Category Archives: Finance

May 18, 2020 · 11:03

Market(ing) Research

I was made aware of a picture that has been around for some time, it is an optional strong image and it can be used in any direction. The byline that was given was “I’m blown away that this diagram made it into a major publication” I personally agree!

The image is what I would call a 2 by 2 image of a clusterfuck that goes nowhere and openly misinforms people. The more important part is that it is based on truthful observation and that is where the cog tends to upset the machine to a much larger degree. It has two rows (very useful and not useful), two columns (Time consuming and not time consuming) and the 4 elements are labeled “Plan, Learn, Ignore and Browse”. So far one would think that it makes sense, yet the image has in each of the 4 elements:

Plan (AI, Machine Learning, Information security andStatistical Programming), Learn (Data Science, Data Visualization, and Business Intelligence), Ignore is for (Predictive analytics, Mathematics, Statistics and Data Warehousing) and Browse is reserved for (Spreadsheeting, Data Cleaning, and Financial Analysis), as such we might consider the first stage, this was made for people in marketing, for people who need to visualize data to give stakeholders a story to hold onto. The idea that some consider that Financial analyses was not time consuming to acquire is a chapter we will forego for now. It is the Ignore part that gets me, You see Marketing researchers are about the story that can be served like a Tiramisu, something that goes down easily with the Stakeholders and shareholders, yet it is the mathematics and statistics that makes them want to ask questions, not something a company wants, they want them to merely eat the cake and fuck off. But topline stories are actual stories, it is the connected mathematics and statistics that gives them the power, yet in today’s market it is an expensive trip to do and many companies don’t do that well, mainly because the statistics might show another side to all this and that is not what they want to tell the shareholders and stakeholders. And consider that a larger firm has taken the time to properly set up a Data Warehouse, do you really want to ignore all that data?

In all this there is a much larger issue. The field of what was a proper Market Research field has been replaced by mere topline storytellers and we call that Marketing Research and it is as I see it  holy useless.

Topline stories sound nice, but without the underlying statistics it is for the most conjecture and speculation but without supporting finesse. It is the merchant that looks at the tally of his shop and speculates on how they will do in the next quarter, yet it is true that to some extent they can do that, but without supporting numbers (from Statistics, and Predictive analyses) optionally cornered in mathematics, it remains speculative. It is like seeing the marketing manager and sales manager plotting out ‘their’ path towards financial success and as regression was coming up short, they relied on General Linear Modelling to fill in the blanks. In my lifetime career spanning well over a quarter of a century in Business Intelligence, I have met 6 people who truly knew the proper way to use GLM (MANOVA in the old days) In the Netherlands Hans Krijnssen and Jos van den Ronden, In Belgium Jacques Tacq, in the UK Jane Moore, and in the US there are Dave Nichols and Tony Babinec. I am not a mathematician, I recognise proper usage, but I cannot use these procedures properly myself. There are more people who know it, yet I met 6 over a term of 25 years, this is a limited field, it comes in various shapes and sizes, but they all have degrees in mathematics, it sets the analysts apart from the marketing researchers. We have become too reliant on short term goals without the essential need to have a long term direction in mind. Most companies took the bait when they were told that short term planning is the moneymaker, but there is also the need for long term planning and testing, I might think short term with my IP sale, but I am up against long term strategists who do think outside the box and that is where a lot do not wish to be, they cannot make the long term turnover, their sales training with their pipeline is all about quarterly growth and achieved sales trajectory, the image merely enforces that view, yet the larger view needs to come from what they would happily ignore. It comes down to the old story, The analyst shows you the essential path, whilst marketing is set like a politician, they make you yearn for the invoice. This now translates into marketing handing you the invoice and the numbers feeding that need for purchase are and remain absent.

How is that solving your need?

I believe that Marketing Research is the most dangerous of approaches in the near future, if they go about it with their limited topline reporting tools, someone up high will ask that one question that cannot be answered and it all falls to pieces, it will do so eventually when the storytellers rely on the short story and the process goes south too fast and the numbers will not give the shareholders any confidence, because that will happen a lot sooner than most sales people are happy with. Let me be frank, there is a market, an essential market in these topline presenters and their software tools, they take away the loads of effort and the required approach to get there, but by themselves they are not a solution, they are a supporting tool and that is where a lot of players go wrong. 

So yes, there is also the stage where the image is supporting a different text, but overall the image shows a lack of insight and a support track towards what I would call ‘deceptive conduct’ or to state it slightly less diplomatic ‘relying on misconception to sell a view to a sale’ approaches that go nowhere in the long run, especially when the people who should ask questions, actually start asking the questions that are implied to be answers, all whilst they are no such things.

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May 16, 2020 · 03:40

Deceit and Stupidity

For me it is a brand new day, it is 2:36 and I am now seriously contemplating the move of handing my IP to China. Not because I hate America, I do not, I really do not, but the stupidity that we are exposed to should not ever be accepted. The BBC reported an hour ago ‘US targets Huawei with tighter chip export rules’, there is nothing wrong with that foundation. We all have reasonings and whatever the US requires is their business. Yet in the article we see two items. The first is seen in the quotes “aimed at limiting Chinese technology giant Huawei’s access to semiconductor technology” as well as “prevent US technologies from enabling malign activities contrary to US national security and foreignpolicy interests” The second quote here is double edged. When we see “contrary to US national security ad foreignpolicy interests”, we need to realise that it can mean many things, above all it means that what America implies as foreign policy, could also mean their economic position and we all know it, in that regard America is done for. Whether or not we see the acts of the current president being of less academic value than the acts of Popov the Clown is beside the point. The US remained in the laid back position for a decade whilst innovation will never allow for this. As such Korea and China got the upper hand in IP and future technology. In the last half decade the US started to realise just how far behind they are and they are trying to rectify it be staging a cartel position, but they are already too late, now that I am adding to the IP losses in 5G they are done for, and as the people around me realise how I created the IP, as they realise where they have not been looking, everyone will see just how shortsighted US policy has become. Even as we see the words by US Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross see when we are treated to “This is not how responsible corporate citizens behave” we see the joke that this had been going on for almost a decade, a step towards iterative exploitation of technology, whilst the people around them were innovative. And in all this they are equally forgetting that the tables can be turned, whilst I address the needs of 400 million businesses, the US will be out of bounds as well, as such Europe, the Middle East and Asia will push beyond the options that American businesses have, it was a simple equation. From my point of view, the innovation that is being brought shows another side, it shows that whole technologies will now set the US in a stand still pattern until 2024, it shows that I am merely one part (one of several) where the us has no 5G options, as that market evolves we see a much larger loss, a loss where we look towards another coin to replace economic value, the US dollar is losing out and as a nation with $25,000,000,000,000 debt has no longe any say in the matter, the banks holding that debt will decide and that will be one of the only things that this US president has achieved, the US population will get to see who is truly in charge and they will wish that they could turn back the clock, but it is too late now. Even now we see how President Trump is blaming the Chinese for the spread of Covid-19. Interesting is it not, how the clear propagation of the flu is now blamed on a government, just like the Huawei accusations absent of clear evidence. 

