Grading Biden’s Foreign Policy for the Middle Class, With Heidi Crebo-Rediker

Jim Lindsay:

Welcome to The President's Inbox, the CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. I'm Jim Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is, grading Biden's foreign policy for the middle class.

Jim Lindsay:

With me to assess what the Biden administration calls its worker-centric foreign economic policies is Heidi Crebo-Rediker. Heidi is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council, specializing in international political economy, US economic competitiveness, infrastructure policy in women in the global economy. She is also a partner at the advisory firm, International Capital Strategies. Heidi served as the state department's first chief economist, and was previously the chief of international finance and economics for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Her article, A Real Foreign Policy for the Middle Class; How to Help American Workers and Project US Power, co-authored with Doug Rediker, appears in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs. Heidi, thanks for joining me.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Thank you for the invitation.

Jim Lindsay:

Now, as we know, Heidi, President Biden has vowed to pursue a foreign policy for the middle class. What does he mean by that?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

What is foreign policy for the middle class? The agenda is primarily focused on confronting the challenges that are increased strategic competition with China is presenting, and it's meant to strike a balance between promoting the interests of US working families, but at the same time, also pursuing strategic and more real politic agendas that often drive America's national security interests. It's more I would say a foreign policy for the middle class it's more pro-union, it's more pro-industrial policy, it's investing in domestic economic renewal, connecting domestic with international and it also involves working closely with allies and like-minded countries. The trick is really in the balancing of a domestic worker-driven agenda with real politic, and it's not easy. Sometimes real politic sneaks up on you and we can call that Russia for example.

Jim Lindsay:

Heidi, I want to get into your assessment of how the Biden administration has implemented its foreign policy for the middle class. But before you do that, I want to ask you whether you think this is the right framing for the issue. It suggests that foreign policy and the interest of the middle class are intention. If you look at the things that have hurt the middle class over the last half century, things like technology, tax policy, under investment in education and the decline of unions, they have nothing to do with foreign policy, so is this the right framing? Right way to think about the challenge?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think that actually it does have a lot to do with international economic policy and some of the things that you just touched on. What are the issues that have perked the middle class over the past several decades that you could draw direct lines to, or at least dotted lines to what was happening in the international economy. They do have resonance, and actually they have played out in certain instances with big wins in this framing of the middle class at the center.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

That has to do with tax policy objectives at least, it has to do with reshoring and bringing manufacturing jobs back and looking at stronger supply chains for national security purposes and really taking a more industrial policy approach to making sure that what we do not just by ourselves, but with our allies, particularly in Europe. How do we make that work? So that it actually is a win-win both for our workers. Ends up being for the Europeans and other partners as well, but it really takes a concerted effort to make sure that they translate back into wins for normal Americans.

Jim Lindsay:

Let's talk then about the success or the failures of the Biden effort. Maybe we can begin by talking about what you see as some of the successes of this foreign policy for middle class approach.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I would say that some of the early wins included rejoining the Paris Climate Accord. I would also say that working with the OECD to level the playing field in global taxation, it's something that the White House spearheaded along with Treasury. The G20-OECD tax reform agreement has been long negotiated, but we actually brought it to a close of negotiation, and this in terms of the foreign policy for the middle class, it was really about getting companies to pay their fair share. I would also say that we stepped up in terms of our multi-lateral support for poor countries in supporting the IMF through a new SDR issue, and we breathed a great deal of new life into the US relationships with allies in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. By doing that, we set up the administration to really succeed in a collective approach to Russian aggression in Ukraine, collective use that we've really never seen before of sanctions and economic tools together with a united front.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

But also, I want to make sure that one of the important messages of foreign policy for the middle class is linking the foreign economic to the domestic economic renewal to competitiveness, it's a major dimension. It's kind of something we've talked about in CFR within the Renewing America Initiative, that we're stronger at home means that we're better able to project foreign policy power and I think that two big wins would be the 1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure investment. It's a huge down payment on domestic renewal and competitiveness, and also with the supply chain resilience agenda shoring up our vulnerabilities in supply chains, and doing it together with allies, so reshoring, nearshoring, friend-shoring production in a way that both serves national security interest, but also advances middle class priorities, bringing manufacturing jobs back home.

