The Observation Deck

If the purpose of "pulling our resources together" is not to reallocate those resources for the collective good of the region, then what would be the purpose? To believe that any reallocation will not impact Lakewood ignores the extent to which Cleveland's tax based resources are woefully inadequate and will, of necessity, drain resources from suburban tax bases. The argument that "additional" revenues can be realized by way of economies of scale and efficiencies is utter speculation and Pollyannish. While I would tend to agree that there is "strength in numbers", if those joining together are not relatively equal, the stronger members of the coalition will suffer by the allocating their resources away from their needs to aid the weaker partners.

Today's PD, on their front page article, spins the issue as tying suburban prosperity to the mother city. We must lend support to Cleveland otherwise its continued loss of tax base will negatively impact the surrounding suburbs. We're all in this together, so the argument goes, and suburban sacrifice to better the mother city will be in our best interests by way of stabilizing and improving the region as a whole. Once that is accomplished, we will all share in the prosperity which will follow. Of course, while projecting the loss of professional sports teams, recreational venues, the fine arts and museums if we "fail to act", there is predictably, an assumption of a positive outcome of the urban rebirth of Cleveland. No discussion of the equally probable negative consequences to the suburbs whose tax bases are pillaged to fund the mother city's rebirth will be forthcoming, as the power brokers don't wish to reveal what behind curtain # 2.

So, I ask the question, if suburban school tax coffers are raided to fund the 20 year process of rebuilding the Cleveland schools (most experts agree it will take a generation) what family will be attracted to Lakewood (or Bay, River, Westlake, Solon et al) when the quality of their schools is impinged? I doubt that families pondering that decision will give a speculative, future regional rebirth great weight in the decision. Just imagine the increase in private school enrollment as the new Greater Cuyahoga County Education Commission announces county-wide busing. Which suburban residents will volunteer reductions in service, programs, THEIR city's amenities and accountability for the future mother city rebirth panacea? I'm not particularly confident that the Lakewood homeowner will understand the unavailability of police to respond to a noise complaint, the Rocky River widow to problems getting the fire dept. to rescue her cat. Net result, more regional population loss, exacerbation of the tax base loss and a continuation of the downward spiral. But at least we'll all be in it together. (And with the reallocation of resources, there will probably be enough money to fund a mult-million dollar study of the issue, to be delivered to the gleaming new Regional Government Office on the NW corner of Public Square which the regional government needed for its increased staff and new responsibilities at built at a cost of
100 million...all paid for with....all together now.....savings from efficiencies and economies of scale!)

This exercise in urban socialism has only one probable result. As we tie our future to Cleveland with our tax purse strings, the entire region will be forced into asset reallocation which will bring us all to the lowest common denominator (yeah, I know, because of efficiencies and economies of scale there will be more available.....right). Will this suburban sacrifice rescue the Cleveland's sinking civic ship? Perhaps in several decades. But, I for one would prefer to foray out on a life raft instead of waiting for the day Coast Guard arrives.

Jeff

Today's PD article, "Stagnant growth troubles Cleveland" is another fine example of one-sided reporting and slick PR attempts to ram buzz words into the brains of those cursed with a lack of newsprint competition. The Brookings Inst. is quoted frequently as "experts in metroplitan governance"

From the Brookings Inst. website;

"Today, Brookings is financed primarily through the support of philanthropic foundations, corporations, and private individuals, with additional funding from its endowment. The Institution's funds are devoted to carrying out its own research and educational activities. Brookings also undertakes some unclassified government contract studies, reserving the right to publish its findings from them."

Note; Foundations, multi nationals and private(wealthy) individuals.

The Plain Dealer in itself is somewhat of a corporate behemoth. Owned by a conglomerate based out NYC, the PD's content oversight takes place much closer to the Brookings Institute than one might image. We know what locational economies offer social networking.

We also know how intelligent, ethical discourse might fructate a brighter future. The answer is NOT acceptance of mandates from corporately funded think tanks on high. Dialog NOT managed by PR gurus, but taking place in open forums, like this, will be our only hope.

