Category Archives: Finance

September 6, 2023 · 11:28

When the competitor launches cloud 9

Yes, that is the setting and it does refer to the previous two articles as it involves Microsoft, but this is not about Microsoft. You see, Microsoft exposed its jugular and I am always looking for a new job (a new challenge is more like it) and as Microsoft screwed the pooch (the Chihuahua and their customers as well) I decided the take a look. 

Google
With Google (a preferred first) there is a initial first, a bungle of sorts. You see a small quirk. Google dropped the ball (not the first time) and it is shown in the image below.

So when I search ‘IBM Cloud’ and ‘EVROC cloud’ I get the option ‘news, in the case of Google, I do not, I actually have to enter ‘Google Cloud News’ to get the news option. So how is their (so called) AI? You do know (and I have been explicit about it) on the fact that AI does not (yet) exist. It is all machine learning and deeper machine learning and it is all awesome, but it is not AI. To be a little frank. I usually search for topics and seek out news and for some reason my Google search does not catch on, so how is that AI? It is all data based and as such it is flawed, the fact that I still have to enter the search more than once adding the word ‘news’ is indicative of that. 

Beyond that we get (when I got it) ‘Google Cloud spearheads a revolutionary shift in cloud tech with generative AI’ which we got on the Next’23 even where we are given “We are in an entirely new era of cloud, fuelled by generative AI. Our focus is on putting gen AI tools into the hands of everyone across the organisation—from IT to operations, to security, to the board room. As the industry’s most open cloud, our goal is to help companies use AI and other cloud technologies to streamline their operations, increase productivity, and create entirely new lines of business.” Yet from my point of view all this needs to be data driven, and as such (as Microsoft opened the rift) their data centres and especially their worst case scenario better be upgraded (daddy needs a new pair of shoes). And when you consider the blunder of a previous mentioned participant, that review better be done yesterday. 

EVROC
Now we get back to an article the BBC gave us 4 weeks ago (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66310714) where we learned ‘Why it matters where your data is stored’, and here we are given “Evroc has secured €15m in seed funding and plans to build eight data centres in Europe in the next five years. The first will be a large pilot data centre in Sweden next year.” And the ‘silent’ setting is that they want to secure a chunk of Amazon business and that is fine. Yet, I already highlighted that their option was the Middle East (Riyadh and Dubai), they have billions in vested interests and EVROC could make a nice coin on the side for these two places alone. I mentioned that, but that was before the the massive bungle that a certain company (with the same first letter that MacDonalds has) made, so now EVROC has additional options to clear business thresholds. That does not take Google and IBM out of the race, but it does open the doors of business opportunity for Evroc, as it does for Amazon, but that is for later.

Amazon
And later is now, you see ARN also gave us ‘AWS hints at partner program changes for AI and partner engagement’ and their selling point could include ‘We do not go down for over 24 hours’ but that too requires an overhaul and testing for its operational stations and even as winter is coming to Europe (no dragons in sight), the setting changes a little. You see one company exposed its jugular and three other players are now out for blood and they will secure some of it. Not all, but it will hurt the other bungler their business. I did not mention Apple and IBM, they have their own settings and they are solid in what they offer, but there too is the warning that their operational settings better be tested immediately. You see a night shift with 2 extra workers might cost a company up to $300,000 a year more but that is earned with adding less than 10 small customers. That was the bungle, and some customers are charged a lot more than these two employees cost and when you realise that part you see the massive bungle I described a mere 17 hours ago. That was visible on many fronts and now others get to step in to make the damage to that one player worse. 

All this is a setting that could have been avoided by the simple application of checks and balances. Now does the stupid response ‘We lacked staff’ make sense, or better does it make sense how stupid the response was? I never bothered reading the report, it is a document to appease customers and shareholders and I am neither. Common sense told me what I needed to know and now that I am adding these elements I hope I satisfied the over enthusiastic fan that responded with “What do you think you know?” You see, then sarcasm backfires it becomes irony, so I hope that todays article was loaded with the irony he (or she) needed. The cloud field will not change too much, but one player will likely lose a lot more than they are comfortable with, but that is my personal view on the matter and I might be wrong, but in a stage where nearly every customer wants to cut corners on cost and staff, it is a pretty safe bet that I will be correct. That is all apart from the fact that places like Amazon and Google (and now EVROC too) are always seeking more revenue.

Here endeth the lesson, enjoy the day. If it gets too sunny, know how (and be able) to restart the cooling fan.

