Category Archives: Finance

August 28, 2020 · 04:25

The tech is out there

Even now, as the larger players (Microsoft and Wall-mart) are starting a bidding fight for TikTok, we see the flaw on several levels in the digital age. I illuminated it yesterday, in my previous article.  We are in a stage where everyone is shouting that they have Digital Media Managers , Digital Marketers, Account Managers, Social Media Managers and so on, and so on. Yet, where it counts, we see (at https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/29bf2b8) the statement on Kenosha and the shooting, but when I looked at the site in ‘Self destruct initiated’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/27/self-destruct-initiated/) there was no mention at all and that was at 02:57 on August 27th, whilst the shooting was on August 23, it took 4 days for the digital media manager to wake up. Yet the police section in the news of the City of Kenosha website is still empty, so why do they have a website and who manages it? It is nice to have politicians and captains of industry hide behind the Internet of Things, digital media and digital needs, but where it counts, are they even aware that they flunked the pooch? 

A second set is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53930775), here we see ‘Facebook says Apple ad-blocking settings could halve revenue’ where we get introduced to “Apple’s plan to require all users to actively opt in before they can be tracked “may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it”, Facebook said”, whilst we also get “In the upcoming iOS 14, apps have to explicitly ask users’ permission to collect and share data, meaning ads will no longer be able to just “follow” users to apps outside of Facebook”, all whilst everyone is ignoring “way for advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook and into other mobile apps”, lets be clear, FaceBook has every right to advertise on its site, it is the price of getting a free service, yet where does it state that the people have to agree to be followed “into other mobile apps”? In that article, where does it state the need and rights of the consumer? (I am not attacking the BBC or the writer of the article), we overlook technology to the mere shallow assumption related to it. We see the attack on Apple from Epic games (Fortnite) and we see Microsoft supporting Epic games, yet thee fact that the rule that Apple relied on is pretty much the same rule Microsoft has in place, so how did that make sense? It only looks clear when we see the path Microsoft has in play and they mobile XCloud is relying on the millions of iPhone users. I mentioned that in ‘The stage pushed by Microsoft’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/24/the-stage-pushed-by-microsoft/), so again we see a tech setting that is getting a shallow treatment and in this case I do not attack the media (even though I think they fell short), for the media it is all the emotion, as such we see the BBC giving us ‘Apple Fortnite players left behind in new update’, yet the stage where Epic games would be allowed back if they remove the external link in the game, which is against the developers agreement that Epic games agreed to when they got on the Apple store, a rule that Microsoft has in play as well and the media pretty much smoothed over with what I would personally see as ‘applied ignorance in action’.  

We see two versions of limited tech insight. This entire setting also applies to Huawei, the accusations and the lack of evidence is centre to all this. We get ‘Huawei’s networking equipment has not been detected spying’, in a Sky article last July, and it is the driving part in all this, we want evidence and we keep on getting bitching American politicians, one after another all emotions and no evidence. All whilst last week in the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/is-huawei-too-big-to-fail-20200824-p55ont) where we get the repeated “shot down by an announcement from the US government that it would use the global dominance of American technology to cut off all supplies of semiconductors to Huawei”, which is stupidity on a new level. It seems that it is not and that would be fair, the short term solution is met as semiconductors are not available. Yet in this for over a year Huawei was ready to that stage making (read: designing) their own semiconductors. When that happens, the US will have a Chinese competitor in another field and the US will lose even more ground. So whilst the US is in denial that Huawei grew because it had a good product, slightly cheaper but a lot better, in all this they rely on “Driven by the belief that Huawei could enable the ruling Chinese Communist party and its military to spy on other countries and their companies, undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets, the US government used every option open to it”, where ‘could’ is the operative word and the additional ‘undermine their national security and steal their commercial secrets’, and guess what, there is no evidence on any level and the situation merely becomes worse when you consider ‘Critical flaw in IOS routers allows ‘complete system compromise’’, a part that ZDNet gave us in June (and before that, at https://www.zdnet.com/article/ciscos-warning-critical-flaw-in-ios-routers-allows-complete-system-compromise/), it is a simple situation, the Chinese government does not need to use Huawei to spy, they can use Cisco equipment (an American company based in San Jose) and download server by server on a global scale. When did the media give you that part? That weakness and a few more have been out in the open, and we hear nothing. This is not on Cisco, as it warned the users and is working on fixes, but the media is blind to the flaw, why is that?

Both the tech and the flawed tech is out there and there is a growing issue for a lot of people that we get limited and one sided revelations, who is served better to that? I am going with the personal view that the setting of the media catering to Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers remains firmly in place.

The tech is out there, but who is taking a good look at it and who is using it to the maximum that would be required in the digital age? I’ll let you brew on that for a little while.

