Another Catholic diocese faces bankruptcy: Should Catholics give a damn?

I don't know whether Rhett Butler was a Catholic, but Catholics should adopt Rhett's attitude about the rising tide of bankruptcies among America's Catholic dioceses.  Frankly, my dears, we should not give a damn.

Nineteen Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy in recent years, due to payouts forced on the Church by child-abuse victims, almost all of whom were raped or sexually abused by Catholic priests. The National Catholic Reporter compiled a list of 131 financial settlements between the Catholic Church and child abuse victims--most of them for a million dollars or more.

According to the Buffalo News, the Diocese of Buffalo, New York may be the twentieth American diocese to file for bankruptcy.  NCR's Carolyn Thompson reported a few days ago that the Buffalo Diocese has already paid out about $18 million to 100 child abuse victims and has 220 lawsuits pending against it.

Not surprisingly, the sexual abuse scandal has demoralized Catholic laypeople all over the United States. No one knows how many Catholics have left the Church due to this moral catastrophe, but it is clear that Catholic laypeople have drastically cut back on their financial contributions to the Church.

The Buffalo Diocese provides an example. Jay Tokasz, writing for the Buffalo News, reported that the diocese suffered a $5 million budget deficit last year even though it cut its budget by $1.9 million.

Donations to the diocese had dropped by a whopping one third in just one year.  In 2018, the Buffalo Diocese received approximately $18 million in donations. In 2019, donations fell to about $13 million.  That's a huge vote of no confidence in the Buffalo hierarchy's leadership. 

Catholics are frustrated and enraged by the Church’s sexual abuse scandal. How, we ask ourselves, can a church that calls itself the Bride of Christ allow men to rape and sodomize children—both boys and girls?  How could the Church allow rapists to continue in their ministry and how could it have resorted to sleazy legal maneuvers to hide the scandal?

The arrogance and indifference of the American Catholic bishops are destroying the Church’s financial viability—which is a good thing. Lay Catholics have simply stopped giving money to the son-of –a-bitches who have countenanced human trafficking in parish rectories for more than half a century.

 In fact, it is not too much to say that many Catholic bishops are themselves human traffickers who moved pedophiles around from parish to parish. Instead of bringing children to pedophiles, the Church sent pedophiles to the children. So much more efficient!

I stopped giving money to the Catholic Church about three years ago. My wife and I now make regular monthly contributions to Casa Juan Diego, the Catholic Worker hospitality house in Houston, Texas. We know that every dollar we send to Casa Juan Diego will go to help the poor.

I urge other disappointed Catholics to join me. Stop funding the creeps who run the Catholic Church and give it to people who are doing Christ’s work—whether or not they are Catholics. 

*****

·        According to the National Catholic Reporter, the Catholic Church has paid out more than $3 billion in settlements and court awards to child abuse victims.  The following is a list of 131 settlements and the number of victims in each case (as reported by NCR).

