Category Archives: Finance

December 2, 2021 · 04:43

The shoddy essay

I actively dislike certain people, especially as they use their position to merely lash out at others. This is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/saudi-arabia-yemen-un-human-rights-investigation-incentives-and-therats) when we see Stephanie Kirchgaessner have another go at Saudi Arabia. I honestly think that is all she does. So here is my take. The article ‘Saudis used ‘incentives and threats’ to shut down UN investigation in Yemen’ Of course my first reaction was ‘What UN investigation in Yemen?’ And the article starts off with “Political officials and diplomatic and activist sources describe stealth campaign”. I go into the article and I am treated to “according to sources with close knowledge of the matter”, “Riyadh is alleged to have warned Indonesia”, and lets not forget ““You could see the whole thing shift, and that was a shock,” said one person familiar with the matter”, so what people were familiar to the matter? What actually happened? It is a fair question, especially when we are given “The resolution was defeated by a simple majority of 21-18, with seven countries abstaining”, it is in this case that I am apparently a much better investigator. So, lets take a look.

First lets look at some headlines ‘UN calls on Yemen’s Houthis to release detained staff’, ‘UN: Houthi rebels impeding aid flow in Yemen’, ‘Yemen: Houthi Terrorism Designation Threatens Aid’, and these are just three headlines from dozens in the last two years. In this, the UN and other parties (like essay writers) have been really active in silencing any actions that included Houthi and Iranian forces in Yemen. The article has two mentions on Houthi, one in a photo and none (read: Zero) mentions of Iran. We see one mention of all in “committed by all sides”. The article is that one sided and that much of a hack job. The situation in Yemen is large, much larger then this essay writer makes it out to be. 

I am not making some claim that Saudi Arabia is innocent, but I can tell you it is definitely not that guilty either. Houthi and Iranian forces have at least part of that blame (well over 50%) and we seem to forget that all this started by Houthi forces, The Saudi coalition was asked to come and no one seems to notice that. So whilst the Guardian hides behind “the Saudis appear to have influenced officials”, I merely wonder if there isn’t a much larger picture. We see mention by John Fisher giving us “It was a very tight vote. We understand that Saudi Arabia and their coalition allies and Yemen were working at a high level for some time to persuade states in capitals through a mixture of threats and incentives, to back their bids to terminate the mandate of this international monitoring mechanism”, here we see the stage, but we ignore the lighting. In addition to that stage, what evidence is there for “through a mixture of threats and incentive”, you see Iran and  Houthi Yemen do not want any monitoring for a few reasons, and they are non-mentioned parties, why is that? Shovelling BS all on one pile is nice at times and we love to see all that BS piled up at Strasbourg, but that will not happen either will it? 

You think that this I the end, but it is time to add flavour to it all,  because in all fairness, Stephanie Kirchgaessner is not in this alone, the stakes against Saudi Arabia are much larger. That is seen when we add the Conversation (at https://theconversation.com/jobs-are-no-excuse-canada-must-stop-arming-saudi-arabia-171792) where we see “Jobs are no excuse — Canada must stop arming Saudi Arabia”, and I would state ‘Yes, handing more revenue to China is the way to go!’ I would love to get a larger billion dollar stake holding a 3.75% bonus setting. Even as we are given “The bulk of Canadian arms exports to the Saudis are light armoured vehicles, known as LAVs”, We see the attack using ‘Human Rights’ all whilst Saudi Arabia is under actual attack, Houthi (apparently Iranian operated drones) are attacking civil targets in South Saudi Arabia, so whilst we are given “Canada has twice been named by the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen as one of several world powers helping to perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia”, and we are not given the clear involvement of Iranian and Houthi settings, it is all a one sided attack and it matters, these people attack one sided for a larger need, an ego driven need and the media is helping them do this. But feel free to state I am wrong, and I am happy to be wrong, especially if $12,000,000,000 going to China might fetch me a nice 450 million dollars (I can dream, can’t I?). when the numbers are this high 3.75% makes a very nice number. And the world is making this happen, so when we see project after project fail in Europe and the US because the moral high ground came at a price, consider the names of people who made that happen. Hunger on the moral high ground is not rare, it usually is linked to all kinds of revenue that they never got. This is not a perfect world, I never claimed it to be, but a commerce world needs to sell all kinds of stuff, also stuff that seems to be wrong, there is no denying that. And when it comes to that side, these two articles leave Houthi and Iranian actions in the dark. You should wonder why that is, because a nation does not spend 12 billion in any one sided event. If it was truly one sided one billion would have been more than enough. Did you consider that?

