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Thompson Coburn LLP on Tuesday gave St. Louis the verdict it wanted.

The law firm agreed to keep its 595 jobs downtown instead of moving to Clayton in return for about $700,000 in tax abatements and incentives from the city.

Thompson Coburn will even get its name on U.S. Bank tower.

For the city, the retention of the high-profile law firm is a reaffirming win in a year where it suffered the loss of 850 jobs with the closing of Macy’s division headquarters and was jilted by Centene Corp.

The decision to stay downtown was a tough one for Thompson Coburn because it received a number of very competitive proposals over the last two years, Thompson Coburn chairman Tom Minogue said at a news conference. One of the locations the firm had considered was Brown Shoe Co.’s planned mixed-use development at 8300 Maryland Avenue in Clayton.

"We are confident that we made the right choice for us," he said. "We wanted to be where all our people wanted to be."

Although the city was successful in convincing Thompson Coburn to stay downtown, Armstrong Teasdale LLP, currently located at One Metropolitan Square, 211 North Broadway, is considering moving to Centene Corp’s planned headquarters building in Clayton.

A.J. Chivetta, a partner involved in the firm’s relocation efforts, could not be reached for comment.

The city is still feeling the sting of losing Centene back to Clayton. The medical plan administration firm in September announced that it was going to move its headquarters to downtown as part of the Ballpark Village development. But in July, the company pulled out of the deal after it, the city and the developers could not hammer out an agreement.

Clayton offered up to $22 million in tax incentives over 20 years to lure Centene back.

Thompson Coburn employs more lawyers than any other firm in St. Louis and generates $1.2 million a year in taxes for city services, Mayor Francis Slay said.

City officials have been aggressive in their attempts to keep jobs from leaving downtown — especially high-paying ones such as lawyers, who add to the city coffers by way of the 1 percent wage tax.

Keeping a firm of Thompson Coburn’s size downtown "is good for the city’s image and for our economy and our business," Slay said payday loans.

Thompson Coburn agreed to sign a 12-year lease at the U.S. Bank tower, located at Seventh Street and Washington Avenue. The firm will remodel its existing 240,000 square feet.

The $700,000 in incentives include abatements of personal property, construction material sales taxes and about $400,000 in forgivable loans and training funds, said Barbara Geisman, the deputy mayor for development.

As part of the agreement, U.S. Bank will donate its current 360-space garage to the Missouri Development Finance Board. An additional garage, which will contain another 360 parking spaces plus a floor of retail space, will be built in the plaza space in back of the building. The Missouri Development Finance Board will run both garages. The estimated $15 million in construction costs will be financed by revenue from both garages, Geisman said.

"This was a substantial gain for the city of St. Louis in the long run," said Robert Lewis, president of Economic Strategies, a St. Louis real estate and economic development consulting firm. By keeping Thompson Coburn with its large number of employees and high wages, the city can make up its costs within about two years, he estimated.

"It (the deal) helps a big firm with ample prestige located in a very important building stay in the city without hurting the city’s budget," he said."

"It’s not a huge amount of money," agreed Don Phares, professor emeritus of economics and public policy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

More importantly, he said, is the city’s image.

"If they (Thompson Coburn) left, it would indicate that downtown St. Louis is no longer the place to do business," Phares said explaining such a decision could influence other firms to leave. "Keeping them there may be a sign to other firms that being in the city is a desirable place to be."

gappleson@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8331

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China has the cash and ambition to be a major player in the world’s biggest sale of financial assets in half a century, but politics, a lack of expertise and an aversion to risk will relegate it largely to the sidelines.

Nationalistic worries about how state-owned Chinese firms might behave if they had a controlling stake in a major foreign bank are probably Beijing’s biggest obstacle, but there are others almost as daunting.

“Chinese financial institutions are not mature enough to make a large overseas acquisition,” said Zhao Xiao, an economics professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology.