·        2000-03-15 — Santa Rosa, California — $1.6 million — 4

·        2000-12-04 — Los Angeles, California — $5.2 million — 1

·        2001-03-08 — Bridgeport, Connecticut — $15 million — 26

·        2001-12 — Oklahoma City, Oklahoma — $5 million — 1

·        2002-01-30 — Tucson, Arizona — $14 million — 11

·        2002-04-01 — Orange and LA, California — $1.2million — 1

·        2002-06 — Los Angeles, California — $1.5 million — 1

·        2002-06-14 — Omaha, Nebraska — $800.000 — 1

·        2002-08-23 — Orange, California — $400.000 — 1

·        2002-09-04 — Los Gatos, California – Jesuits — $7.5 million — 2

·        2002-09-09 — Providence, Rhode Island — $13.5 million — 36

·        2002-09-18 — Boston, Massachusetts — $10 million — 86

·        2002-10-10 — Manchester, New Hampshire — $950.000 — 16

·        2002-11-26 — Manchester, New Hampshire — $5.1 million — 62

·        2003-01-09 — Boston, Massachusetts (Jesuits) — $5.8 million — 15

·        2003-01-29 — Metuchen, New Jersey — $800,000 — 10

·        2003-03-13 — Camden, New Jersey — $880,000 — 23

·        2003-05-08 — Manchester, New Hampshire — $815.000 — 4

·        2003-05-22 — Manchester, New Hampshire — $6.5 million — 61

·        2003-05-22 — Manchester, New Hampshire — $2.1 million — 33

·        2003-06-10 — Louisville, Kentucky — $25.7 million — 243

·        2003-06-30 — San Bernardino, California — $4.2 million — 2

·        2003-07-01 — Chicago, Illinois — $1.9 million — 1

·        2003-07-10 — Chicago, Illinois — $4 million — 4

·        2003-08-14 — Tucson, Arizona — $1.8 million — 5

·        2003-09-09 — Boston, Massachusetts — $84.2 million — 552

·        2003-09-11 — Seattle, Washington — $7.9 million — 15

·        2003-10-02 — Chicago, Illinois — $8 million — 15

·        2003-10-11 — Covington, Kentucky — $5.2 million — 27

·        2003-10-16 — Bridgeport, Connecticut — $21million — 40

·        2003-11-24 — Oakland, California — $1 million — 1

·        2003-12-04 — Covington, Kentucky — $1million — 5

·        2004 — Bridgeport, Connecticut — $40,000 — 2

·        2004-01-23 — Oakland, California — $3 million — 1

·        2004-01-28 — Covington, Kentucky — $2 million — 7

·        2004-04-15 — St. Petersburg, Florida — $1.1 million — 12

·        2004-04-21 — St. Louis, Missouri — $1.7 million — 1

·        2004-05-27 — Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania — $3.7 million — 21

·        2004-07-03 — Toledo, Ohio — $500,000 — 2

·        2004-08-17 — Springfield, Massachusetts — $7.8 million — 46

·        2004-08-20 — Toledo, Ohio — $1.2 million — 23

·        2004-08-26 — St. Louis, Missouri  — $2 million — 18

·        2004-09-22 — Miami, Florida — $3.4 million — 23

·        2004-10-08 — Newark, New Jersey — $1 million — 10

·        2004-10-28 — Davenport, Iowa — $9 million — 37

·        2004-12-02 — Orange, California — $100 million — 91

·        2004-12-17 — Seattle, Washington — $1.8 million — 12

·        2004-12-23 — Oakland, California — $6.3 million — 3

·        2005-02-15 — Paterson, New Jersey — $5 million — 27

·        2005-03-08 — Cincinnati, Ohio — $3.2 million — 120

·        2005-03-24 — Oakland, California — $437,000 — 1

·        2005-03-31 — Fort Worth, Texas — $1.4 million — 1

·        2005-04-07 — Fairbanks, Alaska-Jesuits — $1 million — 1

·        2005-04-09 — Fort Worth, Texas — $2.7 million — 1

·        2005-04-15 — Oakland, California — $1.9 million — 2

·        2005-04-20 — San Francisco, California — $5.8 million — 4

·        2005-04-22 — Santa Rosa, California — $3.3 million — 1

·        2005-05 — Orlando & St. Augustine, Florida — $1.5 million — 3

·        2005-05-09 — Davenport, Iowa — $1.9 million — 1

·        2005-05-19 — Stockton, California — $3 million — 1

·        2005-06-10 — San Francisco, California — $21.2 million — 15

·        2005-06-10 — Seattle, Washington — $1.7 million — 4

·        2005-06-29 — Sacramento, California — $35million — 33

·        2005-06-30 — Boston, Massachusetts — $33.1 million — 257

·        2005-07-01 — Santa Rosa, California — $7.3million — 8

·        2005-07-08 — San Francisco, California — $16.0 million — 12

·        2005-08-05 — Oakland, California — $56 million — 56

·        2005-08-27 — Seattle, Washington – Benedictines — $2.6 million — 7

·        2005-09-02 — San Francisco, California — $4 million — 4

·        2005-10-11 — San Francisco, California — $2.6million — 2

·        2005-11-01 — Hartford, Connecticut — $22million — 43

·        2006-01-09 — Covington, Kentucky — $2.5 million — 19

·        2006-01-09 — Covington, Kentucky — $79 million — 243

·        2006-02-21 — Dubuque, Iowa — $5 million — 20

·        2006-03-13 — Los Angeles, California – Franciscans — $28 million — 25

·        2006-03-16 — Jackson, Mississippi — $5.1 million — 19

·        2006-04-01 — Seattle, Washington — $1 million — 2

·        2006-06-30 — Boston, Massachusetts — $6.3 million — 86

·        2006-08-04 — Anchorage, Alaska and Boston, Massachusetts — $1.4 million — 5

