Monthly Archives: February 2016

February 29, 2016 · 00:08

Black & White are not colours

This time it was not the Guardian that got things started, it was actually a man from Birmingham, you know, the one city in the UK with an obscene amount of Ashton Villa fans. It was his sketch ‘How is this STILL a thing‘ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebG4TO_xss) that started it all. To appreciate what comes next, you should take a look at the video. It makes a few jabs, some actually hilarious. In the collections of laughs, there is one gem that is centre in all this. It is the mention of Ridley Scott. The quote “SCOTT: The short sharp crude answer is, I couldn’t get a film like that mounted for that kind of budget—we were $145 million, not $260 million, so that wasn’t bad– but to make Moses black and his wife Ethiopian? They never would have made the movie“. That is part of the issue, or is that part of the answer?

No matter who we want as a cast, there is still the director (the visionary) and the producer (the money man) and the producer is often not just putting his money up, but a ‘manager’ of several ‘investors’. I would like to be all in agreement and there is enough data, but is the entire issue this simple? You see, there is also something called a script and when you seek on Google, we get ‘Category: African-American screenwriters‘, which gives 80 names. Is that not part of the problem? Now, this list might be lacking in many ways, yet would any famous names be missing? Now we get something, my first step was to look for Alice walker, as I loved the movie ‘the Colour Purple’. She was not there, so I sought out the Oscars and found out that the adapted screenplay was written by snowy white Menno Meyjes, a Dutchman. Now there is no critique on that part, yet I wonder is this not part of something else? You see, my thoughts (which might be terribly wrong), was thinking that the USA has its share of really wealthy non-Caucasian people. What if they took a script, gave the option to a visionary African American director and let them rip out a true cash maker? Would it work? Let’s not forget that Hollywood is the stomping ground to a few visionary African American directors. John Singleton, Spike Lee, Melvin van Peebles, Will Smith, Forest Whittaker. There is plenty of talent there, and the list of really good African American actors and actresses would go on for quite some time. So what is stopping them?

I will give you an option, just an option, not a claim that this is the reason.

I believe that a great movie require the union of a scriptwriter and a director. If those two are not brought together the entire process sizzles from day 0. Which gets us back to the 80 African American scriptwriters. Is that truly the case? Why can’t others write about black heroes? Well, personally, from my own views as I am writing my novel, I am writing it from my point of view, my Caucasian point of view. There is no malice, no intent to stop African Americans, I have not lived as an African American, so how can I write about one, or a Mexican, a Japanese or a Chinese for that matter. I think that this is the first step in all this and it is just my view.

So what to do?

I believe that there are solutions for everything, if Will Smith can reforge I, Robot to be a success, he can pretty much do anything. Yet, how can this change the industry? This is where them billion thingamajigs come into play. A script is one thing, the money to make it a reality is another. You see, any form of visionary requires realism, it needs funding! In the set of three, the script, the producer and the director, the Director seems to be the easiest one, yet it will requires his visionary views to make the other two a reality, one that really pays off. Again, this is just my view on this.

In the first place, the American Universities. Why are they not trying to kindle the skill of artistic writing within their African American community? Perhaps they are, I do not know, but with all those Ivy leagues schools the list I saw of screenwriters is that limited?

Consider that the Writers Guild of America, East has well over 3500 full members and the Writers Guild of America, West has over 9000 full members. Now consider that (I know not the most reliable source) Wiki specifically the African-American screenwriters page shows 80 names. Now, I am the first to state that there is no statistical way that this is correct, but, the fact that not more visibility is an equal issue here. The Committee of Black Writers, part of Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) gives us a decent amount of goods, especially when we read the report by Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, Professor of Sociology. You see, this is not the laughing version John Oliver brought us, this gives us an academic confirmation “The familiar story of male and white dominance told in previous Hollywood Writers Reports still characterized industry employment and earnings patterns in 2012, the last year covered in this report“, in addition we see “The earnings gap between white male writers and women writers closed considerably by 2012, while the earnings gap between white male writers and minority writers remained large“, which gets me back to the very first thought, why isn’t African American America picking up the slack on their side, pushing and promoting the work of African Americans? Now, there is loads wrong with that statement, the fact that they have to do this is one, because there is no feasible way that the non-Caucasian population lacks drive, ambition, talent or creativity.

Evidence?

Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman), Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity), Steve McQueen (12 years a Slave) and Ang Lee (Life of Pi). This is just the last 4 years, not all winners, but all amazing achievements and none of them are of a Caucasian disposition. I believe that this is only the tip of the iceberg, you see, my issue with #oscarssowhite is not the whether it is or it is not, but the fact that Americans forget that the bulk of their revenue is no longer coming from the US, they are coming from an international community. Just to give you an indication. The 5 most successful movies of ALL TIME had the following non-US revenue (72.7%, 69.9%, 54.8%, 61% and 59%). Did I say that clearly enough? That was the non US percentage of revenue, with the top 3 surpassing 2 billion. From the earlier list there is for example 62.1% of $723M (Gravity) and 79.5% of $609M (Life of Pi), so the money is there, even when we take the US market out of the equation. So, if it is just about #oscarssowhite, why are certain steps not taken? It can’t be ‘just’ the money, because Gravity costed $100M to make, so someone walked out with a clean taxable half a billion and Life of Pi left someone with $480M in the end. So there is a clear evidence that white is not the colour of money in the end (it actually tends to be green), but the stronger reality is, is that if we accept that Hollywood is to white for its own good, there is a market worth billion out there and it only requires the right person to pick up the profits.

In my view an achievable goal if the Money Man can unite the right director to the script he deems worthy. Have I oversimplified the problem for those people?

If so, feel free to make a contribution to my Clydesdale Bank PLC account on Guernsey. You see, whilst looking into this issue, I actually came up with 3 ideas for movies. That’s excluding the novel I am writing, which is written as is, with no mindset to either publication or setting it up for a screenplay. It is just a story I came up with and I surpassed 63,000 words last month. I reckon I am half way there now, could be a third, time will tell. This is not a twist to state how brilliant I am, because I am certain that I am not, what it does refer to is that #oscarssowhite implies that those at the top of the hill are not that bright at all, which only gives further weight to the utter need, for promoting what should be referred to as the #NonCaucasianMovieWorld, one that is very likely to bring in billions, because the names I mentioned earlier are surpassing that revenue with ease. Now in realistic light, not all movies made turn out to be a Gravity or a Life of Pi, but many of them end up having paths that lead to a situation where the ROI remains close to zero, making the chance of a cash cow at some point a lot better than most could conceive. Consider the source (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/), where the top 33 (Martin Scorcese being the lowest on that list, making $1B or more (over all their movies), gives only way to more opportunity for those who can see the right path (let’s call them semi-visionaries) and it is only when we get to position 122 when the gross revenue starts dropping below half a billion. Here is my view: ‘There is no black and white, they aren’t even real colours’. There is the colour green for $$$, profit and envy, there is red for anger of not seeing the opportunity and red for those betting on the wrong horse, yet even there the list is pretty long, because Director 771 on the list is the last one making $1M or more, which is more than I will ever make in my life. Now consider the other side of the spectrum. The Razzies gave us what some perceive to be the worst movies. In 2016 that was a tie for Fifty Shades of Grey and Fantastic Four (2015), 50 shades of paint made $571M, whilst costing $40M and Fantastic 4 made $167M, whilst costing $56M. Can you believe it? Making the worst movie of the year still gets you at least $100M, I am so in the wrong line of business!

So when you decide to fight #oscarssowhite, consider in addition the massive amounts of money you could be making. For those picking up that baton, I truly hope it will bring you the wealth you dream of. Good luck!

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February 26, 2016 · 21:52

Within the Entitlement of Relevance

Very early this morning an article made it into the Guardian. The title ‘David Cameron boasts of ‘brilliant’ UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia‘, (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/25/david-cameron-brilliant-uk-arms-exports-saudi-arabia-bae), which is fair enough. The UK is one of those nations that actually has an arms export option. It is nowhere near the size of the US, but that is not the point here.

When we read: “on the day the European parliament voted for an arms embargo on the country over its bombardment of Yemen“, we should be asking: ‘and why do we care about that?‘, yet this is not the case. We see both “At almost the same time, the European parliament voted in favour of an EU-wide ban on arms being sold to Saudi Arabia in protest at its heavy aerial bombing of Yemen, which has been condemned by the UN” as well as “The vote does not force EU member states to comply but it increases pressure on national governments to re-examine their relationships with Riyadh“. Which is a joke of sizeable proportions (reasoning will follow). Finally we see: “The Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been extremely critical of Cameron’s relationship with Saudi Arabia because of its human rights record, prompting an angry response from Riyadh“, which could be seen as a humorous climax in labour less form.

We need to deal with the quotes so that it all makes sense to you, but there is one more element in that story. That we see from: “Oliver Sprague, Amnesty International UK’s arms controls director, said: “The ‘brilliant things’ that David Cameron says BAE sells include massive amounts of weaponry for the Saudi Arabia military, despite Saudi Arabia’s dreadful record in Yemen“. I needed to add this to all this, because there is the start.

You see, I am on the fence here. I will happily support Amnesty International, because for the most it is a force of good. When I see the title ‘UK’s arms controls director‘ I wonder if AI lost the plot a little. Let’s be clear here. It makes sense that AI has people on the payroll who understand weapons, understands mines, chemical ordnance. That makes perfect sense. AI is in need of knowledge on many levels and plenty of their work is in places where people tend to passionately not like each other (as in: with clubs, machetes and automatic weapons). Yet, when AI is wasting time on a valid business deal, we should ask a few additional questions. Now, we should quickly mention another side. At https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/amnesty-expert-barred-london-arms-fair, we see ‘Amnesty expert barred from London arms fair‘ as well as his quote “They’ve kept me out, but the question is: what has DSEi got to hide?” Let me answer that instead of the DSEi. You see, I could with my own expertise attend that event, and like him, I will equally hear “alas sir, you didn’t meet the criteria for registration“, even though there should be a few around in that field who know my skill levels in that regard. It is not skill or expertise, you see, it is about CLEARANCE LEVELS. These events are frequented by a massive who’s who of unregistered events, with a decent amount of government employees who need to talk shop, having non-cleared people on that fair tends to be a little unsettling for several reasons. In part because this world has its own rules, you obey those rules or you stop functioning in that world. There is every chance that I could accidently make the mistake whilst Oliver Sprague would intentionally do these things. Most of these people shy away from cameras (apart from those special social functions), they are there to talk shop!

You see, I have every respect for Amnesty International, they have done many good things in the past and will continue this in the future. For example stop torture makes perfect sense. There is also a questionable part from AI, it is nice to talk about the Human Rights Act, yet in the decades they have never succeeded in championing the need to add Spousal Abuse to article 3 of that HRA. Is spousal abuse not torture in its own rights? In that regard AI likes to be very visible, but in some way the big fights are never really fought (or better stated have not been fought for a long time). They have shown success stories every year, but landmark achievements have been absent for some time. Let’s get back to the initial story, but do not forget this part as it has bearing.

You see, the next part is slightly more entertaining. That tends to be the case whenever the honourable Jeremy Corbyn gets involved. Apart from the fashion comments we have seen in the last two days. The actual issue is his choice to get to the CND-rally, which is not a bad thing, but in light of timing, he decides to walk away from the national Labour campaign day, where he would be persuading voters to back Britain’s membership of the EU. This leaves to mind, is this a first inkling that even labour expects Brexit to become a reality? Whether that is true or not, this event has a direct bearing on the British population within this year, the CND rally has been going on for decades, so there would be another one next year. There is no other story beyond that. When you lead the labour party, it must be about the party, not about temporary ideology, because the CND is temporary at best and all ideological. I state that because there is no doubt that the UK would never instigate it, it would however respond if need be. Jeremy knows this (or he should not run the labour party). In all this I accept and understand that this is an option to rub elbows with people like SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party. Yes, those meetings make perfect sense, yet that means that none of them are really there for a CND rally. That is not an accusation, it is not wrong, but it leads to questions; questions that can slow down any election for a massive amount.

