Category Archives: Finance

July 19, 2023 · 21:18

Basic counting

This is a simple setting, there is no ‘complication’. There is a certain need to be competent and this is seen and shown in all walks of life. So I had a few issues with the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66229577) I am not saying the BBC did anything wrong. Consider what we are being told in the article. We are given “The event was supposed to be a massive boost for the regional cities hosting it, at a cost of A$2.6 billion (£1.4bn; $1.8bn). But the cost of staging the 12-day Games had ballooned to more than A$6bn, Mr Andrews said.” The very first question that came to mind was ‘How incompetent is Daniel Andrews?’ Don’t just take my word for it, consider the image below. Yes, it is quirky and funny, but not entirely untrue. 

You see I get that mistakes are made, we all make them. We get fuel prices wrong ($2.78 instead of $2.43), we get the price of an item can be handed wrongly, these things happen. But to make an error that amounts to 230% of the invoice requires a very special amount of stupid and I reckon that Daniel is every bit as guilty as whomever wielded the abacus that gave us such wrong numbers. 

And this is not the only case. We are given “Just one Games has been held outside the UK or Australia in the last 20 years – the 2010 outing in the Indian capital, Delhi. Originally expected to cost $270m, India ended up spending 16 times that – almost $4.1bn.” This now gives us three issues. The first is that the logistical side of the Commonwealth games will need an overhaul (if there is one left). The fact that they got the number wrong in 2010 by 1600% is clear evidence of that. 

The second part is that these numbers should have ben checked and as such subsequent games would have been ready. This seems not to be happening. The third part is a little harder. The fact that within 15 years the cost are driven up by almost 50% is one, the second is that India required $4.1 billion, so how did anyone find a way to get it done for an initial $1.8 billion? For half the price even as construction costs tend to be higher in Australia? Yes, we can fidget with currencies all we ant, but the numbers aren’t adding up and that is on Daniel Andrews, the buck literally stops there. 

It seems to me that there are too many fingers in this Commonwealth Games pie. Costs are getting out of hand and there might be valid reasons, but which paper did a thorough digging into that? I personally reckon no one is looking deeper into this as it also impacts advertisers. And the media loves its role as a courtesan.

Wo we will have to wait what will happen next, yet the larger setting is also interesting. Melbourne had the Commonwealth games in 2006, are you telling me that these venues no longer suffices? It might have been part of the scuttled calculations, but I see no mention of that. The BBC article makes no mention of the 2006 games whatsoever, which is a little weird too. So when the Commonwealth games are cancelled, I wonder if anyone will look deeper into this cesspool of incompetency. On the upside, I seem to have found another pool of revenue (or cost reduction) at present and it might apply to Amazon, Apple and Google. But I need to dig a little further before I make official mention here. It might equally impact IBM to some degree as well. 

Well, that was another fine mess I aided in creating, but that is how I roll.

Enjoy the middle of the week.

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July 18, 2023 · 22:44

In souls we trust

I believe that this is the setting we should be in. Make no mistake, there is every chance that I might be wrong and I understand that many will not agree with me. This all comes to blows as I saw an article whilst researching others. I initially was reading up on Andrew Tate, I saw that his house arrest had been prolonged for yet another month. I have had my issues with the arrest. In the first for MONTHS there was no formal case made and we heard all kinds of excuses and the media just accepted it, as it seemingly does whilst being a courtesan. I saw a few other issues and I still believe on a speculative foundation that this all is a play by Romanian organised crime and some business people to steal the business enterprise of the Tate’s away. It is worth hundreds of millions and a fraction of that tends to be enough to start something like that. The media (for the most) was zero help, they are all of the mind to stretch the digital dollar as far as they can and then I stumbled upon ‘“Britain will be fully Islamic soon” – Andrew Tate shocks fans by openly calling for the Islamisation of Britain’ by sportskeeda (at https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/news-britain-will-fully-islamic-soon-andrew-tate-shocks-fans-openly-calling-islamisation-britain). You might think that this is preposterous, but to some extend this is a global wave that is starting to happen. This world has 8 billion people in it (aka 8,000,000,000) the larger stage is that at present a little over 2 billion (aka 2,000,000,000) is Muslim, it is over 25% at present. Even as 2.6 billion are christian and we see messages how much it is growing, for the most, the people have had enough of the christian church. The exploitation, the child sex abuse, the Vatican in denial and the support of corruption on a global scale is getting out of hand. The overly American Christian waves of BS we see on a daily basis is a first example. One source (unconfirmed) gives us “Since 1970, weekly church attendance among Catholics has dropped from 55% to 20%, the number of priests declined from 59,000 to 35,000 and the number of people who left Catholicism increased from under 2 million in 1975 to over 30 million today.” The flock is leaving the shepherd by the millions, but some remain in denial. I saw another wave evolve 2-3 years back and that led to the IP I had been trying to sell to Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom Holdings, Amazon and Tencent Technologies. You see, we are given in the article “This building is literally dead centre in the middle of London’s historic centre. Amazing news. The only alternative to Islam for the brits are pride flags as they no longer have any innate culture or patriotism. Allah is the best of planners and I look forward to seeing The Islamic republic of Great Britistan in her final form. Alhamdulillah Britain will be fully Islamic soon.” I personally did not see that part, but I saw enough from the other parts to see that changes are needed and governments were actively avoiding them, which gave me the idea of IP which would get well over 50 million subscribers from the early days and that wave would evolve over time. With the claims made by Andrew Tate, these changes would herald a massive wave (in my favour), but that is not what this is about. You see, if we trust in souls the Vatican and governments would clean up their acts, but they do not. If anything they are making it worse and soon the people are driven by choices they weren’t ready to make and might not be ready to make at that point, but it would optionally prove Andrew’s setting. The fun part I that Google numbered itself out of that equation, for whatever reason, they stand to lose a lot. Microsoft will wherever the revenue is, optionally making matters worse and the others, I honestly cannot tell. American firms will get a tap on the shoulder ‘to make a choice’, but like the Huawei case there is now almost enough for them to switch, or set a double stage to provide both.

