Category Archives: Finance

November 15, 2019 · 11:55

There is more beneath the sand

The Australian Financial Review has an interesting article that they released a little over 12 hours ago (at https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/is-saudi-arabia-s-royal-family-ready-for-a-market-economy-20191112-p539sv), the title ‘Is Saudi Arabia’s royal family ready for a market economy?‘ is an interesting view on the issues that are coming around over the next decade. Stephen Cook gives us part of the goods, yet I wonder if he is cautiously holding back (an acceptable stance for any journalist) or is there more?

That is not an attack on the article; it is well written and shows a writer with a good grasp of grammar 😉 He also makes a few very nice observations. The issues that come from that are not always visible, but we should argue before we get there that any cautious journalist does not need to go there; a blogger like me on the other hand is (at times) all about the informed speculation. So when we see: “to pull off Vision 2030, Mohammed bin Salman needs some of the international goodwill he enjoyed until mid-2017“, that partially true, most of it can however be built with money and Saudi Arabia has plenty of that. At which point Mr Cook takes that frying pan and hits us with “There’s just one problem: the Aramco IPO is far riskier than the Saudis are letting on“. He gives it in the form of “The Saudis are offering stock in 2-5 per cent of the company. One of the sticking points has been valuation“, he is true, and we see that in the article that there is a margin of valuation (depending on the offerer) that is almost 50%, And that is not the only part, there is a view that Saudi Aramco will value at almost twice the price of Apple, that is a lot and there will be an actual benefit that Mr Cook does not offer. He does give us that the Saudi offering could end up netting between 24 billion and 115 billion. No matter how this turns, there will be plenty of Saudis all wanting a share or two, a population supporting its own national product, so there is interest, the benefit we do not see here is the corporatocracy that the EU has become, with value in the fire of shares, whatever Iran will think of next will bounce back, any attacks is no longer a mere Saudi Problem, Saudi Arabia has done something interesting. By offering 2.5% of a company its visibility will become global and that is the first nail in a coffin named Iran. And that is not the only one; there is another benefit to see when we take a harder look at Vision 2030.

You see Vision 2030 will be a clean systems sweep of 5G (and 4G lte) systems, the old 3G and other systems will be absent, the Saudi’s will get a much better view of what is needed in the 5G atmosphere without having old equipment holding it back, you might laugh, but do you have any idea on the amount of equipment out there switched on because there is some ‘twittle’ hardware connection, or the owners merely does not know that some equipment does not need to be turned on? It amounts to almost 7% of the electricity bill and the amount of technology and hardware involved shows a massive amount of additional loopholes requiring fixing. You might not think this is essential, yet when we realise that there is an amount that is between calculated and measured that is not addressed, we see a much larger issue, in at least two cases I have seen the ‘connections’ merely being ‘improperly’ addressed, I wonder what else was not done. Vision 2030 will allow us to look at hardware connected and we will see a whole range of equipment never connected. There will be an amount of niche markets that will evolve because of it and as we see that evolve, whoever is working in Neom City, will get an interesting benefit to this change.

Getting back to the IPO, there is every concern that the quote “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has every reason to keep the Saudis on the defensive and mess with Aramco’s IPO” has value, yet the first one who is part of the IPO will have the benefit of calling out Iran’s actions and now there will be nations with skin in the game, Iran is basically done for and it needs the nuclear benefit of playing the bully, yet it is running out of time no matter how blind the EU tends to be. When any Wall Street corporation has skin in the IPO, they will report it to any channel willing to expose Iran and that is what Iran really does not like, you see playing the bully only works when no one is looking at you and that option is about to end. They will now enter a stage where the writer claims ‘make investors nervous‘, yet when they go a little overboard and ‘make investors angry‘ their benefit is gone and that is why they need the nuclear pact to be in their favour. A bully merely knows no other way to look at matters, but now we see a much larger field and Iran is about to get exposed a lot more.

So now we get back to Neom City, the writer gives us “The plans (and promotional video) were impressive, but the effort failed miserably“, yet he gives no reason, I will, The amount of media willing to give Neom City the light of day could be counted with two hands, with the hundreds of accepted media in the Aether, they all shied away from Neom City and it was not Jamal Khashoggi. It was in part America and in part Europe that was scared. A city that is stated to be 22 times the size of New York is a building marvel, it would be no less than another world wonder and the powers that be have no intention of letting Saudi Arabia walk away with a world wonder, not in this age. Even as the bridge to Africa might never become a world wonder, the bridge itself will be a global accomplishment and it will give larger gains to Saudi Arabia. In addition it takes another premise, the city of Sharm-El-Sheikh (Sinai) would gain in several ways, whilst the bridge would open Saudi Arabia to Egypt in larger ways. It would also open up technology paths to Saudi Arabia. In addition we see: “Mohammed bin Salman has calculated that he has a greater chance of eliciting the loyalty of his subjects – and thus shoring up his power – by giving them movies, concerts, and WWE wrestling events; reining in the religious police; and granting women the right to drive“, yet it is missing a part, with the building needs growing for close to two decades, we will see a new class of people, A class to Egyptian Muslims working in Saudi Arabia growing the population and growing a larger stage of a new population drive, those needing a better life, we have seen this in America and Europe and it will drive a new need in these people finding a niche where they can settle their family in growth, that part will be new to Saudi Arabia and it will create new wealth group and a larger drive towards Saudi Arabia. I reckon that Saudi Arabia could grow to well over 20% this was and the size of Neom city would allow for a much larger growth giving new options to Saudi’s and those wanting to be Saudi.

As I see it Saudi Arabia could over time grow that IPO to be up to 9%, so basically it will get access to 3 times that maximum of 115 billion, with an offering that over time will be close to $400 billion, we see that Neom city has been paid for, at that point with the IPO in place, and Neom city ready to grow Iran will be shown to be the bully of the Middle East, and bullies can be dealt with in swift ways by any global population that is clearly aware, which now leaves us Hamas and Hezbollah, we actually need not look in those directions, Israel is looking there already, we merely have to wait what will happen next, with these two elements clearly in lace it will not take long for technology firms to seek their nesting grounds in Neom city, Huawei is actively looking, Google has set its premise, as have Apple, Microsoft and IBM (who added 197 jobs in the last month alone), so the need is being addressed, now it merely takes time for the entire stew to settle, once all the elements have been added, we only have to wait (which will be the hardest part), yet there is little to no doubt in my mind that when we see the elements of Neom City, we will see a much larger shift in the west, it will not only be to stay on par with Saudi Arabia, it will be to get all the residual hardware and all the non-effective hardware to be removed from hundreds of places, I reckon that the US will face a new technology need at that point.

