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Weekly Commentary: Turkey (Nudged Over the Cliff)

August 14, 2018

Weekly Commentary: Turkey (Nudged Over the Cliff)

The Turkish lira sank 13.7% in chaotic Friday trading. The lira’s 21.0% “worst week in 17 years” collapse pushed y-t-d losses to 41.1%. Turkish 10-year yields spiked to almost 21%, before retreating somewhat. After beginning the year at 155, Turkey sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) spiked 166 bps during Friday trading (up 199 bps for the week) to 437 bps (high since Feb. 2009).
EM Contagion Effects gained momentum this week. Friday trading saw the Argentine peso hit 3.8% and the South African rand sink 2.7%. For the week, the Argentine peso fell 6.6%, the South African rand 5.5%, the Brazilian real 4.0%, the Hungarian forint 2.2%, the Romanian leu 2.1%, the Polish zloty 2.2% and the Mexican peso 1.8%. On the (local) bond yield front, 10-year yields in Brazil jumped 66 bps, Russia 40 bps, Hungary 15 bps and South Africa 13 bps. As global “hot money” frets faltering liquidity and the next shoe to drop, Brazilian equities sank 5.9% (as Brazil sovereign CDS jumped 24 bps to 237 bps).

August 10 – Bloomberg (Lionel Laurent): “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been standing firm as investors dump his country’s assets at an alarming pace, saying: ‘They have got dollars, we have got our people, our right, our Allah.’ European banks with substantial investments in Turkey will hope some of that divine providence rubs off on them, too, after sticking with a bet that has gotten more perilous over time.”

Fears of contagion this week were not limited to the emerging markets. With significant exposure to Turkey, European bank stocks were slammed in Friday trading. Unicredit sank 4.7% and ING Groep fell 4.3%. The big German banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, dropped 4.1% and 3.5%. European Banks (STOXX600) fell 1.9% Friday.

August 10 – Financial Times (Claire Jones, Ayla Jean Yackley and Martin Arnold): “The eurozone’s chief financial watchdog has become concerned about the exposure of some of the currency area’s biggest lenders to Turkey – chiefly BBVA, UniCredit and BNP Paribas – in light of the lira’s dramatic fall…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“I’m Totally Freaked Out”: Brazil’s Elite Fleeing Bloodshed And Chaos

August 4, 2018

“I’m Totally Freaked Out”: Brazil’s Elite Fleeing Bloodshed And Chaos

Amid the economic, political, and social collapse, Brazil has been described by many as being in the midst of a “zombie apocalypse” as years of corruption and violence spectacularly implodes all at once.

Horrified by the out of control violence and pessimistic about the nation’s political and economic outlook, thousands of wealthy Brazilians are now fleeing the country.

Thiago Lacerda, a high-profile actor, is one of the thousands of celebrities, bankers, lawyers and affluent Brazilians considering emigration before the next round of turmoil.

“I’m totally freaked out by what’s been happening, especially here in Rio [Rio de Janeiro],” Mr. Lacerda told The Wall Street Journal.

The 40-year-old actor said he has considered moving his family to Europe for the safety of his three children. “In several years, they’re going to want to go out, to start dating, without worrying about getting shot.”

Naercio Menezes Filho, director of the center for public policy at Insper, a São Paulo business school, commented on the situation and pointed out — the elite fleeing the country is the newest trend amid the threat of gang violence and economic instability.

According to a study published in June by Brazilian polling agency Datafolh, about 52 percent of the wealthiest Brazilians — those with a monthly income of more than $2,500 — want to emigrate, while 56 percent of college graduates have plans on leaving the country.

“The hope that Brazilians once had in their country has gone out the window, and many people are now reaching the conclusion that things are unlikely to change in the next few years,” said Mr. Menezes Filho.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“EM FX Never Lies” – BofA Warns As Brazilian Real Is Routed

June 7, 2018

“EM FX Never Lies” – BofA Warns As Brazilian Real Is Routed

Mohamed El-Erian warned overnight that Brazilian policy makers are “in quite a tricky position — and there’s little room for error,” and judging buy this morning’s rout in the real, he is dead right.