·        2006-09-01 — Milwaukee, Wisconsin — $16.7 million — 10

·        2006-10-27 — Los Angeles, California – Carmelites — $10 million — 7

·        2006-11-30 — Norwich, Connecticut — $1.1 million — 1

·        2006-12-01 — Los Angeles, California — $60 million — 45

·        2006-12-16 — Washington, D.C. — $1.3 million — 16

·        2007-01-05 — Denver, Colorado — $1.5 million — 15

·        2007-03-27 — Dubuque, Iowa — $2.6 million — 9

·        2007-03-29 — Fairbanks, Alaska and Oregon Province of Jesuits — $1.9 million — 4

·        2007-05-10 — Rockford, Illinois — $2.2 million — 2

·        2007-05-16 — Portland, Oregon — $1.3 million — 2

·        2007-05-18 — Rockville Centre, New York — $11.4 million — 2

·        2007-05-29 — Chicago, Illinois — $6.6 million — 15

·        2007-06-30 — Boston, Massachusetts — $2.1 million — 34

·        2007-07-14 — Los Angeles, California — $660 million — 508

·        2007-07-30 — Charleston, South Carolina — $10.3 million — 80

·        2007-08-30 — Charleston, South Carolina — $1.375 million — 11

·        2007-09-07 — San Bernardino, California — $15.1 million — 11

·        2007-09-13 — Santa Rosa, California — $5 million — 10

·        2007-10-05 — Orange, California — $6.6 million — 4

·        2007-10-19 — St. Louis, Missouri – Marianists — $160,000 — 1

·        2007-11-16 — Fairbanks, Alaska – Jesuits — $50 million — 110

·        2008-01-04 — Spokane, Washington – Jesuits — $4.8 million — 16

·        2008-01-18 — Wilmington, Delaware — $450,000 — 1

·        2008-04-10 — Dubuque, Iowa — $4.7 million — 18

·        2008-05-13 — Burlington, Vermont — $784,000 — 1

·        2008-05-14 — Los Angeles, California – Salesians — $19.5 million — 17

·        2008-06-30 — Boston, Massachusetts — $5.4 million — 55

·        2008-07-01 — Denver, Colorado — $5.5 million — 18

·        2008-08-12 — Chicago, Illinois — $12.6 million — 16

·        2008-08-19 — Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri — $10 million — 47

·        2008-08-27 — Belleville, Illinois — $5 million — 1

·        2008-08-29 — Providence, Rhode Island — $1.3 million — 4

·        2008-09-11 — Chicago, Illinois — $2.5 million — 1

·        2008-09-18 — Chicago, Illinois — $1.7 million — 1

·        2008-10-30 — Pueblo, Colorado – Marianists — $4.2 million — 23

·        2008-11 — Seattle, Washington - Christian Bros — $7.2 million — 11

·        2008-12-03 — Springfield, Massachusetts — $4.5 million — 59

·        2008-12-17 — Burlington, Vermont — $784,000 — 1

·        2009-01-29 — Seattle, Washington - Christian Brothers — $7million — 13

·        2009-02-28 — Memphis, Tennessee — $2 million — 1

·        2009-04-08 — Wilmington, Delaware — $1.5 million — 1

·        2009-06-03 — Monterey, California — $1.2 million — 1

·        2009-06-30 — Boston, Massachusetts — $3.6 million — 27

·        2009-07-21 — Chicago, Illinois — $3.9 million — 6

·        2009-10-09 — Burlington, Vermont — $784,000 — 1

·        2009-10-22 — Belleville, Illinois — $1.2 million — 1

·        2009-10-28 — Savannah, Georgia — $4.2 million — 1

·        2009-11-05 — Portland, Maine — $200,000 — 1

·        2010-05-03 — Indianapolis, Indiana — $199,000 — 1

·        2010-05-13 — Burlington, Vermont — $17.6 million — 26

·        2010-06-10 — Charlotte, North Carolina and Capuchins — $1.2 million —

·        2010-08-11 — Lansing, Michigan — $250,000 — 1

Urban Institute: Thirty percent of student debtors are enrolled in Income-driven repayment plans

The federal student-loan program is in crisis, but it is hard to figure just how big the problem is.

