City Councilor Nadeem Mazen is sponsoring a petition to set a $15 minimum wage in Cambridge.
This minimum wage is fair and reflective of the cost of living within Cambridge. It will would provide enough income for a full-time worker to meet all of the typical expenses of living in this city of ours.
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Ya because most
By anon
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:00pm
low wage workers are currently living in the Peoples Republic.
And it's not like it would ever effect small businesses hiring practices.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/16...
Yeah, it would really suck
By moxie
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:40pm
If the corporation with the multi-billion dollar valuation that my daughter works for has to pay her $15/hour. That would sure mean the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
Small businesses like the Gap, Verizon, Macy's would surely go out of business if this outrage comes to pass.
Yeah…
By Jeff B
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:46pm
Because the bulk of impacted businesses are multinationals? No, they are the small/medium ones, who will buckle and likely either lower quality, hire less, or close up shop in response. Just because a wage is dictated, doesn't mean the economics of a business is ready to change rapidly in response (and in food in particular, margins are already in the < 5% range)
The focus on minimum wage is a folly, the majority of people working for them don't work for them very long or are generally high school students. This whole hoopla over things like "can't pay for a 1 bedroom apartment on min wage in Boston" are comical - most people who make more still can't afford that and this certainly won't help solve it.
In fact, for the worst off it likely means losing/not getting a job (far worse than a lower wage), or having to pay more for everything you buy (silently the true regressive harm). None of this is going to help income inequality, or fix the problem of people not being able to afford living in these cities.
There will be a segment that benefits, but it will be limited, and possibly to the larger detriment of others already on the ropes.
Because We Always Look Out For Small Businesses
By Nantasket Mooncusser
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:32pm
Isn't it funny how we're always "think of the
childrensmall businesses" whenever there's a new government regulation or increase in the minimum wage, but when those same small businesses are going out of business because they can't compete against WalMart or the like it's just "basic economics".Well, screw small businesses*. The sooner we do away with them, the easier it will be to stop large multinationals from taking advantage of their supposed vulnerability.
*Not really.
Nice theory...
By mseskin
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:47pm
But wrong in nearly every detail: http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm
Citations please!
By Anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:20pm
??
Several cities have gone to $15 an hour wages
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:01pm
Please cite relevant sources on the experience of these communities when making your point.
Otherwise, be honest that your opinions are untainted by factual data or living wage track records. Theory is nice, reality is better.
Here is an experience on "living wages"
By ccd
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:56am
Good story about the affects raising the minimum wage has on small businesses. The irony here is too good: comic book store owner votes to raise minimum wage but then spits his coffee out when the economics dont work. When he realizes his business cannot withstand the increase in payroll. If the federal minimum wage is raised to $15 hour you will soon see touchscreens and computers replacing the cashiers....
---Hibbs says that the $15-an-hour minimum wage will require a staggering $80,000 in extra revenue annually. “I was appalled!” he says. “My jaw dropped. Eighty-thousand a year! I didn’t know that. I thought we were talking a small amount of money, something I could absorb.”---
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417763/meet-...
So you like subsidizing McDonald's?
By moxie
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 7:30am
Because you are, as things currently stand. The difference between what McDonald's, DD, et al pay and what it takes for their workers to actually live is made up for by us taxpayers. In the form of social services like Section 8 housing, Mass Health, WIC, etc. No one is living around here on $9/hour without some form of public assistance.
So McDonald's gets away with paying a substandard starvation wage, and we pay the difference.
Do you want fries with that?
These jobs aren't meant to
By Patricia
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 2:42pm
These jobs aren't meant to support families. They are ideal for students, retirees and those living at home.
People need to make themselves valuable, and it starts in school at a young age.
Who makes a career out of flipping burgers at McDonalds? Who ever imagined you could support a family, or even yourself on McDonalds pay? It's nothing new, those jobs are great for extra money, they always have been. It's a new thing that they're supposed to be careers. When did this happen?
In MA our economy has recovered nicely, what's missing?
Not really true
By Michael Kerpan
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:13pm
McDonald's once upon a time claimed that people could have a career working there. In fact, they still do:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/careers.html
Ysure can
By anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:31pm
If you work for their corporate division. Flipping burgers, on the other hand, was never meant to be a career.
Yes, but the reality is
By Patricia
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 4:03pm
Yes, but the reality is different. How do you support a family on $15, let alone $9?
None of this should be a surprise to anyone yet it it, so it seems.
Aaah, good old 19th century thinking!