You see, in the end, there is less to a decade to a ‘futuristic city’ and a technologically ‘apt city’, Saudi Arabia is about to show the world that part and all the other nations will need to show that they can keep up and with their debts sized the way they are that will be the hardest issues for them and the US knows it has a large problem keeping up, as does the EU, they never thought that they would require to meet wits with Saudi Arabia, they never thought it was ever going to happen, as such they were not ready. Iran is banking on it, in the end I wonder which of the two elements will be the strongest, I’ll let you figure out what I mean.

i believe that by 2035 the global technological will be redrawn, it will be a map that the EU and the US will not be happy about. The Wall Street Journal gave a nice presentation 4 days ago with ‘U.S. Government Is Tripping Over Itself in Race to Dominate 5G Technology‘ and ever as we see sources stating: “U.S. officials say the country is in position to reap those benefits”, we merely need to see SDXCentral giving us: “AT&T is tempering expectations for its forthcoming 5G network riding on sub-6 GHz spectrum. While AT&T says it was the first wireless operator to demonstrate 1 Gb/s and later 2 Gb/s speeds on a commercial 5G network running on millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, it’s not making any grand projections for a speed improvement on its forthcoming 5G network running on the lower spectrum bands” (at https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/att-down-on-low-band-5g-speed/2019/11/) to see that they are all running for the advertised word and there is a large hiatus between the ‘advertised word‘ and ‘achieved technology‘, that difference was seen at the end of October as Reuters gave us: ‘Trump says U.S. will cooperate with ‘like-minded’ nations on 5G networks‘, everybody on the US sided mind is trying to fix the backlog that they have against Huawei and some of them have a huge backlog, when we see “Trump has held numerous calls with foreign leaders, including British Prime Minister Johnson in August, to urge them not to let Huawei use 5G networks“, yet at by the time have we seen ANY EVIDENCE that there is a national interest failure on Huawei hardware? America hopes that it has taken the hardware drive and fixed its own economy (and the mere fact that we will not ask questions), yet Saudi Arabia already has ties to Huawei giving Saudi Arabia the option to pull ahead and make the monthly gap larger on a daily basis. The difference is that intense. There is more and more evidence to see that the EU is not going the way of the US and that will give them an advantage on the hardware range, yet they still have all the other old hardware to deal with. They could face two issues, let’s not forget that Riyadh faces that too, but if Neom City shows the benefit to a newly constructed fast internet city, what we saw in the UK 5G image, that path will be faster seen in Neom city, merely because the change is pushed from the beginning and not after the fact (as most technologies are).

The ‘what 5G is about‘ shows what 5G could do and in many nations we see part of this appear over time, yet in case of Neom city, with a 5G focus it will come all at once, it will give Arabian software Engineers a larger playing field and a playing field on rolling out some of those solutions anywhere else in the world. It is a path that we seemingly forgot about and we have seen this path a few times from Japan and the US, just the idea that Saudi Arabia will be able to focus on it was never in the sight of any of them and it is scaring them, Neom City has become that scary to both the US and the EU (well and Japan too). They have all been in the mind for well over 5 years that they see it first in Japan and later on it will be rolled out to the rest of the world. Now that setting changes those in charge are afraid, they have no ties to Saudi Arabia and no ways to make them.

Fear will be the key that the US and the EU will employ to set issues straight, and stopping Neom City to a much larger extent will be their focus, which gets us back to the quote we saw: “the effort failed miserably“, There was as I see it a much larger need to keep it out of the media, the people just never got to see all the elements that were clearly visible in 2018 when initial view of Neom City was given. I saw the first parts in May 2nd 2018 when I gave “the attached Burton presentation ‘Opportunities in Saudi Arabia – Vision 2030 and Beyond‘ spends two slides on it and the most important part shown is “Vision 2030 calls for 50 percent of military equipment purchases from domestic suppliers instead of imports“” a presentation by Edward Burton, President and CEO, U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council from June 2017. (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/05/02/are-there-versions-of-truth/) in the article ‘Are there versions of truth‘ I had not realised all the elements at that point (why should I?) yet I saw that Vision 2030 would be a bigger issue yet the larger impact would be visible beyond “90 executives from both countries to sign new trade and investment agreements worth $350 billion” the fact that in these 90 we would see “Lockheed Martin ● Honeywell ● JPMorgan Chase ● The Dow Chemical Company ● ExxonMobil ● Jacobs Engineering ● Baker Hughes ● McDermott International” was clear, the fact that Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Steven J. Demetriou) was involved was a clear indicator of that. I believed that whatever think-tank Edward Burton responded to was seeing ‘roadmap for economic development‘ and ‘Identifies general directions, policies‘ and optionally ‘CEDA established new operating models‘ and realised that this went way past the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (Saudi Arabia) there was an actual global impact. This setting has merely taken an accelerated view, especially in regards to Huawei, there is a much larger setting and we will soon see that the impact is global.

Darn! I was not the first to notice!

Even as we realise that the Council of Economic and Development Affairs was created in 2015, there is a larger stance where Saudi Arabia has found the flex point where they will become a global player, that is why Iran is scared, that is why other parties are about to play diminished roles and they are all afraid, their status quo is about to be removed.

 

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November 13, 2019 · 12:26

Uber driving facts

It seems that people do not like Dara Khosrowshahi that much, it all started with Jamal Khashoggi and now ever the Guardian staff member Edward Helmore adds to this with: “Khashoggi, a Saudi national resident in the US, and a severe critic of the Saudi regime who wrote for the Washington Post, was murdered in Istanbul last year after visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate there. His body was dismembered and disposed of“, it is the part ‘His body was dismembered and disposed of‘, that part cannot be proven and in light of that we also have ‘was murdered in Istanbul last year after visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate there‘, at best we can use these sentenced with the added word of ‘alleged‘. That is the foundation, anything else is a joke, we have laws and we seemingly (at least the media) uses the law to hopefully get better interviews by incorporating slander (as I personally see it), by using the name of Aggy Calamari, UN essay writer the writer thinks he can just marginally add the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia into this mix by stating: “His death has been described by Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, as a “deliberate, premeditated execution” that warrants further investigation into the responsibility of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman“, you see, there is no evidence of killings. I am not digressing; I believe that a bad fate has befallen Jamal Khashoggi, although one can argue that he is 97% more known after than before is long term absentee. When we in what is (laughingly) called the free west, can we claim that part when we just apply laws on a mediocre level? By the way, the article is (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/11/uber-jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-mistake-dara-khosrowshahi)

And the part where Aggy makes a jump from Istanbul to a Saudi Crown prince with “warrants further investigation into the responsibility of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman“, even as the article did not reminiscent on it, the truth is that the report is using: “The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, the Washington Post has reported. The Post said US officials expressed high confidence in the CIA assessment, which contradicts Saudi government assertions that he was not involved.” something a collection of papers have been using since that report was given freedom to fly anywhere. You see, I have an issue with “US officials expressed high confidence in the CIA assessment“, now we can bid high and low with the CIA, but they are the people who instigated the silver briefcase tour with Colin Powell, at least they had graphics in that assessment, can anyone tell me where those Iraqi WMD’s were? And why was it by some laughingly referred to as Operation Whatever? So before we give any level of certainty to the CIA, we better be sure that the right people are looking at that data.

All issues that Aggy Calamari should have been aware of, yet her report was laden with CIA elements.

And now we get to the attack on Dara Khosrowshahi “In an interview with Axios on HBO, broadcast on Sunday, Khosrowshahi was asked about the Uber board member Yasir al-Rumayyan, a director of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is the company’s fifth-biggest investor“, which is followed by another assumption “He was seized, killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad“, we cannot prove any of that, and why is that? There is no body, all matters are subject to supposition, the Guardian refused to follow supposition when it came to Grenfell, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO), you know that building where ‘Grenfell Tower blogger threatened with legal action by council after writing about safety concerns‘, coming from a warning letter from solicitor, Vimal Sama, dated 25 July 2013 and addressed to Francis O’Connor, accusing him of “defamatory behaviour” and “harassment.”, I reckon that the entire matter is off hand as the building looks a nice charcoal black, you know that building in North Kensington, yet when it comes to one journalist, and one the bulk of the planet does not give a hoot about, we see supposition on top of supposition.

