It IS Happening!-Ecuador’s Economics Lessons for Canada (and the World)

By Joyce Nelson, June 2017 

Ecuador’s new president, Lenin Moreno, was officially inaugurated on May 24. After a hard-fought, two-stage election process, Moreno defeated his opponent, former investment banker Guillermo Lasso, on April 2 with 51.14 percent of the vote. Moreno has promised to continue and expand the policies and programs introduced under outgoing President Rafael Correa, for whom Moreno served as vice-president from 2007 to 2013. Having held the post for ten years, Correa was ineligible to run again. 

Although Moreno’s win is tremendous news for progressives across the planet, you’d never know it from mainstream media coverage in North America, which has been muted to say the least. That may be because the Citizens’ Revolution undertaken by Correa and Moreno since 2007 has involved some major challenges to neoliberal economic orthodoxy. 

Indeed, in many ways, Rafael Correa (himself an economist) has changed the paradigm for what is possible economically, and not just in Ecuador or Latin America. That’s quite an accomplishment for a small country of about 12 million people. But apparently, the powers-that-be would rather ignore such a paradigm-shift than call attention to it. 

Economists’ Open Letter 

In the first round of presidential voting (February 19), Moreno had faced eight other candidates and fell just short of a victory, meaning that the top two candidates – Moreno and Lasso – would have to contend in a second round of voting on April 2. Former investment banker Lasso had pledged to undo the economic changes made over the previous ten years. 

Before that crucial second vote, 55 economists from 11 countries published an Open Letter on March 26, warning of the “danger” of a return to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal economics in Ecuador.¹ Their Open Letter explained some of the “major economic and social advances” that had been achieved in Ecuador because of Correa’s economic policies. “We are concerned that many of these important gains in poverty reduction, wage growth, reduced inequality, and great social inclusion could be eroded by a return to the policies of austerity and neoliberalism that prevailed in Ecuador from the 1980s to the early 2000s,” they wrote.² 

A self-declared “21st century socialist,” Correa had been elected in 2006 after a severe economic crisis and 1999 banking failure that caused a previous Ecuadorian government (in January 2000) to adopt the US dollar, ostensibly to control inflation.³ Despite the hindrance of that dollarization, Correa and Moreno were able to make major economic changes that dramatically stabilized and benefited the country. 

But as the 55 economists wrote, “Unfortunately, there is much confusion and misinformation about Ecuador’s achievements in recent years. It has all but become conventional wisdom that the economic and social progress in Ecuador, such as it is recognized, resulted simply from a commodities boom and a spike in oil revenues. This explanation ignores the innovative and important reforms that the Ecuadorian government has enacted that have played an instrumental role and allowed the country to emerge, relatively unscathed, from the 2009 Global Recession and the more recent collapse in oil prices. These reforms included bringing the central bank into the government’s economic team, a tax on capital exiting the country, a large increase in public investment, re-regulation of the financial sector, and countercyclical fiscal policy…. Our goal is not to tell Ecuadorians whom to vote for, or to interfere in Ecuador’s political processes. With the proliferation of misinformation and misunderstanding about Ecuador’s economy, however, we felt it necessary to correct the record.”⁴ 

Central Bank “Independence” 

One of the economists who signed the Open Letter is Mark Weisbrot, Co-director of the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). In 2013, Weisbrot called the reforms instituted by Correa “possibly the most comprehensive financial reform of any country in the 21st century” – especially Ecuador’s revoking of the “independence” of its central bank, an independence which is “considered sacrosanct by most economists today.” But, Weisbrot added, “Correa, a PhD economist, knew when it was best to ignore the majority of the profession.”⁵ 

In a February 2013 report called “Ecuador’s New Deal: Reforming and Regulating the Financial Sector,” Weisbrot and two CEPR colleagues had examined this change, which was “hugely important” for many of the other policy changes instituted by Correa. 