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September 5, 2023 · 17:58

The yoke is on Microsoft

Yup, this is a ‘create howls of deriving laughter’ on Microsoft, but not in the way you would expect it. So, this all started a few hours ago when I saw an unknown party called ARN  give us ‘Microsoft blames Aussie data centre outage on staff strength, failed automation’ (at https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/708608/microsoft-blames-aussie-data-centre-outage-staff-strength-failed-automation/) where we see “Microsoft has blamed staff strength and failed automation for a data centre outage in Australia that took place on August 30, disabling users from accessing Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services for over 24 hours.” And my (first) thought was ‘Is Microsoft really THAT stupid?’ You see, to see that thought you need to be aware of a few small issues. The first is “Microsoft confirmed Monday that it’s eliminating additional jobs, a week after the start of its 2024 fiscal year. The cuts are in addition to the downsizing announced in January that resulted in 10,000 layoffs. The software maker also disclosed a small number of cuts this time last year.” With the additional “US tech giant Microsoft has axed more Australian jobs after the company made major staffing cuts across the globe earlier in the year. About 50 Australian employees are believed to have lost their jobs this month, Nine newspaper the Australian Financial Review reports.” Now, job losses happen everywhere at this time and we get it. There are all kinds of issues and Microsoft is one of many shedding jobs. But to see ‘Microsoft has blamed staff strength’ after they shed 10,000 plus jobs is just the joke of the century. I get it, one job is not another job, but when you have shortages in a place that is riddled with ageism and wannabe hires (dynamic young people) whilst your operational settings are below par just doesn’t work for me. I see the same fake jobs from providers like Hays and they will not respond and often ignore you. That is the party to be for players like Microsoft and they now claim that there is no coverage does not hold any water with me.  So when ARN gives us ““Due to the size of the data centre campus, the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner. We have temporarily increased the team size from three to seven, until the underlying issues are better understood and appropriate mitigations can be put in place,” Microsoft wrote as part of the report.” I wonder if their cost cutting stages are merely a joke and what company would have trust in such a system when “Azure, Microsoft 365, and Power Platform services” were down or unreachable for over 24 hours. That point is clear, is it not?

Consider the simple math. How much traffic and how many companies rely on that data centre? How come that there are only 3 people at night? So consider “Microsoft said that the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” with the added “the staffing of the team at night was insufficient to restart the chillers in a timely manner” so do you think they royally screwed that part up? And in that setting how many data centres (all over the world) are understaffed? When the coolers cannot be manually started in these places, how much revenue will Microsoft miss out on, because these affected firms might optionally have a case to sue Microsoft for damages. No matter how that report phrases it, the lack of data centre labour (especially after they sacked well over 10,000 people) will not be met with a friendly judge and for Microsoft there is an additional danger. When third parties like Evroc start getting business from companies that once held Microsoft high in its banner, the walk-out might become a lot more severe and that could spell more bad news for Azure (something Amazon AWS will love) and there is a decent chance that some will optionally switch to Google or IBM. All losses for Microsoft who thought that keeping 3 people at night in a data centre was enough, all whilst THEY THEMSELVES give us “the cooling units could have been restarted manually, which was not possible due to the unavailability of enough personnel at the data centre” and that is the stage all those using a Microsoft data centre face? It is my personal opinion that someone bungled the minimum staff at a data centre during the night and even as winter is now coming to the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is going into summer. So what about the Data centres in Riyadh and the UAE? In Riyadh it is around 45 degrees Celsius and in Dubai it is only 3 degrees cooler. So what happens when they need a manual restart of the cooling units? All simple questions and we could say that Microsoft has that covered, but it seems that according to ARN they do not. A simple operational question: ‘What is the minimum required staff coverage at night in a worst case scenario?’ As far as I can tell (trusting the ARN article) they were not ready and the fact that they upped it by over 100% shows that Microsoft was simply clueless on this issue. Feel free to disagree and I expect you want to talk to the corporations that lot Office and Azure for over 24 hours, but I reckon that we will not get access to those names, and that is fair enough. But do the companies who had to go through this feel the same way? I doubt it.

Enjoy the warm Tuesday coming to you.

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August 30, 2023 · 07:35

A simpleminded A, B, C

It started yesterday when I saw a message pass by on LinkedIn. (See below). 

The honest first thing I thought was ‘Are you effing kidding me?’ It was like an episode of comedy capers. I thought that this level of shortsightedness was a thing of the past, but it seems to me that people will get themselves into heaps of troubles for the longest of times. And what was that term “endless digital potential?” A call to arms for the stupid people? 

So here I am educating the wannabes and the short of cash people, because it is essential. An API is an Application Programming Interface. It is a set of definitions and protocols for integrating application software, or to ‘simplify’ this “a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.” It is a way for others to talk to your software or data. It allows access. To give another reference. You are about to connect an anchor to your boat. But there are Danforth anchors, plow anchors, fluke anchors and several others. It depends on the size of the boat and WHERE you tend to park that dinghy, that largely decides what kind of anchor you need, not what is the prettiest anchor, that tends to be a factor in losing your boat. 

To put it in a better way “digital potential” will be seen when you connect YOUR data to anyone else’s data. Did you consider that? You see this blinders approach to information is nice and those with dollar shaped pupils take notice and want to race to that digital potential, yet the reality is something less nice. It is the chapter of risk.

RISK
Risk is the number one consideration, there is no other. Is it worth doing ‘approach A’ to get to the finish of revenue? 

Bad coding
This is perhaps the largest foe. Right off the bat, if you start off with the premise of bad coding, you are exposing yourself to serious API security risks and that is an issue. But fear not this person thought of that. We are given “That’s why we designed IBSuite as API First!” Yes, really? Security risks are still a massive danger. Unrestricted access to sensitive business flows is the stuff nightmares are made of and a security risk will bring that to your front door. 

Inadequate validation
A security researcher discovered an API payload that would send invalid data to their own user process, which would repeatedly fail to be handled correctly. This error handling loop prevented further access to their user account. This is perhaps the smallest issue, the problem is that failure to handle something correctly implies that something goes somewhere else. Do you know where that somewhere else is? Consider that your former colleagues spend decades optimising the data you have now, would you like others to enjoy that hard work, or keep that in house? 

Hesitating over API utilisation
Some state that in big companies, sometimes management can neglect to track APIs and their utilisation numbers. From this point, you can incur many charges and leave yourself open to security risks due to exposed APIs. So not only are you in danger to hand over your data, you can get charged for it too. Utilisation of data and greed in one nice compact solution, who would have thought it possible? 