It becomes even more interesting when we see “The US has said Huawei’s technology COULD be used for spying by the Chinese government”, all whilst there is strong evidence that Cisco equipment is used to bypass security on several levels all over the world, but that is OK? So when (not if) my IP is used to propel business to a much larger degree, the US will be barred in equal measure, as such, we will see high flying 5G consumer technology in effect all whilst the US is merely trying to not drown and the rich will be standing on the heads of the poor whilst doing so, it is apparently the American way. 

And my reasoning?

Well, it is the American way to find the best suited financial solution or my IP, in this I go where the money is and America does not have it, Google might, but they were seemingly not interested. I don’t know about IBM, Apple and Microsoft, yet they are not interesting to me as they are iterative technology boosters, they stopped being true innovators for some time. I need an innovative player and that leaves us with Huawei and Google, so Huawei is seemingly the winner.

In all this America now gets sunk by its own greedy and restrictive rules and I am not the only one, I have heard a few noises all around me and they are not that much in favour towards the US.

What can we do?

As I see it, governments should have demanded clear evidence from the US, but they did not do that, moreover, several governments let themselves be bullied by America who has no real power, merely huge debts and in this I watched several nations become the bitch of the US, so where did we sign up for that?

So far the US has remained absent of evidence, did we not learn our lesson with the Global tour of Colin Powell and his silver briefcase making the WMD farce? Is evidence THAT overrated? So whilst the US is trying to hold on to the illusion that they have what it takes (they lost that ability almost 20 years ago), the rest of the world needs to see that the superpower table is changing and it is governed by those with IP and patent value, as such we see China, optionally we see India taking a much larger claim, all whilst the US claim is diminishing, in all that they get to sit next to Russia who has an equal small stake in the IP side of it all. It leaves with the uncomfortable conversation where we see that Google is also becoming a global superpower whilst its host nation the US is losing its seat, optionally to Google. all in the same stage where we see that South Korea might end up getting invited to that table. The stakes are changing to THAT degree over the next three years, so should we have faith in a player who is about to lose its seat at THAT table? I don’t think so.

 

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May 9, 2020 · 14:26

Shame of choice?

I have been around for some time. In this time I have always accepted the choices I have made, and for the most, I have had one regret, that was around 2001, it was a choice and I accept responsibility for the choice I mader, I might not be happy about it, but that is life. In that frame of mind I am or the most a Republican, I believe in Republican standards, yet until January 2019 I had never expected to be ashamed of that. The entire Huawei situation and as the Guardian reported 6 hours ago, ‘US blocks vote on UN’s bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO’, the idea that the Trump administration opposes mention of the WHO must be one of the most fucked up situations that ANY commander in chief of the US in the history of that nation has set up. The stage is even more diluted when we see “Donald Trump has blamed the WHO for the pandemic, claiming (without any supporting evidence) that it withheld information in the early days of the outbreak.” In all honesty, from that pointof view, when people are THAT stupid, I will had all my IP to Huawei (hoping that they will pay me) there is no chance that there can be any hope for the US in a stage where Trump is president. The man gives rise to chimps being more intelligent than people. To give further notice, I grew up seeing and accepting that Russia was the great evil in the 70’s and 80’s, I was in the mistaken understanding that the US was the bastion of actual freedom, how wrong can a man be?

When the elections were held, it was my opinion that Clinton was the wrong choice, her bungling of the entire Benghazi situation, in light of all the spin and misdirection was reason enough. If she could not get that right, seeing her in charge of the US was in my personal view a massive mistake. I had no idea that the baboon chosen would be even worse.

And the American people are about to find out why. The economic disaster that the US now faces is estimated to outdo the Depression that preceded WW2. 

In all this, I expect that Google, Apple, IBM and Microsoft will see a massive brain drain towards Europe and Asia. I personally expected my IP to be valued no less than $2 billion, yet I personally do not see the stage where the US will honour anything, as such and to protect my IP (which is based on new 5G principles) I have no option but to offer it to Huawei and hope for the best. Even if I end up with nothing, I will set in motion gears (already done) that will push it all to the public domain. Even as that leaves me with nothing, it will be evidence that I was right all along, which will boost my ego and place me on the high moral ground, merely for the view it gives me, above the presenters, the bullet point people and the proclaimers towards their own bonus, their own needs, not the corporate needs. 

I always saw myself as a Republican because personal freedom is where it is at, not the constrictive laws that binds all together behind a fence of rules, less laws and more freedom, yet that freedom comes with personal responsibility, I never doubted or opposed that. I wonder how people will react when the works of Stephen Moore, the one economist that supports the Republican plan reacts when the flaws get out into the open and he is asked critical questions. What do you do when people set the election of a president above the value of human lives? The quote “If we don’t get the economy reopened, we go into november with a severe depression, then you’re looking probably at President Joe Biden”, yet the stage of how many will die as a feigned economy will reopen, one that has an additional $3,000,000,000,000 debt. Bloomberg did not go deeper into that part, yet the question is out there “Why was this not investigated?” Lets not forget that this is the same Moore who set the 2012 taxcut exploding the budget without producing an economic boom (source: NY Times), so where is the evidence this time and in support of that, what are the speculated death numbers? We know that the, so-called expected 1.8% mortality rate that President Trump stated months ago was a joke and he made the claim in a time when it was already well over twice as large. That beside the point of a lacking “intellectual gravitas” as some stated. The NY Times article is still an important read. He makes statements on pandemic culling that sets the stage that precautions like New York are not needed in Lincoln, Des Moines or Boise. That is as I see it the first flaw. If the US had shut its borders a lot sooner, there might have been a small gesture of hope, but that was not done. The interview gives off the noise of ‘lets not set all urban areas the same’ yet the flu will get to any stage where people are together, that is the premise and I am not a health expert either. We see at present that 1/3rd of all infected in the world are in the US. Almost one in three of all global deaths are in the US as well. Those are directly seen numbers and there is every indication that a lot of the numbers of those passing away of the Coronavirus are not showing up, so the numbers might be higher. It amounts to the entire population of Lakewood City California. Not really an urban place is it, but that is the size of the issue and I expect that the station of care includes Lakewood City, not excluding it. 