“They must gain experience helping China’s thriving manufacturers to move overseas … and in five years they may be ready,” said Zhao.

China’s cautious regulators are also reluctant to approve such acquisitions due to volatile markets, recent losses from earlier financial stakes and a lack of experience.

“The Chinese may have that ambition .. fast cash advance. but that would just not be allowed,” said Glenn Maguire, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist for Societe Generale.

“Politically, it is very sensitive,” said Maguire, pointing to rising protectionist sentiment in the United States in a presidential election year.

China’s financial stakes in Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Blackstone (BX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have also soured as the credit crisis has spread, offering painful lessons in market volatility to investors accustomed to uninterrupted double-digit economic growth. 

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that the problems in the nation’s financial markets persist and still threaten the economy.

Bernanke said that the financial woes, coupled with record oil prices and the weakening economy, had created "one of the most challenging economic and policy environments in memory."

In prepared remarks at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Bernanke also said he is encouraged by the recent oil price decline, which may signal that inflationary pressures are on the wane.

"Although we have seen improved functioning in some markets, the financial storm that reached gale force some weeks before our last meeting here in Jackson Hole has not yet subsided," Bernanke said.

"Its effects on the broader economy are becoming apparent in the form of softening economic activity and rising unemployment," he added.

Bernanke’s comments seem to signal that the central bank will keep its key interest rate at 2%, rather than raise it an attempt to keep prices in check.

"The commentary tells me that rates are on hold until they see some blue skies through this financial storm," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia.

The Fed cut interest rates seven times from September through April, but left them unchanged at its last two meetings.

Earlier this summer, investors and economists were widely expecting the Fed to start raising rates as early as this fall. But there is now widespread agreement that rates will remain on hold at its next two meetings in September and October and some economists are predicting rates will stay at current levels into next year.

Silvia said the Fed had little choice but to focus on upheaval in the credit markets rather than on inflation as it cut rates. And while he agreed that financial market woes are not behind us, he said the Fed faces a risk of inflation getting out of hand the longer it keeps rates on hold.

"Inflation is not out of control, but it’s clearly drifting away," he said.

Bernanke’s remarks come more than a week after the Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation measure, rose to a 17-year high, gaining 5.6% over the previous 12 months. The Producer Price Index, a measure of wholesale inflation, also rose this week to a 27-year high.

Still, Bernanke reiterated that the Fed expects an economic slowdown to cause "inflation to moderate later this year and next year." And while he added that the "inflation outlook remains highly uncertain," Bernanke appeared to downplay inflation risks relative to other challenges facing the economy and global credit markets.

The discussion of inflation pressure was only a brief part of the speech, which focused on the need for stability in financial markets absolutely free credit report. Bernanke defended actions by the Fed over the past year. And he said that the Fed and regulators needed to be on the lookout for other threats to financial markets.

Bernanke offered one of the most detailed and strongest public defenses of the Fed’s role in preventing a bankruptcy at Bear Stearns in March. He argued that while Bear Stearns was not that large in comparison to other Wall Street firms, its failure would have had severe ripples throughout the financial system that the Fed could not risk.

"With financial conditions already quite fragile, the sudden, unanticipated failure of Bear Stearns would have led to a sharp unwinding of positions in those markets that could have severely shaken the confidence of market participants," he said. "The broader economy could hardly have remained immune from such severe financial disruptions."

His speech did not make any reference to Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) or Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500), the two troubled mortgage finance firms who have seen their shares battered this month on fears that the government will be forced to take them over.

But his defense of the Bear Stearns action and his discussion of a doctrine of rescuing firms deemed too big to fail seemed to signal his approval of the Treasury Department taking action if either firm were to face problems covering rising losses from the trillions in mortgages they own or guarantee.

In another comment that could be read as addressing the problems facing Fannie and Freddie, he said that regulators of financial institutions had to be careful not to force troubled firms to cut back on their lending at times of economic stress.

