You don't raise taxes during a recession

[Ignignokt]

also, some of you forget. Mercantillism has been around for a long time. The founders rebelled against mercantillism and corporations. Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations was written late in the 18th century. By the beggining of the nineteenth century, statist govts in prussia and europe were already experimenting with anti capitalist, pro statist forms of govt. The American elite just mimicked everything that was in vogue in Europe so you had the Whig Party introduce things as a centralized National bank, public works, strong Federal powers etc. \

[ElNono]

The cartel price fixing examples you provided have already happened in the 19th century, but the market penalized those..

Obviously there would have been no Sherman Act if 'the market penalized those'.

Alex Epstein (good read, thanks) makes his case not for 'laissez faire capitalism', but to dispel the notion that oligopolies and monopolies that have been product of capitalism should be outlawed. If anything, he makes the case I mentioned earlier that Standard Oil couldn't obtain market dominance by just streamlining production, but also had to include buy-outs and rebates as part of their overall strategy for market dominance (With Epstein making a case for Rockefeller earning his rebates as opposed to using his 90% market share to leverage for better deals. 100 years later, it's still debatable).

Fact remains that when you have a company with a 90% market share, compe ion is basically nonexistent. Epstein doesn't even try to rebuke that compe ion was impossible with the system Rockefeller ultimately built. He just praises it for it's efficiency.

You'll find economists from both sides of the aisle argue about oligopolies and monopolies being 'good' or 'necessary' part of the free-market. A guy like Alan Greenspan was outspoken against the Sherman Act.

I think the more accurate question would be whether those oligopolies and monopolies are good for the consumers. Considering the eradication of compe ion, I'm not sold that they are.

[ElNono]

The founders rebelled against mercantillism and corporations. Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations was written late in the 18th century.

Let's be accurate here. While Adam Smith and the likes of Locke were certainly major players in the anti-mercantilism movement, another founding father like Alexander Hamilton was a mercantilism fanboy.

Also, even Smith recognized the protection of certain industries in the short term provided long term benefits (he ended up praising the 1650-1660 Navigation Acts, even after pointing out they had a cost to British consumers).

[ElNono]

Lastly, I want to add that the term "Mercantilism" has varied pretty wildly in it's meaning since the 18th century. Some people erroneously equate old-time Mercantilism with some of the economic doctrines posed by Keynes. While some points do overlap (ie: government intervention in the economy as necessary), some others do not (ie: a balanced trade sheet is important, and something that's been actively monitored since the 1930's).

Obviously, if you subscribe to the Austrian school of economics, which can talk a lot but can't seem to find the math to make their case, odds are you think everything is just the same.

[Ignignokt]

Obviously there would have been no Sherman Act if 'the market penalized those'.

Alex Epstein (good read, thanks) makes his case not for 'laissez faire capitalism', but to dispel the notion that oligopolies and monopolies that have been product of capitalism should be outlawed. If anything, he makes the case I mentioned earlier that Standard Oil couldn't obtain market dominance by just streamlining production, but also had to include buy-outs and rebates as part of their overall strategy for market dominance (With Epstein making a case for Rockefeller earning his rebates as opposed to using his 90% market share to leverage for better deals. 100 years later, it's still debatable).

Fact remains that when you have a company with a 90% market share, compe ion is basically nonexistent. Epstein doesn't even try to rebuke that compe ion was impossible with the system Rockefeller ultimately built. He just praises it for it's efficiency.

You'll find economists from both sides of the aisle argue about oligopolies and monopolies being 'good' or 'necessary' part of the free-market. A guy like Alan Greenspan was outspoken against the Sherman Act.

I think the more accurate question would be whether those oligopolies and monopolies are good for the consumers. Considering the eradication of compe ion, I'm not sold that they are.

You're idea of free markets is lacking. So long as the means of gaining market power are voluntary, and is not fraudulent or coercive it is a just transaction.

He did more than argue for the legitimacy of oligopolies and monopolies. He distinguished the difference between market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs, which he also distinguishes merit based monopolies compared to state sanctioned monopolies. He even provided reason as to why merit based monopolies are better for the consumer, he provided the whole Standard oil ascent as an example of how a product on the market was made cheaper because of vertical integration and efficiency.