They wrote: “One of the fundamental principles of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy that has prevailed, increasingly, since the 1970s has been that central banks should be ‘independent.’ The reasoning behind this argument is that a central bank that is responsible to the executive or legislative branch of the government will succumb to political pressures and allow inflation to get out of control, or at least to rise quickly enough that it will hurt economic growth. There are many problems with this argument, from an empirical, economic, historical, and political point of view. From the point of view of political democracy, it is important to note that this is not an argument for independence of an institution such as the judiciary, which is based on a theory of checks and balances, in order to protect constitutional rights or the rule of law. The argument for the independence of the central bank is more of an elitist argument; it is essentially saying that monetary policy is too important to be influenced by the view or desires of the electorate.”⁶ 

Having highlighted the “elitist” nature of the standard argument, Weisbrot and his colleagues then note: “Having a central bank that is unaccountable to the elected government can be quite harmful; an extreme case can be seen in the eurozone today [2013], where the European Central Bank has played a major role in pushing Europe into its second recession in three years, with record levels of unemployment. In most cases, being ‘independent’ does not mean being independent of political influences; more often, central banks tend to favor the interests of the financial sector.”⁷ 

Because Ecuador’s central bank had been made formally independent of the government under the 1998 constitution, Correa’s administration had to change the constitution, which it did in 2008 after approval by the electorate through a referendum. “Thus the Central Bank was made part of the executive branch’s economic team, which also included a new Economic Planning Ministry…created by President Correa during the second month of his administration. These changes, especially with regard to the accountability of the Central Bank, have proven very important to the implementation and coordination of new economic policies in Ecuador.”⁸ 

Some of those policies included: increasing taxes on the rich, cutting down on tax evasion, instituting a tax on capital flight, requiring the Central Bank to repatriate billions in assets held abroad, doubling the minimum wage, making education (including university education) free, investing billions in education, health care, housing, and much more.⁹ As Stansfield Smith recently wrote, “Correa’s government carried out programs that peoples in progressive social movements have advocated throughout the West, if not the world. Ecuador provides an example for what Greece could have done when its crisis hit, if it had a firm antineoliberal, anti-imperialist leadership.”¹⁰ 

But the change in the accountability of the central bank – making it answerable to, and part of, the Correa administration – was especially crucial to a major policy decision enacted by the government. 

Money-Creation 

Just before the first round of presidential voting on February 19, 2017 CEPR issued another report on Ecuador, called “Decade of Reform: Ecuador’s Macroeconomic Policies, Institutional Changes, and Results.”¹¹ As CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot wrote for The Nation, in the midst of economic shocks such as the world-wide recession and the collapse in oil prices, the Correa government made “creative” decisions and “smart” policy choices that defied economic orthodoxy. “Ecuador’s central bank created billions of dollars that it lent to the government for spending (and also to state-owned banks). This was unexpected for a government that did not even have its own currency, but it proved to be very helpful in the recovery.”¹² The CEPR 2017 Report states that “…from 2011 to 2016, the Ecuadorian central bank created about $6.8 billion dollars” that was spent into the economy.¹³ 

As a result, “Public investment as a percent of GDP more than doubled, and the results were widely appreciated in new roads, hospitals, schools, and access to electricity,” as well as “a 38 percent reduction in poverty and a 47 percent reduction in extreme poverty,” with “large increases in spending on education and healthcare” that led to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, all without saddling the government with new debt to private lenders.¹⁴ 

After reading the CEPR Report in February, I contacted Mark Weisbrot by email and asked him: Is Ecuador’s Central Bank publicly-owned, or does it have private shareholders like the US Federal Reserve? Was Correa able to change the “independence” of the central bank because it is publicly owned? 

Weisbrot responded: “It’s publicly owned, but the [US] Fed could also be made accountable, and in fact the limited accountability that it has under current law is not fully utilized.” 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Lenin Moreno’s opponent in the April 2 presidential election, former investment banker Guillermo Lasso, had pledged to restore the “independence” of Ecuador’s central bank, thereby making it (as critics noted) “an instrument of the big bankers.”¹⁵ 

