I remember when wonder(imitation) bread was .09cents a loaf back in the 60's. My father insisted on going to a bakery although it was more expensive so i could never eat Wonder Bread anyway Store bread is now is now $5.00 i toast it to remove the smell.
This is precisely what Bolton and the rest of the system are worried about: the implosion of whatever the “United” States has become hence the utter insanity that is topped almost weekly by even greater levels of insanity.
The US is a desperate, dangerous dying creature prepared to destroy everything else around it for that one last hit.
Yep, I'm still sort of awestruck at how callously open in recent times, certain of the U.S.'s worst offenders have been. For instance Lindsay Graham when he outright called for the assassination of Putin, and several others if memory serves. The types of things they are now openly stating on public record are just mind-boggling--they are the types of things that used to be transmitted in top secret intelligence papers only. I think it shows how absolutely Eschaton-level end times desperation the U.S. ruling class is in regards to the changes happening in the world order currently. They no longer feel they have the time to be diplomatic, the need to urge their allies into action is overriding all other considerations because they see how close they are to slipping from power and losing their global hegemony.
And that grr, is totally correct. Onemhas to be blind not to realize the world has changed for good, previous hegemon that reined for decades became morally and ethically corrupt, which drove cutting edge technology advantage backwards. Competition has gained terrain and surpassed the previous hegemon many folds, that lack of realization is simply amazing, arrogance on steroids. NATO freaks look at Russia's SMO in Ukraine as a failure, because they truly believe on the BS they spread to the MSM, that the war inside what was once Ukraine is the front of a much larger war, and Russia and its allies are winning big time. I see the US now as Japan in 1944's mega offensive in China, the largest Japanese offensive in the WWI, they were excited and confident on the power and control they had in 1944....just to lose badly, the whole sovereignty 1 year later....exceptionalism/arrogance... indeed blinds good judgement, and that is what Bolton is showing to the world.
No my friend, he decided to shut down as the conflict in Syria calmed down in late 2020...it was a great loss for a lot of Syrpers that met in the comment section....we are now all over the web..VK and some of us met at PlatosGuns, Taxi's blog from Lebanon, until she took a time off late 2021...I am really glad to see many of Syrpers here, it is really nice to meet you all again.
Amazing how so many of the old hippies turned fascist once they found themselves in charge, ain’t it? And it keeps happening, every generation. The people driving around with ‘Question Authority’ bumper stickers in 2004 were screaming for masks and lockdowns in 2020, and now they’re cheering for WW3.
Hysterical school yard bullies. Other than the UK, you don't hear the politicians & officials of other countries saying, "someone take him out!" or "every American should consider the Chinese their enemy".
To be fair Simplicus, your guys are actually showing on your TV's how you intend to wish away me, my lovely cats, and my almost lovely daughter and longs suffering woman together with the rest of "pirate rock" with that damn huge nuclear torpedo!! Most people I know are too stupid and or misinformed or simply "beaten" to understand how vile an act it is for Rishi Sunak to send D.U. rounds to Ukraine, but if they did know what I know about D.U. they'd be as against it as I am.
I don't see any evidence the Biden admin is capable of diplomacy--while belligerents like Graham reinforce the bipartisanship of that incapacity.
Perhaps if they engaged in some diplomacy, they wouldn't feel the need to take us to the brink of WW3. Meanwhile, the advocated need to form a great coalition to oppose China and/or Russia merely serves to prove the threat US policy engenders to Russia and China--the policy is the fulfillment of the self-licking ice crem cone.
Don't overestimate the ties between China and Russia. As Mao Zedong said, there is no eternal friendship or enemies, only eternal interests. (Something like that I can't translate that well). It is possible that China switch sides.
I wonder. I think ... or, rather, I suggest that this total (and it is total) clarity of their aims *might be* two-fold. 1) They believe that their strong-hold on their population is total (😎); and 2) seemingly contradictory to 1), they are starting to be desperate. I really hope that the concluding sentence of this article will pass soon....but who knows what the desperate Empire can do. “The era of Russian-Chinese dominance starts now, and the Bald Eagle will soon be just a plucked turkey.”
