15 THE RICH GET RICHER; SO DO THE POOR Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have (Luke 8:18).
There is an old phrase, "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." This is said in the context of either psychological resignation to a reform-proof economic system or else active hostility to the system. It is never used to justify any economic system.
This passage seems to teach the same principle. Those who have, get. But there is an oddity here that makes no sense: those who have not will lose even that which they have. What does this mean?
To find out, we begin by studying its context. This message is also found in Matthew 13:12, the premier New Testament chapter on the kingdom of God/heaven.(1) The context in Matthew and Luke is Jesus' use of parables. First, Luke: "And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand" (Luke 8:10). Second, Matthew: "And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand" (Matt. 13:10-13). Jesus used parables to keep some people from understanding His message and embracing it. Specifically, Jesus kept it from the Jewish leaders.
This was another example in Israel's history of God's deliberate imposition of spiritual blindness on the nation. It had happened before. Isaiah wrote: "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed" (Isa. 6:8-10). This blindness and deafness were part of God's judgment on the nation. God imposed this dual condition. Theologians call this grim condition judicial blindness. It could as easily be called judicial deafness. God imposed it in preparation for negative sanctions against Israel.
Paul in Rome used the passage in Isaiah to explain why the Jews were divided over his message:
And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves (Acts 28:25-29).
The specific parable at issue in both Matthew 13 and Luke 8 is the parable of the four soils.(2) It has to do with varying individual responses to the message of personal salvation. The theocentric principle of both passages is God's absolute sovereignty in granting the gift of salvation to those whom He favors, and withholding it from everyone else. This is not something that covenant-breaking man wants to hear. In fact, it is not something that most covenant-keeping men want to hear. It conveys a message that directly challenges man's autonomy, namely, that God is absolutely sovereign in His distribution of the gift of salvation. He sends His people out to preach the gospel, but He clogs the ears of all those listeners whom He opposes, so that they cannot understand the message and respond to it in humble submission.
The typical response of Christians to this message is, "Well, that's not the kind of God I believe in!" No, it surely isn't. That was basically king Ahab's response, too, when the prophet Micaiah told the king about the vision he had seen. "Again he said, Therefore hear the word of the LORD; I saw the LORD sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner. Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee (II Chron. 18:18-22).
God made this same point quite clear to Ezekiel: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel" (Ezek. 14:9). Paul said the same thing. "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (II Thes. 2:7-12).
The Bible is clear about this, but this explicitly biblical message is not acceptable to most Christians, so they refuse to believe the truth. They prefer to believe falsehood. Hearing, they will not hear. Seeing, they will not see. The God of the Bible is a great offense to them. He was a great offense to Israel, too. Israel's wilful blindness was the context of this passage.
A Thing of Value We learn in this passage that he who has nothing will nevertheless lose whatever he has. What is the meaning of "nothing"? It means wealth apart from saving faith. The man who attains great tangible wealth in but nothing else possesses nothing of value in God's eyes. In contrast, the man who makes himself poor in the world's things for God's sake thereby gains something of great value in God's eyes. He who gives up the pursuit of the world's treasure for the sake of God's eternal treasure has made a wise exchange. He who fills his life with things that deflect him from service to God has made an unwise exchange. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26).
The "nothing" that the rich man possesses is the thing that he shall lose: treasure. His tangible wealth has no exchange value in the marketplace of souls. If he loses his soul, he eventually loses his tangible wealth, too. This is how a man with nothing can lose that which he has. He has nothing of value in God's eyes: no marketable capital. God then condemns him to hell at his physical death because he possesses nothing of eternal value. Eternal life is obtained in this life or not at all. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36).
But what of the man to whom something of eternal value has been given by God? On the basis of this gift, he will eventually possess greater abundance. More than this: the tangible wealth of the one who has nothing of eternal value is transferred to the man who has received something of eternal value. This wealth transfer is also taught in Proverbs. "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). The man who seeks great tangible wealth at the cost of God's kingdom may achieve it, but over time, his accumulated wealth will flow to covenant-keepers. The process of spiritual gains and losses is eventually reflected in the realm of economics.