The changes under Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution have been profound. Not only is education free, including university, but “to reduce barriers for low-income students the government provides free school supplies, books, uniforms, and meals. Now more than 300,000 children who used to have to work go to school.” As well, Ecuador has built 15 schools “focused on teaching and preserving the country’s various ancestral ethnic languages.” Environmentally, Ecuador has constitutionally enshrined the rights of Mother Earth, and has managed to cut the rate of deforestation in half, while paying communities in the Amazon to protect forests. Ecuador even has a living wage policy: private companies cannot pay dividends to their shareholders until all their employees are provided a living wage.¹⁶ 

As Weisbrot has written, “…Ecuador’s experience shows that much of the rhetoric about how ‘globalization’ restricts the choices of governments to those that please international investors is…exaggerated. It turns out that even a relatively small, middle- income developing country can adopt workable alternative policy options – if people can elect a government that is independent and responsible enough to use them.”¹⁷ 

Canadian Interlude (1) 

During the run-up to the first round of Ecuadorian voting, a curious moment occurred in Canada that is well worth examining. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (elected in 2015) had decided to cancel his plans to attend the January 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos and instead make a crosscountry tour through Canada. Rather than sip champagne with the global elite gathered in the Swiss Alps, Prime Minister Selfie realized that it might be better to “remain connected with Canadians,” as his spokesman put it. “This tour will provide many great opportunities to engage directly with Canadians,” his press secretary explained.¹⁸

One possible reason for the tour: there is a growing cross-country movement to return Canada’s publicly-owned central bank, the Bank of Canada (BoC), to its pre-1974 mandate and practice of lending nearly interest- free money to federal, provincial, and (potentially) municipal governments for infrastructure and healthcare spending. Spearheaded by the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER), Paul Hellyer and Canadian Bank Reformers, and others, this movement is questioning why our federal and provincial governments must borrow from private lenders (and pay debtservicing charges to the banksters of more than $60 billion per year) when the BoC had a successful history of public lending to governments from 1938 to 1974 without triggering any inflationary problems. 

Now the Trudeau cabinet is bypassing the BoC to set up a different Canada Infrastructure Bank that was designed by an advisor from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and will increase the debt by many billions while complicating Canada’s monetary problems and privatizing public assets.¹⁹ 

So in mid-January, when PM Trudeau was “reconnecting” with the people of Peterborough, Ontario at a town hall meeting, a curious thing happened. Trudeau was talking about an economic matter when COMER’s Herb Wiseman shouted out: “Use your central bank.” To which Trudeau promptly responded: “That doesn’t work.”²⁰ 

It was a stunning remark, blithely denying 35 years of Canadian history. Moreover, Ecuador has just proven over the last several years that using the central bank still actually does work to put money into the real economy without taking on debt to the banksters or causing an inflationary spiral. 

But Trudeau’s casual dismissal fits with his role. 

There’s a reason why Justin Trudeau has been so lionized by the globalist elite and the corporate press. Remember the IMF’s Christine Lagarde exulting over his election, or The Economist’s October 2016 cover announcing “Liberty moves north,” accompanied by an image of the Statue of Liberty wearing a maple-leaf crown? And then there was US Vice-President Joe Biden remarking at an Ottawa state dinner in his honour in December 2016 that Trudeau would be central to “astronomical” changes in the world. “The progress is going to be made,” Biden said, “but it’s going to take men like you Mr. Prime Minister, who understand it has to fit within the context of a liberal economic order, a liberal international order, where there’s basic rules of the road.”²¹ 

Of course, Biden means a neoliberal economic order, where the “rules of the road” are: free-market capitalism, deregulation, austerity budgets, privatization, free trade deals, corporate tax cuts, tax havens, and the “independence” of central banks. 

Most Canadians aren’t aware of it, but for a decade Canada has been considered “the standard bearer” of neoliberalism, replacing the US in that function. As the Latin Business Chronicle enthused in July 2011, “Since neoliberal economics policies (including the ‘Washington Consensus’) are associated with the Reagan-Thatcher years, one would deduce that on this side of the pond, the United States remains the standard bearer of this philosophy…. No, The standard bearer, advocate, celebrant of trade and investment liberalization is not the United States but its neighbor north of the 49th parallel – Canada.”²²The writer added, “While there are regimes that blatantly reject this course (Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua), their economic performance (not to mention capital flight – physical and human) is testimony to the folly of their policy choices.”²³

So when Trudeau says “That doesn’t work,” he is neatly summarizing the script he’s been given. 

