That is why more than fifty businesses have come together to form the Coalition for the Green Bank, of which I am the co-chairman. We have received expressions of support from many business lobbies as well as the Center for American Progress and environmental groups. Congressman Chris Van Hollen proposes to charter our Green Bank through legislation he has introduced in the House Ways and Means Committee. Our immediate goal is to have that Committee pass the Van Hollen Green Bank Act either as a standalone measure or as an amendment to the monumental Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and now referred to Ways and Means.

Nothing is more critical for our children than bringing an end to the continuing destruction of our environment by carbon dioxide, and Green Bank financing would take American emissions levels below the targets we hope to see the world adopt in the Copenhagen discussions at the end of the year. But even in the immediate present no single action can give us more of the new jobs that fight the dire recession than massive and steady investment in alternative energy generation and distribution. Green Bank financing will produce one to two million additional jobs for the next two decades-- this is the amount by which the work force will have permanently increased.

Nor can we take any wiser steps toward a sound foreign policy than moving our energy industry from dependence on foreign oil and gas to an independent foundation in sun, wind, tides and other renewable sources. We estimate national security savings of $500 billion a year when an electric transportation system is achieved. Jobs, national security, and - of course - saving the environment from catastrophe are three targets pierced by the sharp-pointed arrow of the Green Bank.

The goal of any nation's energy policy is abundant, cheap and safe power, heating, cooling and lighting. The means to that goal must be (1) use of clean, not carbon-based, energy generation coupled with (2) low cost generation and (3) efficient energy use. It is not necessary to raise the price of electricity generated by clean energy in order to achieve these goals.

Similarly, in the early nineties, our national goal was widespread, cheap communications service. Thanks to the new technologies of the capital Internet and cellular, investors put more than $850 billion into new networks between 1997 and 2007. But in these markets, the economy enjoyed rapidly growing demand for new services. By contrast, the first obstacle we face in the Great Conversion from carbon to clean is the lack of new demand for electricity. Because of the bad news of economic downturn and the good news of government-stimulated efficiency measures, business and residential customers are not demanding electricity in volumes that require new capacity. Current projections show that the carbon-based electricity generation industry of today does not need much in the way of new supply sources until perhaps 2015 to2016. By contrast, the growing economies of China, India and Southeast Asia require new energy sources, and we need them to agree by treaty and trade deals to use clean energy.

But meanwhile back in the USA the government needs to oblige utilities and other users to buy clean energy. This is the purpose of the Congressional proposals of Renewable Electricity Standards (RES) - a requirement to buy clean energy. And to encourage firms to convert from carbon to clean Congress should also pass the Carbon Caps contained in Waxman-Markey. Under RES and Caps, businesses will have to buy clean energy and phase out polluting energy sources - and the Green Bank will assure that the shareholders of these firms and the consumers who buy from them will not pay a higher price for energy as a result of these measures. It is reasonable to aim at creating new clean generation capacity amounting to 20 to 30 Gigawatts a year-- which is about 2-3% of existing national capacity. As new clean capacity increases beyond what the current demand requires, existing polluting capacity would be phased out-- while the Bank holds shareholders harmless. There is no need to punish the companies that should lead from best conversion from Carbon to Clean.

Moreover, the Green Bank will attract private sector investment in clean energy. The Bank should provide $500 billion in equity investment. This trillion dollars-- over twenty years-- will suffice to save our economy and environment.

Government does not need to buy or bail out existing energy companies. It does not need to become a principal equity investor in alternative energy. It needs only to assure that loans are made to willing private investors and that these loans are made at very low interest rates, so that consumers don't have to pay higher prices in order to persuade understandably anxious investors to put their money into wind, solar, geothermal, and the other clean energy facilities that will put us on the path to new jobs, secure energy, and a safe environment.

Nor will the Green Bank cost taxpayers money over time. If the Treasury funds the Green Bank with only one to two percent of the amount of bonds it will sell over the next twelve months, that fifty billion dollars in cash on the clean balance sheet of Bank will underwrite debt financing that will have a very low default rate. The reason is that the Bank will finance only projects where the demand is guaranteed and the revenue sure to come in - because RES and Caps will require the utilities to switch from carbon to clean.