Also, you point out a logical fallacy here. The sherman act was passed because it gives govt power to punish buisiness. Buisinessemen can be punished for being efficient, profitable and exceptional. That's the folly of the sherman act. It's that it's not objective, the application of the law is subjective and can be abused. Just look how Ida Tarbell helped the passage of this law and Sun Oil benefitted. It doesn't help that Ida Tarbell was related to the higher ups of Sun Oil.

And just because alan greenspan was against the sherman act, doesn't discredit my argument. He was also for monetary control and the federal reserve. Is Alan Greenspan all of the sudden a barometer for everything on what not to do? Obviously not.

THe reason anti trust law is bad is because it's immoral. It's the fact that a judge can seize assets by his whim because the buisiness is "too" good. When microsoft had the nerve to provide free browsers, netscape took them to court and the judge levied sanctions. That's the folly of your system.

Also, the Austrian school might have valid reasons as to why they don't have formulas. I'm not versed in it. But, formulas don't mean when discussing markets seeing as individual behaviour in markets induce so many variables as to the thought of predicting futures of markets should be questioned as a valid science.

Hey look at me! I got formulas, in the meantime your standard of living is going to ! Take my ideas!


One thing can be for certain, austrian economics has not been practiced in america. What has been is Classical, Chicago School, and Keynesian. THe keynesians and the monetarist have ed it up, so to claim that either is more valid is preposterous.

Take for instance that the Keynesians were smoked by the austrians regarding;

1. Post WW2 economic expansion. The keynesians maintained that after the war, there would be a huge economic collapse because govt would cease to purchase large assets. The austrians argued that pent up savings due to a command economy would prove otherwise.

2. Stagflation, the keynesians were dumbfounded and couldn't explain stagflation in the 70's.

3. Properly predicting both dot com bubbles and the housing crash. The austrians were at the forefront of this phenomenae. Not that they needed formulas, but that common sense principles of sound money were being eggregiously violated.

[Ignignokt]

Lastly, I want to add that the term "Mercantilism" has varied pretty wildly in it's meaning since the 18th century. Some people erroneously equate old-time Mercantilism with some of the economic doctrines posed by Keynes. While some points do overlap (ie: government intervention in the economy as necessary), some others do not (ie: a balanced trade sheet is important, and something that's been actively monitored since the 1930's).

Obviously, if you subscribe to the Austrian school of economics, which can talk a lot but can't seem to find the math to make their case, odds are you think everything is just the same.

Govt sanctioned corporate monopolies or markets whether by monarchy in the 17th and 18th century, or through liberal democracies are all the same in cause and effect. The principle has not changed, merely the players. Time has shown that this relationship benefits the state and it's corporate lords over the consumer. In a true free market where corporations have no legal privelege, the corporation is at the mercy of the consumer. When there is no force favoring one side like you have in keynesian, socialism, mixed market monetarism, you have equal bargaining power. There is no mechanism by which force can be used to keep one out of the market and offering a cheaper more cost effective product.

[LnGrrrR]

Long post about various forms of monopolies

Actually a pretty decent post.

[Winehole23]

In a true free market where corporations have no legal privilege, the corporation is at the mercy of the consumer. When there is no force favoring one side like you have in keynesian, socialism, mixed market monetarism, you have equal bargaining power.

You've got something in common with the losers who claim true socialism has never been tried yet -- romantic allegiance to an Edenic state of nature, perhaps?

[Ignignokt]

You've got something in common with the losers who claim true socialism has never been tried yet -- romantic allegiance to an Edenic state of nature, perhaps?

Outside of the Wealth of nations. A scholar and systematic defense and support for free market capitalism has been around for only sixty years. the chicago school and the austrian school are recent phenomenae and for the past 200 yrs the west has been experimenting with secular statist social engineering of all sorts.

Ofcourse, nothing has changed. You still have collectivism, just that instead of the tribe, you have public will. Instead of kings, you have prime ministers, presidents, and Chancellor. Instead of nobles, you have legislators. But the transfer of wealth still lies behind one principle. "the common good". whether the common good be the crown, church, or society as a living organism etc, it's still the same. Those systems are an oppresor to the individual.

It's still seems as though society is too reliant on tribalism and collectivism. That's not fault of austrian economics. That's not to say that we're not gonna ever change. And that's not to say that it shouldn't be advocated.