Banana Republic 

To really appreciate Correa and Moreno’s Citizen’s Revolution, it’s important for readers to know something of Ecuador’s not-so-distant past. After all, it’s one thing to be creative and smart about challenging neoliberal economic orthodoxy. It’s another thing to be creative and smart about challenging that orthodoxy while you’re dreading assassination at every turn. 

In 1981, when Ecuador’s president Jaime Roldos refused to cooperate with “economic hit men” by indebting his country to foreign lenders like the IMF and the World Bank, he was killed in an airplane “accident” – later revealed by declassified documents to have been part of the CIA’s Operation Condor, against leftist South American leaders.²⁴ 

Subsequent Ecuadorian presidents took on IMF indebtedness, leading to years of neoliberal austerity and privatization, which almost eliminated Ecuador’s small middleclass. In the second edition (1998) of his blockbuster Killing Hope, William Blum wrote that the “tiny nation” of Ecuador remained “a classic of banana republic underdevelopment, virtually at the bottom of the economic heap in South America,” where 1 percent of the population was very well-off (from oil and other commodities export), while “two-thirds of the people had an average family income of about ten dollars per month.”²⁵ 

After the banking crisis in 1999 – which caused the currency and people’s savings to lose more than half of their value – at least 2 million Ecuadorans (out of a population of 12 million) left the country for economic reasons, especially to find employment.²⁶ 

As Stansfield Smith has written, “after nine presidents in ten years,” the Ecuadoran people in 2006 elected Rafael Correa in “a popular repudiation of neoliberalism and neocolonialism,” as had happened in Venezuela and Bolivia with the election of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.²⁷ 

Besides initiating his pathbreaking economic reforms, Correa also directly took on the entrenched elites. One of his first acts was to shut the US military base in the city of Manta in 2007. When criticized for that daring move, Correa said he would allow a US navy base in Ecuador if the US would allow an Ecuadorian navy base in Miami. Correa also asserted control over the country’s oil and other natural resources, “taking them away from domination by multinationals” and renegotiating contracts.²⁸ 

In another brave move, Correa also cancelled about one-third ($3.9 billion) of Ecuador’s foreign debt – the portion found to be illegitimate – and showed the world that, as he put it, “government has the power to cancel debt,” with obvious lessons for Greece, Spain, Ireland and others.²⁹ Correa felt strongly that debt-servicing charges – one of the top items in virtually every neoliberal government’s budget – are a major drain on social investment. He used the savings from these interest-payments to help the poor. 

Empire Strikes Back 

Perhaps not surprisingly, there was a ferocious backlash by the elites, and a 2010 coup attempt on his life. 

On September 30 of that year, “a police strike ended up in a violent revolt against President Correa, who was held hostage in a hospital for several hours. The clashes resulted in 10 deaths including a presidential guard. Documents emerged showing massive US funding for policemen and opposition groups, through USAID. Despite this direct threat, Correa continued to assert an independent foreign policy; one of his boldest moves was granting Julian Assange asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012, fearing his extradition to the US for the role that WikiLeaks played in exposing war crimes” and other issues.³⁰ 

In October of that same year, Ecuador suffered another economic blow. The government had annulled a contract with US-based Occidental Petroleum because the company had violated a clause stating that it would not sell its drilling rights to another firm without permission. But because Ecuador had a bilateral trade agreement with the US, Occidental launched a lawsuit against the country at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, based in the World Bank. 

It was a classic investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitration, and while the tribunal agreed that Occidental had violated its contract and broken the law, it judged that the annulment was “not fair and equitable treatment to the company.” In 2012 the dispute tribunal awarded a judgement against Ecuador in the amount of US $1.8 billion – the largest-ever ISDS award to that date – and also required the country to pay $589 million in backdated compound interest, along with half of the costs of the court case, bringing the total penalty to about $2.4 billion.³¹ 

Not surprisingly, Ecuador (like Venezuela and Bolivia) subsequently refused to sign trade agreements that include an investorstate dispute settlement mechanism, sparking a worldwide resistance to such clauses contained in major trade agreements. 