And the Bank will not replace private financing. Instead it will be a nonprofit wholesale bank that facilitates sensible, safe, reliable lending by retail banks making a healthy, reasonable profit on this activity. We expect that the Green Bank will generate hundreds of millions of dollars of profitable, predictable revenue for retail banks- which is exactly the sort of stimulus to lending that the economy needs. In order to improve our economy now, obtain energy security later, and save our environment forever, the Green Bank should be chartered by an act of Congress - this summer.

Green Bank Summary 060109.r

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Reed Hundt is co-chairman of the Coalition for the Green Bank.

Borrowing this chart from Brad De Long, our most excellent econoblogger and polymath, to make a few points:

The mainstream media don't (doesn't?) talk about work in a way that fits the times. In the 50s, when I was a kid, and well past 1969, after which I needed income to buy food, roof over head, and so forth, in my country less than 58% of adults worked even in good times. The signified premise behind this statistic was what we saw, back in the day, in TV sitcoms: one adult, usually male, supported a family. Over time that adult, with hard work and a little luck, earned increasing income, bought a larger house, saw its value go up at least according to inflation, enjoyed the tax deduction of the mortgage interest and so earned a retirement "nest egg," and worked for the same employer for eight years or even more. The stay at home spouse raised the children. This was the occasionally maligned (especially in novels) The American Dream.

Divorce, families breaking into smaller units, people choosing to live alone, the old growing much older and living apart from the rest of their family members -- these are the other emerging characteristics of our America that contribute to a greater collective need for work. To put the point ridiculously, in a one-person family unit everyone needs to work to make ends meet. So in the good times, when work has been abundant, of the late 80s and the late 90s, the percentage of the population that has gone to work has increased. The high water mark of 2000 registered the remarkable fact that two-thirds of adults were working. The good news was that work was found everywhere; the bad news was that given the unrelenting trend of declining or only slightly rising income for 80% of so of Americans most everyone needed the money.

But since the end of the Clinton era's work-boom and the commencement of the era of indifference to what truly matters (my view of the Bush years), not so many Americans have been able to find work. I doubt very much that they who haven't worked have not needed the money. The current downturn will take the percentage of those working to below 60% for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.

Given the way Americans live now, what should be on television, if we had any true reality TV? What should be in the newspapers, if they weren't written for shareholders instead of income-earners and, sadly, former income-earners? What should be the way politicians describe the plight of our country? Our discourse is lacking. We know what is happening to ourselves, our friends, and our neighbors, but we don't see the truths of these hard times in the media or in the language of many of our leaders. The President, more than anyone, appears aware that in our country two-thirds need to work and yet we are heading rapidly toward the possibility that closer to half are able to find work. His budget recognizes that as the difference between those who need to work and those who can find work yawns greater and greater, it is an imperative to assure decent health care for everyone. It is imperative to keep everyone connected to the communications networks that define so much of our participation in society. It is imperative to create new jobs. These are imperatives because if we are to be a country of decency we must care about each other - but also because we are all better off economically if all those who need work and want work have work.

The stock market will go up, and it will go down. Economists will have to renew their efforts to figure out why, since previous explanations are insolvent. But it's when the opportunities for work rise or fall that Americans see the Dream live or die.

In the longer run, meaning sometime in the very near future, but not today, we have to find ways to create high and rising incomes for most people, and not just the tiny few at the very top of the skills and income and wealth ladders. We need to make investments today in the structural changes that will produce high and rising incomes. We can for example open a huge sector of the economy to long-term steady growth: I refer to the need to create a Green Bank that invests and attracts investment into alternative energy for many years after the stimulus legislation has expired. That Bank should be created in the pending energy legislation being written in Congress. But right now we need to increase greatly the number of jobs available in this country - far beyond the numbers that are possible with the stimulus, as wise and sound as that legislation in fact was.

We need a Congress that is demanding a conference on work. We need many new ideas for new work, work for youths and seniors and women and disabled and on and on. We need agencies that have stimulus money to figure out not just how to spend it quickly, but how to generate more jobs rather than fewer with the forms and methods of spending. We need loans that produce work and not just loans that preserve a handful of broken banks. We need projects, in energy and transportation, that attract private sector money so as to expand the amount of work.

