# Democrats Leaving Party Over "Socialism" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 28, 2019, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651 "2019-03-28T07:39:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/121 "2019-04-16T02:54:49Z")
So, it turns out that all these grasping and greedy gremlins are toiling, night and day, for _our_ benefit! They are _our_ slaves, rather than the other way round! Dumb fucks, we sure outsmarted _them!_ ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/122 "2019-04-16T03:32:16Z")
It is kind of weird when folks say that what they _claim_ doesn’t matter then when you ask how you know they’re Socialists, they reply “They say so.”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/123 "2019-04-16T04:17:11Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Innovation doesn’t come from throwing more money at a few people. Sounds like a good argument for having innovation money awarded to many different people with different ideas competing for government research funding, rather than mostly accumulating in the pockets of a tiny elite of megalomaniac multibillionaire entrepreneurs. You can’t simultaneously worship at the shrine of that tiny elite and also declare that excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a few stifles innovation. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > A world where every idea has to be approved by a large committee or a government body is a world where innovation stops cold. This is just standard libertarian repetition of dogmatic pieties largely untouched by reality. For one thing, nobody’s proposing a world where **every** idea has to be approved by a large committee or a government body, and for another, large committees and government bodies have frequently approved some amazingly innovative ideas. ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/124 "2019-04-16T10:41:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This is actually the best thing about billionaires - they provide alternate pathways for aid, research, etc. > > Elon Musk felt that reusable rockets were the way to go. NASA disagreed. They abandoned reusability with the DC-X for political reasons, and nothing on their roadmap was going to bring us back there. > > Left to NASA and it’s big industrial cost-plus corporate partners, we’d be flying rockets once every year or two for a billion dollars per flight, which would likely stick us in low earth or it forever, with maybe a ‘flags and footprints’ mission or two to the moon or elsewhere, Thanks to a billionaire who didn’t have to answer to Congress and its pork-driven members, we now know that reusability works, and it will lower the cost of space by an order of magnitude or more. That is worth far more to the world than a hundred times Musk’s own fortune. What you fail to note though in this particular instance, it was because of NASA [program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services) that SpaceX could come into being. Also, a lot of the money for ventures by Elon Musk is from the [government](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html).Who knows if left to his own devices he would have invested time and effort into his current ventures? And while the advancement of science is certainly a worthy goal, as well as is deciding to help people in Africa in a way that a particular billionaire thinks is best, it does not address the fact that there were about [15 million people](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx) in the US that were food insecure. There is also no guarantee that they will continue to be charitable, or that others who benefit from the large income inequality that exist will take up their mantle after they are gone. //i\ ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/125 "2019-04-16T11:20:42Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This is actually the best thing about billionaires - they provide alternate pathways for aid, research, etc. > > Elon Musk felt that reusable rockets were the way to go. NASA disagreed. They abandoned reusability with the DC-X for political reasons, and nothing on their roadmap was going to bring us back there. > > Left to NASA and it’s big industrial cost-plus corporate partners, we’d be flying rockets once every year or two for a billion dollars per flight, which would likely stick us in low earth or it forever, with maybe a ‘flags and footprints’ mission or two to the moon or elsewhere, Thanks to a billionaire who didn’t have to answer to Congress and its pork-driven members, we now know that reusability works, and it will lower the cost of space by an order of magnitude or more. That is worth far more to the world than a hundred times Musk’s own fortune. > > Paul Allen invested in breakthrough listen and the Allen Telescope Array, which is doing SETI work a risk-averse congress wouldn’t fund. Sergei Brin and others are investing billions into solving diseases related to aging, and aging itself. Branson is investing in space tourism and cheap satellite launch and Bigelow is building inflatable habitats, one of which is on the ISS now.And of course, the whole of Silicon Valley is built on venture capital. Where do you think that capital came from? It came from very wealthy people who didn’t have to give 90% of their money to the government. > > In terms of foreign aid, governments have been spending billions on aid to Africa with very little to show for it. The Gates foundation has probably done as much for the poor in Africa on a fraction of the budget. But what is really helping Africa and other developing nations isn’t foreign aid but the liberalizing of markets and property rights, allowing people to rise up on their own. > > Innovation doesn’t come from throwing more money at a few people. Innovation