[Winehole23]

And that's not to say that it shouldn't be advocated.

Hey, go for it.

[ElNono]

You're idea of free markets is lacking. So long as the means of gaining market power are voluntary, and is not fraudulent or coercive it is a just transaction.

Everyone's idea of what they free market is and how it should function is fundamentally different. There's no such thing as the big truth of the free market. You see it as this entire pure form, other people understand the free market to include certain controls. That's why there's various different schools of thought on economics from pretty much forever, and we're still having these discussions.

He did more than argue for the legitimacy of oligopolies and monopolies. He distinguished the difference between market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs, which he also distinguishes merit based monopolies compared to state sanctioned monopolies. He even provided reason as to why merit based monopolies are better for the consumer, he provided the whole Standard oil ascent as an example of how a product on the market was made cheaper because of vertical integration and efficiency.

I don't particularly like state-sanctioned monopolies any more than merit-based monopolies. The Standard Oil ascent included major compe ion and an incredible amount of business streamlining that was simply unseen at the time. That in itself is a great story. What followed, however, was a plethora of fairly well do ented shady deals (not by just Ida Tarbell). From not only obtaining rebates, but actually sanctioning compe ors (remember some of those contracts leaked, it wasn't some made up story) to sidestepping the Ohio ruling with the creation of s companies (or 'trusts').

Also, you point out a logical fallacy here. The sherman act was passed because it gives govt power to punish buisiness. Buisinessemen can be punished for being efficient, profitable and exceptional. That's the folly of the sherman act. It's that it's not objective, the application of the law is subjective and can be abused. Just look how Ida Tarbell helped the passage of this law and Sun Oil benefitted. It doesn't help that Ida Tarbell was related to the higher ups of Sun Oil.

Laws have always been abused. And I won't say the Sherman Act has not been abused before. But to argue that corporations, including Standard Oil, didn't use their dominant position to remove any type of compe ion is just absurd. I concur Ida Tarbell had a serious interest in Standard Oil's demise, and her commentary loses some credibility because of that. But that wasn't the sole source of historical information of Standard Oil. And I think that's where Alex Epstein really misses the boat. There's the DOJ allegations, the actual actions by the company, etc.

Here's a different view at Standard Oil's market dominance and how it was achieved, including some of the stuff they did to keep that dominance:
http://books.google.com/books?id=htQ...page&q&f=false

And just because alan greenspan was against the sherman act, doesn't discredit my argument. He was also for monetary control and the federal reserve. Is Alan Greenspan all of the sudden a barometer for everything on what not to do? Obviously not.

I have no intention of discrediting any argument. You're en led to your opinion, as I'm en led to mine, and that's fine with me. I brought up Alan Greenspan as an example of somebody that's fairly contemporary and doesn't like the Sherman Act. As you and me, he has a different view of what the free market is or should be.

THe reason anti trust law is bad is because it's immoral. It's the fact that a judge can seize assets by his whim because the buisiness is "too" good. When microsoft had the nerve to provide free browsers, netscape took them to court and the judge levied sanctions. That's the folly of your system.

It's not 'my' system. My system would do away with government sanctioned monopolies too, among other things. And Microsoft didn't 'just' provide 'free' browsers. Netscape provided free browsers too. That's a grotesque oversimplification, and obviously not what Microsoft was in court for (which was leveraging their monopoly power in the OS to restrain compe ion in the browser market). Eventually, another panel of judges reversed the original decision and Microsoft decided to settle with the DOJ for what amounted to a slap in the wrist (compared to the remedies of the original decision, which called for a breakup).

Also, the Austrian school might have valid reasons as to why they don't have formulas. I'm not versed in it. But, formulas don't mean when discussing markets seeing as individual behaviour in markets induce so many variables as to the thought of predicting futures of markets should be questioned as a valid science.

I don't necessarily have a problem with people believing in faith-based economics. To each their own. I personally think that since Economics is a social science after all, it simply makes much more sense to go about it like you go about it with any other science: applying the scientific method, and gaining actual insight based on reproducible results. That's what sound science is normally built upon.

Hey look at me! I got formulas, in the meantime your standard of living is going to ! Take my ideas!