We have a great new secretary of Labor and a fine new Administration that will be even better if it can get its nominees confirmed - and Congress should stay in session every day until that happens. With all this talent, there's no doubt that a relentless focus on work creation will succeed. That requires a microeconomic look at the economy. It requires a focus on markets and market structures. It requires a willingness to accept public-private partnerships, and quasi-governmental entities, and a variety of other flexible techniques to create work opportunities. But the answer to the question of whether we can create opportunities for all who need and want work is: yes, we can.

So that's how we got into this mess. And we're still looking for the way out.

This above from Paul Krugman today. Of course, he's right. And one critical way out is to channel the savings into green energy investing. This direction is taken by the following sequence of actions:
First, compel demand to be created by passing national renewable electricity standards that require every utility (the monopoly distributors of electricity to consumers) to purchase clean energy -- these standards should be high and (most important) steadily rising year over year, so that the demand is predictable for years to come.
Second, create a "good bank" or federal green energy lending facility that will create a marketable debt security with very low interest which will have two beneficial effects: (1) create the possibility of sound revenue for those who trade it, especially banks, and (2) provide green energy generators and distributors a way to fund the great overbuild of clean for carbon in a way that does not impose unwarranted costs on the whole economy.
Third, use this new good green bank to complement the excellent and visionary initiatives already in the stimulus legislation and to support and underscore the importance of putting a price on carbon, as will be done under the cap and trade program in the President's budget.

President Obama's remarkable and very sudden accomplishments lay out a theory of the case. He has combined the two problems and launched wholistic solutions.

In the stimulus legislation he created more means to encourage alternative energy legislation than all previous presidents combined. These techniques include guaranteed loans for all sizes and types of alternative energy

Meanwhile, the President's stimulus bill also created, for the first time, a grant program that effectively substitutes Treasury cash for 30% of the cost of new alternative energy projects. This is particularly important to start-up's that do not have taxable income against which tax deductions can be taken. Grants are highly unusual; they show the pragmatic, experimental, get-things-done approach of this Administration.

At the same time, due in no small part to Carol Browner's leadership and of course the advocacy of her mentor Al Gore, President Obama's budget has committed the country to a cap and trade program for addressing carbon emissions. Congress needs to rise to the moment and pass this legislation very soon, preferably in sixty days. The result, after more than two decades of global discussion, will be, at last, to put a price on carbon, so that forever firms will have a clear vision of the costs they can avoid by moving to alternative energy.

In the context of these bold moves to save the world (no less than that is at stake, according to all science), it is especially critical to find ways to finance the great change from carbon to non-carbon. All modern economies, and especially the developing world that wants so badly to become developed, need cheap and widely available energy. There is no such thing as an energy-light modern economy. Like communications, universal electricity is the sine qua non of modernity. But at the same time, no country can afford to place its future on a carbon platform. Even for those few who have access to substantial carbon reserves, the inevitable prospect within the lifetime of many now living is of diminishing access to cheap carbon, whether coal or oil. Regardless of the terrible truth that carbon emissions are poisonous to our world, it is simply economic madness to base an economy on a resource that will grow ever more scarce and expensive.

Economic reasons alone suffice to make the case for the great switch to renewables. But that big change -- the change we can all hope for and believe in -- can only about without harm to the global economy if firms can obtain access to capital in order to build wind and solar generation and rewire the distribution systems for electricity. Billions are needed for transmission from the windy Dakotas to Chicago, the sunny deserts to California. Billions are needed for tapping the geothermal energy of Iceland and conveying it undersea to energy-starved Europe. More billions are needed to build solar arrays on every rooftop and empty space of Africa and India.

To rebuild the world's energy platform will require about eight to ten trillion dollars in total. In the now-vanished circumstances we would call normal, that's a manageable investment over the course of a decade. Indeed, that's about how much will be invested in carbon-based energy unless the world's nations take the vital step of redirecting the money to wind, sun, and other sustainable alternatives.

However, given the slump's negative impact on capital markets, at least half the money will have to be borrowed (by firms or governments) at very low rates in order to keep the cost of the resulting electricity at levels that will support economic growth. This is important because electricity, like communications services, is fundamentally an input to the creation of other goods and services, and when input costs are low more, output is cheaper to provide, demand rises, and global wealth grows. To put it another way, in stimulating economic recovery, it is better not to raise prices, unless the goal is, as with a sin or "Pigou" tax, to discourage consumption. We do want to discourage carbon consumption, but alternative energy ought to be provided as cheaply as possible to everyone.