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 4:18pm
Really? I'm wondering if you skipped the part of school called "history", and the boring old part about the Industrial Revolution. The pace has simply accelerated since: the shiny-shinies call it "innovation" and "disruption", but by any name it means that you can't plan for what will "make yourself valuable" when you're "in school at a young age". By the time you're out of school, everything you planned for is gone. This isn't the 1950s.
$15 hour - reality
By pahkcah
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:59pm
If Cambridge raises their minimum wage to $15 an hour, thus making an employee ineligible for child care subsidies, housing vouchers, etc, I can guarantee that they will either demand less hours or will work for $9 an hour in a neighboring town. You'll also see the underground economy swell, as both employers and employees became more incentivized to work "under the table". $15 an hour might sound like a feel-good rallying cry but many minimum wage employees will sing a different tune when they find out that they are no longer getting an EIC refund.
I'm not very good at math
By adamg
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 4:06pm
So maybe you can help me: If somebody's wages jump from $9 to $15 an hour (and let's pretend that happens all at once, rather than being phased in over several years as in Seattle) and somebody manages to work 40 hours a week, how much extra income is that in a year? And would that be more or less than an EIC refund?
OK
By Terrapin
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:00pm
But this would be the end of teenage employment in the Republic. And the company I work for I'm sure would switch to unpaid interns rather than paid interns.
The average worker earning minimum wage earns it for 6 months before receiving an increase. An awful lot of damage will be done to entry level employment for low skilled workers to see this Utopian reality. It's fine, though, as it will just create another societal problem that liberals can exploit to further their power over the productive class. A win/win for them!
Have you seen a teen working lately?
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:10pm
My son is a shift leader and makes $11 - and he has added responsibilties.
He's nominally a teen, for the next few months, but most employers in Cambridge and environs won't hire younger teens already! He recommended his brother to the boss, but boss won't hire high school kids.
Why? Because there are plenty of college kids. So we have a young adult in year 3 of college making $11 for a job with responsibility.
That "teen employment" ship has sailed, dear.
Also, consider this: I made $6 an hour for entry level work in 1985 and $9 an hour for a coop job in 1986. Considering that living expenses are now 4 times as much, he should be making far more.
Even $3.35 an hour (minimum in 1980) would be $13.40 an hour, scaled for expenses.
Amen, Swirly
By Will LaTulippe
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:42pm
I made $6 an hour in 1999 at the age of 15 running the board at a radio station. That employment almost absolutely does not exist in 2015, and if it does, I don't know anybody who would hire a 15 year old to do that job. Not everybody has Ben Hamilton's gumption, I guess.
I wouldn't hire a HS kid either. Too much red tape, I'll get a legal adult to do the job. There's 8 billion people. $15 an hour for an American? 3/4 of the planet will undercut that without batting an eye. Does the expression "Made in China" mean anything to anybody? Of course it doesn't, because Americans don't care where their cheap crap comes from, and the Chinese don't care that their buyers are a bunch of fat capitalist Americans.
We're outbreeding the world's currency and resources. Why am I the only person I know who talks about this? $15 an hour is a Band-Aid. Paying men to get vasectomies and freeze their sperm, thus setting a barrier to breeding, is an intelligent and sensible solution to a real problem of too many people and too few jobs left to do once computers and non-Americans who tolerate slum living have taken many of the tasks.
Wal-Mart is not "evil," it's a store run by wealthy heirs and stockholders who have the same concerns as any other human: Protect their wealth. I'm not going to bash any human for trying to acquire wealth, nor am I going to bash any human for responding to their urges to have sex and breed. The intersection of these two things is a government bribe to engage in birth control.
Be Green - get steralized
By Markk02474
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:09am
Nobody really wants to talk about getting sterilized as the most green thing people can do to combat global warming. Its the elephant in the room. Who is going to tell India, Brazil, China, Mexico etc. that they need to use birth control or a little self control?
Hey, there's the 9:55
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:41am
Right on time with an irrelevant comment that demonstrates nothing except his fascination with other people's wabbly bits, it's MarKKK.
(not the 9:55 actually...3:09 am? Don't got a job to go to in the morning? That explains a lot)
Reading uhub comments helps me sleep
By Markk02474
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:09am
if having trouble. Clueless ones like yours give me a laugh when you don't understand the connection between population and CO2 as a function of population size from food production to heating/cooking, to consumer goods.
The only thing I don't understand
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 12:47pm
...well, two things actually.
1. What connection your remark has to do with the current thread (answer: there is none, it's irrelevant, just MarKKK shoving his oar in as usual)
2. Which of Newton's laws is currently under suspension to keep your ears from slamming together.
Not so much
By JP Resident
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 8:43am
Based on CPI, $3.35 in 1980 equals $9.70 today, so you are only off by about 40%. And, yes, there are teens in college so they count too.