comes from many independent people exploring what Stuart Kaufmann calls ‘the adjacent possible’ - the unexplored areas enabled by the last round of invention. This is the true value of diversity - having many different people with different experiences and backgrounds and knowledge freely going where their ideas take them. That’s why capitalist economies innovate so rapidly, and why China is forced to steal the technology its big government research outfits can’t figure out. > > Another reason you need the rich is as early adopters, to provide a market for technologies that are currently too expensive for the masses. Without Gordon Gekkos to fund the early very expensive days of cell phones, we might never have developed the cheap phones we all use now. Airbags, ABS brakes, stability control… all of these were extremely expensive when they first arrived. Almost all came out of the luxury car market, because only wealthy people could afford $5,000 for ABS. But now everyone has it. > > A world in which there are only average people and no wealthy people is a world where all expensive products stop being made, and it’s those products that eventually improve the products we all use. A world where every idea has to be approved by a large committee or a government body is a world where innovation stops cold. No matter how much money is thrown around by government to ‘stimulate’ research. All of that is well and good - the existence of rich people isn’t a problem. They can do what they want with the money that they have left over from taxation, and I’m sure they could do good things with that money. Trimming their wealth down from $100 billion in net worth to $50 billion in net worth isn’t going to be much of a burden. That’s true even if you reduce their wealth down to $25 billion. There comes a point when the money doesn’t matter anymore. Having a system of economic redistribution is necessary to free up more capital so that it is spread throughout the economy more evenly and so that more people can participate in the economic activity. We have 80% of the country living paycheck to paycheck. That limits their financial decision making. That limits their financial freedom, and you could even argue that it limits their personal freedom. If someone is spending a total of 60-70 hours a week either at work or traveling to and from work just to get barely get by, they aren’t really all that “free” We can have billionaires, but they should coexist with a healthier and more vibrant middle class ---
**Author:** ![Poto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ab992/32.png) [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/126 "2019-04-16T11:24:41Z")
Yeah this is not relevant. The Republican party gets smaller and smaller. I think people will see the presidential candidate for leadership skills, not so much left right stuff. The president will sign whatever bills the Democratic congress can pass. If the Senate stays Republican in 2020, the fear of “socialism” is ridiculous. They will fix healthcare and it will just be an expanded Obamacare with subsidies. Medicare for all is down the road, maybe 8 years. ---
**Author:** ![SOJA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@SOJA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SOJA)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/127 "2019-04-16T11:40:09Z")
Older democrats are more moderate but the calls you get are likely some kind of astroturfing campaign. Most of the older Dems I’ve spoken to, and I mean at least 70, tent to be repulsed by the GOP let alone Trump. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/128 "2019-04-16T11:43:17Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, it turns out that all these grasping and greedy gremlins are toiling, night and day, for _our_ benefit! They are _our_ slaves, rather than the other way round! Dumb fucks, we sure outsmarted _them!_ The money post of the thread.😃 ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/129 "2019-04-16T11:48:55Z")
> [@Poto](#): > > Yeah this is not relevant. The Republican party gets smaller and smaller. I think people will see the presidential candidate for leadership skills, not so much left right stuff. The president will sign whatever bills the Democratic congress can pass. If the Senate stays Republican in 2020, the fear of “socialism” is ridiculous. They will fix healthcare and it will just be an expanded Obamacare with subsidies. Medicare for all is down the road, maybe 8 years. I suspect this is probably where we’re headed not because it’s the best system but it’s the path that’s most politically expeditious and feasible. At least some republican governors and legislatures want federal money, and those that don’t are, well, rock fucking stupid, and risk turning red states purple as we saw in Louisiana and Kansas. Republicans can only fall on that sword so many times. Even so, this is not a great system because the healthcare system is still a patchwork and an expensive one at that. It would be better to overhaul the system and implement a full-on national health system that provides public hospitalization and insurance options and allows for private market solutions for those who want to pay for them. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/130 "2019-04-16T13:06:28Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Having a system of economic redistribution is necessary to free up more capital so that it is spread throughout the economy more evenly and so that more people can participate in the economic activity. We have 80% of the country living paycheck to paycheck. That limits their financial decision making. That limits their financial freedom, and you could even argue that it limits their personal freedom. If someone is spending a total of 60-70 hours a week either at work or traveling to and from work just to get barely get by, they aren’t really all that “free” If that 80% number is real, the 80th percentile household is making $130k/y. Which suggests the problem is with their decision making, not their lack of funds. Someone else having more money than me does not limit my freedom. If I want more money, I have the means to aquire it without legislating it away from other people. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/131 "2019-04-16T13:44:29Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This is actually the best thing about billionaires - they provide alternate pathways for aid, research, etc. > > Elon Musk felt that reusable rockets were the way to go. NASA disagreed. They abandoned reusability with the DC-X for political reasons, and nothing on their roadmap was going to bring us back there. > > Left to NASA and it’s big industrial cost-plus corporate partners, we’d be flying rockets once every year or two for a billion dollars per flight, which would likely stick us in low earth or it forever, with maybe a ‘flags and footprints’ mission or two to the moon or elsewhere, Thanks to a billionaire who didn’t have to answer to Congress and its pork-driven members, we now know that reusability works, and it will lower the cost of space by an order of magnitude or more. That is worth far more to the world than a hundred times Musk’s own fortune. > > Paul Allen invested in breakthrough listen and the Allen Telescope Array, which is doing SETI work a risk-averse congress wouldn’t fund. Sergei Brin and others are investing billions into solving diseases related to aging, and aging itself. Branson is investing in space tourism and cheap satellite launch and Bigelow is building inflatable habitats, one of which is on the ISS now.And of course, the whole of Silicon Valley is built on venture capital. Where do you think that capital came from? It came from very wealthy people who didn’t have to give 90% of their money to the government. > > In terms of foreign aid, governments have been spending billions on aid to Africa with very little to show for it. The Gates foundation has probably done as much for the poor in Africa on a fraction of the budget. But what is really helping Africa and other developing nations isn’t foreign aid but the liberalizing of markets and property rights, allowing people to rise up on their own. > > Innovation doesn’t come from throwing more money at a few people. Innovation comes from many independent people exploring what Stuart Kaufmann calls ‘the adjacent possible’ - the unexplored areas enabled by the last round of invention. This is the true value of diversity - having many different people with different experiences and backgrounds and knowledge freely going where their ideas take them. That’s why capitalist economies innovate so rapidly, and why China is forced to steal the technology its big government research outfits can’t figure out. > > Another reason you need the rich is as early adopters, to provide a market for technologies that are currently too expensive for the masses. Without Gordon Gekkos to fund the early very expensive days of cell phones, we might never have developed the cheap phones we all use now. Airbags, ABS brakes, stability control… all of these were extremely expensive when they first arrived. Almost all came out of the luxury car market, because only wealthy people could afford $5,000 for ABS. But now everyone has it. > > A world in which there are only average people and no wealthy people is a world where all expensive products stop being made, and it’s those products that eventually improve the products we all use. **A world where every idea has to be approved by a large committee or a government body is a world where innovation stops cold.** No matter how much money is thrown around by government to ‘stimulate’ research. This whole thing is just faith-based poppycock… I know because I used to argue it… but the emboldened is particularly striking, given as it was written … on a computer, whose basic template was developed by government funding (British and American) during WW2 and the post-WW2 era … using a communications network which was first brought into national use by the [Kingsbury Commitment](https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/100th-anniversary-kingsbury-commitment) of 1913, giving ATT a monopoly on wired communications, these wires to form the backbone of the first commercial and individual access to… … the Internet, another government-created entity, first consisting of connections between four universities, where, over time, DARPANET became ARPANET became the NSF which then transferred control of the internet to commercial entities in the mid 1990s because of the explosion of individual use of the internet caused by… … the creation of the WWW by Tim Berners Lee, a government employee working in a government facility (CERN), to do the sort of science only governments seem capable of doing… … Oh, and let us not forget that the Kingsbury Commitment monopoly + the WW2 investment gave ATT the necessary funds to conduct basic research into such things as the transistor, laser, microwave communications, et al. **Money, forced from the consumer, to ATT, by the government, which lead to innovation**. Sam, if I went back and researched your examples, I will _easily_ find tons of government assistance - tax breaks, innovation credits, basic research, more - and I won’t even have to make the case that the **entire communications network which makes SpaceX function** is a creation of the government through war, investment, monopoly creation, and research. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/132 "2019-04-16T15:25:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Since no one is talking about ending all government regulation, you are engaging in the fallacy of the excluded middle. