Free trade means free war ----A discussion on China's accession to WTO
Han Deqiang,
Economics and Management School,
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen,
I'm pleased to have a chance to give my presentation on the conference of Union of Radical Political Economics. At first, let me introduce myself concisely. Of all the scholars in China, I'm perhaps the one who criticize WTO, IMF, WB, Globalization and Neo-liberalism most fiercely. Of course, I am against China's accession to WTO. From the first half of 1999, I have written many papers criticizing the policy of accession to WTO and the related treaties. My book " Collision: Globalization trap and China's real choice" was finished at July 15, 1999, and was published at January 2000. Though I fell across all kind of pressures and difficulties, I do gain more support. To my surprise, China's central policy research institute published long summary of the book, and the journal "International Trade", which belongs to Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, and which advocates globalization enthusiastically, published my another article "rethinking of economic globalization". Moreover, about two dozen magazines made abstract or reshipped my view. I was invited to attend different kinds of seminars or give lectures in universities. At the beginning of every lecture, I was minority, and when I finished speech, I became majority. Now I'm involved in different debates with the leading scholars of mainstream in areas such as telecom and mobile industry, color TV industry, or the evaluation of macroeconomic situation, and how to develop the great west, etc, and am gaining more and more attraction from media.
Many of my friends are puzzled by such cases. Doesn't Chinese government allow different voices? Why could you have the space to criticize? The answer lies in the way I analyze economic problems, on the other side, we must admit that Chinese freedom of speech have been enlarged during the last two decades, though still far from enough.
The following speech will be set into five part. The first part is tiled as "consumer and producer", the second part "does Chinese company have enough ability to compete with transnational corporations?", the third part "the necessity and possibility of China becoming a production base of the world", the fourth part "free trade means free war", the fifth part, "why is China so eager to join WTO?", the sixth part "how could public be persuaded?", the seventh and also the end part "How could we get out off the pitfall of globalization?".
Now, let me begin from the first part, "consumer and producer"
Almost all Chinese media told readers that the accession to WTO will do favor to consumers, and therefore to common people. They described that we could buy cheaper cars, oranges, perfumes, even wheat, in high quality, so it's a good opportunity for us to wait until the door of custom house be removed. Yes, I argued, we could buy cheaper imported goods with high quality, and it's not only an opportunity for us, but also for every Yuan in our wallet, but when we all agree the imported goods are cheaper and better than domestic produced goods, then we must admit that Chinese producers are weaker than their foreign counterparts, and will be defeated by foreigners. If Chinese producers are defeated and go bankrupt numerously, workers employed by those producers will lose their work, lawyers, accountants, comptrollers, ad-solicitors, and transporters won't find their clients, banks will face soaring bad loans, and the government will find difficult to collect taxes, hence those who are paid by the government will be told to stay home. What we must remember is that every one is a consumer without question, but every one is a producer also without question. Before we spend money as a consumer, we must earn money as a producer. One's fate is more decided by his role as a producer not a consumer, so does the fate of a state. When one loses his work and walks before windows full of cheap goods, when a country has no domestic industry and all shops are full of imported goods, be will learn which role is more important. During the great depression in the America, the index of consume price fell about 50%, of which agriculture product fell more than 60%, as a consumer one would feel more easy, but as a producer he would feel far more difficult. Thousand of hundred of company was closed, unemployed rate recorded by official soared to 25%, millions of people were walking along the street and waiting for a lunch.
It's a very simple reason, but Chinese media, officials, and economics academia forget it regrettably. I remind them while Chinese media appeal to the consumer role of public, producers control American media. The American textile industry demanded representatives in congress not to lift barriers to Chinese textile, and American media were full of such voices. Why are Americans afraid of the flux of imported low value-added goods? Why are Chinese not afraid of the flux of imported high value-added goods?
Therefore, if we must evaluate the immediate influence to an average person of the accession to WTO, we must balance the two side, what he gain as a consumer and what he lose as a producer. If the decrease of price is faster than that of wage, there will be surplus; otherwise, deficit.
But how could we weigh the advantage and disadvantage? We must check the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises. Here comes the second part,
Do Chinese companies have enough ability to compete with transnational corporations?