One could even argue that HBO, after the finale of Game of Thrones, HBO needed a new channel for emotions, and Axios seemingly provided. My point of position I clear, I do not know who did what, because Jamal Khashoggi was never found, we can assume that he was killed, at present he is merely missing (murdered requires additional evidence) but we cannot prove any of it. In case of Axios, there is a simpler situation, the setting was loaded before the interview and Dara Khosrowshahi has handed a curveball that he tried to ‘laugh off’ or diminish. It was his interview on HIS Company, on this there was mention of one of his board members, a Saudi individual named Yasir al-Rumayyan, director for the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The entire article that was on the interview of Dara Khosrowshahi was washed into another article (trying to) slap the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia around, I think that the articles writer Edward Helmore made a few mistakes, getting into Journalism might be one of them. So whilst we reminisced on ‘American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed‘ my request becomes simple ‘Can we please see that evidence?‘, because not unlike the entire WMD issue that was apparently happening in Iraq, I will be able to punch holes into this issue as well.

Oh, and I was not talking about that flimsy piece we saw in Aggy’s essay, I want to see all the raw data available, perhaps I will be turned around, more likely than not, we see the need for turning heads away from other matters, we have seen it before, but I am willing to investigate the evidence (curiosity killed this cat, miaow).

The fact that makes this entire matter so interesting is that this one cat Jamal Khashoggi gets all the capture and the 231 journalists have been arrested after July 15, 2016 in Turkey get ZERO words from pretty much ANY newspaper around the world. Whilst Mehmet Akif Öztürk was jailed for 8 years and nine months in February this year, his colleague Turgut Usul (presenter) has been jailed since January 2018 pending trial. Oh and perhaps someone can find out what crimes Nazlı Ilıcak did, he was sentenced to life in prison with solitary confinement. I wonder how many journalists are out there what crime a publisher/journalist has to undertake to find himself in a lifetime of solitary confinement. Perhaps Axios could look into that, they seemingly need an emotional side in there broadcasts now that HBO has ended its game of thrones.

I wonder how long it takes form the people to wake up shouting some stupid slogan involving Jamal Khashoggi whilst there are issues out there that are a lot worse and in light of the diminished value of journalists, the entire mass is getting crazy shouting: ‘A pigeon is pooping on the street‘ whilst one corner from that place someone is shooting pigeons left, right and centre. I wonder if the who is shouting the claim so that no one is watching the one shooting all the pigeon’s one street further.

I wonder if Jamal Khashoggi realises that his value allegedly dead is seemingly 1000 times higher than when he was still writing some column in the Washington Post.

 

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November 11, 2019 · 12:57

The deal

There is a deal out there, at least in the UK. There are all kind of deals out there, the consideration is all in the eye of the beholder, yet what is the deal?

The independent has a few views, the first one is ‘Labour and the Tories are both desperate for a taxpayer-funded spending spree – I don’t trust either of them‘ (at https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/labour-conservatives-general-election-spending-plans-economy-a9195736.html), yet its by-line has an interesting thought ‘makes me wonder who is actually monitoring the books? Who is in charge of the economy?‘ Yet that is he issue and it has been n issue for close to a decade. Another article is focussing on ‘Which chancellor would you prefer to ruin your life? Sajid Javid or John McDonnell?‘ (at https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sajid-javid-john-mcdonnell-general-election-chancellor-brexit-labour-a9192161.html), yet in the guardian we see: ‘Labour derides £1.2tn Tory costing claims as ‘work of fiction’‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/10/labour-derides-12tn-tory-costing-claims-as-work-of-fiction-corbyn) there is a larger issue at play, there is no doubt that both sides have parts that make sense, yet both are as the Guardian states ‘Both parties have promised significant increases in public investment, funded by government borrowing‘, this is however not a great time.

The dangers that are out there is the fact that Austerity is a path that is slow and cannot be fast, there is still a decade of austerity at the very minimum and this spending spree will add half a decade. The Guardian also gives us “The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said the Conservatives’ investment plans would amount to an extra £20bn a year, and Labour’s to £55bn a year” whilst tempering this with “Javid declined to say whether the Conservatives would implement promises made by Boris Johnson during his campaign to become leader, which included an increase in the threshold for higher-rate tax to £80,000 a year“, the problem with that part can be seen through the numbers giving by the government (at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2017), and that is merely two years ago, so when we look at the chart, how much of that collected money will give any kind of relief towards austerity?

The problem is that the people are sick and tired of austerity, but that was going to be the controlling majority to deal with debt, we can call it ‘austerity’ or we can call it ‘debt control’ the UK cannot continue the spending it had done for the longest case, not if they do not want to be vassals of banks, and the problem is that the largest collection of banks are those out of the UK, the only way is to fall below that spending spree and that is not a popular solution to listen to. Yet the numbers are clear and I get to laugh out loud for almost a year as Labour made these promises whilst the budget just didn’t allow for it, and the funnier part was that the proper taxation was key, not merely the richer people all people and more important corporations, yet Labour did not really give any of us the view that corporations were to properly taxed, were they? And the one chart I gave you shows that taxing the right will not give us anywhere near the funds required, so why is Labour connecting to its members with fairy tales and a conundrum of stories that could be minimised to a level that gives them the reality of a magical roundabout (the one with Eric Thompson doing the narration). The situation is that bad and we are just not catching on, why is that?

In that case the Libdems get closest to it by “The Liberal Democrats’ central spending pledge is a radical increase in childcare, which they said would be free for all working parents from when their child turns nine months old, at a cost of almost £15bn a year. They said they would fund it by reversing corporation tax cuts and increasing capital gains tax“, I wonder how much you can tax capital gains tax, and I have questions on how you will ‘reversing corporation tax cuts‘ but they do have the right idea in part, as I see it ‘reversing corporation tax cuts‘ is the better stage, and what do you think will happen? Apple will suddenly decide to reduce new locations from 15 to 10 (no great loss there) and others will follow suit, when the going is less profitable they will all vacate towards ‘bonus share’ percentages and all of it out of the UK, I personally believe that it is time to stop giving into the need of corporations, but that is just me. And the most important part remains, you cannot do any of the spending until taxation is clearly established, All parties need to learn that inescapable truth, because it is already too late for alternatives, the UK, the US, Japan and the EU have been playing the spend card for too long and whilst collections have been delayed and outstanding the world has no reserves left, this generation is the first one handing out money that was means for the grandchildren, and we all let them do it. And whilst we read ‘Javid has adopted a considerably more relaxed approach to balancing the books‘ with empty persuasion we forget that they already ended up spending the money that was meant for our children and now they are busy spending the funds meant for the grandchildren and I wonder what excuse they will use to let that continue?

There is a larger inequality and that inequality is not addressed, why is that?