One silver lining to the global economic crisis is that governments around the world are rising to the responsibility of loaning money at historically low rates. To rebuild the global energy platform they need to extend those loans to the alternative energy sector at a scale never before thought necessary, but which is now imperative. This global lending has to reach to every country. The World Bank showed the way last year by floating Green Bonds, as a sort of $300 million test. That technique should be applied in every country and across borders as well.

Green Banks and Global Green Bonds have to be carefully devised to avoid creating the problem of stranded assets, encouraging poor technology choices, and triggering excessive government involvement in the negotiation of supply and demand that occurs at the point of sale to the ultimate user. In general, equity should be private and debt public, so that equity owners can negotiate price and utility with end users, leaving government to provide debt on a technologically neutral basis, without preference for any particular firms.

As the community of economists examine the current slump, they are rapidly approaching a consensus that governments must do more to create jobs and investment. In some purely theoretical sense, any job is as useful in stimulating economic activity as any other job. But the long run is, after all, only a succession of short-run periods, and so it is better to create jobs that last longer rather than shorter, as well as those that create high and rising productivity gains. Those jobs are, in America, to be found not so much in finance or retail, residential housing or health care. Instead, these fine jobs lie most importantly in alternative energy, and probably secondarily in mass transit and ICT -- information and communications technology.

It is the energy sector as well that is the most in need of new investment in generation and transmission. The sector has suffered under-investment for many years, because of the drop in carbon prices through the 90s and early 00s, and also because states have supplanted private firms as energy owners and producers and these states have reduced their investment in resource acquisition.

The energy sector thus is crying for investment and poised for job creation. If the new jobs and new money goes into alternative energy, all interests are served. All that is missing is access to finance.

Fixing the banking crisis in the United States and around the world is going to take many more months. But part of the fix that can be instituted immediately is the creation of government-backed debt for alternative energy. This debt, if deployed with appropriate oversight, can earn profits for lending banks as well as promote economic growth. Indeed, that insight is what lay behind the Administration's substantial increase in the Department of Energy's loan guarantee authority. We need only expand on that wise action, by creating financing techniques that will last a decade and extend across borders as well, in order to assure economic recovery. At the time, if all countries come to see that alternative energy investment is practical and helpful to recovery, they should be that much more inclined to support the global cap and trade treaty at Copenhagen at the end of this momentous year.

1. Every department and agency in government is involved, which will energize creativity and commitment all across government.
2. The door is open to fresh thinking in every topic area: education, health care, energy, communications, transportation, housing, federal land and parks, and many others.
3. With so many involved, the creative ferment in government -- state and federal both -- can be quite stimulating.

There hasn't been so much new to hit government in thirty years. At least for a time, the private sector will be breathlessly trying to cope with the utterly new dynamics of our mixed economy.

First, involve as many stakeholders in the process as possible and as soon as possible. Don't think of the answer and then sell it; think of the questions and ask them. That means holding meetings, conference calls, convention-style gatherings. There's no shame in asking what to do; there's only regret to be had from not asking.

Second,

Third, wherever it might be workable, create matching grants. For example, if the Education Department is going to make grant to school districts for construction projects, then require some matching effort -- whether it is monetary or a contribution of time and materials or participation by parents. Almost any form of matching effort is better than nothing, because the match ties the recipient to the project, assures that the project is desired, and helps prioritize recipients by putting first those who most want the help.

Fourth, plan the accounting upfront. Any grant or spending program carries with it the possibility of waste, fraud and abuse. We are spending taxpayers' money and taxpayers have a right to know that their resources are being husbanded. Plain, open, transparent accounting -- again on the web -- will help assure that this principle is being followed.

Fifth, use early tests to get the spending right. Even next week is not too soon for some small model of what might be implemented at scale later.

Sixth, constituents need to be continually engaged. Use advisory boards, outside consultants, commissions, trade associations, and state and local governments to provide constant review, advice, and participation on a say-as-you-go basis: that is, don't just design the spending and then assume it is all working as designed.

Seventh, map everything out. There was no way the interstate highway system was built without a map and there's no way that all this spending can be timely and targeted without an overall map. For example, roads and broadband and schools all will receive stimulus money; but in some places all that money will be spent in the same location.So have a map that shows where all the spending goes. In the age of Google maps this is not too hard; indeed it is easy. It is, by the way, a useful role for the Department of Commerce.