The answer is very simple, no Chinese enterprise has international competitiveness. The total annual gross revenue of China's first 500 enterprises equals to that of General Motor, and the average gross revenue of China's first 500 enterprises is only 2% of that in the world.
It's right that total volume of several products in China ranks front in the world, for example steel, cement, coal, cotton, fertilizer, electricity, color TV, refrigerator, air conditioner, or motorcycle, but the large quantity is produced by hundreds of thousands of firms, each of them remains small in scale. This means China's average industrial concentration is too low to compete with their foreign counterparts. The level of equipment is more backward, which results in more energy consumption of per unit product, lower quality and performance. Further more, China's enterprises are seriously short of capital in general and have no ability to improve technology and market share rapidly. Besides, few China's products are famous internationally, so high quality products couldn't enjoy high prices, which means lower profit and higher cost.
Naturally, if China's enterprises compete with transnational corporations under same condition, a great quantity of them must go bankrupt, or be merged by the latter. In fact, industries of beverage, beer, detergent, bicycle, paper, medical, elevator, computer, aviation, and machine tools are all controlled by transnational corporations, at least the high value-added markets of these industries have totally gone to foreign companies. Other industries under more strict protection of government, for example automobile industry, petrochemical industry, steel industry, coal industry, even agriculture, are under serious threat of transnational corporations. Some firms of these industries have become the production base of transnational corporations. Hence, China's enterprises have been imposed decreasing profit since 1996, and forced to dismiss workers, reduce wage and freeze up welfare, many of which went bankrupt. It's necessary to note that this means bad debts in China's main banks has been soaring. The ratio of bad debts of China's banks is quite high, the main cause of which dues to the fierce competition, especially competition from foreign enterprises and imported goods, the second cause is corruption.
Here I want to emphasize the agriculture. As known to all, the rural population in China adds up to 900 million, 500 million of which have the ability to work. The average house owned land is only 0.4 hectare. To insure such tiny land produce enough food, the price of food must be maintained at a high level, which means the price of the Chinese agriculture products such as wheat, rice, and corn of China is constantly higher than that of international market. The price of agriculture has kept decreasing since 1996. The price fell to such a level that per hectare wheat brought 120$ loss to peasants in the autumn of 2000, while an average peasant's annual income in pure agriculture area is only 80$, and almost 600 million people live in pure agriculture area. If the " Agriculture Cooperation Agreement between P.R.C and U.S.A" is implemented after China joins in WTO, the income of peasants must go down steeply, more land must lie waste, more peasant must flush into every city and fall into poverty trap without any hope.
As the result, China's GDP might increase temporarily, but employment, tax and wage per GDP unit will decrease continuously. More important, China will lose an independent industry system, and become the production base of transnational corporations. Most rural population will lose their land and income. Financial system might collapse because of increased bad debts. Meanwhile, China will have no ability to construct a social security system with enough money because the government couldn't impose enough tax upon foreign enterprises, which will certainly deteriorate public security.
Is there any brightness on the black scenery? One may be full of suspicion. Yes, brightness does exist. Many officials are imagine if China becomes the production base of the world, the employment will grow. Is that imaginable?
The third part, "the necessity and possibility of China becoming a production base of the world"
Once I debated with a senior financial manager of Motorola's Chinese branch, who was surprised by my attitude to transnational corporations. He told me Motorola's American branch dismissed ten thousand employees, and employed eighteen thousand workers in China, therefore Motorola contributed to Chinese employment and China could benefit from being a production base of transnational corporations. I replied as follows," yes, Motorola do contribute to China, not only in employment, but also in finance. In fact my mobile and pager are both of Motorola, and I'm grateful to Motorola as a consumer for its' advanced products. These are all positive contributions. But there are negative contributions too. When Motorola supplies one job, it edges out three to five or more jobs because of its high efficiency. It's true that when Motorola came into China, China had no mobile industry. But China wants to upgrade its industry structure which means moving towards mobile industry from fixed telecommunication industry. With 90% market share of foreign mobile companies, of which Motorola is the leading one, China lose its possibility to develop an independent mobile industry, which may contain 180 thousand workers and hand in more taxes." The manager threatened me that Chinese won't follow the tide of world and could only use outdated products, and I answered, "Two hundred years ago, when America was still an agricultural country, Britain once threatened America in the same words. The president Thomas Jefferson was even satisfied then with such international division, and declared that the U.S.A ought to be a clear agricultural country, not a dirty industry country. But Britain taught America with guns and cannons in 1807, an American ship was bombed by British navy and was commanded to serve Britain. The congress of the U.S.A was enraged and declared embargo. The embargo hurt common Americans heavily, ships were idle, cottons were rotten in fields, banks went bankrupt, daily consumed industry products were in short severely, but America industry developed by 200%, which set the industry foundation of America. When U.S.A bombed Chinese embassy without reason and warning, should China give up independent industry?"