Jim Lindsay:

Okay. I have to ask you first, what's the difference between nearshoring and reshoring?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Nearshoring, I guess the more proper term for it now, friend-shoring, means that you can... It doesn't mean that you have to actually bring everything just back to US shores, but that you can actually connect supply chains. If you have instances where you have, for example, what we saw in COVID, where you had supply chains really, really break down and you had... The immediate response in many cases was extreme protectionism and you know, defending... Whether it came to vaccines or food supplies, PPE, you had a reaction that was not conducive to the way that we really want to be able to tackle big challenges. So working with Europe to make sure that when we look at... Sometimes using subsidies, or tax benefits, or types of investment in our own reshoring that the Europeans are doing it as well for the same reasons, and that we make sure we're in consultation with them so that we're doing it in a way that is compatible.

Jim Lindsay:

I can certainly understand the advantages of friend-shoring, in terms of US national security, because you have faith that your friends in a crisis will still allow you to have access to what they produce. But I'm not sure how friend-shoring helps an American worker. I mean, if a plant is set up in Canada, or in Great Britain, or Germany, that's great for the workers in those countries, but it doesn't directly help somebody who's working in Akron, Ohio, or Ottumwa, Iowa.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

We are focused a lot on, on shoring. The Europeans are also focused on, on shoring and other, other countries in Asia that feel vulnerabilities, particularly national security vulnerabilities and being vulnerable in particular to weaponization of trade from China. It is important that we not only onshore, but we onshore in a way that's compatible with one another, and that we are able to actually reach out and rely on our friends and partners. It's not inconsistent. Bringing manufacturing back to the United States is something that we're working really hard on and I think that's part of this whole foreign policy for the middle class agenda.

Jim Lindsay:

Why is it important to bring manufacturing jobs back? As you know, the big trend over the last half-century has been the rise of the service industry. Most Americans work in the service industry. Why do we keep talking about bringing back manufacturing jobs? When you look at most statistics, they show that whether you talk about the United States or anywhere else, manufacturing job as a percentage of overall jobs is in a long term decline.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Well, for example semiconductors. You want to be able to manufacture semiconductors in the United States. The ability to actually mine, process and produce all of the components of the large capacity lithium-ion battery supply chain, we've basically left ourselves almost entirely vulnerable to China for almost all parts of the cycle for that. That's something that we want to make sure that we bring, those are manufacturing jobs, those will feed the auto industry in the United States and having that capacity to actually process and manufacture in the United States is going to underpin our ability to do it a much smoother transition to a cleaner economy.

Jim Lindsay:

That suggests that not all manufacturing is the same, and it seems to also be less about jobs per se, than it is about making sure that manufacturing in strategically important sectors is done here in the United States or in countries we trust.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

That's the whole point of balancing. You want to be able to balance your approach to foreign policy in a way that benefits the middle class. It's not that you're saying that one at the expense of the other, I think that's kind of the trick of the foreign policy for the middle class. Is sort of thinking through when you're making these calculations on national security, that they are beneficial to the middle class, that those factories that come back and those jobs and that processing is going to support innovation and it's going to support the ability for the US to maintain capacity here, and that for certain types of industries where they are strategic, that you have Buy America provisions that are also embedded. Those have been slightly controversial because it's going to mean that industries that we didn't actually... That we did offshore and other countries produce—that supply the US, that those components have to actually be purchased in the US from US suppliers. Those types of things, actually they have cascading effects on the need to actually produce within the United States.