Two events all with issues of relevance, relevance from within those people from their point of view.

Now we take another gander, a gander towards the path of Saudi Arabia. Most people refuse to understand (read: accept) two elements. The first is that Saudi Arabia is a sovereign nation, a nation founded in 1932 by the House of Saud. The most important part here is that this is a Muslim nation, it is a nation of laws, in their case it was the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia in 1924 when King Abdul-Aziz made Shura a foundation of his government in order to fulfil the divine order by applying Shariah (Islamic Jurisprudence) and Shura as parts of it. So, we have a clear given, a monarchy that lives by Muslim rule of law, Shariah law. We might not comprehend, understand it or even accept it. But in the Nation of Saudi Arabia it has forever been law. I still do not understand how people go about trying to enforce their rules upon others. You see, when I hear these ‘moralists’ speak on how Sharia Law is so ‘barbaric’, they in equal measure forget that their own governments abandoned them as markets collapsed twice since 2004, no decent part of the involved parties went to prison and absolutely no laws were properly instigated and enforced against greed and in that regard, the least said about flawed corporate tax laws the better. In light of all this consider another fact that applies to the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, the previous assembly had 70% of its members with a PhD, 49% got their degree in the US and 20% from a University in Europe. So this is a group highly educated. Initially, going back to the beginning, the council was entrusted with drafting the basic laws for the administration of the country. Which is interesting as the US started in a similar way, a nation of laws under god (their Christian version). When we see the Shura council, we see in Article one “and following His Messenger Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) in consulting his Companions, and urging the (Muslim) Nation to engage in consultation. The Shura council shall be established to exercise the tasks entrusted to it, according to this Law and the Basic Law of Governance while adhering to Quran and the Path (Sunnah) of his Messenger (PBUH), maintaining brotherly ties and cooperating unto righteousness and piety“, so as others judge the actions of Saudi Arabia, ask yourself, in the last 5 years alone, how many instances from large corporations and government have we seen, where ‘maintaining brotherly ties and cooperating unto righteousness and piety‘ were never part of any consideration? You only have to look at your pension plan, healthcare or deficits to see that ‘brotherly‘ is nowhere to be found.

This too is relevant to the entirety of the situation when we return to the honourable Jeremy Corbyn. Several sources stated “Jeremy Corbyn has called on David Cameron to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia after a United Nations report found the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen had “conducted airstrikes targeting civilians”“, based on what evidence would be my first question (not stating the validity of the UN), apart from that, Corbyn has a direct responsibility, you see, the UK had coffers that need to be filled, the UK has product that can be sold. We have seen how UK Labour was willing to spend money they never had, leaving the UK in massive debt. The last thing he should do is call for a suspension. Let me explain that part.

  1. This arms deal is not with some organisation like Hezbollah, it is a legitimate sovereign government of an established nation. The UK has every right to sell products to this nation.
  2. Whenever the west gets directly involved in any Middle Eastern event, it becomes a massive mess, in all this after half a decade, the west has done next to nothing regarding Syria, Europe has to deal with massive waves of refugees and there is no end in sight. Amnesty International knows this. They also know that Sharia Law is another matter, it is not for them to judge; it is for them to accept that the sovereign nation of Saudi Arabia has every right to keep their own set of laws.
  3. Hezbollah and other players in Yemen are not part of an established government, they overthrew governments and the mess that followed has been ongoing ever since. In that light, there are too many question marks in too many places.

I believe that any Middle Eastern issue should be resolved by the Middle Eastern nations themselves. With escalation on the south border and firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia, they have every rights to protect themselves in any way they need to. That is also part of the equation. In that regard Islam 101 gives us two parts “Fight against those who fight against you in the way of Allah, but do not transgress, for Allah does not love transgressors” as well as “Kill them whenever you confront them and drive them out from where they drove you out. (For though killing is sinful) wrongful persecution is even worse than killing. Do not fight against them near the Holy Mosque unless they fight against you; but if they fight against you kill them, for that is the reward of such unbelievers“. The next part is also from the Quran, but I am not sure whether this is Sharia: “The Quran sanctions violence to counter violence. If one studies history of Arab tribes before Islam and fierce fighting they indulged in one would be convinced that the philosophy of passive resistance would not have worked in that environment“. This is the kicker, we see that passive resistance was not a solution, because of the mess that Arab spring left the Middle East. In that Saudi Arabia has a right to counter its attacks, which means that we do not get to say too much on how a sovereign state defends itself. In addition, with the amount of ‘additional’ groups in Yemen, can we be certain who is who there?

But do not fear, Smith is here!

You see, I am very willing to join BAE and become ‘the’ sales person there (I know a person who would join me, so a team of 2 could be achieved), I will take a decent sales income and of course the 3.75% bonus on surplus sales and 3.25% bonus on sales targets reached. I reckon that I can sell the Eurofighter Typhoon military planes, with consultancy, training and guidance. In addition, I will be happy to provide for ammunition and ordnance. As stated, we Commonwealth nations need to stick together and I am happy to aid in the support and consultancy of those jets.

This now gets us to the final part ‘an arms embargo on the country over its bombardment of Yemen‘. What data is there? What evidence is there? We know for a fact that Hezbollah is there, that the Iranians are all over this, which is interesting as they are supporting the party overthrowing the legitimate government. So is there more? Is this perhaps an organised annexing of Yemen for Iran? The elements that gives value to that are indeed in play, whether this is a factual interpretation is not clear, too much data is not available to me, as well as too much time has passed from the start of all this.

And the final part in all this is “The vote does not force EU member states to comply“, which makes the EU a lame duck organisation. All that time and all these events for something that holds no real value. Now let’s take the headcount for a second. Oliver Sprague, a civilian with no political power, a person who leads by instigating those who have power and only in events where it is beneficial to those people could something possibly happen (not in this case though). Jeremy Corbyn, a political headpiece, but not one that is currently in office, he is merely in opposition and as such he is about visibility and branding himself (politically plugging is also a term that applies in this case). These two non-deciders are opposing a nation that needs commerce that needs to export as many of their products as possible.

In the defence of the two non-deciders I must add, from our values, we might have issues and it is nice that the UN is also about values, yet in all this, apart from condemnation there has been very little against terrorist elements. Of all the condemnations we have seen since Syria has a little issue in 2011, how much actions have been taken and for how many millions of Syrians has it been too late? Too many speakers for inactions, too little actions on economy and actual actions on the HRA (like the little addendum to article three I mentioned earlier).

So within the title of relevance seems to apply to too many people, it includes me as well, for the mere reason that my blog has no effect on the actions of the UK Foreign Office. It is just my view on the matter, like it was the view of Oliver Sprague, Jeremy Corbyn and the EU parliament. We are all simply non-deciders. The deciders are the currently elected UK government headed by David Cameron as well as the Monarchy of Saudi Arabia, under King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. They both get to look at the ‘toothless’ response from the EU parliament, who might be entering their final sitting soon enough.

Our voices might sound nice, our words might read nice, but neither bring food to the table, which is the concern of the Conservative Party, one that they are actually addressing.

 

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February 25, 2016 · 20:26

Family of my enemy

There are all these expressions, like for example: ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend‘. In this day and age, in the one place, the one moment when Marine Le Pen has a growing chance of becoming President of France, her father, for whatever reason is now trying to thwart her chances. This is the one clear evidence that ‘Family of my enemy is my friend‘. The quote “threatened his daughter and sent her an ultimatum, to ensure the “unity of her movement and of the national movement“, must make François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy howl with laughter. Euro Disney could not come up with this plot! In addition, the quote “We must not lose part of our political capital in the hope to conquer others. You have to be yourself”, which reads like: ‘be the ultimate extremist of yourself, as outspoken as possible‘. The reality is that some will listen to the very old man, giving rise to internal opposition towards Front National. I still believe that an actual Brexit will give a massive sway towards Marine Le Pen. There are two factors that will change it. The first one is either Hollande or Sarkozy to get on the Frexit horse, this would be the most powerful deflator for Front National and here is the kicker. If Hollande does this before the Brexit vote they will actually expedite that what neither wants. We have seen in the previous round that they will combine powers just to prevent Marine Le Pen from winning, which could be seen as betraying ones constituency on one side and in my book there is no other side. The entire approach reeks towards the fact that Sarkozy and Hollande will do anything to stay in the Euro and keep Front National out of Élysée Palace. Is that truly representing ones constituency? We can argue for either side. Yet it could all be moot if Mademoiselle’s Le Pen’s daddy goes extreme. Her victory could turn instantly from definite into possibly, maybe. This is not a solution for her side, which the other players definitely love. So the problem for her side is now starting to grow. Her chances are growing fast, but only if she can get a handle on daddy dearest. For her opposition this is great, should their dreams come true, if they escape defeat by Le Pen, the speculation would become whether the gilded tombstone will read ‘Jean-Marie Le Pen, deceased, as is Front National, I killed my own party and we never got to govern because I would not trust my children‘, which could end up becoming a tourist attraction, which is also good for France.

Yet, the issue does not stop in France, recently we have seen issues rise in both the Netherlands and Italy. First the Netherlands. For this I will use the Irish times as a source, so you won’t need to learn the complications of Google Translate. For example ‘schijt lijster’ does not mean ‘shit thrush’, but ‘coward’. So let’s take a look at a decent version of reporting, where (at http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/02/geert-wilders-is-a-threat-to-democracy-says-labour-chairman/), we saw earlier this month “Wilders told a gathering of far right parties in Milan 10 days ago: ‘If I am the biggest and the other politicians won’t work with me, then the people will not accept that. Then there will be a revolt. We won’t let that happen“, which is a fair enough statement to make. The statement “Wilders has ‘let the genie out of the bottle’ with his calls for ‘resistance’ to the establishment of refugee centres and warnings that his supporters will ‘revolt’ if the PVV is not part of the next government, Spekman said” is in that context not correct, what Geert Wilders has stated that if he becomes the biggest (which is statistical likelihood at present) the other parties would need to work with him. This is at the core of the Dutch issue. In the past, not entirely unjustified did parties turn their back and all support away from the PVV, which in light of Dutch liberalism, if THEY think it is too extreme, there should be an issue. What becomes partially the issue is “The threats being made against local politicians are an attack on democratic decision-forming, the Labour party chairman said. Wilders, Spekman said, should take back his words. ‘The genie has to be put back in the bottle and Wilders has a role in doing that.’“, this is not correct. You see, for a long time there has been a growing aversion against more refugees. The Netherlands, pretty much the smallest nation in Europe is 7th on the GDP list, largely through transport and processing services. It has a comparable GDP with Turkey but is only 5% in size. It has a population size that is only 3 million less than Romania, yet 16% it’s size. So a population pressure that is 5 times higher. In addition, the local population have for a long time made the argument that the value of houses would decrease when a refugee centre would be added in near proximity. However, that last fact has never been proven with factual data, partially as the Dutch house market has had many fluctuations.