Accountability
This does sound like the odd duck out, but in reality it often connects to data loss, Since API’s connect external users and applications with a firm’s internal applications, they are potential paths to a firm’s data. If access to these paths is not controlled, data can reach the wrong hands – and can be stolen, modified, or even irretrievably deleted. So data could get copied and then deleted, to make sure it does not hinder YOUR storage. I wonder if they will charge you to hand the data back? Just a thought.

Risks of XML
I admit, this is the hardest one for me. It is not always easy to put your finger on XML, its usage is too widespread, in the 90’s it was never an issue, more of a fab for some. Yet, 3rd party APIs could be compromised and leveraged to attack other API services. Attacks such as SQL injection, XML External Entity injection, and more, should be considered when handling data from other APIs. This part tends to be tedious but essential. It is time consuming ground work, but it must be done. 

APl incompetence
This is harder for me, I have a massive lack of knowledge here, it is specific niche knowledge that the experts have, yet it amounts to the ability to have a fault-tolerant system. Consider that in the 90’s there was accounting software. If I used a specific expression, the program would crash. No biggie you would think, but at that point I ended being in THAT system, now completely open with supervisor privileges. I had access to the entire mainframe with access to everything. This was a specific setting that was solved 3 weeks later. But what happened when it was not found? Consider that your system is open to anyone that employs such a solution and they get access to everything including the porn pics of your wife and your data. I am willing to bet that option one was a lot more upsetting to you, weird that.

Lack of security
You would think that this is covered, but it is not. Akamai (a US cybersecurity firm) reported “Of note, fewer than 50% of respondents have API security testing tools in place. Even fewer have deployed API discovery tools. Although the survey results suggest enterprises recognise the security risks of widespread API usage, there is no clear consensus on where to prioritise investments”, this matters. Security should be everything when it is about your house and your data. 

This is all mere top-line header consideration. So consider the intro I reacted to and the lack of risks that it shows. So how much risk are you willing to take with your house and your data? If I was inclined to be that short sighted in promoting ‘digital potential’ I would have gone with “APIs are not required, but if you consider and adhere to the risks in a proper way, they are the safest way to connect and explore digital potential. Any eco-system has risks, which is why we designed IBSuite to be a safety first option in exploring the digital oceans for revenue you cannot see now, but to get there in a digitally safe way, one that keeps your data YOURS.” Is it as good? Perhaps not, but it instills value that you as a customer and the data YOU have is used for safe navigation and that matters.

This was a functional boat once, they chose the wrong anchor and in the wrong place that cost them their livelihood. What will you do? Look deeper, look better, look elsewhere? All good questions and it all started by understanding the risks of an API because everything has a risk, not looking at it implies you are taking too many risks with something you can only lose once. 

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August 27, 2023 · 14:56

The Funny Money Paradox

I have been dreading this. For the most I do not care. But there is one upside. The media have ignored this too and by the end of the story, you will wonder why the media ignored it. They are all uppety uppety for the most silly reasons and they will not care, not until it hurts their digital dollar bottom line. So here goes. In the first Funny Money is a slang term referring to Counterfeit money. Money obtained in a devious or sneaky manner. And that kinda connects to us. It is also a paradox as it is a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true. So that is how I got to the Funny Money Paradox. You see the two largest contributors to this act are Google and Apple, yet they aren’t doing anything illegal. There are merely using all of you to create a new stream income and the stream of income is you. So how is this happening?

You download a game from Google Play (or Apple Store) and you play it. Within the first two minutes you will have seen at least one add, more often 2-3. Now you start playing and the adds keep on flashing by (or is that buy). The game is seemingly simple and it is taunting you that you are to stupid to play it, or that only 1% can play to some distant level (fifteen) and you go for the bait. You are not stupid and you are more intelligent than what they claim and that is how they win. By the first 5 minutes you are likely to have watched 4 advertisements and that is the goal. You see 4 times $0.05 does not amount to much and you might not care, but consider that 250,000 have gone before you. It now starts adding up to serious cash. The game makers gets now $50,000 it starts adding up to serious cash soon enough. Now consider that some games are downloaded over a million times. See how this adds up? And the simple tool (I mean you) keeps on playing and funding the game maker because he has turned GaaS (Gaming as a Service) into a decent stream of income. And it is getting worse. In the last few months I have seen perhaps half a dozen at most that are decently decent games. Yet they have the same setting, but from day one they offer you to avoid ALL advertisements for a small fee (from $4.99 to $14.99) and that avoided watch-time is translated to immediate bonus to you. That is fair, a game costs money and the makers gives you the option. The problem is that most games are so set on cashing in, that they are using more and more simple graphics to cash in as quick as possible and often making more than one version of the same game whilst employing slightly altered graphics to get to the revenue. And it is all happening on the watch of Apple and Google. Now, lets be clear. Neither are doing anything illegal and they can continue as they would like and for me that is good news. My IP will shoot up when people have had enough by being the game makers piggy bank and these makers will not be allowed on the new system. So why am I on this horse? Well, in the first it demeans the status gamer. A gamer is more than an advertisement hub. In the second gaming is a wave of pleasure, not a wave of income. The gamer could be an income and I am fine with that, but these makers are ‘playing it safe’ and exploiting gamers to their own needs first and in the second giving them gaming joy. That is the largest issue I have, the media is second but it is important to see that. They are all uppety uppety on loot boxes and holding the gamer no accountable to any of it and this they avoid? Is this making sense to you?