And when it comes to excuses “The Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng also sought to defend the Conservatives’ calculations on Sunday, but refused to give an equivalent for his own party’s spending plans. “I’m not going to bandy around figures,”” The question is what is worse, not being into the act of bandy, or giving us fairy tale figures? I honestly cannot decide, omission or denial, both seem to be keeping the voters away from having a judged informed decision and as far as I can tell, none have any idea of where they will get the money from to fund whatever they need to get elected. At present the UK has a debt that amounts to 86% of GDP, whilst Germany has one that is a mere 62% of GDP, now there is an additional side, Germany has a much larger GDP as they are supplying for the need of many, the UK does not have that option, As such it amounts to £2.265 trillion and that amount grows well over £5,000 per second, as such the debt might seem a mere £62,500 per taxpayer, but when we look at a debt of £36,400 per citizen do you think I was kidding when we are currently spending the money that was meant for the grandchildren? With a debt of £2.265 trillion, the interest cannot be below £225 billion a year, so when you look at the total collected taxation, did you think that the previous chart gets anywhere near that amount? Oh and for Germany (in comparison) €1,990 trillion Euro, yet their debt is diminishing, it has been that case from 2010 onward when it was at €2.035 trillion Euro. Germany is ahead of the UK there, and for now it might be €48,000 per taxpayer and €24,000 per person they are merely seemingly in a worse place, yet their total debt is still going down every second, the UK debt is still increasing and until that comes around the UK has no cause for cheering or for some debatable spending spree.

The rich cannot fill that gap, anyone who says differently is lying to you, it is time to fill the gaps, reversion tax gaps is one part and making corporations accountable for whatever scheme they have next is another part, it is time to let corporations pay for their mistakes, as we need to hold the ruling parties accountable, the clear path seen is the fact that whatever is available for your grandchildren is diminishing and your vote is a clear path in stopping that. So make sure you follow the right party, I’ll let you figure out who that is.

Oh and one small consideration, when the entire EU, the UK, the US and Japan, Russia and China all have debts in the trillions, where do you believe the wealth of the world is?

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November 9, 2019 · 10:54

Finally!

Yup, there is a new fashion in town and it will force the companies to fix the one element in IT that most corporations have ignored fixing for the longest of times. The issue that needed fixing for the longest time was non-repudiation, the issue has been clearly around for almost 10 years, 15 if you want to set a time table, but today on LinkedIn ‘Netflix and don’t share‘ shows that the industry will start doing something about it. The problem is what drives the masses to think that a paid service could ever be free. And even as we see: “Market leader Netflix has already declared it is examining how to curtail password sharing among family and friends. But streamers are treading carefully in teaming up “against the grifters,” aware of the backlash record labels previously generated in the Napster era” we need to be aware of the setting that it is a Netflix world and if you don’t pay, that is fair enough, but it also means that you can’t have Netflix. This issue is not limited to Netflix, it has a setting in video games, a setting in programs and in the past it had a setting in music. The problem is how to go about it. For places like Netflix, there is the non-repudiation solution, so in your network there are a few devices that could be set to receive, in the home environment the router tends to be the most culpable solution, yet in equal measure the home devices are also solutions that give rise to the patch of hardware that will allow one person to be connected, as such, Netflix was nice enough to allow 4 devices to be linked. Yet what to use as a system of non-repudation?

Well, email is certainly one way of doing it, but that only helps to some extent, the nice part about e-mails are that it allows Netflix (and like-minded people) to communicate with the owner on hardware, so as long as the email address is not hacked, this is decently safe.

Non-Repudiation

The term Non-Repudiation is not new, It refers to the ability to ensure that a party to a contract or a communication cannot deny the authenticity of their signature on a document or the sending of a message that they originated. So you and only you could have instigated the connection, bio-metrics are only one part of it, so is a password, non-repudiation is more, an autograph have the elements to complete non-repudiation, but in automated traffic, a copy of a autograph is becoming exceedingly simple, so we need to set the state where two tiered enabling is the way to go. Even if the origin of the two tiers was done in separate ways, combining them in any stream would be a decent level of assurance to convict a jury of peers (and Netflix) that only you could have instigated the stream. And Netflix is not the only one seeking for a solution. Bank solutions, use a pin and a bank pass, it is close but in in the end it is not real non-repudiation. Netflix needs to find a solution and whatever they find will push authentication technology.

And the system needs to be simple, not just for customers sake, the setting of complexity in these matters was best described by Scotty the Chief Engineer in Star Trek 3 whilst sabotaging the Excelsior: “The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain“, it does apply to authentication and non-repudiation systems, especially when distance is an issue. So whatever we have at point X requesting for an authentication that tends to be the soft spot in the track.

It has to be simple, it needs to always work and it needs to set 2-3 alternatives at the spot. The problem with such a system is that it is not really non-repudiation at that point.

For example

A programmable dongle can be hacked; the hacked account can be copied. And these dongles will come from somewhere, so criminals will end up having access to the stuff they need.

As such the best you can hope for is a system that will take out 80% from accessing such a solution, add proper cyber solutions in the form of law and you have a solution that a company can live with, as it deals with 10% of the outstanding 20%. It is not pretty at times, but at least it works. So these solutions could stop 90% from using stated systems in a non-paying capacity.

We can go in all directions from there, but the world needs a solution where non-repudiation will stop 96% dead in its track, and only up to 1% would be able to find a workaround. Making the non-repudiation system a 98.9999% working solution. I reckon that this is as good a solution as we are going to get and the solution is needed faster as 5G will require correct non-repudiation solutions to be up and running. With 5G out and about, the criminals get a 500% chance to get to more systems to infect more and more devices as such the need for Common Cyber Sense is becoming a pressing matter and from there we can move onto non-repudiation. Consider that the current situation allowed cyber criminals to lay their fingers on $120 billion dollars and with 5G out and about criminals will have access to well over half a trillion dollars, one could argue that it is a great day to be a cyber-criminal, or we can do something about it, because the one thing I do know is that the banks will only take hits for as long as they cannot make a case for ‘negligent care, the person did not take care of the item like a father would take care of its child‘, that is not some rant, the art world is already working with terms like that. How long will it be until banks and payment systems will take the same steps? At that point, the hardship will fall on the owner of the hit bank account, not the bank, unless a clear established path of evidence is presented that the bank itself was the intended target.

Oh, and when banks are no longer held accountable how much attention do you think that the FBI has for little you? Common Cyber Sense will be the immediate requirement.

Non-repudiation will be the big next thing soon enough and whoever gets a system like that up and running will make an absolute fortune, it would change my 5G IP systems into small change, nothing more. It is the next thing and we are in dire need for such an inventor soon enough, not just Netflix.

 

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November 6, 2019 · 12:16

The bigger the dick

How big a dick does one need to be? That is often part of any conversation that we tend to have in the common rooms, as well as all kinds of places where conversations are made (like water coolers), yet this week the biggest dick award will be won by Jacob Rees-Mogg with a landslide victory on his Grenfell remarks.

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/05/too-late-rees-mogg-faces-furious-backlash-over-grenfell-apology-stormzy) gives us part of the responses, but it does not give us the reality of the entire Grenfell mess, the entire mess that he created with the statement “I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do” leaves us with a bad taste, it gives the indication that the Fire brigade did not know what it was doing. I have given several reports on the views given in my stories, an important one is seen in ‘Under cover questions‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/06/23/under-cover-questions/), the state that we are in when we see the Reynobond PE leaflet should have placed initial questions, then we get the information that the Fire brigades give us, all that information clearly show us that the settings surrounding all this was about misinforming the fire brigades, as such the entire response by Jacob Rees-Mogg is out of place and out of bounds.