This might have been a setting in 2019, but there was enough evidence for years to change an Apple keyboard where EVERY key is a display and it can show the alphabet the user requires. IBM engineers came up with the projection keyboard in 1992. So why was it held back? The setting resurfaced with the Apple iPad, but overall it never took off and I can see a case where Apple had the option to become the number one player in the Middle East, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and a few other places. So what kept them? It cannot be revenue, they lack it and the technology has been out there for 30 years. So what is stopping them? I will let you figure that out.

Andrew further gives us “A secular UK as it is intended to be. All races and religions and cultures etc living in harmony. That seems like a better and more long term plan” I believe he is not wrong, but the media sucks up to the Vatican, the church of England, the Swedish church and a few other players and they are all in denial. So what comes next? It is anyones guess I reckon, but the growth of Islam is clear and has been clear for several years. It allowed me to create IP no one considered and there is more to come. When I unite the IP for 5G+ there will be a much larger stage and I saw that in Dubai it is already evolving. Arab News gave us 22 hours ago ‘Dubai’s real estate transactions increase 37% in Q2: report’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2339316/business-economy), this means that another IP piece I have will soon evolve, this is not wishful thinking, the quote “with the total value of properties sold touching 69.8 billion dirhams ($19 billion)” makes it so. I saw the real estate people doing the same thing over and over again. This needs a shakeup and that is where I saw the diverging of one IP into another. I didn’t initially see that in Dubai, I saw it evolve in Toronto and the step to Dubai is as I personally see it exceedingly simple. In souls we trust, all others rely on becoming a tool. It is not sweet, it is nasty, but this christian exploitative stage we are on now is running out of runway and I have no idea how it crashes next, but I reckon it will. If you doubt that, consider that I have put half a dozen IP pieces on the internet. Google and Amazon should have had it, but they did not. Why not? Are they blind, or are they hindered by blinders that are set to the coming and next quarter? And that is before you realise that I also came up with Augmented reality solutions long before Gucci was there, that is three times over. So what are they doing wrong? I will let you figure that our over a cup of coffee (which gives rest to the soul and activates the brain. I have lived on that stuff almost a lifetime. 

Enjoy the week.

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July 17, 2023 · 01:33

Overwhelmed

That happens to us all, even to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have been around the block (more than once) but even I have to admit that I was not ready for what I saw. To set the stage I have been (and spend time there) to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Stockholm, Malmo, Copenhagen, Munich, London, Birmingham, Brighton, Heraklion, Tel Aviv, New York, Chicago, Washington DC and that in reflection is used to describe what I saw. 