When a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador in Spring of 2016, killing hundreds and causing billions of dollars in damages, Ecuador was nonetheless ordered to pay the final payment of US $180 million to Occidental. As Cecilia Olivet, researcher with the Transnational Institute, stated, “Urgently needed public resources are being channelled to an oil multinational during an emergency because of a decision by forprofit arbitrators at a secret international tribunal.”³² 

Through all these tribulations (and more), Correa did not waver in his dedication to Ecuador, delivering remarkable changes to the poor majority. “People must prevail over capital,” he said in 2014, and he questioned just whose interest governments should serve: “Elites or the majority? Capital or humankind? The [financial] market or society?”³³ 

Canadian Interlude (2) 

On November 2, 2016 an e-petition (#421-00858) bearing 1,268 signatures and sponsored by Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, was presented to the Canadian House of Commons. The epetition (which was initiated in BC) called for the Government of Canada “to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose…[which] includes making interest free loans to the municipal, provincial, and federal governments for ‘human capital’ expenditures (education, health, other social services) and/or infrastructure expenditures.” The e-petition expressed the frustration that since 1974 Canadian taxpayers have been “needlessly paying” billions of dollars annually in compound interest to “international financiers” because of debtservicing charges. 

Canada’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau officially responded to the e-petition with a very baffling reply (tabled in the House of Commons on January 30, 2017) that stated in part: “…the Bank of Canada would have to create new Canadian currency, which could lead to adverse economic conditions and costs. The experience of many nations has demonstrated that relying on domestic currency creation to finance government expenditures results in excessive inflation, erodes the value of a country’s currency and often leads to a misallocation of scarce resources….” 

In response, Paul T. Hellyer issued an Open Letter to Morneau (March 14, 2017), stating that issuing new Canadian currency (or credit) “makes perfect sense, but you dismissed it unconditionally on the basis that it would result in ‘excessive inflation,’ and without any evidence to support your statement. That, minister, is not correct, and I have been looking for an easy way to avoid saying that it is a lie, but my conscience finally dictated that there was no escape. You lied to the House of Commons, and you must know that under British parliamentary precedents you are expected to resign your portfolio forthwith.”³⁴ 

Hellyer’s lengthy letter explained the historical period in Canada from 1939 to 1974 when the Bank of Canada “created very large sums of what you call ‘new Canadian currency’…[and] at no time during this 35-year period did the Bank of Canada create ‘excessive’ inflation. The experience was comparable to the average of 15 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.”³⁵ 

Hellyer only refers to Canada’s past monetary experience, but we can also look at the recent years in Ecuador, where the government’s money-creation by the central bank for spending into the real economy has been very effective at challenging deep inequities and transforming the country, without causing “excessive inflation.” 

In Solidarity 

By challenging neoliberal economic orthodoxy, Correa and now his successor Lenin Moreno are showing the way out of the indebted mess that most countries are in, including Canada. It will be up to the rest of us to push for the needed changes. 

As Hellyer writes: “It just so happens that Canada is the only country in the G20 group of countries that is in a position to act quickly. Parliament could enact the few necessary changes in the statutes in a few weeks – certainly less than a month. So we have not only the good fortune, but also a profound responsibility to the rest of the world, to show what can be done.”³⁶

In that sense, we will be following upon the example and the courage of Ecuador, a small country that, against all odds, has literally challenged and (so far) successfully defied the overlords. 

Joyce Nelson’s sixth book is Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism, published by Watershed Sentinel Books, 2016. 

Our Comment 

Equador’s example is both encouraging and embarrassing. 

Given the benefits Equadorans have enjoyed under Correa’s leadership, and given his favoured candidate’s promise to continue to expand the policies and programs responsible for them, it gives one pause that Moreno won by so slim a margin. 

How heartening the example set by the 55 economists from 11 countries, whose cooperative intervention weighed in! 

The emphasis on being a “21st century socialist” is indicative of a worldwide recognition that yesterday’s models cannot meet the needs of our time. 