In the end it will work out better for me, but I then hold myself up to higher values. To exploit this setting just to fair way better is not my cup of tangerine juice either. (I have something with tangerines lately) and I wanted to make sure that I was out on this and you get the chance to seek out the media to see who else reported on this and you will see that many avoided this. So whilst you see another ad on how their game is exactly like they say it is (whilst doing exactly the opposite), whilst you wonder how simple it is that 1% cannot do this, all whilst you know that they can or that gamers are too stupid to get there, whilst you know a five year old can do this, consider that gamers of any age can be made to watch advertisements. So how many advertisements did you see, how many did your children watch and why isn’t anyone waking up to this level of exploitation? Now consider the harsh reality. One source gives us “The global revenue in the ‘Games’ segment of the media market was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 136.8 billion U.S. dollars (+34.53 percent). After the tenth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 533 billion U.S. dollars and therefore a new peak in 2027.” So how much of that is watching advertisements? How many advertisements are you in for and why are Google and Apple feeding that horse? Consider the answers and consider that even as this isn’t illegal. How do you consider exploitation? 

Consider the points, consider the elements and consider what sources aren’t informing you at present.

Enjoy this Sunday, Monday is a mere evening away.

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August 26, 2023 · 16:11

You were saying?

After yesterday I had all these ‘complaints’ and how wrong I was, that this would never happen and I rejoiced, because the evidence was already there. I was actually dreading todays article (which will now happen tomorrow) and puts Apple and Google in a setting of funny money. But first this part. So, people were sure I was wrong? So let’s take a look at Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/25/saudi-arabia-considering-chinese-bid-to-build-nuclear-plant-report-says) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia considering Chinese bid to build nuclear plant, report says’ where we are given “Saudi Arabia is considering a Chinese bid to build a nuclear power plant in the kingdom amid frustration over the United States’ stipulations for supporting Riyadh’s quest for nuclear power, the Wall Street Journal has reported” which with the added “In 2019, a senior Chinese official said Beijing could build as many as 30 overseas nuclear reactors through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure drive over the following decade”. So to give you the bland numbers, a nuclear reactor will cost between 6 and 8 billion. So 30 of them amount to around $200,000,000,000 that is revenue the US is now losing directly, one deal cost that much. I have no doubt that China will get a mere 1-3 reactors to start with, yet this amounts to well over $20,000,000,000 from the start. Revenue the US (optionally partially EU too) will lose. One deal sets that strain on the US revenue needs and partially European too. Now we also get (from an unknown source at http://www.ecns.cn/m/news/culture/2023-08-25/detail-ihcskrzm0994854.shtml) there we are given ‘Saudi Arabia to teach two Chinese classes weekly in secondary schools’, if this is true then the KSA are tightening bonds with China and that spells a bad year for America. I might have foreseen a lot of this, but to see operational steps being done implies that the USA is done in the Middle East. In addition to this I wonder how far the steps are at present with the UAE. You see they are both joining BRICS, as such they both stand to gain by these steps at present. Even as the UAE might not be seeking nuclear power, they (especially Dubai) stands to gain a lot by having at least one. So whatever is under options with Saudi Arabia, I reckon that the UAE is not far behind on this. In a day we see the stage where the US, due to its own stupid actions is about to lose out on well over 200 billion, and it is seemingly all going towards China. So you were saying? And how much more losses will America cop before it starts to realise that the folly approach from 2019 onwards was stupid on a premium level? 

And this is merely the beginning. As NEOM grows, so will the opportunities that China will get, America, the UK and EU pretty much priced themselves out of those markets. And the news goes from bad to worse. None at the moment, but in Q4 2023 there will be a lot more news clippings on options that are now no longer going to the American Coffers, that part is pretty clear at this point. So I was right all along. It doesn’t make me happy or joyous, yet for the Americans who realise that they are out they might want to have a heart to heart with the politicians and analysts who should have seen this long before I did and if they did, why was nothing done?

Enjoy the weekend.