 

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August 21, 2020 · 20:59

Lawlordtobe MD

Today I rejoice, today I celebrate, today I say cheers (using a bottle of Chardonnay), today I salute (with a bowl of Chilli), today I become Lawlordtobe MD. Unlike some I did not study medicine, I have two postgraduate degrees and one master degree, none of these three are in medicine. Yet what I did is write 1500 articles, with the 1500th article completed today. So today I salute MD as a nudge towards the roman empire (or the Italian republic as it is known now), I might optionally piss off my Greek grandfather (Hades) or my Greek mother (Marakai), yet here I stand and as such I turned my creativity towards an environmental problem, the issue of micro plastics in the sea. It is a hard sell, how to stop it and how to diminish it, but we are now in a stage where we have gained the ability to make extinct all fish in every sea and ocean to a much larger degree because of micro plastics and something needs to be done. So unlike others complaining like Monday morning quarterbacks standing on the side expecting Poseidon to fix it for us, I decided to think towards a solution. So when we take notice on “The Ocean Cleanup has been criticized in the past for directing its attention only on plastic waste already in the world’s oceans. Experts say 8 million metric tons of waste flow into the ocean each year from rivers, creeks and seaside areas. The plastic endangers fish and other sea creatures”, whilst their actions remain criticism in its foundation, I join people like Boyan Slat to offer solutions (which might need tinkering) and offer something that might help.

In my version I see a boat, slowly moving by the sea shallows, often no more than a few miles out. The boat is catamaran in nature, the middle part has beams with cables with extensions like jellyfish tentacles, 3-5 per beam, with 10-20 beams. The tentacles are statically powered drawing in the plastic, sticking to the tentacles, as it moves over the length of the ship slowly it reaches the end and is pulled up as the tentacle reaches the end of the ship and falls to the top of the ship, where the tentacle loses its static power, at that point the tentacle gets heated to 150 degrees and goes through bristles that drag off the plastic and cools down the wire, when the wire traverses the rest of the ship to the front the tentacle falls back in the water gaining its static power and the path renews. The collected plastic will fall of the bristols into a catchment where it is warm enough to melt into larger bricks. 

It took me less than an hour to come up with this concept and I understand it is not fool proof, it might have issues and it is not perfect, but if I can do this in under an hour what do you think actually intelligent people (optionally not related to an Olympian god) could achieve, but apart from Boyan Slat, the actions by so called clever people is not to be found until it is too late for fish and as such for people as well, or did you think that there would not be any repercussions for this situation? I did this on the side next to the concept for 6 video games, patentable 5G IP devices and a truckload of 5G IP, I still found time to come up with this concept, and I also made a side design for shallow water and rivers in a somewhat similar way. So in all this, where are all the so called ‘real’ clever people, have they solved some of the environmental mess that their peers created? I wonder where they are, so as we push towards a new stage of issues that will collapse a lot more than the economy, do we not have a responsibility to use our creativity to create solutions for the mess we see now?

Consider that part of the situation we are running, not walking, running towards.

 

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August 21, 2020 · 02:39

Pillars to excluding media

We have seen the issues that the US faces and it is time for the application of a little balance in all this. To do this, we need to look at some sources. As such On August 20th (06:00) we get Reuters with ‘U.S. economy rebounding strongly; fresh aid coming to unemployed: Kudlow’, to some there is nothing wrong with the title, yet, what has the US done for others to be treated to the ‘economy rebounding strongly’ part? The current administration did everything to scuttle the nation, so what economy is rebounding strongly? We can see different sides in economy, but for the US we see the need to export and import. The US destroyed their import option and to some degree diminished their export turnover as well, so how did the ‘economy rebound strongly’? Then we see the cost part, revenue is down, but cost are up. So when we consider the news “Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 1.8 million in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today” and this was June 2020, one in 10 does not have a job, all whilst between February 2020 and July 2020 9,530 jobs were added and 22,160 jobs were lost. Over the millions of jobs in the US it does not add up to much, but the news (source: the Guardian, May 2020) is also giving us ‘US job losses pass 40m as coronavirus crisis sees claims rise 2.1m in a week’, so when we distill the bad news, because yes, it is bad news, how come we see ‘economy rebounding strongly’ in all this? So in this, the quote “Kudlow, speaking to reporters at the White House, defended a reduction in the unemployment supplement to $300 from $600, saying stimulus measures should be reduced slowly as the economy strengthens” (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-kudlow/us-economy-rebounding-strongly-fresh-aid-coming-to-unemployed-kudlow-idUSKCN25F2KL) we get to consider “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 5,460,429 cases of the novel coronavirus in the country, an increase of 39,318 from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,172 to 171,012”, the stage is debatable, I agree that it does not solve the puzzle, but there is a larger stage that for millions the corona stage is still not clear, the total amount of infected could go up, it could go up be a large amount and this also means that free clinics will be swamped, inoculations and other cost will go up, it will impact the US in a huge way, so where does this ‘economy rebounding strongly’ come from? The US has squandered technological progress in the Huawei fight, and this is merely the beginning in all this, as the US loses 5G grounds we will see larger and faster growth in both the Middle East and Asia, for the US their view of the Middle East in 5G is like giving a native American a gatling gun whilst you give them no ammunition or a manual, what they forget is that the data laws and privacy laws allow for the larger tech companies to move to the Middle East and be isolated, no taxation and large data grazing fields, the Middle East is catching on and Asia is already on track. As the balance of the seesaw of technology changes, the infrastructure in the US will be delayed again and again and as I personally see it, in 2023 we will learn through managed bad news that the US went from a first position in technology to fourth if not fifth position. In all this, the message of ‘economy rebounding strongly’ might be seen as one of the larger jokes and that is all before we realise that the US has amassed a debt of $25,000,000,000,000. Twenty five trillion is a lot of money, the interest alone can fuel most EU nations, yet this interest will now go to the banks and financial institutions underwriting this, as such some might consider that the US economy is in shambles and when the FAANG group starts pushing for a protectorate of a true global corporation, that is the final news you need that the US economy is an illusion that can no longer be maintained.