In light given another part is also ignored. When we see “threats being made against local politicians are an attack on democratic decision-forming“, there is a clear side that is ignored. The fact that the population is more and more agitated by these events is also a clear sign that political parties are about international visibility. The voter has been ignored too many times, this is exactly why the PVV had grown too much. Local politicians proclaiming to be international players all in the interest of ‘self’ is why this shift is happening. In addition, to some extent I still believe that a coalition government should be seen as the most corrupt form of democracy (not just a personal view). We see on how politicians will advocate ‘a little water added to the wine‘, this has been happening in the Netherlands since the 80’s, which means the politicians all get what they need, but the population gets a mix, no longer having the ability to differentiate water from wine. What they are left with won’t kill them, but it should be regarded as undrinkable. The people at large have had enough. The fact that the PVV is now regarded in the Netherlands as the largest party is a blemish on the political shield. The true political titans that the Netherlands had like Joop den Uyl, Hans Wiegel, Dries van Agt and Hans van Mierlo. These titans were true politicians, when den Uyl fought van Agt on the political battlefield it was a sight to behold, there was a true fight for their constituents. I believe that this fight is gone, as a majority is no longer an option it became about compromise and from the 90’s onwards there was too much compromise where parties gave in to big business and certain scandals (there will always be scandals in every nation) were almost a cornerstone of political office.

It is not really that much of a wonder that Geert Wilders grew to the extent he has. This now reflects back to France. As France is now making more and more compromises (Team Hollande/Sarkozy), we see a local population that has had enough. A united Europe has brought them too little, or nothing at all. In that regard many European nations are now more and more pushing the ‘nationalism’ button, after too much hardship the people are accepting that story, even though in the back of their mind they know it will not bring any ease to their hardship. After a harsh decade where large corporations gave millions to their top dozen, these people will now try ‘anything else’. It is the ‘else’ part that is bringing the problems known as Brexit and Frexit.

So in countering the statement by the Dutch Chairman of the Labour party, I would state “Mr Spekman, your party lost close to 50% of its power, because of self-serving bias. The pension plan is perhaps the most visible one. A long fight that had no option of getting won. Instead of fighting a useless battle, accepting the reality of a sliding age of retirement and presenting the demand for reinforcements and growth of the total pensions, giving way to a more secure future would have been the real solution. Your party never sold it correctly and did not terms of preparations which would have made all the difference. You lost the faith of your constituents!” which would have been my response to that disaster. In that light people are now listening to someone else, it is not up to me to decide whether he is the wrong person.

In light of that, as he stated in a Dutch Newspaper “Het optreden van Geert Wilders brengt democratie en rechtsstaat in gevaar“, “The acts of Geert pose a threat to democracy and the rule of law“, is that truly the case? If he is a threat to the rule of law, he would be breaking the law and he can be prosecuted, he cannot be a threat to democracy, in that light, you and your posse (your coalition partners) are that threat. The threat is there because the people have been ignored for too long and they (well over 25% have had enough), in that light, how often will a Dutch politician state ‘it is a complex situation‘ to avoid giving a clear answer? How many of the clear answers given turned out to be ‘half-truths’ or ‘incomplete answers’? In that light, who is the threat to democracy? In that light, Mr Spekman should realise (fast) that should the PVV win, he has no option, but to either find a way to work or to create a minority coalition. Should that happen, than perhaps Mr Spekman might want to try to remember what happened on August 20th 1672 and especially WHY it happened.

Even as the mood in France is not that grim, the issues are now quickly evolving. The investigation into the Nicolas Sarkozy 2012 election charges, which according to the French population is not a good thing. According to the poll 77% regard Mr Sarkozy ‘a handicap’ to his party’s ambitions, within his party, it is Alain Juppe who has 55% of the votes within the party (at http://www.connexionfrance.com/france-politics-les-republicains-nicolas-sarkozy-president-francois-hollande-alain-juppe-survey-17738-view-article.html), in that light, as Sarkozy designed a coalition with Francois Hollande, who is dealing with disastrously low ratings. So as the two French parties are in turmoil, there is a clear path for Front National to get national gains beyond the two areas where they had an advantage. An option for Marine Le Pen that is now in danger as her daddy seems to have a failing level of logic and even less faith in his youthful young daughter.

Even in this light, there is still an issue with Greece, as their economy created the dangers of Brexit and Frexit in the first place. However, in this case it is NOT Greece that has the blame here. In this case, the refugee issues that are fuelling election, we see a Greece that is in the middle of a scenario they did NOT create. In that light we need to look at the issue of Austrian short-sightedness. Greece is the first port of call, not by choice, by mere geography. Austria seems to forget that Turkey (stupid is as stupid does) is doing what it can to get the people away from their turf into the next one (Greece). So the quote “Sebastian Kurz says that Greece has “clearly expressed no interest in reducing the (migrant) influx and in contrast wants to continue waving them through” ” is already a first issue, because the refugees DO NOT want to be in Greece, they want the juicy places like Germany and the UK. Which means that they will end up getting through Austria. In my view, how was Sebastian Kurz elected for office as he has such a failing view of geography and logic? Greece should have been the guest of honour at that event!

You see, people (read: refugees) need to be processed, they need to be identified and assessed on optional issues of security. That system would bring jobs and possible economic support to Greece, whilst the EEC gets the data it desperately needs. So as we see (at http://www.ekathimerini.com/206291/article/ekathimerini/news/austria-defends-excluding-greece-from-migrant-conference), so as we look at the quote “the conference is set up in a “regular format” that does not include Athens“, to which I reply: “such a conference requires intelligence and clear thinking, so Minister Kurz, will you therefor be equally absent?”

That for the mere reason that the intelligence required would be the data your neighbours desperately needs (which includes Germany and Italy). I wonder if that conference will lead to anything truly productive, or will it just be good food, hookers and a few days away from their offices? I’ll let you readers contemplate that part.

All these events are interconnected, and it is not even the complete story as Italy is missing in all this, but that is for another day.

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February 22, 2016 · 19:44

Within the realm of privacy

We all have an inherent need for privacy, we want things to be at our leisure of contemplated sharing. Yet, what is privacy? On one side we want privacy, but the next moment ladies will share whether their carpet is a landing strip or a martini glass, I for one do not care. If they want to share certain parts that’s fine with me. I am not too much about sharing. On the other side, apart from a few MP3 files, there is nothing interesting on my mobile. I reckon that my mobile is one of the dullest ones around.

So when I initially heard about the FBI wanting to access the iPhone of Syed Farook, I shrugged my shoulders and went ‘whatever!’ meaning that I was not opposed and I did not care. It was the techdirt site that has an interesting fact from the court case.

“Footnote 7, on page 18 details four possible ways that Apple and the FBI had previously discussed accessing the content on the device without having to undermine the basic security system of the iPhone, and one of them only failed because Farook’s employers reset the password after the attacks, in an attempt to get into the device“, so the boss went into ‘auto-moronic’ mode and did not check? He acted without knowing? So when we see “The ‘owner’ of course, being the San Bernardino Health Department, who employed Farook and gave him the phone. Basically, what this is saying is that if the password hadn’t been reset, it would have been possible to try to connect the phone to a ‘trusted’ network, and force an automatic backup to iCloud — which (as has been previously noted) was available to the FBI. But by ‘changing’ the password, apparently that option went away“, should we consider that his boss was stupid, or that his boss was scared he had done something wrong and this was his/her way of covering the mess up? (at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160219/17463033656/footnote-reveals-that-san-bernardino-health-dept-reset-syed-farooks-password-which-is-why-were-now-this-mess.shtml).

For the record, that was clear speculation on my side!

What happened was that Apple, the firm that initially ‘screwed over’ its customer base with error 53. A few days ago, the Guardian reported ‘Apple ordered to decrypt iPhone of San Bernardino shooter for FBI‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/apple-ordered-to-hack-iphone-of-san-bernardino-shooter-for-fbi). In there we see the important quote: “In 2014, Apple began making iPhones with additional encryption software that they said they could not unlock, even if faced with a court order. Apple said this was done in the name of consumer privacy and cybersecurity, but the company has been locked in a public feud with the FBI since“. I understand that there is a need for privacy. My issue is why THIS level of privacy is needed. One could speculate that this is to keep the financial adviser’s customer base happy. I reckon that those people look for other means the moment their actions could be monitored, or investigated afterwards. Again, speculation from my side.

You see, I do not comprehend why law abiding citizens are so in fear, of what the government finds out. Most people can’t stop selfie themselves, their fashion and body parts to social media on a global scale. They tend to Facebook all details, especially when they are far away from home to ‘all’ their friends, so that the department of discreet entry and removal operations can empty their homestead in the meantime. With so much sharing, what privacy do you think you still have?

So back to the Granny Smith of automation, the next article (again the Guardian) gives us ‘FBI escalates war with Apple: ‘marketing’ bigger concern than terror‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/fbi-apple-san-bernardino-shooter-court-order-iphone), here we see the subtitle ‘Court filing from Department of Justice says Apple is more concerned with ‘its marketing strategy’ than helping FBI unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone‘, which is fair enough when we consider that a failed marketing equals an alleged death in those houses. The quote “Cook called for public debate and has been backed in his fight by some of tech’s biggest names, including Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai, WhatsApp and whistle-blower Edward Snowden“. I think that this is less about Americans and more about the 7 billion non-Americans that have this false fear of the CIA and the NSA. Yet in all this, the only true group to fear this is the 0.0001% of the population, I do not even register and in that regard most do not even register. Like the previous mass surveillance marketing ploy, simple fear mongering.

Now, let it be said that I have nothing against a person’s privacy and there is nothing wrong with wanting privacy, yet when we consider the 1.5 billion on Facebook, the 100 million on Instagram, the 307 million on Twitter and over 100 million users on Pinterest, we have well over 80% of the iPhone users on social media all sharing from mere events attended up to the grooming of the most private of parts, Which makes the shout for privacy a little too hilarious.

So how does this fit legally?

Well first there is the part that the DoJ is now relying on. It is the All Writs Act of 1789, which states “The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law“, which sounds rather nice,

Yet the fact that the DoJ needs to rely on an act that has, according to several press sources, only been used thrice is a little too novel.

When we consider that the ‘self-destruct’ was enable by Farook’s boss (making the device useless to thieves), only leaves the DoJ without options. What is interesting is when the last cloud backup has happened, had it happened at all? Too many question that are all in the realm of speculation and none of it gives way to legislation. The question becomes should it be? I am not opposing the FBI, CIA or NSA. Yet these alphabet groups do know that they are fishing in murky waters. You cannot expect a corporation to set a product meant for 1,000 million to have options for the internally build exemption of 5,000-7,000 users. The math just does not add up!

I was talking about the legality, so let’s continue there.

In McCabe v British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd,’ and the appeal, British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd v Cowell (Representing the Estate of McCabe (deceased)), exposed some of the difficulties that plaintiffs who sue large corporations may face in litigation involving access to documentation. The Victorian Court of Appeal reversed the first instance decision which had struck out the defence of a tobacco company (‘BAT’). The basis for the first instance decision was that BAT had systematically destroyed documents that might have been relevant to the plaintiff’s case. It important to state WHO destroyed documents. You see, in case of Farook it was the boss who ‘destroyed’ the options for information retrieval. The important issue is that INTENT becomes near impossible to prove. In addition that case gives us: “The High Court declined the opportunity to clarify the law in this important area by refusing leave to appeal. The effect of this case, absent statutory reform, is that corporations may destroy potential evidence provided that their actions do not constitute an attempt to pervert the course of justice or a contempt of court. These are notoriously difficult to establish” (source: Playing for keeps? Tobacco litigation, document retention, corporate culture and legal ethics by Matthew Harvey and Suzanne Lemire. The reason for going towards this case is that the entire approach to mobile architecture and auto-backup could instigate updates where the mirror is encrypted extern from Apple. Which means that any phone would have an XML set-up and data object, but the object would be irretrievable. The ‘responsibility’ for proper password maintenance would be kept with the ‘client’ or end user. Taking Apple out of the equation leaving the DoJ with the apple pie made from the famous Granny Smith (AKA Janet Abigail Doe).