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > A world in which there are only average people and no wealthy people Well, I suppose not putting both these statements in the **same** post deserves a tip of the hat… ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/133 "2019-04-16T15:59:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This is actually the best thing about billionaires - they provide alternate pathways for aid, research, etc. > > Elon Musk felt that reusable rockets were the way to go. NASA disagreed. They abandoned reusability with the DC-X for political reasons, and nothing on their roadmap was going to bring us back there. > > Left to NASA and it’s big industrial cost-plus corporate partners, we’d be flying rockets once every year or two for a billion dollars per flight, which would likely stick us in low earth or it forever, with maybe a ‘flags and footprints’ mission or two to the moon or elsewhere, Thanks to a billionaire who didn’t have to answer to Congress and its pork-driven members, we now know that reusability works, and it will lower the cost of space by an order of magnitude or more. That is worth far more to the world than a hundred times Musk’s own fortune. SpaceX only exists because of NASA. It was NASA funding that saved them from bankruptcy and a legacy of NASA engineering, research and infrastructure that enabled them to achieve the things they have. I think it’s more fair to say that SpaceX is NASA’s successful insurance project to circumvent some of the long standing inefficiencies foisted upon them by Congress and a Republican party devoted to feeding a bloated military Aerospace industry within their respective districts. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/134 "2019-04-16T18:05:54Z")
Oh, _shit_, Sam! ☹ [Tesla repaying Obama admin loan 5 years early](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/tesla-repaying-obama-admin-loan-5-years/amp) > [@](#): > > Tesla Motors Inc., which received $465 million in U.S. Energy Department loans to develop and build electric cars, will repay the funds five years ahead of schedule in a plan approved by the government. > > The carmaker said in its annual report yesterday that the department approved amended terms of the loan agreements that enable it to complete repayment by December 2017. Starting in 2015, the Palo Alto, California-based company will make accelerated payments from excess free cash flow, Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja said in a telephone interview. So, you’ve read your Rand, right? I have too, so let’s discuss: Does Elon Musk receiving a government loan… ala Orren Boyle… does that make him a Moocher or a Looter? I’ve always been a bit confused between the two, and now we have a real-world example… provided by you, thx… to discuss! Eagerly await your response. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/135 "2019-04-16T18:28:36Z")
what is the debate here now? 😕😕 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/136 "2019-04-16T18:29:29Z")
It’s alway seemed to me, Sam, that a Looter was a person who would be a Randian Producer, but devoted his energies into getting subsidies, loans, monopoly power, and the like for his (obviously) wasteful, inefficient, non-innovative enterprise. And a Moocher is someone who just doesn’t want to work at all, the lowest of the Randian low. These, I thought, were the “welfare queens” in Rand’s America… like the inhabitants of Starkeville, WI, after the Barnes’s (IIRC) motor factory closed. So… by my reading, Musk is a Looter. Agree? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/137 "2019-04-16T18:31:00Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > what is the debate here now? 😕😕 Sam decided to do some faith-based defense of Capitalism over Socialism, we’re showing him that the facts do not support this conclusion as readily as he assumes. I decided to bring in Ayn Rand because I’ve always wondered about this, and feel that Sam might have some insights as to how Musk fits the Randian archetype for evil. Feel free to join in! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/138 "2019-04-16T18:41:32Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Sam decided to do some faith-based defense of Capitalism over Socialism, we’re showing him that the facts do not support this conclusion as readily as he assumes. I decided to bring in Ayn Rand because I’ve always wondered about this, and feel that Sam might have some insights as to how Musk fits the Randian archetype for evil. Feel free to join in! I appreciate that, as the Op \*was \*pretty bogus, IMHO, but perhaps a new thread? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/139 "2019-04-16T18:45:23Z")
Naw, it’s not called a _discussion_ for nothing. A sidebar about capitalism/socialism is, seems to me, pretty on-topic for this one. 🙂 The Ayn Rand stuff, however… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651/140 "2019-04-16T19:43:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I appreciate that, as the Op \*was \*pretty bogus, IMHO, but perhaps a new thread? I am not sure why you would call the OP bogus. The post was about a personal experiences situation that was coloring the poster’s perception, though not their enthusiasm. They wanted to know if there was a broader dataset that would reinforce their anecdotal perception, or was this just being blown out of proportion. And, of course, there is the enforced perception that people abandoning the Democratic Party will be reaching for the comforting arms of the Republican Party, because, what else is there, when, really, the No-Party is what is strongest right now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-leaving-party-over-socialism/831651.md?page=8)