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March 5, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:25
March 5, 2009, Thursday, Hour #2
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For you fans of the Dallas Cowboys, it's even worse news today.
In addition to all the daily details of a crumbling U.S. economy, you wake up today, or maybe you found out last night that the Democrat and that the Dallas Cowboys have canceled and they have they have uh cut Terrell Owens.
Some Cowboys fans are cheering this, by the way, Mr. Snerdley.
Snerdly very upset about this.
But uh they have done that, so the news just continues to be negative out there everywhere you look, except here.
We can find lots of positives, and uh and we do so in the course of our daily excursions into broadcast excellence.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program.
Hi, by the way, I'm Rush Limbaugh is 800-282-288-2, the email address L Rushbo at EIBNet.com, and I promise your phone calls are coming up L quicko.
I want to go to CNBC audio from last night on the Cudlow report.
This is amazing, by the way.
Larry Cudlow is talking with Donald StraZeme uh of StraZeme Global Advisors and Jeff Mackey of Mackey Asset Management.
Cudlow says, How is China treating capital?
How are the ChICOMs, the Chinese communists treating capital, how are they treating money?
Because I would argue, says Cudlow, the Obama budget is not treating capital very well.
In fact, some people believe, and I'm one of them, that they are waging a war on investors.
How is China treating capital gains and corporate taxation?
Uh and let's let's include infrastructure spending, because I think for an emerging country, infrastructure spending is pro-capital and pro-growth.
And here is what Stray Zime and Mackey said.
China has treated capital better than we have for a decade.
There is no tax on gains held short-term or long-term.
Wow.
In the Chinese market.
These are communists.
No capital gains tax from communists.
And they like rich guys more than Obama does.
No incorrect.
Larry, there is no tax on capital gains held over a long period.
Even on daily trading, there is no tax.
I would rather own CNOC, China National Arshore Oil Company, and PetroChina over the next year than I would Exxon Mobil.
Wow.
And Conical Phillips.
Okay, great.
But China's government is going to treat their companies better than our government is going to treat our companies.
Donald StraZheim and uh Jeff Mackey on CNBC's Cudlow last night.
That's real.
That is real.
That is real.
The ChICOMs are treating their corporations better than Barack Obama is treating American corporations.
No tax on capital gains, no tax on daily trading.
No tax on capital gains held over a long period, even on daily trading, no tax.
I know Obama likes China, likes their infrastructure spending, but he doesn't like them that much.
Now, again, and you heard Cudlow say it, there is a war being waged on investors by the Obama administration.
I think he's right.
I don't know how you look at it any other way.
The stock market, which is the home of investing, continues to plunge, and Obama doesn't care.
It's a tracking fall.
He's just doing nothing about it, showing no concern whatsoever.
I think, folks, it makes perfect sense from a guy who looks at the United States as an unjust and unfair capitalist economy.
And I think Barack Obama thinks that the middle class and the poor used to have all the money, but it's been siphoned away from them, stolen, taken away, cheated from them, and he thinks that his job is to return the nation's wealth to its rightful owners.
So he's going after the investor class.
He's going after the achievers, the entrepreneurs.
Barack Obama just began a health care summit at the White House.
Another one of these summits where there'll be breakout groups after a couple of opening statements.
And then uh they'll report back later today to tell us exactly what it was that they all came up with for solutions.
So today it's fixed health care.
Can I can I give you a very simple health care fix?
Seriously now, very simple.
Without even restructuring the system per se, without going into uh uh circumstances and policy where we uh reorient so that the customer determines the price of things.
Right now, the customer doesn't determine the price in health care.
That's what's wrong with it.
The customer does not determine the price.
But without even going there, you know what you could do?
To drop health care costs dramatically?
Tort reform.
One of the largest contributing factors to the cost of health care today, malpractice insurance.
It's driving doctors out of the business.
Obama has promised that he's going to squeeze payments to doctors even further.
He's going to squeeze payments to hospitals.
He's going to squeeze payments to insurers, meaning he's going to decide what prices are.
That's not going to do any better than what's happening today, where insurance companies and the government working together determine what prices are.
The only real long-term solution is when consumers determine prices by what they're willing to pay for.
