Upping the Inflation Dosage

By Peter Schiff

In perhaps one of biggest ironies to ever to come out of Washington, this week Congress simultaneously pilloried major league baseball players for using artificial stimulants to pump up their performance while passing legislation to do just that to the national economy. Am I the only one laughing?

In reality, the current slump in the U.S. economy is simply the come down from years of financial doping in the form of skyrocketing home values and easy credit. Rather than reaching for yet another syringe, Congress should ask Americans to do what it demands of ballplayers: play within their natural means. Unfortunately in the case of the economy, the patient is already so juiced up that further doses may not only fail to stimulate but may result in a trip to the emergency room.

As the widely praised “economic stimulus” bill was signed into law, the only dissent heard was from those saying the plan did not go far enough. Speaking for those unheard voices who disagree with the strategy entirely, I believe the most significant aspect of the plan is that it creates a new and improved method for delivering inflation.

Previously, the government has largely relied on interest rate stimulus to keep the economy humming. In this method, money supply growth, also known as inflation, is channeled through the banking system. The Fed makes cheap credit available to banks, which then lend out the new funds or use them to acquire higher yielding assets. As a result, asset prices, such as stocks, bonds and real estate, have been bid up to bubble levels. However, the inflationary impact on consumer prices occurs with a considerable lag.

Now that rate cuts alone are proving insufficient, mainly because banks are now so over-loaded with questionable collateral and shaky loans that few can consider acquiring more assets or extending additional credit (no matter how cheap such activities can be funded), the Government is opting for a more direct approach. By printing money and mailing it directly to the citizenry, the “stimulus plan” cuts out all of the financial middle men and administers the inflation drug directly to consumers.

If simply printing money could solve financial problems, the Fed could send $10 million to every citizen and we could all retire en masse to Barbados. However, more money chasing a given supply of goods simply pushes up prices and does nothing to improve underlying economics. Since this new money will go directly into consumer spending, without first being filtered thought asset markets, the effects on consumer prices will be far more immediate.

This politically inspired placebo will do nothing to cure what ails our economy. The additional consumer spending will merely exacerbate our imbalances, allow the underlying problems to worsen, and put additional upward pressure on both consumer prices and eventually long-term interest rates as well. The failure of the stimulus plan to cure the economy will cause the Government, and the Wall Street brain trust, to conclude that it was simply too small. Their next solution will be to administer an even stronger dose.

My prediction is that over the course of the next few years, successive doses of even larger stimulus packages will fail to revive the economy. As the recession worsens and the dollar drops through the floor and consumer prices and long–term interest rates shoot thought the roof, politicians and economists will look for scapegoats. Few, if any, will properly attribute the problems to the toxic effects of the stimulus itself.

However, like all drugs, the biggest danger is an overdose. In monetary terms an overdose is hyperinflation, which will surely kill our economy. It is my sincere hope that before we reach that “point of no return,” a correct diagnosis is finally made. When that occurs, the stimulants will be cut off, and the free market will finally be allowed to administer the only cure that works: recession. If that means we lose some speed on our fastball, so be it. Maybe we could use a few months in the minor leagues to get back to basics. While we may not like the economic side effects of stopping cold turkey, it sure beats carrying our money around in wheelbarrows!

For a more in depth analysis of the tenuous position of the Americana economy and U.S. dollar denominated investments, read my new book “Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse.”

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Mr. Schiff began his investment career as a financial consultant with Shearson Lehman Brothers, after having earned a degree in finance and accounting from U.C. Berkeley in 1987. A financial professional for over twenty years he joined Euro Pacific in 1996 and has served as its President since January 2000. An expert on money, economic theory, and international investing, Peter is a highly recommended broker by many leading financial newsletters and investment advisory services. He is also a contributing commentator for Newsweek International and served as an economic advisor to the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign.

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FMM Comment:

The scapegoat referred to WILL be capitalism. Ron Paul addressed the question, "Has Capitalism Failed?" long ago in the U.S. House of Representatives, July 9, 2002.