This takes the entire cyber conversation towards Spoliated Evidence, where we see “a party is faced with the fact that certain key evidence has been destroyed, altered, or simply lost“, destroyed implies intent, but proving that is next to impossible (which got us the tobacco case. Altered is basically what the DoJ faces as the boss decided to reset the password, again malicious intent becomes next to impossible to prove, whilst lost is not in play in this case but could clearly complicate the issue if that was the case, as the DoJ would have no implied evidence at all.

This entire endeavour goes even further south when we consider Federal Insurance Co. v. Allister, 622 So. 2d 1348, 1351 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), where the Fourth District decided to set forth five factors to consider before imposing sanctions for spoliation of evidence. They were:

  • whether there is prejudice;
  • whether the prejudice can be cured;
  • the practical importance of the evidence;
  • the good faith or bad faith surrounding the loss of evidence;
  • Possible abuse if the evidence is not excluded.

As bad faith is now linked to the degree of wilfulness, we get back to intent. If mere ‘negligent loss’ does not cut the cake and the cake cannot be devoured without the essential evidence, the entire issue goes nowhere really fast. Basically, it boils down to the boss of Farook having one set of glasses on with the limiting mindset of cost if his mobile was ‘abused in usage’, leaving Apple in the clear shrugging their shoulders going ‘not my problem now’, whilst in all this we are left with no evidence linking to intent or malice. That small scope that was available will in all expectations to be diminished further. It basically solves all of Apple’s problems.

In the need for privacy we have gone from exceptionally rare to just hilariously ridiculous. The Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/20/apple-fbi-iphone-explainer-san-bernardino) shows in equal measure another side. Which comes from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon. Here we read “Some are calling for the United States to weaken Americans’ cybersecurity by undermining strong encryption with backdoors for the government,” he wrote on Medium on Friday afternoon. “But security experts have shown again and again that weakening encryption will make it easier for foreign hackers, criminals and spies to break into Americans’ bank accounts, health records and phones, without preventing terrorists from ‘going dark’“, as such correctly implying that the medication will end up being a lot worse than the disease they face. In addition to that, should Farook have relied on another path, for example receive orders and message a ‘guild’ within a Facebook RPG game, the wasted time on the iPhone becomes nothing more than an iconic episode of the Comedy Capers. With these games receiving billions of messages a day, parsing though 1 of a dozen games would take years. The fact that none of this required any encrypted android or IOS system, just a mere desktop like millions of students use makes for the case against the Alphabet teams. When looking at Extremetech, we see a quote that is important in all this, the quote: “how terrorist organization uses social media to spread its message and radicalize curious readers. GWU’s research found that while ISIS uses a wide range of services, including Facebook, Google Plus, Kik, WhatsApp, and Tumblr, Twitter is the social media site of choice. Twitter already patrols and bans the accounts of ISIS supporters“, it casually forgets the 3-4 dozen accounts that do not raise any flags, the accounts that ACTUALLY bring details of the attacks to the transgressors.

 

 

 

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February 20, 2016 · 12:25

Omphalos and its syndrome

This syndrome comes from the references of Delphi and the ‘navel of the world’, which is what Delphi was regarded as. Nowadays, we see Omphalos syndrome as the misguided belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.

I believe that to be no longer correct, I believe that it has been ‘converted’ into something slightly more generic. I believe that it should be seen as ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

 

A is for Apple

‘Apple apologises over Error 53 and issues fix for bricked iPhones’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/error-53-apple-issues-fix-bricked-iphones) shows the first example. The entire error53 mess is a direct example. It goes on to the core that we now see “Apple has released a fix for users affected by “Error 53”, a software issue that rendered useless iPhones that had had their home buttons replaced by third parties“, The initial response “At the time Apple said that Error 53 was a security feature to protect customers” reads like a joke. The mere alternative that was open was that any non-Apple certified method meant the wiping of data would have been enough. It took me 5 minutes to come up with that solution. A mere auto wipe of all data. No we have to read quotes like “Apple has apologised for Error 53 and said customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement for their phone should contact AppleCare about reimbursement” as well as “Solving Error 53 does not re-enable Touch ID, as a third-party replacement of the home button could potentially allow unauthorised access to a locked phone by modifying the fingerprint sensor“. It would have been the simplest of solutions to go through the re-enabling system again. All these simple solutions, all because apple wanted to enforce the repairs of their phones to what they consider to be THEIR allowed service repair shops. An application of greed, to maximise profits, not the openness of what was once the Apple OS X through a Unix open source system, but the mere stranglehold of a greed driven corporation. It was brought to light by several articles in the Guardian and an initial customer service based solution comes “after widespread publicity and the Californian tech giant being served with a class action lawsuit over in the US and attention from a competition watchdog in Australia“, I wonder how many IOS people will start considering Android now.

 

E is for Eisai

This event is taking us back a fair bit, around 2000 Eisai came with its Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil). The fact that profits grow by 100% might not be the biggest thing on the planet. Yes when the LA Times (at http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/health/la-he-aricept-fda-20120323) reported “FDA officials should not have allowed it, the authors said, because the clinical studies Eisai offered in support of its application did not meet standards the agency itself had laid out“, in addition we see “it failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval“, in all this a clear investigation did not take place. It is still allowed, mainly because it is FDA approved. We see in other sources the claims like “Further, the higher dose was not superior on either of the pre-specified secondary outcome measures, which, as the FDA medical reviewer pointed out, argues that the cognitive difference was not meaningful“, which we get from the FDA Center for Drug Evauation and Research. Application number 022568: medical review. Aricept 23 mg tablets. (at www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2010/022568Orig1s000MedR.pdf), when we consider the source http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Cheap-Alzheimers-drug-may-help-keep-people-out-of-care-homes.aspx, where we get the quote “a year’s worth of donepezil costs around £21 a year, compared with a year’s worth of care home costs – estimated to be between £30,732 and £34,424 a year. If the results of the study were replicated at a population level, this could save the NHS a considerable sum of money“.

This is where we see another version of Omphalos syndrome, “the misguided believe that my version of cost cutting is the best in the world“, at this point, we should investigate the players and consider whether a case for criminal endangerment exists. The fact that sources have shown ‘evidence’ as per 2007 gives rise to a failed system, not just the NHS, but the leeway for pharmaceuticals as, from the given reports failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval, making the question why on earth was it approved at all and why are certain diseases used for marketing a cash cow, more important why is the NHS not loudly and outspoken dealing with this? Especially as www.NHS.UK is involved in promoting articles in favour of Aricept (donepezil).

 

I is for Insight Enterprises

This is a side that rests with Omphalos, yet in all this it is in equal measure a situation we must accept. Insight Enterprises did nothing wrong, it made a choice, it’s governing body stated ‘this is the best path, this is the golden solution’, we must accept that any governing body, being it corporate or governmental will be ‘smitten’ with Omphalos Syndrome. So as Microsoft changed the partner program in 2014, Insight Enterprises saw the filling of its corporate coffers trickle down to zero. (at http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300079674/insight-enterprises-absorbs-another-hit-after-microsoft-partner-program-changes.htm). We can debate the mess Insight Enterprises received, the near simple answer is that Microsoft had to change programs, any large corporations will do that. Any program they offer and device tends to be ‘fluidic’ over time. Yet when we see the quote “The changes also affected Microsoft’s Licensing Solution Providers, like Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, which are the only partners Microsoft allows to sell licensing agreements to large corporations“, which is now showing another side. Does this make Microsoft narcissistically selfish or just plain sociopathic? You see all narcissists are selfish, but not all selfish corporations are narcissistically in nature (which is proven as greed we put the greedy in front of a mirrors), yet in all this, is this a sociopathic side in Microsoft? Well, that is a debate for another day as the entire Omphalos topic would soon get too murky.

 

O is for Omphalos

As shown in the last example, we tend to see Omphalos in a bad light. Which is not all correct either. On the other side we can take Bill Gates and his Omphalosian approach to IT. This got us DOS and later Windows. On the far side of the scale of limiting, there is the view of the truly visionary, but that view needs a start. Here the Omphalos syndrome works in another way. As I see it, we can accuse Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison on that list. Yet, we only did that AFTER they became successful, the not so successful are usually never heard of again.

In this world today, the foundation of ‘the most important place in the world’ is less and less applicable, it becomes a world of solutions, an amalgamation of aggregated values (the European Economic Community being a nice example). Yet the foundation of how to go about it was done in a very Omphalosian way. Especially when we consider the past blogs on how only self-proclaimed departures were the option. Which is exactly where Brexit is now. As Brexit gains momentum we see that the Omphalosian solution was the most dangerous here, it took one of the smallest nations (Greece) to push their non-accountability for the entire EEC to be in turmoil, with now a decent chance of collapsing the EEC as well as the Euro as a coin. Even as the United Kingdom is not on the Euro, France is and a Brexit will soon push for an additional Frexit. In that regard, the Financial Times quoted Florian Philippot who stated “the idea of challenging greater EU integration had become “taboo” in Europe. “The more we talk about it, the more people will vote against it,” he said” (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58f9cc98-ce51-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77.html#axzz40fDAW3BL). This is yet another side of Omphalos, actually two sides. The foundation of Omphalos is based on one view, if that view does not evolve or alters as time goes by, that view becomes less and less actual. The view becomes an act of obstruction at best and debilitating at worst.

In the second part, we have forever seen the Omphalos syndrome in its power core on the scope of government (read: Communistic), in that view we forgot that it is corporations with their view on the ‘only’ solution that is now impacting the lives of people in several (read: many) nations. In that same view we see that the old approach to currency is no longer the same. Most values are too dependent on independent views of static organisations and their push for changed industrialisations. How come that the value of a coin is now directly impacted by places like Dow Jones index, Nasdaq, Standards and Poor, the IMF, the ECB and so on? Governments allowed themselves to be directly be valued from what is perceived to be an ‘independent’ side. This is the other part that drives Brexit and other plans to no longer be part of anything. There is a near global consensus that these sources can no longer be trusted. That their view is to some extent ‘Greed Incarnate’.

As I see it, there is no true independence anymore. When we read that Eagle Capital Management Invests $293000 and that J. W. Burns & Company Has $533000 invested in in SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA). When the index itself is invested on, the expectations of improved value must be met, where does that leave us?

 

U is for You!

Even when we see the old and the new versions of the Omphalos syndrome, we need to realise that what once seen as short-sighted and limited is now not so limiting. It remains (as I personally see it) as short-sighted as it ever was (only in the rarest of occasions is it visionary), but now, the impact is no longer limited to one government, now its short-sighted impact is nearly global. It hits parties in many nations and it does not stop there. You see in a governmental approach it is ‘set’ to be what is best for its citizens and in case of the EEC it is what a group of nations see. Now consider the application from corporations that impacts governments on a global scale, offices of standards that impact the dangers to lives on a global scale as it does not enforce its own given values. How can we be aligned to a limiting view that could cost us our lives and our choice of living?

So as you consider ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’ also strongly consider what it will cost you, not now, but down the track.

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February 17, 2016 · 20:56

Behind the smiling numbers

An interesting story got to see the internet light by Nicholas Watt (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/16/income-tax-must-rise-3p-to-stop-nhs-staggering-from-year-to-year). The title ‘Income tax must rise 3p to stop NHS ‘staggering from year to year’‘, which implies initially that the NHS needs £1.95m, which might be OK. Yet the truth is far from that, the text gives us that Lord Kerslake stated “Income tax will have to increase by at least 3p in the pound…. “, which is another story entirely (and first evidence that members of the House of Lords are gifted with a decent sense of humour).