They all think just like he does, or at least the original ones did. Of which he was a part I might add. He's no different from Wolfowitz, Pearle, Feith, the Wurmsers, Ledeen, etc. James Woolsey is another one who is similar to Bolton. The original neocons were real crazies. I guess they've calmed down a bit since, but the originals are still as nutty as ever.
And yes, they all came out of hard-line Cold War anti-Soviet background. Their genesis was in a group of people who congregated around the office of Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington state (the Senator from Boeing). They used to be Democrats but they all went Republican. For the Jews the turning point was the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Vietnam War, and the counterculture. They were Vietnam war hawks and squares who hated and were appalled by the Counterculture.
Consider that the Federal debt really began to grow with the New Deal, so not only was Roosevelt putting unemployed labor back to work, but unemployed capital, as well. Then World War 2 came along, as this county's greatest public works project ever and the die was cast.
The fact is that an economic medium, aka, money, is a public utility, by function. Like roads, water, air, etc. It is the network connecting all the nodes of economic entities. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies.
Yet this country simply cannot ideologically accept that public spaces, works, commons, etc. have any utility or function. But there is one the ideologues do accept and that is the military. Obviously it really doesn't have much to do with actual defense, but it makes a perfect expression of the mob mentality that is inherent to any large group of people.
So there is a lot of deeply repressed psychology at work here.
The simple fact is that there isn't the investment potential for everyone to save individually, but we all save for many of the same reasons, so the public commons, in varied forms would be a useful method of working out how society functions. Even a reasonably focused and effective military, not some ginormous blob, intent on metastasizing around the entire planet.
Though that would require accepting that a healthy society is based on collective responsibility, with rights as reward, not rights as ordained and responsibility as optional, as is the current understanding on most parts of our political spectrum.
It is nice to see though, that we are reaching the point of reductio ad absurdum, as Mr Bolton so effectively exemplifies. The mother of all reality checks is in the mail.
"Though that would require accepting that a healthy society is based on collective responsibility, with rights as reward, not rights as ordained and responsibility as optional, as is the current understanding on most parts of our political spectrum."
This, after the "files" leak, (neither of which could happen without direction/approval from "Powers that Be") pose some serious questions.
Is this A/B testing (something Trump was master of) ideas, floated in the public space, to see if they can push the Overton Window to where THEY need it to be to survive/continue their designs on the world?
Or has the usual mafia-esque infighting between US government entities erupted/been pushed into the public gaze?
We are seeing classic "End of Empire" choices being made by US/Euro/WEF-Davos entities, plus elite level cognitive dissonance across many political entities.
I don't see this ending in nuclear fire, but a Truly Great Depression would have the same outcome for many across the world.
Bolton has always been a war mongering lunatic happy to promote endless American fueled wars that other American men and women will die and be maimed fighting. His editorial now outs him as a psychopath as well.
Bolton has always been batshit crazy. It's just that he is one of those behind the curtain.
Some of those vermin in the shadows are motivated by personal gain, ego, etc, but Bolton has never shown anything else other than being totally psychotic.
The safety of the herd tends to override thought. If you are an antelope, running with the herd, you can't just stop and scratch your ear. Even if the signs say, "Cliff ahead."
DEAR GOD when is John Bolton, or as I like to refer to him, John Dolton going to go away??? I find him absolutely horrifying. This man thinks of nothing else but destruction and mass death. He was desperate for Trump to start a war with Iran - he wanted to use nukes (!!), but he had to settle for continued destruction of Syria. People like this should be dropped into the middle of a country they've helped destroy - Iraq, Libya, Syria - with a quarter in their pocket, a bottle of water and a packet of peanut butter crackers and told, "now, live amongst the suffering you've created and survive like everybody else". He is a prime example of the neurosis known as "American Exceptionalism" and that always has a side helping of true white supremacy. I don't mean to sound "woke" but wealthy, western old white men like Dolton really do think they deserve to be the most powerful and wealthy people on the planet; people who don't look/speak/live just like them are "other" who should be subservient and worship them as demi-gods. If not, bombs away! Never has the thought crossed his tiny reptilian brain that he has no right to rule or kill or destroy the lives of other human beings. Projection, indeed, Simplicius! He and Pompeo are two peas in a pod. It terrifies me to think people like them have an actual voice in society and that they are actually listened to, as you said. Daniel Larison just posted something about Dolton on notes and I commented why does society let that man participate? Sorry to rant, but Dolton, Pompeo, the State Dept. Straussians....they all just get my goat as they are a clear and present danger to all humanity. As the old Mudhoney song says, "King Sandbox, wants more! King Sandbox, wants YOURS!"