Here's the Brookings Board of Trustee's

Note some members from powerful multi-nationals as advisors to accomplish....

"The goal of Brookings activities is to improve the performance of American institutions and the quality of public policy by using social science to analyze emerging issues and to offer practical approaches to those issues in language aimed at the general public."


Zoë Baird
President, The Markle Foundation

Alan R. Batkin
Vice Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.

Richard C. Blum
Chairman and President, Blum Capital Partners, L.P.

Geoffrey T. Boisi
Chairman and Senior Partner, Roundtable Investment Partners LLC

James W. Cicconi
General Counsel and Executive Vice President, AT&T

Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr.
Chair, O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Kenneth W. Dam
Max Pam Professor of American & Foreign Law, University of Chicago Law School

Vishakha N. Desai
President, The Asia Society

Thomas E. Donilon
Partner, O'Melveny and Meyers

Mario Draghi
Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International

Kenneth M. Duberstein
Chairman and CEO, The Duberstein Group, Inc.

Lawrence K. Fish
Chairman, President and CEO, Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Cyrus F. Freidheim Jr.
Retired Chairman of the Board & CEO, Chiquita Brands International, Inc.

Bart Friedman
Senior Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel

David Friend
President and CEO, Carbonite, Inc.

Ann M. Fudge
Chairman and CEO, Young & Rubicam Brands

Jeffrey W. Greenberg
Private Investor

Brian L. Greenspun
President and Editor, Las Vegas Sun

William A. Haseltine Ph.D.
Chairman and CEO, Haseltine Associates

Teresa Heinz
Chairman, Heinz Family Philanthropies

Samuel Hellman M.D.
A.N. Pritzker Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago

Glenn H. Hutchins
Co-founder and Managing Member, Silver Lake Partners

Joel Z. Hyatt
CEO, Current Media, LLC

Shirley Ann Jackson Ph.D.
President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Kenneth Jacobs
Deputy Chairman, Lazard Frères and Co. LLC

Suzanne Nora Johnson
Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs

Michael H. Jordan
Chairman and CEO, EDS Corporation

Harold Hongju Koh
Dean of Yale Law School, Yale University

William A. Owens
President and CEO, Nortel Networks

Frank H. Pearl
Chairman and CEO, Perseus, LLC

John Edward Porter
Partner, Hogan & Hartson

Steven Rattner
Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group LLC

Haim Saban
Chairman and CEO, Saban Capital Group, Inc.

Leonard D. Schaeffer
Chairman and CEO, WellPoint

Lawrence H. Summers
President, Harvard University

David F. Swensen
Chief Investment Officer, Yale University

Larry D. Thompson
Senior VP of Governmental Affairs and General Counsel, PepsiCo

Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Dean, London Business School

Antoine van Agtmael
President and Chief Investment Officer, Emerging Markets Management, LLC

Beatrice W. Welters
Founder, The An-Bryce Foundation

Daniel Yergin
Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates



Honorary Trustees



Leonard Abramson
Consultant and Member of the Boards of Directors of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Johns Hopkins University

Elizabeth E. Bailey
Chair and John C. Hower Professor of Business and Public Policy
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Rex J. Bates

Louis W. Cabot
Chairman, Cabot-Wellington LLC

A. W. Clausen
Retired Chairman and CEO, Bank of America Corporation
Former President, World Bank

William T. Coleman Jr.
Senior Partner and the Senior Counsellor, O'Melveny & Myers LLP

Alan M. Dachs
President and CEO, Fremont Group

D. Ronald Daniel
Director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

Robert A. Day
Chairman and CEO, Trust Company of the West

Bruce B. Dayton

Charles W. Duncan Jr.
Chairman, Duncan Interests

Walter Y. Elisha
Retired Chairman and CEO, Springs Industries, Inc.

Robert F. Erburu
Non-Executive Chairman, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
Chairman of the Board (Retired), The Times Mirror Company

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D.
Chairman, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Robert D. Haas
Chairman of the Board, Levi Strauss & Co.

Lee H. Hamilton
President and Director, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

F. Warren Hellman
Chairman, Hellman and Friedman LLC

Robert A. Helman
Senior Partner, Mayer, Brown, Row & Maw

Roy M. Huffington
Chairman and CEO, Roy M. Huffington, Inc.