He said mandating tighter lending standards might help the "safety and soundness of a particular institution" that such "excessively conservative lending policies could prove counterproductive if they contribute to a weaker economic and credit environment."

He also said that it is important that Congress take steps to spell out more explicitly what steps could be taken by the government to help rescue other financial institutions whose failure would pose a risk to the broader economy. He said that the Treasury Department is probably the agency best suited to perform those rescues. 

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Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner signaled the central bank's emergency lending programs are still needed, citing “exceptional'' tensions in financial markets.

“These facilities, all of them, are still providing a very important role in confidence as a backstop source of liquidity,'' Geithner said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing today. There's still an “exceptional set of tensions,'' he said.

Geithner indicated he favors keeping the programs, which include direct loans to primary U.S. government bond dealers, in place even as their use fades. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said earlier this month the central bank may extend the facilities into next year.

“I don't think you can really judge the value today to the firms themselves, or the people that fund them, from looking at use day-by-day,'' Geithner said at the hearing in Washington.

The Fed's Primary Dealer Credit Facility, engineered by Geithner in March to provide direct loans to dealers in the wake of the Bear Stearns Cos. collapse, has seen almost no lending for three weeks. A separate program that lends Treasuries typically draws fewer bids than the totals offered by the central bank.

The PDCF reached a record $38.1 billion in the week ending April 2. Officials said when they introduced the tool in March that it would be in place for “at least'' six months.''

`More Conservative'

Fed and Securities and Exchange Commission officials are trying to ensure that “major investment banks move to adopt a more conservative mix of leverage and funding than they had on the eve of the Bear Stearns'' crisis, Geithner also said, responding to questions from Representative Edward Royce, a California Republican fastcash.

“They have made substantial progress in moving towards an appropriately more conservative mix of leverage and funding,'' Geithner said.

Bernanke said July 8 the Fed may extend the facilities into next year “should the current unusual and exigent circumstances continue to prevail in dealer-funding markets.'' Bernanke has yet to say that such conditions have subsided.

Geithner said in his prepared testimony that the central bank should play a prominent part in regulating financial institutions and ensuring market stability after the biggest credit crisis in decades.

Fed's Role

The Fed “should play an important role in the consolidated supervision of those institutions that have access to central- bank liquidity and play a critical role in market functioning,'' he said.

During the same hearing, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox asked lawmakers to bolster his agency's authority to police investment banks. Former securities regulators say a more powerful Fed may undermine the SEC's authority and impede its efforts to protect investors.

Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, the House panel's chairman, and the U.S. Treasury advocate giving the Fed more supervisory authority over such companies to create safeguards against risk. Congress is likely to consider such legislation in 2009.

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Call it the big fizzle. The hoped-for second-half economic rebound is looking to be lethargic, with the country straining under high energy prices and fallout from the housing and credit debacles.

Forty-five percent of economists believe the economy won’t log any growth or will clock in at a feeble 1% pace in the final six months of this year, according to a survey being released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics, which is known by the acronym, NABE. And, 10% think economic activity could actually contract during the period.

"Forecasters are approaching the second half with a lot of caution," Ken Simonson, point person on the survey and chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, said in an interview. "Most forecasters are suggesting the outlook will be sluggish, but not desperate. I’m afraid we’re stuck on the ground floor of growth."

Thirty-two percent, meanwhile, think the economy growth’s during the second half could be between 1% and 2%, which would mark a plodding performance. The more bullish are clearly in the minority camp: 11% think growth will come in between 2% and 3%. Only 1% expect growth to surpass 3%.

The economy’s growth slowed sharply in the final quarter of 2007 and remained stuck in a rut in the first quarter of this year. Tax rebates, which have energized shoppers, should help lift the country out of the doldrums somewhat in the second quarter. The government releases its estimate of the second-quarter’s economic performance at the end of this month. However, as the bracing force of the rebates fade, some analysts fear the economy could hit another rough patch near the end of this year.