It's the last defensive line of debates on china's accession to WTO. China could lose everything but sovereignty. But to defend sovereignty, we must keep an independent industry system, especially the military industry, and this means we mustn't embrace the globalization. The mainstream media proclaim day after day that China couldn't develop by our own strength, and shout that opening up to foreign capital is the only correct way. But it's not true. On the contrary, Chinese enterprises are going down to bankrupt under the pressure of foreign counterparts. China could develop in the domestic-oriented model, but unlimited opening up policy blocks this road. So when mainstream media try to show us the necessity of a foreign-oriented economy, it's only a tautology. If China becomes the production base of the whole world, it will seem thriving and prosperous temporarily. Factories belonging to or serving transnational corporations may absorb 500-600 million peasants released from countryside with low wages, roads and bridges may crowded with trucks and cars, but China wouldn't defend itself, not could it keep foreign capital from flowing out when the level of wage rises higher enough than other underdeveloped countries. The conclusion is clear that it's not necessary for China to become a production base of foreign capital.
Meanwhile, there is no such possibility. When China devaluated its Yuan largely in 1994, southeast Asia countries called four small tigers lose their jobs and went to collapse in 1997. Now China are attracting more and more foreign direct investments, while activizing more serious protectionism all over the world. The day China become the production base of transnational corporations, the day Chinese contest with all workers in the world, not only those in underdeveloped ones, but also in developed ones. The CEO of General Motors arrived shanghai to attend the yearly forum held by Fortune last year, and he was late for one day. When he step out of plane, he hold warmly the hands of the president of trade union in GE's shanghai branch, and sent thanks to workers in shanghai for their support to defeat the workers in Detroit, because it's the trade union in Detroit's branch which dragged his legs and the CEO threatened the trade union by mentioning shanghai workers. In a word, the dream of China being the global production base favors capitalists who could move easily in the world, not workers staying in different countries, therefore couldn't come into reality.
Now I would present my core viewpoint, the fourth part, "free trade means free war"
It's seems strange that while American trade unions are against capital flows out of the boarder, Chinese refuse foreign direct investment. My answer is that free trade means free war. We must review the classical argumentation made by Adam Smith, who declares that work division brings wealth for all, and in a free market, every one works for his own benefit, the social benefit will automatically be maximized. But in my eye, work division gives domination to those who controls key technique and who have right to arrange division, hence damages those without special skill. while every trade seems take place equally and voluntarily, the strength of seller and buyer is unequal. One might know more about the commodity in trading, which is called asymmetric information; one might be force to receive a high price because of no other choice, which is called asymmetric force; such imbalances exist in every deal, therefore every deal is unequal in essence. Every deal is a conflict between two sides. When a deal is done at a price, the price must be the balance point which favors the stronger. Numerous deals are done everyday in every corner, and every conflict is set in a way favors the stronger, hence the stronger becomes more stronger, and the weaker more weaker, which must lead to a polarized society in the long run. Conflict rather than harmony is the essence of market economy, so "harmony and precision" is always disrupted by "unemployment and bankrupt" and cyclical boom and recession, which is accompanied by all kinds of wars. Furthermore, the weakers who were unable to live in a normal market protected by laws and army must turn to the underground market. In the same way, when a country was defeated in normal free trade, it must turn to protectionism or black economy. Technology, capital, advertisement, trade mark and patent etc, are all weapons of war. Winner takes all is the same as victor monopolies authority. Economics crisis is the same as economics war is consuming both sides most fiercely. Once the war ends and the victor monopolies market relatively, the demand will exceed supply, and another boom comes. All those phenomena reveal the truth that free trade of free market means free war.