Eighth, use standard commercial contracts as much as possible. Don't negotiate everything on a one-off basis.

Ninth, learn collectively. All the agencies and departments can and should share their practices across different programs. They will have more in common than they think.

Tenth, not everything needs to be done by current agency staff. Under virtually every program, there is authority to create public-private corporations or delegated expert agencies, even those made out of whole cloth, to expend monies. Such short-term expediting measures can be used to staff up quickly and then close down staff when the spending is over. Under the e-rate for example the FCC created a public corporation instead of administering the program with its own staff, expert in many respects but not in the business of buying internet access for schools.

Eleventh, what's done is done. The stimulus is law. Follow it. But don't forget that if something doesn't work it's important to report that to Congress right away, and not keep silent.

Twelfth, there will be mistakes. Get over them. Keep on going, but learn as you go, by establishing critical review procedures from the outset.

It is vitally important to the economy that the stimulus work well. But it is also critically important to Americans that this Administration show that Katrina and the Iraq occupation are not markers of our inability to get jobs done that need doing. This Administration must meet and surely wants to meet the test of proving to Americans that we are a can-do country. In the case of the e-rate, the job was done and done well. More than 90% of classrooms and children in the United States got access to the Internet in the very early days of that phenomenon. Libraries too all across the country became Internet access centers. As a result far more children have Internet learning experiences than actually have access in their homes. We have distributed this new technology to the current generation faster than any other technology ever penetrated the world of education. We are, after all, a can-do country, when we put out minds to our work and are smart about what we do.

I agree that "stimulus" is not a well-chosen word for the critical legislation that Congress simply must pass. The critical bill at issue now is all about the long neglected investment in the public goods needed by our country now and in the future.

We need to make a massive investment in the creation of public goods, including medical advances, transportation, clean energy, broadband, education, and many other specific components of a safe, healthy, and productive society. These goods will benefit our children for years to come. They will be provided by the private sector: the government may control banks, to its shock and horror, but the public goods that the legislation will create for the most part will be provided by private parties. They will, however, be available to most Americans and for decades to come -- if Congress makes the right decisions next week.

The future should pay for the future.That's what the President's legislation proposes. We are going to incur debt in order to invest in the creation of public goods that will benefit all Americans for decades to come. The price is extraordinarily low because the debt costs so remarkably little and the benefits will accrue for decades to come -- if the right law is passed. This isn't, or should not be, about stimulating a consumer economy to a splurge of Valentine's Day presents or condo purchases. It is about building an America we will be proud to pass on to the next generation.

Under the last two Presidential terms (to sum up the prevailing approach of Senator Collins and her party), we have spent for the present, and ignored the future. We have told our children that we will leave them less than we inherited from our parents. Our government has encouraged home loans for SUVs and holidays, and "stimulated" the construction of condos that are too expensive for the vast majority of Americans (and especially Mainers, Senator Collins!). We have spent about the same amount in Iraq that is in the President's currently legislative proposal. It was a war that did not need to be fought and that has effectively impoverished our country. These choices are what the current President was elected to reject. These are the decisions that the present legislation -- as written in the people's House -- proposes to reverse.

As it happens, we can at last mobilize support for the long overdue investments in what's good for all Americans. We can get votes from Congressional figures who normally worry more about balancing the budget than spending what is needed to rebuild America. We can get these votes now because these powerful figures agree that we must also encourage consumption from an economy that is producing only about 75% of the output that our capacity permits -- in general, our machines of production are operating at about 75% of capacity and that is falling. This shortfall between capacity and output -- applicable to the coffee machines at Starbucks and the wind turbine manufacturing facilities in Ohio and the unused time of real estate agents and on and on -- is what leads to lay-offs and recession. It produces corporate decisions not to invest: why create capacity when the old capacity is under-utilized? We can ask banks to loan until we are hoarse, but if there's no new capacity to create, then to what will they loan? The case is so clear that at last we can persuade most of Congress to spend the money on public goods that in turn will create the work for people who in turn will consume more of the goods and services that our economy is capable of producing.