As it is in every other sector of the capitalist markets for the most part that work.
But if you want to have a temporary giant reduction in cost, you implement tort reform and a simple element of tort reform.
And that is in any tort action brought, the loser pays.
So you, you're in McDonald's.
You order some chicken McNuggets.
They don't have any.
You call 911.
This happened in Port St. Lucy, did it not, which used to be one of the fastest five growing, another more foreclosures.
I told you, Fort Rio Linda East.
Port St. Lucy, Rio Linda East.
You go to McDonald's, you order some chicken McNuggets, they don't have any.
You call 911.
You call 911 not once.
You call 911 not twice.
You call 911, you call the cops and the fire department because McDonald's doesn't have chicken McNuggets.
Call Obama.
The answer to this problem, you call Obama.
Okay, so this person that calls 911 three times over No Chicken McNuggets, some fast-moving lawyer sees the story, calls her up and says, I'll take your case on contingency.
We will sue McDonald's for $25 million for misrepresentation in advertising, menu, and so forth.
They didn't have what they promised.
They wanted to charge you for it, nevertheless, and you were so distraught you had to call a cops.
If tort reform existed, and the loser in such an action had to pay, the woman would never bring the case.
Now you attach and apply this to health care, where professional hustlers, and they're not all this way, but professional hustlers in the uh in a tort bar, these uh plaintiff's lawyers.
They hustle around, they read the papers, they mine for people like this who have been somehow mistreated or misdiagnosed or whatever they want to claim by a doctor.
And they want to sue for big bucks, not for any legitimate reason just to get some money.
Today, the simplest way for that to happen is for the doctor to pay in a settlement to avoid costs of litigation.
But if loser pays were implemented, that would end all of this, and you would lower health care costs dramatically with just that one move.
Now I know rush rush, it sounds really brilliant.
Why don't they do it?
Because the people who write the laws in this country are all lawyers.
And the Democrats receive most of their financial contributions from the tort bar, from the plaintiff's bar.
And so it's a dirty little Secret, it's simply a way, it's just follow the money trail, folks.
It's always all about money, and it's a way for Democrat constituents to get rich, once again, feeding off the achiever class, the entrepreneurial class, just go get what they've got, penalize them for their hard work, penalize them for their risks.
But if you if just institute loser pays, something that simple, you would find the cost of health care dropping dramatically, and then we could get to the policy aspects of reforming it further.
A quick timeout, we'll be back, grab some of your phone calls.
Jim Kramer, by the way, erupts at his website at the White House for having been placed on their enemies list.
What's interesting is that Kramer was one of Obama's biggest proponents, advocates, and supporters all last year.
Back after this.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Rush Limbaugh.
People have been waiting patiently on the phones.
So let's start with uh Mike in Aspen.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Hello.
Uh Megaddoes from the uh beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I appreciate that.
Uh, I called you a while ago and um um tried to convince you that uh labor unions were a good thing, and um since then I've changed my mind and and I humbly apologize about uh uh about that fact and because uh reading uh before the holidays uh what companies were actually making money at the time were ones that didn't have unions and uh and now with this uh union conference in Florida with um uh vice
president Biden being down there, which is to me is a joke.
I think having him down there as a speaker.
I'm just uh disappointed with all that, and I hope that um they don't get what they want, especially with closed doors and no press media to you know talk about what's going on, and and I'm concerned about it.
So what was it you thought was great about unions at the time you called me to be critical?
Well, because um, you know, at the beginning I thought that um that it was a good thing to have some kind of structure and pay scale and insurance for people, but you know, you can do that with any job that you want to get.
You can, you know, just you know, promote yourself as a hardworking person and see, you know, what kind of benefits and things you can get.
Yeah, but you see, that's not the purpose of a union anymore.
Yeah.
The purpose of a union is not a pay structure and uh to get benefits and so forth.
It is, but the real purpose of a union is to elect Democrat candidates to every office possible.
The real purpose of a union is to collect dues.
Dues that will then be donated to various Democrats, regardless, regardless of what they stand for, just flood the uh elected offices of the country with Democrats.
That's the purpose of unions today.
Go ahead.
