Our turnover rate as of May of this year was about 70 percent, which is about 30 percent below the industry standard. We have now gotten our turnover rate down to 40 percent and we feel pretty comfortable it is going to go lower.

The 30-year [fixed-rate mortgage] came in under 6 percent for the last 22 weeks of this year. As a matter of fact, mortgage rates in 2004 averaged around 5.84 percent, the second lowest annual rate ever recorded in the history of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

The jobless rate could fall below 4 percent in March or April, and that could prompt views that growing employment will further push up prices.

The Middle East is only around 0.2 percent of our turnover, so it's really a very small part of our sales. We know that some shops have removed our products from their shelves, but it's not a general picture; some have and some have not.

Certainly, we are pleased to see the non-compliant rate drop back below 10 percent. However, we're increasingly concerned about the number of repeat violators. This is an issue we've been trying to address for some time with the Liquor Control Commission.

Medicare is growing at a rate of 8.5 percent per year, the federal budget at 5.2 percent and the gross domestic product at only 4.8 percent,