Crippling nationwide trucker strikes, which prompted the resignation of Petrobras CEO, and forced Brazil and Argentina to roll back their planned fuel-price increases have, according to Bloomberg’s Davison Santana, undermined their already fragile currencies and deter investors eager for signs authorities are serious about putting fiscal accounts in order.

Brazil’s projected budget deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product stands at 7.4 percent, the highest among major emerging-market peers.

The gap, as El-Erian explained succinctly, leave government with a stark choice: keep borrowing or cut spending.

As Santana notes, borrowing more isn’t a healthy option. Higher deficits make currencies less attractive, leading to rising interest rates that reduce growth and erode government revenue in a cycle that ends up, you guessed it, swelling the deficit. Reining in spending typically makes more sense. That’s why it’s all the more remarkable that Brazil recently capitulated in their efforts to remove artificial price controls that kept fuel costs low. After all, it’s much harder to reduce spending while maintaining subsidies.

So where does this leave the real? It means authorities will have to keep intervening in currency markets, a costly use of foreign-exchange reserves that can only stop for good once the nations tackle their underlying fiscal problems. And indeed, after Brazil’s real tumbled to a two-year low on Tuesday, the government effectively tripled its support – which has already failed dismally.

A month ago we explained how critical the Brazilian Real is to identifying just when the Emerging Market turmoil will go viral.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazil Steps Up Intervention to Support the Real: Reflections on Currency Wars

June 6, 2018

Brazil Steps Up Intervention to Support the Real: Reflections on Currency Wars

Winning currency wars is easy. As with trade wars, one may not care for the end result.

Brazil’s central bank bolstered efforts to shore up the currency after it tumbled to the weakest level since former President Dilma Rousseff’s tumultuous impeachment in 2016.

The real has weakened 12 percent since the end of March, the worst performance among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg, as investors grow concerned that October elections could usher in a new president less attuned to investors and business. Fear that moves seen as key to fixing fiscal problems would be derailed have exacerbated what’s already been a lackluster year in emerging markets. The real fell 0.9 percent to 3.7791 per dollar as of 11:55 a.m. in New York, and earlier reached 3.8056, the weakest since March 2016.

Brazil Declares Currency War

Brazil has declared a fresh “currency war” on the US and Europe, extending a tax on foreign borrowings and threatening further capital controls in an effort to protect the country’s struggling manufacturers.

Guido Mantega, the finance minister who was the first to use the controversial term in 2010, said the government would not “sit by passively” as developed nations continue to pursue expansionary monetary policies at the expense of Brazil.

“When the real appreciates, it reduces our competitiveness. Exports are more expensive, imports are cheaper and it creates unfair competition for businesses in Brazil,” he said on Thursday after announcing changes to the so-called IOF tax.

What a Hoot

Note the irony. The Brazil currency war was really about trade.

This was my comment at the time: “Mathematically speaking, the desire for every country to be net exporters is impossible. Massive trade wars are on the horizon as a result.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazil and Mexico, 2017 Summaries

March 2, 2018

Brazil and Mexico, 2017 Summaries

Brazil had a fairly uneventful 2017 for C&C production. Overall production was up 4.5% at 957 mmbbls (114 kbpd average), but the December exit rate was down 4.5%, or 124 kbpd, at 2612 kbpd. There were only two new platforms with significant ramp-ups, and one of those went off line for a couple of months late in the year. The Libra (now Mero) extended test FPSO came on line in November but had achieved only 11 kbpd.

Pre-salt production exceeded 50% for the first time. It was 1356 kbpd, or 52%, in December compared to 1262, or 46%, for December 2016. There were 85 pre-salt wells up from 68, but average production for each had fallen from 19 kbpd to 16, which is as expected as they were drilled mostly on producing platforms.

Petrobras owned 94% of December production, with Statoil at 2.4% (63 kbpd) and Shell, from their BG purchase at 2.1% (57 kbpd); for 2016 the numbers were 94%, 2.1% and 2.0%.