But that's not necessarily a bad thing in the scientific sense. It's part of making progress. The biggest criticism of Austrian economics is not just that they lack empirical evidence, but that some of their lead voices (ie: Boettke) actually advocate against using empirical data to create falsifiable theories, which really hurts them more than it hurts the 'mainstream'.

One thing can be for certain, austrian economics has not been practiced in america. What has been is Classical, Chicago School, and Keynesian. THe keynesians and the monetarist have ed it up, so to claim that either is more valid is preposterous.

Take for instance that the Keynesians were smoked by the austrians regarding;

1. Post WW2 economic expansion. The keynesians maintained that after the war, there would be a huge economic collapse because govt would cease to purchase large assets. The austrians argued that pent up savings due to a command economy would prove otherwise.

2. Stagflation, the keynesians were dumbfounded and couldn't explain stagflation in the 70's.

3. Properly predicting both dot com bubbles and the housing crash. The austrians were at the forefront of this phenomenae. Not that they needed formulas, but that common sense principles of sound money were being eggregiously violated.

But the Austrian economists had no problem opening their mouths either and coming up with rampant predictions that reality didn't match. The 'Business cycles' proposition by Mises-Hayek is simply false by any measurable standard.

Look, Austrian economics, much like other economics schools of thought, have good ideas (I think their inflation contribution is widely accepted to be spot on, and verifiable with empirical data), and not so good ideas. But as long as they're stuck being opposed to anything close to the scientific method, they're going to remain relatively irrelevant, and not widely adopted. And it's entirely their fault. Companies and Governments rely on a certain degree of empirical-based risk management, and as such, pure Austrian economics is pretty much useless to them.

[Winehole23]

Instead of nobles, you have legislators. But the transfer of wealth still lies behind one principle. "the common good". whether the common good be the crown, church, or society as a living organism etc, it's still the same. Those systems are an oppressor to the individual.

By definition, I would think. Are you an anarcho-capitalist?

[ElNono]

Govt sanctioned corporate monopolies or markets whether by monarchy in the 17th and 18th century, or through liberal democracies are all the same in cause and effect. The principle has not changed, merely the players. Time has shown that this relationship benefits the state and it's corporate lords over the consumer. In a true free market where corporations have no legal privelege, the corporation is at the mercy of the consumer. When there is no force favoring one side like you have in keynesian, socialism, mixed market monetarism, you have equal bargaining power. There is no mechanism by which force can be used to keep one out of the market and offering a cheaper more cost effective product.

I don't disagree about the cozy relationship of the state with certain corporate overlords, but at the same time I am realistic that states are not going to disappear, nor stop getting involved. I personally think there is a place for certain state structures like the justice system, and you can't tell me with a straight face that wouldn't have some economic effect to a fairly large degree. I mean, inter-Corporation disputes are as old as Corporations themselves.

[ElNono]

BTW, that booked I linked to is a pretty good read too if you're into that. I wish the whole chapter would be available online. Here's an Amazon link for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Market-Dominan.../dp/0275956040

It's a compendium of different authors.

[ElNono]

It's still seems as though society is too reliant on tribalism and collectivism.

One could argue that Corporations themselves are an expression of tribalism and collectivism.

[Winehole23]

I'm doubtful tribe and collective are synonymous and still less sure that the corporation -- a legal en y chartered by the state -- is aptly compared to them.

I guess corporations could be seen collectively as a sort of economic horde. Is that what you meant?

[ElNono]

I'm doubtful tribe and collective are synonymous and still less sure that the corporation -- a legal en y chartered by the state -- is aptly compared to them.

I guess corporations could be seen collectively as a sort of economic horde. Is that what you meant?

My interpretation of what gtown describes as collectivism or tribalism is the tendency of people to associate in order to empower the group over the individual. Now my interpretation could easily be incorrect, and I'm hoping gtown will correct me if that's the case.

[MannyIsGod]

You'll never have a "true" free market. Ever. Therefor, I have no interest in discussing what the effects of such an economic environment would be.

[boutons_deux]

Ignig and WC love to spew on academically about ideologies, principles, theories, fantasies.

So much easier than that looking at the real problems (not that I think there are any solutions).

[Ignignokt]

Everyone's idea of what they free market is and how it should function is fundamentally different. There's no such thing as the big truth of the free market. You see it as this entire pure form, other people understand the free market to include certain controls. That's why there's various different schools of thought on economics from pretty much forever, and we're still having these discussions.