Jim Lindsay:

Heidi, I understand the political appeal of Buy America provisions, but they seem to have two deficiencies. One is that they violate pledges we've made to other countries about leveling the playing field. We want them to buy our stuff, but if we say, no we're not going to buy your stuff, it undoes that. There are also questions raised about whether Buy America provisions raise the cost of the government, in terms of what it needs to purchase.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

So the Buy America provisions are not without controversy. But they're very important, I think in the context of making sure that the worker-centric agenda is actually implemented. In order to counter some of the challenges with for example Europe, one of the first things that the Biden administration did was that it created the US-EU Trade and Technology Council. This is a framework for conversation to make sure that as we pursue the same types of policies and make the same kind of investments and look to actually invest in the same local capacity for national security reasons, that we do it in a way that's compatible. This was I think one of the big wins. From the get go, we talk about supply chains and how to make resilience supply chains, and invest in infrastructure, and how we use Buy America and source locally, is something that is really, I think what the Europeans are looking to do as well.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

We're starting to stockpile for example, rare earths and metals and that is something we're sourcing where we can, we're investing where we can, we're providing loan guarantees and subsidies and grants and things that we are very open about with the Europeans and through this sort of this council where we have conversations about that, make sure that everybody knows and we're all on the same page and if there are differences, we work them out. We're not the only ones doing it, we're making sure that we're doing it with others that are looking to do it for the same reasons that we are.

Jim Lindsay:

It's interesting you mentioned the case of rare earth metals, Heidi. Because I think that illustrates the tensions that can plague this kind of policy. Because obviously if you can mine for rare earth minerals here in the United States, you can create jobs. But I know very many people in the environmental community are opposed to resuming or broadening that kind of mining because of the potential environmental costs that are involved.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think that is it's a valid concern. The administration so far has done it's... I think they're making the strongest effort to ensure that environmental standards are upheld and they're working closely on this. We're also on the international front, look at the offside that we had with the G20 in Rome last year. There was a group of like-minded countries that included for example, Canada. Canada is a source of important metals and rare earths. We invited the democratic Republic of Congo, the DRC to that meeting as well. They are one of the largest sources of cobalt in the world, and so I think it's not just that we're sourcing domestically, but we want to be able to process and have the ability to really catch up with the investments that China has made in this to really dominate the whole of the cycle in a way that is not sustainable for really the rest of the world.

Jim Lindsay:

We've talked about the successes you see the Biden administration has had with its foreign policy for the middle class policies. Let's talk about the misses, where do you see this policy not working?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think whenever we talk about what's not working, I think you have to be a little bit humble and say that we forget that we were waging a trade war with allies, and our relationship with Europe was in taters after President Trump left office and countries didn't trust us. You have to have a little bit of humility before you lay out both the good, the bad and the ugly. But I think in terms of, in terms of where we missed, we really missed in a couple of areas, particularly with regard to China. If you look at what President Biden, then candidate Biden argued on the campaign, it was that Trump's use of tariffs and his misguided phase one trade policy left American farmers and workers without a level playing field, and on other strategic economic issues and threats that were posed by China. The ones that we know well, subsidies, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, all of those really were not solved with phase one. Yet at the end and still today, we have phase one tariffs in place, so there wasn't the shift, there wasn't the coming into office in creating a China strategy that we were really all expecting.

Jim Lindsay:

But the Biden administration has left many of those tariffs in place, even though there are a number of economists who have argued that the Biden administration could do a big favor for American producers and consumers by just getting rid of those tariffs, because they make the prices of imported goods higher and they've led to retaliation by the Chinese against our producers.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think that there is a serious argument to be made there. My point before was that actually during the campaign, that was part of what President Biden talked about as well. That those tariffs were put in place and yet we had a trade policy that ended up hurting farmers and workers, and we didn't get that level playing field. But I think we also really didn't see the big carrot on the table. We saw a strategy with the Indo-Pacific, which was unbelievably muscular when it came to the hard security side.

Jim Lindsay:

This is under Trump.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Actually under President Biden. We saw a very muscular introduction of an Indo-Pacific strategy. It took on I think from what the Trump administration started with regard to the Quad in the Indo-Pacific. But then it followed up with AUKUS, if you remember the Australia and UK, US military and strategic agreement and it didn't have that economic counterpart that you would want to have in your security strategy with Asia. That is what the Biden administration is looking to fix right now with the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that Biden is putting forth.