#JustSaying

 

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August 19, 2020 · 20:23

The view somewhere else

I was pleasantly surprised today when I got treated to: ‘Can Harry Potter magic tourists back to Japan?’ Yes, we can argue on when things need to be done and how things need to be, but consider the long term view, a case can be made that soon enough Japan would be a much more interesting place to visit than the US. Japan has its Disney Park, and when the Harry Potter park is completed another reason to visit Japan is born. It has interesting culture, it has entertainment, it has arcades, it has numerous food markets and overall In the direct vicinity of Tokyo most tourists can get a large amount of entertainment, and in all this they still have an upcoming Olympics. Japan is not the solution for everyone, yet I see it as an option for Asia and the Middle East, the nations shunned by President Trumps facade of idiocy, they can all relax in Japan, as such the US (and Europe to some degree) will have a larger faltering getting their economies back up, Japan will have a much larger stage of reserving their economy. Should Australians take the same route, Japan will push forward to a much larger degree whilst the US slowly limps into a less amicable endeavour. 

When we consider the options on a global scale, we see a larger contemplation. It is not where we were, but where we can go in the near future that counts and at present we see a larger absence of options in both the US and Europe. This is not about checks and balances, it becomes about the balance of opportunities and as such blatantly following the political needs of the US the entire setting of balance crashes for both the US and to a larger degree for Europe as well. So how does the view matters?

As we are being told that ‘The USPS is shutting down mail-sorting machines crucial for processing absentee ballots as the 2020 election looms’, as well as ‘A Fight Over the Future of the Mail Breaks Down Along Familiar Lines’ most consider quotes like “Without a financial rescue from Congress, they have warned, an agency that normally runs without taxpayer funds could run out of cash as soon as late September, raising the specter of bankruptcy and an interruption in regular delivery for millions of Americans”, that and the issues around voting issues are raised, but the stain of what might matter, the massive debt that the US has is left outside the bullpen. When we see “It was the White House that intervened in March, nixing a bipartisan plan to provide $13 billion to the Postal Service” (source: NY Times), we think it is about blaming this presidency, yet the larger truth is that the postal services need $13,000,000,000 just to stay alive and that is the issue, rural isolationism and connectivity issues are a much larger stage in the US, as such and only because the previous 4 presidents did not push rural internet enough, we see a stage of isolationists and it will go from bad to worse in the US. That is the stage that the US was always going towards and the Coronavirus issue merely hastened the direction it was going in, in an age where the US is bankrupt it had not many options in all this the China setting and the covid ignoramus people are merely speed accelerators, and as we see the
Middle East taking a different course, the US has more dangers as billion after billion in trade falls away and now we see Japan moving in the direction that Japan needs to be in and they will enjoy what comes off it. No matter what the US publishes on the ‘victories’ that they have in writing, 2021 will be a lot worse than 2020 was for them, the Americans that see this approaching will most likely m Ove to greener pastures in Canada, hastening what will come even more. Even as the NY Times makes the statement that Jeff Bezos is the nemesis, he really is not. Amazon made the decisions that were best for Amazon, and as Amazon grew, so did its delivery service, there is no issue with the USPS, they were merely outclassed by the existence of eMail, and the fact that it grew much faster than the USPS could adjust to. Amazon was a factor but not the cause, a bad budget was a much larger factor in all that and now we see the endgame and the struggle within the US to avoid whatever it can whilst the Wall Street bad boys have made enough to live larger than life for the next few decades. This is the stage we see there, yet Japan has a huge debt as well, in this they have the benefit of the 2020/2021 Olympics and after that it will be about tourism, because those people tend to come and spend money and the Harry Potter park was the one thing missing, we tend to go to places for a range of options and the more options the better the setting, in this a place that has close to a billion fans is not the stage that should be missed, that and the millions who love Disney and now there is more than one place where it an be enjoyed, all whilst the unacceptability of Americans can be avoided. I cannot answer how these matters are in Japan, but the louder stage of America is striating to rub a lot of people all over the world the wrong way and they seek another place to go to. I reckon that 2022 will start to be a shining light for Japan when things work out and it is up to them to shine that light stronger luring tourists like moths to the lighthouse. 