Numbers are easy to misdirect, lives less so. I understand (not completely agreeing) with Stephen Moore, yet opening as soon as possible will set a much larger stage as the US enters Christmas, and the outgoing president should consider the legacy he is about to leave the US, the outbreak might not be his fault, but the consequences of his actions are and as such I am horrified that they were made by a Republican. 

Even my own reaction, the fact that my chances are much better turning to the Chinese than the Americans is still a debate my two guardian angels are having on my shoulders (the good one on the right shoulder the other one on the left. It is leaving me rather unhappy. It is like listening to the book of Good Omens on a daily basis, unnerving to say the least.

Yet I also accept that there is a larger group of people that sets the accusation that the WHO cannot handle the pandemic. Yet it is also a stage where the US and UK largely disregarded the warnings, I saw the pandemic coming close to two weeks before the media accepted it, even as the the dictionary version of pandemic was surpassed days before I stated it, the media did not follow and questioned this part for the longest time, yet we are not looking at that, are we?

There is a much larger stage that the media is ignoring, but we let that slip, the entire issue is now on the US blocking a UN vote as it indirectly makes mention of the WHO, I wonder if the elected US official is 5 years old (a speculative assumption on my side). There are larger fish to fry, but at present we need to be asking more and more questions of the Republican political base and most media outlets are not doing that and we need to see and wonder why that is. As I see it, there is within me, a much larger fight going on. I feel ashamed for being a Republican, I wonder if I have been wrong on that choice for a much longer time, and it worries me.

It is an internal fight I never had before and that too worries me. 

 

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May 6, 2020 · 18:47

New World Order

You might not realise it and some hope that most don’t, yet there is a shift this week, there is a new global ruler on the planet. Some will deny it, they will sugarcoat it and some will use carefully phrased denial, they will not give any answers, but the world changes this week. It was always going to happen and I saw this event coming towards us with certainty no later than 6 years ago, it was like watching a bull shark trying to break free, cut the line that hooked him, yet this wire was too strong, there was no evading the obvious, the new ruler is here to stay. The new superpowers are Russia, China and the Bank. This week as the US borrows another $3,000,000,000,000 dollars the stage is set, the interest will now spiral and the US can no longer pay its debts, it is even worse, the annual income will not cover the interest on the outstanding debt. Even t 1%, the US will have to hand over $25,000,000,000 in interest, and there the setting is stage, or better yet the stage is set. The BBC reported that “The government has also extended the annual 15 April deadline for tax payments adding to the cash crunch” it is the final downfall acts through a consumer based economy and we will all feel that crunch as the US governing table will now mandatory include a representative of the banks, not some ‘political commission’, no a stage where the banks set the stage of what is allowed to be done. It is a new stage and even as we think who that is, my speculated view is that it is a representative that both the Rothchilds and Wall Street approve of, there is no need to wonder on which side of the political isle they fall, they will be above that and both Democratic and Republican parties will have to adhere to this. Are you scared? You should be! This is no longer a stage where the citizens are heard, it becomes a stage for consumers and enablers only. So the rights of the elderly and unemployed will fall away, they will have to make room for enablers and users. Their rights will be sullied more and more. It is not something that will happen overnight, it is something that will happen over the next 3 years. Political decisions, hard budgets and economic stages will be set. The fat of the body remains, the unessential parts will be cast aside to whither and die. This was the stage I foresaw in 2013, now it is no longer avoidable. Even as we see “Last week the chair of America’s central bank, Jerome Powell, said that he would have liked to see the US government’s books be in better shape before the pandemic”, in my view he is saying “You need a miracle to keep us out of the decision stream”, and he would have been right. As I see it, this is the direct impact of irresponsible politicians acting and spending a credit card that does not impact them and leaving the next group to fend for itself, that has been the stage for well over a decade and now the bill is due, no 5G economy to save them, no IP innovators to up the value of the US, the game is pretty much over and after the US falls, the EU will follow quite soon. The banks played the long game and they won, I wonder how much mercy and humanity their spreadsheets show, because for a lot of us it will become a much harder world. We either show value or we are done for, this is what sitting on the sidelines brought you all. The direct impact of “It will work out”, it will not and now we will face a much harsher situation and as the media plays towards its shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers, the people will finally realise that they have been played. The bank bill is ALWAYS due, there is no escaping it. I wonder if there is truth in the matter of an independent California, because they represent the largest group of enablers and consumers, No matter how we see it, the US has no stage to pay for the interest on $25,000,000,000,000. Their economy will not allow for that, so what will drain first, their pension plans, or will they pay out of the unemployment funds? The banks will get their pound of flesh and they do not care how the US brings the numbers, as long as they bring them, when this new bill comes aross, the numbers are reached and the needs of the banks can no longer be ignored. Aneconomy by comission driven people, the almost ultimate nightmare towards an economy you do not want to consider.

A new world order that crept under a cloud of inactions by those who should have acted and the people are alas out of options, they voted the inactionable collective in and now we can merely watch on the sidelines how it all unfolds before our eyes. You thought the Coronavirus shut down was bad? It will get a lot worse, now consider that not only supermarket aisles are empty, add to that the services will at some point fall away, see where a lot of us are then. 

We all let it happen, we only have ourselves to blame.

 

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May 6, 2020 · 01:28

Nature of the beast

There was news on how Samsung failed the net mobile options, the news was given ‘Exynos 990-powered Galaxy S20+ flops hard in gaming’ what I read came from NotebookCheck, and it is important that even as I am no friend of Samsung (due to their own doing in 1985), I tend to not be a Samsung hater. Let us not forget that I love Nintendo and I personally hated the WiiU, I also accept that sometimes a failure precedes a success like the Nintendo Switch, so Samsung might optionally be down,but they are not out. In the end the article lets out that it is basically not the fault of Samsung, but the chip (and its makers) is the cause of all the viewed hardship. The Exynos 990 seems to be below par on a few fields as such depending on that chip caused the project to go pear shaped. This is the direct result of choices, sometimes they blow back on us (WiiU anyone?). Yet in the field the hidden message is often missed. As stated ‘after 10 minutes of running PUBG Mobile, the galaxy S20+ was dropping frames to 50fps (something some recent consoles could not maintain), and as low as 40fps by the 20 minute mark’ the story is nowhere near over and Samsung has time to get up to speed in more than one way.