For several reasons I have been looking at Dubai. Initially to the Dubai Mall to consider and test one of my IP and see how it holds up. You see, it is easy to hold up any IP to places with all the defects in place. Yet can it hold up to a place that is as perfect (and as big) as the Dubai Mall? I believe it did, but not to the massive agree that it holds up to other places and seeing your IP in a diminished way also opens your ming up to optional innovations. So as I was looking at the mall I saw several walkthroughs. Some great, many less so. One provider that stood out was Alone in Dubai (at https://www.youtube.com/@aloneindubai) that provider gave me a lot more and after seeing over half a dozen of walkthrough videos I came to the initial conclusion that Dubai might be one of the most perfect places in the world. I stated ‘initially’ because I have never been there and video’s only show part of something. But what I saw showed me streets leaner than anywhere else on the planet. This is why I showed you the places I have been (I have been to a lot more places), these streets were the cleanest I have ever seen. The street radiate feelings of safety, I saw water dispensers where people and tourists could refill their bottles of water. I saw a lot that I saw before. Terraces that we see near beaches, but now nowhere near a beach. Inviting for coffee, lunch and so on. Places that we are used to seeing. Shops that we are used to see and sometimes they have a western and an Arabic facade. A global village that quite frankly blew me away and a lot of Turkish Ice cream places. Beyond this there was the skyline of Dubai which is impressive in many ways, but check out the video’s for yourself, there is nothing like a first glimpse to give you pause to question what was held in front of you and seeing that reality is different. Even outside the mall we see so much and so many places where it all seems like we have seen it all before, but we never saw it to such an immaculate degree. Then there was the Carrefour. A supermarket, yet I never saw one this big. Perhaps in America they have supermarkets that size, but the places I have been to are nowhere this big. The fish section alone was 10 times the size of the fish shops we have here. Isles with fresh fish, packaged fillet and so many choices. Isles of items we all see in our own supermarkets and the weird part was that plenty is on par with our prices, some are cheaper and some are less cheap, but there too there is the setting that the meat looks better, more high end and often at nearly the same prices. There was more of nearly everything. Something we might never have expected from a place so far from home. Today and over the last weekend I was overwhelmed by the views of a place I never expected to overwhelm me. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that the Dubai Mall was one of the most beautiful and most perfect places on the planet. What was unexpected was that Dubai was every bit as amazing as the mall was and when you see some of these videos on sights on Dubai. You will understand why it could be the best vacation spot you have ever been to in all your life.

The new week is about to start, use the video’s to survive until the next weekend.

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July 16, 2023 · 10:58

Single-mindedness towards greed

That is how I see it in this case. To see this we need to take a look at the CBC article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/box-office-slump-2023-1.6906554) called ‘Blockbusters are failing spectacularly, but how that changes Hollywood is anyone’s guess’. First of all, are they failing? To the requiring mind of these movie releases they seemingly are. Yet I am not of that mindset. Lets see if I can get you on board. A second article is from the BBC and seen (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230713-how-the-cost-of-living-crisis-is-fuelling-job-quits) where we are getting told about the cost of living. They call it ‘How the cost-of-living crisis is fuelling job quits’, especially in families with children, the revenue of worker number two is no longer covering the cost of the children. They tell us “Rising prices and interest rates are pushing some workers to move around the labour market, rather than dig in their heels at their current employers.” This is not merely a British thing, it is a global thing and when you add Australia with age discrimination we have a very different picture. We see a growing global community that can no longer AFFORD to go to the cinema. I used to go to the cinema at least once a month. Now I am happy if I can afford to go once a quarter, that is a drop of 60% and I am not alone, millions are in the same boat. To get any kind of tinsel town satisfaction we are driven to Netflix. $15 a month versus $15 per visit is simple math (if you have a proper internet connection), yet the CBC has merely one mention of Netflix and it is in the wrong direction. The article has nothing on ‘cost of living’ a clear first in any household. A week ago CBC gave its readers ‘Families face ‘hidden homelessness’ as Hamilton shelter system is consistently overwhelmed’ and no one was able to connect the dots? In ‘generalising’ statistics we tend to agree and accept that for any household collapsing, at least 50 more are on the verge to go that direction. It isn’t a foolproof stage, but with the lack of data that is a clear path to walk on and now we see that this implies that in Hamilton alone a thousand households are on the verge of collapsing. So how many of those would consider going to the cinema? It amounts to $25-$40 per person, and that is just for starters. There are travel cost to consider as well. So when you add it all up, Canada alone has close to 250,000 households that actually can no longer afford to go to the cinema. Add a few million from the US and a similar amount from the EU and it explains why people aren’t going to the silver screen, they lack funds. This doesn’t make the movie a flop. I would have loved to have seen Shazam 2 (or the new Indiana Jones, or Oppenheimer, or Mission Impossible) I just couldn’t afford the ticket. It is life on a budget and I reckon that Jackson Weaver has some rewriting to do, perhaps add a chapter (or two). The funny part is that I saw this path clearly within the first 2 minutes. Me, for now is saving up so that I can see Dune Chapter 2 on launch date (which is November 2nd). This is the reality that millions face, we aren’t happy, we aren’t thrilled. This is our lives and the people in the entertainment better take notice (like the CEO’s making 135 million plus annually). You are either getting smarter on how you do things or lose more and more money and downgrading payments of actors is definitely the wrong road to travel on.