Is it the only option? No, it is not, but at this stage the US has so much going against them that Japan is a lot more likely to push for a new economy than the US is and that is perhaps one of the scariest things yet. 

 

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August 17, 2020 · 20:54

Death is like Sake

I have not looked at the entire Coronavirus for a while and it is not because I do not care (I don’t actually), there is so much information both good and bad thrown at all of us, I decided to set the stage in other paths and other ways, but now I see it is time to look at it again.

Death is like Sake, they are both served at 15%, whether it is death, or it is alcohol it matters not, only the dying care about the alcohol part. But it is there, I saw the numbers in France, Spain and Belgium. They are in the 15% group, as such I reckon that life after Corona will come with a decent vacancy shortage and those acting early will have the manpower, others will strike out. 

You see, there is always an option when the difference is 1%-4%, this happens everywhere all the time, shortage in one, too much in another, the markets adjust, yet when the difference and shortage is 10%-17% we see a shift of issues, companies trying to adjust to larger shortages, hollowing out the ball until it is a mere egg, but this egg is empty and the smallest pressure in the wrong side and it all comes tumbling down. Yet many will be in denial and they are setting their ego in that same stage with the snide silent remark ‘It’ll be right’, yet this time around their experience will not aid them, 14%-17% in some area’s will be too much, and the enterprise bites on both sides, it is not merely the 15% less staff, the larger stage is 15% less consumers, as such some business ventures will not make the numbers, will not make the stage and will not make the spiced expectations of Wall Street analysts. 

And it is not all good news, so when we consider the following shortage in Engineers, Technicians, Accountants, Nurses, IT staff, Technical and commercial sales representatives, and then consider when these shortages are 15% larger than a year ago, how many business ventures will get hit you think? All that before the rich corporations fly in and buy up the profitable companies and start-ups that cannot deal with the ledge that vacancy shortage brings with them. They become a ‘an XXX organisation’, and a year or less later they are merely a division in XXX (insert mega corporation name at leisure). And nothing wrong is done here, those with short budgets get bought out, that is how the world works and they are doing nothing wrong, so as some companies are feeling the pinch, the setting will shift a lot faster and larger than some of them consider or realise. 

So whilst they see the impact of corona casualties and the impact of “Employees who work in a role that can effectively be done from home are welcome to do so until at least October 2”, and we see it published almost everywhere, in this with the additional information on jobs lost, yet the entire station is not ready what happens to companies start to figure out that they are too low on staff, it is not merely the people who do not make it, but those who remain could decide to jump ship to the places they really wanted to work. As such the shift merely increases and that is before corporations in richer countries start to shanghai from every other place they can, I do not think that this is an immediate event, but it will be out in the open to a much larger degree in about a year, and the worse the impact of COVID-19 is, the larger the shift will become. So like Sake, the consumer drinks the first bottle, the second bottle drinks the first one and the third bottle drinks the consumer.

 

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August 17, 2020 · 03:09

Mirror of delusional beliefs

We all have that feeling to some degree, something we really want and if we cut our budget for one week we can buy the suit we wanted to have, so we buy the suit, then we push forward the budgeting to the last week, then we delusional remind ourselves that if we make the adjustment to our menu to the last three days, we don’t have to adjust our budgets, so we do that, we keep on pushing forward until it is the 25th day of the budget, we bought the suit and we ran out of money, we pushed the menu forward, the budget forwards and now that we have 6 days to go we are running out of money. We have all done it, whether it was to buy a gaming console, a laptop, fashion, concert tickets, we can come up with all kinds of reasons, we have all done it. This is how I at present see Debenhams. In the article ‘Debenhams hires liquidator in contingency plan’ which was published 6 hurts ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53797371) gives us “if the administrators, FRP Advisory, fail to find a buyer or new investment, Debenhams faces liquidation – putting 14,000 jobs at risk. A spokesperson for the department store said: “Debenhams is trading strongly, with 124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position.”” Yes we can push forward all we can and then ignore it, yet when we consider “It gets to be even worse when the Guardian prints the pragmatic “It’s all hairdressers and coffee shops and nail bars. People won’t come here to shop – they’ll go to a bigger town like Canterbury instead“, which in itself is a truth, making me wonder what is getting into some of these delusional big brands. The entire setting of the larger players has been under fire for the longest of time and the essential need to revisit locations is becoming an essential need for all of them, as such the statement: “Conservative MP Damian Green described the news as “very disappointing”. On Twitter, he wrote: “We need to redouble efforts to strengthen the town centre.”” becomes one of worry.” A few small details I revealed to the readers in April 2019, as such the statement of ‘Debenhams is trading strongly, with 124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position’ is nothing short of delusional. Now, we cannot blame the situation completely on Debenhams, because they have never faced anything like the Covid-19 situation and it would be unfair for them to be completely ready, yet dwindled resources is on them. I spoke about some of it in April 2019 in ‘When a dream is too delusional’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/04/28/when-a-dream-is-too-delusional/), as such the delusional part was pretty visible then too. So how from a distance the clear part of ‘124 stores reopened and a healthy cash position’ that comes debatable this clear is an issue, especially when others are merely accepting the news without a clear investigation into the debatable mindset of Debenhams corporate officers is a bit of a question. I know that there are sets of stations where they (apparently) know what they are doing is fine, but the small ‘124 stores reopened’, whilst a year ago my article ended with “I wonder which of those should never have been made, but that is merely my view on the matter and with up to 50 stores up for closure I personally reckon I might have a case on that.” So as we see 50 stores up for closure and a year later we see 124 stores reopened, I wonder if some people are stretching the stage where optionally (and speculatively) tax laws were used to push into a nice neutral setting and now that we see “2,500 more jobs, on top of 4,000 cuts it announced in May”, all whilst the larger stage is set to “Debenhams faces liquidation – putting 14,000 jobs at risk” and no one asks serious questions as the jobs for 14,000 people are on the line. Is it me or is there a clear case for us all to asks questions of these (what I might optionally incorrectly call) tax shelters? I wonder what their so called “healthy cash position” is.