The writer goes on stating how it is that a $200 solution called Redmi Note 8 Pro did so much better. It is interesting that merely one example was matched. Still it is a mark on the status list of Samsung for now, yet a firm that is in the top 5 of most registered patents in the last years does not have merely one push towards the top and even as (for now) the S20+ is not likely to be a pushing power to the top, Samsng has had its share of true innovative successes and as such it will bounce back, it has done that a few times, and I have no doubt it will do so again.

They are not alone, even as Apple has no recorded future failure yet, it seems that not unlike the time of the PowerMac, they face a new chiprace. The news is that Intel just cannot get their response rate right and as we see that, Apple is considering a new path, one that is RISC or ARM, if it is the RISC, we see a return to happy times (ME: happy happy joy joy), yet that is because I am not a chip man and I know little of the ARM, I merely remember the good times of the RISC (I still have my RISC G5), that systems outdid anything available in those days and made no noise. Still that is not enough for you to rely on. In my mind I see another field starting up, all the APP developers relying on little INTEL options to get whatever they made go faster will have to rethink their options, there will be a weeding in the ranks of APP developers soon enough at that point, not to mention the people making PC games and including Apple as an option, it sets the optional parameters that the design for Apple needs to be truly for Apple. These two matters are a larger stage, last year the Irish Times reported on the collaboration between the two in regards to the iTunes movies, but I wonder if it stops there, Samsung has a much stronger infrastructure, Apple has a few unique designs and a following of millions, I wonder if there is not a larger space for more between the two, they must realise that the changed setting of Covid requires a different stage of thinking for the near future, their approach to almost unaffordable phones is nice, but millions of people are getting laid off, people who used to buy their products and that is off the table for the next two years, if not even longer. 

The changes that we are seeing will demand the largest players to find symphony and chorus between them instead of relying on the powerful solo acts that no one can afford. As such we will see a few more surprises in 2020 and 2021. Some might think that the markets will settle again, but they all forgot that to appease Wall Street too many companies were on a 90% stage with no reserves, now it shows as the bankruptcy numbers are going through the roof, even smaller players like Virgin are running for their life laying off thousands of people, without reserves there is no continuance for any of them, they ignored the common setting for keeping reserves and a 2 month shutdown was enough to make most of them buckle and it will get worse, the EU (those pulling the strings) have achieved in delaying Basel III for another year due to Covid implications. The FSB stated in one of their reports “Funding markets have been under strain amid extreme demand for cash and near-cash assets” it is a stage that is escalating, mainly because of a lack of reserves and it hits back at Samsung as well. This one failure is optionally no biggie, but when you consider that the next two years will be washed from larger revenue and profit in a stage where the time was not great to get a failure to deal with is not great, it is all about the reserves and to appease the markets too many players left ‘margin’ on the side for good reporting, it stands to reason that bad news will rule the news on several fields and it seems that Samsung will join that group that ends up having not great news, and optionally they have marginally good news that will get a downward revision up to 60-120 days later, can’t have the current quarter down, can we?

We can look and see how separate events do not add up and that would be fair, there is however a much larger field in sight and in that field the S20+ failure comes at a bad time, yet they are not alone Apple is in a similar place and forgoing individuality for 2-3 years and set combined products might be the good path for those two players. Samsung could revert to another path but overall they are not in charge, their shareholders are and they fear recession like the black plague. This is merely because 2-3 years could result in a stage of no reserves with a much stronger push towards a 3-5 year stage of no consumers and the shareholders fear that much more than anything. 

Is it not interesting how shareholders make a large company much easier to anticipate?

I have no doubt that Samsung will survive this era, just like it did in 1985, so far history has proven me right again and again, yet the entire Corona escalation is new to too many players and to me too, as such there is a lot we cannot see in a stage of feigned ‘non-panic’, even as these people have no idea just how bad things can get, and they need their shareholders to have faith, as such there remains an unknown. 

Time and profit are the ruling elements of the beast that devours, for the most it devours profit, yet what will it resort to when there is no profit?

 

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April 23, 2020 · 23:35

Name of the game

We all played monopoly, we all played a number of board games where we were taught that there is a balance, a level of fairness about. The game Hotel lets us build a hotel, get a permit, get clearances and as the players get to our hotel, it will cost them, there is a similarity to monopoly, but Hotel plays a lot faster. We all agree that there should be balance in all this. Now let’s take you back 15 years ago, suddenly we are forced to pay an additional fee to be allowed on an airplane. The issue was that fuel had suddenly doubled in price. Fuel is the strongest and clearest view towards greed and exploitation. Forced in cars we are pushed towards spending more and more on fuel. The entire virus situation has changed the position of the seesaw, now there is another matter and the traders who have filled their pockets for decades are now in another stage. So when we are told “US Senator Ted Cruz told the Saudis to ‘turn the tankers the hell around’ on wednesday” we get the first indication on the support that politicians give the oil barons in the US. And as we are told “traders have scrambled to get out of the contract to avoid taking delivery of barrels because of a lack of storage”, it is another example of short sighted spreadsheet thinking, oris it? I will accept that the entire Coronavirus situation is totally unforseen, yet in all this, the speculators and traders are seemingly getting support on both sides of the seesaw,and that is not right. It is as I personally see it, just another version of ‘too big too fail’, and the approach that banks used before, now also applies to traders. They might make a statement on ‘stopping Saudi Shipments’, yet the opposite also remains true, if the Saudi government decides to deliver merely 80%-90% of the normal shipments for the next two years, the impact will be disastrous, fuel prices will go beyond insane and the US government only has its own shortsighted thinking to thank in that case. So as Ted Cruz ‘hides’ behind “this is SEVEN TIMES the typical monthly flow”, I merely ponder the question, what did the original contracts say? We heard last year that the Saudi’s were ‘told’ to increase production. Perhaps the Saudi government, or an official at Aramco might be kind enough to put those contracts on the internet for all of us to observe. Is it not interesting that oil ha to be ordered?  So where is that purchase order? I reckon that Aramco could optionally store some of that oil in Rotterdam, the petrochemical plants there have lots of storage (I do not know how filled they are), the Americans would have to pay as they refused the ordered delivery, so the ships would have to go via an American harbour towards Rotterdam with alternative routes to Hamburg, in the end these places would end up with free oil, America has to pay for its contracted purchase of oil. 