The US and the EU have at presently dropped 48 billion in revenue, revenue that they desperately needed and now that von der Leyen revealed the ‘300 billion euro answer to China’s Belt and Road’, how will that be paid for? Not from the revenue that Saudi Arabia required to defend its borders. That revenue will support China’s Belt and Road projects, a nice pickle they got themselves in and no one is wondering how this farce can go on, because soon there will be no money left, the overdrawn credit cards from the US, the EU, France, Germany and the UK makes any economic action close to impossible. And soon (in about 3-5 weeks) when the US has another debt ceiling, consider all the things that the US could have done to stop the new stress settings; the EU and the UK as well, now that these funds are going to China, the stage changed, the electricity bill can no longer be paid and there is no fighting ring, there is no event to watch, it is just a dark room in a dark location and that I the setting we all had to avoid. But rejoice, you then know one element that Yemeni people face, they have no electricity either, the Houthi forces made sure of that. 

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December 1, 2021 · 13:07

Ego versus tax dollars

Yes, that is the setting. It is not a new setting, we have seen it before and it comes with a surprise, just like the Ferrero kinder surprise.

It is a chocolate egg, but in the middle there is a toy, a surprise. And ego versus tax dollars also have a surprise for the people. Yet in this case it is a little less nice, in this case the people, the tax payers pay either way and optionally they get to pay both ends of the equation. This is seen in BBC article ‘Multi-billion EU bid to challenge Chinese influence’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59473071). Here we are given “It’s regarded as part of the West’s efforts to counter Chinese influence in Africa and elsewhere. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present the “Global Gateway” initiative on Wednesday. The EU is looking at how it can leverage billions of euros, drawn from member states, financial institutions and the private sector”, now consider the setting:

  • member states
  • financial institutions
  • the private sector

And here is the rub, here we see how the tax payer gets that bill twice. Or a speculated once for the duration of twice the timeline. The member states sounds nice, yet the credit cards of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy are severely overdrawn. So who will pay? Poland? Austria? Hungary? Estonia? Gimme a break please.

Then we get the second setting the ‘financial institutions’. Yet they will BORROW you the money for an interesting percentage, which means that a load with up to 15% interest is still payable by the tax payers. 

The private sector? Who has that kind of cash? I reckon that Webuild SpA (formerly Salini Impregilo SpA) will take the job, as long as they get the job with a few long term tax benefits, optionally at cost + 3% + tax benefits. And who do you think pays for it in the end? Yup you got it, the poor poor taxpayer (you). 

As such when I see “It has been criticised as a means of providing “predatory loans” in what is labelled “debt-trap diplomacy”” I am not opposing this (as I never looked at that data), yet the wording is almost exactly like the big tomato of MI6 (you say potato, I say tomato). Isn’t that a nice coincidence. Almost orchestrated. Now, I accept that it might be true, but in that same way Iran has been doing all over the Middle East and the same parties were eager to avoid shining the limelight there, and now that Huawei has a much stronger case (made in Saudi Arabia) and their 5G is 700% faster then anything the US has. The link here us that both Huawei and Saudi Arabia have a larger case for Egypt and that matters. With Neom city smack in the middle, they are likely have an operating 5G network long before the US figures out that marketed speed is not the same as real speed, but they will and they will see the cost involved. In that same light the BS approach to the arms deals with Saudi Arabia, China has a larger stage now, a stage that will cost the US well over 9 billion with a nominal maximum of $23,000,000,000 over the next 5 years, revenue handed to China and we see European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen getting ready for a presentation that is as I personally see a joke the EU cannot afford. Not with the US handing business over to China as they did over the last 12 months alone. 

So when we consider “Mrs von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech in September: “We want investments in quality infrastructure, connecting goods, people and services around the world.”” We need to see the word ‘investments’, which is nice, but does that not imply that you have the funds? If not (which is the case) it ends up being a mere ego loan and that is not what is supposed to happen. I am not against it, as long as CORPORATIONS are properly taxed and that has been a horse no show for over two decades. I wonder what happens if Huawei and not Amazon decided to buy my 5G (and a few other matters). We then get a setting that shows that the European ego race was over before it even began, it was over when the ego driven tailored to stop the innovations because it did not give them a nice percentage, that is the larger stage we need to see and that is merely one of 4 elements stopping this ego driven presentation that is coming in hours. So even as we are given “Wednesday’s 14-page document isn’t likely to explicitly pitch itself as a rival to China’s strategy.” A setting that gives us the not explicit, it is relying on implied settings, a stage that can be revamped any given stage and there is the second rub, if you cannot go out and say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. That has been a truth for a lot longer than we had the internet. The EU relying on nudge-nudge-wink-wink settings (sorry Monty Python). When was the last time time you saw that going well? And now it involves multi billion euro plans that they cannot even afford. So in the end you the tax payer (if you are in the EU) get to pay that bill too. So hows that going against the rising prices of energy, Gas and petrol? Oh and how about the food prices, inflation of food which was 0.1% in April 2021, which is 2.3% in October 2021. Which is nothing to what I saw at the supermarket. I saw minced meat go up almost 20% in the last few months. So enjoy that extra tax bill with all the expenses you have in Europe. You elected what is there, so you get what is coming. 