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(Note that December water data wasn’t available at the time of writing so the water cut values have been assumed to be the same as November for the chart.)

Santos platforms increased overall, but some of the older ones may be showing signs of coming off plateau. Campos platforms declined and the rate may be increasing as the water cut growth is accelerating.

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This year will be a bit different as over 1 mmbpd of nameplate capacity is due to come on line, but it will be interesting to see how efficiently that amount of work is handled, and how far the ramp-up times might be limited by drill rig availability. If they add only another 20 odd wells then there is likely to be less than 400 kbpd new production. In addition reserve numbers for 2017 will come out in early April and the estimated Mero numbers will be important.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

“The People Live In Terror” – Military Intervention Imposed In Rio As Unrest Worsens

February 21, 2018

“The People Live In Terror” – Military Intervention Imposed In Rio As Unrest Worsens

Brazil’s Senate has overwhelmingly approved a military intervention in Rio de Janeiro that was first proposed by President Michel Temer last week – the latest step in the president’s crackdown on crime and social unrest ahead of a hotly contested local election coming later this year.

As we noted last week, Temer is ordering the military to restore order in the drug-ravaged streets of Rio in the largest intervention since Brazil’s return to Democracy in the mid-1980s. A collapse in public spending on social services has caused crime to reemerge in Brazil’s slums, spiking to levels unseen since 2009.

The decree, which was issued on Friday, had already passed the House, and the Senate vote was the final obstacle to a military takeover of the local police. However, per the AFP, while support for the crackdown is broad-based, it also has its critics: There is particular controversy over government calls for the army-led police to be able to serve mass search and arrest warrants in favelas.

In fact, the prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, who ran infamous anti-corruption operation car wash – which nearly ensnared Temer – said there’s no legal precedent or justification for such mass searches of favelas.

“The penal code does not authorize serving collective or generic search warrants. On the contrary, it demands the greatest possible precision in the homes being searched,” he tweeted.

Furthermore, there’s concern that the crackdown – which was inspired by a series of street robberies during Carnevale festivities in the city – will lead to abuse of the poorest most vulnerable citizens while doing little to address systemic problems like pervasive poverty and poor access to education.

However, the horrifying stories of the crime wave have helped rally popular support for the crackdown.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazil’s Largest Newspaper Abandons Facebook; Says News Feed is “Banning Professional Journalism”

February 17, 2018

Brazil’s Largest Newspaper Abandons Facebook; Says News Feed is “Banning Professional Journalism” 

São Paulo, Brazil— The largest newspaper in Brazil, Folha de S Paulo, announced late last week that due to Facebook’s recent changes to their news feed algorithm resulting in what the paper claims is “effectively banning professional journalism,” it would cease publishing content on the social media platform.

The Guardian reported that the popular Brazilian newspaper has an online and print subscription base of nearly 285,000 subscribers and had roughly 204 million page impressions last December, according to the Communication Verification Institute, a non-profit media auditor. The company’s Facebook page has nearly 6 million Facebook followers.

The executive editor of Fohla, Sérgio Dávila, told The Guardian that the paper’s decision reflected “the declining importance of Facebook to our readers,” but added that the recent algorithm changes to Facebook’s Newsfeed had precipitated the decision. The paper claimed the new algorithm “privilege[s] personal interaction contents, to the detriment of those distributed by companies, such as those that produce professional journalism.”

Only weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, announced that the company would be changing the algorithm used to determine what shows up in an individual’s Newsfeed to prioritize “meaningful social interactions” and posts by friends, and “trusted” news sources.

Folha noted that the choice to abandon Facebook was “a reflection of internal discussions about the best ways to get the content of the newspaper to reach its readers. The disadvantages of using Facebook as a path to this distribution became more evident after the social network’s decision to reduce the visibility of professional journalism on its users’ pages.”

