Right. Well, retained earnings for what purpose? For us, as a cooperative structure, retaining earnings serves the purpose of supporting our future growth and investment. Otherwise, they are distributed back to our communities. That's the only purpose they have. We don't have single shareholders who have a mandate to get 20% returns, right? We're not profit-driven; we're mission-driven. That's a very different structure. Cooperatives are structured that way.
If you think about the long-term investment and equity needed to build, the time to get into trouble is when there is some type of downturn or crisis or a reduction of money coming in. Or it is when you're trying to grow. When you're trying to grow, you start with capital to be able to grow your position. It's difficult otherwise.
Those are the times when we need to make sure that the right legislation is in place to allow them to get access to that, not just through open capital markets but perhaps even through other cooperatives or other structures that could allow them to have that as permanent capital or as capital that is consistent with their mission. Then they would build that back.
I think it's very important that any business have a sustainable growth plan. You don't grow from unsustainable means of capital, wherever it comes from.