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November 30, 2021 · 18:59

The Trap

There is a trap out there, we all fall for it, it is in part our own ego, it is in part the way we believe, or we think we believe and it is in part the elements steering us. I fell for it yesterday and there is no shame, it happens to us all. I was merely happy I figured out what I was doing. I will not give the exact trap I fell for, but it comes down to a weird thought. An example is “People are old when they turn hundred, because that is the boiling point of water”. The link between the two is 100. There is no other link, but the mind at times uses the link to get more out of it and as it finds these supposed links we fall into the trap. As stated it happens to us all at times. So as I was relaxing I noticed two articles by the CBC. 

The first is (at https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/docproject/warhammer-40k). We get ‘Warhammer 40,000 was a sanctuary during my high school years’. This is true, but then we also get “The irony that some Trump fans equated the 45th U.S. president with 40K’s desiccated Emperor isn’t lost on Gillen, author of Marvel Comics’ first Warhammer 40,000 mini-series, Marneus Calgar”. The issues is that behind the larger story (which is actually quite good) is “it has been embraced by Trump supporters and white supremacists”, you see there is another expression we need to see: ‘The sun shines on the just and unjust alike’. This matters, because if you do not you will fall in the trap I almost fell for. The just and unjust all need a game to play, they all need to relax and some play Warhammer, some play Skyrim and some play ‘Bo Red takes a gander’, it does not matter what they play. The game does not make them extremists, they were that and they decided to play a game. Yet there is a larger stage, the unjust will find a game where they can talk and where they can communicate and the more that is done outside of the monitoring elements the safer they feel. I saw this in 2011 in a game (I think), it think it was called ‘Lords of Ultima’, this has nothing to do with the game makers, they had a game and people in a guild could communicate privately, there were 99 private channels. And over time more games offered the option to communicate and the makers got cash for everything. 

The game and its makers are not to blame, the events are merely there. There is no deeper connection (at present). The second story is (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/holiday-movies-christmas-inclusive-1.6261313) the article is called ‘Diversity in holiday movies improves, but gaps still need to be filled’, so why is that? I am not opposing, I am asking. You see movies and TV shows are a business, they cater to the largest section they can because it gives them the best revenue. Do you think that Hollywood is anything but a siphon for revenue? And in that setting the bulk of all there watchers are white. It has a market. Bollywood (India) and Nollywood (Nigeria) figured out that there was a gap and they  figured out how they could fill their pockets with the gaps. So will there be a Gollywood, a Lollywood, or a Tollywood? I cannot tell, but those in that direction are seeing whether they can make a profit in this market. Collywood (China/Hong Kong) is steadily growing and as its watching population grows, so will they. So when I see “the film industry is making moves to change what some have previously called a “whitewashed” movie genre, some critics say more work remains to be done”, I am not sure I can agree. You see the business model is there but it is not inclusive. And in that setting when we consider Gollywood, Lollywood and Tollywood. We see people in that market like David Geffen, and they weren’t making large moves to set up that premise, why is that? I reckon that at present the business model is not affordable enough. Even break even might do the trick, but that doesn’t seem to the case. So when we see ‘Geffen has an estimated net worth of $10.8 billion, making him one of the richest people in the entertainment industry’, as well as ‘David Geffen has been ranked the most polluting individual American and second most polluting individual in the world, largely due to his yachts’ we need to wonder how much of it is true. You see, there are 17 yachts bigger than him, and yes none of the owners are American, yet who bought the yacht that was owned by Paul Allen? What happened to the yacht of Bill Gates? So when I see ‘the most polluting individual American’ all whilst we can find the larger setting of “nonprofit Environmental Working Group tested tap water at 19 sites in Northern Virginia and found levels as high as 62 parts per trillion”, a pollution setting three times higher than was noted in 2019, in two years it got to be this bad, but that doesn’t make for good gay-bashing, does it? There was the EPA giving the US citizens “In 2020, about 68 million tons of pollution were emitted into the atmosphere in the United States. These emissions mostly contribute to the formation of ozone and particles, the deposition of acids, and visibility impairment”, as such, does anyone want to make a serious bet that the most polluting individual American was not behind that, or even any serious part of that? So who were and why are their names omitted from any report?