The Department of Education annually reports the percentage of student borrowers who default three years after beginning repayment. That figure--about 10 percent in recent years--is concerning but not alarming.

Non-governmental studies (Pew Foundation and Brookings Institution) have found that the 5-year default rate for recent cohorts is double the 3-year rate: about 25 percent.  In other words, 1 out 4 student-loan debtors default on their loans within five years of beginning repayment.  Now that is alarming.

But the situation is a lot more dire than that.  A recent report from the Urban Institute (authored by Kristin Blagg, Laurie Goodman, and Kelia Washington) noted that 8 million student-loan debtors are in income-driven repayment plans (IDRs).  According to this report, that amounts to about 30 percent of all college borrowers.

That's really scary because almost no one among those IDR participants is paying down the principal on his or her debt.  Instead, just about all of these 8 million people are making very small monthly payments based on their income--not the amount that they borrowed.

It is always dicey to compare one student-loan analysis to another because we are always measuring apples and oranges. Some of the people counted as 5-year defaulters in one study may be the same people identified as IDR payers in another. (And the Brookings and Pew studies examined cohorts, not the entire student-debtor population.)

Nevertheless, it is clear that when the 5-year defaulters and the IDR participants are considered together, about half of all student-loan borrowers are not paying off their loans.  In my opinion, that's a meltdown.

You may love Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren or you may hate them, but both deserve credit for putting a serious proposal on the table to address the student-loan crisis.  Forgiving all student debt (Bernie's plan) or $50,000 of a borrower's debt (Elizabeth Warren's plan) are reasonable ideas.

One thing seems clear (at least to me): The student-loan program is out of control and it is kicking millions of people out of the middle class. The program hinders overburdened debtors from buying homes, having children, getting married, and saving for retirement.

And who benefits? Our corpulent, incompetently run colleges and universities whose leaders say the universities need more federal money.

Greedy colleges: "Feed me, Seymour!"

I fell asleep during the Impeachment movie. Did I miss anything?

Like millions of Americans, I watched Impeachment, The Movie. Unfortunately, I fell asleep near the end, and when I woke up, I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

In my own defense, Impeachment was a very long movie--more than three years, almost as long as Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.  I got up to go to the bathroom during the Mueller investigation, and I never got back on track.

And of course, when a movie is three years long, you gotta have some popcorn. I was smart enough to buy the Value Tub--the one that gives you unlimited refills. It was expensive--$250 plus tax, but I got 127 refills, so it was a pretty good deal.

But the popcorn breaks added to my confusion. I missed parts of the movie when I was making all those trips to the concession counter.

So fill me in. I thought the Mueller investigation concluded that Trump was not guilty of colluding with the Russians, but later in the movie, Hillary Clinton said that he was.

And then Trump was accused of making an illegal phone call to the president of Ukraine. And that had something to do with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and all the rest of Biden's children. But that was never explained.

But here's the part that really befuddled me.  The impeachment trial in the Senate was triggered by an anonymous whistleblower whose name was never revealed.  And Representative Adam Schiff, the chief prosecutor, claimed he had never met the guy.  Huh? To me, that part of the movie just wasn't believable.

Obviously, the director of the movie, Nancy Pelosi (who played herself in the film), should have cut a lot of the scenes. In my opinion, the movie could have been cut down to about a year and a half.

And there were casting errors.  The guy who played Robert Mueller was obviously miscast. He was supposed to be this bulldog investigator with ironclad integrity, but he came off as some sleepy old guy who was trying to find the remote on his television.

I tell you this--I am not going to watch that movie again. I'm too old to watch three-year movies.

But I'm pumped about the sequel, which comes out next summer--Impeachment: The Empire Strikes Back! This one is about the expulsion of Adam Schiff from the House of Representatives, and Joaquin Phoenix plays Shiff wearing Joker makeup.

I can't wait to see it, and I understand it's only about two months long.

Joaquin Phoenix playing Adam Schiff in Impeachment: The Empire Strikes Back

This essay is also posted at my blog site on American culture: Saints of Flyover Country, flyoversaints.org.