And I get it, no one saw the Corona issue explode the way it did, but that is the nature of the game, win big, lose big, but too many people won’t allow for the lose big and to some degree there are situations that can be adjusted for, but the need for 2 million barrels of oil per day, now in a nation where there is a lockdown, and not just in the US, all over the world, things will have to give in, yet what the media reports a whole range of wrong actions are being taken. So as we see in the Guardian ‘Trump considers block on crude oil imports to prop up US markets’, so that might be the short term, but consider that the Middle East decides due to these actions to limit export to the US to 80% of nominal, or what was initially agreed on. On one side, the Middle East takes a hit, on the other side if that limit applies, by the end of the year, heating and car fuel will go through the roof, how will that come across? And when it comes to ‘exploitation’, consider FXCM.com “Discover Potential opportunities and Trade your Opinion 24/5. Fast Execution and low Spreads. Trade Oil, Forex, indices and more” yes these traders had all kinds of options, but now, they need to get out, they do not want to pay the ferryman. I accept that, because the entire Corona issue could not be predicted, not to this degree, but how often do we get to hear, ‘there is one winner and one loser’ and this time around Wall Street (to name but a financial dimension), gets an invoice it never saw coming. Not just Wall Street, the financial districts on a global scale are getting a pummeling it has never had before. Is it just? That is a moot question, it is not about justice, there is no just, this is about the contract of oil delivery, they have pushed in the past again and again and the short story is, where are the contracts that the US has with Saudi Arabia? Last year they wanted it cheap, they wanted more and they demanded it their way. Now they have to pay.

Justice is not part of the deal, it never is when Wall Street potentates are involved. So why is it important? The issue is not merely the oil, there are all kinds of long term impacts on goods and manufactured items that will impact our lives, yet the oil traders demand their full margin of profit, even if nature banks against them.

As I see it, and under the present situations (as far as the information is known to me) the entire response from Ted Cruz was stupid, plain and simple. He turned to emotion whilst this was about a contract, is there a contract, is it valid? None of the media reports on this. The fact that a boat representing $50 million in goods leaves a port implies that this a contract or a purchase is attached to it, if not, Ted Cruz still does not have a leg to stand on, because he never made mention of that, politicians hiding behind emotions and outbursts tend to have lost the higher ground and it shows here.

And the media is (as I personally see it) in on it, none of them are asking about the contracts, no one is looking at the oil contracts whether Saudi Arabia is having an alleged hostile act, and in this, the turnabout is harsh, when Saudi Arabia limits delivery for years, the US will have a massive industrial problem. Is that not an interesting view? In the entire oil contracts, I saw nothing on the BBC, the Guardian, and a few other papers too, there is no show of the contracts and perhaps you remember that no one ships $50 million in goods unless there is a contract or a purchase order. It is not about the dumping, it is about the paperwork around it and no one is asking.As I was watching an interview with Ted Cruz, I see that he is in a bad place, his state (Texas) is the oil producing heart of America, they do not like the situation and I agree that he must do what is best for his constituents, yet in all this someone signed a contract with Saudi Arabia (a fair assumption) and no one is asking for that document, not even the media, is that not surreal?

If we are going to hide behind emotion with the hope that the invoice flys by, we ned to realise that this will hit on the flip side, and the consequence of 80% delivery after Corona is equally dangerous, but if this is a game, you should accept a lack of foresight attached to this, in business there are purchase orders and sales contracts, Especially in oil where prices can go through the roof, in this case the oil traders will take a hit unlike they have ever had, it comes with those 7 figure bonuses.

At some point regression to the middle also indicates that profit falls can fall to zero. Those not seeing that were standing on a bear trap hoping no bear would come by as they were unable to move and optionally unable to flee the environment.

 

 

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April 23, 2020 · 01:31

Opposing the light

There are several things happening in this world, yes there is a Coronavirus happening and last monday I lost a friend to that. I had not seen him for months and he had his own life (a good life mind you), he was a friend, a friend I could not see too often for all kinds of reasons (not all mine). Such is life and we need to realise that at times, we reach a point where all that changes overnight. 4,950 died in Australia, one of them was my friend, in a population of 25 million, it is a mere 1% of 1% that I am personally connected to. I should have bought a lottery ticket last week with these numbers!

The BBC gave me an interesting update as numbers go. A lot of it was not interesting, it was a been there done that. The entire situation takes a turn when we are given the realisation that France included the deaths at  care homes, England does not, as such the numbers we are introduced to are flawed and incomplete. In all this we have a group of EU nations who decide on what is reported and what is not. Apparently a corona death in a care home is not a corona death at all, how is that for today’s tuna bake?

Yet the realisation that his is happening, how about Germany and France? France had 158,000 and 20,796 non living whilst Germany had 149 thousand and only 5,117 deceased, as I state in previous blogs, the numbers just do not add up, and it gets to be worse when we compare the deceased in France and Germany 20,786 versus 5,117. That is not merely care deaths, that (in my personal opinion) constitute another factor, the difference is too big. If this is not the case, if this is truly about reporting, then we see that the case for ending theEU has been made, after all this time, billions squandered, there is no correct protocol for reporting? And the entire pandemic, or uniqueness does not count. The numbers are squandered all over the place and the people are kept in the dark, in all this the EU has become somewhat of a joke. 

And when it comes to ‘rescue packages’ the sun really lashes out. Now, I get it, there is a good case to push for some relief and I would not disagree, yet there is a strong sense that this is just a jacked up dal that was denied when there was no coronavirus. As such we see Austria, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands are opposing any deal for the mere reason that they are held liable for repaying the debts of the irresponsible politicians in the south and that case had been made a few times over. A stronger case for ending the EU is right there.

As long as nations are not held responsible for their acts, their ability to push their gravy train on the other members has now reached the size where several nations are strongly pushed towards ending the EU and there is the larger problem for the EU, they should have stepped in when Greece went over the side and they did not, they let it fester for over a decade and now we see that the pull to remove the EU is now a much clearer path, the UK got out in time, but only just. Due to the Coronavirus we now see a possible escalation that would give a much stronger rise to Frexit and Nexit due to the political strife they face. To be honest, I never saw Nexit happen as Geert Wilders (a Dutch politician) fell short by a larger amount, yet that time is gone and renewed options are in play. Is their path the best for them? I actually do not know, I feel that it was the best course for the UK, but that does not mean it was the best for all. I think the Netherlands has strong enough ties to survive that move, France as well, yet in that light Italy and Spain face much larger hurdles. Even as the French economy is in the drain, they do have options, Spain and Italy much less so.