Earlier this year, many thought that the first half of this year would be difficult and the second half would be stronger, lifted by the government’s $168 billion stimulus, including tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. With the rebates kicking in earlier than some expected, the second half could turn sluggish.

Many have "abandoned the notion of seeing a rebound," Simonson said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who briefed Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, warned that over the rest of this year, the economy will grow "appreciably below its trend rate" mostly because of continued weakness in housing markets, high energy prices and tight credit conditions.

Normal activity would be along the lines of a 2.5% to 3% growth rate for the economy.

Not only is the country slogging through lethargic growth, but it is also confronted by rising prices that threaten to spread inflation.

In the NABE survey, 75% reported paying more for raw materials, such as fuel and steel no fax payday loans. That’s the highest percentage in record keeping going back to 1994. Those higher prices are squeezing profit margins and leading some firms - 35% - to boost their prices, the survey found. That’s up from the 29% who said their companies raised prices in the previous survey in April.

Consumer prices in June rose at the second-fastest pace in a quarter century, the government reported Wednesday. Wholesale prices also went up sharply during the month.

Meanwhile, most forecasters expect a continued slowdown in housing over the next six months, although they think it will be "mild" versus "substantial."

Grappling with fallout from housing and credit troubles and stung by high costs for energy and other raw materials, employers have cut jobs in each of the first six months of this year. Over the next six months, 51% said they expected to hold payrolls steady. Twenty-nine percent expected to boost them and 20% thought jobs would be reduced through layoffs or attrition.

Caught between slow growth and rising prices, the Fed is likely to leave interest rates alone when they meet next on Aug. 5. Boosting rates to fend off inflation would deal a setback to the economy and further hurt the housing market. The Fed can’t afford to lower rates more to shore up economic activity because that would make inflation worse.

Sixty-two percent said the Fed’s nearly yearlong string of rate reductions and other steps to prop up financial markets, had no effect on their business.

The survey, based on the responses of 101 NABE members, was conducted between June 19 and July 10. 

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Psst! Here’s one you can trade on: The Securities and Exchange Commission, buffeted on all sides from the great leverage collapse of 2008, is now going to get to the bottom of the age-old dilemma of the trading desk rumor.

In a press release Sunday night that coincided with the opening of Asian markets, the SEC announced it was conducting examinations at brokers and hedge funds to determine if false information is being deliberately spread by traders to manipulate stock prices.

Philosophically, there’s little argument against cracking down on those who knowingly develop or pass on bad info. After all, such bald attempts to manipulate the market have long been illegal.

But given that sharing of rumors and information - some of it good, some not - occurs constantly across trading desks, there appear to be some truly head-scratching aspects to the SEC’s move.

The first is that the agency’s overburdened enforcement unit is already looking into, to name just a few - mortgage originator fraud, investment dealer disclosure on auction-rate securities, and broker valuations of the arcane vehicle known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that has been the source of so much misery on Wall Street.

Now the watchdogs are going to chase down down trading desk rumors too?

The second is that much of the impetus of this investigation appears to have come from senior executives at several Wall Street brokerages outraged over the effect rumors are having on their companies’ stock prices.

Last week, for example, Lehman Brothers saw its share price hurt last Thursday when a story made the rounds - and was picked up by CNBC - that stock-trading giant SAC Capital and giant bond manager PIMCO had ceased trading with the firm.

A likely death-blow if true, but it was easily disproved. The stock, which closed at $19.74 on Wednesday, dropped to $15.79 before rallying to close at $17.30 on Thursday. Whatever the story is behind the origination of the rumor, shorting Lehman’s stock that day proved to be a pretty volatile - if not outright crummy - trade for those who piled on http://easy-quick-payday-loans.com.

More important, while Lehman chief executive Richard Fuld has a well-documented antipathy towards shortsellers who question his firm’s financial health, he and his deputies made decisions that have saddled the company with big losses and required it to make repeated trips to the markets to raise more capital.