"Corruption and fraud in the accounting practices of many companies are comingto light. There are those who would have us believe this is an integral part of free-market capitalism. If we did have free-market capitalism, there would be no guarantees that some fraud wouldn't occur. When it did, it would then be dealt with by local law-enforcement authority and not by the politicians in Congress, who had their chance to "prevent" such problems but chose instead to politicize the issue, while using the opportunity to promote more Keynesian useless regulations.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military–industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political spectrums. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names – Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism.

What is not discussed is that the current crop of bankruptcies reveals that the blatant distortions and lies emanating from years of speculative orgy were predictable. "

Capitalism rests its case.

Whore of the World

No institution in modern times is as vile, insidious, corrupt, evil and disgusting as a Central Bank.

It is a whore that has stradled the globe, copulating and spreading its version of syphilis, namely inflation, in an orgy of debt and cheap credit.

The biggest whore of them all, is the Federal Reserve.

Reuter reports that a Depression risk might force U.S. to buy assets. Really? How will this work?

"Fear that a hobbled banking sector may set off another Great Depression could force the U.S. government and Federal Reserve to take the unprecedented step of buying a broad range of assets, including stocks, according to one of the most bearish market analysts."

What is so bad about the Fed and U.S. govenment buying a broad range of assets, including stock? Effectively, if the Fed buys an asset, it means that the asset is monetized, or turned into cash for the seller. The money paid by the Fed doesn't exist.

During a normal transaction, a buyer and seller exchanges money for goods. The money used actually exists. It comes from the existing money supply (assuming the transaction doesn't involve credit).

The money offered by The Fed and/or government to conclude the transaction is money added to the current money supply, also known as inflation.

That extreme scenario, which would aim to stave off deflation and stabilize the economy, is evolving as the base case for Bernard Connolly, global strategist at Banque AIG in London.

In the late 1980s and early 1990's Connolly worked for the European Commission analyzing the European monetary system in the run up to the introduction of the euro currency.

"Avoiding a depression is, unfortunately, going to have to involve either a large, quasi-permanent increase in the budget deficit -- preferably tax cuts -- or restoring overvaluation of equity prices," Connolly said on Monday.

"If conventional monetary policy is not enough to produce that result, the government may have to buy equities, financed by the Fed," Connolly said.

What is so bad about deflation. It corrects the wrong created by inflation. It washes out the excesses and brings the market back to equalibrium.

"While Connolly already sees some parallels with the 1930s, he expects that a more pro-active central bank and government will probably help avert a repeat of that scenario today.

The build up of a credit bubble in recent years was similar to the late 1920s run-up to the Great Depression, he said."

Wrong. The perception that a more "pro-active Central Bank and Government" will avert a repeatof is flawed.

Continued interferance by The Fed and government only postpones and further inflates the inevitable correction.

The Reuters article is based on a worst case scenario and might not even materialise. However, if you catch a wiff of The Fed resorting to these type of tactics, be prepared for a monetary meltdown.

The Fed and The Sorcerer's New Apprentice

Uncle Sam Crying "Uncle!"

by Antal E. Fekete

Tertium datur

People tend to think in terms of black-and-white. Many of my correspondents think that either hyperinflation or deflation is in store for the dollar; tertium non datur (no third possibility given). I would say tertium datur. The third possibility is a hybrid of hyperinflation and deflation. I described this scenario in my previous article "Opening the Mint to Gold and Silver". It is possible, even probable, that we shall witness collapsing world trade and collapsing world employment together with competitive currency devaluations, as the three superpowers compete in trying to corner gold. The lure of gold is very strong. "There is no fever like gold fever" and, contrary to conventional wisdom, governments are especially susceptible.

A large part of the problem is that the Central Bank is helpless in the face of bond speculation. The Fed is no Sorcerer. It is the Sorcerer's Apprentice. It can pump unlimited amounts of "liquidity" into the system, but cannot make it flow uphill. As we shall see, new dollars flow to the bond market causing a lot of mischief there, instead of flowing to the commodity market as hoped by the Fed.