I I just felt that, you know, after listening to you and and watching what was happening with the economy, I I thought, you know, he he does have points, and so we you know, I've listened to you more, and even my wife's you know had change of heart as far as her viewpoints of uh the party that she thought was, you know, trying to help out, and even she's just dumbpounded with everything.
Well, welcome home.
Welcome home.
We are ecstatic.
We're all ecstatic to have you and your wife back home with us here.
Thank you.
Mike, thanks much.
Jeff and Elizabeth Town, Kentucky.
Hi, and welcome to the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Uh, good afternoon, Megadiddo's first time caller.
Um, I wanted to comment on the Reagan-esque trickle down economy, uh economics of the Obama plan, and that uh my credit card company sent me a uh thing notifying me that uh because of the extraordinary changes in the economic environment, um they're upping my credit limit.
Or not credit limit, but my uh my interest rates across the board about eight percent.
To what?
Um the uh APR of 17.9 with a default APR of 29.4.
All right, they're trying to send you a message, you got two interest rates of basically 18 and 25 percent.
If you if you default the 25% interest rate, just the normal monthly interest rates 18%, roughly, right?
Right.
They're trying to send you a message.
Don't use our Card.
If you must use our card, pay the balance in full.
They have so many delinquent credit card holders at these banks right now that they don't want any more.
American Express.
And when the American Express finally has some options where you don't have to pay in 30 days, but most American Express cards you got to pay in 30 days.
But they've just sent letters to three or four hundred credit card holders asking them to tear up the card.
Don't use it anymore.
And American Express charges a little higher fee to the retail outlets than uh MasterCard Visa, some of the others, but they're really telling you don't use it.
That's that's that's it's like the airlines raising the price of the first class ticket from Newark to Washington to 2,000 bucks.
They're saying take the train.
It didn't happen, snurly.
I'm saying if they did it, it's like take the train.
Right.
And you know, it I feel sorry for the people that won't be able to pay off.
There's like a two-month grace period before this hits.
And I feel sorry for the people that aren't gonna be able to pay their balances off or you know, choose to keep the card because it's you know it increased interest rates are just gonna cause people to not spend their money you know as freely as they ordered.
It's already happened.
People are starting to hoard their money uh rather than spend it.
Uh look at this these all of these things are predictable in an economic downturn.
There's nothing fair about an 18% interest rate, but they can do it.
I mean, you have the card, you agreed to the deal when you first got the card, they can raise the rates.
If you read the 25,000 pages of small print that they send you when you get the card, uh you will find somewhere in there that they can do this, and you have agreed to it by agreeing to accept the card.
Uh it is a shame that people are not going to be able to pay off their balances in uh in a couple of months are gonna get saddled with this.
Uh but that's I mean, that's the Obama economy.
See, this shouldn't be happening.
We bailed out the banks.
This is my point at the beginning of the program.
We bailed out the banks.
It's a month ago, half a year ago, we've already stimulated the banks.
They should be coming back.
We stimulated General Motors and Chrysler.
They should be roaring back to life.
But every entity that we have stimulated is falling by the wayside and getting worse.
I at some point, people are going to have to recognize here that the political solutions, particularly those of liberals, are destructive.
They're not working.
They aren't working.
And I doubt that their purpose is to work as you think they are to work.
See, I believe the Obama team's looking at this, and they're rubbing their hands together in the White House going, this is just what we want.
The Ballarina, Rahm Emmanuel, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
They've got their crisis.
It's getting worse.
Look at what they're doing with this crisis.
Now here comes health care, the health care summit today.
Ramming brand new tax increases on top of everything else.
Do you know what would stop the market slide if he really wanted to?
This is elementary.
If he were announced today a moratorium on the corporate tax and the capital gains tax, bam-o.
You know something else?
I'll give you a little interesting statistic.
This little statistic will blow your mind.
The Obama Stimulatum package was about $1 trillion.
$1 trillion to stimulate him out there.
With the infrastructure and all that.
We haven't even gotten to that bridge yet.
We've just seen pictures of what we're going to stimulate with the bridge.
But we haven't even started yet.
Now that was supposed to cause economic recovery, new jobs, all these great things, right?
$1 trillion.
Do you know?
Now let me set this up.