I wonder if Jacob Rees-Mogg will act out his persona by stating that common sense will require those involved in Grenfell in the KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation) should by common sense never ever be allowed in any tenant management organisation in the Commonwealth? The secure finding he has on ‘common sense’ should require him to do so. In the article I wrote called ‘Blame and culpability are not the same‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/09/28/blame-and-culpability-are-not-the-same/), there in that article I wrote “The revelations by John Sweeney (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrzcjUhf61w) give us even more (not at present, but at the initial point), it gives us that the first fire engine arrived in 4 minutes. The BBC gives a much better light and the one part that I stated in the beginning and still believe that is true, is that the Firefighters should have been made untouchable by the media until the inquiry is done. Even as we see the critical answers that BBC Newsnight received by Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union is an internal one and he is stating that certain things needed to be looked at” What I want to know is the remark by BBC at 00:39 of the video file where we hear ‘Firefighters have been banned from speaking to the media‘ Were any of them properly interviewed at the commission hearing? The BBC Newsnight piece is still a decent source of information, What everyone is overlooking is the fact that the fire went from inside to the outside, more importantly, the important part is seen and heard, the air in the building had become toxic, how would any kitchen appliance drawn for that part of the fire? This was known and to a larger extent questioned and Jacob Rees-Mogg should have known all this, it is out in the open, the fact that the LFB (London Fire Brigade) used the ‘Stay Put‘ command was based on intelligence that was false, that intelligence will be under scrutiny on several places, not merely the LFB, the video’s that we are shown show a very different part, this is not against the LFB, this is against the stupid outburst of Jacob Rees-Mogg who seemingly is all about not listening to the LFB.

The entire setting changes momentum when you see the Grenfell building after the fire, the cladding was painting the colour of charcoal all over the building, from the 5th floor upwards, if there is one issue that Jacob Rees-Mogg was able to leave behind with the millions of people living in London is distrust. Another source was given to the people in the shape of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUtjSspO_BU, that part shows a larger failing by several sources. That one minute footage is important, in the first we see the damage that a later firefighter brings and the utter disbelieve that we hear from those fireman. We do not know exactly when it was filmed, or what team is filming it, we merely see that there is a nightmare fire happening, all these clear pieces of evidence shows the utter stupidity of the statement by Jacob Rees-Mogg. In all this, my personal view was never heard. I mention it more than once. The tenant management organisation the covers Grenfell was part of the decision to select Reynobond PE, the leaflet, the information given out by THEM, makes the entire choice of Reynobond PE an unbelievable act, the fact that we see the long winded political choices are merely one of the unacceptable acts. The statement of Jacob Rees-Mogg should not be ignored, there is a larger issue at foot, it is not merely a scandal, it is the one defining act that makes all this a joke. It was shown in the Guardian (alas link missing) that the cladding was added to make the building more appeasing to those living around it, how did that work out? In addition the choice of Cladding that brought several questions to mind the moment I saw the leaflet (and I am not in that branch of work), the fact that the ones behind the refurbishment should face questions and scrutiny too. In finality there is the questions that are called to an article by the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/16/grenfell-tower-rebuke-right-rampant-inequality) by Jonathan Freedland, a columnist who added the story in the comment section is calling for other views too. The mention here of “the repeated warnings from residents that were either ignored or, astonishingly, greeted by threats of legal action” it all links to the KCTMO (Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation), the question should become was the refurbishment properly checked and in light of all this, how stupid was the response of Jacob Rees-Mogg, especially in the light of optional consideration that a building was intentionally wrapped in a fire accelerant, can we conclude that Jacob Rees-Mogg was slightly too stupid for any response on the matter?

Even as it has been a little over two years and the Grenfell Tower inquiry is still going on, the fact that the entire inquiry is set to take place over a long time, the continuation will commence somewhere next year. This all looks like a botched up job, with the BBC commenting on “It feels like certain people are being let off the hook, not being asked important questions. Now the first phase is finished. We don’t feel satisfied“, as well as “private companies and public authorities had answered “I don’t recall” a lot during the first phase of the inquiry” Which we get from the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-48189965) called ‘Grenfell Tower fire: Families criticise inquiry ‘amnesia’‘ it seems to me that the government has enough issues to look at, it did not need the stupidity of the response that Jacob Rees-Mogg was giving. I wonder if the question: “who attended the meeting and approved Reynobond PE for Grenfell towers“, I wonder how many members of KCTMO (as well as the builders) will survive what happens after that. From all the issues I like the leaflet quote the best “For retrofit projects less than 40 feet high” (Image to the left) and this was from their own website in June 2017, so can someone ask the question, who approved that cladding? We can suspect that there are all kinds of reasons that a supplier gives us the ‘Less than 40 ft. high‘ yet at that point I starts asking all kinds of questions, questions that have so far been missed out of, why is that? And in light of the height of Grenfell towers and the shortage of the comment by Jacob Rees-Mogg those answers better be good!

Mainly because someone was stupid enough to hang his political career by the light of ‘common sense’ and ignoring the LFB, these two do not go hand in hand, two years later, no end to an inquiry and the people are angry, they are indeed very angry and Jacob Rees-Mogg added fuel to those flames.

 

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November 5, 2019 · 11:20

The tradesman and the deal

Yes, we all have moments where a deal didn’t sound great, but the way it was brought was essential when the deal was there ready to be signed, the deal was accepted, not because of the deal, but the tradesman involved had brought it in such a way that the deal sounded too great to pass up. We have seen several of these events in the past, it is the literal event where the numbers do not add up when the analyst brings the ‘good’ news, but the diplomat was able to swing it to the direct event where all were looking forward to the fringe benefits that this deal brought. That is how I saw the Nuclear Deal, and one day after April 1st, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was ready for signatures on April 2nd 2015. Now that the deal is up in smoke we look towards the people setting up the deal, but they are no longer there, there is merely the JCPOA and the Iranian party has decided to walk away from it, already in a stage where several parts have been transgressed upon, but diplomats state “be not afraid, we are on top of it, the injunction is minor” (in various publications in the last 3 months), meanwhile Iran has announced (or was that a promise or a threat) that they are about the increase tenfold the Uranium enrichment process. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation has made the statement that enrichment is now up to 5kg per day, up from 450g less than 60 days earlier, also , the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/04/irans-production-of-enriched-uranium-rises-tenfold-in-two-months) gives us “It is not clear how the European Union will react to the latest step, but so far the EU has not put the whole nuclear agreement into review, which would be the first move towards its suspension and possible collapse“, the diplomats are not home, they are out and about on a golf course, on a sabbatical and on long term travels where they are not to be reached, no one wants to touch the toxic agreement, no one wants their nae connected to this, it is the deal that is bringing direct danger to the State of Israel and to the safety of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so whilst Anna Ahronheim gives us in the Jerusalem Post ‘EU Parliament Members: Support Israel In Fight Against Hezbollah And Iran‘, we seemingly forget that the term ‘EU parliamentary‘ is transient and above all, the 8-person delegation (four MEPs and four European Parliament policy advisers) are close to a joke, 4 MEP doubled by policy advisors are out and about stating (well sort of) ‘We support you against Iran‘, you see 4 out of 751 MEP’s is not much, did they bring the combined voices of 442 coalition members? I do not think so! You see the EU needs to look important, so they keep their options open with Iran and the problem here is that the moment Iran acts with their enriched Uranium, the EU is less than likely to do anything, Iran has oil and the EU needs it, the chance of Iran acting out against Israel is a lot higher than Iran acting out against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the chances of Israel being a first strike victim just went up tenfold. The same can be said for the article by Yonah Jeremy Bob, also in the Jerusalem Post, there we see ‘Iran-Us-Israel’s 40 Years Of Hostility With No End In Sight – Analysis‘, a definite truth, but here too it is all about hostilities. And the quote “One would think the US’s greatest hostility would be for a country that killed 58,000 of its soldiers and that Israel’s greatest hostility would be for a country that killed more than 2,500 of its soldiers in a single war“, but that is not where its at. And he danger is perfectly voiced in one paragraph: “Ironically, 40 years later, it is Iran that is the lasting threat against Israel as many of the moderate Sunni Arab countries are trying to find ways to live a stable coexistence with Israel, even if there is not yet formal peace with some of them” and that is where the danger lies. The two quotes ‘to find ways to live a stable coexistence with Israel‘, as well as ‘even if there is not yet formal peace‘ these two events are the heart of the matter, Iran is not interested in peace with Israel, Rouhani might be president, but he does not represent the Iranian Clergy or the Iranian military, they both merely allow Rouhani to be where he is and they both want to finish off Israel, and remove the power that KSA has, in that order, as such events are required and Iran is on track with it as Uranium enrichment is now allowed by the EU and the US is nowhere to be seen, merely in a stage where they think that more economic sanctions work, in an age where the half time of security is far below the half time of Uranium, and Iran has its targets set. And ever after the first strike on Israel there is EVERY CHANCE that the EU will not harshly react against Iran, they are knowingly selling Israel down the drain to ensure Middle Eastern Oil agreements with ALL OPEC nations, I wonder when the people will figure out that the EU is nothing more than a sheep’s rug that is not being used, it is merely there to give the large corporations the stick they need to deal with individual European nations, it is the result of becoming a corporatocracy.