Will it happen? I do not know, but the Corona setting is allowing for a much larger setting of anger in the populations then we ever thought possible, as such the stage changes by a lot. The entire lockdown will only fester it worse, that is how I see it. Even as Geert Wilders sees the Corona escalations to push Nexit, his strength is waning and he cannot bring it about, yet in all this the EU and their approach to their gravy trains are another matter, millions of Europeans have had enough as inequality is rising, Spain and Italy will set another stage, one that the EU cannot face, and whilst the EU will not show responsibility and forces politicians to be accountable, the entire matter merely escalates. A lot of Europeans no longer see the EU as the light and some are actually opposing that light. The Corona mess in Europe is bringing a festering wound to the open limelight that was previously only slowly festering before. In all this the EU breakup was always going to happen, the Coronavirus is merely escalating matters. 

Can it be worse? Yes! Will it be worse? That depends on the EU and its greedy politicians, even as we saw the media report on all these people their is still the flaming income and gravy train matter that is out in the open and the people who are scraping by are getting more and more angry, now that we see that even a simple cadaver tally cannot be relied on, the dam is breaching and that festering issue is merely blanketed and optionally misrepresented by the connected stakeholders. 

People are opposing what was once seen as a solving light, it took a mere case of the flu to bring it to the surface.

 

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April 20, 2020 · 00:30

When walls close in

I had an interesting day, my mind designed another game, I dreamt of a new movie and I considered what comes next in the entire Covid mess. I will say upfront that it is all speculation, the issues skating close to the truth usually are. It all started with the news. The BBC gives us ‘Trump: A safe gradual and phased opening’, which might be nice and OK, yet the people who actually know about sickness and disease think it is a bad idea. With 2,347,887 sick and 161,138 dead people some will get to say ‘I see dead people’, and they might be telling the truth. I will not waste your time to consider the 739K sick people in the US and the connected 39K dead people, the math there does not hold up completely because of the timeline and the speed at which it pushes through due to large cities like New York. And what do hundreds of Americans do, people without any level of medical education mind you? They protest against the Covid rules, they are the source of propagating the disease and that is good. You see Wall Street and its vassals need to learn the one lesson they forgot about, if you bank on a consumer based wealth cuve, you need actual consumers and the US lost over 39K consumers. Their debts cannot be collected and the curve changes. Even as some Texans push to reopen to open their business, we will see that the rents are due but a lot of customers will stay away. Open business without mindful consumers spending money. Yes it is the time for Amazon to really reel in the cash, but in the end, the shops still lose. And remember resident Trump making some waves in proclaiming against all evidence that the mortality rate of Covid would be no more than 1.8%? It is over 5% in the US at present. No one seems to be asking the right questions. The economic model must be adhered to and the EU is starting to realise that it is a mere tool in the needs of the US, AUS has not figured that out yet, but they will, or perhaps AUS will become the 53rd state of the US. All speculative options at present,something that will be merketter as the A state of the US.

In my view there is a lot of overreaction regarding the flu, yet I am willing to accept that it is done to lower the curve and to keep casualties down, OK, I get it. I might not like it, but I get it and that feeling remains absent for a lot in the US.

Andin all this as we see the reactions to investigations on the World Health Organisation, I am content to write those names down, the pretentious Marise Payne who is all about bi-partisanship. The interesting thing is that this all happened right after the accusations by President D. Trump, yet not unlike the Huawei situation no evidence of any kind was ever produced, and again the A state of the US is following. It is one of those times when ‘bipartisan’ seems to meen, ‘a tool for the US’. 

Why am I here?

You see a flu this amazing where mortality rate is in the sewers and all over the place, jumping from 2% to 10% whilst there are over 100K patients in that country is not natural. There can always be some fluctuation, but if you merely look at Germany and France, where the amount of dead people are apart by almost 500%, there is a larger issue, that issue is that there is more to the disease and nations are in denial of that part, yet blaming China makes it all OK, or so they think.

Let’s make sure that I am not stating that they are innocent, I am stating that so far we see no evidence of any kind and the open hostilities of the US towards China are not set in any light in the media. That too is a piece of evidence that needs to be illuminated.

The stage where Marise Payne is stating that the WHO should not run the investigation and that she is stating that China should allow for transparency whilst she herself is in a doubtful stage is unmentioned. I agree that the coronavirus needs to be investigated, yet it needs to be done by the right people, the fact that she wants to invalidate the WHO from the get go is weird to say the least. In all this the first station of the flu is healthcare and they have been underfunded for over a decade, the health of consumers was overplayed and the effects underestimated. This is visible in AUS, the UK, many nations in the EU and the US. I know too little of Japan to add them to the list. 

THese consumers are adamant and directly involved, because without them the Wall Street formula fails and someone is finally realising it. Forbes stated on April 13th (a Monday) ‘Wall street Wobbles as investors ignore the science of Covid-19’ and there we see “its transmissibility and mortality rate are known to health officials. All of this information has been communicated publicly” yet there are clear open souces out there as well as the numbers in Germany,Spain, Italy and China that makes for a shoddy case in both matters and the people are just ignoring it. The article shows a few other parts and also the fact that when it comes to Wall Street, it is erratic, especially when the numbers go down and that is what will happen, as the US surpasses a mortality numbers of 50K, we will see panic by investors, especially as the disease does not differentiate between the rich and the poor, the worker and the abuser, a flu that merely kills. And when they realise that the death rate in the US is five times that of Germany, we will see initial inklings that there is a larger play and it is not seen in the death numbers, it will be seen in the stage where economies cannot get started because it requires consumers and they are dead. Yet the total deaths is lower than those in Syria and Yemen, so why bother now?

Because now they are consumers that these companies vie for and they no longer answer their phones, and for the most the health officials are ignored to avoid the danger that the message is too negative. As we see in the UK that the NHS people are wearing aprons instead of gowns. As they are on life support, we see a much larger danger. A nation where health care falls away, it took 114K patients and 15K deaths to pull that off, so when will Americans realise that their numbers are a lot worse and their levels of inequality. The Guardian gave us ‘Profit over people, cost over care: America’s broken healthcare’, and no one in the US is actively investigating that part? Australia is almost in a similar place. 

It is not the beginning or the middle, this is the beginning of the beginning and things will get worse. I wonder how many people realise that, even as we see all kinds of numbers, when we do get sick and healthcare falls away, the world has a problem and the US will be one of the first ones to learn what happens when the Wall Street formula cannot be matched. For them profit is everything, lives are not.

So whilst you are in lockdown, consider the fact that when the walls fall in, it is not a case of the walls falling in, but you have been placed in a coffin and you are a number on the covid stats, no matter where you live. And optionally, you will be one of the forgotten, especially as the BBC and others are stating that these numbers are so much higher than expected. In the UK has 2,000 home care locations with the Coronavirus, yet ABC claims that their numbers are not to be found, so how high is the problem and what else is unknown at present. So whilst we are not in possession of the numbers, some are still willing to blame China, all whilst for too long too many places left the border open until specifics were known, that failing in foresight is also unmentioned in many places, I wonder what that investigation will bring to the table of Marie Payne, if she looks at it at all.