See, to me, this statistic, when you learn what I'm going to tell you, this statistic alone illustrates the real purpose of the Obama agenda.
$1 trillion in stimulus.
We are spending $1 trillion we don't have.
We've got to print it.
We've got to borrow it.
Do you know that if we announced a one-year moratorium on all income taxes, it would cost the government $1 trillion.
So let's put these things side by side.
You put $1 trillion back in the hands of Trump.
taxpayers.
Don't send it to Washington, just leave it.
Pay them the gross.
Pay every American the gross for a year.
Don't print any money on the other side, and don't distribute it to cities and states and fellow Democrat politicians.
Just if the government's going to be out a trillion, either way, leave the trillion in the back pocket of taxpayers.
And you watch what happens.
Watch what happens when people get paid the gross for a year.
You want to talk stimulation.
You want to talk economic growth.
The problem with that is that people that don't pay taxes wouldn't get anything, and that's who Obama wants to get your money.
I want you to listen to President Obama as he inaugurated the health care summit this afternoon in the White House.
There are a lot of people out there who are desperate.
There's a lot of desperation out there.
Today I want them and the people like them across this country to know that I have not forgotten them.
Stop the tape.
We have not.
Why does he have to say that?
Now I'm not surprised he's saying it.
Recuit.
I'm not surprised he's seen a lot of people out there who are desperate.
There's a lot of desperation out there.
That's what he's creating.
President Obama is creating.
He's the author of this desperation.
Look, I know that there are those of you in this audience who voted for Obama, who listened to me.
And you just can't believe I would say something like this, and I understand why, because you can't understand a president who would want something like the U.S. economy in its current state to happen.
And I understand you not understanding that.
And let me tell you why you don't understand it.
It's because you don't understand, intellectually understand liberalism.
If you if if if if you who voted for Obama and a lot of other people in the country understood liberalism, I mean it's happening right in front of you.
But if you understood it, you would never vote for these people.
It's like Jim Kramer, we've got him a soundbright of him coming up.
And he's got this big post at Main Street.com.
My response to the White House.
Jim Kramer thought McCain would be disaster for the U.S. economy.
Jim Kramer thought McCain equaled depression.
Jim Kramer is stupefied.
Jim Kramer, CNBC, mad money.
Jim Kramer was a huge Obama supporter.
He was a huge Democrat or liberal.
I'll say Democrat in this case.
Jim Kramer couldn't wait for Obama.
Now, a lot of the so-called smart people on our side, David Brooks, New York Times, who thinks he's a moderate conservative.
He wrote a piece this week.
He stunned.
Christopher Buckley, my good friend.
Now and then he also misjudged Obama.
If the guy goes far left, I'll be disappointed.
So my question to people like this, with all due respect is how come you didn't see who Obama is when it's right in front of your face, and people like me and millions of Americans did.
How come it is that I, without the great Ivy League education, am not surprised at all.
Not only am I not surprised, I'm rather frustrated that so many Americans don't see Obama as who he is.
I understand getting cowed by speeches.
I understand getting cowed by the messianic approach to things, but I don't understand people who are ignorant of liberalism, of left wing is.
I don't understand it.
Now, those of you who voted for Obama who are listening to me, you think I'm just trying to irritate you.
You think I'm just trying to have fun here and uh get you all revved up so you get all mad.
Not true.
We we conservatives love people, we love our country, we want the best for everybody.
We want a market that allows people to use their God given traits freedom, intelligence, compassion, passion, desire, ambition to go pursue whatever it is they love with excellence or what to whatever degree they want.
And Barack Obama is now a shock to a lot of people.
I am saying Barack Obama wants people to be desperate.
He likes the crisis, he likes the anxiety, he likes the lack of confidence that Americans have about their own country.
Now you'll only understand me saying that, you will only understand and agree with me if you understand liberals and their objectives and their desires.
But if you're going to look at President Obama as somebody who's non-ideological, who is neither a conservative or a liberal, but who is a moderate, you are going to miss who Barack Obama is.
He had the single most liberal voting record during 143 days of work in the United States Senate before he announced that he was running for the presidency.
We know who his friends and associates and mentors were the people that influenced him.