And why is this single-mindedness? Simple, you see Google and Amazon should be running circles around me. Yet for now I am growing my IP count where they should have been ahead of me and they are not. The simple setting is that they (and Hollywood) should have the goods, but I wrote several stories (could be scripts) in directions they never contemplated. So, why not? Are they the next creative failings after Ubisoft? You tell me, I should never have been ahead or even close to equal to them, but it seems that I am. I will tell you that I am not driven by greed, I believe that this is the setting that is drowning them. When did this happen? My personal feeling is that Avatar and the Marvel movies opened a door they never saw and now they are all rushing to get to that revenue. It is a greed driven drive, which is why they will never equal people like James Gunn (even when he is wearing glasses), the creative minds like Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese are titans because it is about the creation, not the revenue (it is a nice side effect for them). Art is never bankable, but it is collectable when completed. A simple premise that most never seem to get and they all rely on one other element. People who can afford to go to the cinema and for now that equation is massively out of balance.

It might not be their fault, but it is still on their plates today. Not hard was it?

Try to enjoy the last day of your weekend.

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July 15, 2023 · 22:07

A 2 minute warning?

Yes, we can relate. Yet some will think it is about the 1976 movie, and they are not entirely incorrect. It has a different relationship. It is about a BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230712-consumer-brands-leave-social-media-meta-threads) where we see ‘Why your favourite brand may be taking a social media break’. It is here where the speculations start. We are given “Like many of us, big companies are struggling to keep up with the number of social media platforms vying for their time and attention. They’re faced with the important choice of which apps to choose, in a market where social media can be an important brand-building tool and enable them to target consumers where they are most active.” You see there is more than one stream in motion. It goes beyond sniping (or shotgun marketing for that matter). It is about amount of considering versus smart considering. It was never far of my mind. You see my IP was set on a premise and even as it had options for advertising, or sniping. It was never about the timeline. Facebook overplayed its hand. Not initially, but over time people are starting to resent this approach. And like that 1976 movie, you could take a sniper rifle into the LA Colosseum and seek your target. One building with packed people, the chance to find your target is decently high. Now consider that Facebook was the Gatling gun and people started to shy away from that building you see that building holds 77,500 people. The Gatling gun (modern version) shoots up to 6,000 rounds a minute, as such the entire stadium is covered in 13 minutes. A sniping rifle can never get there, but its usage is different, each shot is a kill. It is precise and takes time. Sniping advertising is the same. It take time and effort (and causes less alarm). Yet the return on investment is almost always there and that was the approach I had in my new solution. It allows the ‘target’ the choice and that is the operative word. I do not think that brands are taking a social media break. They are (finally) figuring out that you can either market more and more, or you can start being smart about how you market your brand (almost like SPSS Answertree, 1998). And brands are figuring out that they start need to become smart about there approach (which would work out nicely for me as well). The article mentions Lush cosmetics and “The beauty company initially dropped off the platforms in 2019, due to concerns about fighting with ever-changing social media algorithms as well as the company’s worry about the potentially negative impact of social media on young people.” I reckon they were ahead of the pack when they decided that and they were considering what was wise, what was clever and how to be smart about it. Meta cares about its own bottom dollar first and that is where the users see the impact of a free service. I got there in 2021 and my models are looking very awesome, and their view is improving by the month. As such I mentioned a few months ago that I would indirectly be taking business away from Meta (and others), now if Amazon wakes up, they could end up with the home and away advantage all at the same time. If not it will fall to Tencent Technologies. I reckon that they are about to realise what I found and my mind would be worth a lot overnight. Apple is still not out of the race I reckon (if they have the answer to the qualifying question) but it is too much speculation. This is about marketing and that is only the start. You see, no matter how we see it. Whether we consider shotgun marketing, sniping marketing, blanket marketing and a few other methods. In the end these are the old ways and when the new ways come to pass a lot of granular discussions go out of the window. You all saw Meta (or Facebook), YouTube and Instagram marketing as the next wave, it was never that, it was a digital approach to Direct Marketing and SPSS shot that to smithereens in 1998 when they gave the audiences on global level Answertree. When you realise the simplicity and the connected improved results of that solution, that is when you realise that the age of Meta is nearly over. They had a good run mind you. They ran marketing into new directions for 19 years, just like Direct Marketing did 2 decades before and whatever came before that. This doesn’t mean that Meta is ending, but it will see a reduced interest and others will push the next wave. Who it will be? I have no idea, I am not tapping the vein of marketing. I merely saw another option that could have benefits for me, merely a benefit and that was enough for me. The next marketing wave is for whomever has a life dedicated to marketing, it is not me.

So there might be a 2 minute warning, although in marketing terms it is most likely a 2 years warning, as such someone will be raking in new solutions somewhere in 2025 and I reckon that this is when other options will be drowning out the voices of fake news and real news and create a new setting of what consolidates the marketing and advertising surrounding it. But that is my speculated view on the matter.

Enjoy the weekend, just 48 hours at best to go.