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August 25, 2023 · 19:06

And then there were 6 more

I have been expecting this, I have been awaiting it. OK, I have a few different reasons, but the added BRICS members (from January 1st 2024) are Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. I don’t think that the people get how much of a issues this is going to be. BRICS members, just like any other membership (like EU, NATO) will give preference to its own members first. On ‘the seventh guest’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/06/21/the-seventh-guest/) I wrote “I am certain that Russia and China will use this opportunity that opened up, I just do not know how at present.” That was June 2019. There was no war looming in the Ukraine (and BRICS was not on anyones radar). This setting would be coming naturally from China and now we are about to see that play. Now consider that Saudi Arabia imports from United States was a simple US$16.22 Billion during 2021, now also consider that U.S. Exports to Saudi Arabia constitute 14.2% of total U.S. exports of those commodities worldwide. Now consider that these two numbers will diminish by at least 50% and those trades all go to China (optionally Russia too). I reckon that January 2024 will be the start where the debt levels the US currently has can no longer be allowed. Doing so will end its existence sooner and sooner. Should the US default, they will drag the EU and Japan down with them. A sentiment that China will not shed a tear about. Egypt is interesting as it propels the Saudi plans for their global G5 plans a lot further and a lot faster and it puts the EU and US out of the game pretty much overnight. As such there are signs that the latter two are racing to get agreements in play now. Something Saudi STC and Chinese Huawei are eager to block. Now consider a second part. The quoted setting was “the relationship is that the United States of America (USA) provides military protection of the Kingdom in exchange for a reliable oil supply from the Saudis, pricing of oil in USA dollars, and Saudi support for American foreign policy operations across the world” under those steps China is the most likely party to enlarge their options and they stand to get a lot more oil, oil that is likely not to go to the US and EU from January 1st 2024 (or at least a decent part of it). The latter one is a speculation, but it fits the long term play China is employing and in this I could be wrong. The KSA has long term agreements with the USA. The larger concern isn’t merely the KSA. In this new agreement Iran and the UAE join and now there is a new balancing point in the Middle East and the Emirates are part of that. So how much import does the UAE get from the USA and EU? So when they too go from “United Arab Emirates Imports from United States was US$16.88 Billion during 2021”as well as “European Union Exports to United Arab Emirates was US$37.38 Billion during 2022” and now consider that these two will go down by at least 50%, if not a whole lot more. That gives us $99,000,000,000 in lost commerce from these two places alone and that is merely the start. So how will their government credit cards go when they do not have these revenue streams continue? After that consider the damage that lost revenue from Egypt could get up to as well as increased revenue to China and this is not new, that danger existed from 2019, but certain American politicians were to ego driven and now it all comes to a speculated halt in 16 weeks. For China it will turn out to be a very merry Christmas this year. For the EU and USA a lot less so. But they were warned (not by me), these so called wannabe’s making the calls had more than information I had and they played the ostrich game. So how is that playing out for them? If you were hoping for some miracle cure from me you would be wrong. As I see it, it is too late for that. The US and UK should have adjusted their courses at least 3 years ago (7 would have been better). In the end for several players their upcoming BRICS membership is merely  business decision and that is what China and India are hoping for, because it opens their options by a fair bit starting in 2024. 

As I personally see it, the endgame will play itself, I see no moves left for the Commonwealth, the EU or the USA. Setting that should and could have been avoided for close to 5 years were never done and now with an enlarged new player on the global stage we can watch and see Wall Street implode on itself. To see the desperate go nuts on greed missed all because of some ego driven politicians will be stellar on a few levels. You see a secular population is a weird thing, the moment things go really south, they will rely on the faith of others to let them continue. Does that make the profoundly lost sentiment a drive of sarcasm or a natural wave of irony? I am not sure what applies more but as an antithesis they might be feeding each other for some time to come (especially when the media wants to get as much digital dollars as it can). 

I honestly wonder which systems will still be in play by April 1st 2024, what a joke that will be. Enjoy the weekend.

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August 23, 2023 · 20:55

A very different oak

OK, to be honest, this dream hit me some time ago. I had it, but I have no idea why I had the dream and I might never figure it out. The event was at Golden Oak Orlando. I was visiting someone and when we got to his abode (a mansion by any other name) we were overwhelmed. I reckon that this is the feeling that all those who ever visited someone’s place in Golden Oak leaves them. It is a little overwhelming. So we got to his place, we were shown the lower part of the house with an inner courtyard. There was a pool, a jacuzzi and a few other amenities making sure that we all felt a little out of our comfort zone. We went to the corner in the inner courtyard and we had something to drink. There were two pitchers of iced fruit-juice and it was wonderful. I went for the slightly more orange one. It was a mix of peached and tangerines loaded with what seemingly a shrapnel of ice parts. It was icy cold and refreshing. My kind of refreshing. The others were talking and I was listening and looking at the details of the courtyard and the kitchen room through the glass. The stove looked old-fashioned but seemingly bursting with high tech elements. A stove anyone would dream of having in their home. After the drink the second part started. We saw the living room, the kitchen we walked through and we saw a large pantry. The living-room was a little spartan but stylish. We all walked up the stairs and we saw the master bedroom. Not sure what the style was, but it looked neat. The walking bathroom was to die for and had everything on a space that is pretty much my living room. There were the two guest rooms and they both had their own style, nice but very different. And I saw the door, the door that would change it all. The door was out of place. It looked a lot heavier and darker, like dark oak heavy. From a distance it stood out, even as the door was deeper into the wall than any other door in the house. It stood out like a bank vault door would stand out in any apartment, it looked that heavy. The door was dark oak as said, but it was engraved unlike anything I had ever seen. The owner then moved a panel in the door and a small opening revealed itself. 

The opening had a key, a very old fashioned one and if I had to make a guess it was a 17th century key, but it looked off somehow. The panels showed us characters from Peter Pan and Mr. Smee (the first mate from Peter Pan) was the center piece of the door. The door opened smoothly but seemingly heavy and the door didn’t open at the end, the door opened with the axial at one third of the door and the door was a lit thicker than a door should be. What I saw then blew me away. The room was almost entirely made from wood, hardwood floors, and I saw to the right what could have been the navigator desk from a galleon. To the left was an admiral’s table with swanky seat. The navigator had its own swanky seat, both a chesterfield design, both chairs build for comfort and I walked in. I saw the small door to the end and I walked towards it, it opened up to a small balcony with seats. The wooden balcony seemed to have been part of a slightly enlarged balcony like the admirals room on a galleon with a small table and chairs. 