What makes anybody think, or what made anybody think that given his background, his foundation, his voting record, what made anybody think he was going to change?
The really smart people on our side, the intelligentsia.
Well, he can't he can't govern from the far left.
He's got to govern from the center because that's where most Americans are.
That is the biggest misunderstanding of liberalism of all is that they care about people.
Liberals care about their own power, and they hide that objective behind their so-called compassion.
So let's now go back and listen to this soundbite where Obama says a lot of desperation out there.
Very a lot of and he likes it.
Ram Emanuel is chief of staff, the ballerina talked about how a crisis is a great thing because there's a whole lot of things you can do.
You think Emmanuel is thinking about good things he can do for people?
No, he's thinking about good things that can happen to liberals in the Democrat Party.
Even on our side, I I'm stumped by people who refuse to admit what liberalism is, where it goes if left unchecked.
What happens to people under liberalism?
Go to Michigan, go to New Orleans, go to Louisiana, pre or post-current Hurricane Katrina, go there.
Go to New York.
Go to where the wards of the state, the people who are cared for, provided for by liberals in any city, go see how they live.
Go see South Central LA.
Go see the suburbs of New York City.
Go see any of these places.
It's not racial, it's ideological.
Go to any city where the primary supporters of liberalism live, the vast majority of them, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, go look.
You'll see what happens to people led by liberals.
Hugo Chavez.
Now use this as just an illustration.
Hugo Chavez is all upset.
He's upset at the media, and now Hugo Chavez is taking over food.
Hugo Chavez, the socialist dictator in Venezuela, has to say has announced that he's taking over food because he doesn't like the profit that some food agriculture people and uh in the food business are making.
He's gonna take over food and he's gonna set prices.
Well, when the government's in charge of what you eat, where you eat, what it costs you, they really have control over you.
Now, this is a a the Hugo Chavez is a uh is a good example of what could happen because Hugo Chavez is a liberal in addition to being a socialist.
And if you look at who the enemies of Hugo Chavez are in in Venezuela, you'll find that they are free market capitalists in the media.
There are a lot of people out there.
Other areas in the uh in the means of production.
So he likes crisis too.
He's gonna shut down media, so he because he wants his approval ratings at 80% in Venezuela.
So now here's Obama announcing his health care summit today, twice acknowledges that you're desperate, that there's a lot of desperation out there.
And then he says he wants you to know he hasn't forgotten you.
Now that to me is quite telling.
Why say that?
I haven't forgotten you.
There are many aspects to that that I can sit here and parse.
I haven't forgotten you.
That means that in his mind, he's the savior.
It also means that in his mind, he believes that most Americans think he's the savior.
It's very creepy.
It is creepy.
The third way to analyze this, I haven't forgotten you, is that he knows there's some trouble bubbling up out there.
I mean, there things aren't getting any better.
And people thought, listen to the people at his town meetings talk to him.
People thought this was not going to be the way it was.
So Americans are desperate.
Barack Obama has not forgotten you.
Here is the entire soundbite.
There are a lot of people out there who are desperate.
There's a lot of desperation out there.
Today I want them and the people like them across this country to know that I have not forgotten them.
We have not forgotten them.
They are why we're here today, to start delivering the change they demanded at the polls in November, that they have continued to demand since the election.
And if we're successful, if we can pass comprehensive reform, these folks will see their costs come down.
They'll get the care they need, and will help our businesses create jobs again so our economy can grow.
Classic illustration of how liberals operate.
Again, I I I have to say I'm stunned and dumbfounded at the number of people who do not understand liberalism and what it portends.
The so-called smart people on our side.
Okay, so he's acknowledged those of you out there who are desperate.
He knows you're desperate.
And he likes that.
And he he knows that uh you're wondering whether he forgot you, but he hasn't.
You are to be comforted because your supreme leader has not forgotten you.
You are in your supreme leader's thoughts.
Your supreme leader cares so much about you that in order to answer your demands in the polls, and to start delivering the change that you demanded in November,
he is going to start a process today that will take at least a year and a half or two if it gets done at all, to reform health care as part of you finding a job, as part of the cost of living you experience coming down.
So while you're desperate, you know, while you're hanging on, your supreme leader knows that you're desperate, and he's thinking about you, and he's starting work on a plan today that might fix something in a couple of years.