The trap is that we make claims that ‘gaps need to be filled’ all whilst the people with the ability to fill them do not want to fill them and as long as the media is willing to emphasise on partial claims like ‘the most polluting individual American’ whilst avoiding all other kinds of information, we see a larger station, a station of obfuscation and denial. The trap the media sets out for us, just like the Guardian with their ‘carbon print’ all whilst they do a lot to avoid the 15 million flights increase over the last 15 years. 47,000 (or there about) a day more and that situation has no carbon footprint? 

So did we put our foot in the trap, or are we avoiding to look into the direction where the trap is? It works for the stakeholders of the media either way. And that is the larger trap we are faced with. 

Enjoy the week.

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November 26, 2021 · 22:14

Stupid people never learn

This is not an accusation, it is merely a setting we need to accept. This all started half an hour Aho when the BBC gave us ‘Protesters hit Amazon buildings on Black Friday’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59419572), with the setting “An international coalition of unions, equality and environmental groups called “Make Amazon Pay” is staging a day of action, demanding concessions”, it is like the approach of a hurricane, and making the one person who left a window open giving him (or her) a bill for the draft damage. People just do not get it, and I am at a loss why that is. It is not hidden information, it is not secret information, it merely is information out in the open for anyone to read.

The setting is not “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little”, the setting is that governments would not overhaul tax laws for the longest of times. I first make a case for overhauling tax laws in 1998, now 24 year later none of it EVER happened. Amazon did not take too much, it took what Amazon was entitled to take. Amazon (only) gives what it is mandated to give. There are las out there and Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Facebook and Google adhere to these laws. All the rest is merely discriminatory bullshit. So when I see “Worldwide, nearly 50 organisations have signed up to a list of “common demands”, published by the Make Amazon Pay coalition”, so I wonder who they are. And it does not really matter as they cross over from one into the other. Consider “A global union federation representing 50 million workers in 140 countries in a range of sectors”, this implies less then 350.000 per nation, which includes the US, which imply that they basically amount to nothing. Then we get “A global union federation of journalists’ trade unions, representing more than 600.000 media workers from 187 organisations in 146 countries” I merely wonder whether they include the same essay writers that grace the ICIJ, a fair question, because journalists are supposed to be smarter than this. All the flames, the bullshit and the need for click bitches that spike digital revenue, all to have a go at a company that struck it big by being actually innovative. 2 years ago Amazon would not be on the mind of console gaming. Now the Amazon Luna overtakes what Google and Microsoft have and that is just for starters. They equal Apple in a few ways and there is no end to Amazon at present. All that and they adhere to laws, or lets just states that they adhere to what their legal department states that they need to adhere to. And no one is putting actual and factual pressure on the politicians that need to get shit done (like overhauling tax laws) but then people get quotes like “It is a really complex situation”, so complex that in 24 years nothing was done, so the utter nonsense of 50 organisations that have call signs making them close to ludicrously useless. If they were not useless, they would put pressure on politicians overhauling tax laws. 

The lesson has been out there for almost 25 years, the facts were out there for almost 25 years and still the people will not learn, the politicians do not want them to learn, because they will have to do something and over time it might amount to something pissing of the rich friends they have. In all this, the setting is much larger then the FAANG group. It includes people like the Walton Family, the Green family, the Koch family, the Yuan family and as such several dozens more. All billionaires, all doing what the law allowed them to do. The feigned anger against Amazon is just pointless bullshit and we need to wake up. Flames and emotions will not get us anywhere and that is the problem with Grassroots people, all about anger and emotion and when the anger subsides, when they realise (if ever) that the law was adhered to we see the pointlessness of the situation and stupid people never do so, in this, how come the journalists are part of this? Who do they serve? Because in the end they serve the shareholders and advertisers. But what of their stakeholders? Who are they and why are they embracing pointless actions? Did you ever consider that part of the equation? 

As such will you learn, or will you just pointlessly embrace a coalition that wastes another two decades going nowhere? It is up to you, you can chose and making the choice that goes somewhere is always better, even if the destination is not better, sometimes things get worse before they get better, that is the outcome of change, the changing process is never better, the outcome can be, it is up to us to make that so, and it is not an easy fight, that much is an absolute given.