James A. Johnson
Vice Chairman, Perseus, L.L.C.

Ann Dibble Jordan

Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Of Counsel, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP

Breene M. Kerr
President, Brookside Company

Marie L. Knowles
Retired Executive Vice President and CFO, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO)

James T. Lynn
Retired CEO, Aetna Life & Casualty Co.

Jessica Tuchman Mathews
President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

David O. Maxwell
Retired Chairman and CEO, Fannie Mae

Donald F. McHenry
Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Affairs
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Robert S. McNamara
Former President
The World Bank

Mary Patterson McPherson
Vice President, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Arjay Miller
Dean Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Mario M. Morino
Chairman and Managing Director, Morino Group

Maconda Brown O'Connor Ph.D.
Trustee, The Brown Foundation, Inc.

Samuel Pisar Ph.D.
International Lawyer, New York and Paris

J. Woodward Redmond
President, J.W. Redmond & Company

Charles W. Robinson
President, Robinson & Associates, Inc., CBTF Co., and M Ship Co.

James D. Robinson III
Chairman, RRE Ventures

Judith Rodin Ph.D.
President, The Rockefeller Foundation

Warren B. Rudman
Of Counsel, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

B. Francis Saul II
President and Chairman, B.F. Saul Company

Ralph S. Saul
Former Chairman, CIGNA Corporation

Henry B. Schacht
Managing Director and Senior Advisor, Warburg Pincus LLC

Michael P. Schulhof
Chairman and CEO, Global Technology Investments

Joan E. Spero
President, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Vincent J. Trosino
President, COO, and Vice Chairman of the Board, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

John C. Whitehead

Stephen M. Wolf
Chairman, Lehman Brothers Private Equity Advisory Board
Chairman, R.R. Donnelly & Sons Company
Managing Partner, Alpilles, LLC

James D. Wolfensohn
Special Envoy for the Gaza Disengagement
Former President, The World Bank

Ezra K. Zilkha
President, Zilkha & Sons, Inc.

Dan

So...perhaps, if we draw upon the corporate affiliations, we can see local governmental regionalizations as a small step towards global "regionalization"....the new world order! Just imagine the savings through efficiencies and economies of scale !

Jeff

Jim,

I'm sorry to be so slow in responding. You spoke out forcefully about the health department. I certainly don't mean to put them down. I do know that we are one of the few suburbs to have our own.

But I want to know more. What are they doing that is special?

Thanks,

Lynn

Dan Slife wrote:Joe,

After reading this thread several times, I'm confounded by one simple fact. You have failed to respond to a single comment made by Jeff Endress or Kenneth Warren. No offense to any other poster, but Jeff and Ken have made clear, critical cuts into the very core issues.

If you're coming with guns, aim them at Jeff and Ken. You have yet to illuminate ground upon which any such trump can take place. You are dancing like a PD marionette, and other participants are dancing with you. They provide emotional ground upon which you can avoid intellect.

You know something, you're absolutely right. Lakewood should drop all alliances. We can start, with all due respect to Mr. Warren, by taking all links and data bases out of the Lakewood Public Library and off of their computers.. These aren't efficient, they don't help us, they dont save time. Let the Library try to replicate the information they have because of their affiliations now in use.
That New YMCA that's being built next to the library, why don't we start to picket the construction work as it goes on. The Y is part of the Greater Cleveland YMCA; a regional organization. We should stop this new building from going up all together.

That hospital down the street, we can't go there! it's affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic. Surely no good can come from this.

RTA - we had better break this service up. As soon as one crosses from community A to community B, they have to get off the bus, wait for a new one, and pay a new fair. While we're at it, forget Lifeflight in an emergency. Each community is now required to purchase their own helocopter.