His lordship is quite correct when he states: “big questions needed to be asked to ensure that spending kept up with medical advances, an ageing population and the need to invest in hospitals“, yet these are mere facts that should have been asked almost a decade ago, there was a clear and near immediate danger to the health of the NHS. The logic we see after that becomes an issue (read: worry, concern, and both are debatable) “Health spending needs to rise at least in line with GDP. Arguably, we may need to go faster if we want to match European funding. You might argue there is a discount there because we have a more efficient system. But it’s got to be at least GDP-linked otherwise I don’t think we’ll get there“. So let’s take a look. First the Dutch version (at http://www.rijksbegroting.nl/2015/voorbereiding/begroting,kst199401_25.html) gives us two issues should we be willing to ignore language barrier. The BZK gets €71.3b, which is divided in €7.5b called budget financed expenditure and €63.8b from premium financed expenditures. So for argument sake, let’s take the total and divide that on a population of 17 million, this now implies that there is almost €4200 per person (remember that this is a terribly rough estimate).

Now for Belgium we get the VBO with €23.85b. Now we all know that Belgium is a much smaller nation (not that much smaller than the Netherlands in size) and with 11.5 million calling the Belgium nation their homestead we now see that they end up with €2075 per person (Rounded upwards). Perhaps his Lordship could give a slightly more detailed explanation for the remark “Health spending needs to rise at least in line with GDP. Arguably, we may need to go faster if we want to match European funding“. Considering that the Netherlands and Belgium are next to one another and their budgets per person are apart by a mere 49.404%.

This gets me to the core of the proclaimed matter, can anyone explain why we are linking healthcare to GDP? Perhaps, and this is merely a lose speculation, some people in the House of Lords had the time to read a paper by Santiago Lago Peñas (added at the end) called ‘On the relationship between GDP and Health Care expenditure; A new perspective‘, now that might be a good thing, there is nothing wrong with Spain taking the lead in matters (especially if it is a good idea). Santiago Lago Peñas as well as David Cantarero Prieto and Carla Blázquez Fernández have written an interesting paper.

First let’s take a look at part of the abstract, which states “Econometric results show that the long-run multiplier is close to unity, that health expenditure is more sensitive to per capita income cyclical movements than to trend movements, and that those countries with a higher share of private health expenditure fit faster and following a different pattern“. Now, I am not going to take a deep dive into this one (it is after all an abstract), but it gave me a few ideas on where to dig.

Next are a few quotes: “Attention is paid to several usually neglected dimensions of this link. With this aim, four different specifications are presented, with the logarithm of per capital total health care expenditure as the dependent variable in all cases” this doesn’t seem to be more than just a quote, but it will have impact down the track.

It is part 2 called previous evidence that is a first issue. When we accept the initial statement “the debate on this link has moved on whether the income elasticity of health expenditure is greater or less than 1 (Bac and Le Pen, 2002). An income elasticity less than 1 classified health expenditure and income inelastic, therefore, as a “necessary” good. On the other hand, if the elasticity is higher than 1, health will be classified as a “luxury” good“, which will do for now. You see, my issue is when we see the part that follows:

  • The seminal paper by Newhouse (1977)
  • An earlier study by Kleiman (1974) for a different set of countries
  • Leu (1986) using cross-sectional data for 19 OECD countries in 1974
  • Parkin et al. (1987) using similar methods and data from 1980
  • Brown (1987) using a sample of 20 OECD countries

Here we have the first issue. You see, this is not regarding the methodology, it is about the data, methods of data collection, usage of weights (if done), these numbers regarded in contrast towards those temporary populations in reflection to the whole. Health expenditure is one part, but based against which healthy part. Now consider the initial reflection I had on the Netherlands and Belgium. They have very different norms in respect to mental health care. Now consider the statements ‘19 OECD countries in 1974‘ and ‘20 OECD countries in 1987‘ I will again make a clear speculative declaration that the mental health norms are not equal, especially when considering economic differences, which gives my first thought, how useful is the paper on a whole (I am not attacking it) and how applicable this would be (read: could be) in reflection towards the whole.

You only need to scan for ‘psychology, psychiatry and mental health’ to see that the paper does not take this into consideration. As we know that the EEC nations have had their own approach to mental health in the past, is not a statement that they did anything wrong, but if this is the first element that does not align, what else will not align (there are a few). One that shines directly behind the ‘previous evidence‘. You see in my head the question comes to mind when I see “The econometric analysis relies on annual data for 31 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 gathered from the OECD Health Data Set 2011“, so is this aggregated data or raw data. if it is aggregated data the foundation might not align giving an unbalanced and invalid view (in my personal opinion), if it is raw data, what ground line data (the full population) is added so that the individual record compares towards the national whole, if that is missing how can any calculation be truly reflective of what was, especially taking into account the data is reflective over different time zones with very different social pressures. In that case I wonder if I can get a similar result by calculating Z-scores and run a Crosstabs in IBM Statistics #JustSaying!

Now we get back to the article which comes with the image of a smiling Lord Kerslake. Does this paper validate or invalidate the idea? No it does not, but it leads to questions, serious ones.

The quote “John Appleby, the chief economist at the King’s Fund, has estimated that NHS spending is due to fall from 7.3% of GDP to 6.6% in 2020-21. If health spending were to keep pace with economic growth, Appleby estimates an extra £16bn would have to be found every year by 2020-21 to take the NHS budget to £158bn. This works out at 3p on all rates of income tax, according to the IFS” is next!

The term ‘NHS spending is due to fall‘ reads like an event Baron Munchausen could have come up with (the character from Raspe’s book in 1785, not the syndrome). Of course the prediction is 5 years away, which makes it speculative. Now we know that John Appleby is more than the Chief economist for The King’s fund. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics at City University and he has a whole range of publications to his name, so why am I opposed?

Well, part of this starts with his own article ‘Social care: a future we don’t yet know‘ (at http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2015/11/social-care-future), the two quotes that get the foreground are “In our submission to the Spending Review we called for social care to be protected from further cuts and for the money previously agreed for the postponed Care Act funding reforms to be retained and invested in social care. But non-protected departments have been asked by HM Treasury to model cuts of 25 and 40 per cent – so further cuts seem inevitable“, as well as “What would happen if the spending cuts applied to social care over the past five years continue over the next five? Spending on social care for people of all ages as a share of GDP has already begun to fall. It was roughly 1.2 per cent in 2009 but if cuts continue at the same rate it will have halved by the end of this parliament to barely more than a half of one per cent of GDP“. Now there is nothing wrong with any of the texts, John Appleby is not where he is because he is silly, he is very (read: extremely) clued in. I am stating that the environment has changed, it has changed drastically from 2011 onwards and in addition; the changes the UK faces over the next three years will take some of these prediction to town in not so nice a manner.

You will now ask why, which is the question you should ask!

We get part of this from the London School of Economics and Political science (at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/special/cepsp26.pdf), the initial answer is given on page 13. Where we see “To summarise, treatments for the “common mental disorders” of depression and anxiety can be self-financing within the NHS. By spending more, we save even more. This is different from much of NHS expenditure. At the same time we relieve one of the main sources of suffering in our community“, in addition page 15 gives us “According to the 2007 survey, which covered a random sample of households, only 24% of people with depression and anxiety disorders were in any form of treatment“. This now gives us the first part in all this. The overall costs are not in league of the budgets because there is a missing foundations of equality on what falls ‘within’ the NHS. There is no option for the NHS other than to evolve into something ‘more’ complete. The UK is about to get 20,000 refugees from war torn Syria (over several years), the initial approved £1b seems to be nothing more than a drop of water on a hot plate, the ‘why’ will be clear shortly.

The UK has seen a massive rise in mental health issues in the last year alone. Depression and anxiety mainly due to economic events (cost of living) is now a serious concern, especially as the pressures of the economy are likely to continue a few more years. Consider my article two days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/02/15/is-there-a-doctor-on-this-budget/) called ‘Is there a doctor on this budget?‘ where we saw the link to ‘Health Care for Undocumented Migrants: European Approaches‘. The graph shown on page 3 is the charm. If we consider the cube, we see that on the X-axis we see subcategories of undocumented migrants, yet the same expenditure would apply to refugees (or the population for that matter). Now consider the Y-axis which is about the type of services and the Z-axis are the funding arrangements. Now this can be treated like a glass with liquid. If we increase the base (X or Y) the funding arrangements go down, it is the simplest of physics, a bigger glass requires more fluid to fill, so we have a population with more health care needs, mental health care in this case and the types of services is not just against depression or anxiety, it will require the coverage of war trauma and shell shock. This will impact refugees of all ages. So the glass gets bigger and bigger and more and more funding will be required to keep funding arrangements on an equal level, this is merely the application of logic.

This is why I opposed John Appleby’s approach, it shows little application of a changing population, merely a greying one (which is a form of change), but it does not hold water against the massive change the UK has faced since 2013 and will face until 2019. This is why I am not in agreement with the statements of John Appleby. Now we get back to Lord Kerslake. You see, the paper I mentioned is an example. It might not even be the foundation of Lord Kerslake’s approach. Yet a multitude of papers clearly show that there seems to be no real no equality in the setting of healthcare (read: cost of health care). It seems to be wearing a different hat in nearly every European nation, it would already be a great leap forward if they all had the same colour, which does not seem to be the case either.

Now we get the quote that wakes us all up “Appleby estimates that NHS spending would have to increase by 30% or £43bn a year to take NHS total spending to the EU-15 average by 2020-21. The IFS estimates that this would involve an 8p increase on all rates of income tax“, which is one side of the option. How about the other side? When we see that AstraZeneca has been able to avoid corporation tax on a massive scale, which dwarves when we compare it to the mergers Pfizer and Allergan have achieved. Is it perhaps possible that his lordship looks at another solution like closing that tax abyss? Might I suggest an idea where any corporation involved in tax avoidance gets its medication ‘grey’ listed? Which means that any drug that could be begotten in a generic form from a place like India will be selected as a first solution? It could even result in India starting businesses in the UK (with the economic benefits that those places will give). It would also send a clear signal that if corporations would like to avoid taxation, which in legal correct way is just fine, but at that point other distributors of pharmaceuticals will be found. I reckon that between that announcement and the offer of reduced medications (read: less costs for the NHS) from pharmaceutical firms would be forthcoming within 24 hours of making the announcement.

Yet, this was not about the costing, it was about the increase and setting against the GDP. The fact that health spending and economic spending are on par reads more like an option for deferred payments to big pharma and medical supplier than anything else. In case of doctors it would mean that their incomes would go through the roof (which might be a deserved reality), but it is one that the coffers under the care of George Osborne cannot afford.

There is wisdom in his lordship stating that “a royal commission should be established to build a national consensus on NHS funding“, which sounds a lot more ‘reliable’ (read: acceptable) than the Labour party giving way by letting a banker (Sir Derek Wanless) set the NHS spending levels. It is of course desirable to go with the people and keep the directly funded NHS free at the point of use, yet that comes with a price tag that is no longer realistic in this day and age of deficit, in addition harder times are coming for a while longer, making the price tag we already have a non-linear shifting one. Yet I feel adamant to speak that mental health must be fully accepted as part of the NHS (for all people, anywhere in the UK), which slides the scales of budget by a lot. A reality many papers (as I expect it to be) did not take into account. Raising income taxation as implied could equally be an issue as that could potentially drive depression and suicide statistics overnight (the latter would lower rents but that seems just too harsh a solution).