So which has proven more painful for Lehman shareholders: the quick-buck artist who passes on some bogus tip - or Lehman’s decision to become the most aggressive investment bank to speculate on Southern California real estate?

Then there’s the case of Bear Stearns. A cottage industry of sorts, typified by a much-discussed Vanity Fair article, has developed that blames shortsellers for Bear’s near-collapse and subsequent fire sale to JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

It’s true there was no shortage of rumors swirling around Bear Stearns on the eve of its mid-March rescue. Like most trading desk rumors, they were easily disproved and immediately forgotten.

Ultimately, what allowed the run on the bank were the huge holes in Bear’s balance sheet. Alone among Wall Street’s big brokers, Bear Stearns had a nearly $33 billion gap between what it had borrowed short-term and what it had available to repay those loans. No other broker had anything like this exposure.

In the end, the people who did business with Bear Stearns came to see it as a highly-leveraged, mortgage-bond-centered hedge fund and wanted less exposure to it.

Veteran analyst Barry Ritholtz, in his "Big Picture" blog, put it well in a post Friday. "Why is it that all these rumor-mongerers and shorts are only bringing some firms to their knees? How come they always seem to be the over-leveraged, under-capitalized, unhedged, most poorly-managed companies?"  

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Toyota may scale back its ambitious target of selling more vehicles in the United States this year than it did in 2007, as damage from an economic slowdown and soaring oil prices becomes more fully known.

Surpassing the 2.62 million vehicles the company sold last year in the U.S. - its biggest market - would be difficult, Executive Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi told a shareholders meeting Tuesday, according to Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.

The world’s No. 2 automaker announced in December that it was hoping to sell 2.64 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2008 and predicted a 5% jump in global sales to 9.85 million vehicles because of strong sales in emerging markets such as China and Russia.

Toyota Motor Corp. will review its sales targets in July, as it does every year.

Through the first half of June, total auto sales in the U.S. were running at an annualized rate of about 12.5 million vehicles, according to J.D. Power & Associates. It was the lowest level for June in decades and a huge drop from the year-earlier rate of 16.3 million vehicles.

Uranishi projected that total U.S. auto sales could slip under 15 million vehicles this year, Nolasco said.

Last week, Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) said industrywide sales could drop as low as 14.4 million for the year, which would be the lowest level in 13 years, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank.

With buyers fleeing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, demand has soared for Toyota’s gas-electric hybrid models no teletrak payday loans. Still, their popularity has been unable to fully insulate the Japanese carmaker from a drop-off in sales of larger vehicles.

Toyota announced recently a slowdown in large pickup truck and SUV production at plants in Texas and Indiana.

But the shift in consumer preference has hit Toyota’s U.S. rivals especially hard.

General Motors Corp. (GM, Fortune 500) said Monday that it would further cut SUV and pickup truck production, on top of its announcement earlier this month that it will close four North American plants by 2010. It also plans to offer zero-interest financing to clear out inventories of some 2008 pickup truck and SUV models.

Ford announced cuts Friday at seven pickup truck and SUV factories for the remainder of the year, including the idling of a pickup truck factory in Dearborn for most of the third quarter and the temporary closure of a Wayne pickup truck factory for nine weeks during the summer.

It now plans to produce 475,000 vehicles in the third quarter, 25% fewer than in the same period last year.

Toyota (TM) shares fell 1.51% to $48.63 Tuesday, compared with a 0.6% drop in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average. 

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US Airways Group Inc (LCC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Thursday it will reduce its work force by 1,700, or about 5 percent, and will cut more capacity than planned and introduce new fees as the airline industry battles record fuel prices and a weakening economy.

The airline will reduce its fourth-quarter domestic mainline capacity by 6 to 8 percent, having previously planned a 2 to 4 percent cut.