Wages must be based on productivity, not the cost of living. If wage inflation exceeds productivity gains there will be less labor. You cannot artificially charge higher prices for a certain thing and not expect negative adjustments elsewhere.
I assume an "enlightened" person like you are an environmentalist. Isn't that the argument used about the delicate balance of the natural world? Why would you think that it will throw the earth out of balance if the delta smelt in California dies off but pricing labor higher than it's resulting production will not have negative consequences?
Don't be disingenuous
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:43am
When people talk about "teens" having jobs, they are not talking about college students, they're talking about high school age teens living at home. And please stop trying to bolster your fraudulent argument with crocodile tears over the environment. You'd set it all on fire if it would line your pocket.
You mentioned three very
By Rick C
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:03pm
You mentioned three very large companies that can absorb and adjust to things like this. What about ACTUAL small businesses that cant?
Check out the Galleria Mall
By moxie
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 12:57pm
And find me three Mom-and-Pop outfits in the entire building. The Tasty left Harvard Square along with Damon and Affleck--the place is a retail Disneyland. I ain't crying any tears for Chipotle or Au Bon Pain having to pay their workers a living wage so I don't have to subsidize them through my taxes.
Oh, but you will
By anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:30pm
Through higher prices. Either that, or their profits drop, their stock tanks along with broader market (see WMT today,) and you can kiss your 401k adios...
Remember who the largest employers are in Cambridge
By Markk02474
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:11pm
Harvard, MIT, and the City of Cambridge.
All of whom can clearly afford this...
By mseskin
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:17pm
Harvard has the second largest endowment of any non-profit in the world behind only the Vatican, MIT isn't exactly struggling, and thanks to the high property values the city of Cambridge can certainly also afford to pay this wage.
So what?
By Kaz
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 12:14pm
The question isn't who the largest employers are.
It's who are the largest employers of minimum wage staff. I'd imagine percentage of staff would be more pertinent too than raw count since a store with 9/10 employees at minimum wage might go under, but a store with 100/200 staff members at minimum wage would probably be able to cope.
Macy's might go under on their own after Trump fiasco
By O-FISH-L
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:10pm
With tens of thousands of loyal customers destroying their Macy's cards after the chain sided with the pro-illegal alien crowd and against Donald Trump, I don't think Macy's will have to worry about the minimum wage or much else. The thousands of Macy's layoffs this year are just the beginning.
Statistics Please
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:10pm
n/t
F___k statistics
By anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 8:21pm
how about proven economic.
You should pick up a HS Econ book and look at things like;
Price Floors and Celings.
Keynesian Cross
Price elaticity
Demand for labor vs. labor supply (trained)
Spending power and disposable income of those making 15+ currently whose wages will ultimately adjust to the market.
= Decrease consumption and purchase power.
You're trying to argue a political talking point, while demanding statistics for something being implement now. Ya stats don't exist, but economic theory does.
https://jonmalesic.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/the-mi...
Basically simply put, in order to sustain the current employment level with a drastic increase in wages companies will need to increase prices of goods across the board, decreasing the purchasing power of said individuals receiving such increase in wage. Thus reducing there purchasing power and disposable income. This will result in market corrections and leave those receiving higher wages in the same spot.
Equilibrium!
How about
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:04pm
Trying that again with a bit of grammar check before posting.
Multi billion $ evaluation?
By Section77
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 8:39am
Your argument assumes that Harvard is the only employer in Cambridge. You also talk about national chains which everyone complains are Already squeezing out local businesses. So if this passes you will still have the Gap, but not locally owned businesses, congratulations. I'm afraid you need to think these things through.
Low wage workers in the people's republic
By mseskin
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:10pm
Leaving aside that there are certainly parts of Cambridge where low wage workers live, this is more about the ones who work there and live elsewhere.
Yeah...
By anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:04am
The projects and section 8 housing. There isn't one affordable nook in that bullshit city anymore. I work in Cambridge (unfortunately) and live in Lowell, because that's the closest town with reasonable rents.
Fair?
By Rick C
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:10pm
"This minimum wage is fair "
To who? Not to the person who owns a business with three people making min. wage and four people making $ 12.50 and two making $ 15.00 an hour.
Where does Councilor Nadeem Mazen think the money is going to come from to give all those people raises? Who would be the first ones to be let go in this scenario?
Lets do some numbers!