What is a given is that Lord Kerslake is the catalyst that is making us ask several serious questions.

I am however not entirely convinced that his lordship took the best path in getting these issues out into the open.

On the relationship between GDP and Health Care expenditure; A new perspective

 

 

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February 16, 2016 · 19:31

Fear mongers cannot learn, will the reader?

The technology section of the Guardian had an interesting article (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/13/artificial-intelligence-ai-unemployment-jobs-moshe-vardi), ‘Would you bet against sex robots? AI ‘could leave half of world unemployed’‘, is that so? So, is the title a reference that 50% is in prostitution, or is there more?

The article starts straight of the bat without delay it gives the quote: “Machines could put more than half the world’s population out of a job in the next 30 years, according to a computer scientist who said on Saturday that artificial intelligence’s threat to the economy should not be understated“.

I remember a similar discussion now 35 years ago. It was 1981, I was working on the defence mainframe and I got the inside scoop how computers would replace people, how those machines would put hardworking people out of a job and a future. In the first 5 years that followed I saw the opposite, yes some work became easier, but that also meant that more work could be done. The decade that followed gave us an entire new region of technology. A region that would open doors that had never been there in the first place.

This technology is not any different, it will open up different doors.

Now, the people in ‘fear’ of it all are not the most half-baked individuals. They include Physicist Stephen Hawking and the tech billionaires Bill Gates and Elon Musk, in addition there is professor Vardi from Rice University, his statement “AI could drive global unemployment to 50%, wiping out middle-class jobs and exacerbating inequality“, I massively disagree here. The words of Elon Musk calling it “our biggest existential threat” and in addition professor Vardi stated “humanity will face an existential challenge“, those two comments are closer to the reality. Yet here too I believe changes will dominate. Consider a few years back, back to the time when I was younger then young (like 900BC roughly), in an age of Greek wars and utter ‘nationalism’ the Olympic truce was created. “Ekecheiria”, was established in Ancient Greece in the 9th century BC through the signing of a treaty by three kings: Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta. (Source: olympic.org) There was a lull but in 1896 it started again. An event, which origin was to create an option to not be in a war and to compete. Of all the existential angst we have, robots should not be on the list any time soon.

My reasoning?

As we saw the start of recruitment for Mars, a serious recruitment to start colonising mars, we must admit that there are issues on mars, several could be diminished with the use of intelligent robots. Or perhaps the idea that NASA is looking on how to get resources from asteroids, so how about that Android solution? The BBC gives us the speculation on ocean living (at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131101-living-on-the-ocean), again an element where we do not thrive, but a robot could pave the way. In my own view, with the massive energy issues, how long until someone has the idea to place paddled wheels above a hydrothermal vent in the ocean to capture it as an energy source? Not the kind of work a person can do, a machine could, and an AI driven one could excel there. Just three places where we could end up with more and not less. Yet Vardi does give an interesting side, if robots replace people to some extent, that value of physicality might be lost. Now ask the bricklayer if he could do something else, would he? There is indeed the danger that physical labour becomes less and less appealing, yet that does not mean it will be gone. It would take at least half a century for things to be completed, whilst in that mean time new evolutions start, new challenges start.

More important, much more important is the one fact people tend to avoid out of fear. But you the reader, if you are over 45, consider that in the near future you will be dead! So will 3 out of 7 of your friends. Yes, the population is growing, yet the age groups are shifting, this implies that robots could be a solution for some of the work areas that do not require academic thinking. All these opportunities, not threats!

So as we see a new iteration of fear, is this version more valid than then the previous one? With that I mean the implementation of the PC. Perhaps having another set of less fear mongering eyes would help. The second part people forget is that fear mongering is also a drain on productivity here. Even as we speak Japan has a lead in this market, as does America. So how about we start getting ahead of the rest, so that is wrong with the commonwealth picking up a robotic skill or two, because one truth remains, once the other player get too much of a lead, the consequence will be that the followers are not considered for the creational jobs here and that is where the real mulah is, the IT explosion taught us that and that field grew a multitude of billionaires, the next technological iteration will do no less.

I am not alone in my way of thinking, the writer Nicholas Carr gives us: “human creativity and intuition in the face of complex problems is essentially irreplaceable, and an advantage over computers and their overly accurate reputation“, which is where the new future will head. Not to create robots, but the creativity to make then excel in extreme places where we could not comprehend until out boundaries are clearly mapped. So how is this news such an eyeopener? Well, when we get back to the beginning we saw “artificial intelligence’s threat to the economy“, as stated, much like the Personal Computer, it will not be a threat, but a solution, an opening into a new arm of the technology sector, even more important, this is not just a IT only field. It will require quality engineers and depending on the application of the scene. This means that we get new challenges, different ones mind you, but not lesser ones?

In that regard, depending on the implementation, it will require analysts, engineers, programmers and a few others on the list of adepts.

all these options and we did not even need to get close to the technological design of the new age cybernetic machines for the purpose of erotic exploration (level 1 at http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/sexbots-realdoll-sex-toys), which is nowhere near an AI experience, time will tell how real that field becomes. Consider the age of STD’s we see nowadays. Mycoplasma Genitalium might be the new ‘trend’, as it can be cured with a mere one week setting of anti-biotics. So how long until it evolves into something that does not cure? Yet we do not even have to go that far, consider all the areas where man (or woman) cannot function, the risk too high and the rewards become too low. Here comes the clockwork system (aka the AI robot) and we are back on track.

So I see the robot as a positive wave. For careers, for jobs, for business evolution and for evolving technology. We only need to see the light of creation and we will end up with a lot more options than we bargained for.

 

 

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February 15, 2016 · 21:33

Is there a doctor on this budget?

The title ‘Is this doctor (and Ukip candidate) right that EU migrants will destroy the NHS?‘ seems inflammatory to say the least, but the reality is actually a lot less appealing. Even when we see today’s article: ‘NHS vows to transform mental health services with extra £1bn a year‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/15/nhs-vows-to-transform-mental-health-services-with-extra-1bn-a-year), the quote “People facing mental health crises will be able to get community care 24 hours a day, seven days a week as part of the biggest transformation of NHS mental health services in England for a generation, to be unveiled on Monday“, that quote now reflects back to the initial NHL article. There we see that Professor Angus Dalgleish is giving us another view: “He says the NHS is on its knees and “could collapse completely” because of immigrants from the EU that we are legally obliged to treat“, so even as the Guardian is hiding behind the identity ‘Pass notes‘, there are issues. The first is the unintelligent trivialisation by ‘Pass notes‘. The quote “Eighteen British hospitals made £42m from people coming here for treatment on 2010” is just too ridiculous to be considered valid. I am not stating that it is a lie, but consider that the NHS budget is set to be around £115b for 2015/2016, that £42m amounts to roughly 0.000365%, so how insignificant is that trivialisation? Especially when we consider that many papers (including the Guardian) reported the NHS to be £1.6b in deficit, so there is an issue already.

Now we get the next step.

From several sources we see that refugees are coming. That is not an accusation, or negativism, it is merely factual that over the next 5 years 20.000 refugees will arrive. Now consider that these people come from actual devastated locations, on a horrendous trip that has lasted years (including their stay in refugee centres) to get to the UK, if only 75% needs mental health care, the UK should be thanking their lucky stars. So that £1bn will not last too long, especially considering the current population is in dire need of mental health in one form or another. So as ‘Pass notes‘ complains the quote “But I expect doctors to be liberal! By which I mean intelligent! By which I mean liberal! We expect much. And sometimes we are disappointed“, which is just the Guardian showing that its own values are not set on intelligence. The NHS itself states: “However, if you are now living in an EEA member state and pay into a state healthcare scheme then you are entitled to apply to that member state for an EHIC. Under EC law, this entitles you free of charge to ‘all medically necessary treatment’ here, which provides a greater coverage than that mentioned above since it includes routine treatment for chronic conditions such as diabetes“, which gives way to the claim that Professor Dalgleish is making. In addition the National Health Service Act 2006, section 83 states that “all reasonable requirements to provide or secure necessary primary medical services for all patients, irrespective of their immigration status, within their areas” must be met, this is a legal duty for the primary care trust as reported by the Primary Care Commission (at https://www.pcc-cic.org.uk/sites/default/files/articles/attachments/pcc_briefing_-_illegal_immigrantsv6.pdf), which now implies that Professor Dalgleish has indeed reported an issue that the Guardian casually trivialises. Yet, we must also ask, what if the Guardian is correct? Well, section 83 of the National Health Service Act 2006, literally states at s83(1) “Each Primary Care Trust must, to the extent that it considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements, exercise its powers so as to provide primary medical services within its area, or secure their provision within its area“, which bakes the cake on one side. The issue is however not done, it is about to get a lot ‘worse’, because s83(2)(b) gives us: “A Primary Care Trust may (in addition to any other power conferred on it) make such arrangements for their provision (whether within or outside its area) as it considers appropriate, and may in particular make contractual arrangements with any person“, which now gets us two elements:

  • Make contractual arrangements with any person, which also implies that it could be a contract set at £0.00.
  • Arrangements for their provision (whether within or outside its area), which now implies that the Primary medical services can transfer a refugee or illegal immigrant to psychological care and/or specialised mental health clinics.

So ‘Pass notes‘ is not reflecting on the dangers that Professor Dalgleish was trying to illuminate. More important, these issues have been known for some time. Issues on these elements have been illuminated in plenty of publications going back to 2012. There is even more information at http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2012/Dec/1650_Gray_hlt_care_undocumented_migrants_intl_brief.pdf, yet overall they tend to give the same reflection, especially when you look at page 3, where the cubic impression titled ‘Exhibit 1. Three Dimensions of Health Care Coverage Policy for Undocumented Migrants‘, gives rise to the massive growth of costs that could be associated with migrant health care (not to mention due to incoming refugees).

So how much valid weight can be given to the statements of Professor Dalgleish? I personally believe that the weight of his statements should be weight on a debatable high level (evidence to follow at the near end). The issue is not just regarding the costing the immigrants and refugees bring, the fact that the Euro systems is wreaking havoc all over the world is an equal concern. I cannot state for certain what will be the best path, what is a given is that trivialisation was never an option.

When we add ‘Jeremy Hunt on the NHS: ‘I think this decade needs to see the quality revolution’‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/15/jeremy-hunt-on-the-nhs-i-think-this-decade-needs-to-see-the-quality-revolution) to the fold, the plot thickens. You see, quality revolution sounds fair and essential, it is in fact at resent likely the least important part. There is a massive shortage of medical professionals, there is a lack of funds and that lack can be sized into the billions. This implies that quality, though nice is nothing compared towards the lack of resources. Which gets us to the Junior Doctor contracts. You see the quote “none of the 152 foundation trust hospitals in England will be obliged to force their junior doctors to accept the deal and can instead offer them better terms“, which gets us back to that massive deficit and more important, what additional pressures will be added onto it?