How far do you want to take this?
Would you like to make sure radio waves, TV frequencies etc cannot be transmitted from one city to another. As most if not all the stations that can be picked up on Cox come from (heaven forbid) - another city), there's no good that can come from having it or satellite.
I can't resist going back to our councilman's post and my response (which he has yet to reply to) and demand that he break all affiliation with any type of union. Perhaps all of us should boycott unions and shop at some privately owned food store down the convenience store down the street. Sure, you'll have to figure out when it's open, pay a premium, not get the brand you need or the product you want (make sure it's not union made, too), but it's a Lakewood business.
We can only read Lakewood newspapers from now on, lets boycott not just the Plain Dealer, but any paper not published here.

Is this website affiliated with any other? Was that spellcheck program made here? I sure hope so, otherwise we should stop coming here; right?

Joe Milan

scholar Jane Jacobs notes that models of regional and metropolitan governance are often constructed for and by corporations to mask the unraveling of the progressive tax structure.

This unraveling is painted as a red carpet for those upstanding citizens we call CEO's and shareholders who are only dedicated to their country if the taxes and market wages are low enough.

"If the corporate bottom line can be lowered, the region will prosper."...(scratching head............ )

Unfortunately, if the underlying problem involves a business ethos not interested in more equitably redistributing wealth, than regional redistribution gambits are flawed from their very inception.

Add the fact that greedy trans-nationals are helping to fund think tanks like the Brookings Institution, and regional governance becomes another tool in the corporate war on working class and mixed economy American life, and the social institutions (i.e. parochial municipalities and all their local, social identities/networks) that advance community life and decency within such.

You know something, you're absolutely right. Lakewood should drop all alliances. We can start, with all due respect to Mr. Warren, by taking all links and data bases out of the Lakewood Public Library and off of their computers.. These aren't efficient, they don't help us, they don't save time. Let the Library try to replicate the information they have because of their affiliations now in use.
That New YMCA that's being built next to the library, why don't we start to picket the construction work as it goes on. The Y is part of the Greater Cleveland YMCA; a regional organization. We should stop this new building from going up all together.

How far do you want to take this?
Would you like to make sure radio waves, TV frequencies etc cannot be transmitted from one city to another. As most if not all the stations that can be picked up on Cox come from (heaven forbid) - another city), there's no good that can come from having it or satellite.
I can't resist going back to our councilman's post and my response (which he has yet to reply to) and demand that he break all affiliation with any type of union. Perhaps all of us should boycott unions and shop at some privately owned food store down the convenience store down the street. Sure, you'll have to figure out when it's open, pay a premium, not get the brand you need or the product you want (make sure it's not union made, too), but it's a Lakewood business.
We can only read Lakewood newspapers from now on, lets boycott not just the Plain Dealer, but any paper not published here.

Joe Milan

Mr Milan,

It seems as though you're not even reading the posts. Are you having trouble understanding?

No one ever said that Lakewood couldn't benefit from certain cooperative efforts. You've put that out there, uncritically reactive with the same catch phrases at every turn.

The most important issue that you have yet to even acknowledge(thus constituting a non-starter in your own mind) is the baseless argument purporting economies of scale.

Norman Krumholz, urban scholar and professor at CSU's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs notes that there has yet to have been a valid study proving economies of scale in regional/metropolitan governance models. Krumholz also notes that the only material purporting this 'truth' is PR literature.

Dan Slife wrote:Unfortunately, if the underlying problem involves a business ethos not interested in more equitably redistributing wealth, than regional redistribution gambits are flawed from their very inception.

Like I implied in my previous post, Lakewood, as the people on this board suggest, would be much better off if we simply lived in a bubble. Some people still have to explain why it's all right for them to join forces and alliances but wrong for governments to do the same.

This has been an eye opening experience. Most of Lakewood hated it when it came to deregulation of phone and gas companies. There was even someone on radio today saying that the Airline deregulation act (1978) is the reason airlines are now going broke 25 years later. Most of Lakewood wanted a "COOKIE CUTTER" health plan for everyone. If this is a good thing, perhaps the councilman can explain why rationalizing government is an bad thing. People have even blamed the events that occurred following both thew 9/11 disaster as well as the recent hurricane on government entities that couldn't and still cant talk to eachother.
I'm glad I found a place where noone will ever dare mention ANY of these things as it is just some messed up, half baked idea.
Joe Milan

Mr. Milan,

Again, you are quoting other posters without even addressing the content therein.

