisfied with that type of conversation, the opinions fronted therein, and the character/morality of those adjacent to them in the circle. At judgment, we will go where we are comfortable, and the wicked cannot abide the presence of God.

You cannot say in that day “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, cast out devils”, etc. You will know and be known as you are known. At that day, I prophecy that many Mormons, and many great men of the earth will end up in places that surprise them and find themselves adjacent to people they might never have considered in their spiritual class. I believe that God will bless men as much as he can and punish them as little as he must. Since the situations that stipulate our responses differ in degree of difficulty, I think many whose plight seems dire to them that cannot look upon the heart will find more mercy than they apparently deserve and that many who waste or bury their talents shall reap the whirlwind of shame and be denied what might be theirs. Where much is given, much is required, and he who sins against the greater light receives the greater condemnation (D&C 82:10). Yes, that includes me.

Divided by Demographics

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Freshly laid off out of graduate school, I took the first job that came to me. After a period of time, I came to work alongside Cameron, to whom I wish to credit an attitude that both refreshed my faith in people and exemplified the mentality that ought permeate once more the opinions of this people. Although I forget the circumstances, I remember that somehow someone drew attention to his ethnic identity and Cameron asked why he had to be an African-American, “why can’t I just be an American?”

I understand how important demographics can be. I enjoyed my statistics course in college. For our final project, my partners and I polled over 500 students/visitors to our campus, asked them a series of questions, and then tried to correlate responses based on a series of demographics. Despite the large volume of data, in the end we concluded that the data remained insufficient to show any significant differences between demographics in our study. That is the take-home message.

Any kind of trend or stereotype crumbles under the weight of sufficient data points. Inevitably, as the sample size grows so also grow the frequencies and variations of outliers so measured. In the end, despite minute differences, we are all the same. Scientists make much of our 96% genetic homogeny with Apes and how we are so different, yet those who cite those studies as evidence for evolution ignore the fact that in practice and precept, people are also largely the same, despite variances in exogenous aesthetics.

We share so much with our neighbors- the food we eat, the air we breathe, our culture, our habits, a yearning for companionship and a desire to be rewarded for our labor. Yet, at every chance they get, elitists attempt, through application of a series of labels, to divide us on the basis of demographics.

I learned years ago that the first technique of an abuser is to isolate the victim. Instead of focusing on commonality, these malcontents separate us into groups of such small numbers that we eventually find ourselves bereft of companions, compatriots, and compassion. They establish cadres of “African-Americans” and “Irish-Americans”, of single, unmarried women, and men with more than one divorce. If they parse us down to ridiculously exclusive groups like men who chew gum and drive blue cars or dog owners born in New England with current passports, the data becomes truly meaningless, but the implications of these new identities divide us even when we need to be strong against their buttressing.

Divided, they then pander to our special interests, which interests we allow them to create when we allow them to ablate our commonalities. To one group they promise universal healthcare; to another they promise tax cuts, all the while knowing that their placations constitute nothing more than a series of mutually exclusive eventualities. Moreover, each of their new constituencies begins focusing on its individual needs regardless of the collective good or cost to the whole if their minutia finds favor.

When I worked with Cameron, a lot of work fell to me. Regardless of race, gender, or religion, we worked alongside slackers and workhorses alike, and I often sucked up higher workload despite no increase in pay for the common good. Large groups of people beyond my coworkers depended on our daily exertions, and I could not let them down even if to my individual detriment.

Echoing the sentiment of that coworker whom I greatly admire, I ask you, why can’t we just be Americans? Godspeed to you Sir, and all my best.

Relying on Technology

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I was sorting through old issues of Imprimis among other things and came across a discussion of how America is susceptible to Electromagnetic Pulse. My Father served in the USAF as an Electronic Warfare Officer, which job on a very basic level involves disrupting an enemy's electronic signals and rendering his equipment useless while leaving ours functional. So, any missile they fire, any bomb they drop, any attack they mount, etc., depend solely on visual acuity and the application of physics without correctional guidance provided by technology.

I was readying comments posted on a friend's blog about how people depend very much on electronic devices for their life and livelihood. So much of what we do depends on our access to networks, electricity, etc., that if an EMP hit us, I doubt very much many people would know what to do. Most would lose all their data and records, and the pulse would render man of our devices if not all completely inoperable. Although the push of the future asks and almost requires that in order to be competitive in the global market that men must be tech-savvy, there is a call for familiarity with old technology.

Old technology doesn't mean it's not valuable. The other day, I sold one of my old cassette players to an old woman who wanted to be able to record stories for her kids. Many old people don't know how to use our technology, but she's comfortable with cassettes and will use that media. I lent one to my mother once because she only had a particular song on cassette that she wanted to share with a group, so I enabled that. Furthermore, many old technologies are easy to repair; not all, but many.

Consider Scotty's Castle in Death Valley, CA, operated completely by mechanical systems that enabled its original owner to enjoy fresh, clean water and electricity despite being distal from any public utility system. Consider the simplicity of the 1.8L engine in my Saturn SL1 which, since it's not burgeoning with complex electrical systems, doesn't break down as often as newer cars which have so many intricasies that they prevent the average joe from being able to work on them. Also, the AC Compressor system works on simple physics principles but provides comfort in the 120F heat of a Vegan summer.

In addition to the opportunities it creates, it also serves as a protection. For example, if someone sees my car in the parking lot, which stereo do you think they'd steal? The one in my car, AMFM stereo cassette or the multi-CD changer in the Mercedes adjacent? While in graduate school, my knowledge of DOS enabled me to recover a file, at least in part, that Windows had jettisoned to the normal user via the recycle bin. The data was still on the drive, and because I knew how to find it, I saved untold hours of labor.

Many Americans have become so dependent on gadgetry, that they cannot function without it. For my own part, I hate the feeling that cell phones, pagers, email, etc., have become a leash for us rather than freeing us, as people come to expect instant gratification of their requests. Leave me a message, or I won't call you back. I had a friend in Reno who set a goal of going off the grid, such that during an outage in the valley he and he alone had electricity and warmth because he wasn't dependent on public utilities, or beholden to them either. When electricity goes out, can you cope?

The point of this article revolves around encouraging individuals to cope with technology without allowing it to become their master. By knowing about but doing without we remain marketable but free from the shackles of a technologically-dependent though -advanced society. I endorse the learning of skills exigent to technological sophistry. While it may be cheaper or easier to depend on modern technology, it's not always in OUR favor. Complex cars require trips to the mechanic, quickly hyping the cost. Packaged food, while quick and cheap, often robs us of final nutrients because food isn't ripe when picked, or it contains excesses of deleterious contents that harm us more than we'd choose if we were truly aware.

A short time ago, I challenged an acquaintance to a contest. We would, through various means of orienteering, navigate a course to certain way points in the Nevada wilderness and measure who made the journey most accurately in the least amount of time. Since I selected the way points, I purposely chose an area that mitigated the effectiveness of modern technology. Armed with a compass and map, I hit the way points relatively easily. As soon as this other person left the coverage area of his service provider, his GPS navigation system ceased to function, and he couldn't call for help because there was no cell phone coverage. I did that to teach a principle, that knowing why and how works better than knowing what button to push, especially if the macro feeding the button breaks.

Electronic gadgetry is great, but if you make it your crutch, it could let you fall without warning. For that reason and more, I thank my parents for involving me in Boy Scouting. It truly, I believe, gave me an edge.

Buyer beware.