Excellent point about the 100 years of humiliation. I'm surprised no one really thinks about that and how it would shape the Chinese worldview. And imagine seeing the Japanese re-militarizing and deciding to play nice with the UK and allowing UK troops in Japan if you are Chinese.
Revolting....he is so full of hate it fills his words with the stench of it. I find it hard to comprehend why ANYone would choose to give him the time to "air" it!
America remains a great country with amazing people and phenomenal achievements that unfortunately are led by odious people toward insane foreign policy objectives. Bolton like McCain or Nuland is one of those people. Ukraine thought that it would be smart for them to befriend people like Bolton and comp - people that are thousands of miles away from them while ignoring their immediate neighbor and brother. Poland essentially is making the same mistake antagonizing both Russia and Germany and perhaps other smaller neighbors. Nobody gave anything for free to the Chinese. The Chinese worked really hard and smart over the past 3 decades or so and their economical and to some degree military achievements have matched if not surpassed those of the collective West. On a military basis, the bottom line is that the West cannot take on the largest (nuclear) land armies in the world with an expeditionary force, except on the periphery (Ukraine, Taiwan). Bolton has no audience anywhere in the world except perhaps where he lives.
Bolton and Lindsey Graham are lunatics. But much of the American public pays little attention to politics and will never hear his ranting, or even if they do they will just accept whatever their chosen political party tells them to think.
What is more concerning is that none of our elected officials are “cancelling” him as a psychopath. We have a failed government that either agrees with him or is too impotent to put a stop to the destruction of our nation.
With public government and private banking, the banks rule, so the only job these flunkies have, is running up the debt the banks need to function.
Given government is the decision making function, hollowing it out and leaving the banks in charge creates a dynamic with all the strategic aptitude of bacteria racing across a petri dish.
The only criteria to be in DC these days, is the willingness to sell your soul.
Notice the only person to crack the nut has been Donald Trump. Who is equally whacked out, but only buys others souls and won't sell his own. Which has driven them completely crazy.
Bolton must think todays young Americans are fans of total war and worldwide US hegonomy. I can see him urging them on despite massive casualties; die! die for the expansion of American power! Glory to the US forever! Kill the filthy scumbag non-western peoples!
Another great article, thank you for taking apart Dolt-on.
One thought: Perhaps Dolt-on does not actually mean all the stuff in this fantasy. Perhaps this article is meant to set expectations for even more war spending / aggressive policy than currently being considered. He may be anchoring expectations higher.
It will begin when the death match between the banks and the dollar implodes the dollar and the states have to start issuing their own currencies.
Imagine Trump on a Florida dollar.
Texas is already considering gold-backed digital currency for its citizens.
When bread gets to $50 a loaf, we will all be looking for alternatives.
I remember when wonder(imitation) bread was .09cents a loaf back in the 60's. My father insisted on going to a bakery although it was more expensive so i could never eat Wonder Bread anyway Store bread is now is now $5.00 i toast it to remove the smell.
Pepperidge Farm.
The days when it all seemed real.
This is precisely what Bolton and the rest of the system are worried about: the implosion of whatever the “United” States has become hence the utter insanity that is topped almost weekly by even greater levels of insanity.
The US is a desperate, dangerous dying creature prepared to destroy everything else around it for that one last hit.
Their hail mary is a nuclear WWIII.
That is no secret. What is remarkable is that Bolton said this out loud.
Bolton is the living embodiment of saying the quiet part out loud.
Yep, I'm still sort of awestruck at how callously open in recent times, certain of the U.S.'s worst offenders have been. For instance Lindsay Graham when he outright called for the assassination of Putin, and several others if memory serves. The types of things they are now openly stating on public record are just mind-boggling--they are the types of things that used to be transmitted in top secret intelligence papers only. I think it shows how absolutely Eschaton-level end times desperation the U.S. ruling class is in regards to the changes happening in the world order currently. They no longer feel they have the time to be diplomatic, the need to urge their allies into action is overriding all other considerations because they see how close they are to slipping from power and losing their global hegemony.