Please refer to your most recent post, and note how you didn't even answer the concern within the text you quoted.

As a member of the GOP, what is your interest in terms of class, race and social equality in the redistribution of wealth to the city's core? Who, in your mind, benefits most from regionalized governance, in above mentioned terms? Who are the losers?

note: there are always winners and losers. That's why panacea approaches are often pushed heavily by PR firms with slick marketing to gloss over the underlying political reality...... a power shift is at hand. Simply stated, the question is; Who will have power under the new regime? Who will lose power?

You're talking about rationalizing government at the same time that your own thoughts are incoherent and irrational. Rational = logical. Your snide remarks about Lakewood's resistance to cooperate are offered rather than addressing pointed, intelligent critique of the very model you've been propagating on this board.

You have yet to enter into logical discourse on assumptions of the economies of scale argument.

You reply with catch phrases appealing to the general climate of mistrust for government within the American pop consciousness. At the same time, you are turning a blind eye to the general climate of mistrust for business.

This is the shaky ground upon which any GOP regionalist will never stand. There's a coin scandal in Columbus and ostentatious wining and dining of our politicians by big biz in our state and nations capital. Big Biz are the very people/orgs that regional governance would support. You are clearly standing on the side of corporate globalism and the race to the bottom.

The race to the bottom entails more than crippling what's left of the politically active middle. It digs much deeper, burrowing into the level of critical intelligence cultivated amongst the demos.

You have failed in lowering the level of intelligent conversation on this board to that of the apathetic, desparate household consumer. To any objective reader, it will be glaringly obvious that you have not addressed the most crippling criticisms to your ideology.

Economies of scale are argued on the basis of quantity.

Resistance to corporate-backed regionalism is levied from the ground of quality. Who controls the quality? The S. American Banana barrons?

** Note this is where Mr. Milan responds with something like;

"People have even blamed the events that occurred following both thew 9/11 disaster as well as the recent hurricane on government entities that couldn't and still cant talk to eachother."

or


"You know something, you're absolutely right. Lakewood should drop all alliances. We can start, with all due respect to Mr. Warren, by taking all links and data bases out of the Lakewood Public Library and off of their computers.. "

Again, nobody has discounted cooperative measures. Quite the contrary, you have discounted anything less than regional government models.

Concerning the second quote,it's irrational. You are drawing analogy between a lack of oversight that led to 911 and an envisioned lack of regionalism that will lead to death and destruction. Following this logic, you are either implying that avoiding corporate regionalism will lead to terrorist attacks or some other disaster in our region. You are clearly attempting to invoke fear into this conversation. The threat of terror or mother natures wrath are neither caused by a lack or cured by the presence of regional governance.

Propagandists use emotions to cover a lack of logical dot-connecting within their ideologies. Your statesments lack rudemental logic, as the conclusion are irrational and draw from unrelated factors.

You're invoking 911 in a discussion on regional governance?

1 + 1 is not equal to 3

Things do not exist in absolutes. There is no white, no white, only shades of gray. It is an interesting debate protocol, when unable/unwilling to respond or refute, to simply to characterize the opposing position in polar opposites, assigning to it a position never advocated. While I strongly advocate that we should not allow the redistribution of our tax base under the banner of regionalization and betterment of the mother city, it is a position I take because I have examined the underlying rationals (beyond the emotional appeals) and find them either lacking or not in Lakewood's best interest. At the same time, no one here has ever advocated living in a bubble, or ignoring that there exist areas where a level of co-operation and participation may well be in not only our interest, but also others.

I have been dealing with regionalization, at the Library level, for a year and a half. I have sought an objective analysis that can demonstrate that a reallocation of the regional tax base would not cause Lakewood reductions of current levels of service, programming and responsiveness. My inquiries are met with an emotional plea for sacrifice (the "we're all in this together/ as Cleveland goes, so goes the suburbs" arguments) and/or a discussion of ASSUMED efficiencies and economies of scale without any appurtenant discussion of service level changes.