A station of all kinds of impressions and interpretations, but the truth is that no matter how ‘great’ Debenhams is shown, it is a bleeding behemoth and the 14,000 depending people are about to be thrown on the sidewalk, I am pretty certain that the board of Debenhams will phrase it  differently. 

SO in the end we can think of it in any way possible, but the stage of these houses is pretty much over, Covid-19 made sure of that and those in doubt, consider “Debenhams entered a pre-pack administration which allowed it to keep trading” and investigate who made that happen, what allowed the station of ‘keep trading’ whilst there is actually no significant amount of consumer cash is going into these places, not when you state it in relationship to the cost that these centres have, the balance of that equation might surprise you.

 

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August 15, 2020 · 04:00

It is more than a ban

It has not been an easy rise for game makers, now that Microsoft has shown its initial hand, now it is time for some of the game makers to show theirs. It starts with “Apple and Google both removed the hit game from their app stores after Epic Games bypassed their payment systems, to avoid giving them a cut of sales”, I get the sentiment, and the BBC article ‘Fortnite: Epic Games sues Google and Apple over app store bans’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53777379) gives part of it. We got some of the other side in the GamesRadar article that I discussed in ‘the Silent reason’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/08/13/the-silent-reason/) where I gave “Xbox Game Pass is the next generation of Microsoft gaming, not Xbox Series X”, in this we see the start of the big players to set a new generation of GaaS, Games as a Service is the next thing and it allows Microsoft to set another revenue bar, it is the one realisation on top of the other ones that made me give up on Microsoft and now the larger players are using GaaS to gain revenue. In this, I have nothing against the approach that Epic is making, even as I am not a Fortnite fan, it is a free game and as such it has every right to make this approach, yet Google and  Apple will not be left out of any revenue loop. Gpay and Apple Pay are their own devices and they have a stage and it requires their view or perhaps the stage is their vision on the services offered. I  am not sure how to react, in favour or against the ban laid on Epic, but both the Google store and the Apple store have their own rules and the idea that Epic circumvents the stores might be seen as optionally cheaper to the player, but the downside is that as third parties get their own direct access, their store access becomes available to come under fire and that is not a good thing. 

The article gives us “Fortnite’s latest update offered all players a 20% discount on its in-game currency V-bucks – but only if they paid Epic Games directly rather than using Apple or Google’s payment systems. This broke rules applied by both stores”, The danger of a third party is something neither Google or Apple find appealing and I feel certain that their fees avoided is equally unappealing to them. And lets be clear, as GaaS evolves over the next 2 years, we will see the players exposed to all kinds of ‘direct from the source’ deals, because it allows the gathering of data and data is more revenue for whomever has it. The problem as I see it is not the fact that there is GaaS, the fact is that the stage will be overwhelmingly younger players. Even as 63% of Fortnite is 18-24, there is a stage where there are supposed to be 12-18 year old players and there are supposed to be a large following of them too, yet the toppling charts I saw does not reflect them properly, in light of 350,000,000 players I wonder how large that 12-18 group is and even as it is not their credit card, someone is paying that bill (most likely their mommy), yet that stage also gives Google and Apple a larger concern and I reckon that they are programming the stores to raise all kinds of red flags before they fall in a trap that is not unlike the one Electronic Arts is facing with their loot boxes. In all this there is a lull in the life of the lawmakers, GaaS is new, so new that most laws are riddled with holes and that is not a good thing. A lot needs to happen to bind and limit financial institutions from allowing gamers to be used and exploited. Now let me be clear I do not believe that loot boxes are gambling, in that same stage I believe that Epic Games has done nothing wrong, but consider other games that pushes for additional movements and choices that come at a price, whilst their algorithm is set to always set the bar at your effort +1% (speaking figuratively), so how is that fair? I reckon that Google and Apple are set against that stage (whilst getting their own grains of revenue) and that is perhaps not the worst idea, yet I see the other side too, especially as Fortnite is free to play, to gain the upper hand you can buy V-bucks to buy loot boxes and skins. It is one way to get the income, it is of course a risk, but knowing you have 350 million fans, the stage is set in a decent way and when you consider that they made $1.9 billion in 2019 gives rise to the GaaS platform. It is a platform that does allow for more than one game to be part of it and that is what players like Microsoft are hoping for, I reckon that Apple and Google are on that same train. And it is there that we see the balancing act that both Google and Apple face. It is appealing to lock the door to players like Epic Games, but they are not alone and over time, other options will become available, of that I am absolutely certain