"Deserves got nothin' to do with it": Is Elizabeth Warren's student-loan forgiveness plan fair to people who played by the rules?

An Iowa man challenged Senator Elizabeth Warren about her student-loan forgiveness plan during a campaign event in Grimes, Iowa.

"I just wanted to ask one question," the man said to Warren. "My daughter is getting out of school. I've saved all my money. She doesn't have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?" he said.

"Of course not, Warren replied.

"So you're going to pay for people who didn't save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed," the man said.

"No, you're not going to get screwed," Warren lamely responded.

I get the Iowa guy's point. It seems unfair to grant wholesale student-loan forgiveness to millions of people, while parents who made severe financial sacrifices to pay for their children's college education get no relief.

But let's face it. About half of all student loans are not being paid back anyway. That's right--about half.

More than a quarter of all student-loan borrowers default on their student loans within five years. Another 20 percent or so are in income-based repayment plans that are structured so that the borrowers never pay off their loans. And then there are millions of people who have their loans in forbearance or deferment, while interest piles upon the principal of their debt. 

In a way, Senator Warren's student-loan forgiveness plan is like President Jimmy Carter's decision to grant amnesty to the young men who fled to Canada to escape the draft during the Vietnam War. Critics said it was unfair for draft dodgers to suffer no penalties while millions of Americans went into the Army and more than than 50,000 Americans died in the jungles of Vietnam.

Unfortunately, huge moral quagmires have no clear-cut solutions. The Vietnam War was an enormous national tragedy, a senseless and immoral affair. Or so I believe.

Likewise, the student-loan crisis is a moral crisis. Forty-five million people are carrying student-loan debt that totals $1.6 trillion and millions of these people got little or no financial benefit from their college experience.  

The for-profit colleges raked in enormous wads of federal cash and dished out overpriced and often worthless college degrees. The law schools and business schools jacked up the prices of their professional programs simply to suck up more federal money, and a lot of that money went toward bloated salaries for college administrators.

There is no perfectly fair solution to this crisis.  As a nation, we simply must grant relief to suffering college-loan debtors.  And Senator Warren's plan is a reasonable proposal for doing that.

Personally, I would prefer for Congress to amend the Bankruptcy Code and allow insolvent debtors to discharge their student loans through bankruptcy.  That would be fairer to people like Senator Warren's critic in Grimes, Iowa.

But the student-loan catastrophe has got to be addressed head-on.  Senator Warren's plan and Senator Sanders' plan are pretty good solutions.  In my opinion, bankruptcy relief is a better solution. 

Any plan will benefit some people who do not deserve student-debt relief. But as Clint Eastwood's character said in the movie The Unforgiven, "Deserves got nothin' to do with it." 

Let's move forward to clean up the student-loan program before it totally destroys the integrity of higher education--not to mention America's middle class.

"Deserves got nothin' to do with it." 

Low-income students can't afford to work their way through college anymore

Low-income students can't work their way through college anymore. That's the conclusion drawn by the Education Trust in a recently released report authored by Andrew Nichols, Marshall Anthony, Jr., and Oliver Schak.

"Students from low-income backgrounds should be able to attend college without shouldering a debt burden or having to work so many hours that they jeopardize their chances of completing a degree," the report stated on its first page. "But that's just not possible today."

Duh--I think everyone knows that.

Not so long ago, things were different. I did not come from an affluent family but I obtained my bachelor's degree without borrowing any money, and I worked my way through the University of Texas School of Law--a nationally ranked law school--without taking on any debt. When I was in law school, I had a part-time job working as a law clerk at the Texas Attorney General's Office that paid $330 a month. And I also had a work-study job proctoring exams at the law school.

I could get a bachelor's degree and a law degree without taking out loans because tuition was low and public universities were subsidized by the states. My law school tuition was only $1,000 a year, and the law school gave me a scholarship that covered my tuition costs for a year. 

But today, tuition at UT School of Law is $36,000 a year--36 times what I paid. And total costs for an in-state law student (living expenses, etc.) is about $57,000.  Few people can pay those costs out-of-pocket; and no part-time student job can make a dent in the total cost of a law-school education at the University of Texas--more than $170,000!