This passage indicates that God's people will inherit the earth in history. The tangible wealth of covenant-breakers will eventually be transferred to covenant-keepers in history. This cannot refer to the post-resurrection world. Incorruption does not inherit corruption. "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (I Cor. 15:50). Of course, this transfer of tangible treasure from covenant-breakers to covenant-keepers can be accomplished by the redemption of covenant-breakers. This is part of God's dispossession of Satan in history. Through saving grace, God reclaims both the souls and the wealth of Satan's disciples.
Regression Toward the Mean vs. Pareto's Rule Consider the phrase, "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." As it applies to things of the spirit, this is an accurate summary of God's sanctions in history. It corresponds to what Jesus taught in this passage. But does it also apply to economics? If it does, then this process somehow overcomes the statistical phenomenon known as regression toward the mean.(3)
Free market economic theory teaches that if an entrepreneur discovers a new way to generate an above-market rate of return, other entrepreneurs will seek to discover his secret. Profitable information is bought and sold and stolen. Over time, new profit-producing techniques spread across the economy. As they do, their rate of return decreases, as more producers adopt the once-secret technique. This is why above-market rates of return tend to disappear. The economist calls this the unhampered free market's tendency toward equilibrium. Few concepts are more important than this one in modern economics.
There is an anomaly, however -- one that is almost never discussed: the highly unequal distribution of income. My failure to recognize this in Chapter 67 of the 1999 edition of Inheritance and Dominion was an error. I wrote: "There is a bell-shaped distribution of wealth within a society because of the predictable outcomes of increased temptations that occur on the far ends of capital's spectrum." But there is no bell-shaped curve for either income or wealth. I had not recognized the continuing relevance of Vilfredo Pareto's discovery.(4) Pareto's anomaly is a real one. If ten percent of the population receives half of the national income, or if twenty percent of the population receives seventy or eighty percent, and this continues generation after generation in nation after nation, where is the evidence of equilibrium? Why shouldn't the distribution curves of both income and wealth be more continuous? Why should they be permanently skewed to the right? If there is open entry into the capital markets for eighty percent of the population, why shouldn't wealth be more evenly distributed? Is there some psychological barrier to entry, such as a widespread fear of losing investment capital or the fear of becoming self-employed, that keeps the world's income distribution curves skewed?
There is continuous movement into and out of the top twenty percent. The story of rags to riches to rags in three generations is a familiar one in the United States. A few very wealthy families have maintained their fortunes over many generations.(5) To achieve this, senior members in control of the family have had to adopt tight control over which family members are elevated into positions of authority. Somehow, these families have found ways to combine patriarchalism and the presumably unevenly distributed talent for making money. Little is known about how they do this. Detailed academic studies of permanent intergenerational wealth at the top of society are not common.(6)
There does appear to be considerable mobility into and out of the top wealth quintile for most of its members. Still, there is no mobility of the wealth distribution curve itself. No one seems to know why. This is one reason why it is so rarely discussed by academic economists. As one economist wrote in 1965, "For a very long time, the Pareto law has lumbered the economic scene like an erratic block on the landscape; an empirical law which nobody can explain."(7) In income distribution, there is no regression toward the mean. The phenomenon is known as the 20-80 or 80-20 rule. It is also known as Pareto's rule. The anomaly appears in process after process in seemingly unrelated fields.(8)
Pareto's rule does not teach that the rich get richer when the poor get poorer. It teaches that the richest twenty percent and rest of society move in the same direction economically. Whichever way they move, up or down, the income distribution curve remains skewed heavily to the right.
To Inherit the Earth The Bible teaches that covenant-keepers will inherit the earth.(9) If the covenant-breaking rich continue to own most of a society's wealth, how can covenant-keepers ever inherit the earth? Or are we to believe that this promised inheritance is exclusively post-historical? The Old Covenant texts that forecast this inheritance do not indicate that the inheritance is exclusively post-historical.
His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth (Ps. 25:13).
For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth (Ps. 37:9).
But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace (Ps. 37:11).
For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off (Ps. 37:22).