 

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August 12, 2020 · 02:35

The moneymakers

Corporate Earth loves moneymakers, they shelf their resources on what makes the most the fastest and that is how businesses run, but what happens when the ruling council is off the ‘Fake it till you make it’ category? That is the question that matters, because the people are now following whomever has the coolest look, whilst quality takes a second turn back. For the most this is nothing new, it happens all over the place. We now have Apple and Google adding up to the next gaming war, whilst Prime Gaming is starting to get noticed. All whilst Forbes gives us ‘There Is A Belong Gaming Area Coming To Your Town’, gaming has become the 100 billion annual industry and in this age everyone wants a bite. Even as we merely accept “Vindex bought Belong Gaming Arenas from London based GAME Digital. Vindex plans to open more than 500 Belong locations in hometowns across America, and another 1,000 locations outside of the U.S. over the next five years” then we get “Esports doesn’t act like a traditional sports business—game developers have a lot to say. In esport, the playing field is the intellectual property, and it’s owned by game developers”, yet how many people realise how powerful the data is that these gaming interfaces collect? It seems all a case of ‘conspiracy theory’, yet consider the following:

“Microsoft said it would be unable to launch its game streaming service on iOS due to the restrictions on gaming apps” and “Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would be launching its xCloud gaming service as part of a subscription service called Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on Sept. 15. But the app, which lets users jump into an Xbox game on their smartphone or tablet, will only be available on devices powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, not Apple’s iOS”. A stage when Microsoft needs to get its own mess under control, they are screaming about making a mess somewhere else. The funding by larger brands is not merely about visibility, it is about getting the largest dat slice, as much as possible and as fast as possible. In an age where it is about branding, the two larger players are about “Microsoft and Facebook have lashed out at Apple for restrictive App Store policies”, there is a reason why people have lost faith in Microsoft and Facebook. I myself removed Facebook from my mobile, why would I want them to cater to my mobile gaming needs. Why would I allow other Facebook junk on my mobile, draining my battery? Similar issues exists with Microsoft, in January 2017 I wrote ‘Taking Xbox to Court?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/01/30/taking-xbox-to-court/) and it was ignored by the bulk of people. It was all my imagination, yet the specified bill was not on their side. In 15 days close to 6GB was UPLOADED and the Microsoft Xbox support stated the this was with my provider, really? My Xbox uploads data without my permission and it is the internet provider? How much data is Microsoft about to get access to, how much data will Facebook capture under the seemingly innocent stage of cloud gaming? If data is the new currency gamers are the prime clusters to get, some gamers have a following of thousands and Microsoft and Facebook are screaming murder because they want into the game and a protective Apple is something they can do without. I am not proclaiming that Sony, Apple and Nintendo are innocent, but they are showing themselves to be less guilty, Nintendo and Sony are banking on the fair play approach towards gamers, they expect it to play out in their favour and I believe that this will be the true path. They expect data to be a by-product, not the direct goal, Microsoft and Facebook have (from my personal view) a more direct approach to the benefits of data. In all this Google is not innocent, but their approach was data from the very beginning, from search to linking and to other means, data became the currency that allowed people to have free services, but the truth is that nothing is free. Facebook made the same steps in the beginning, but data took over and now as we see that TikTok is actually getting into the face of Facebook and capturing the margins and more we now see ‘TikTok Begins Doling Out $1 Billion Bonuses To Top Creators As Facebook Tries To Lure Stars’ and it is about to be worse. Even as Google Stadia is in a position to grab a larger margin, Facebook is up in arms to create the larger benefit, because the reality is that cruise liner Facebook is losing more steam and propulsion, the waves of TikTok is adding up and Apple is not Data friendly to the likes of Facebook and Microsoft, in all this the voice of emotional gamers is all that is left to them because they are running out of time and there is a larger stage where Xbox series X will underperform just like its predecessor, and that is the fear Microsoft fears, they are in a stage where they could soon be regarded as powerful as in the age of their first Xbox, they threw that much away and a lack of trust is not helping them any. That is the stage we are looking at, but I have to be. honest, the fight over gamers is one that I never saw coming, not to this degree and even now as I have seen within me the IP of several games, I wonder what these game corporations are doing, because the evidence is all around them, they merely have to open their eyes. So why are they not doing that?