The corporatocracy wants to find some level of solution, but then we are shown “Europe has made promises to find ways to circumvent the US sanctions“, it was the latest in folly’s, all doomed to fail, corporatocracy on one side, ego on the other, did you actually think that there will be a solution? Even as we see ‘French president Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to set up talks between Iran and the US to break the impasse‘ in the meanwhile the dangers are growing to dangerous levels, because of the Iranian acts, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no options but to find an equal stick to work with and that is where the Russian and Chinese connections become important to the KSA, one of them has to hand over the technology and that will be the beginning of the end of the EU, because the most prevalent of all reasons are ignored, Israel might seem far away, but they are at the Mediterranean, and any explosion there will give particles all over that sea, optionally directly endangering Cyprus meaning that the radiation is already on European soil, in addition to that Turkey will see the impact and the SE of the Mediterranean will optionally become uninhabitable or fishable.

Yes, that is the direct impact we are looking at and the corporatocratic security that the EU relies on will now be a feigned form of apologies and when the Diplomats wake up it will be too late. That is the direct danger we face and at that point the people get to rely on denials from politicians who proclaim to be working for them. Good luck with that!

We can argue about the validity of the JCPOA and hat nuclear deal, but the direct show-able danger is that Iran has increased its nuclear actions by 1000%, whilst there are no power plants requiring this, do you need a road map to figure it out?

If politicians do not hand over a template of actions within the next 48 hours, to time will have come for citizens to act and ensure that some level of quality of life continues, and for those who are in doubt of it, consider looking at your map, at any map that includes the Mediterranean. Israel is in the SE corner, with radiation having no other course to go but west, the tides will change where that radiation ends up, it includes Greece, Crete, Italy, Spain and the most expensive parts of France (Marseille) as well as Monaco, It will take a while for radiation to move through the waters to those parts but once the radiation is in one part, there is no denying it, it will get to those parts as well. So how irradiated will you like your fish to be when you eat it? Perhaps you like your Paella to glow in the dark when you have dinner at 22:00 in Barcelona.

Feel free to think I am merely having a sense of humour, but that first explosion will be the instant that life in Southern Europe will end and the EU parliament is letting it happen, so what are their priorities? Where are their priorities?

As I personally see it the time to be nice to Iran is over, it has been for a while now and the idea to play ‘soft kitten’ games with someone who is rejoicing on their enrichment program to be 1000% of what it was 60 days ago is not the way to go.

 

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November 4, 2019 · 11:53

The foundation of a blame game

It was the Independent that gave the headline ‘Tens of thousands of operations cancelled because of staff shortages and faulty equipment, NHS figures show‘ by Vincent Wood about 13 minutes ago, and the by-line gives us ‘Labour blames ‘Tory cutbacks running our NHS into the ground’‘ did anyone catch that? Did anyone catch the issues that were given over the last 5 years, not eventual new issues bu the Conservatives, but the destructive path of Labour? “The Labour party bungled the option to get part of the technological solution implemented that could have helped the NHS (perhaps you remember the loss of roughly £11.2 billion in NHS IT restructuring)” did you think that a loss of £11.2 billion is easy to wipe away? That loss hit out into every corner of the NHS, £11.2 billion in IT, in Systems never delivered and the need to do something, so as Labour make some claim as we see printed: “The simple truth is under the Tories, patients wait longer and longer for vital care. This general election is about the future of the NHS and ensuring quality care for all. Labour will fully fund our NHS, recruit the doctors and nurses we need and safeguard our NHS from a Trump deal sell off that could cost the NHS £500 million a week” my question becomes: ‘Will any Labour MP connected to the initial NHS spending disaster be removed from politics?‘ it is a fair demand, is it not? And as I see “The figures were compiled by the Labour party, is based on responses from 82 per cent of hospital trusts” I wonder what else they wrote up and connected down, now we cannot keep on bringing up the £11.2 billion, but it had to come from somewhere, did it not?

And how did we get to “staff vacancies continue to put the health service under strain, with the NHS reporting last year it was short of 100,000 staff including 10,000 doctors and 35,000 nurses“, shall we take a look at the state of things in 1997 – 2010? Then we also need to look into the state of things from 2010-2019. Shall we take a look on the changes required in 1997-2010 and the impact of the Economic meltdown? Now the second part is not on the heads of labour, but there was a definite impact, it is so easy for Labour to make a definite push to ignore that and in the years when it mattered Labour squandered £11.2 billion, that is a whole boatload of systems and thousands of nurses and doctors. Interesting how they ignore that part of the equation.

So as Labour hides behind “the statistics obtained via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request” shall we ask to include the amount they squandered? And whilst were at it, let’s take a look at the squandered part compared to that nutshell trust charity requiring ‘the amount needed to repair faulty equipment across the service provider at £6bn‘ let’s see what is left when we compare one to the other, it seems that Labour is all about forgetting one element in this equation.

The article (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-operations-cancelled-tens-of-thousands-official-figures-tories-damage-labour-a9183636.html) has a few more idle hands in all this and I am not stating that the Tories are entirely innocent here, but the joke that is regarded to be Labour’s shadow health secretary seemingly decided to ignore the heart ship that £11.2 billion squandered had on the services of the NHS, in addition the loaded debt on the government corporate credit card did not help any, in that regard the Tories are not innocent, i am not claiming that, but the ignoranus that is Labour better get their part right, because the people should be aware of that £11.2 billion fuck up called Labour IT plan, and the issues from there were widespread because that amount had to come from somewhere. And when we start looking at the surplus that the Labour party should have created but did not we will get to an amount that is a lot less representative of what actually should be the consequence of the NHS, amounts and numbers of staff that has been too low for almost 2 decades. When we look a NHS Digital we get that (at https://files.digital.nhs.uk/publicationimport/pub00xxx/pub00912/nhs-staf-over-1996-2006-rep1.pdf) we might think that a good job was achieved with “The number of staff in the NHS has grown every year to 2005 with a small fall in 2006. The workforce is now 27% larger than in 1996“, yet how many SHOULD have been added? When we look at ‘Total staff employed 1,338,000‘ this includes ‘professionally qualified clinical staff 675,000‘ is that not a low number? Remember the earlier ‘the NHS reporting last year it was short of 100,000 staff including 10,000 doctors and 35,000 nurses‘ how come that this number is so divergent from the initial numbers that at the end of Labour was given? How many positions got fired? Yes, there is something wrong and a place like the NHS is dependent of what the government has available and that part is also missing from the equation, so when we start drilling down the numbers Labour comes off as insincere and the usual yokes that they are. All yellow, icky and not really to any point are they?