I looked around and I was slapped across the face a second time. The walls I can in from were the  rear of a galleon, complete with stained glass and a view of the ocean. The wall that connects to the house was an ocean and the smell of salt water was invading my nostrils. A freakin ocean? I slowly walked towards the end of the ship realising that it was smoke and mirrors (of sorts) the windows were real enough, the sound of a seagull was there, but as I stared closely I noticed the fine lines. The view on the ocean were TV screens 4 meters wide in total, about a meter high. 4 of them. There was a hidden vapour in there feeding us seawater. The sound came from the screen. It was the sound of the ocean with a bird every no and then and the screens were merely showing us the water waves, almost like it would have been were we on a galleon. The walls had pictures. One in heavy sterling with the image of Bill Thompson (the name was engraved in the centre of the bottom side of the frame. I knew the name as I grew up with Disney movies. He was the voice of Mr. Smee in the Disney version of it. There was an image an autographed one of Bob Hoskins, the man who played Smee in Hook and there were more Smee memorabilia all over the room. The navigator desk was a desk, it was fully functioning with a large map of Never-never land. The map rolled up and stayed rolled up. Beneath it was a screen a 32” touch display that showed the Mac screen and applications. There were all the Adobe ones, all the Apple ones and several I had never seen before. I noticed that below it were extensions that came out, for both the keyboard and to the right of that an A4 digital writing pad. The system was super-fast, faster than the average G5 and it looked super intuitive. I looked around to the admiral’s desk which as a large and very nice desk with all kinds of amenities. The top of the desk was wood and I think a strip of leather, for writing on I reckon. The drawers were all engraved and to the right of the desk was a panel like it was some kind of food elevator. The panel was opened and two plates with canapé’s came out. They were delicious. The door I came in through was no longer visible, well not until you go looking for it. I saw the lines of where the door was and it was almost invisible to the naked eye. 

The chair was bordeaux red, it looked extremely comfy. We ate the food and we all were mesmerised on the room. I was not the only one blown away. This was his office space and it was one hell of an office space. It was a few minutes later when we left the room and as the door opened the screens shut down, the sounds faded and to room lights all dimmed but did not turn off. As I left the room I heard the room lock and I heard more clicks, almost like a set of alarms were set to sharp. We went down again and in the kitchen I now noticed the same panel we hd upstairs. A food elevator and a chef was there with plates of food that staff were bringing around. There was a Japanese plate with marinated eel. Plates with what seemed to be wraps with chicken and I had another fruit juice. I took the yellow now, which was I reckoned pineapple with Limes and I guess pear. It was slightly sweeter, I preferred the orange one. Which was my third drink. We sat down in the living room and I was listening. I also figured out I was the plus one of one of the ladies there. She was way out of my league, so no idea who she was and why she was with me and as I was sipping my fruit juice I faded away and woke up in my own bed. 

The dream stuck with me and at first I thought it was the setting for some kind of game, but there was no relation to any game I thought up. Then it could be for TV or movie, but the office space was too distinct. I would have loved to have a house and with such an office, but too much was not my initial desire in office choice, even as the computer clearly was. Sometimes the brain takes you on a meaningless quest, so I might never know why, but that feeling of looking around and watching the ocean still haunts me and I have no idea why.

Enjoy the day, we are now past the 50% point towards the weekend.

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August 22, 2023 · 20:51

Turning the pages

This is Aterm we use, sometimes correct, sometimes incorrect and sometimes literal. We all do it and I am no exception. Yesterday I had a detour and the detour kept on going in more and more directions, seeing more and more new ideas based on the old premise and that is not where it ended. In all honesty, part of the ideas flowed from the ideas of John Spilsbury (always look back to old masters when you get stuck) and he was no exception. There were more parts connected to this, but that is for another day. Whilst doing this my mind wandered towards the CBC article ‘Every developer has opted to pay Montreal instead of building affordable housing, under new bylaw’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/developers-pay-out-montreal-bylaw-diverse-metropolis-1.6941008), yes avoiding doing the right thing by paying the fine is the way the greed driven work. In the end it is always about the bottom dollar. I think the best quote comes from Mel Brooks in History of the world part 1 with “Leader of Senate – The Roman Empire: All fellow members of the Roman senate hear me. Shall we continue to build palace after palace for the rich? Or shall we aspire to a more noble purpose and build decent housing for the poor? How does the senate vote? – Entire Senate: Fuck the poor!” This pretty sums up the bulk of all real estate developers. And the picture isn’t pretty. Especially as the (a speculated view) the fines are so low that these developers will continue to ‘Fuck the poor!’. The article gives us “Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one. The Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis forces developers to include social, family and, in some places, affordable housing units to any new projects larger than 4,843 square feet” and when you consider the added “Those fees (read: fines) have so far amounted to a total of $24.5 million — not enough to develop a single social housing project, according to housing experts”, as such I see the math as “there have been 150 new projects by private developers, creating a total of 7,100 housing units” giving us a fine of $3380 fine per housing unit and the housing units go well over a million each, sometimes well over 3 million, as such the fine is a joke and it is that yoke that hits Valérie Plante in the face. Now, normally I will not care. I do not live in Montreal, I am not Canadian, but this setting will be copied by developers towards the UK and Australia making their wealth a lot more and gained quicker. As an example I would like to raise the paperback setting of the London Administration with their Powerhouse. So how many became social housing? The answer is laughable and this will run over to Australia as well (perhaps it already has) and these administrations are seemingly a joke. I have been waiting for 10 years for a decent affordable apartment and the waiting list is nowhere in sight at present. So whilst the CBC presents us with “The city of Montreal had promised in 2021 to release the two-year results of the bylaw by early 2023, but hasn’t done so. Ensemble Montréal says it compiled the data itself, using the city’s open data. It is calling for Plante’s administration to disclose what it plans to do with the five new plots and $24.5 million.” As such I have no real hopes that anything will be achieved and I fear that a similar setting will make matters worse in the United Kingdom and Australia. New Zealand has a tight grip on exploding greed, as such they are in a much better position than any of the three others. Even as Australia might be in the least problem of the other two, it does have issues and the UK is in a really bad shape as it is allowing investment groups to buy out complete suburbs at present. CNBC gave us in February ‘Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands of single-family homes since the Great Recession. Here’s what that means for rental prices’ and it is not merely the US, as I wrote about it in the past, the UK (London Specifically) is a great way for these players to store their wealth and watch it safely mature, in the end we all need a roof over our heads and the boasted returns for London are too good to pass up and I personally believe that places like Toronto and Vancouver are about to meet those same returns, especially as we see events unfold now in Montreal. So how much longer until these places as well as Sydney are set in a similar stage? I will let you figure it out, but the numbers aren’t looking good if you are in a shifting position of housing. And matters are getting worse. In the last 10 years in Sydney things went from bad to disastrous and I reckon that more cities are on that list of shifting tides. And this amounts for the Commonwealth and the EU metropolitan pressure points. Munich, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Madrid and Rome being prime examples. Weirdly enough Paris escaped the stage. If Le Monde is to be believed with ‘‘Adapting the existing’: Paris’ plan to reach 40% affordable housing by 2035’ they could be ahead of the curve by a massive amount. I wonder if Australia, Canada and the UK have looked into this as a possible solution. Not sure if it is possible (as I am completely ignorant of building codes in these places) but it is a setting I had not seen before as far as I could tell.