Be thankful.
Let me read to you some excerpts of Jim Kramer, Mad Money, CNBC, on a website called Main Street.com, entitled My Response to the White House.
Now, some, including Rush Limbaugh, would say I'm on another enemy's list, that of the White House.
Limbaugh says there are only a handful of us on it, and if I'm on it for defending all the shareholders out there, then I'm in good company.
But having been in radio myself, know professionally as a genius of the medium.
Limbaugh says they're gonna shut Kramer up pretty soon, but he'll go down with a fight.
I'm a fight, not flight guy, so I was on my hackles when I heard White House press Secretary Robert Gibbs answer to a question about my pointed criticism of the president on multiple venues, including the Today Show.
Here's what Kramer said about this audio soundright 15 Last night on his CNDC show, Mad Money.
I know Rush Limbaugh today said that I was on the White House enemies list and that they would try to silence me, but I would put up a good fight.
And let me tell you, I am really more of a fight than a flight guy for those who know my personal life.
Jim Kramer is a liberal Democrat.
He said this.
I have been a relentless critic of the Bush administration's stewardship of the economy, calling repeatedly for changes to avert the disaster that I saw coming.
But Obama has undeniably made things worse by creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope.
He has done it by pushing a huge amount of change at a very perilous moment by seeking to demonize the entire banking system and by raising taxes for those making more than 250,000.
I also made it clear in a New York magazine article that I favored Obama over McCain because I thought Obama to be a middle of the road Democrat.
Jim, I love you.
But this really dumbfounds me.
And it dumbfounds me on a lot of levels for a lot of people.
How in the world anybody could have ever mistaken Obama for a middle of the road triangulating above politics kind of guy who wasn't who was who was lying when he said he was going to get past the politics of usual.
He's going to get past the bipartisan.
He's going to get past all the fighting.
And the sea levels are going to sink by four feet.
And we're going to have a love for the country that's going to be back.
All of that crap during the campaign.
I don't understand.
And Kramer's a smart guy.
And David Brooks is a smart guy.
Christopher Buckley is a smart guy.
I don't just mean educated.
How in the world do you not see a liberal when he's two inches in front of you?
How do you look past it?
You have to have hope.
You have to hope the guy ain't liberal because there are other things about him you like, like that he can talk.
And now we know it's a teleprompter.
The New York Times even has a story making fun of his teleprompter used today when he introduced Kathleen Sabilius.
White House is doing New York Times with a story, but it's never seen before that they do it under the guise of his remarks.
Are scripted.
They never vary, they never wandered.
Their point is that Obama is so brilliantly on message.
It's not it.
You let him add lib, and it's a risk.
It's an accident waiting to happen.
When Kathleen Sibelius got up to accept the nomination, telepromp screens descended.
And she started joking, oh, where are they going?
Where are they going?
Obama said they're for me.
For me.
I uh Jim.
I favored Obama over McCain because I thought Obama to be a middle of the road Democrat.
One of the most frustrating things of my life and my work and political things is the seeming resistance people have to understand what liberalism is.
Obama wouldn't have had a chance.
Of course, McCain wouldn't call him a liberal.
We wouldn't call him anything because everybody's panicked and paranoid of charges of racism.
Anyway, Kramer says, if that makes me an enemy of the White House, then call me a general.
Listen to the Jim Kramer guy who supported, urged everybody else to support, and voted for Obama.
If that makes me an enemy of the White House, then call me a general of an army that Obama may not even know exists.
Tens of millions of people who live in fear of having no money saved when they need it and have fear of people who are getting poorer every day.
Jim Kramer acknowledges the mindset that exists.
That's who Obama's talking to when he says, I haven't forgotten you.
Those of us who listen to Obama say that.
Back in just a second.
It's pretty interesting.
Bank of America said that it could suffer grave harm if it is forced to reveal data about an estimated $3.6 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch officials in the days before the bank acquired the brokerage.
You know, the Attorney General Andrew Kumo is trying to get all this dirt made public from all these banks, and B of A says, You make us do this, we're going to suffer harm here that you don't want to happen in this economy.
Blah, blah, blah.
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