Oh, and the numbers also calls into question that training places are lacking in a few corners and degrees, so as we are looking at that part too, how did Labour address that in their term? It is important, not because it stops Tories being responsible, it does not, but it does show a systemic problem in the matter and that goes beyond the political element here, there was a shortage for funds and the so called British professional medical degrees should have made a larger and louder complaint in all; this, perhaps it was done, perhaps it was not, but the article does not give light to any of this and it relates to a direct quote that Vincent Wood relies on. And it all related back to the failings that Labour introduced in their term from 1997-2010, so this issue is a lot larger than anyone realises and leave it to the Labour party to add their own failures onto the Tories back, it merely makes no sense to do so, the numbers are out there and it is time to hit Labour with the long term damage that they pushed onto at least half a dozen directions, or did you think that tapping the £11.2 billion NHS vein was the only bloodletting they allowed for? I also believe that certain questions need to be asked towards British Medical Association chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul. He was a topic of investigation in my article ‘As a Puppet‘ in May 2017 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/05/18/as-a-puppet/) when I also had a go at the Labour manifesto, I also wrote at that point: “It states: “The people of Britain are rightly proud of the NHS and we will invest £12 billion over the next five years to keep it working for them“, so we get a little over £6 million a day, or slightly more than £200 million a month, so where does this £350 a week ‘pledge’ come from? The independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-must-make-manifesto-commitment-of-350m-a-week-for-the-nhs-say-doctors-a7739401.html) shows us: “Doctors, academics and public health officials have called on the Conservative Party to include in its general election manifesto a commitment to spend £350m a week on the NHS, in keeping with the notorious posters of the Vote Leave campaign“, which makes me wonder where the actual pledge comes from. So it seems that Dr Chand Nagpaul and Norman Lamb are both missing a few parts here (I am happy to be proven wrong)“, so not only is the claim debatable, yet I wonder what the numbers then and now represent, yes a 2017 number in this day and age will show a total lack of change towards today, is that the case? From my point of view Dr. Chand Nagpaul has a few explanations to make and I get it, he is watching his own turf and what he’s in value, there is nothing wrong with that, but how much has he achieved in spreading the love of budget? And all this is also linked to the January 2017 article where we see: ““Coventry and Warwickshire NHS chiefs fork out £340,000 for advice on how to SAVE money” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/01/15/the-views-we-question/)“, so how much money was forked out by NHS chiefs on how to save money and how much did they safe in the end?

There are a few issues that are open all over the NHS and the Labour party, but in case you were not aware, I am happy to inform you.

Have a great Monday! #Justsaying

 

 

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November 1, 2019 · 12:51

The pigs you feed with

There is a notion that is adamant in politics, it is the stage that whatever you do next, will whitewash you from actions you might have taken in the past, it is interesting to see the actions of a politician and now that he had moved on, the stench of a previous post still lingers. That is the consideration that David Javid, the chancellor of the exchequer had to face when trying to shake hands with Hugh Grant.

I found his response to the event “I recognised him and put my hand out and said, ‘Lovely to meet you’, and you know what he does? He refuses to shake my hand“. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/31/hugh-grant-defends-himself-after-being-called-incredibly-rude-by-sajid-javid) actually has the nicest ring around it with this piece. So David, it is not the spin you give it with “I wonder if people like Hugh Grant think they are part of the elite and they look down on working class people no matter what station they reach in life” it is the consideration you created towards those victims as a cultural secretary. It is clear that David is not alone in the Hacked OFF accusations. with “Grant attacked the Daily Mail and Telegraph newspapers for failing to include his version of events in their news stories covering Javid’s accusation” we see a larger failing, it is the failing of politicians that refuse to see the light that the emanate and the light that they emanate when they take a political position, it will haunt them an at some point it will be the undoing of them.

And there is more of course, the tidbit “after his suspicions were raised that widespread phone hacking by British tabloids was conducted with the consent of the Tory government”, As a conservative, I take great pride in the fact that we need to stand by our actions, even the bad ones, the bad ones show us what acts of stupidity were the ones that will hold us back and the fact that the press can hack whatever they feel like to get the daily circulation up. There is a price that needs to get paid and the press and anyone stupid enough to hide behind ‘the people have a right to know’ claim to do whatever you please needs to be stopped, I had hoped that both sides of the isle had an illuminated showing of souls, but alas it was not meant to be, in light of all that Leveson illuminated and was sold short by the larger papers as well as the political parties need to learn the hard way, I feel strong in that regard and even as this means that we tighten our wrists to beams where we do not know how deep in the water they end up in, the knowledge that we set the waterline in a humane way that way is the only way to guarantee that these follies will never be allowed ever again.

Javid’s spin cycle goes nowhere when we consider “Hugh would like to point out that the victims in question were not celebrities. They were people with personal family tragedies who had been abused by sections of the press” as well as “the victims of press abuse [who] reported back that his attitude in the meeting was ‘borderline contemptuous’”, which in some way has the benefit of David having to deal with past exclamation and past rhetoric in another way as well. The highlight would have been if “I recognised him and put my hand out and said, ‘Lovely to meet you’, and you know what he does? He refuses to shake my hand” had somehow be changed into: “I recognised him and I remembered the treatment I gave him and the victims, I quickly turned to my left further and gave appraise to whomever I remembered from last week’s meeting and let him or her shine a little”, of course the second version would have created a nice ‘non-story’ item and that would have been fine, at the most the personal assistant to the chancellor of whatever borough would have gotten a little limelight, now he gets to deal with the contemptuous feelings of anyone that will talk to the press on how they were treated, so hacked off wins, the victims win and David Javid loses a little more with every statement they made.

Isn’t it great to know what you are doing?

I think it is, I think it is great all the time, but that is just me

 

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November 1, 2019 · 12:19

Russia backed Constitution

Whilst the US is deciding which side of the isle is supposed to deliver the clown sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Russians have settled on getting visibility on the ‘Syria constitution talks begin in Geneva‘ and the Russians are backing it, more disturbing news is that the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey at a press conference on a meeting of the Syria committee in Geneva. This is a moment that should have sprung from the loins of the EU, perhaps even America, none are there in the light of day, why is that?

The Entire Iran – Turkey – Syria triumvirate is now coming into effect, whilst the EU and US had decided to fight a senseless war of posturing, standing by Saudi Arabia they ended mocking up the entire Middle East, and let’s face it, it takes up a whole scoop of people with the gravitas of a comet the size of that one that ended the dinosaurs to do that, but yes, they pulled it off, or at least so it seems.