So enjoy the week and consider your rent, and how much it could go up this year when it is owned by a Wall Street player, a fearful page turner is ever there was one.

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August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

To get the entire mess I will start with a television episode.

The line was “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment behind your nightmare scenario” it was linking a conversation between President Bartlett and Dr. Takahashi. The episode was ‘A good Day’ season 6 episode 17. Yes, this part is fiction and some of the mentioned elements were too, but not all and that is the striking part. This episode aired in March 2005. You think that would be the end of it, but you would be wrong. Lets take a look at reality.

The Financial Times gave us ‘Saudi Arabia cuts holdings of US Treasuries to 6-year low’ on august 17th (at https://www.ft.com/content/2925952d-1e20-4748-8fa4-05b3605fc46a). There we are given “Saudi Arabia sold down its holdings of US Treasuries in June to the lowest in more than six years, as the kingdom directs more funds to foreign equity and domestic investments. The kingdom held $108.1bn of Treasury securities in June, down $3.2bn from May and below the $119.7bn it held at the end of last year, according to data from the US Treasury department.” This is merely part one, the second part is seen with ‘China likely to cut more US debt holdings’ (at https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/16/WS64dce79ba31035260b81c880.html) this is not the end, this is merely the beginning of what was described in the West Wing as the nightmare scenario. You would think that the EU and Japan would come to the aid of the US, but you would be wrong. Mario Draghi overspend trillions in the past and now the EU credit card is stretched to the max. Japan had in March 2023, a Japanese public debt is estimated to be approximately 9.2 trillion US Dollars, or 263% of GDP. Japan has no place to go and that is the beginning of systems collapsing. The US is in its endgame towards becoming an economic third world nation. 

Yet there is more tom come. We also get (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/death-entire-financial-monetary-social-180841464.html) ‘‘It’s The Death Of The Entire Financial, Monetary And Social System’: This Market Expert Warns The U.S. Dollar Is Quickly Losing Its Reserve Status.’ I do not know Jing Pan and I do not know whether she is correct, but she gives us one part that struck a nerve. She gives us “In March, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank grabbed major headlines. After the bank sold its Treasury bond portfolio, it incurred a substantial loss, causing depositors to question its liquidity and leading to a bank run. Amid this market upheaval, Silvergate Bank, First Republic Bank and Signature Bank failed as well. “This banking crisis is not over,” she said. “Maybe they’ve been able to paper over it, and so everybody is calm, and you have consumer confidence going up and all of this other kind of garbage. But it’s built on a house of lies.”” It struck a nerve because I got there through different means. You see when the SVB issues was playing out, we suddenly get a news article with Janet Yellen who is keeping tabs on the situation. Janet Yellen, United States Secretary of the Treasury. Not some governor from California, not someone from the banking industry. No, it was El Jefe from the treasury herself. It was overkill. I had issues and I wrote about them earlier (not sure when). I wondered why the SVB was in that setting and why Yellen personally took notice. I wondered who was holding the US bonds. Because banks had some of the bonds, but no one had a list of how much and no one had a clue (or remained silent) on how much the SVB was holding. 

As such I had an issue, things weren’t adding up. And now the two largest finders of the planet are shedding the US debt. As I see it the US has painted themselves in a corner and things will go ugly soon enough.

This is where the next article comes in. The article (at https://tickernews.co/u-s-credit-card-debt-levels-just-surpassed-1-trillion/), which is not the only source gives us ‘U.S. credit card debt levels just surpassed $1-trillion’, as such 300 million people have a collective debt of over on thousand billion. This amounts to the degree that every American has a debt well over $3,000. So how will this unfold when the dollar drops? Now, I am generalising but the larger stage is now set. Bonds are going nowhere and in 2022 long-dated U.S. notes lost 39.2% in value. So how safe are those bonds now? We know about the inflation and that it is rising, but CNN reports that ‘US banks sitting on unrealised losses of $620 billion’. This came to us in March, as such the SVB issues are rising, are they not? So where are those bonds? Who is reaping the losses on that one and the nightmare scenario that a television series gave to us in 2005 is about to become a very real issue in 2023 and 2024. 