Why free trade becomes free war? The secret lies in the motivation of division and trade. Under hypothesis of Economic man, every one wants to maximize his own benefit, which makes the human society a jungle. of course, there are people who don't maximize his benefit in any situation, there are also people who maximize social benefit all his life, and there are regulations that constrain those egoist ones. But all the regulations are in some extent misused by those egoist men, and then are attacked as outdated dogmas. The egoism is self-excited and expanding all over the world. The tendency is so strong that some day it will eliminate the trace of civilization thoroughly and make the whole society a large jungle.
It's not a comparison speaking of free trade means free war. I'm serious. The concept of war could be used to analyze all kinds economic phenomena and could set the foundation of a new economics. I'm writing papers systematically criticizing the economics founded by Adam Smith, and are getting progress one concept by one. For example, how does a firm give price to its product? In traditional microeconomics, the price is at the point where marginal cost equals to marginal revenue to maximize its profit. However, no firm gives price as such. If a firm wants to maximize the profit and set a higher price than his rivals, it will risk lost of market share. There is a common sense "prefer market share to profit", which means that when market share and profit are in contradiction, then market share will be considered first. In fact, it's the real principle abided by rivals in different industries and different countries in market economy.
It's the unique sight differing from so-called western economics and Marxism economics when I criticize China's accession to WTO. A famous Chinese journal named Dushu (Reading) which has circulation of more than 200 thousand among Chinese intellectuals, published the first two paper of a serious, Competition Economics: a critique on Samuelson's economics, the first paper is "what is economics?", the second paper is "what is market?", and both attracted great attention, the second paper was shipped by a digest named Reader which have far more copies than Reading. I couldn't spend more time on it this time, but I will be interested in introducing it in another occasion.
I'll go on with the fifth part, "why is China so eager to join WTO?"
A great many people feel it's hard to understand the motivation of China's accession to WTO. However, China's mainstream media pour all their enthusiasm to praise WTO. They loudly proclaim that accession to WTO will speed up the step of reform and opening up policy, motivate the energy of China's enterprises before international competition, normalize China's market economy, and finally make China run in the same orbit as the developed country. If some enterprises are eliminated, it's only the necessary cost of China's development. More media appeal to consumers implying that they will be able to buy more high quality imported goods with less money.
But no voice from businesses directly faced with international competition appears on media. Collective enterprises owned by villages and towns or private enterprises are too small to compete directly with transnational corporations, and their main rivals are domestic firms. Although these small businesses feel vaguely the threat from foreign goods, they have little information about the whole situation, no organization, and no representation in political affairs. Most big enterprises still belong to the state, leaders of which are appointed by central or local government, and don't bear final responsibility of the enterprises. If the government is dedicated to join in WTO, they will raise their hands automatically. For the sake of personal income, these leaders will have the possibility to enjoy as high salary as their foreign counterparts, which far outweighs their concern for the over all interest of the enterprises. Workers and peasants ought to show different opinions, but they are much less informed and organized, they even don't know what the WTO is.
What kind of force could get rid of all these obstacles and push forward the process of accession to WTO? The answer lies in the logic and history of China's reform open up policy. It is generally considered that, reform open up policy leaves Chinese economy grow rapidly, and the living standards of Chinese people improve rapidly. However, the thing is not so simple. The core of reform opening up policy is the introduction of market logic, which means to put the development in the hands of those with desire and ability to become wealthy, which at the same time means to let the law of the jungle start functioning. It's interesting that at the first stage of reform opening up policy the law of the jungle began to function in every level except the top, which initiatively gives up a part of power and benefit, therefore the dominant factor isn't the law of the jungle. Before 1985, the central government improved the price of agriculture product and the wage of workers while the consumption price kept frozen. Local governments and state-operated enterprises gained more self-determination power and were able to use bonus and allowance. As a result, the most largest and most weakest group won more share in wealth distribution, which promoted development strongly. The reform opening up policy won support from all social groups.
It's the honey month between stronger and weaker. Since 1985, the government had no power and benefit to give up, the officials became conscious of the power in their hand, and moral constraint began to exit from daily life, so the law of the jungle gradually dominated all kind of social and economic activities. The increase of peasants' income grew slowly while peasants' burden grew rapidly. Leaders of state-owned enterprises gradually seized more profit and put them into private wallets through all kinds of ways, on the contrary, the political position and relative income of workers fell continuously. Day after day, no person cared about the integral and long-term interest of their enterprises. Every one, from top to bottom, even workers, learned to use power for himself, and state-owned enterprises became the object shared by all kinds of forces. Furthermore, collective enterprises owned by villages and towns and private enterprises occupied the lower level market, and transnational corporations and joint ventures occupied the upper level market, so the outside circumstance of state-owned enterprise became very serious. In a word, state-owned enterprise are dying gradually under the internal erosion and external pressure.