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:09pm
1980: $3.35 minimum wage
College costs were $10K a year
Rent was $250 a month
2015: $7.25 minimum wage
Rent is $1000 for that same bedroom in a shared apartment
College costs are $50K a year
See something wrong here?
Quadrupling and quintupling of costs (not even getting into people who aren't in the educational system), barely a doubling of wages.
$15 is actually pretty close to what $3.35 was worth 35 years ago.
Somehow, businesses survived that wage horror just fine back then!
You forgot one important metric
By Will LaTulippe
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:51pm
U.S. population in 1980: 226.5 million
U.S. population in 2015: 318.9 million
That's a 40% increase in 35 years. That went up too. And they all eat and require shelter.
Why should the minimum wage increase at all, then? I know a lot of that 318.9 million is retired, but that work force got bigger, and all the factories are outside of the U.S. now. The human race is a race to the bottom.
So your argument is to stick 'em all on ice floes?
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:46am
I don't see you volunteering to give up your vittles.
"See something wrong here?"
By relaxyapsycho
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:54am
Yes, I do. Minimum wage in MA in 2015 is $9/hr, not $7.25.
I see something wrong here
By Stevil
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:42am
3.35 an hour in 1980 is $9.70 today according to the BLS (and that's probably the range of where the minimum wage should be nationally - Mass may need to bump it up a little)
College is a completely different animal - but very few are paying that $50k a year - and nobody making $10 an hour that has kids is paying that kind of money. There was some very interesting work done by a couple of economists that indicated that while college sticker prices have skyrocketed, the actual average amount paid has actually only slightly exceeded inflation.
As for rent - yes that is much higher - but there are also a lot of things working there - as someone has pointed out - limited supply and increased demand. Population is up about 65% in the last 50 years - and last time I checked NY, Boston, Philly, DC and most other cities weren't doing a lot of landfill projects. Humans - especially urban humans have to get used to living in smaller spaces as long as we keep reproducing faster than we are dying.
And while that extra $5 an hour may seem like very little - how much does it cost to develop an app if you are McDonalds, or Panera or Starbucks and you just order and pay online with a Menu app? Be careful what you wish for. One minute you are making $9 an hour - the next $15 an hour and the next you are standing on the side of the street with a sign in your hand.
Don't believe me - ask a cabbie that paid $500k for a medallion.
I see something REALLY wrong.
By Jr College Student
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:18pm
The answer is to lower the damn college tuition. That's gone out of control more than anything else.
OK, Rick...
By whyaduck
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 1:25pm
my feeling is that if you own a business, you, as the business owner, should be bringing in enough dough to pay your workers a livable wage. If your business is not tenable enough to do that, than you should rethink how you do business or not be in business.
Which for a stereotypical "small business owner" might mean less of a salary for him or her (which is probably one of the real reasons why some folks hate the idea of raising the minimum wage.)
Missing the point.
By Rick C
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 4:27pm
The business owner will pay the wages she is required to and more to those that are qualified, but do you think the minimum wage workers in the scenario above are going to hang on to their jobs? I think it's highly unlikely.
Less hours and maybe one or two less workers is probably the most likely outcome of having an increase of that magnitude forced upon you.
Maybe so, maybe not
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:52pm
Those who are against this increase are focusing exclusively on what the proposed minimum wage will be compared to what it is now. That's part of the picture, but have you considered looking instead at:
People have been tossing around "65% increase", which sounds like a staggering amount. But it does not translate to a 65% increase in operating costs, or even to a 65% increase in labor costs unless every single person working for the business is making minimum wage.
Costs will go up
By Rick C
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 1:21am
"unless every single person working for the business is making minimum wage."
If an employer is paying a few people 9 dollars an hour and a few 12 dollars an hour and a few more 15 dollars an hour and then is required to increase the 9 dollar an hour employees to 15 dollars an hour the other employees making less than 15 dollars an hour currently are going to want more. And the ones making 15 dollars an hour are going to want more. No company I have ever worked for paid everyone the same and they will figure out how to make things work by having fewer employees or less hours or a combination of both.
That's my opinion anyway.
Costs don't need to go up
By Kaz
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 12:18pm
What's your imaginary store owner sell? Tourist trinkets?
Well, all those other people who are now making a higher minimum wage in Seattle might have enough pocket change finally to be able to afford a trip to Harvard Square to buy trinkets from your store whereas they didn't before. So, now your sales volume is up because more people have disposable income that didn't before. Costs don't have to change for you to pay your own workers more from the new found sales volume.
Widgets
By Rick C
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 1:14pm
It doesn't matter what they are selling , an across the board pay increase for all employees without the guarantee of an increase in sales is going to hurt.