So what's the solution? According to Education Trust, the solution is more federal money. "Federal policymakers should at least double the federal Pell Grant and index it to inflation, which would help eliminate the affordability gap." (The underlined words appear in the Education Trust's report.)

But it is federal student-aid money that has fueled the run-up in the cost of higher education. Pumping more federal money into colleges and education will not make a college education more affordable because the colleges will have no incentive to keep their costs down.

Education Trust also calls for the states to "reinvest" in the public universities--returning state subsidies to the level they were when I went to college and law school.

But let's face it; that's not going to happen. The states will not increase their higher-education subsidies to the levels of 30 years ago.

Education Trust has been described as a "college access advocacy organization," and I'm sure that is true. Nevertheless, Education Trust's call for more federal money exactly aligns with the stance of the college industry, which is now totally addicted to infusions of federal cash. And Education Trust's argument for larger state subsidies aligns with the interests of the college industry as well.

Why not rethink the way higher education is funded?

First, the federal government should put a limit on the amount of federal money that can be borrowed to attend college. As I have said, easy federal money has made it possible for colleges to increase tuition and to invest in frills--luxury student housing, extravagant amenities like "lazy river" water features, and insane spending for athletics.

Second, our federal lawmakers should recognize that millions of Americans are suffering under heavy student-debt loads. Instead of pushing distressed college borrowers into 25-year repayment plans, Congress should pass legislation that would allow worthy debtors to shed their student loans in the bankruptcy courts.

Third, we need to shut down the for-profit college industry, which is riddled with corruption and overpriced programs that leave too many graduates with worthless degrees and unmanageable debt.

There is no simple solution to the student-loan crisis: 45 million student-loan debtors owing a total of $1.6 trillion.  But we must get costs down, we must close the for-profit colleges, and we must ease the burden of oppressive student-loan debt.

Certainly, the solution to this massive problem is not to pump more state and federal money into the nation's bloated and inefficient colleges and universities.

Image credit: The Education Trust

Trump Administration is "woke" to the student-loan crisis: What can it do in 2020?

Love 'em or hate 'em, student-loan debtors owe a debt of gratitude to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for putting the student-loan crisis on the front burner of national politics. Liz proposes to forgive the first $50,000 of student debt if she is elected President. Bernie says--what the hell--let's forgive it all.  That's $1.6 trillion!

Meanwhile, as the Democrats offer to help college borrowers, Trump’s Department of Education (DOE), led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is doing everything it can to alienate a very large constituency--45 million student-loan debtors.  

But last month, the Trumpers became "woke" to the student-loan catastrophe.  As reported by the Wall Street Journal's Josh Mitchell and Andrew Restuccia, the Trump administration is considering some relief options, including allowing borrowers to shed their student-loan debt in bankruptcy.

According to the WSJ, the Trump administration is mulling a policy adjustment whereby DOE "would essentially decline to contest borrowers’ requests before [bankruptcy] judges to have their student loans canceled.” The beauty of this proposal is Trump could make this adjustment without congressional approval.

Better than that, Trump could claim that he is only following the policy announced by the Obama administration in 2015 when DOE's Lynn Mahaffie said in a letter that DOE would not oppose bankruptcy relief for student borrowers if it did not make economic sense to do so.

Of course, DOE never followed that policy. Instead, it has allowed Educational Credit Management Corporation to oppose virtually every student debtor’s petition to shed student-loan debt in the bankruptcy courts.  And this has been DOE’s practice under both the Obama and the Trump administration.

All President Trump needs to do to grant significant relief to college debtors is tell ECMC to fire its battalions of lawyers and file formal non-opposition documents when worthy student debtors seek to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy.

Undoubtedly, a few unscrupulous people would try to use the bankruptcy courts to shed debt they have the means to repay and which they should repay. But filing a fraudulent bankruptcy claim is a federal crime, and the bankruptcy judges know how to sniff out deceitful claims.

If Trump were to follow through with this proposal, we will need a lot more bankruptcy judges because millions of people would be entitled to bankruptcy relief.  Where will we get the money?  Let’s take the cash that DOE is funneling to ECMC and its lawyers and use it to hire some judges. 

Pretty simple really.  

"What do you say, Betsy? Let's tell ECMC to piss up a rope."