Even as we see that the current situation is not the greatest stage for any business, books, movies and games help in a lockdown, so why are others faltering? I personally see it because they see games as nothing more as a springboard to ‘real cash’, yet games should be about games and about the edge of what is new and innovative, that was proven in the days of the CBM64, CBM Amiga, Atari ST, PC, N-64, Gamecube, Wii, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Xbox360,  PlayStation 1, 2, 3 and 4, and as Apple and Google enter this domain, we will get a new stage, now with 5 players and one would think that this would benefit the gaming dimension, but as I see it, Microsoft is more about Azure and data, making it a universe of 4 (which is fine too) but when gamers catch on, when the Marketing BS comes to a halt, Microsoft will only have themselves to congratulate. Anyone stating that the fight between apple and Google is over, is mistaken. I reckon that this fight will take until 2022 to settle and in the same time Sony and Nintendo will fight for larger domain of the gaming pie, but their worlds only partially overlap, so they will set another fight and they will coexist, in this Google and Apple will slice out a part and they will be more fiercely competitive than Sony and Nintendo ever was (well they were in the age of PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64). The fight is far from over, but all the gamers out there need to realise that not all the moneymakers out there have the welfare of gamers in mind, merely the data they give rise to. And when the gamers figure that out, some lame excuse from some wannabe executive will no longer hold water, when that happens a lot more will be lost to them. I expect that to become a reality no later than the second half of 2021.

 

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August 11, 2020 · 01:21

The 51st State

Consider that the US just grew a little, it seems that Canada has become the 51st state, Governor of that state is Justin Trudeau, that is until President Trump decides that he is not allegiant enough. How did I get here? A few sources are giving us ‘US court issues summons for Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman’, under normal circumstances there wouldn’t be a big thing. Yet consider the events, an exiled person moves to Canada, when we are confronted with “Mohammed bin Salman attempted to send Tiger Squad to Canada to assassinate al-Jabri, according to a lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in August 2020”, so a person went in exile in Canada and now relies on US jurisprudence? And if you are in doubt, the other element is (rephrased) “allegedly attempted to send a Tiger Squad to Canada to allegedly assassinate al-Jabri”, so in the first it was an alleged attempt, in that case where is the evidence of the alleged attempt? What evidence is there to assassinate al-Jabri? Beyond that, why is this case not heard in Canada? In the second, it is my personal belief that Saad al-Jabri needs to get evicted from Canada into America, he is so sure of their legal system. And of course there is the stage where we need to investigate on why an optional case of alleged events in another country are being heard in America, is that not a question that baffles you too?

And it does not end there, the only additional information is given by Gulf News. I am making mention of it as I cannot vouch for the information. I am not willing to use merely one source because it fits my speculation better. Gulf News (at https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/report-fugitive-saudi-official-misspent-11b-in-government-funds-1.72662340) gives us ‘Fugitive Saudi official misspent $11b in government funds’, and lets face it, if I walked away with $11,000,000,000 I would move to Canada, buy the Edmonton Oilers, or the Calgary Flames, buy a nice mansion in either city, train to be their goalie and live the life until I die. It is a plan, not a plan everyone will embrace, but I like that plan, especially if I have that much money. Oh, and the quote gives is “Al Jabri, a 61-year-old with a doctorate in computer science, was the virtual No 2 in the Saudi Interior Ministry, which was run for years by Mohammed bin Nayef. Al Jabri ran a special ministry fund that mixed government spending on high-priority antiterrorism efforts with bonuses for himself and others, according to documents reviewed bio y the Journal and interviews with Saudi officials and Al Jabri’s confidants,” the WSJ report read”. In all this and in fact of tha accusation of corruption and through that (as well as) “spending on high-priority antiterrorism efforts with bonuses for himself and others”, who else was paid? So in this, how much investigation was done by the FBI, for did they allegedly acquire enough self-funding to be above the law? I am merely asking!

So in this universe where Canada is the 51st state of the US, and as we see a quote by the Wall Street Journal, how much investigation did the US do? How much investigation did the Canadians do? The are mere questions but they matter, even as the newspapers on both countries are all about “A former top-ranking Saudi intelligence official living in exile in Canada alleged in a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a team to kill him in 2018 but the effort was foiled by Canadian authorities” if those are the facts, what investigation was done by the Canadians? Consider that I would be angry when someone steals $1,000,000 from me (an amount I do not own mind you), so an amount that is 11,000 times higher will get the blood boiling in many persons. So in all this, the entire matter does not make sense, Oh I get the need to add $11 billion to my bank account, that makes sense, although I would hope to use my own IP to get there, then there is the stage where I doubt that it was about ‘assassination’ I reckon the Saudi’s want their money back, so there would be a stage of alleged kidnapping, not assassination. And lastly, I reckon that the US would love Saad al-Jabri to move to the US so he can spend $11 billion (minus addition taxation) freely in the US and the US is so bankrupt, they are willing to set the legal stage in their nation, a nation of laws they will claim. 