I don't particularly like state-sanctioned monopolies any more than merit-based monopolies. The Standard Oil ascent included major compe ion and an incredible amount of business streamlining that was simply unseen at the time. That in itself is a great story. What followed, however, was a plethora of fairly well do ented shady deals (not by just Ida Tarbell). From not only obtaining rebates, but actually sanctioning compe ors (remember some of those contracts leaked, it wasn't some made up story) to sidestepping the Ohio ruling with the creation of s companies (or 'trusts').



Laws have always been abused. And I won't say the Sherman Act has not been abused before. But to argue that corporations, including Standard Oil, didn't use their dominant position to remove any type of compe ion is just absurd. I concur Ida Tarbell had a serious interest in Standard Oil's demise, and her commentary loses some credibility because of that. But that wasn't the sole source of historical information of Standard Oil. And I think that's where Alex Epstein really misses the boat. There's the DOJ allegations, the actual actions by the company, etc.

Here's a different view at Standard Oil's market dominance and how it was achieved, including some of the stuff they did to keep that dominance:
http://books.google.com/books?id=htQ...page&q&f=false



I have no intention of discrediting any argument. You're en led to your opinion, as I'm en led to mine, and that's fine with me. I brought up Alan Greenspan as an example of somebody that's fairly contemporary and doesn't like the Sherman Act. As you and me, he has a different view of what the free market is or should be.



It's not 'my' system. My system would do away with government sanctioned monopolies too, among other things. And Microsoft didn't 'just' provide 'free' browsers. Netscape provided free browsers too. That's a grotesque oversimplification, and obviously not what Microsoft was in court for (which was leveraging their monopoly power in the OS to restrain compe ion in the browser market). Eventually, another panel of judges reversed the original decision and Microsoft decided to settle with the DOJ for what amounted to a slap in the wrist (compared to the remedies of the original decision, which called for a breakup).



I don't necessarily have a problem with people believing in faith-based economics. To each their own. I personally think that since Economics is a social science after all, it simply makes much more sense to go about it like you go about it with any other science: applying the scientific method, and gaining actual insight based on reproducible results. That's what sound science is normally built upon.



But that's not necessarily a bad thing in the scientific sense. It's part of making progress. The biggest criticism of Austrian economics is not just that they lack empirical evidence, but that some of their lead voices (ie: Boettke) actually advocate against using empirical data to create falsifiable theories, which really hurts them more than it hurts the 'mainstream'.



But the Austrian economists had no problem opening their mouths either and coming up with rampant predictions that reality didn't match. The 'Business cycles' proposition by Mises-Hayek is simply false by any measurable standard.

Look, Austrian economics, much like other economics schools of thought, have good ideas (I think their inflation contribution is widely accepted to be spot on, and verifiable with empirical data), and not so good ideas. But as long as they're stuck being opposed to anything close to the scientific method, they're going to remain relatively irrelevant, and not widely adopted. And it's entirely their fault. Companies and Governments rely on a certain degree of empirical-based risk management, and as such, pure Austrian economics is pretty much useless to them.

Your slander that austrian economics is faith based is ingorant, petty, and with out substance. Keynesian empiricist based models aren't worth a damn either, since you can't empirically find truth if you ignore the five senses we've been given, and by that i mean historical examples.

What's funny is that you dispel the Business Cycle theory as being debunked but then you credit their inflation theory, further proof that you must be talking out of your own flawed premises or reading some partisan blog. Inflation theory and Business Cycle theory for austrian economics is the SAME THING. Credit expansion by govts and bankers leads to booms and then busts.

This has been demonstrated by history during the 90's, 2008, and WW1. To say that austrian economics relies on faith is simply false, when it relies on self evident axioms found through out history. Austrian economics is a history-senses built theory. What's funny is that other schools claim superiority with their empiricist models because of precision where there is none.

[Ignignokt]

You'll never have a "true" free market. Ever. Therefor, I have no interest in discussing what the effects of such an economic environment would be.

We'll never have a colorblind society or a truly tolerant society either, therefore it's pointless to talk about promoting tolerance...


The point in talking about free markets as compared to central planning is because one can find how central planning is the cause of most the ills it pruports to solve.