I suspect that they smell blood, somewhat like the rhetoric in.the run-up to the War On Iraq.
I think it's the rest of the world that is starting to smell blood.....
Would you God that you prove correct .
The betas sense the alpha is weak.
I don't see a lot of evidence for that. More like betas afraid of retaliation at the whims of the alpha.
The only blood they will be smelling is their own.
And that grr, is totally correct. Onemhas to be blind not to realize the world has changed for good, previous hegemon that reined for decades became morally and ethically corrupt, which drove cutting edge technology advantage backwards. Competition has gained terrain and surpassed the previous hegemon many folds, that lack of realization is simply amazing, arrogance on steroids. NATO freaks look at Russia's SMO in Ukraine as a failure, because they truly believe on the BS they spread to the MSM, that the war inside what was once Ukraine is the front of a much larger war, and Russia and its allies are winning big time. I see the US now as Japan in 1944's mega offensive in China, the largest Japanese offensive in the WWI, they were excited and confident on the power and control they had in 1944....just to lose badly, the whole sovereignty 1 year later....exceptionalism/arrogance... indeed blinds good judgement, and that is what Bolton is showing to the world.
Long time no see!!
Did Ziad start another blog?
No my friend, he decided to shut down as the conflict in Syria calmed down in late 2020...it was a great loss for a lot of Syrpers that met in the comment section....we are now all over the web..VK and some of us met at PlatosGuns, Taxi's blog from Lebanon, until she took a time off late 2021...I am really glad to see many of Syrpers here, it is really nice to meet you all again.
The blood they smell is their own. They refuse to believe they're bleeding.
The Kali Yuga cycle has begun. This will take some time. Bolt-on will pass; who will be his spawn? Hum, the wheel turns. Glory to Russia💙🇷🇺❤️
I was kind of hoping we were entering the Age of Aquarius. What happened to the Lefty chorus wanting peace on earth?
Amazing how so many of the old hippies turned fascist once they found themselves in charge, ain’t it? And it keeps happening, every generation. The people driving around with ‘Question Authority’ bumper stickers in 2004 were screaming for masks and lockdowns in 2020, and now they’re cheering for WW3.
Hysterical school yard bullies. Other than the UK, you don't hear the politicians & officials of other countries saying, "someone take him out!" or "every American should consider the Chinese their enemy".
To be fair Simplicus, your guys are actually showing on your TV's how you intend to wish away me, my lovely cats, and my almost lovely daughter and longs suffering woman together with the rest of "pirate rock" with that damn huge nuclear torpedo!! Most people I know are too stupid and or misinformed or simply "beaten" to understand how vile an act it is for Rishi Sunak to send D.U. rounds to Ukraine, but if they did know what I know about D.U. they'd be as against it as I am.
I don't see any evidence the Biden admin is capable of diplomacy--while belligerents like Graham reinforce the bipartisanship of that incapacity.
Perhaps if they engaged in some diplomacy, they wouldn't feel the need to take us to the brink of WW3. Meanwhile, the advocated need to form a great coalition to oppose China and/or Russia merely serves to prove the threat US policy engenders to Russia and China--the policy is the fulfillment of the self-licking ice crem cone.
Are you an American, Russian (by birth, not citizenship), or neither?
Don't overestimate the ties between China and Russia. As Mao Zedong said, there is no eternal friendship or enemies, only eternal interests. (Something like that I can't translate that well). It is possible that China switch sides.
he says everything out loud. he thinks he is Nostradamus.
I get the impression the MSM keeps giving this lunatic air time in order to make the rest of the neo-cons appear sane and restrained by comparison.
I wonder. I think ... or, rather, I suggest that this total (and it is total) clarity of their aims *might be* two-fold. 1) They believe that their strong-hold on their population is total (😎); and 2) seemingly contradictory to 1), they are starting to be desperate. I really hope that the concluding sentence of this article will pass soon....but who knows what the desperate Empire can do. “The era of Russian-Chinese dominance starts now, and the Bald Eagle will soon be just a plucked turkey.”
They all think just like he does, or at least the original ones did. Of which he was a part I might add. He's no different from Wolfowitz, Pearle, Feith, the Wurmsers, Ledeen, etc. James Woolsey is another one who is similar to Bolton. The original neocons were real crazies. I guess they've calmed down a bit since, but the originals are still as nutty as ever.