Jim Lindsay:

Well, let me ask you about that, Heidi. Because in your piece in Foreign Affairs, you wrote that the Biden administration has struggled to craft a coherent trade agenda. Do you think the new details we've learned over the last several days about the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework or IPEF, I guess that's how we're treating the acronym, has made a difference on that front.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think it's made a baby step, but we don't know the details yet and the early feedback is that it is really underwhelming. It's underwhelming because we have a huge value in providing market access, and I personally think that walking away from TPP was a major mistake, not just on security grounds, but on economic grounds as well.

Jim Lindsay:

Can I ask you why that's the case? Because it seems to be conventional wisdom in many quarters that TPP would have been bad for American workers.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I guess I would take the view that CPTPP which is the-

Jim Lindsay:

Successor name.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

... the successor, it's united a significant part of the global trading area of Latin America and Asia and the Pacific. If that is the framework through which rules are going to be written and trade engagement is going to move forward, then the US not being part of it, is going to mean that we don't get to write the rules of the future. That necessarily is bad for American workers and the additional point, China has obviously applied to join the CPTPP. I don't know if they're actually going to become members at some point in the future, but they also have their own trade agreement that they concluded RCEP. You have what the Chinese call, this gravitational pull, where they're looking to set standards, in particular digital standards and you have countries in Asia and in Latin America wondering the unthinkable prospect of what China's membership and leadership would look like, with Chinese membership in CPTPP, and the US is on the outside looking in. I think that pushes countries further away from dealing with Washington, further away from dealing with the US on free trade, and I don't think it's credible for the US in the Indo-Pacific to not have a very credible, strong foot forward with its agenda and I'm not, I'm not entirely optimistic we're going to get it.

Jim Lindsay:

Well, President Biden essentially argued at the start of his administration that he wanted to make a major investment domestically before he moved ahead on trade policy. Was that a smart move to make? I'm not asking about the domestic politics of it, but in terms of our trading partners, have we seen them willing to sort of sit in the basically waiting pen, waiting for us to come forth with an offer? Or are they moving ahead making their own deals?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Trade has been moving ahead without us for some time now, and so there were domestic political reasons why President Biden and then before that candidate Biden made some determinations that there would be no negotiation of trade agreements until the domestic agenda and domestic investment had been undertaken. But I think it's really one of those things where you can't just say that the rest of the world and particularly that Asia is going to wait. I get concerned when I see rumblings about the foot that we're putting forward in Asia being referred to as sort of like a no-contact preseason game, because we're way past preseason. We're like this could end up being a major strategic own goal. If we believe that we have time to defer a positive agenda, I think that'll lead us to ceding further turf to China, and ultimately it'll restrict markets that'll pose more risks to American workers, not less if we're not making the products or providing the services or using the data standards that a large part of the world will be using.

Jim Lindsay:

Even if we put China aside, Heidi, hasn't it been the case at the negotiation of agreements like CPTPP are putting American producers at a disadvantage. That the members of CPTPP have certain privileges as they trade among each other, that American producers don't have because we're not part of the club?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

We are not part of the club, we should be part of the club. We do have trade agreements with many of the members of CPTPP, so it's not like we're entirely out of that game. But as we move forward, again the world is not going to wait for us to get our domestic act together. They are moving forward. The UK has requested to join CPTPP, so this is all moving forward and I think being left on the outside, it could be a great disadvantage to American workers.

Jim Lindsay:

My sense is that if you were for example, an Iowa hog producer. That you can't sell your prime cuts into let's say the Japanese market at the same price point as pork produced in New Zealand or in Canada, because they're in the TPP, they have special preferences over people who aren't in the CPTPP.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think ultimately we want to just make sure that US exporters are able to compete and sell their goods on a level playing field. Whether it's CPTPP or if we can come up with something that is commensurate and compelling enough to the members or the important trading members even outside of CPTPP. But something compelling, then we're going to be looking from the outside in, and that is unfortunate for American workers.