A theory of what may happen isn't going to put more money in the business owners pocket to meet payroll. I suppose she could forgo her own salary to cover increased costs, but how likely is that?
Stop making your own scenarios
By Kaz
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 2:20pm
Yes, and an across the board pay increase while also getting sued and then the whole place burns down including your fire insurance policy (and it was the only copy in the world) is going to REALLY hurt.
And if you don't like the "theory" of an increase in sales, don't tell me. Here's the list of people you need to write to:
http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/
Have fun. You can google most of their addresses, I assume.
$10.10 is reasonable.
By Rick C
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 8:25pm
They didn't say anything about a $15.00 per hour min. wage for Cambridge.
They are looking for a $10.10 federal min. wage.
That's your rock to bear
By Kaz
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 9:18pm
The section I quoted has nothing to do with the amount of the minimum wage hike. If you think $10.10 is somehow more reasonable than $15, that's your argument to prove not mine. Just saying you like $10.10 better than $15 for reasons undetermined is wholly unconvincing. I'd say what's reasonable is to be able to raise 1-2 kids with 2 parents making minimum wage without needing food stamps or government assistance of any kind. Determine the minimum wage that satisfies that (which means taking into account the cost of living in the location you're talking about). Then we can talk about what would be "too much" to set it at. Until then, all you're doing is draining from all of us to allow companies to pay less than what it takes to live as a family.
To live in Cambridge
By anon
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:26pm
The minimum wage should be fifty dollars an hour.
… sigh, here we go again
By Jeff B
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 8:40pm
Chasing the California disaster (or I guess Seattle, where things aren't going so well either).
There will be repercussions: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-14/f...
That article is fact-less
By BostonDog
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:51pm
The linked article speculates about the relative impact but offers no real before/after statistics about the actual impact of the wage increasing. It's reads like some semi-drunk stranger a bar spouting out political predictions to the ether.
Seattle isn't at $15 yet
By adamg
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:16pm
And won't be for awhile.
In the meantime ...
Isn't it funny
By anon
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:24am
.how the selfishness cult has jealous fits and fears of a falling sky whenever an upward adjustment in pay for the peons is mentioned?
And the array of rationalizations rarely change.
Or why not work at all and
By Republican
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:17pm
Or why not work at all and live off tax dollars for 40k a year.
Because
By MostlyHarmless
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:26am
I can't afford to move to Denmark.
Some jobs can be replaced by robots
By Michael
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 9:32pm
"Writing doom-and-gloom predictions about the ruin that will befall businesses if the minimum wage goes up" seems to be among them. Just plug in a number and recycle old predictions that failed to come true every other time poor people got a break, and a bot could write the rest.
I remember coffee vending machines
By Markk02474
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:15am
Push a few buttons, a cup plops down followed by a stream of hot liquid. In the decades since, there are more baristas and coffee pourers now than ever before!
uh yeah.
By George Howell
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 3:20pm
And NO SUCH THING as a Keurig Machine right?
You reap what you sow. The
By anon
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 10:48pm
You reap what you sow. The good people of Cambridge elected him. Now they can suffer the consequences of giving an idealistic young councilor a platform from which to wreak havoc that will far outlast his term. But I hope it does pass and we continue to see a mass exodus of small businesses. Who would like to read the minutes from the city council sessions where people subsequently complain about the fact that the only businesses the city can attract are big national chains?
Yeah, it would really be horrible
By adamg
Mon, 08/17/2015 - 11:17pm
If all the unique and interesting locally owned shops in Harvard Square were replaced by boring national chains ...
Cambridge is more than Harvard Square
By bohemka
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 1:40am
But you get upset when people try to tar all of Boston with the same brush.
That whizzing sound...
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 9:48am
...is the point going over your head. When Adam points out that Harvard Square has largely been taken over by large chains, it's not tarbrushing, it's a fact.
Slow down
By bohemka
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 10:53am
You're in such a rush to be rude that you've ignored the context.
The fact that Harvard Square has been taken over by large chains does not interfere with the fact that Cambridge consists of more than Harvard Square.
To view Cambridge as a whole based on what you see in Harvard Square is akin to viewing Boston as a whole by what's happened in, say, the South End — a narrow perspective that Adam has fought to defeat, yet here he's applied it to a neighboring town.
It's a fair point. You have a lot of misplaced aggression.
And you have...
By lbb
Tue, 08/18/2015 - 12:49pm
...a misplaced sense of diction. I recommend a copy of Strunk & White, or a quick Google search on the phrase "tarbrush".
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