And yes, they all came out of hard-line Cold War anti-Soviet background. Their genesis was in a group of people who congregated around the office of Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington state (the Senator from Boeing). They used to be Democrats but they all went Republican. For the Jews the turning point was the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Vietnam War, and the counterculture. They were Vietnam war hawks and squares who hated and were appalled by the Counterculture.
no lunatic. He acts with an indirect purpose. He is the voice of the total destruction party in order to stop the progress of emerging powers.
Consider that the Federal debt really began to grow with the New Deal, so not only was Roosevelt putting unemployed labor back to work, but unemployed capital, as well. Then World War 2 came along, as this county's greatest public works project ever and the die was cast.
The fact is that an economic medium, aka, money, is a public utility, by function. Like roads, water, air, etc. It is the network connecting all the nodes of economic entities. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies.
Yet this country simply cannot ideologically accept that public spaces, works, commons, etc. have any utility or function. But there is one the ideologues do accept and that is the military. Obviously it really doesn't have much to do with actual defense, but it makes a perfect expression of the mob mentality that is inherent to any large group of people.
So there is a lot of deeply repressed psychology at work here.
The simple fact is that there isn't the investment potential for everyone to save individually, but we all save for many of the same reasons, so the public commons, in varied forms would be a useful method of working out how society functions. Even a reasonably focused and effective military, not some ginormous blob, intent on metastasizing around the entire planet.
Though that would require accepting that a healthy society is based on collective responsibility, with rights as reward, not rights as ordained and responsibility as optional, as is the current understanding on most parts of our political spectrum.
It is nice to see though, that we are reaching the point of reductio ad absurdum, as Mr Bolton so effectively exemplifies. The mother of all reality checks is in the mail.
"Though that would require accepting that a healthy society is based on collective responsibility, with rights as reward, not rights as ordained and responsibility as optional, as is the current understanding on most parts of our political spectrum."
This is gold.
Hilarious as usual. "Nuclear Armed Terrorist Organisation"...
This, after the "files" leak, (neither of which could happen without direction/approval from "Powers that Be") pose some serious questions.
Is this A/B testing (something Trump was master of) ideas, floated in the public space, to see if they can push the Overton Window to where THEY need it to be to survive/continue their designs on the world?
Or has the usual mafia-esque infighting between US government entities erupted/been pushed into the public gaze?
We are seeing classic "End of Empire" choices being made by US/Euro/WEF-Davos entities, plus elite level cognitive dissonance across many political entities.
I don't see this ending in nuclear fire, but a Truly Great Depression would have the same outcome for many across the world.
Bolton has always been a war mongering lunatic happy to promote endless American fueled wars that other American men and women will die and be maimed fighting. His editorial now outs him as a psychopath as well.
Bolton has always been batshit crazy. It's just that he is one of those behind the curtain.
Some of those vermin in the shadows are motivated by personal gain, ego, etc, but Bolton has never shown anything else other than being totally psychotic.
But what's the WSJ's excuse for publishing this incendiary rot?
The safety of the herd tends to override thought. If you are an antelope, running with the herd, you can't just stop and scratch your ear. Even if the signs say, "Cliff ahead."
When i see Bolton I immediately think of "Yosemite Sam " wonder if its intentional since they look and act alike.
First as farce, then as tragedy.
The fact the arch nemesis is named Trump should tell you there is some very deep morality play at work here. The Greeks would understand.
DEAR GOD when is John Bolton, or as I like to refer to him, John Dolton going to go away??? I find him absolutely horrifying. This man thinks of nothing else but destruction and mass death. He was desperate for Trump to start a war with Iran - he wanted to use nukes (!!), but he had to settle for continued destruction of Syria. People like this should be dropped into the middle of a country they've helped destroy - Iraq, Libya, Syria - with a quarter in their pocket, a bottle of water and a packet of peanut butter crackers and told, "now, live amongst the suffering you've created and survive like everybody else". He is a prime example of the neurosis known as "American Exceptionalism" and that always has a side helping of true white supremacy. I don't mean to sound "woke" but wealthy, western old white men like Dolton really do think they deserve to be the most powerful and wealthy people on the planet; people who don't look/speak/live just like them are "other" who should be subservient and worship them as demi-gods. If not, bombs away! Never has the thought crossed his tiny reptilian brain that he has no right to rule or kill or destroy the lives of other human beings. Projection, indeed, Simplicius! He and Pompeo are two peas in a pod. It terrifies me to think people like them have an actual voice in society and that they are actually listened to, as you said. Daniel Larison just posted something about Dolton on notes and I commented why does society let that man participate? Sorry to rant, but Dolton, Pompeo, the State Dept. Straussians....they all just get my goat as they are a clear and present danger to all humanity. As the old Mudhoney song says, "King Sandbox, wants more! King Sandbox, wants YOURS!"