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July 14, 2023 · 22:47

About last night

Yup, I am going to go there. Yesterday I started writing about a new IP, a new game. It is incomplete. It is new and as far as I can tell, it has never been done before. As such I leave this IP for free exclusively to developers for the Amazon Luna and the Tencent technologies. You see, Microsoft is out. They are so driven to keep gaming IP out of the hands of Sony, making all non-Microsoft gamers suffer. It is my duty to make them burn. For instance they are trying to buy Blizzard/Activision for $69,000,000,000. This means that they need (over 3 years without accounting for interest) $2,000,000,000 a month just to clear this. Microsoft will have a whole battery of accountants making some bad loan corporation (where they push in all the bad loans into) or some other creative solution. You see, they can try to make the revenue, or I can hand solutions to their competitors and if I create enough options, Microsoft will end up being cornered more and more and it will implode. Especially when you cannot pay for a $69 billion dollar solution. Amazon and Tencent created a viable solution. Apple, Google and Sony are pushing on other corners as well. As such pushing more and more against Microsoft will show the dents in their armour until it cracks and no longer protects their board (or is that bored) of directors. The creative mind gets to win and the fakers at Microsoft trying to rely on spin will end up with less and less. That is my simple motivation to teach Microsoft a lesson. When they validly took over Bethesda they woke up an angry gamer. To everything there is a consequence, Microsoft is about to learn what a world with 

The stage
The stage was set in a dream. In that dream I was climbing a building. I was not alone and the building was a ruin, no idea where or what caused it. The ruin was parts of floors, walls and it had paths with boxes, crates made out of metal, plastic and wood. I needed to get somewhere, but what it was faded the moment I woke up. And that reminded me of Mirror’s edge. All clean, crisp and futuristic. Now consider a new game, doing free running, or free running plus to get to a price, part of a story or something we need to achieve. But this is not set as ‘set to a path’. An open world building, but the design and the programming is not set to a graphic, but set to engineering principles. The building could collapse, but to gravity and engineering, not to cool looking premisses. As such there are no ‘set courses’ there is no one sides solution. And as we scale more and more (and higher places) we get an entirely new game. This is not some game that would work on consoles, this has streaming (GaaS) written all over it and as you see it now, it might not be an actual solution, merely the start to one. Yet as far as I can tell no one has this and now it is free for the Amazon and Tencent technologies. I reckon I need to come up with half a dozen ideas more and the fate of Microsoft will be sealed. It already is, but getting there sooner works for me. Consider that Microsoft seemingly had a quarter revenue of $52.857B, a mere 7% more. They will (with future purchases) require well over $59 billion a quarter just to stand still, but with the added purchase they will require to get well over $65 billion a quarter just to appease their shareholders and that is where I come in If I can divert enough people to Amazon and Tencent Technologies whilst Apple, Google and Sony keep the pressure building on the other side there is every chance that Microsoft will see the down side of pissing off gamers in their pursuit of greed at their expense. 

It is my personal view and I admit if someone tells me I am wrong, they might have a case, but we all react in out own ways and this was mine. At least I am creative and handing it to hands of non-Microsoft making. 

Enjoy the day before the weekend.

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July 14, 2023 · 00:00

About the other thing

That is not how it started. It started with a dream, a slightly unsettling dream and at first I had no idea what it was about and where it would lead me, but there I was on the edge of whatever I was on and then I woke up. The dream had nestled in my subconscious and that is when I realised the larger image my mind was trying to tell me. Not unlike a game like Mirror’s edge, this one had optional potential. It would not be for normal consoles, it would be for a streaming solution like the Amazon Luna or its Tencent equivalent. But more about that later. Perhaps I will mail them directly and see what they can make of it. Yet as I was having these thoughts, the BBC gave us a story (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66185545) where we see ‘Ukraine war: Russian general fired after criticising army leaders’ in that story we are given “Maj Gen Popov said he raised questions about high casualty rate and lack of artillery support” this would be merely one case, yet in the past (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/02/27/on-the-subject-of-failure/) on February 27th I showed just how massively the supplies of the Russian army were failing and that is the second part of the failure of Russian bear. Now we get to the third part which we are getting from the UK Express. The story (at https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1789517/vladimir-putin-russian-army-casualties-ukraine-war) gives us ‘Putin humiliated as Russia ‘almost certainly struggling’ with medical provision crisis’ which is part number three. As such we get to the image below

There we see a generic army setup. This is not my invention, this setup goes back to the napoleonic age. And in this General Popov raises a few interesting questions. What was the goal of the Russian Kremlin? Reduce its population at any cost? The need for generals to create a safe haven is now being made in doubt from what the BBC reports, as the quote is “A top Russian general says he has been removed from his post in Ukraine after telling military chiefs the truth about the dire situation on the front line”, we are given the final part, Logistics is seemingly failing to an equally disastrous degree. That is a massive failure, for any army to fail on these four counts will diminish any army, no matter how large it is and the losses are starting to add to serious losses for the Russian army.