This process produced a large wealthy group which included cadres in all levels of government who held real power, cadres of grass roots, leaders in state-owned enterprises, leaders of collective enterprises owned by villages and towns, owners of private enterprises, and those working as white-collars in foreign capital enterprises.
It must be noticed that foreign capital once played a positive actor in China's economic development. During 1980s, the scale and level of foreign capital was relatively low, constituted mainly of capital from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, which didn't threaten China's enterprises but gave an example for business operation, Meanwhile the government adopted a strict protectionism policy. Therefore domestic market had been very boom for five years or so, supply all kinds of products once fell short of demand. The internal and external problem of state-owned enterprises existed but not so serious.
But at the end of 1980s, overproduction visited every walk of life, and competition became very fierce. In other word, China ran into it's first economic crisis, the most notable mark of which was "triangle debts". The solution to crisis ought to enlarge domestic demand, reduce the gap between the wealthy and the poverty, and absorb overproduction capability, using financial, monetary and taxation tools. But this solution was excluded from the beginning, because it couldn't gain support from the newly wealthy group, and it's against the logic of the law of the jungle. The real choice was much more application of the law of the jungle, namely opening door much larger to foreign capital, hoping foreign direct investments could draw up the growth. After 1992, the publication of famous speech of Deng, all level governments in every district competed with each other to supply more favorable treatments to attract foreign capital. Many lands were named "developing zone", in which governments were responsible for high standard infrastructure. No curiosity, a great boom formed because of the building of real estates and infrastructures in developing zones, all the storage were sold out, and the idle production capability was put into use. But the boom ended rapidly as it appeared. The day the real estates were build up, the day the buildings were idle. The price of real estates fell sharply, for example in Hainan Province and Guangxi Province, the price dropped to 10% of previous one. So is the China economy. All competitive industries went into a descending spiral. The price of color TV, refrigerator, air conditioner, motorcycle, etc. go down more than 50%. Idle capabilities were much more than that of the last crisis. It may seem strange from an European: didn't China economy grow at 7% annually? Yes, but the growth only existed in foreign direct investments and export/import, which at the same time compressed the market space of domestic industries, and deteriorated the domestic economic crisis. Indeed, foreign direct investments focused in two fields, one was high value-added industries such as automobile, medical, chemical, and micro-electricity etc., another one was labor-concentration export-oriented industries such as toy, shoe, leather, and garment etc. Though export-oriented industries brought about some employments, the wage were too low to compensate the lost high wage employments in high value-added industries. More uncomfortable to China's long term interest, China will lose independent industrial ability. To indicate how China's economy relies on foreign capital and market, the proportion of export and import to GDP rose to 46% in 2000.
During the process that China economy fell into long term deflation crisis from the bursted boom bubble in 1990s, the law of the jungle functioned to its' extreme. Workers and peasants experienced a ten years' stagnation of income, while cadres in central government and rich area governments experienced ten times growth of income, white-collars and intellectuals gained even more. These three groups are the core force in current China's politics, economy, and culture. They are all benefit from the export-oriented economy, even benefit from the lasting deflation. In their eyes, if domestic growth needs more tax, less imported goods, then it must be the worst solution. Hence, when China economy faced with the choice of accession or not to WTO, they automatically support joining in WTO.
This social motivation is summarized implicitly by China's political language as: join in WTO, so reform opening up policy won't be reversed. It could be understand as: join in WTO, so the wallet of richer won't be under threat.
Here comes the sixth question, how could public be persuaded?
Actually, Chinese richer will be a dependent force attached to transnational corporations on China's accession to WTO, thus they won't be so enthusiasm to support WTO if they are all clear of the consequences may come. It's not a good thing to the other countries and most people in the world if China lose the ability to grow independently and become a country competing with others by its low wage level. However, such a "fail-fail" game was indeed said to be a "win-win" game by Chinese media and world media, why?