 

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April 19, 2020 · 00:39

Sources of negativity

We are all binomial in origin, we like yes/no, we dislike yes/no, we hate yes/no and we love yes/no, yet most of us hide this in long winded excuses of reasoning, we all do that (including me). I partially hate Microsoft for what they did, for how they destroyed something that was pretty fabulous, I am upset with Ubisoft or how they squandered excellent IP and hid into the woodworks and made a quick buck, destroying the IP they created in the meantime. And as such as I was looking online for a few more tidbits as we approach the demise of Xbox, I came across a few items that puzzled me. 

I love Bethesda, I do not love all their products, which is fine. I am no lover of Rage, but others are, and that is fine. On the other hand I love Fallout, but was never a fan of Fallout 76 and that is fine too. I prefer my games not online and single player. Still, I accept that this is a pathBethesda went on, we all have growing curves and there is a collection of people (a large one) who do like Fallout 76. Perhaps the evolution of Fallout 76 will turn into Fallout 176, Fallout 276 and whatever comes and I will like it at some point, but the barricade that is out there is not one that Bethesda created. In another story we see the interaction, ‘Call of Duty: Warzone console players are turning off crossplay to escape PC cheaters’ it is merely one reason why I hate online play, I do not really hate it because I loved online Mass Effect 3, I was addicted to it, but the world has enough cheaters, when I game I want to get away from that and play on a level playing field, as such I focus on single player only, and in that my taste goes wide. 

As time went by I must have invested tens of thousands of dollars in console gaming, I agree when people say that it is wasted money, but that was my choice, I had a good job, my last ‘true’ vacation was in 1998, so when I get home I need escapism and puzzles, or challenges all at the same time and the consoles provide. It got me to the first issue on consoles, the pricing YouTubes are a little redundant and obsolete when you realise the origin.

When I look back, I started with the VIC-20, then the CBM64 ($1349) with disk drive. Overtime I evolved my systems. CBM Amiga ($700), Atari ST ($700) and there was the PC to use (I’ll get to that soon). As a gamer and reviewer I had made some waves, as such the Sega Dreamcast was free (christmas present from Sega), the Sony Playstation (I forgot what I paid for it, but it was less than the N4) The Nintendo 64 ($699) and after that I pushed towards the Sony PSX-II ($899). It was followed by the Nintendo Gamecube, a machine I loved. After that there was a small lull, I got the Xbox at the end of its lifetime for free with my mobile and it brought a few highpoints. We are now getting close to the time where everything changed. I was happy with my Xbox, the controller was a little bulky, but I have large hands, so it was a blessing in disguise. I played several of the games and Time Splitters 3 was an awesome trip, so good that I got it completed to 98% in hard mode. Then Microsoft upped the game, the Xbox360 came and I truly loved it, it was close to perfect in many ways, the 20GB drive was a little small, but you could upgrade it to a 120GB and within a year I did. Gaming life was close to perfect. I mentioned Time Splitters and it matters, there was the clear claim of backward compatibility and I fell for it, yet soon thereafter I learned the hard way that it was not and I never got Time Splitters 3 to 100%, the first annoyance was created. In all honesty, it is close to one defect in its life cycle. I too received the red rings of death and Microsoft replaced it, as such I was 3 weeks without my 360, but that was not an issue, the replacement was faster, the resolution was clearly better and gaming was at an all time high. Microsoft was a clear player in all this. The next step was the PSX3, Sony had always been great but I was not drawn to the third version, I was actually still enjoying the PSX2 (as well as the GameCube). So it was a nice relief when I bought a new TV and the PSX3 was part of this as a bonus, to be honest, I was not drawn to the PSX3, I did love the games I played on it, but overall, until Metal Gear Solid IV, games of the patriot arrived, I was not madly gaming it. As such, when it did the shift was starting to happen. 

Before that time the Xbox360 had 70% of my time, the GameCube 20% and 10% was for the PSX3. MGSIV was the first game to attack that pattern. Sony would give us more games on that system that impacted the consoles.As Sony got more adapt in exclusive games, the PSX3 would consume time: God of War 3, Infamous(1 and 2), Ratchet and Clank, Beyond two Souls, Gran Turismo and the end there was the Last of Us, Sony was reacquiring the timeline. Even as I had Oblivion and Mass Effect 3 on my Xbox, the timeline had shifted to 40% X360, 40% PSX3 and 20% Gamecube. Sony was back through great games, just like it did before and Xbox was not to blame. In all this I did not mention PC Gaming and that was on purpose, from 1989 onwards my PC was for gaming and I had more often than not the best of the best. A soundblaster card? I had it and when the first games came needing the better processor I had that system. Unreal Tournament, Black an White, System Shock(1 and 2), Wing Commander (1,2,3), Red Alert, Populous, Ultima, the list goes on, it was when Thief came that I ‘woke up’, I had a really good Diamond card yet Thief forced me to upgrade to the Diamond Viper 2 (no regrets) and the realisation set in (around 2003). Gaming is about the graphics card, sound, storage and the processor and at that point a graphics card was $600, the soundcard $500, and storage came as is. As such a console was a lot cheaper and my need for gaming was fulfilled. Only two years later a high end graphics card was $999 and as such console gaming was becoming increasingly cheap.

This all matters, when we are confronted with the pricing of the Xbox One X and the PS5, we forget that what came before was a lot more expensie and offers less, it was also the time that we started to realise that we need increasingly more space, the Xbox360 and the PSX3 already taught us that, as such the faults in the Xbox were more than merely stupid. Sony solved it by letting people selecting a larger drive and replacing the old drive, Microsoft had not caught on and would not catch on for the entire life cycle of the Xbox One, it is only now that they are seeing the light and their other flaws (always online) are showing that they are no longer to be the trustworthy system and trust is everything here. 

So when I see this tyrade of options and systems and whether I (and many other gamers) are willing to pay only $500 or are willing to pay $550, I wonder if these people realise that they are continuing a consumer base that goes into pillions and they have spent a massive amount of money. Microsoft is also making the mistake to hunt towards the most powerful systems whilst good games is where it is at, so where are the great games?  This is where Ubisoft comes into the mix, exclusive or not they went from great game maker to mediocre game maker and you merely have to look at the exclusive sony titles to realise that. Whilst the creation of titles gave them 90+% games, we now see that 80%+ is the best they can muster and for the most pushed deadlines and marketing promises that cannot be kept are the cause. The lack of proper testing is another matter where they failed and it impacts the choices of consoles we have, because whether we want to accept it or now, Ubisoft is a big deal in console gaming and as they fail, the exclusives are where it is at and there Sony wins, it is a landslide win. To get the greatest games we need Microsoft and Ubisoft to get back to the top or we need someone to replace them, it is that simple.

