Coming off a fairly steady rate environment in 2004, these are very modest interest rate increases for the level of economic growth we are expecting.

If you're stretched to the max to be able to make the interest-only payments, the question is: What are you going to do when the principal comes due?

Up to a quarter of an investor's return can be surrendered to Uncle Sam, and in a low-return environment like we experienced last year that can be meaningful. I'm patriotic, but you should not pay too much in taxes if you don't have to.

I am pleased to report another year of record earnings. We have been challenged with a difficult interest rate environment over the last few years; however, we continue to produce shareholder value by remaining disciplined on executing our business plan. During this difficult operating environment, we focused intensely on preserving shareholder equity by not stretching for profits through strategies that are bets on interest rates, which later are unwound at a great cost of capital.

We like Carlisle a great deal, ... We think with the lowering interest rate environment it should do very well.

We agree with the consensus out there about the interest rate environment, and we are taking steps to react to that by working harder on the deposit side,