For 2009, US Airways plans to cut domestic mainline capacity 7 to 9 percent from 2008 levels.

The airline will also return 10 aircraft to leasing companies and cancel deliveries of two aircraft.

US Airways said its new fees will include the introduction of a $15 service fee for a first checked bag for many customers from July 9.

“Our industry is profoundly challenged by the dramatic increase in fuel prices, and we must write a new playbook for running a profitable airline in this new and challenging environment,” said US Airways chief executive Doug Parker in a statement.

US Airways said its fuel expense will be about $1.9 billion more in 2008 than it was last year internet payday loans.

VEGAS FLIGHTS CUT 

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Tyson Foods Inc. said Monday it would "voluntarily withdraw" advertising and labels claiming that its poultry products don’t contain antibiotics, after a federal court issued an injunction stopping the practice.

The world’s largest meat producer said it notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture it would stop using the "raised without antibiotics" chicken label.

Tyson (TSN, Fortune 500) said it asked the USDA, which previously had approved the slogan, to start "a public process to bring more clarity and consistency to labeling and advertising rules" on antibiotic claims.

Tyson had claimed it based the slogan on the absence of any antibiotic believed to affect humans.

"We still support the idea of marketing chicken raised without antibiotics because we know it’s what most consumers want," Tyson senior vice president Dave Hogberg said. "However, in order to preserve the integrity of our label and our reputation as a premier company in the food industry, we believe there needs to be more specific labeling and advertising protocols."

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore had set a May 15 deadline to stop Tyson from running any of the advertisements. The injunction came after competitors Perdue Farms Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc. sued, claiming Tyson’s advertising was misleading.

Tyson had appealed Bennett’s ruling, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., denied a motion by Tyson to stay the order in May.

Sanderson, based in Laurel, Miss., has argued it lost a $4 million account to Tyson because of the advertising campaign, and Salisbury-based Perdue claims it has lost about $10 million in revenue since last year.

Charles Hansen of the Truthful Labeling Coalition, whose members are Perdue, Sanderson and Livingston, Calif.,-based Foster Farms, had asked the USDA to rescind its approval for Tyson’s labeling http://us-fast-cash-now.com. Hansen did not immediately return a call for comment left at his office Monday night.

After approving the advertising, the USDA later told Tyson that, when it approved the no-antibiotics label, it had mistakenly overlooked additives called ionophores that are used in feed for Tyson’s chicken. Regulators said the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has a long-standing policy of classifying ionophores as antibiotics. Tyson disagreed, saying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not consider them antibiotics.

Tyson’s Hogberg later testified in court that the company spent about $16 million on the original publicity campaign, including about $4 million in promotional materials. Tyson said Monday it has begun designing and ordering new labeling and packaging for its poultry products.

Tyson (TSN, Fortune 500) stressed its decision would not cause any changes in how the Springdale-based company "protects the health of its birds."

"The company does not use antibiotics for the purpose of growth promotion," the Tyson statement read. "On those rare occasions when antibiotics are used to treat an illness, it is on a prescription-basis only to protect birth health."

Tyson is the country’s second-largest chicken producer after Pilgrim’s Pride Corp (PPC, Fortune 500). 

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OTTAWA – The World Wildlife Fund says Canada should come up with a sound management plan before it issues oil-and-gas exploration rights in the northern Beaufort Sea.

The global conservation group says the federal government should wait until it fully understands the environmental impacts of drilling, and knows how to clean up "inevitable" spills.

Ottawa has offered up the rights to oil-and-gas exploration on nearly three million acres of continental shelf in the Beaufort Sea, north of the Yukon and Northwest Territories cash advance.

Bids will be accepted until June 2, when the rights will be issued.

There are more than two dozen "significant discovery" leases across Canadian Arctic waters.

The WWF has said Canada's decision to open bidding rights in the Beaufort Sea will destroy large swaths of critical polar bear habitat and put the animal's future in danger.

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