How can Christians inherit the earth if the rich own most of it, and Christians are told not to seek riches? The only solution that makes sense to me is postmillennialism. God's kingdom will be extended in history by widespread religious conversions. The vast majority of people in all income groups will be brought to saving faith in the atoning work by Jesus Christ. Even the rich minority will be converted. If they aren't, then they will be replaced by Christians who become wealthy through serving consumers more efficiently, though not by deliberately seeking great wealth. I think inheritance of the earth will be by conversion, not by a minority of Christians buying up the assets of the world. Redemption is spiritual, not financial.
The Spread of the Gospel The key factor in contributing to the permanent wealth of nations is saving grace. Special grace is fundamental. Contrary to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, private property is secondary, for the private property social order is an outworking of God's common grace. Without special grace for some members of society, common grace cannot be sustained indefinitely.(10) A nation will eventually adopt capital-reducing measures based on envy or the desire to preserve the existing distribution of wealth. The statistical law of large numbers operates in nations.
If Pareto's rule applies internationally, then there will continue to be inequality among nations, but the same minority group of nations will not permanently retain their advantage over the others. The international wealth distribution curve will continue to be skewed to the right, but those inside the top quintile will change.
The key issue of the Pareto wealth distribution curve will always this: On what basis do people gain entrance into the top fifth? By covenant-keeping or covenant-breaking? If it is by covenant-keeping, then the society in question does not face the negative sanctions of God. But however men gain access, no nation can stay at the top of the curve permanently. Either negative sanctions will come against a rich covenant-breaking nation, or else other covenant-keeping nations will be blessed even more by God, and overtake the former winner. In the second instance, every covenant-keeping nation will get richer, as will rich and poor residents in all of them.
A Bad Tree Will Be Cut Down
Jesus said, "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit" (Matt. 12:33). The evil tree is eventually cut down: "Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. 7:17-20).(11)
The spread of the gospel produces positive economic effects. God still rewards corporate covenantal faithfulness with prosperity (Deut. 8:18).(12) This prosperity is not to become a snare to successful men: "And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth" (Deut. 8:17). If it does snare an unrighteous society, then the "nothing" which it has -- its wealth -- will be removed from it.
The long-term movement of the kingdom of God is from poverty to wealth. To sustain the kingdom's wealth and expand it, covenant-keepers must sustain their confession and their obedience to God's law. The mark of their commitment is their willingness to spend a portion of their wealth to take the good news of salvation and wealth to others. They must share their tangible capital with others, but more important, they must share the covenantal basis of their tangible capital: their moral capital. They must seek to take the gospel to those who suffer poverty because of their rebellion to God. Covenant-keepers are to use their economic capital to capitalize the poor in spirit. If those who have received tangible wealth from God on the basis of their confession and their obedience are successful in their efforts to share their faith -- the basis of their moral wealth -- then the poor will get richer, and so will the rich. Increasing productivity for everyone is produced when the productivity of the poor increases. The increase in moral capital will increase the division of labor, which may in turn produce greater economic equality, but will surely produce greater wealth for all.
Unequal Distribution of Wealth This nagging question does not go away: What about income inequality? In every modern society that economists have investigated, there is huge inequality. Twenty percent of the population owns most of a nation's tangible wealth. This is the basis of men's unequal incomes. Even after almost a century of steeply graduated income taxes and graduated inheritance taxes, steep inequality persists in every developed nation. It persisted before modern times, but the historical data are sparse and difficult to evaluate.
Pareto did not explain the causes for income inequality. In the century since he published his findings, no economist has come up with anything approaching a widely accepted explanation. We do not know why this inequality continues to exist in the face of both free market competition and socialist taxation.
The disparity in income and wealth may have something to do with disparities in future-orientation. Most people are not highly future-oriented. They are not willing to save money at low rates of interest. They prefer to borrow. They go into debt in order to buy consumer goods that depreciate. They do not get on the growth side of compound interest.