Take for instance urban sprawl, mass production, and lack of public transportation. While Europe was immuned to some of these effects of statist planning because for the large part, Europe's city infrastructure developed earlier than the advent of railroads and highways, america's iden y was changed.


When progressives and liberals about mass produced low quality low denominator products, they blame laisezz faire capitalism. They do the same for public transportation, and urban sprawl.

But what they don't get is that these afflictions on the american way of life came from the govt subsidies.

1. The subsidized railroads and highways systems made it beneficial for the paleotechnic methods of mass production stay in power and dominate over decentralized markets. Because these corporations didn't have to spend a dime for the roads they benefitted for mass importation, they were able to compete against local vendors on equal footing. Therefore the dawn of electric machinery which was predicted to bring about the age of local neighborhood warehouse and goods, was stalled because of the govt's subsidies of the railroads and highways.

2. The post office, and the subsidizing of telephone lines made living in the country just as cheap as living in the city. Without these subsidies, living in the country if not for agriculture would not be optimal. It would be cheaper to live in the city. Therefore you wouldn't have rampant urban sprawl.

[ElNono]

Your slander that austrian economics is faith based is ingorant, petty, and with out substance.

I actually have no problem with faith-based anything, including religion. My comment might come across as slanderous but it really isn't meant to be that. I simply subscribe to the scientific method.

I also believe I backed up why it's largely considered non-empirical and non-scientific, and thus relatively useless in the current world of economics.

Feel free to keep calling me names instead of providing a rebuttal with some actual substance...

Keynesian empiricist based models aren't worth a damn either, since you can't empirically find truth if you ignore the five senses we've been given, and by that i mean historical examples.

The question isn't who holds the 'entire truth', because there's no such thing at this point in time. There's no shame in being wrong trying to methodically find bits and pieces of that truth, regardless of which school of thought you're coming from. It's part of an evolutionary process that all sciences have to go through. Of course there's growing pains. That exists in every field.

What's really backwards is to claim to hold the entire truth but when asked to provide empirical evidence of the claim, turn around and provide none. That leaves you with just faith that what's postulated is correct.

What's funny is that you dispel the Business Cycle theory as being debunked but then you credit their inflation theory, further proof that you must be talking out of your own flawed premises or reading some partisan blog. Inflation theory and Business Cycle theory for austrian economics is the SAME THING. Credit expansion by govts and bankers leads to booms and then busts.

My source for their inflation is Mises' The Theory of Money and Credit (Part II, Chapter 7, Section 7). His argument being that inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply.
While Mises sets the foundation to the Business Cycle on the credit portion of this same book (Part III, Chapter 5, Section 5), it wasn't until Nobel laureate Hayek published his Prices and Production book where he elaborated and expanded on Mises' work to actually posit what's currently known as the Austrian Business Cycle Theory.

I own both books, BTW.

This has been demonstrated by history during the 90's, 2008, and WW1.

It actually has not. The history of the Austrian Business Cycle theory has a few turns. There's a long list of critics to the original theory (including Keynes obviously, Myrdal, Hicks too IIRC). In response to the criticism, Hayek turned around and reformulated his theory. More recently, especially after the 2008 bust, economists like Krugman argued that the theory indicates that consumption grows in an economic downturn (something not denied by Austrian backers), but empirical evidence simply shows that not to be the case. Mainstream economists largely regard that theory as simply false at this point (where they don't regard as such other Austrian contributions).

To say that austrian economics relies on faith is simply false, when it relies on self evident axioms found through out history. Austrian economics is a history-senses built theory. What's funny is that other schools claim superiority with their empiricist models because of precision where there is none.

That's not true at all, unless you're contending that mathematical advances in statistics and number crunching in general are useless when it comes to economy (a pretty ignorant position to be in, IMO).

Also, if such 'axioms found through out history' are so evident, there shouldn't be any reason not to express them in the realm of mathematics (logical and non-logical axiom constructs exists in modern mathematics) and build falsifiable theories upon them. Obviously, doing that exposes your theories to be potentially falsified, and thus proven wrong (or verified and proven correct)

[ElNono]

The point in talking about free markets as compared to central planning is because one can find how central planning is the cause of most the ills it pruports to solve.

Out of curiosity, since you cir scribed that to 'most' and not 'all', what do you think central planning does solve?