That is a part which has been known for a while, I voiced it at least 2 years ago and the current investigation that the BBC gave visibility to in January 2016 (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35361908) is still centre in all the issues that will come. You see, without a proper IT system, the NHS will have less and less options to streamline any solution, with that I mean larger operational matters for streamlining. Even as Tavish Scott (Lib Dem Scotland) asked on who got figuratively axed, we got the answer: “The chair of the board is no longer there, the chief executive is no longer there and the chief finance officer“, a very unsatisfactory answer. When we consider “he was not informed of a ‘fundamental flaw’ in the system being delivered for 22 months, adding “other, more junior staff were aware of omissions” in the contract, “but they didn’t tell me”“, we see a systematic shortening of another matter. The fact that junior staff were aware, implies that the documentation was an issue from day 1, in addition, no clear QA protocol was in place. No drilldown teams, from Junior to board member line was in play and overall the system was beyond merely defective. Consider the simple quote: “Mr Turner, who signed the 1,000-page contract for the IT system in March 2012, said he felt “very let down” by a senior colleague, saying they “didn’t advise me at all”“, can anyone explain to me, how such a document does not come with an excerpt chapter by chapter (by members of the NHS) underwriting per chapter how the contract impacts the NHS, the system and their services? A mere SWOT analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) would have made all the difference before signing. A waste of £40-£50 million is more than just a few doctors, the lack of such a solution will give additional worry to the claims Professor Dalgleish made. In light of refugees, illegal immigrants and costings, the lack of oversight will soon pressure resources down further.

This all gives a clear view that a doctor is required to take the pulse of the budget. It is billions in deficit and the drain will only increase. The fact that most parties have not given clear light to several sides is only a first reason why Ukip is gaining momentum. That view goes a little further when we consider “Committee convener Paul Martin said there must have been issues with management if staff did not feel able to come forward“, Scottish Labour has more than just a point, the issue becomes why junior members were not asked directly. Someone had to make an inventory, which means that the step was skipped, or intentionally overlooked. That now gives way to the fact that axing three members is not nearly enough. There is, what could be regarded as an institutional failure within the NHS. Considering that the NHS 24 is only one of several systems that are not on par, or even worse, then never got properly managed is proof further still that the NHS cannot handle too many pressure points at present.

What was wrong from Professor Dalgleish is that ‘EU migrants’ are only one of several straws, each currently heavy enough to separately break the camel’s back (read: NHS), which might be a case that the professor was trying to make, but ‘Pass notes‘ was too busy writing lame non-jokes, whilst the editor of the Guardian remained absent in this matter, which is why its readers are left in the dark (and in the near future untreated too). It was interesting to see that Rochdale Online did give more information through the statement by Louise Bours, UKIP health spokesman and North West MEP.

Here you must ask yourself the question: “Is this all just a storm in a teacup?” Especially as the larger papers ignored the ‘Dalgleish matter’. I myself expect that the statement from Dalgleish is out of context and incomplete. This failing as other elements that are driving the NHS over the cliffs were ignored could have been an option to illuminate why Ukip might not be the answer, yet as we see these levels of trivialisation, people are wondering the why; mainly because no clear explanation is coming forward they start to listen to Ukip more and more. Which is EXACTLY why I wrote the initial view with supporting documentation of a more academic level. So it is not a storm in a teacup, as we can clearly see that the NHS could be seen as close to ‘terminal’, but the factors here are a lot more than just the EU-migrants, what is a given is that unless certain things change, the EU-migrants could be breaking the NHS back, but that is equally a given for a few more factors that are currently in play.

Should any of these elements drive you crazy, then you will be equally out of luck as the BBC reported that finding a mental health spot has become pretty impossible, in that element alone, the £1b might be a great help, but there is a decent chance it will not be enough, because it is not just the beds that are unavailable, services are an equal worry, services that require staff and the refugee pressure will only add to that shortage (which is not the fault of these refugees mind you).

 

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February 13, 2016 · 14:51

Looking for an Exit sign

You are on board the EEC. There are four emergency exits, Brexit on the left, Frexit on the right, each marked with a red EXIT sign overhead. All doors except the overwing doors at 3 left and 3 right are equipped with emergency funds. These funds will keep you debt dependant for decades. Yes, it sounds like the speech a flight attendant might give you as you travel from the gates of the fake economic upbeat information towards the airport of Conturbare Gentem.

There is the impulse to state ‘the real issue is’, but that is not the case here. As we see ‘Brexit ‘will be the first step of the definitive decline of the EU,’ says former Prime Minister of Italy’ (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-will-be-the-first-step-of-the-definitive-decline-of-the-eu-says-former-prime-minister-of-a6861326.html). You see, I have been trying to warn my readers for well over 2 years on this danger. In a few cases it was laughed off loudly, but those ‘economic wannabe’ agents are not laughing now. When I was feeling a little evil. I asked them (as they honed me in public), to explain last week’s events, how it will lead to new prosperity. They basically told me to ‘f*ck off’. They are no longer laughing. I proclaimed these events, whilst also clearly stating that I am not an economist (a fact I did not deny). This situation was for the most a simple exercise of math, basic high school math actually, interesting how an economist missed that part.

The subtitle here is also interesting ‘Enrico Letta warns London ‘would lose a lot of influence’ on world stage‘, actually, it will not. As the UK turns their economy into a stronger engine, as we see this impact, we see that both Germany and the UK will get ahead faster and faster. Italy because of their election timing could end up with the worst deal (which sucks for Italians). You see, all that rattling we hear is empty and hollow. The financial markets might threaten to leave, but they will not, should they do so, than they end up in an even worse situation. Yes, they have options, but when the system crashes, their only option for now is Germany. If they select Paris, their issues will fossilise into a brittle solution, one that impacts their markets for decades.

In Germany they will be too isolated. In all honesty, their only decent alternative is Amsterdam, yet that comes with other perils. The Dutch DNB has stronger rules in place, so in that regard Paris seems a better choice, but overall that move isolates them from a few places down the road. London will remain the better option. And it is not even close to any decision. When we see the AFP article (at https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/30812452/cameron-confident-of-reaching-eu-deal-to-avoid-brexit/), we also see second rate top people go all out with quotes like “pragmatism and courage… and their ability to compromise” or “my wish is that the United Kingdom is and remains an active member of a successful European Union“, which are unique examples of misdirected communication. The “a deal could be reached allowing Britain to remain in the European Union and avoid a so-called Brexit” sounds so nice, but in the end, there is still a referendum and because too many European players were sitting on their thumbs creating ‘ease and inaction’, maximising their gravy train. The people have caught on and they are not playing nice anymore. Just 9 days ago in my article ‘Intimidating the Euro‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/02/04/intimidating-the-euro/), I mentioned the BBC article (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35122710), which was claiming that “Now the experts are predicting once again that the economy will return to growth in 2016, unless something else gets in the way“, so how ‘lame’ are these experts? Only a weak later we see in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/12/eurozone-recovery-falters-greece-recession), giving us “Greece fell back into recession“, oh really Captain Urban Funding? So cheap oil and the ECB stimulus was kind of pointless, was it not? So when we get these aggregated levels of bad news, explain to me how a united economic Europe is anything other than a really bad idea? One the UK should seriously consider getting out of and that will drive the immediate departure of France and Germany. The scenario I predicted all along. And for 2 years experts, the media and political players remained in denial.

Now we see added ‘news’ on how Brexit works for Putin, which clearly reads like an American, ‘communist fear’ as pressure for keeping the UK right where it is now. That does make sense, because the collapse would have an impact on US economy. The Dow Jones Index would be hit a lot harder than it was in 2004 or 2008. In my view, the EEC has no future because it will not correctly deal with the legislation to prevent the non-accountable acts of some, which was the direct reason of this mess in the first place. Greece was never held to account the way it should have. The news on ‘new’ Grexit fears as we see that there is no solution where we see that the Greek government and European creditors have come up with a credible plan to make the country’s debt sustainable. Yet the established situation that Greece cannot be evicted gives rise to additional worries, which fuels both Brexit and Frexit. The Financial Times (at http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/2016/02/08/brussels-briefing-back-to-turkey/), gives more on Frexit. Yes, all parties agree that this will only happen after a referendum, yet what is not given directly is that this would be the first act by Marine Le Pen if she gets elected. Both the Hollande and Sarkozy fronts are scared there, because Marine might only get elected with a clear majority, when that happens, neither party will have any options to stop Frexit from becoming a reality. Which gets us back to that ‘Greek news’. I believe that the parties have all come to an arrangement with the fears that Brexit brought. Because the EEC exit cannot be made enforced under current EEC legislation (discussed in previous blog articles), the article, in my personal view implies that Greece will volunteer to opt out of the Euro on the concession of debt relief, with total debt forgiveness being a possibility (my speculation). What will remain unspoken is that those parties who would, if successful to keep the EEC alive, will only do so when the price is right. That implies taxation not relief on several fronts (for non-Greece nations), realistically it will be a tax that will last generations. Did the people of Europe sign up for that? A Europe that is even less accountable to a chosen few (who forgave debt)? That path basically spells out that these ‘providers’ will get their money’s worth in the form of grants and non-taxability, but at the expense of all the other European citizens. So how is Brexit anything else but a really good idea? In addition, the Financial Times reports, or better Christian Oliver alerts us to the fact that Greece took a fall for Schengen (at http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/2016/02/12/greece-takes-a-fall-for-schengen/). The quote “Athens has received a list of 50 measures that it should undertake to improve its handling of the tide of refugees“, which sounds great, but it is extremely short sighted. The quote “The EU insists that Greece needs to take the 50 steps, citing “serious deficiencies” in the management of the country’s external borders” is even more hilarious. You see, that risk has forever been there, there used to be some level of control, but now we have a bankrupt nation, its requirement to cut staff by almost 66% and the need to build a collapsed infrastructure. There are mere matters of fact. Greece has thousands of miles of borders that are a nightmare to watch. With the inability to get the Syrian matters under control people are running like crazy, they either run through Turkey or the swim from island to island (either way they have a 50% chance to make it). So, how are these requirements anything but a joke, anything but a hollow requirement from the Greek government? The mere logic (and any cheap world map) shows us that those refugees had to get around Cyprus and get either via Turkey, or take the waterway directly, which is well over an 800 Km trip, taking them past Turkey most of the way. So when we consider speeds, on smaller loaded ships, it would be a 3-5 day trip past the Turkish navy, so why is the Schengen council not having this discussion with associate EEC member Turkey? You see, we can blame Greece for many things (actually, just their politicians), but the refugee wave is something Greece got overwhelmed with, even with a functioning economy it would have overwhelmed Greece. More important, how are the refugees getting to the Greek islands? This can only be done with Turkey either ignoring refugee transgressions on their territory (which is weird as they shot down a Russian jet after it allegedly invaded their airspace for 14 seconds), yet refugees that have travel past Turkish waters for days are casually ignored.

It seems to me that we are watching a new game, one that is burdening Greece on many sides, only to allow Greece to cast themselves out of the EEC/Euro for a price. A price the other taxpayers must pay for and they still hope that Brexit will be averted? Good luck with that notion!

So as the Brits and the French are looking at the exit signs to get off the plane, they are still confronted that the pilot of that plane has been massively irresponsible. Its maintenance crew has maintained the plane on the foundation of their ego and as such certain best practices, practices that a real engineer would have taken were ignored. This has led to today’s predicaments. The Brits are of mind that even in flight, getting off is more likely to lead to a survivable situation that silently staying on the plane will. When the Brits get off, the planes integrity will be permanently compromised, which leads to the events I predicted.

So now the media is giving us more and more articles on the crew giving us horror stories on what happens when someone opens that door. Yet, some of them are exaggerated. In the end the opening of the door could just force the plane down to the nearest airport where the passengers who no longer trusts the pilot could disembark. We do not deny the risks, but the current pilot is taking the plane to places the fuel reserves cannot reach.