A disastrous set of elements are in play and not being a high military person, I have no idea how this plays out. I am not even willing to speculate on would or could happen. Yet there is an overbearing thought. As I believe that General Popov is optionally correct, how could his superiors and the Kremlin be that wrong? People a lot more intelligent than me are in control of Armies, the Russian army is no exception, as such I wonder what on earth is going on. Was my dream part of that? I doubt that, it was a lot different from reality as is the command structure that the Russians are employing and if that fails, what else is failing behind that Iron curtain and with me realising this, I reckon that China and the Middle East are already on that channel. As such I need not worry about BRICS and what Russia is trying to do, they are at present experts in making themselves irrelevant. That is how I see it and I might be wrong, but when you realise that 4 parts of an entire army is failing, is there any other conclusion you could make?

Enjoy the day.

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July 13, 2023 · 00:40

Enemy of the stated

That is sometimes the case and I got that alert yesterday. It took me a while to get on board with some of the items, yet on the other side there is more and there is something else at that. So lets start with that part as it matters. Last year, almost 1 year ago I wrote an article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/07/18/for-those-not-seeing-the-oil-field/) with the title ‘For those not seeing the oil field’. In that Article I wrote “China could sell the Chengdu J-20 at a nice price to Saudi Arabia (I admit I was trying to get my foot in the door and make a play for a simple 3.75% commission), and when you consider that this bill might go up to 15 billion, my 3.75% makes for a nice half a billion (we all have overly big dreams), and merely to play the courier? You have got to be kidding, I am so ready for that part!” And that stage as already underway at that time (alas, not for me). In an age where in Australia we see nearly the entire nation ripe with age discrimination, I was aiming for a nice job getting 3.75% (an internal joke from 1996) of whatever comes up and recently I learned that this might be as high as $23.8 billion over 2 years. This would have gotten me a $892,500,000 pay-check (over 2 years). Would I accept that? Hell yes! For being a simple courier for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? I would have been so there. Australia has no enemy relationships with either country. Is it my best case scenario? Not exactly, I am a commonwealthian after all, as such I preferred to be courier to documents for the British Typhoon. Yet British Parliament gave it up for British tea grannies and their CAAT. The Americans made a mess of everything pushing their own solutions away from a decent revenue taxable future. So I was looking out for me and I would have taken that job, no hesitation about it. 

So now you have the background, lets dig into the article that sets this off. It was the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66160979) who gives us ‘US think tank founder charged with acting as Chinese agent’. In that article we are given a few parts. First there is “Gal Luft “agreed to covertly recruit and pay” an unnamed ex-US official to publicly support certain Chinese policies, federal prosecutors say. The 57-year-old allegedly attempted to broker arms sales involving customers in China, Libya, the UAE and Kenya.” Here we have two issues. Was he a broker? Did he connect to people, who via him conducted business? Broker is a bit of a lose term. And we aren’t talking two parties, we are looking at at least 3 channels, optionally more, but what is relevant and what matters? For Americans it is a setting for courts and good luck with that evidence. The second allegation is “In 2016, officials say he failed to register as a foreign agent while acting to advance Chinese interests in the US. He is alleged to have lobbied an ex-US official who was an adviser to then President-elect Donald Trump to convince him to “publicly support certain policies with respect to China”.” Here, in the first, was he a foreign agent, or was he a (technical) consultant? They are very different and evidence is bringing that up (I never saw any for that matter). And as the ‘activity’ happened in 2016, why did it take 7 years for anyone to take actions? Which policies was he catering to? Is that not the job of any stake holder in the political field? Was the policy a legal one or a illegal one? Three questions that blow away the setting if the court doesn’t have a proper deck of Trump cards (pun intended). Then we get a very specific one “Prosecutors also accuse him of attempting to broker arms sales without a US permit. He allegedly worked to help Chinese companies sell anti-tank launchers, grenade launchers and mortar rounds to Libya.” The short and sweet is, can it be proven that he was a broker, or was he an un-sided courier? Person A and Person B do not know each other (good enough), but they both know Person C and that person couriers the papers between the two. Isn’t that what DHL does? Is DHL a courier of an arms broker? Then we get “Federal officials say he attempted to bypass US sanctions on Iranian oil by directing an associate to say that the oil was Brazilian. According to prosecutors, Mr Luft was arrested in Cyprus on US charges on 17 February this year and fled after being released on bail pending extradition.” This is a specific allegation and a big ‘no no’ Iran is on the naughty list of many nations and there they might have a case. I reckon it is stupid to do what he did as the sulphur content of Brazilian and Iran are very different, did he not think this through? Well that is a case that might stick on him and the fact that he allegedly fled to Cyprus does not help him much. So what is the difference between George Luft and me? I am not American and I will not do business with Iran. But as we are both optional couriers I am still in a much better place that he is (alas a very poor one for now). As such in the end we get “He is charged with eight counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent, evading oil sanctions, two counts of making false statements to investigators and three counts of illicit arms trafficking.” What is true? What is legal? What is unacceptable? That is for the courts to decide, but I reckon that George Luft as the head of a think tank was already making a fair amount of coins, so why endanger it all? I never get invited to US Energy Security Council conferences, so I am a little clueless at present. But it seems that America is seemingly still out to declaw whatever China does and at present I cannot say that they did anything do wrong, the courts will decide on George Luft. I look forward to seeing that evidence. In the meantime, my delusional side will dream of getting his 3.75%, as all delusional people do.