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November 22, 2021 · 13:20

The road to hell

It comes from the expression ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and it is a lot more apt then you would think. To see that we have to go back to 1989. Governments need to up their game and to ensure that a database is made. This database is not a database of criminals, these people did nothing wrong, they have other convictions, convictions that are not greed based, they align to other parties, or they merely have other views on life. And it was then that the database of ‘undesirables’ was created. And this is not a database of all, this is a database of key people. People that could hinder the drive of progress, progress of greed, progress of opportunity. Yet over time it became something more. I reckon that around 1996-1999 the list got around to corporations and now we have a new setting. It becomes the list of people that could hinder corporate progress. People who were unwilling to play to political game, people that were not going to commit fraud, not fraud on financial sides, they are easily dealt with, but a version of fraud, tainted with deceit that would harm the progress of reports that could gain them millions, of not more. Now consider that this database of undesirables got a larger stage and now that corporates are involved it stops people having a decent career, and the top tier they all have access to read this database. So what happens when the 11,306 people in Australia are brought to the surface, all published on 4Chan with the corporation names that put them on the list, the original poster and the people underwriting the status of the person. Now consider those 11,000 plus people who now know why their careers blew and the greed driven players that were responsible for getting them on the list. It does not hold names, but the names of the corporations and their clear codes. How much change would that push that to industrial nations? The US, UK, Australia, France and the Netherlands. All players all with their own databases. 

You see, in the end it does not matter who did this, in the end it is the stupidity of the greed driven and the knowledge where they hid the data they do not want anyone to see and it take one error to make it all come out of the shadows and one step to see who plays the ‘undesirable’ game, so did that create a dystopian setting, or was the dystopian start the setting that got the ball rolling? 

So is this the setting of a writer who was eager to take a step towards the Frans Kafka that is in all of us, or was it more? I will let you decide and consider how our views are tainted by age discrimination as well as the need for senior managers to hire eager young turks so that they can misrepresent what is out there hiding behind behind the new young executive. He played the corporate political game, it was not his or her fault. A young eagerness issue. And as such the senior manager got away without ever rising to the surface of attention. 

So who is going to hell and who was paving the road?

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November 15, 2021 · 19:03

Pricing of choice

There is always a counter side. It does not mater how good anything is, it does not matter how large the win is, there is an opposite it is the price we pay, the price we accept, because on the whole the deal is actually rather good. There is no opposition, this has been a given truth for decades. At time you need to be ruthless, at times you can be compassionate, at times you have to cut the deadlines, at times you can extent deliveries. They are choices, there are always choices. Some good, some less so. It is the way it has always been

The price of lame
It is a side we see and often ignore. In many situations it means crappy, I would say it merely means crappy but that would be wrong. In this example we look at Bethesda and their latest iteration of Skyrim. Some will say ‘Lame’, ‘more exploitation’, and ‘more of the same’. I say when a game is this perfect you would want to have it as you move on. I have played the game on Xbox360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5. The game is so large and so near perfect I would want to keep it and there is an upside. The PS5 is free as download if you have the PS4 version. There was alas no physical version. We can state it is lame, it is less, but this is a game that millions have enjoyed for 10 years. So yes, parts are a set A$80, yet the game gives you a lot more, the free edition gives you less new stuff, but I have seen my share of free parts already, after 4 days I see that the game is renewed, it has more and it feels great getting these achievements again. In 10 years the game never disappointed. The price of lame is perhaps a lack of innovation, the opposite is that the players want this game, not another game, it is a tough balancing line and so far Bethesda has done OK, apart from selling their soul to Microsoft (for $8,500,000,000).

The price of tame
Weirdly enough it is Google who gets that part. On the one side they have shown great innovation, they have shown massive strides in many areas, from searching to advertisements, they were there, they were first and they keep on rocking, on the other side their console (Google Stadia) is tame, they are not developing software, they are relying on Ubisoft to push that crate (and it will cost them). The other side is that two innovations will pass them by, the innovation I worked out (and are now meant for Amazon Luna) could bring Amazon an additional 50,000,000 consoles to the market. I know, even with shortages it will be a stretch, but that is the setting of tame, you can be non-aspiring, to be non-exciting yet that too comes at a price and in this setting Amazon would be in second place (temporarily overtaking Nintendo). On the upside, it makes Microsoft the wooden spoon contender, with the most powerful console in the world they end up in 4th position and I like that. Microsoft needed to be taught a lesson and I intend to bring it (If Amazon accepts). And that is not a high number, it is massively conservative, because this has never been done before so I have no data to rely on, the numbers could end up being decently higher. And that is merely the first wave, the second wave relies on another player, so I cannot say at present, but that could end up pushing the Luna even more, but I have no idea how much more. What is a certainty that gaming will alter and in the first stage many players ant a piece of that, not all, but plenty.