Up to now leading commodities have outperformed gold. That could change. A select few commodities might continue in the bull-mode for a time, although gold could easily beat them. Most other commodities might go into a bear-mode similar to that of the commodity markets of the 1930's. If that's what was in store, then most investors would be totally lost. They would be navigating without a compass. There would be endless debates whether the country is experiencing deflation of hyperinflation. Your motto in this hybrid scenario should be: "expect the unexpected".

Of course, the Fed will keep printing dollars like crazy. Few of them, if any, will go into commodities. Indeed, most of the newly created dollars will go into bond speculation. Why? Because commodity bulls are running into headwind and face grave risks. By contrast, bond bulls enjoy a pleasant tailwind. Bond speculation is virtually risk-free. Under our irredeemable dollar bond bulls have a built-in advantage. The Fed has to make periodic trips to the bond market in order to make its regular open-market purchases of bonds to augment the money supply. In order to win, all the bond speculator has to do is to stalk the Fed and forestall its bond purchases. This is the Achillean heel of Keynesianism: it makes bond speculation inherently asymmetric favoring the bulls, and that will ultimately derail the economy on the deflation-side of the track.

Read the rest

Passing the Buck back to the Future

The BIG Kahunas are getting plans in place to postpone the inevitable market collapse to an unknown future date. It will be interesting to see what plans these fools come up with. It's either "Inflation or Death!"

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Financial leaders from the world's richest nations stood ready to discuss a global policy response to the credit crisis, which has unleashed economic downdrafts and market turbulence that knows no borders.

Aggressive action by the United States to cut interest rates and taxes to ward off recession has tested the limits of cooperation in the Group of Seven.

A question of how far other major economies should follow has provided a tense backdrop for finance ministers and central bankers as they gather in Tokyo to seek ways to repair damage to their economies and financial markets wrought by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.

But officials arriving on Friday for G7 meetings this weekend showed a readiness to begin tackling problems together.

Read the rest

What Will You Do With Your Gold?

by Gary North

This assumes you have bought some gold.

A lot of my readers have read my recommendation – "Buy some gold" – for six years. They still haven't bought any. They apparently think it's good enough to have read a few reports on the importance of buying gold. "Now I don't actually have to buy any." It's like an overweight person reading a diet book while munching on Fritos and bean dip.

There is an astounding amount of misinformation on gold available on the Web. This shows the tremendous impact of the Web. Back in 1995, this misinformation was far more limited in its scope.

Here is the main piece of information: "Gold! Gold! I'll be rich – rich, I tell you! Hahahahaha."

No, you won't. Here's why.

The Road to Hyperinflation - Part 2

Central Banking History of Failing to Stabilize Markets

It has been forgotten by many that before 1913, there was no central bank in the United States to bail out troubled commercial and associated financial institutions or to keep inflation in check by trading employment for price stability. Few want inflation but fewer still would trade their jobs for price stability.

For the first 137 years of its history, the US did not have a central bank. The nation then was plagued with recurring business cycles of boom and bust. For the past 94 years that the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, has assumed the role of monetary guardian for the nation, recurring business cycles of boom and bust have continued, often with the accommodating participation of the Fed. Central banking has failed in its fundamental functions of stabilizing financial markets with monetary policy, succeeding neither in preventing inflation nor sustaining growth nor achieving full employment. Since the Fed was founded in 1913, the US inflation has registered 1,923%, meaning prices have gone up 20 times on average despite a sharp rise inproductivity.