Even as we read the words “Foreign ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey were in Geneva on Tuesday night to meet negotiators, even though Pedersen had asked all countries to stay away and leave the talks as an exclusively “Syrian owned, Syrian led process”. The three countries put out a joint statement before the opening” we see that the hands behind the machines are settling what was to be the shakes of agreement, agreements in more than one case 2 years in the making. From that point of view the of UN special envoy Geir Pederson sound as hollow as you might think they are. And where was the EU? Where was America? In all this, oh right! They are not there, they decided not to get involved, there is no meat on the tray, and there is no weight on the scales. Basically two elements in what we call a free western world did not deem Syria entitled to that part of life and Russia stepped in, as did Iran, as did Turkey. Two out of three with too much to win, a place for existential contracts, the price of rebuilding will be heavy, it will not be cheap for Syria, but Syria will be rebuilt, just like I mentioned in ‘Slicing the Tiramisu‘ on April 5th 2018, a little over 18 months ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/04/05/slicing-the-tiramisu/). The stage where we see: “The three presidents — including Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — gathered in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where they pledged to cooperate on reconstruction and aid” we see the present escalate for the facilitation towards President Assad, whilst they now are willing to state “The leaders called for more support from the international community and emphasized their opposition to “separatist agendas” in Syria“, you see now that they are at the table getting rich the rest of the Syrian oversight will be costly thing” which both I myself and the Washington Post looked at in light of the predictions I foresaw in (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/02/24/losing-values-towards-insanity/) ‘Losing values towards insanity‘ (almost two months earlier) we see now that the road is paved for the construction companies headed by Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin to make the millions they need to, the millions the saw in the endgame, in that entire scramble, troop losses were shallow, meaningless and eventful as we now see unfurl. It is a Russian version of Booz Allan Hamilton with the stage and setting to set up camp and head on over to Saudi Arabia and build a little more once invited. That was the game I saw almost 2 years ago and that is what is unfolding now, so your question might be: ‘How did the other two not predict that?‘ and my words would be: ‘They probably did and someone told them that it was far-fetched and that it had little chance of success‘ well that little chance of success is now a large boulder ready to be rolled over the EU and the USA all at the same time, whilst actions by BAH being thwarted again and again, we see that close to $25 billion in funds will go directly to the three opponents, Iran, Turkey and Russia. I reckon that Russia will open up construction avenues and use Iranian labourers in that setting, the Iranians will grasp at that opportunity, hoping that they will be in a better state when these larger constructions in Iran will fall through, yet in the end it will not matter for Russia, they get the largest slice of that cake. And that is merely the size of things within the first 2-3 years, then we will get the Telecom initiatives where Russia – China will take home the slices of cake for Huawei equipment to be rolled out and that will be the ‘experience’ that Russia will handle to give light to additional buildings all over the Middle East (read Saudi Arabia first). A setting that will ‘ingratiate’ Russia to the largest stage we see in the Middle East that is the stage that is now in debate and with ‘Russia-backed Syria constitution‘ they have set a larger option that had been planned for well over two years.

Even as we see the words: “Pederson, like his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, is searching for positives, pointing out that the committee – with terms of reference and core rules of procedure – marks the first political agreement between the government of Syria and the opposition” the truth of the matter will be that it will all depend on the Bashar al-Assad and his foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem and on how they see the triumvirate in this whole, no matter how it is sliced, their considerations are for Syria and Syria alone, that is the smallest benefit that gives rise to whatever the EU and the US can push on, the Turkish opposition that is called out through “the hostile Turkish incursion into north-east Syria seriously threatens the work of the constitutional committee“, is the one part that could become the Chisel that stops the Russian Mallet from succeeding. President Erdogan and his need to slaughter as many Kurds as possible is the only part that is now a hindrance to Russian success, so good luck on that part.

Never try to make any agreements with animals, children or people sliding a little too far to the side of insanity, especially long term plans, they tend to blow up in ones face.

 

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October 31, 2019 · 11:44

Can you figure it out?

Let’s play a game, let’s play the game called ‘Can you Figure it out?‘ In this case a very numbers worthy game has been called to attention twice before, so let’s have a look especially with Black Friday coming up (in about 4 weeks). Let’s play it shall we?

Breakpoint, normal PS4 edition is $37.88

Breakpoint, Steelbox Gold edition XB1 $95.68

Breakpoint, Gold edition PS4 $59.56

Breakpoint, normal edition XB1 $62.77

Breakpoint, XB1 digital code $59.99

 

Can you figure out the 5 prices? And they all come from the same vendor, Amazon! This is a game that had the enormous flaws, the design weaknesses and the discussion issues, Having two bare prices would have been enough, one for XB1, one for PS4, although they too should have been driven across the fold, and what is that about a code for downloading? Why is it priced differently? OK, that latter part is fair enough I think, yet it shows just how unremarkable the Microsoft download is. A game that should be 100% prices until the end of the year no longer is and it will be getting worse up to Black Friday, now 4 weeks away.

I expect Breakpoint to go down a few notches in price, the initial price setting has become that much of a debate, with Ubisoft it has become a buyers’ market, they decided not to learn. Then there are the lightning errors, to see through the window of a bunker has a better light differential, then to just be outside. There are a few more that I noticed, but there could be an alternative approach to events, so I keep my cool.

However, one of the posters on YouTube gave an interesting view (for PC) that he had to lower the resolution to 1080p to deal with the performance of the game, so this game might not be actually playable (on any decent resolution) on anything but a PS Pro, or a Xbox X version (mere speculation by yours truly).

And still, beyond all the facades, beyond all the versions and mapping issues, this as well as the later far cry versions are as close as a playable version of Midwinter as this is going to be. Yes, for some that title is a revelation, but it is what it amounts too, a version that is as close to as the original in a version that is as crazy as possible. Yet in all its shape and all its flaws it is what the player is willing to pay for it, that is the game that Ubisoft invited, that is what ‘failed to complete‘ enticed. An AI that is esteeming below what an AI should offer, and that is merely in game vision, apart from that the colliding parts of one person against simple events like a barricade, or a wall.

In the end, the game that should have been a whopping 75%-90% was merely a 56% by metacritic; PC Gamer (probably because of the resolution issue) gave it a mere 40%, that is the consequence of not properly testing a game before release, if the entire Call of Duty path is part of their decision, the entire matter becomes a larger hoax. And that is not even the largest issue, the larger issue is that we stopped anticipating a 85%-95% game from Ubisoft, so any Ubisoft game will have a lower expectation, from the lower starts of -10% to a maximum of -15% away from the 100% of a near perfect game should be regarded as. That is what they are now fighting for, with Watchdogs: Legion being a game with a rating no more than 70%-85%, the revenue that it should promise will abstain, people will wait for the 50% discount, that is what Ubisoft will be fighting. The eternal fight against average, in case of Ubisoft it will be most likely a rage against average and avarice. For a lot of ‘fans’ it is a rather large problem, I was looking forward to Legion, so the anticipation of that game being within certain levels (an 80%+ game) is rather important and I am considering that Ubisoft will try to make it a game that is over 75%, the problem is that to understand this slide of quality is to expect us to figure out what Yves Guillemot will do.

No matter what their decision will be, it will be out of our hands and in the hands of a reacting population of gamers that have had enough and that is the part that is still willing to consider Ubisoft and do not go directly to Activision’s Call of Duty.

From this point until the end of the year will be intense for Ubisoft, but they did this to themselves, no one can tell us any different on that.

 

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