Excellent point about the 100 years of humiliation. I'm surprised no one really thinks about that and how it would shape the Chinese worldview. And imagine seeing the Japanese re-militarizing and deciding to play nice with the UK and allowing UK troops in Japan if you are Chinese.
I've often thought, if the tide ever does turn, some of those countries might request extraditing various of our neocons.
We can always hope. If some of these psychotics were peeled like a pear by a mob of their victims, God himself would call it justice.
Like our country did to Gaddafi? I can still hear the Beast cackling.
Her obvious glee was mind-boggling and no shame about displaying it publicly.
She is as insane as John Bolton, but he probably doesn't smell like boiled cabbage.
Didn't expect to have to read the words "white supremacy" here, of all places.
Revolting....he is so full of hate it fills his words with the stench of it. I find it hard to comprehend why ANYone would choose to give him the time to "air" it!
John Bolton. What happens when Adolph Hitler and Captain Kangaroo have a baby.
Now every time I see or hear Bolton, I can think of this and laugh. Thank you, Kaleidescope lol.
I dunno. Which is the bitch? I'm having trouble even trying to wrap my mind around that.
America remains a great country with amazing people and phenomenal achievements that unfortunately are led by odious people toward insane foreign policy objectives. Bolton like McCain or Nuland is one of those people. Ukraine thought that it would be smart for them to befriend people like Bolton and comp - people that are thousands of miles away from them while ignoring their immediate neighbor and brother. Poland essentially is making the same mistake antagonizing both Russia and Germany and perhaps other smaller neighbors. Nobody gave anything for free to the Chinese. The Chinese worked really hard and smart over the past 3 decades or so and their economical and to some degree military achievements have matched if not surpassed those of the collective West. On a military basis, the bottom line is that the West cannot take on the largest (nuclear) land armies in the world with an expeditionary force, except on the periphery (Ukraine, Taiwan). Bolton has no audience anywhere in the world except perhaps where he lives.
He is a legend in his own mind. They are the scariest of the scary.
The real crazies are not the ones arguing with themselves, but the ones that never argue with themselves.
Bolton and Lindsey Graham are lunatics. But much of the American public pays little attention to politics and will never hear his ranting, or even if they do they will just accept whatever their chosen political party tells them to think.
What is more concerning is that none of our elected officials are “cancelling” him as a psychopath. We have a failed government that either agrees with him or is too impotent to put a stop to the destruction of our nation.
With public government and private banking, the banks rule, so the only job these flunkies have, is running up the debt the banks need to function.
Given government is the decision making function, hollowing it out and leaving the banks in charge creates a dynamic with all the strategic aptitude of bacteria racing across a petri dish.
The only criteria to be in DC these days, is the willingness to sell your soul.
Notice the only person to crack the nut has been Donald Trump. Who is equally whacked out, but only buys others souls and won't sell his own. Which has driven them completely crazy.
I wish this creep would crawl back into that hole he came from and disappear forever, he is a persona non grata.
Bolton must think todays young Americans are fans of total war and worldwide US hegonomy. I can see him urging them on despite massive casualties; die! die for the expansion of American power! Glory to the US forever! Kill the filthy scumbag non-western peoples!
People like Bolton prefer to let the young people of other countries die for America causes.
Trump: John I need to see you in my office, please
Bolton: Yes, Mr. President
Trump: John I mustache you to resign
Another great article, thank you for taking apart Dolt-on.
One thought: Perhaps Dolt-on does not actually mean all the stuff in this fantasy. Perhaps this article is meant to set expectations for even more war spending / aggressive policy than currently being considered. He may be anchoring expectations higher.