The reforms cited could be mistaken for a list of what Canada is currently giving up: a public central bank; an increase in public investment; re-regulation of the financial sector…! 

Correa’s administration had to change the constitution, to retrieve the country’s central bank so crucial to positive change! 

We, on the other hand, have elected successive governments who have mothballed our central bank and are now end-running it with the Canada Infrastructure Bank! (CIB) 

The Equadorian government has more than doubled public investment as a percent of GDP, and made all that infrastructure possible without incurring new private debt. 

We are rushing to sell off public assets and settle for a toll-road economy. Shame on us! 

Canada, equipped as it is with a triedand- true public central bank, and what’s left of its social infrastructure, has a special role to play in developing an exemplary model of a 21st century political economy. 

We have only to elect “a government that is independent and responsible enough” to adopt those “workable alternative policy options.” 

Élan 

End Notes 

1. 55 Economists, “Economists from US and 10 Other Countries Warn of Danger of Return to Neoliberalism in Ecuador.” Truthout.org, March 26, 2017. 

2. Ibid. 

3. Gonzalo Solano, “Ecuador election cliff-hanger: Leader near outright victory.” The Association Press, February 20, 2017. 

4. 55 Economists, op. cit. 

5. Mark Weisbrot, “Why Ecuador loves Rafael Correa.” The Guardian, February 15, 2013. 

6. Mark Weisbrot, Jake Johnston and Stephan Lefebvre, “Ecuador’s New Deal: Reforming and Regulating the Financial Sector.” Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2013. 

7. Ibid. 

8. Ibid. 

9. Stansfield Smith, “Ecuador’s Accomplishments Under the 10 Years of Rafael Correa’s Citizen’s Revolution.” Counterpunch. org, April 14, 2017. 

10. Ibid. 

11. Mark Weisbrot, Jake Johnston, and Lara Merling, “Decade of Reform: Ecuador’s Macroeconomic Policies, Institutional Changes, and Results.” Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2017. 

12. Mark Weisbrot, “Ecuador’s Left-Wing Success Story.” TheNation.com, February 14, 2017. 

13. Weisbrot, Johnston, Merling, op. cit. 

14. Weisbrot, “Ecuador’s Left-Wing Success Story,” op. cit. 

15. Mark Weisbrot, “Ecuador’s Elections: Why National Sovereignty Matters.” Counterpunch.org, March 23, 2017. 

16. Stansfield Smith, op. cit. 

17. Weisbrot, “Ecuador’s Left-Wing Success Story,” op. cit. 

18. David Akin, “Trudeau cancels Davos plans, wont’ go to Trump’s inauguration, chooses domestic tour instead.” National Post, January 6, 2017. 

19. Joyce Nelson, Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism. Watershed Sentinel Books, 2016, p. 25. 

20. Herb Wiseman, “Will Trudeau become the next prime minister Canadians campaign to stop?” MyKawartha.com, January 18, 2017. 

21. Mike Blanchfield, “Biden asks Trudeau to help lead way in time of uncertainty.” The Toronto Star, December 8, 2016. 

22. Jerry Haar, “Canada: A True Partner.” Latin Business Chronicle, July 20, 2011. 

23. Ibid. 

24. Peter Koenig, “Time for Counter-Coups in Latin America? – and Europe?” Global Research, May 18, 2016. 

25. William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Montreal/New York/London: 1998 Edition, p. 153. 

26. Stansfield Smith, op. cit. 

27. Ibid. 

28. “Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution Transformed a Nation: Analysis.” TeleSUR English, November 25, 2016. 

29. Stansfield Smith, op. cit. 

30. “Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution Transformed a Nation: Analysis,” op. cit. 

31. Martin Khor, “The Emerging Crisis of Investment Treaties.” globalpolicy.org, November 212, 2012. 

32. “Disaster Capitalism: Ecuador Forced to Pay US Oil Giant $180M.” TeleSUR English, April 29, 2016. 

33. “Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution Transformed a Nation: Analysis,” op. cit. 

34. Hon. Paul T. Hellyer, “An Open Letter to the Minister of Finance Bill Morneau,” March 14, 2017. 

35. Ibid. 

36. Ibid.