Jim Lindsay:

Let's sort of shift gears and talk about International Financial Institutions or IFIs. How would you assess the Biden administration's foreign policy for middle class approach to the IFIs?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think that at the beginning, this was something very important to the administration. We were going to reassert American leadership. We had allowed China to increasingly gain influence in the IFIs, the IMF, the World Bank, other institutions and that we were going to regain that leadership. It was something that President Trump really didn't care a lot about, but president Biden did. At the beginning, we actually came through pretty strong with the IMF and the rest of the world was largely in support of a 650 billion SDR issuance to support countries during COVID and make sure that the IMF had the funds.

Jim Lindsay:

SDR is a Special Drawing Right?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Correct-

Jim Lindsay:

I'm not going to ask you to explain SDR, it's a bit complicated.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Yes, Special Drawing Rights, SDRs are complicated. But they're basically the IMFs reserve currency. It's made up of a basket of reserve currencies and they are held by central banks, that's sort of their defining feature. And that 650 billion new issue of these SDRs was meant to provide a funding buffer, so the IMF could provide emergency economic support to poor countries that were in distress due to COVID-19. This is something that Trump administration had opposed, other countries were on board. Many of the IMFs other members really wanted to provide this additional SDR issue and it had significant support. Biden actually came in and was able to deliver where Trump said that he was not going to follow through with this.

Jim Lindsay:

What about appointments to the various, IFIs, the IMF, the World Bank, I guess we could also throw in the World Trade Organization. Well, I mean what I've often heard people say is that China has been very successful at these organizations because they show up, they show up in great numbers, they work really hard and unfortunately for a number of years, American diplomats haven't been showing up. Has that changed under the Biden administration?

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

That is one of the failings. I think that we talked about this in the piece, that it has not shown interest in pursuing WTO reform. But more importantly, there are appointments that are within institutions that are management slots that are traditionally European or American or non-European, non-American. We had a number two position come up at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EBRD and we just passed on it. Didn't discuss it, nobody was put up for it, it went unaddressed. We can't just let vacancies go by, we have to prioritize that we're going to fill those vacancies. We left a lot of vacancies in the treasury department, in the international area, on the boards of these institutions.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

They were really not prioritized in the least and I think these institutions are incredibly important in tackling Chinese intransigence on providing debt relief to poor countries and this is at the G20 in particular. It's been a real struggle, and so you need to have senior administration weigh in at the table within these institutions to be able to promote the interest and make sure that you do get the Chinese to actually live up to its word, live up to the words of the institutions and the commitments and make sure that we take the slots that we're supposed to fill and actually pay attention. You are absolutely right, Beijing is extremely, it has some extremely talented professionals that it has inside many of the MDBs, many of the IFIs and the US needs to take this more seriously if we're going to attend to the institutions we help create.

Jim Lindsay:

Heidi, why do you think it's the case that the Biden administration hasn't moved aggressively in terms of making these nominations? After all the president came into office saying essentially China is job one in foreign policy, the president has deep roots in foreign policy, he's surrounded by a lot of people who also have deep roots in foreign policy, they're experienced people. They know that these positions matter, but they're not filling them.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think it's a very valid question to ask, and I don't think that there are good answers. I think that you can point the finger at Congress certainly for delaying the approval, the confirmation of some of these positions. But I also think that some important positions, the nominations were not even made until early this year for senior treasury positions and I think that is something where we have to do some real thinking about if we're going to talk about prioritizing leadership, that we need to live up to that.

Jim Lindsay:

What about on the trade side? Many people in the administration were big supporters of TPP back when it was TPP, during the Obama administration. Now it appears no one in the administration wants to say a kind word about TPP or the successor name CPTPP.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Probably because it's hard to say it too.