A separate report in Folha noted that the newspaper’s own analysis found that “fake news pages received five times the number of engagements that professional journalism received” during the month of January.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Brazilian Army Ordered To “Restore Order” In Rio De Janeiro

February 16, 2018

Brazilian Army Ordered To “Restore Order” In Rio De Janeiro

With public spending on police and social services collapsing amid Brazil’s worsening economic crisis, violent crime has crept back up in Rio de Janeiro, a city widely recognized for its favelas – urban hillside slums teeming with violence, drugs and prostitution, according to Bloomberg.

And ahead of an October election where President Michel Temer will try to win his first full term in office, the president is trying to send in the army to seize control of the city’s streets and restore order to an increasingly lawless town.

President Michel Temer issued a decree on Friday putting an Army general in charge of Rio’s security forces, including the state’s civilian police. The intervention, which requires congressional approval, will last until the end of the year, according to the decree.

“Our prisons will no longer be offices for thieves, our public squares party halls for organized crime,” Temer said after signing the decree.

“I know it’s an extreme measure but many times Brazil requires extreme measures to put things in order.”

But as is often the case with Brazilian politics, Temer has a plausible ulterior motive: By sending in the army, he might create enough of a distraction to avoid voting on an unpopular pension bill because Brazilian law conveniently prohibits making constitutional changes during times of military crisis.

Temer told Reuters that the intervention wouldn’t halt negotiations over pension reform or stop a vote on the plan, which is deeply unpopular with the country’s retirees, who stand to see their benefits cut.

Meanwhile, crime in the city has erased nearly a decade of progress, climbing back to its highest level since 2009. Temer’s decision is the first time the military has intervened in public affairs since the former military dictatorship ended in the mid-1980s and the country returned to democracy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

OUTBREAK ALERT: Yellow Fever Death Toll Triples In Brazil

January 26, 2018

OUTBREAK ALERT: Yellow Fever Death Toll Triples In Brazil

mosquito

The yellow fever outbreak in Brazil has taken a backseat to the flu outbreak spreading globally.  But, the death toll from yellow fever has now tripled and travelers are being warned.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday there are 35 confirmed cases of the disease, including a case confirmed in the Netherlands for a traveler who had recently visited Sao Paulo state. Sao Paulo even closed its zoo and botanical gardens Tuesday as the yellow fever outbreak that has led to 70 deaths is picking up steam.

The big Inhotim art park, which attracts visitors from all over the world, also announced that all visitors would have to show proof of yellow fever vaccination to be allowed to enter. The park said the measure was preventative only and that so far, no case of yellow fever had been found there.

Yellow fever is a potentially life-threatening viral disease that is transmitted to people by the bite of an infected mosquito. Yellow fever is a very rare cause of illness in U.S. travelers. The degree of sickness ranges in severity from a self-limited febrile illness to severe liver disease with bleeding, and even death. The virus has killed 20 people since July.

Health officials have said the disease could quickly spread and become an epidemic in crowded areas, but immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci told Daily Mail Online that getting the yellow fever shot is the best way to prevent travel-related cases of yellow fever. Brazilians stood in lines for hours to get yellow fever vaccinations in the country’s largest states, including Sao Paulo, last week.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

First France, Now Brazil Unveils Plans to Empower the Government to Censor the Internet in the Name of Stopping “Fake News”

January 10, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at a press conference at the French Embassy in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, the official Twitter account of Brazil’s Federal Police (its FBI equivalent) posted an extraordinary announcement. The bureaucratically nonchalant tone it used belied its significance. The tweet, at its core, purports to vest in the federal police and the federal government that oversees it the power to regulate, control and outright censor political content on the internet that is assessed to be “false,” and to “punish” those who disseminate it. The new power would cover both social media posts and entire websites devoted to politics.

“In the next few days, the Federal Police will begin activities in Brasília [the nation’s capital] by a specially formed group to combat false news during the [upcoming 2018 presidential] election process,” the official police tweet stated. It added: “the measures are intended to identify and punish the authors of ‘fake news’ for or against candidates.” Top police officials told media outlets that their working group would include representatives of the judiciary’s election branch and leading prosecutors, though one of the key judicial figures involved is the highly controversial right-wing Supreme Court judge, Gilmar Mendes, who has long blurred judicial authority with his political activism.