I think the reason lies in the neo-liberalism which dominates the academia and public opinion, and which has been recommended strongly by transnational corporations. Almost all Chinese economists embrace Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and its modern representative Milton Friedman, every leader in all level governments is trained by the Smith's dogma. In fact, it's Adam Smith not Karl Marx who is the real hierophant. Hence they believe in market economy and free trade unconditionally. No exception for media. Reporters and editors are all the embracers of Smith's dogma, seldom of them know that protectionism not free trade is the secret prescription of development of America, German, France, Japan, even the Great Britain, they even view protectionism as "close the door".
It's very interesting that under the face of rejecting western model China has been learning every thing from America after reform opening up policy. America sparkplug neo-liberalism, then neo-liberalism become fashion in China; Nasdaq upswings, the second board stock market become the top topic of China's capital market; American communication industry opens to competition, China communication industry become eager to be dismantled. This thinking model plays an important role in persuading public.
At the end, I want to raise a question, how could we get out off the pitfall of globalization?
As a Chinese patriot, facing the great pressure from transnational corporations based in U.S.A, Europe, and Japan, facing the reality that capitalism couldn't be overturned in a short term, my suggest to Chinese government is protectionism while allowing market competition domestically, for the sake of the benefit and welfare of 1.3 billion people. It will be helpful to workers in developed or underdeveloped countries because the adoption of protectionism means Chinese cheaper labors exit from international labor market in some extent. Protectionism have bad fame even in progressive people, because it's said the first and second world war is connected with protectionism. But I think we draw a wrong lesson, and are somehow misleaded by the mainstream media. What caused the two world war is competition between monopoly capitals for colony and market. If protectionism promoted the incline of war, it must be emphasized that competition promoted protectionism, because protectionism means protecting oneself from being defeated. No attack, no protection. It's very ridiculous that we condemn protectionism while advocate competition, because competition is attack. Furthermore, if we look back the so-called gold ages during 1950's and 1960's, it's not difficult to find that competition between U.S, Europe and Japan were controlled and mitigated by the Bretton woods system and other coordination mechanisms. The tempered international competition carved out a space for trade unions to struggle for working conditions and wages, which shortened the gap between the rich and the poor, and brought about a strong domestic demand. With the collapse of bretton woods system, international competition became more and more fierce, hence workers' wages dropped into a declining spiral. It's easy to admit that tempered international competition means coordinated protectionism. In conclusion, protectionism favors workers, not capitalist. What we must be caution of is protectionism mustn't be put forward to war. Many scholars are talking about managed trade, that's good. However, when we advocate managed trade, we advocate coordinated protectionism. Where is the difference between managed trade and coordinated protectionism? Managed trade reminds one of a world organization, while coordinated protectionism gives initiative to every country; and managed trade emphasizes trade, while coordinated protectionism justifies protectionism.
However, coordinated protectionism is only the first step on the course against neo-liberalism in the name of globalization. I think the true base of neo-liberalism is egoism theoretically. When neo-liberalism attacks regulations it underlines that bureaucracy and corruption always accompanies regulations; when neo-liberalism praises competition it emphasizes that only competition brings about liveliness and initiative. If egoism couldn't be controlled, we must admit that neo-liberalism do have rationality in some extent. Some of my friends once argued it's not egoism but the defeat of working class struggle that promoted the recovery of neo-liberalism. But how did the working class be defeated? The failure of western working class is just the same as the failure of eastern socialism. It's not the attack and peaceful evolution policy of bourgeois that caused the collapse of eastern socialism, but the erosion of egoism in everyone's brain which formed the bureaucratic group and corruption. In other words, egoism is the enemy hidden in left movement, while altruistic is the friend hidden in our counterparts. If this judgment is understandable, then the future left movement must pay more attention to analyze the criticize egoism, to find its’ source in philosophy, history, economics, politics, and literature.
It’s a merit for academic tradition of the west to collect statistic dada and construct theoretic model, while the eastern academic tradition underlines to penetrate phenomena and capture essence, If we combine the two merits together, consider physical benefit and value system simultaneously, and advocate democracy as well as altruism, I’m sure the future of anti-globalization and anti-capitalism must be bright.
Thanks for your attention, and I’m willing to discuss problems that may arise.