Yet in addition to what I already claimed, the British City A.M. (at http://www.cityam.com/234438/ignore-eu-scaremongers-why-britain-would-thrive-post-brexit) gives us ‘Ignore EU scaremongers: Why Britain would thrive post-Brexit‘, which is partially the view I have. Ruth Lea, economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group gives us “a timely reminder that we are a crucial market for EU exporters – £89bn of the total £125bn goods deficit for 2015 was with the EU, £31.6bn with Germany alone. For every £3-worth of exports to the EU, Britain imported £5-worth from the EU. It is quite simply inconceivable that any German car exporter or French wine exporter would wish to see any impediments to their trade with Britain“, which I see to be a partial truth. You see, that is what it is and in the future it is what it was, but for a time, we will see European resentment and anger. Several European nations will take part of the £3-worth of exports and they will find another place in Europe to get between £1 and £2 of that export and find another source. That element is equally ignored. It will be up to that current UK government to make quick and lasting agreements that would diminish the losses, but it will again be in the hands of the UK, not squandered by EEC inaction. Should you think that my view is exaggerated, then consider recent news! How the economy grew 0.3% yet billions were pushed into it for the ‘reasoning’ of stimulus. Now consider that stimulus refers to attempts to use monetary or fiscal policy to stimulate the economy. Stimulus can also refer to monetary policies like lowering interest rates and quantitative easing. So, how was the economy stimulated? If we consider the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/ecb-announces-stimulus-plan-1421931011), we see ‘European Central Bank to Purchase €60 Billion Each Month Starting in March‘ that amounts to over 400 billion for 2015 (6 months, Mar-Sep). The quote “the ECB will buy a total of €60 billion a month in assets including government bonds, debt securities issued by European institutions and private-sector bonds“, so how did this benefit the UK or people in general? Now to get back to stimulus, where we saw the inclusion of quantitative easing. Let’s take a look there too: “A central bank implements quantitative easing by buying financial assets from commercial banks and other financial institutions, thus raising the prices of those financial assets and lowering their yield, while simultaneously increasing the money supply“. with ‘references’ in play, in my view, the Stimulus by ECB President Mario Draghi is nothing more than a catch and refund net for bad investments, buying back a paper tiger that was not worth the paper it was printed on, allowing governments to spend again. How does that benefit the people?

These elements are all in play, because as people realise that this economy is so that the large corporations go on not being tax accountable, governments spend money on so many things that benefit everyone except the people in general. Consider how many actual problems 400 billion could solve, not some joke called ‘the EEC economy’ but broken things we could actually fix!

 

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February 11, 2016 · 21:37

Rerumphobia

Somewhere between merry old England and joie de vivre France are islands, there are a few there and some actually have a population that exceeds the number of sheep (so you know it is not New Zealand we are talking about). The island has roughly 66,000 people, making it smaller than the total size of the Australian Defence Force and less people than Boston, Lincolnshire, meaning that merry old England has 304 cities larger than the population of this island.

Now that you have this collection of conversation starters, let’s get to the gritty of it all. The place I am referring to is Guernsey, a beautiful location that is caught between the island where you can order tripe with mint sauce and the main land that serves Steak Tartar. I was starting my browser to get a daily view of the Guardian and this is what got my initial attention ‘Guernsey chief minister defends anti-racism comments‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/09/guernsey-jonathan-le-tocq-defends-anti-racism-comments-islamophobia).

Jonathan Le Tocq, Chief Minister of Guernsey stated, according to ITV “they could meet many of the necessary UN requirements, such as education provision, they would not be able to guarantee the security of refugees if they came to the Bailiwick“. The paraphrase is not incorrect Jonathan stated: “…not be targeted or excluded, we’re not there and sadly that’s not possible”, this is a direct pragmatic statement.

In my view, a few players have missed the boat by a lot, let me explain. We have seen news, from nearly all sides. The quote “The protracted plight of these refugees has become an international security issue as terrorist groups have recruited from refugee camps“, which comes from Jill Goldenziel, a Harvard PHD, her article ‘Refugees and International Security‘ starts on page 3 of the attachment at the end of the article. She follows that quote with “These crises thus highlight the limits of the international refugee management system” So not only do they not know who has been going all over Europe, there is absolutely no way to know how many ISIS martyrs will be entering any given nation. That is not a scare issue, it is not an attempt to create fear; it is a visible established fact, a fact that has resonated all over the world and not just by the intelligence community. So in this case, it is Jonathan Le Tocq who brings the valid concerns here. He is more than just a man who will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of his 27th birthday next month (March 4th if you want to send him a birthday card at: Sir Charles Frossard House,  La Charroterie,  St Peter Port,  Guernsey,  GY1 1FH,  Channel Islands). He is chief Minister of an Island that is on the 305th place within the UK for population size, if we see The Right Honourable Jonathan as the Minister Chef of the Commonwealth Island of Guernsey he is not in the 305th position, he would slide down the list in a massive way.

So, can anyone show me a list of cities higher on the UK population list, with next to that name the number of refugees they have taken in? You see, Guernsey, Jersey and a few other islands have a massive problem. When things escalate, by the time help arrives, the population of that island could be decimated. When you consider the thought that this is just paranoia, consider the two attacks in Paris, a city with massive police power was left near powerless for too long a time, so how will an island with 146 policing  members deal with a threat like that? More protection? With what money?

Let’s not forget that we tend to trivialise the police at times, whilst laughing at ‘the Thin Blue Line’, we all know that the police is a lot more than Det. Insp. Derek Grim trying to defuse the threat of ‘dratsuc’, yet people deny the direct deadliness of extremism as people looked away when a French Muslim policeman Ahmed Merabet got gunned down in cold blood by extremists, because he was protecting the French people and their freedom of speech. In equal measure there is the internal fear that a wave of panic could hit the population, lashing out unjustly. None of these facts point towards racism. Fear is a strange bedfellow, causing no good wherever it is, but in all this there is the reality of that what is, so can we see the list of the 304 larger places in the UK, with the number of refugees they have taken in?

Let’s also acknowledge that 99.999% of these refugees are real refugees seeking a way out of hell, a way towards decent sleep and decent food, but over 60,000 refugees that this means that there are 60 potential terrorists. The two attacks in France only required 11 assailants, as 34,000 police agents (over 15 districts) were too late in all the points of attack. So where does the Guernsey police stand? No matter how well Patrick Rice has his ducks in a row, with a force of 134 there is a risk and it was the responsibility of Jonathan Le Tocq to voice this.

So when we see many sources that there is “Islamophobia” on Guernsey they are not correctly voicing all of the facts. For any Christian place to state there is no “Islamophobia”, in my view that state is clearly lying, we all, have forever feared the unknown. To voice this, let me ask you a question (providing you are over 33), ‘Give me three differences between Shia Islam and Sunni Islam‘, if you know that, then ask yourself, did you know this on September 10th 2001? This comes from the award winning TV series ‘the Newsroom’, but the truth is clear, non-Islam earth for the most did not have a clue regarding Islam before that fateful day. Since that moment religious extremism (not just Islamic) has been on the rise on a global scale. In my view, the political failing to make the hard calls that need to be made are still a worry today. The humanitarian tsunami has shown that an open Europe brought massive problems and the dislodgement of millions of people is draining resources and stopping actual solutions to be implemented. This means that the fear of the unknown will hit many places and isolated easier and more intense. It does not make the people of Guernsey phobic, it does make the media at large hypocritical as it played the fear card for spinning, exploitation and scaremongering for too long, in all this the readers got caught in the middle. An example is shown (at http://www.smh.com.au/comment/terror-scaremongering-threatens-our-democracy-20140919-10jcxq.html), here we see that the 2014 rehashing of all the events show that the 2005 events were massively out of focus. The quote “The evidence in the lengthy court proceedings that culminated in a Supreme Court trial in 2008 showed nothing of the sort. The reference to the Westgate Bridge had been taken out of context and was completely innocent. There was simply no evidence of a plot to blow up Flinders Street station, and the reference to the MCG was in the context of a vague conversation between two of the accused“, in addition we see “The case against these men was put by the prosecution on the basis that they did not have a terrorist target and that they had no plan in place to commit a terrorist act. Christine Nixon’s phrase, “imminent terrorist attack”, was simply wrong“, in itself this might not be seen as evidence, but the clarity is still overwhelming. We fear what we do not understand, and not many comprehend Islam, which impacts all around. So the issue from Guernsey is still there, there is still a need to address the fear, which will not happen overnight. Yet as the press gives us that Guernsey is shown as an isolated case, would Steven Morris be so kind to give us a list of the 304 larger cities and the amount of refugees they are taking in? I did like the video that Steven Morris did put online with the view of the local populous, ‘the majority are not‘, which is very true, but a tinderbox can start with as little as two people and on 78 square kilometres, 135 people (one police commissioner and his blue minions) won’t have too many options soon thereafter, no matter in what direction the escalation went.

Let’s be clear here, I expect the chance to be so extremely low that it is not funny, but can any of the officials on Guernsey take that chance?

That is the one element people forget, you see Australia might be an ‘island’, but with 132,000 km of possible beachfront property, that little ‘island’ has a circumference equalling three times the earth. Unless you actually lived on an island (the size of Guernsey), the issue of island safety tends to elude us all. A side not clearly shown in the article, or by a massive amount of sources for that matter.

In the end, the clear refugee registration failure is part of all this. The nations of entry have missed the ball on a Titanic scale here which, under the sheer amount of refugees is not that much of a surprise, but it does give the UK now its own set of problems. Which gets us to one of the other reasons we get from being an island. ‘A lack of infrastructure and support services to help them‘, is not just a valid issue, it is a massively large one.

So as we await the list of 304, lets contemplate the wisdom of places a clearly limited group in the one place where they end up getting isolated from the other refugees (the 99.99999% that will not be placed on Guernsey), does that step make any sense at all? to end all this, lets shine a little light on a Guardian article from November 19th 2015 (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/19/syrian-refugees-in-america-fact-from-fiction-congress), there at the end we see “Since 2012, the US has accepted 2,174 Syrian refugees – roughly 0.0007% of America’s total population“, the article does show that the UK is staying behind in all this, which is not a good thing, but the UK is an Island, it comes with a setback, yet compare this now with the mainland (the graphic at the end of the article is very illuminating). Nations like France, Norway and Poland might not have done a lot, but they are on par with the ENTIRE United States of America, the fact that a nation like the Netherlands has taken 260% of what the USA has accepted makes the Guernsey debate a joke! That flaming, below sea-level, clog wearing nation called the Netherlands, a nation that is roughly 65% the size of the state of West Virginia, so shall we ignore the issue that is exaggerated regarding Guernsey and look at the issues why this is a global problem (apart from the valid reason of registration)?

So for those moving to Guernsey enjoy the fact that the weather at St. Peter Port will be a high between 5 and 14 degrees Celsius, so those people will face a few more shocks, not just cultural ones. Rerumphobia, ‘the fear of facts’. The final part to consider is the price tag. This costs, which no one ignores. That is a good thing, yet of all the options Jonathan, the words we could go broke was not one of them. So when you look at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-35546424, consider that these numbers have been known for a little while now. So as tourism goes down, business visitors down by 39%, what do you think will happen next to those missing out? What will happen to the Guernsey business on that scale? In addition Tourism is set to be down by 7.8%, how will that impact retail? All elements that are a reality, when we see ‘Der Spiegel’ reporting “Some mayors have cancelled the contracts of tenants in publicly owned apartments in order to house refugees“, which is not the whole story, but a reported fact, we realise that Germany is in a decent economical position, with plenty of space, yet the pressure that 500K refugees are pressing on a population of 80 million, gives us that 0.00625%. So here we are, not confronted by “Islamophobia”, but with the underlying issues, of resources and needs, which will pressurise any situation.

As I said, let’s see how many refugees the larger 304 locations of the UK are taking on, before we start accusing smaller places by taking text out of context.

 

goldenziel_refugees_and_international_security__2010

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