Enjoy the middle of the week. 

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July 12, 2023 · 02:13

One voice is still a voice

I made mention of this all over June. The production cuts that Saudi Arabia set out to do would have impact. Some called me stupid, most ignored the issue. Yet Bloomberg gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s Oil Production Cuts Are Quietly Starting to Bite’ (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-oil-production-cuts-105634851.html), as such you need to consider. Not merely that I was right. The larger setting is that this is only one week into the new amounts and it is starting to bite. So how will the setting of less oil be in a month time? And before you know it North America and Europe enter autumn with all the heat they require at that point. We are then given “Brent oil traded in London had been stuck around the $75-a-barrel mark for weeks. That shifted a little Friday, when the contracts rose to about $78, a level they have largely held at since.” A setting we get and understand, but as the supply landscape is redefined, that price cannot be held and I reckon that in a month time it will hit the $90 mark and after that it gets nasty in a hurry. And there is an additional quote that matters. We are given “In the latest move, at least two processors in Asia sought less from the Saudis for cargoes shipped next month, and another said it won’t take any cargoes after an unexpected price increase.” This sounds nice on paper, but when we have 15 processors al vying for the 1 million barrels out there, at least 5 will have no oil to process. It is simple math and at that point the item of sulphur content will not hold much water. And whilst people are shouting where is our oil, I see a group of people that forgot that Saudi Arabia is building a new refinery in China which will gobble up almost a million barrels a day and China who got the deal with a clause accepting that payments are in Yuan is slightly too happy and when Europe (America and Canada too) realise that the reduction in oil is permanent and that China is now in a stage with loads of oil to fuel their economy. That is the point when people realise that they are losing a lot more than they bargained for. If only the US hadn’t pissed of Elon Musk to the degree they had. Yet this is about oil and not about batteries. The simplest setting is that this ‘biting’ is happening after less than 2 weeks into the reductions. So what will be the case in 4 weeks? Is someone considering that Janet Yellen had a portfolio of begging prescriptions towards China? I have no idea where this will end, yet I remember the ‘carless Sundays’ in the Netherlands in 1973. We might have that soon enough and now all over Europe and optionally America too. In 1973 it was fun. I got to test my roller skates on the A27 (a Dutch highway) which extension past Hilversum was brand new and I got to test that tarmac and not a car in sight, good times. Yet now it will be different and I reckon that the economic image will change for a lot of nations. It will not be a simple ‘lets add some money we do not have’. Now several members of the EU will be waging some kind of personal war to get the oil they all need. And I gave fair warning around two years ago. And it was not rocket science, it was simply based on the old premise ‘do not bite the hand that feeds you’ and that is how the escalation wth the UK (and their CAAT) and the US with whatever premise they thought they had and now they all want oil that they are denied. It sucks to be them soon enough.

It might be quietly biting now, but in 4-8 weeks it will not be quiet and when Europe (as well as the US) enters winter that setting will not be a nice one.

Enjoy the almost middle of the week.