Yes it is a brand new day as we see the optional stage of laws to whitewash money that was not the property of the person white washing it. It is my point of view and some will claim that it is not a valid one, but consider, how many papers set the stage of making the money link in all this? That is the $11 billion dollar question of the day, have a great one!

 

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August 8, 2020 · 02:51

Business lost, options lost

There is no denying it, at times people take decisions, and when that happens others get to live with the consequences. This is how it has always been, it is a simple truth. Yet, when was the last time you had to live with the ethical believes of others, all whilst they refuse to demand the same on the other side of the coin? 

Consider the headline ‘Belgium suspends arms exports to Saudi national guard’, I get it, it is a choice, so when we see “the southern Belgian region of Wallonia halted weapons sales to Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry and air force over concerns about the conduct of its war in Yemen”, I cannot say one way or the other, yet so far NO ONE has held Iran to any level of standards, and the same was not demanded from the Houthi forces. That part is a first in understanding just how stupid the action was. Now, we need to understand that human rights groups have their own ideology and that is fine. So as there is now an increased danger that $2-$4 billion in small arms over the next 5 years will now end in the coffers of either Russia or China, one had to wonder how the US (at minus 25 trillion) or Europe (at minus 14 trillion) will live with losing billions in revenue and handing it over to China and/or Russia. Let’s be clear I have nothing against human rights, yet this is a situation where the house is on fire and someone is telling you (not a fireman mind you) that only rainwater can be used to stop the fire, all whilst it is not raining, so how will that end? I have seen a whole range of actions, but the EU refuses to act against Iranian interference or Houthi inhumane actions, for the most the European media has taken all the efforts to keep it out of their publications as well. Even as Israel’s Hayom gives us ‘Iran sees disaster as opportunity to advance regional interests’, we might not react, but who will asks the questions that matters when we see “more than 84,000 children who have died of starvation in the bloody civil war in Yemen can teach us a basic lesson”, so when we compare that to the UN news which was given last month, and similar news for close to a year ‘Waiting to declare famine ‘will be too late for Yemenis on brink of starvation’’, so please explain to me how ‘on brink of starvation’ is staged in a situation where well over 84,000 children that died of starvation? How much more idiocy will we watch, empty actions from human rights groups so that we can sleep at night in a stage where it is already too late?

So not only are these people in denial, they are handing billion dollar industries over to China and/or Russia, so how does that sit with you? And let’s be clear, Belgium is not in the greatest economic situations. Yet, they have that right, and they are not doing anything illegal, it is merely silly on a few levels. So when the initial options are lost and the opportunities are lost to a group of nations that can ACTUALLY SPEND money, how intelligent are these people? The moral high ground is only interesting on a level playing field and it was never a level playing field. In this some may state that they would never work in the arms industry, but what happens when you are offered an instructor job on weapons? If you are unemployed, are you allowed the station of refusal? Consider that for a moment, working or unemployed? Is it such a bad call to teach a person how to properly handing a firearm? Is it illegal to be a data miner? An investment banker? What is the borderline where we decide on the events of others? 

Where is the wisdom?

We seem to believe that we have the wisdom to make things better in Yemen and Syria, but the people who should have acted refused to do so and now human rights are making it impossible for issues to be resolved, so basically our believe in human rights killed 84,000 children of hunger. Have you considered that part in the equation? Until human right groups can deal with both sides of the equation, they are basically worthless, not achieving much of anything, so if they get baskets of Yum Cha or Black-bread and Vodka this Christmas, they know which government is thanking them for the billions of extra revenue in 2020 and 2021. You see, in this instance the house is on fire and there is no rain coming, so will you forfeit the house or will you safe what you can? In the end having principles are nice, but unless the others are on the same page, you are merely handing others money you could make to make things better and remember, as an economic partner the EU had some options of talks in Saudi Arabia, when that falls away they are merely speakers with intent to be useless it ends. So tell me, when was the last time ANY government made time for any person with the mere intent to be useless? 

No matter who the need has, I was willing (and eager) to sell either the MP5, the Vityaz-SN （PP-19-01), or the Norinco NR08. Whatever the client wants, and if MP5 is pulling itself off the market, we should remember that there are 2 alternatives. I wonder how much thought the human right groups took that into consideration and when the money stops, their options stop as well. Sun Tsu learns us what battles to fight and which ones we should ignore, it is a basic setting in commerce as well. If certain people will not learn that lesson a lot faster there will not be a population in Yemen left.

 

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