The disparity in income and wealth could be the result of inherent productivity of innovation. We might argue that successful new production methods produce enormous wealth for their early discoverers, who retain their wealth until innovative competitors find replacement methods. This explanation relies on a concept of economic growth that is overwhelmingly based on entrepreneurial skills rather than on moral capital. Surely, Christians' moral capital has not elevated them into the top twenty percent of wealth holders over the last century. Is this because their moral capital is in short supply because of the prevailing theological antinomianism? The familiar phrase, "We're under grace, not law!" may have negative economic effects on those who believe it.
The entrepreneur bears a heavy burden: uncertainty. Most people prefer to avoid uncertainty. They prefer predictable wages to both market risk and uncertainty. They are willing to accept less income in order to avoid the loss of either their capital or their income. Those few entrepreneurs who survive free market competition become rich. Thus, the rich are always a minority.
An entrepreneurship-based explanation of income inequality reinforces the idea that Christians' inheritance of the earth will take place as a result of widespread conversions, not by any uniquely confession-based advantages possessed by Christians. Moral capital sustains the social order that allows entrepreneurship to produce wealth for all, but mainly for those who possess entrepreneurial skills. Moral capital does not make a majority of people wealthy. It does not even make Christians wealthy in comparison to successful entrepreneurs. But it makes most men richer over time. It makes sustained economic growth possible.
Few people today take into consideration the wealth-producing effects of the moral capital that is distributed widely by Christian conversion and instruction. Economists rarely not study this aspect of wealth creation.(13) Most economists believe that the free market social order is self-reinforcing and expansionist, irrespective of God, Christianity, or supernaturalism generally. They believe that the economic fruits of capitalism will persuade voters of the truth of its roots, and these roots are found in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: the legal institution of private property and the personal incentive of self-interest. God's covenant law and its sanctions in history have nothing to do with it, they believe.
Positive Economic Feedback and Charitable Giving Positive feedback prevails in the realm of economics. There are means by which the rich get richer, long term. They get richer under free market capitalism by enabling the poor to get richer, although this is not the primary goal of the rich. Their primary goal is personal wealth accumulation. They use their savings to invest in tangible capital that provides the tools that increase the productivity of workers. The rich increase their incomes when the poor increase their incomes. Free market economic theory teaches that the rich do not get rich by exploiting the poor. On the contrary, they get rich by extending to others their knowledge of way to long-term wealth, i.e., compound economic growth. The classic example of this was Henry Ford's decision in 1914 to double the daily wage of his workers to $5 a day while reducing their work day from nine hours to eight. The previous year, Ford had introduced the first moving assembly line in large-scale manufacturing. Absenteeism under this production system was a major liability to Ford. He solved this problem brilliantly: he paid to eliminate it. Ford Motor Company immediately attracted the best workers in Detroit. Ford reduced the work day to eight hours in order to create three equal shifts of eight hours, thereby maximizing the output of his fixed capital. Output improved dramatically. So did profits.
Jesus did not speak about any system to attain positive economic feedback, although Moses did (Deut. 28:1-14). Jesus recommended charity. Putting these two views together leads to a conclusion: long-term economic growth requires an open, merciful hand to sustain it.(14) This is not taught by free market economists. They teach that long-term economic growth is based on private property, future-orientation, thrift, entrepreneurship, open entry into markets, investment in education, and technological innovation. Charity has little or nothing to do with it. Jesus did not mention any of the economists' favorite explanations. He did not discuss national economic growth. The topic of the wealth of nations did not appear in any of his recorded sermons. He stressed charity.
It is far easier to assemble historical evidence that supports the economists' explanation of economic growth than Jesus' explanation, for Jesus did not offer one. The evidence for Jesus' implied view is not easily available because so few people have ever had the courage to adopt Jesus' position on charitable giving, and those who have done so have not talked about the results. Jesus said, "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth" (Matt. 6:3). This was not a call to indiscriminate charity. It was a call to secret charity. "That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly" (Matt. 6:4). But note well: the Father openly rewards charitable givers.