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July 10, 2023 · 17:14

Tweeter and Sylvester Musk

There is a stage out there, I cannot say whether I am seeing it right, or wrong. I could be massively wrong, but this is how I see it. It started yesterday with one article and the articles started to pile up and an image was created. Now do no take my interpretation as gospel. I could be wrong, this I say upfront. The story you are about to read had been shaping for some time, yet yesterday the BBC struck a chord within me. As such this all escalated with ‘Twitter Blue accounts fuel Ukraine War misinformation’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66113460). It was not new, I have other sources making similar claims and they were supporting this with data evidence. I had seen at least one of the claims and I rejected it outright. Twitter is not a valid source, but they do carry valid sources (BBC, the Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times). I might not agree with them, but for the most they tend to properly inform their audience. As such when I saw ““French police are fired upon with American rifles that may have come from Ukraine,” reads the headline.” I knew this was a lie, propagated by someone really stupid (usually) or trolls (often enough) and here we get “BBC Verify has traced it back to pro-Kremlin channels on the Telegram messaging app” and now we have the beginning of a larger setting. Too many people are realising that when you take the blue mark (at $8 per month) you get to spout all kinds of lies gaining followers and reducing Twitter to a populist cloud of misinformation. So as we are told (n the end) “Twitter’s press office acknowledged receipt of our enquiry, but declined to comment” we need to realise that even as Jack Dorsey is not a reliable person, this was NEVER on his watch. He was able to stop many of these issues giving a larger station to laces like Threads to grow and grow they most likely will at present. To see this we need to take the second article. This time it is the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/10/twitter-faces-legal-challenge-after-failing-to-remove-reported-hate-tweets) who gives us ‘Twitter faces legal challenge after failing to remove reported hate tweets’ in this article we see “Twitter faces a landmark legal challenge after the social media giant failed to remove a series of hate-filled tweets reported by users in what could be a turning point in establishing new standards of scrutiny regarding online antisemitism” it is merely one side of a multitude of sides that are haunting Twitter and optionally pushing people to the less agreeable data capturing driven Threads. It is about to become a fight between two parties and the stag is lighting up by the notion, which of the two are the lesser of two evils. And the interesting quote here is “Twitter has received notice of the legal action and has since acted to block some of the offending tweets.” Where they only act when legally being pushed to. It is a dangerous station as it is the setting that populist sources rely on. You see Twitter has had an average of 350,000 tweet per minute and that makes sifting through the fake imagery and discriminating seas of dumbo’s a real challenge. I cannot say how it is as the limits make the old setting incorrect and I have no idea how Manny tweets we get now, yet 10,000 tweets a day for verified users implies that it pays for misinformation to get the blue checkmark at $8 a month. As such for $800 a month a troll farm can instil massive amounts of damage and there is no one to stop them and as it implies, until Twitter gets a legal summons they aren’t likely to do anything either. 

Yet this is not the whole picture, to see a little bit more of this situation we need to add one more article which aired a few hours ago by both the BBC and the Guardian. Here we see ‘Top US senator calls for probe into KSI and Logan Paul energy drink’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66150857) the texts we need to consider are “US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called on regulators to investigate an energy drink promoted by high-profile YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul” as well as “In 2022, Logan Paul and KSI – who have around 48 million YouTube followers between them – launched the caffeine-free Prime Hydration drink” and the coup de grace comes from “The caffeinated Prime Energy drink was launched in January this year. It is promoted by the company as being sugar-free and vegan.” This now gets me to my speculated view. “A company relies on two stupid people to set the stage for a population (Logan Paul and KSI), these people get their coin and as we are given “a caffeine-free Prime Hydration drink” as such these two never did anything wrong, this is seemingly clear. What happens next is that the company released their caffeinated Prime Energy drink on the coat tails of the previous and as the company owns BOTH drinks they will not sue themselves for ‘Is one more alike than the other’ and they get to ride the wave on a high and now we see Chuck Schumer starting an investigation. The company is racking in the dollars, two YouTubers are used to maximum effect and no one did anything wrong? And this is not even the start, this is also about to get a lot worse. When the people behind this new Twitter are setting a much larger stage of ‘Not our problem’ we will have one. The media lost most credibility they had, social media is racking in before it collapses on the draconian overreach of most governments and I am watching on the sidelines when I can get my slice of a multi billion dollar pie, because as that gets worse my position merely improves. I need to consider who I prefer to sell to Google (least likely), Amazon, Apple, Kingdom Holdings (preferred) or Tencent Technologies. 

In the end with the examples that we are seeing today and as we saw them over the last few months as these populations clusters scatter wherever they feel the safest. I lean back and realise that I had the right combination from the start and as the setting decreases in stability (Twitter) we see governments trying some knee jerk reaction towards a solution that was too late to be implemented in the first place. I reckon that after the second child death all will run for the hills and I will watch it happen. What did you think would happen when a child gets 4 times the caffeine meant for an adult? The company might try to hide behind “it is not recommended for children under the age of 18, people who are sensitive to caffeine, pregnant women or women who are breastfeeding”, yet the larger station will be that it was promoted as “as being sugar-free and vegan” and more alike then the ‘less healthy’ version. If it is the one word ‘Energy’ and ‘hydration’ that company has a problem and I reckon that Logan Paul and KSI better start moving, because when the children start dying their 48,000,000 followers will go somewhere else, and fast. 

There is now a station where we have fake information, false information and deceptive information and the people at large can no longer tell the difference between them. As such what will happen next you think? In the meantime other companies will look at the setting that Prime had and they will try to reflect on how they could cash in, the bottom line for them is the dollar (or soon enough the Yuen). I reckon that ChatGPT with their deeper machine learning will add to the confusion. So when you consider that Spark is another word for energy and Sparkling for hydration, what happens when these two drinks are identified as ‘spark’ drink and ‘sparkling’ drink? What is the result when people like Chuck Schumer and whomever brought it to THEIR attention miss it too? How many people will have to dies for people to take notice? I don’t Carew, I have no children, but consider what was done in Yemen, there 11,000 children have died so far. What did you do? I did nothing either, I will admit that. But at least I tried to bring it to the front page of plenty of places, more than many other did.

Enjoy your first day after the weekend.

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