The price of game
It is not easy to look at people as game, but these anti-vaxxers are taking their toll. We can be as social as we like to be, we are unable to properly set up taxation, but we will tax the health system to the max. We see people dying of heart conditions in ambulances, because the ICU’s are filled with anti-vaxxers who now have covid and they are crying like little children. I say that unvaccinated people are not eligible for ICU unless they pay upfront, the reckless endangerment of life is not a cause for healthcare, it needs to become private care. The umbers are staggering. Of all the hospital admissions 80%-90% is unvaccinated. This evidence is ignored too much by too many. There is a slight difference per nation, yet that is understandable. We can treat these people like kids, but then they claim they have rights. OK, you do and with that you get the right to pay for it yourself. 

We see three examples where we price choice, price is not always monetary, but often it is, yet the opposite of that coin is often not monetary. It tends to be quality, quantity or quest like. There is no clear formula either, it is not a neat package, yet there tends to be some red line forming in the sand. The underlying part is that some accept the cost of doing business, others are in denial and they want it all, and guess what. You cannot have it all, there is no way. It is like the old equation of a house. Price, Quality and speed. You can only select two of the three, the third will go in another direction. A sales division will state that you can have all three and then they task their marketing department to set the premise of the third to expectations. Yet that is a figment in their imaginations, and when the data comes forward we get some ‘miss communication’ excuse. 

All neatly wrapped up, yet when we dig we get to see the price more clearly and we often see a party in denial, but what happens when it is YOU who pays that price? What happens when YOU need to make a choice, can you? Choosing is often hard, especially when the price is clear. But what do you do when it is not? It happens and not always intentionally, how can you decide the price then? 

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November 13, 2021 · 11:06

A COP26 truth

Yes, it is time to slam down, slam dunk and slam punk some people. The Evening Standard gives us ‘New draft deal appears to water down curb on fossil fuels’. The article (at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cop26-latest-news-glasgow-last-day-climate-change-talks-outcomes-so-far-alok-sharma-boris-johnson-b965809.html) is not even a surprise to me. So in the end, the only true thing of the COP26 was an 18 year old girl named Greta Thunberg. The rest was full of shit. And do not take my word for it. Mark Rober (former NASA) started in 2019 #TeamTrees with MrBeast (his name apparently) and so far they planted 23 million trees. How many did the UK plant? How many did the US plant? How many did the EU plant? Do the math and you will see how right I am. Two people (with drones and donations) did more in a year than the better part of 30 governments with billions. So you tell me.

In other news, there was a decent form of objections to my article ‘1095 minus one’ two days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/11/1095-minus-one/). The opposition was that my example was nice, but that the balloon would have been massively larger. That is fair enough. And that person would be right. But the setting is not merely that there are 8 billion in need of oxygen (without the CO2), the larger issue is that over the last 15 years 15,000,000 additional flights were added. That amounts to 41,000 flights a day, every single day. So how much CO2 do these flights create? More people and more flights, not the flights from the uber rich, no normal airline flights. I am willing to take a bet that at least 25% of those flights are useless and could be scrapped. 

So whilst we look at media outlets like Al Jazeera giving us “Analysts question the text of COP26’s final agreement citing ‘watered down’ language on hydrocarbon eradication and missing commitments on emission cuts” (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/12/watered-down-new-cop26-draft-deal-moves-away-from-hard-targets) we see the truth. Greta Thunberg was right, the COP26 was all blah-blah-blah. No real deal is in the works and as Indonesia and there are questions on the real deal with Brazil. Even now as we are shown “Data from the national space research agency shows deforestation increased by 5 percent from October 2020”, yes Brazil could end deforestation by 2030 because there will be no forest left. So my prediction that we have wiped out 50% of all forests by 2030 is getting awfully close. Now reconsider the Montgolfier principle I gave two days ago and consider the balloon going up with only 50% burner power (the trees), we will be adding CO2 quicker than oxygen and that means the end of the balloon (we all get to die). I get it, it is not fair on Brazil or Indonesia. There are also Papua New Guinea. They have a grievous matter to settle, which is the claim Gordon Brown (former UK PM) made in 2009 on funds for the stricken nations, that money never came, and this government does not have the funds. So the setting of blah-blah-blah goes from bad to worse. 

And that does not beat all yesterday I saw some news pass buy that they have a replacement for plastic bags, this is good! Thy have a new wood based bag, which is debatable… at this point at least. So you still doubt my estimate of 50-80 million trees in three years? I might be wrong, it will need to be higher if Brazil and Indonesia are any indication and so far the governments are all talk and no result. 