Unfortunately, the Republicans insist that the Senate must amass 60 votes to pass anything. They have, just barely, enough votes to keep 60 from coming behind the President's legislation. To help their negotiation, Senator Coleman has engaged in a futile, groundless litigation against Al Franken, who by all rights should be in the Senate able to vote for investment in public goods. Nevertheless, the Republicans know that they can't run the risks of precipitating an even more radical downturn in the economy. So they send Senator Collins to negotiate cuts in flu research and vaccination on behalf of the extreme right-wing that would eagerly vote to reduce taxes on the very well-off instead of paying for children to be healthy, safe, well-fed and well-educated. This isn't moderate politics: it is just negotiation for the purpose of reducing investment in public goods. They want to take money from long term investments and spend it on short-term tax breaks accruing more to a few than to the many.

The House's approach, and the President's is -- and this is its critical, essential genius -- is to hit two targets: first, we create the public goods that we have so long gone without and, second, in doing so we increase demand for private goods that our idle factories should be making.

It is simply crucial to repudiate the thinking that supports massive, annual federal deficits (such as Senator Collins and her party has supported for the last two Presidential terms) yet rejects investment in America's health, wealth and safety. What has Senator Collins and her party blessed instead for eight long years? Money for military spending in other countries; tax cuts for the very wealthy so that they can invest in residential real estate, luxury goods, and, sadly, ersatz financial products that are now of much reduced value; and for eight long years no meaningful spending on public goods available to all Americans.

One does not need to argue that tax cuts don't belong in the pending legislation. But it's absolutely obvious to non-Washington Americans that our country needs investment in the basic, public goods available to all Americans, as opposed to depending solely on tax cuts that surely will principally benefit the stalwart supporters of the Republican Party. The purpose of tax cuts -- other than those that go directly, without intermediation, to most middle class and lower income class individuals (which are not the ones the Republican Party favors) -- is to create more consumption of existing goods and also incentives for private investment of any and all kinds. We need both that consumption and that investment, because our economy is falling so quickly. But we particularly need investment, preferably by both government and private investors, in the creation of public goods -- that is, goods like energy, communications, transportation, education, health, and safety which are generally and widely available on a non-exclusive basis to everyone.

Let me repeat for emphasis: a public good, such as clean energy or communications, can be provided by private parties and usually is in our mixed economy. That's good! But we have for years grossly under-invested in such public goods. Instead, we have concentrated far too much investment and consumption in the upper income classes and in non-productive goods and services, like real estate and luxury goods and military spending and fanciful financial products.

For far too long, under the rule of Senator Collins' party, we have been a country of concentrated private wealth and widespread public poverty. It's time for change. That's what the Congress is actually debating, and Senator Collins is on the wrong side of the wishes of the majority of Americans. She was just re-elected but it can't be that the people of her state actually support her miserly attitude toward America's public -- meaning, generally available -- sphere. It's time for people to speak up, to speak out, as Congress goes into its critical conference.

Execution on his promise, pursuit of his direction, will be a monumental and hellishly complicated task. It will require not only the full force of the existing governmental apparatus but also many companion efforts outside government. But the direction set by the President is absolutely clear and that is the necessary, crucial first step.

Well it was 1994 mostly, but we didn't mention the dark side to the senators and besides we were told by Andy Grove and Eric Schmidt and Marc Andreessen (who wore bib overalls and no shoes in the first meeting) that the upside case was worth the risk on the downside. So to summarize: yes. Saying yes to everything is a not bad first principle for conducting life as we know it, subject to having an exit strategy.

But the open Internet as an experience and an ideal came from the decisions of the Federal Communications Commission, dating back to the 1980s and but most particularly in the salad days of Internet 1.0, aka dial-up circa 1990s, when we dinosaurs roamed the halls of the government and had our common carrier paradigm followed by the network-owning telephone companies. The Internet was open, cheap and widespread, because we said so. It was one speed because phone lines were all the same.

Then the FCC, with Congressional support, adopted unbundling and competition was the key to open: in a competitive world no one firm could successfully adopt closed as its business model. Those that tried, failed.

But the 00s brought a series of FCC decisions that repudiated common carrier as to data links, and encouraged consolidation, repealing unbundling, abandoning the goal of widespread high-speed connectivity, and changing open into an open door toward collaborative special deals between big content and big conduit. This is a history lesson for those too young or too concerned with other matters to have lived or learned these arcane facts.