For the 18 years (August 11, 1987 to January 31, 2006) of his tenure as chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan had repeatedly bought off the collapse of one debt bubble with a bigger debt bubble. During that time, inflation was under 2% in only two years, 1998 and 2002, both times not caused by Fed policy. Paul Volcker, who served as Fed Chairman from August 1979 to August 1987, had to raise both the fed funds rate and the discount to 20% to fight hyperinflation of 18% in 1980 back down to 3.66% in 1987, the year Greenspan took over the Fed just before the October 1987 crash when inflation rose to 4.53%.Under Greenspan’s market accommodating monetary policy, US inflation reached 4.42% in 1988, 5.36% in 1989 and 6.29% in 1990. US inflation rate was moderated to 1.55% by the 1997 Asian financial crisis when Asian exporting economies devalued their currencies to lower their export prices, but Greenspan allowed US inflation rate to rise back to 3.76% by 2000. The fed funds rate hit a low of 1.75% in 2001 when inflation hit 3.76%; it hit 1% when inflation hit 3.52% in 2004; and it hit 2.5% when inflation hit 4.69% in 3005. For those years, US real interest rate was mostly negative after inflation. Factoring in the falling exchange value of the dollar, the Fed was in effect paying US transnational corporate borrowers to invest in non-dollar markets, and paying US financial institution to profit from dollar carry trade, i.e. borrowing dollars at negative rates to speculate in assets denominated in other currencies with high yields.

READ THE REST

Countrywide Financial Corporation and the Failure of Mortgage Socialism

by Eric Englund

Angelo Mozilo is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the failed Countrywide Financial Corporation. Mr. Mozilo co-founded this company, nearly 40 years ago, in 1969. To be in business for almost forty years, and to become America’s top private home-mortgage lender, are testimonies to genuine business acumen. However, success can breed arrogance, and a sense of supreme power, to the point where a corporate chieftain believes his personal will can override the free market and reshape society according to a grand vision – which, for Angelo Mozilo, entailed making America a better country by bringing home ownership within reach of all and sundry. For Countrywide Financial, unfortunately, Mr. Mozilo’s dream of social engineering demanded that sound credit-underwriting principles be abandoned. And now, Countrywide Financial Corporation’s failure stands as a monument as to how integrating egalitarianism and political correctness, into a business plan, is downright poisonous.

February 4, 2003 marks the day when Countrywide Financial’s shareholders should have dumped every last share of their stock. For on this day Angelo Mozilo made a presentation, at The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, titled The American Dream of Homeownership: From Cliché to Mission. This is the day that Mr. Mozilo revealed to the world that political correctness had infected his mind. He openly declared that sound credit underwriting was tantamount to judgmentalism and, therefore, anti-egalitarian. How dare anyone judge anyone else – credit standards be damned. Subprime mortgages, accordingly, were going to be a blessing for America since everyone deserves a house. Oh how political correctness feels so good. He worshiped the mortgage socialism hatched in the New Deal along with every federal-housing program introduced in the succeeding decades. A true credit professional would have been horrified by this speech; which indubitably was met with approving applause by the pseudo-intellectual, limousine liberals populating Harvard University. February 4, 2003 is the day Countrywide Financial’s Board of Directors should have fired Mr. Mozilo.

Over the years, Angelo Mozilo has been handsomely rewarded by Uncle Sam’s mortgage socialism. Here’s how it works. Countrywide Financial makes a conforming home loan, sells it to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (both are government sponsored enterprises), and has its coffers replenished in doing so; hence, allowing Countrywide to keep churning out loans. Countrywide, in turn, remains the mortgage servicer on each loan and earns a fee for doing so. These fees most certainly add up when you are servicing $1.5 trillion in home loans (not all of which are Fannie and Freddie loans). Needless to say, Countrywide had other sources of revenues but mortgage servicing was top-shelf when it came to profitability.

Thus, it is no wonder why Mr. Mozilo waxed fondly, in his Harvard speech, regarding America’s foray into mortgage socialism. After all, it made him very wealthy. Here is an excerpt:

Our Nation took another important step in 1938 – in fact, 65 years ago this week – when Fannie Mae was created to buy those FHA loans, and as a result, the secondary mortgage market was born. We took a few more giant steps in the 1940s with the G.I. Bill in 1944 and the Housing Act of 1949, which stated the goal of "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family." We witnessed the Fair Housing Act in the 60s, the creation of Freddie Mac in 1970, the expansion of Fannie Mae’s activities, the Community Reinvestment Act in the 70s, the introduction of adjustable-rate mortgages in the 80s, and more recently, the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.

We have traveled so far – thanks to a mortgage-finance system that remains the envy of the world; thanks to a constant stream of creative and innovative mortgage products, and efforts directed at encouraging the offering of loans to those who have been previously shut out; and simply put, thanks to housing being an enduring public policy objective and the lasting commitment to that objective symbolized by our partnership.