An intellectually honest discussion provides information to address concerns; not emotional rationalizations to overcome the concerns at a knee-jerk, gut level. An intellectually honest discussion looks at the quid as well as pro quo; the pro and the con, so that rather then assuming the end result (and thus bootstrapping the conclusion) one is able to evaluate the actual cost versus the actual savings. Instead, I am fed an emotional appeal, candy coated with all the right buzz words, which lacks even enough substance so that an analysis might be made. I've been hoping someone could address the reality of urban socialization in the guise of regionalization so as to allow for an objective cost/benefit analysis of the tax base reallocation.

Joe;

Until someone is in position to answer concerns over tax base reallocation so that it is possible to perform a cost/benefit analysis, regionalization shows itself to be, in fact, a half baked idea.

Jeff

Typically, instigations for regionalism combine dream and moral sentiment, on one hand, and untested assumptions concerning savings on the other.

Very often, both hands work together to take away democratically controlled public assets joined to local citizen accountabililty and subsidiarity norms.

Read the PD in recent weeks, including columnists, to observe the combination of dream and moral sentiment in the instigation for regionalism.

What exactly does the region need to share?

A dispersed poor population evenly allocated across each self-governing and self-interested fiefdom?

A redistribution of tax burden spread evenly across the region?

A regional allocation of debt through increased bonding capacity to sweeten the pot for corporations to locate in NEO?

Do we really believe a multi-county regional government in 21st century Ohio can achieve economic justice envisioned in the dreamscape and moral sentiment that promises to save the taxpayer a few bucks?

Or is regionalism, masked in dreamscape, moral sentitment and self-calculating, actually a trogan horse for Neo-liberals interested in privatization of public assets?

If the major structural issues of housing and school segregation are avoided in a dreamy iteration of regionalism, then privatization of democratically controlled public assets is a likely objective.

We need to understand the endgame behind any instigation for regionalism.

We need to understand whose interests and whose instincts any particular instigation for regionalism is designed to serve.


Kenneth Warren

As Ken stated:

We need to understand whose interests and whose instincts any particular instigation for regionalism is designed to serve.

This is precisely why I continue to ask about the cost/benefit analysis. If you have the information for that analysis, you have the answer to whose interests regionalization serves.

The idea of regionalization finds a parallel (or so we are told) in the mergers of like corporations with complementary business aims. I tend to believe in this analogy. But, what troubles me is the complete lack of any analysis of regionalization as a business decision, when in fact, that is precisely what it is.

Business "A" announces the acquisition of of business "B". At the time of the acquisition announcement, there will also be an analysis of jobs/positions to be eliminated, factories and/or physical operations to be closed as well as projections of the increased profitability of the new entity. There could be no merger of business "A" with business"B" without having done the due diligence to make the inquiries necessary to advise the shareholders exactly what the projected merger/acquisition is intended to accomplish. To do otherwise would be a violation of the fiduciary obligation the Board of Directors owes to its shareholders.

If we accept the proposition that municipalities are really no different from other corporate entities. They have Boards of Directors (government) and shareholders (citizens/constituents). Why then, should we accept any LESS due diligence from our corporate cities when they consider a business decision of merger?

In a fictional merger of county-wide fire depts., we, the constituent shareholders should have before us information as to the expected saving through anticipated efficiencies. Studies would have been done during the due diligence process so that our Boards (government) would be able to advise which facilities would be closed, how many employees would be laid off, the manner in which resources would be redistributed. This in turn would generate for us the profitability study which would show the actual tax savings to be realized. We, as shareholders could then determine that increased response time or potentially unavailability was a reasonable quid pro quo for the saving to be realized. If the underlying data is unavailable to complete that analysis is, then it should likewise be unacceptable to propose the merger; if it is available, it must be disclosed.


I don't think its an unreasonable expectation. Unless of course the push is for other then sound business reasons, such investing the funds of sound businesses to rescue one which is both unprofitable and bankrupt.

Jeff

As I write a series of stories about the loss of Lakewood's Greatest Asset, Kenneth Warren, and Why, I have been going through years of threads, and posts.

Here is another interesting thread.

.