Among the most confounding aspects of the Twitter announcement is that it is very difficult to identify any existing law that actually authorizes the federal police to exercise the powers they just announced they intend to wield, particularly over the internet. At least as of now, they are claiming for themselves one of the most extremist powers imaginable – the right of the government to control and suppress political content on the internet during an election – with no legal framework to define its parameters or furnish safeguards against abuse.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Continues Obama’s Wars Against Democracy

December 10, 2017

Trump Continues Obama’s Wars Against Democracy

Trump Continues Obama’s Wars Against Democracy

US President Trump’s bold support for the apartheid dictatorship of Israel against that theocratic-racist nation’s non-Jews, fits into a larger picture of the supremacist nation that America itself has increasingly become. His immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, had repeatedly referred to the United States as being the only indispensable nation — that all others are “dispensable” — such as when President Obama addressed America’s future military leaders, at West Point, on 28 May 2014, by telling them:

The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world.

He was telling the military that America’s economic competition, against the BRICS nations, is a key matter for America’s military, and not only for America’s private corporations; that US taxpayers fund America’s military at least partially in order to impose the wills and extend the wealth of the stockholders in America’s corporations abroad; and that the countries against which America is in economic competition are “dispensable” but America “is and remains the one indispensable nation.” This, supposedly, also authorizes America’s weapons and troops to fight against countries whose “governments seek a greater say in global forums.” In other words: Stop the growing economies from growing faster than America’s. There is another name for the American Government’s supremacist ideology. This term is “fascism.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia, China and BRICS: A New Gold Trading Network

December 2, 2017

Russia, China and BRICS: A New Gold Trading Network

One of the most notable events in Russia’s precious metals market calendar is the annual “Russian Bullion Market” conference. Formerly known as the Russian Bullion Awards, this conference, now in its 10th year, took place this year on Friday 24 November in Moscow. Among the speakers lined up, the most notable inclusion was probably Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia.

In his speech, Shvetsov provided an update on an important development involving the Russian central bank in the worldwide gold market, and gave further insight into the continued importance of physical gold to the long term economic and strategic interests of the Russian Federation.

Firstly, in his speech Shvetsov confirmed that the BRICS group of countries are now in discussions to establish their own gold trading system. As a reminder, the 5 BRICS countries comprise the Russian Federation, China, India, South Africa and Brazil.

Four of these nations are among the world’s major gold producers, namely, China, Russia, South Africa and Brazil. Furthermore, two of these nations are the world’s two largest importers and consumers of physical gold, namely, China and Russia. So what these economies have in common is that they all major players in the global physical gold market.

Shvetsov envisages the new gold trading system evolving via bilateral connections between the BRICS member countries, and as a first step Shvetsov reaffirmed that the Bank of Russia has now signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China (see below) on developing a joint trading system for gold, and that the first implementation steps in this project will begin in 2018.

Interestingly, the Bank of Russia first deputy chairman also discounted the traditional dominance of London and Switzerland in the gold market, saying that London and the Swiss trading operations are becoming less relevant in today’s world. He also alluded to new gold pricing benchmarks arising out of this BRICS gold trading cooperation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Recent Production: Colombia, Mexico and Brazil

October 18, 2017

Recent Production: Colombia, Mexico and Brazil

Colombia

Colombia production is holding a plateau over the past year after a large decline in the last part of 2015 and first half of 2016. August value was 858 kbpd (down 0.04% y-o-y).

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Colombia oil reserves at the end of 2016 were 1.66 Gb (down 16.8% from 2 Gb in 2015 which followed a drop from 2.31 Gb in 2014). At the average 2016 production rate of 885 kbpd this gave an R/P of 5.1 years, the lowest for any significant producing country. Most of their production is heavy oil. Ecoptrol, which accounts for more than three quarters of Colombia’s crude and natural gas reserves and output, estimated about 45% of their decline was due to the “pronounced fall in oil prices”.