We have transformed from a Nation of renters to a Nation of homeowners. The overall U.S. homeownership rate, which was at 44 percent in 1940, hit 68 percent by the end of the third quarter of 2002.

One can only imagine Mr. Mozilo’s broad smile as he delivered these words. Between his compensation and stock sales, Angelo has made hundreds of millions of dollars. Socialism certainly can be beneficial for an elite few.

Do you remember President George W. Bush’s initiatives to increase homeownership in the United States? His administration definitely played a role in creating America’s housing bubble. When speaking about housing assistance, President Bush evoked the emotion of envy and declared that the U.S. had a "homeownership gap." Angelo Mozilo, being a kingpin of political correctness, couldn’t resist playing the envy-card to an approving Harvard audience. He stated:

It started with the New Deal, and now, we’re in a new century. But through it all, one thing has remained, more or less, constant. This constant is our challenge. And this challenge is to increase the access to affordable housing. And in order to do this, we must close the homeownership gap that still exists.

As President Bush said last October:

"Two thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because fewer than half of the Hispanics and half of the African Americans own their home. That’s a homeownership gap. It’s a gap that we’ve got to work together to close for the good of our Country, for the sake of a more hopeful future. We’ve got to work to knock down the barriers..."

While the number of minority homeowners has advanced recently, climbing from 9.5 million in 1994 to 13.3 million in 2001 – an increase of 40 percent – the fact remains that it is still not at a level equal to that of white homeownership. And as President Bush pointed out, the homeownership rate for African Americans is 47 percent and for Hispanic Americans it is 48 percent, a stark contrast to the homeownership rate of 75 percent for white American households. That means there is currently a homeownership gap of over 25 points when comparing white households with African Americans and Hispanics. My friends, that gap is obviously far too wide. It has been far too wide for far too long. And when adding new factors into the equation – like an influx of new immigrants or continued reduction in the supply of affordable housing – it has the potential to become far worse.

Credit underwriting has nothing to do with race, creed, skin color, gender, or religion. Sound credit underwriting has everything to do with the "Five Cs" of credit – i.e., character, capacity, capital, collateral, and conditions. Under pure capitalism, a credit underwriter is not concerned about making people happy by lending money regardless of a person’s creditworthiness. An underwriter’s primary objective is to make profitable loans and this demands nothing less than effectively assessing risk on a case-by-case basis. This, undeniably, requires underwriters to exercise learned judgment. Ah, but to say this in the cradle of political correctness (Harvard) would have been met with resounding "boos."

To be sure, Mr. Mozilo did not disappoint his fellow limousine liberals. He goes on the attack and smears credit underwriters as being judgmental – the antithesis of political correctness. Considering that Countrywide had become the largest private mortgage lender in the U.S., the following words depict a man who had taken leave of his senses:

I have two issues with our industry’s current underwriting methodology. The first is that the automated underwriting systems kick far too many applicants down to the manual underwriting process, thereby implying these borrowers are not creditworthy; and the second issue is that once arriving in the hands of a manual underwriter, the applicant is subject to basic human judgment that can be influenced by the level of a borrower’s credit score.

Let’s address my first issue. I acknowledge that credit scoring uses proven statistical methods to provide lenders with the ability to quantify the risk of extending credit. And there is little question that the technique effectively and efficiently separates those with very good credit from those with questionable credit.

However, far too many borrowers are being referred to an arduous manual and cumbersome underwriting process. To me, that is clear proof that the level deemed to be an acceptable risk by our automated underwriting systems is much too high. While many of these borrowers may ultimately be approved, it is because the manual process, or human underwriter, has analyzed non-traditional factors such as the borrower’s rent and utility payment history, which should be imbedded in the automated underwriting process.

Now, let me address my second issue, and that is the manual underwriting process itself. While Countrywide’s own internal evidence supports the notion that manual underwriters are approving a good majority of the loan applications that get referred, the fact of the matter remains that a human is involved in this step of the process thereby creating the possibility that a decision is made based upon the level of the borrower’s FICO score.