There is a larger issue, there actually are two, one on each side of the equation. Brown gold on one side is essential for the economy of several economies, not merely Indonesia and Brazil, but Canada, India ad the US as well. The US being the largest timber producing nation on the planet. As we see, the solution from #TeamTrees seems to work, so why are they not reforesting what is lost? I know it is not always possible, yet we are now in a stage where we either get more trees or teach our grandkids to live by breathing carbonised oxygen (CO2). We are that close to suffocating. On the other side, we have seen clear reports that 50% of the damage comes from 147 plants, the media ignored it, I wrote about it and placed the documents of UNEP and the EEA for you to read, they had graphics too. Yet the media is largely ignoring those 147 plants, where they are and why they are allowed to continue (there might be a real reason, I do not know) yet the media remains silent, they are all about the flames of COP26, but in three weeks time the will move on, why is that?

We allow the wrong players to continue their destructive plans and it costs us dearly, if we are lucky enough to avoid that, our kids will not, they will live through it and curse us for not actively solving the problems they inherited. I leave you to figure it out. 

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November 11, 2021 · 04:41

1095 minus one

I’ve had some questions. Some are about my state of delusion, some are on my mental state and some are actually interesting. How I got there, what my evidence is. As I stated, it is highly speculative, but I got there, so how did I get there?

The Montgolfier principle
Think of the world as a balloon. There is the balloon with oxygen, it keeps us up, there are the burners and there is the basket. The burners are the Forrests, they provide oxygen for the balloon that keeps us up, as oxygen is added, CO2 is removed, the buoyancy of the balloon goes up. The basket holds all the people, as there are more people, more oxygen in the balloon is required. This is the most rudimentary of settings. To see the impact we need to consider the two stages that we have been exposed to. The burners are 33% smaller, as one third of all forests are gone. So the burners heed to be cranked up, but that is not possible, the trees work at a set speed, there is little we can do to change that. In the last 25 years, as the forests got cut down, the population grew by 38%, the basket got up to 38% more heavy. So as the balloon has less oxygen and more people, it will sink, we will die. You want an upside? There isn’t one at present, not until the politicians actually achieve something. Agreements, talks and compliments do not do anything and the members of COP26 are all about that, until they achieve and actually do something they deserve nothing. 

I might have oversimplified things, but the Montgolfier principle holds up. It is not accurate, it is not defining, but it gives you the story you need to hear. Even as I made comments on the research by McGill University, it is an event that matters. It will be harder to regrow the trees we chopped down. 

At present we see the news giving us Boris Johnson on the need for an ambitious agreement, it sounds nice but talking in the next 2 years whilst the nations halt and await actions is a much larger problem. Somewhere between 50,000,000 and 80,000,000 are needed to be planted in the next 2 years to give us some level of oxygen level change in the next 10 years. Did people forget that growing a tree will take that long? It takes decades to grow what is cut down in days. We might see the setting of Indonesia, but they are not alone. Brazil is in an equal place and as deforestation continues for another 8 years, there is every chance that the forests will have diminished to a total of 50%, so what do you think will happen to the balloon? I might actually live long enough having to pay for oxygen, not something I expected when I went to primary school. There we were told that the sun and the air was free, we were being lied to (it was a truth at the time). We screwed up our planet to that extent and we are all equally guilty, we remained inactive. Some sources give us that global warming are about to set at 2.4 degrees, I believe it will be much more towards 4 degrees, time will tell who is right, the setting of 1.5 degrees is no longer achievable, not as deforestation continues optionally at increased speed for another 8 years. Then we will get excuses from Indonesia and Brazil who need to protest the rights of the people and there we have it. We have the setting of non-action for a few more years and we have so much time left.

They all have something to say, none of them are acting. Consider over the next 6 months, how many nations will have planted trees, not in space, not in expected numbers, but in ACTUAL NUMBERS. What are the chances that the total will not even amount to 5,000,000 trees when 500% of that should be required? 

And as the media is silencing a few more items we will soon forget about all of this, that is the reality of it all and when pneumonia becomes the number one killer again, what will you say? It is due to hearts diseases are better managed? Cancer has a less deadly curve or will you realise that we have more problems, not less. I leave it up to you to make up your own mind.

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November 10, 2021 · 11:15

1095 days

OK, first off, this is HIGHLY speculative, optionally presumptive. So if any environmentalist shoots this view to bits, that might just be correct. As I was relaxing and contemplating things. I suddenly had a moment where my mind went racing in all the wrong places. My thoughts are giving us that we are being lied to. We are talking global warming and some notion of 1.5C towards global warming. But I believe that the setting is wrong. I reckon that we will have 4 degrees towards global warming by 2028. You see, some players are looking at the trends, but they forgot that logging continued unabated, the population grows and we are now in a 1095 day setting where either we plant millions of trees (closer to 50M) in 1095 days, or we will face a harsher setting. You see, growing trees will become increasingly more difficult and places that are too warm, the sprouts will die to a much larger degree and in 2028 too many places of this planet will turn arid. The Wall Street groups of brown gold will deny and oppose this, but am I wrong? I hope, I truly hope that I am wrong, but I feel uncertain. You see, as I wrote earlier. In the last 25 years one third of our forests have been cut, this started a global warming trend, yet to counter it we would have to replant that in half the time and that is not going to happen, and it would be rather delusional to expect that. Yet, as I see it we need to make a much larger effort the next 1095 days to stop the advancement of global warming. And there are other factors as well, water will be an issue to grow the trees and too much of that is polluted, rain is in less places and where it does rain it rains a little too much, so to sprout a forest will be increasingly depending on where it is possible and the places where it is possible are diminishing.