Players like Bethesda, Capcom and others help, yet the more the merrier (in the high end gaming cycle) and we are all starved for good games and the consoles are a driving force.

Let’s hope that this gaming force is driven to the max at the highest peaks for years to come by as many players as possible, for in that setting the gamer truly wins, no matter who tops the bill.

 

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April 13, 2020 · 02:02

Shaping visions

I have been considering and reconsidering the events that unfold and the view I have on them. It is a first need, the ability to monitor the self in us. Without it a lot of claimed speculations revert to mere ranting. If we cannot set the critical eye on ourselves, the ability to disseminate data, to extrapolate optional wisdom from events goes wrong in all the places, as such I feel it was important to reconsider what I am, and where my mind is.

When we see ourselves as a greater part of us, we see and we speculate on the visionary that we could be, but that does not happen without the critical eye that we cast towards  ourselves. 

Visionary

The visionary has these elements in play, even as that person is contemplating idea after idea,there is an invisible machine that is directing focus towards goal again and again until the job is done. One of the most famous of these visionaries were Bill Gates and SteveJobs (last century) and they were followed by the Google Smurfs (Papa Smurf and Clever Smurf), there were more visionaries, in several fields but not in fields I work in, so it is hard to recognise these people, you might know of 1-2 visionaries in your own field, the real visionaries and those who market what they come up with as visionaries are not the same.

No matter how clever these visionaries are, they need dedication and focus. 

Dedication

Dedication is the hardest and easiest of the two elements. Dedication tends to be fueled by passion and interest, nearly everyone has it and they all have their own interests, this is the easiest way to fuel dedication, look at anyone that was passionate about an interest that they have (not talking about the horizontal lambada), take sports, hobbies, gaming, or photography, whichever your interest has, that interest is mastered much faster than anything else. Not merely through reading or learning, but beyond that you start to grasp a much larger part of it and we have seen this in the last few weeks as people paused from the run of life to the contemplation of actuality. It is the part I was confronted with 3 days ago when my mind designed a new TV series, only to end up with a larger part towards my novel, there was no interest to do that, but that is what happened. 

Focus

Focus is only one part, it is the most pronounced part but there it is. Focus is sometimes replaced by enthusiasm, yet without discipline whatever effort you make goes back to zero, into the void of largely wasted time. Most people (myself included) rely on logic, yet it relies on us to remain rational, we need to toss emotion over the railing, because if we do not do that, we are royally screwed and that is the hidden trap. Dedication fuels emotion towards the goal, and when we rely on logic, emotion is a hindrance, not a subjective supporter,if we accept that too late, there is already a larger damage in play and we ignore that damage until it is too late.

In the coming year because of what we faced, the visionaries will decide on what happens next, they will be heralded, especially in corporations that have been marketing iteration as innovation Microsoft anyone?) yet the visionaries will bring true innovation, innovation that gives these people a much larger hold on what happens next. 

As the world is looking towards solutions, the loud screaming marketed voices of corporations are trying to be the one everyone trusts. Yet that would be wrong, in this instance we need another Steve Jobs, he had an interesting role, he was not merely the innovator, he was able to recognise innovation when it was in his neighbourhood, an element that many ignore in him. Yet having a person like that is not enough, there will be a much larger need to silence the false claims, they all want a slice of the pie, yet the deciders are seemingly unable to recognise true innovation,at least that is how I see this happen. 

If we are to evade the dark hole that we are currently digging for ourselves, we need real innovators, we need a real path towards creating a new economie, not pouring money into the hole in the short sighted way that Mario Draghi did twice, we need to focus on actual innovation and as I see it, the funds are drying up faster and faster. It is in that part that there will be new players in town, the silly people on Wall Street made a guarantee for that. And there is also the larger problem, they have a huge grasp of politicians all over the world (who will actively deny it), and there the problem becomes visible, the people who were in charge want to be in charge again and with their needs and the friends they have to feed, anyone else loses out. 

Now we get to the real problem, what is it you want, a solution or a delay? Only true visionaries will aid us, and the entire Corona issue pushed the problem forward for too much, we might want to listen to the people proclaiming that it will be fine, that it will resolve itself, yet wonder how much issues we see with only 110,000 deaths. What will happen when we lose a lot more? We can argue on the numbers, yet consider the issues in France and Germany, almost the same amount of patients, yet one country lost 14,000 people the other one 3,000, yet the media is not asking the questions that need asking and no one is wondering why? We might get angry again and again why Donald Duck (I meant President Trump) is talking about a ‘Chinese Virus’, all whilst it is a case of the flu, and there is no evidence of any kind that it was created by the Chinese, but that is how things go in America, ask Huawei if you doubt it.

As I see it, we need visionaries to get is past these difficult times and into a new economy. I believe that this is the struggle we see during this year and the next. For the rest of the world it becomes an interesting time, the more stupid actions the US governments starts, the less of an option they have to stay ahead of several games. Even as we see fragmentation on 5G because of the Huawei actions that the US starts, we see that Europe is less and less inclined to follow the US example, as such China now has a real chance of becoming the dominant trade partner in the Middle East, not the US. Soon we will see that the US slips into third position there and from there the sliding lag only increases for the US. 

No matter how that plays out, at this time it is almost the only step they have left, they placed the real innovators out of bounds and even as Google is trying to stay ahead in that game, there is every indication that they might consider moving their patent floor at some point, to gain the benefits they have now, the US might soon lose its appeal for that. I have no idea where they would go, but I see that there is an overwhelming need for my IP to move towards China, not because I like it, but because it is safer for me. When we get to that point, it does not matter whether you are an innovator or an iterator, you need to be where your value is and there is a larger initiative playing. 

The annual IP report that congress got in February 2019 was indicative in this, I will let you decide on this yourself (it is the Feb 2019 report and I will add it as soon as WordPress fixes their system. No matter how we slice it, the direct future requires innovators and a lot of them running wherever they are valued. I can only speculate on how it pays out and I wonder who else sees it that way. It might just be me and it might be illusional or delusional, but I wonder how you see it when you take a step back from all the media articles and take a rational view of what we are given and why we are given it in this way, it will be a first step in recognising what actually needs to be done.

 

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