Punter's Politics: Are Aussies Dumber Than Americans?
Are Aussies getting scammed when it comes to their natural resources? In this video, we compare the Alaskan Oil Dividend to Australia's gas export situation and question whether Australians are "dumber than Americans" for not receiving their fair share of royalties.
Transcript
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boy punters are we dumber than Americans
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well let's find
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music:
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out you might have seen this video on
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Instagram or on YouTube let's take a
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little watch Bo what's that 1,31 1, oh
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yeah I'm just counting the money that
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the government here in Alaska just gave
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me what you lost a job no it's it's oil
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money what is that obviously we're in
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America they don't have that great
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welfare so it's probably not the fact
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that they lost the job but oil money it
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is a thing I'll show you a website in a
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sec well because I live in Alaska and
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Alaska has lots of oil when the oil
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companies take the oil and sell it and
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make a profit all the residents of
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Alaska get a dividend an oil dividend oh
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that is awesome what are you doing now
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oh sorry now I'm just counting my son's
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oil money he gets money too well he owns
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oil just as much as every other Alaskan
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resident oh yeah I guess oh hey I mean
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talk about The Lucky Country you've got
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every mineral Under the Sun in the
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ground there you must be getting so many
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mining
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dividends no a coal dividend no gas
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dividend nope uranium dividend n lithium
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dividend nope you exported just as much
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oil as we did and you're telling me you
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don't get an oil dividend no no actually
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I think we subsidize our fossil fuel
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companies more than they pay us in
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royalties what come on oh
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you pay them to take your resources so
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that they can make billions of
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dollars and you're not getting a divided
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don't have to lie you're getting scammed
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bro yeah okay I guess we're not as
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Progressive as you guys what' you call
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me I voted for Trump so I wanted to put
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that thing at the end there where the
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alasar is a very Republican state so
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it's technically like very conservative
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an oil dividend what the hell is that
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because Australia mines almost
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everything under the sun and I've never
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gotten an oil dividend a lithium
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dividend any kind of dividend from those
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resources uh so let's take a look at
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what Alaska's doing here um so alaskans
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if you live in Alaska you get
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$1,312 a year and that's each person in
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the family so if you've got a family of
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four you're getting a fair chunk of
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change it's so it's so interesting
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obviously this in this photo here it's
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this place it's like hey we cash your
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PFD checks which is your oil money check
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and the funny thing is is that it's such
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obviously it's a yearly event when all
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the Alaskan residents get their oil
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dividend they've got sales so it's like
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Black Friday but in Alaska they're like
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hey PFD sale you you just got cashed up
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coincidence we've got a couch sale come
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by a couch so here's what's great about
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this it has its problems but here's
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what's great is that Alaskan residents
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they know that they are entitled to
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money that comes from those resources
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that's what we Aussies have not worked
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out and do not really know coal lithium
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uranium gas natural gas we have all of
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these things and some of them do pay
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royalties but a lot of them don't and we
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don't have that sense of capitalist
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entitlement realizing that we are the
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bloody owners of this damn resource so
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give us our bloody dividend so it does
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have its challenges because obviously
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now alaskans get the cash and the
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government can't take it and reinvest it
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into schools and education obviously
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what we need governments to do so every
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time the government says oh how about
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you guys take a little bit less than
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that oil dividend and we can invest in a
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school or something like that the
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residents are like hell no give me my
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damn cash so obviously what we do with
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the royalty and the dividend that we get
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whether it's pulled in the government
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whether we do what Norway does which is
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put it in a sovereign wealth fund and
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invest it the smartest thing to do the
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great thing about this idea is that
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citizens know that they are entitled to
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this cash from this resource um and so
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let's look at Australia what can we
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learn from this so that we are not
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dumber than Americans so Australia has a
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lot of natural gas in fact we're the
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second largest exporter of natural gas
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in the world and did you get your
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dividend did you get your check in the
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mail are we getting sweet sweet
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royalties in a in a sovereign wealth
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fund the answer is no because Australia
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taxes its gas exports so weakly that we
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pay more in HEX than we do in the pr T
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now the prrt is the resource rent tax
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this is the payment that we are supposed
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to be getting as Citizens and owners of
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that gas long story short it's a
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convoluted complex kind of tax structure
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system that does not work so here is
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what's been happening with these exports
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as it goes up like it is
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booming like all so much since what 2015
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it just starts to Boom 2023 Russia
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invades Ukraine we've got a austan
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everyone wants Australian gas
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so you would think right oh surely we're
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making heaps of money because the
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exports are going up well let's go take
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a look at another graph who hang on here
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this is taxes and fees paid by oil and
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gas companies per $100 of Revenue so
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we're talking taxes and fees for both
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oil and gas we do have some oil I think
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so this blue down the bottom here is the
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prrt it is shrinking
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significantly and it really began in
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2012 I wonder which government got in in
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2012 and even with the change of
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government on this
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end in
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2021 it still hasn't changed they the
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government has
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deliberately discounted or made the pr
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so ineffective and useless with whatever
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loopholes they've done that we are
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getting nothing and then we look at
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corporate taxes well at least maybe
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they'll pay tax well in fact with with
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exports and revenue soaring that's
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shrinking as well so as I was doing my
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tiny bit of Googling I came across this
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propaganda website by petroleum
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Australia geez I wonder who they're um
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in in bed with and I saw this little
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section on this website obviously do you
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think these guys are a fan of it turns
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out the independent Callahan review
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review confirmed that the PRT is an
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effective profits tax which delivers
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over the lifespan and higher and turn
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higher than royalties so we're foregoing
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royalties you know like the payment that
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we should get for just taking our
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resources to say oh if we tax it on the
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other end with a P with the profits
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we're going to make so much more money
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well D is in kids we're getting freaking
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scammed so the reason why I bring up
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this Alaskan oil dividend is because in
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a way it's the smarter thing to do to
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help its citizens I don't know if
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they've done this intentionally but if
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you're a citizens of Alaska you every
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year are reminded that that oil in the
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ground is yours and if anyone wants to
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take it they should bloody pay you for
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it so are Rosies dumber than Americans
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in this instance hell's yes we are I
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don't know if you need to have Tak
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another look at this graph to answer
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that question but yes we are so dumb
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that we are letting or encouraging these
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gas companies and oil companies to not
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pay us for what they're taking what a
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scam and then we allow them to get away
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with paying no taxes what a bloody scam
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thanks for watching punters feel free to
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share this with any punter who you think
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might not know just how scammed we're
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getting and if you would like to help
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make politics simple for the everyday
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punter like me you can join we the
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punters over on patreon like subscribe
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cheers puns
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[Music]
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oh
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