Individual field production is reported through the Colombian hydrocarbon agency (ANH), but data is only available to June. The previous decline mainly seems to have come from the many smaller fields (there are almost 500 total producing fields listed for 2017) and the largest one, Rubales. A few smaller fields were added in 2015, but the main cause of the plateau seems to be an arrest of the previous declines in the mature fields. Some of that may have been to do with the cessation of insurgent sabotage on pipelines.

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It’s unlikely they will be able to maintain a plateau without new discoveries. Exploration has dropped significantly in the last couple of years; Anadarko has been one of the few companies to maintain some activity but they only found gas and the latest news from them would appear to indicate they are going to use money for share buybacks rather than expansion. Even EcoPetrol look more interested in opportunities abroad (e.g. offshore Mexico).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Brazil Be the Next Hotspot for Independence Movements?

October 5, 2017

Will Brazil Be the Next Hotspot for Independence Movements?

If you’ve read my work over the past several weeks, you’ve probably noticed an increased fascination with secession/independence movements around the world. I think we’re at the very early stages of this developing trend, which will see nation-states across the world fracture for a variety of reasons. The historical significance of the political changes we’re about to live through cannot be overstated. As I wrote in last month’s piece, The Future Will Be Decentralized:

To conclude, I recognize that I’m making a huge call here. I think the way human beings organize their affairs will experience the most significant paradigm level shift we’ve seen in the Western world since the end of the European feudal system hundreds of years ago. That’s how significant I think this shift will be. There are two key things that need to happen for this to occur. The first is technological innovation, and that’s already happening. The second is increased human consciousness. As Thoreau noted, in order for us to have greater self-determination we need to be ready for it. Are we ready? I think we’re getting there.

While extremely significant, the Catalan independence movement is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a global drive toward political decentralization. For example, just today I came across another potential secessionist hotspot in an unexpected place, Brazil.

Bloomberg reports:

Inspired by the separatist vote in Catalonia, secessionists in three wealthy southern Brazilian states are redoubling their efforts to break away from the crisis-battered nation.

Residents of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana states are being called to vote in an informal plebiscite on Oct. 7 on whether they want independence. Organizers are also urging residents of the three states to sign a legislative proposal for each of their regional assemblies that would call for a formal, binding referendum. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak oil in Latin America

September 11, 2017

Peak oil in Latin America

This post is using mainly BP’s Statistical Review published in June 2017. Although these statistics put Mexico under North America, it is included here and added to South and Central America’s data at the end of this article. We start with 2 big oil suppliers: Brazil and Venezuela.

Brazil_oil_prod_cons_biofuels_1965-2016Fig 1: Brazil’s oil production, net imports and bio fuels

Brazil’s oil production (crude plus NGLs) has not yet peaked. BP’s consumption data include bio fuels which are a very important contributor to liquid supplies (data taken from EIA’s international energy statistics). We can see that net oil imports have been reduced and even turned into net exports (145 kb/d in 2016) by using biofuels (ethanol and bio diesel, around 560 kb/d in 2016).

Venezuela_oil_production_vs_consumption_1965-2016Fig 2: Venezuela’s oil production and net exports

Venezuela’s oil production peaked in the 70s and more recently in 2006. Conventional oil fields in Maracaibo peaked in 1997 while extra heavy oil production from the Orinoco belt cannot offset that decline. Low oil prices have worsened this situation. The impact on the economy is devastating as can be seen in media reports every day. They usually blame Maduro’s socialist government for this malaise but rarely mention the oil geological problems. A separate article on this is under preparation. Since 2006, Venezuelan production declined by 930 kb/d, more than Brazil’s growth of 800 kb/d in the same period. Recent monthly data from JODI show these different trends. Venezuela’s sharp drop in 2003 was caused by a PDVSA strike. Can that happen again?

Brazil_vs_Venezuela_crude_2002-Jun2017Fig 3: Brazil vs Venezuela monthly crude production

In its August 2017 oil market report the IEA showed declining exports from Venezuela.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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