I thought it was me, but I found a piece by the McGill University that gives us ‘Over half of the world’s rivers cease to flow for at least one day a year on average’. The paper (at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210616113838.htm) also gives us “Given continued global climate and land use change, an increasingly large proportion of the global river network is expected to cease to flow seasonally over the coming decades” and there is the issue. As rivers run dry, the trees who rely on rivers will not grow, will have diminished growth and optionally die. When we see this added element, the stage of 1095 starts making sense. This is not one river, one place. No this is projected to 51%-60% of ALL the rivers on the planet. And that is ignoring places like the Nile where growth is pretty much a faded option. And as Indonesia states that stopping deforestation by 2030 is not possible, the issue increases. There are people who can get 50,000,000 trees planted (ask Mark Rober formerly with NASA), but that means starting now, that means creating the surge now, not when it pleases Wall Street, it will be too late at that point. A stage where we saw it all coming and we all ignored it for too long. 

Am I right, am I wrong? 

I honestly do not know, I will be clear about that part, but perhaps the media will take a larger look at that (if Wall Street allows them to). Enjoy the day, optionally.

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November 9, 2021 · 21:58

The enemy within

It was an expression that alerts us to the fat that not all the enemies are the ones attacking us. And as we might have seen. All those generals giving Americans the threat from Russia and China, they have nothing to fear, Americans will destroy America long before that becomes a fact. This is the setting that the BBC gives us. So the title is not merely ‘Metallurgist admits faking steel test results for US Navy subs’, it becomes how weak is the current American navy and were try trying to sell that weakness to Australia? You see, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59186655) gives us “Prosecutors say Elaine Marie Thomas, 67, gave false positive readings for strength and toughness tests in at least 240 cases between 1985 and 2017” This would put a large stage of the Los Angeles class attack submarines in a weakened stage. One could argue that a nearby explosion towards arctic ice might create enough pressure for that steel to fail. And when they give you “Ms Thomas suggested that in some cases she gave metal positive results because she thought it was “stupid” that the Navy required the tests to be conducted at -100F (-70C)” you know that you are being lied to. The fact that the steel can not pass the test sets a dangerous premise and US law is weak, very weak. Elaine Marie Thomas is not seen as a traitor, a person who put American armed forces in a dangerous place, no she gets faces up to 10 years in prison and a $1m fine. She will be sentenced in February, guilty of fraud. A very clear case that crime pays in America. The stage that we are given “This offense is unique in that it was neither motivated by greed nor any desire for personal enrichment. She regrets that she failed to follow her moral compass – admitting to false statements is hardly how she envisioned living out her retirement years” that is nothing more than a false representation. It was about money, it was about a part unmentioned ‘living out her retirement years in luxury’, because if the tests failed, the bills would follow and she had nothing to fall back on. And the falsehood does not end there, there is a consideration. We see this with “the government’s testing does not suggest that the structural integrity of any submarine was in fact compromised”, it does, if the -70 tests failed, the submarines are useless in arctic and Siberian conditions. The submarines might only function towards optimum stages in warmer waters. A setting the Russians would be eager to exploit. I think that any criminal would want to hire John Carpenter. A setting of treason has been washed by “took shortcuts and made material misrepresentations” At that point we need to concede that I could end nuclear dangers (by making the Iranian reactors meltdown) which might be a misrepresentation and is not in any way treason (I am not Iranian). I could do more, but I think I have proven a point. To convict a traitor of fraud is like selling water as undistilled Gin at $11 per 500ml. And this is all the BBC gives us at present, what I do not understand is the lack of anger towards Elaine Marie Thomas. There are 28 Los Angeles in use, each with a complement of 125 and that just one class. And there is no clear image of how many are compromised. Optionally Elaine Marie Thomas has been endangering hundreds, optionally killing in them in the  future, not as many as the attack on Pearl Harbour took, not as many as the amounts of victims on 9/11 in New York, yet equally as devastating and it was done by an American. 

I can only guess how these generals feel now that they have been caught with their pants down trying to run like penguins. Fraud? Screw that!

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