Thus, the current protocol intentionally creates an environment where borrowers with lower FICO scores are subject to being disproportionately affected by the manual underwriting process. I say we need to amend these systems to do more than just approve the "cream of the crop," by creating a system that says "no" only to those deemed unwilling to make their mortgage payments.

We must understand that the credit scoring system we have built is still imperfect, and that if we are to have any chance at closing the homeownership gap, we must make a serious investment in improving its capacity and capabilities. We must do this through improved automated underwriting models that take into account more variables, and measure true indicators of risk and willingness to pay. We need an ongoing educational process, not only at the primary market level, but also in the secondary markets and with mortgage insurers to help lead this effort to recalibrate the scoring system. And finally, it must be recognized that borrowers with credit scores below what is currently defined as "creditworthy" levels can still be acceptable credit risks. Thus, the credit score bar dividing creditworthy from high-risk borrowers, must be substantially lowered by the GSEs, the secondary market in general, and with bank regulators. The GSEs have made good progress over the last few years in expanding their credit criteria, but I encourage them to become much more aggressive in this regard.

What Angelo Mozilo desires to accomplish is to replace human underwriters with computers. He never mentions the Five Cs of credit because sound credit underwriting requires human judgment; which can be aided with, yet never replaced by, technology. In Mr. Mozilo’s daffy world of credit progressivism, he may as well distill the mortgage application down to a one-page document containing a single question: Are you willing to make your mortgage payment? If the answer is "yes" then the loan is approved and if the answer is "no" then it is declined. Under such circumstances, a computer would work perfectly.

As I have asserted before, political correctness is an enfeebling infection of the mind. Mr. Mozilo’s vision of politically-correct, and "enlightened," credit underwriting was nothing short of daffy. Yet, one can only imagine how approvingly this pabulum was met by his Harvard chums.

Angelo Mozilo had no intention of disappointing his fellow travelers. There was hope as to closing the homeownership gap. It was something called the subprime mortgage. In his bizarre mind, the more subprime mortgage originations there were, the better off America would be. To wit:

Historically low interest rates along with new, creative and flexible underwriting techniques are continuing to fuel a record period of growth for our industry. According to the Federal Reserve, the amount of overall mortgage debt outstanding is nearly $6 trillion. And, increasingly, the sub-prime market is boosting that number and the industry as a whole. During the first nine months of 2002, sub-prime originations rose an estimated 26 percent over the same period in 2001 – outpacing the overall market.

Had Mr. Mozilo delivered this speech today, he would have immediately been fitted into a straightjacket and then driven to the nearest loony bin.

Countrywide Financial and many other financial institutions ended up throwing all credit standards out the window in order to package and sell as many subprime mortgage-backed securities as possible. To be sure, many did not do so sharing Mozilo’s politically-correct and egalitarian hallucination – they just wanted to make a fast buck.

An important distinction to convey here pertains to the fact that Countrywide and others were not selling all of their loans to Freddie and Fannie. The aforementioned mortgage-backed securities were purely packaged and sold under private labels. When America’s housing bubble was expanding, buyers of such subprime securities obviously felt there was no downside. Such are the delusions that materialize when central bankers flood the world with the opiates of easy money and credit.

Regrettably, by completely ignoring underwriting fundamentals, Countrywide and its ilk have set up so many borrowers for failure (as have the king and queen of mortgage socialism, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; both of whom, by the way, may be on the brink of their own financial meltdowns). The pain and anguish of losing a home, and having one’s family displaced, will be visited upon countless families. Of course, such borrowers must look in the mirror when the urge, to pass around the blame, emerges. Nonetheless, Angelo Mozilo’s dream has transmuted into a nightmare for millions.

My, oh my, aren’t political correctness, egalitarianism, and social engineering wonderful? You be the judge.

January 28, 2008

Eric Englund has an MBA from Boise State University and lives in the state of Oregon. He is the publisher of The Hyperinflation Survival Guide by Dr. Gerald Swanson. You are invited to visit his website.