The question is: How openly? Openly enough to offer historical evidence of God's economic blessing in response to widespread charitable giving? We know that charities founded in sixteenth-century England mainly by successful Puritan businessmen were important in the rise to political power of the Puritans in the seventeenth century. These charities provided political legitimacy. The level of charitable giving by the Puritans was higher than any other group. Some of these institutions survived intact until the State took them over in the twentieth century.(15) Next, giving by English Methodists after the movement's founding by John Wesley in 1740 was high in proportion to their low incomes. We could call this "widow's mite" giving.(16) England in the late eighteenth century was the first nation to experience the industrial revolution. We also know that the level of charitable giving in the United States has been higher than in any other nation in twentieth century. The United States has also experienced the longest period of sustained economic growth. But I am aware of no economic historian who has attempted to prove cause and effect between widespread voluntary charity and national economic growth. At this point, Christians must accept Christ's words mainly on faith.
Conclusion The rich will get richer if their tangible wealth rests on their covenantal faithfulness, i.e., their moral capital. The expansion of covenantal wealth is based on the process of obedience-abundance-greater obedience, greater abundance (Deut. 8:18). This is a system of positive feedback. But if the tangible wealth of the rich is based on their faith in their own autonomy, they will eventually get poorer. Positive feedback eventually reverses (Deut. 8:19-20). This is what modern man, led by the economists, does not believe.
Richard Koch, who has written a book on profitable applications of Pareto's rule, thinks that positive feedback is the key to understanding why the 20-80 phenomenon exists. "In the absence of feedback loops, the natural distribution of phenomena would be 50/50 -- inputs of a given frequency would lead to commensurate results. It is only because of positive feedback and negative feedback loops that causes do not have equal results. Yet it also seems to be true that powerful positive feedback loops only affect a small minority of the inputs. This helps explain why those small minority of inputs can exert so much influence."(17)
Do the poor get poorer? Yes, if their poverty is spiritual. No, if their poverty is the result of their open hands to others. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. . . . But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack" (II Cor. 8:9, 14-15).
One eschatological goal of Christ's gospel is to make all men rich spiritually. In achieving this, the gospel necessarily must make covenant-keepers tangibly richer. The covenant's upward movement of confession-obedience-wealth will spread the blessings of both tangible and spiritual wealth to more people. But it probably will not spread tangible wealth evenly, according to Pareto.
The top priority in this passage is to gain the abundance that comes to him who has something. This "something" is redemption. He who has nothing -- no redemption -- will lose the wealth that he has. This threat points to final judgment, but it also includes judgment in history. "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22).
Footnotes:
1. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are interchangeable concepts. Matthew uses the kingdom of heaven twenty-eight times and the kingdom of heaven five times.
2. Chapter 14, above.
3. Gary North, Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1999), ch. 67, subsection on "The Tendency Toward the Middle."
4. See my Introduction, section on "The 20-80 Rule."
5. In the United States, the Du Ponts of Delaware are the best example. This family has maintained its wealth for almost two centuries. In Europe, the best known example is the Rothschild family. Less well known is the Sassoon family. Both have kept their wealth for two centuries.
6. In the United States, Ferdinand Lundberg wrote several books on this topic, but he was always considered a maverick historian by academic historians. His books are not cited by historians very often, especially The Rich and the Super-Rich: Who Really Owns America? How Do They Keep Their Wealth and Their Power? (New York: Lyle Stewart, 1968).
7. Josef Steindl, Random Processes and the Growth of Firms: A Study of the Pareto Law (London: Charles Griffin, 1965), p. 18. Cited in Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Achieving More With Less (New York: Currency/Doubleday, 1998), p. 3.
8. Koch, op. cit.
9. North, Inheritance and Dominion; North, Inherit the Earth: Biblical Blueprints for Economics (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
10. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), ch. 6.
11. North, Priorities and Dominion, ch. 18.
12. George Otis, Jr., Informed Intercession (Ventura, California: Renew, 1999), pp. 18-23.
13. An exception is the English economist, Peter T. Bauer, an expert in economic development. His academic work gained him an appointment to the House of Lords. Another exception is also a member of the House of Lords, economist Brian Griffiths.
14. See Chapter 10, above.
15. W. K. Jordan, Philanthropy in England, 1480-1660 (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1959).
16. See Chapter 48, below.
17. Koch, The 80/20 Principle, p. 15.
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