We might have thought 20 years ago that bonds were the safest place to be, but only 20 years later and this is no longer a reality and moreover the allies of the USA are shedding them, or cashing in to reduce the damage from them. This leaves America in a very vulnerable position. As I personally see it, they painted themselves in a corner and the windows on the two adjacent walls are soon out of reach to anyone in that corner. To add to this, the paint is red and massively toxic (as I see it), so no release unless someone can find a little over 20 trillion to help the US, the usual suspects are out of cash and I reckon Russia will not offer help either. Consumers have a total accumulated debt that surpasses a trillion and the bad news keeps on stacking up. All because politicians were playing the ‘screw it’ card. Now that the ledgers are up for grabs the US is sitting in the worst spot it has been in in well over a century and corporate and business America is looking for any way out of the US at present. 

When you see that image and you add the failures of Microsoft a different image comes to mind and it is not a pretty one. So why Microsoft? Because it is part of the Dow Jones Index. It might only be for 4.9% but when that goes south the DJI will see a much larger problem. You see it is not merely Microsoft, it becomes an issue for Goldman Sachs as well and when the dollar collapses. What do you think that places like UnitedHealth Group, Johnson & Johnson, VISA, American Express and Walmart will be left with? When over 150 million will have no money left the consumers pushing the aforementioned companies up will also fade pushing rates and results down. All things that could have been seen will over 2-3 years ago. And there is no blaming the Russian-Ukrainian war, this would have happened no matter what. Optionally it happened sooner, but not much sooner. 

Even if ‘A good day’ was the start, the settings have been in place for years. I believe the media merely looked the other way, because the other view was sexy and optionally offered more digital dollars, another funny money business. 

So am I wrong?
That is the question. I could be and relating articles like I am is to some degree folly, but it was all I had at the time. And if there is an economic person (I am not one) giving us a clear answer why I am wrong, I would accept that, but there are too many issues in the field and there are too many issues out in the open. I wonder if anyone could counter them all. But I will keep my eyes open to see if someone goes that way.

Anyway, have a great day and I am about to start the final day of the weekend.

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August 17, 2023 · 17:15

Strike Two

This started earlier. It started weeks ago and I was aware, I took notice. Yet, that was about it. I mean no disrespect. I do not live in the US, I am not California and as such I am merely partially aware. I see what most outside of the US see. We see the strike, but yesterday I saw an opinion piece in the LA Times and that woke me up a little more and would you believe it, this morning I got more awake. There was an advertisement on YouTube, it was the Pilot of Lioness and it was one hell of an ad. It was 50 minutes, it was the pilot. Yup Paramount Plus took their balls and hung them up the wall. OK, this is a first that I watch a 50 minute advertisement. Yet, it was not about the ad, not about Lioness but it gave me focus, so lets begin.

The LA Times Story (at https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-15/netflix-antitrust-anticompetitive-labor) gives us ‘Hollywood strikes prove Netflix and other streamers have grown too powerful. Time to break them up’ here we are given “Many have called the stalemate an existential crisis because it concerns new issues such as residuals from streaming services and rules for the use of artificial intelligence. These go beyond the usual labor issues such as wages and benefits and cut to the heart of an industry in which streamers such as Netflix can dominate all aspects of the business.” It is one side that I had not seen before. ‘Entertainment’ has become an end-to-end business over ALL verticals. I had not considered that merely because I am not part of this industry, I never was. Yet here we are given “Antitrust laws need to be invoked — as they were in the 1940s in U.S. vs. Paramount — to break up streaming services that both produce content and distribute it. This vertical integration has deeply changed the longstanding entertainment industry ecosystem, which allowed employees to survive and studios to prosper.” Which gets us to “In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled against the studios, requiring them to divest themselves of their movie theatres if they wanted to continue in the production business. Shortly thereafter, theatrical films began to be aired on television with no additional compensation for creative talent. This led to the strike by both the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild in 1960, the last time the two struck simultaneously.”

With finally “If Netflix and its streaming peers like Apple+, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Max can maintain their vertical control, it will be next to impossible to settle the Hollywood strikes in ways that could preserve the ability of creators and technicians to earn a decent living and protect creative diversity. The old vertical studio system was broken up by the Justice Department. It may be time to do the same with these 21st century behemoths.” And that was the wake up call I needed. The Paramount ‘advertisement’ was apt and consider that Lioness is new stellar series. Kidman, Saldana and several others are making a bundle. They earned it, their work is first rate, as is the director and the director of photography. They all did a stellar job, but it would not have been possible without the writer, without the writer there would be no script, nothing for the director to work from. So how much is he making? 

We see the accusations that the top person, which in the case of Disney is Bob Iger, in 2022 he made well over $14,000,000. This amounts to well over a million a month. Now lets take a look at the image below.

So a series that streamed over 3,000,000,000 minutes, making it one of the most profitable and most successful series even, the writers were collectively paid $3,000. Please explain to me in what universe 3 billion streamed minutes gives us a combined pay check of $3,000? You see those three billion minutes amount to 138,121.5 years. Does it make sense now? The writers are beyond underpaid. They are the legal slaves of America and they deserve their right coin. But American history is seeded with injustice and exploitation and to be honest until the LA Times piece I did not see it, so who else was unaware? We are given snapshots, yet until you see the entire vertical of exploitation it makes little sense and now with that streaming vertical exposed you can see just how unfair it is and one series, the series suits, showed us just how much the writers are fed up with being ignored what should be rightfully theirs.

Enjoy the day.

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