Jim Lindsay:

It probably doesn't help, but again if you look at public opinion poll data, it shows that trade is more popular now with the American public than it's ever been. That's not true, just of the American public writ large. It's true of the Democratic Party. Yet we don't even see the president making a real strong case for why trade is important to the success of American workers in addressing the point that you make very well in your article, which is that if we let ourselves be shut out of the trade system, the people who are going to be hurt by that are American workers.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think that would be the ultimate own goal. Actually, we've shunned even the mention of free trade or investment agreements and specifically any discussion of re-engaging with the CPTPP. But even if we decide collectively that particular trade agreement is something that we're not even going to discuss, then let's come up with something that we put on the table that actually is meaty and actually goes to what many Asian countries are actually asking us to do. They want us to reengage, but they want it to be meaningful. Trade and investment and focusing on standards and digital trade as well, that's crucial. We need to be able to have agreements that when you're negotiating, you have to be prepared to give, in order to get. But you do that with labor at the table, and you do that with environmental groups at the table. You make sure that you live up to your own standards that you set for yourself, but you have to start the conversation.

Jim Lindsay:

Well, I think it's an important point, Heidi. Because it seems to me that the ingredients are there to build a pro-worker, pro-America trade policy that brings together unions, that brings together environmentalists. But again, I don't see much of an effort being made on that front, and there seems to be this assumption that runs through trade discussions. That trade is something that we do as a favor to others, rather than because it advances our own security interest, but also our own economic interest. There are an awful lot of Americans whose jobs depend upon being able to sell to other countries.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I completely agree. I mean, we made the case in this piece that as the most attractive market economy in the world, we can use these trade agreements and the negotiations to actually get countries to change their standards and their norms. But you have to be able to put something on the table for that, and again you can do that with labor and environmental groups there with you. I think that was a promise and it's a valid point that we need to have those groups ensure that we don't make the kind of mistakes. We've made mistakes in the past, make sure we don't make them in the future.

Jim Lindsay:

Heidi, do you think that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be the impetus to changing the way the Biden administration approaches these issues? I would note there's been remarkable cooperation among the West in response to the Russian invasion. At the same time, many countries have been taken aback by China's support for the Russian invasion, intensifying concerns about what China's long term intentions are not just in East Asia or South Asia, but globally.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Well, I would say actually in the work that Biden and the administration did, building up these alliances and investing so heartily in working, in particular the Europeans, we were incredibly well-positioned to advance a collective approach to Russian aggression against Ukraine and we used unprecedented sanctions and economic tools and had a united front that was quite a few months in the making. I think the work that was done through the Trade Technology Council, it had export controls, investment security, sanctions coordinations. There were a lot of different parts of that and we also saw the signs coming from energy. Energy prices that were shooting up in the run up to the invasion, we were able to work with Europeans on trying to make a more robust energy security policy, where I think this is and you just highlighted it.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

I think the big opportunity for the Biden administration and actually for all of our partners and allies, is that China's pro-Russian neutrality or its friendship without limits with Russia throughout and still to this day, offers an opportunity for the US to really reassert the leadership that it needs to. It has a long way to play out, but that is the big opportunity. China's willingness to stick by Russia to this day leaves it with the potential of having downside risks from the rest of the major economies in the world as this continues to play out. It's really I think, an opportunity for the United States and for many of our allies and partners to deepen our cooperation and make sure that we act in concert with the challenge of China.

Jim Lindsay:

On that note, I'll close up The President's Inbox for this week. My guest has been Heidi Crebo-Rediker, adjunct senior fellow at CFR. Heidi, thank you for joining me.

Heidi Crebo-Rediker:

Thank you for having me, good to talk.

Jim Lindsay:

Please subscribe to The President's Inbox in Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen and leave us a review they help us get noticed and improve the show. You can find the books and articles mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on cfr.org. As always, opinions expressed in The President's Inbox are solely those are the hosts or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's episode was produced by Zoe Collis, with senior producer, Jeremy Sherlock. This is the last episode in which Jeremy will be serving as the senior producer, as he is taking on other responsibilities at the council. Jeremy has been with TPI from the start, that's more than 250 episodes. Throughout it all, Jeremy has been an indispensable source of inspiration, guidance and support. The blow of losing him is softened by the fact that we will continue to be colleagues. Markus Zakaria was our recording engineer, thank you, Marcus. Special thanks go out to Margaret Gach her assistance. This is Jim Lindsay, thanks for listening.