Category Archives: Law

December 19, 2020 · 04:26

After the fact

We have all heard the setting, when we set the new premise after the fact. Most will remember the average male response to the option of sex before marriage “Maybe I’ll marry you tomorrow”, and we then congratulate ourselves, as we got some. Some have a slightly altered versions and especially in the Netherlands no one has forgotten some of the songs from the era of the VoC, especially when sharks were thwarted and the other vessel had silver. But that one too did not end nicely for the sailor, he was also promised the daughter of the captain, the other vessel was sunk, but the sailor never made it. After the fact is in some cases brilliant, but is it? That is the question we see when we consider ‘Urgently Waive Intellectual Property Rules for Vaccine’, (at  https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/10/urgently-waive-intellectual-property-rules-vaccine), yes it might be a week old, but the vaccine search started a year ago, and now, some want to avoid the IP rules. That is not fair on the makers of the vaccine. Their motives might have ben greed driven, but over half a dozen firms started to look for a solution. That solution is not a cheap one and in this the firms took that investment, because the vaccine sales would set them right. It is a fair setting, the governments were not able to step in to make it themselves and they bought the vaccines, as such I might not like the approach, but I get the setting that is being met. As such seeing “help boost global access to Covid-19 vaccines, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said ahead of a key World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Geneva on December 10, 2020”, is as I personally see it utter bullshit. How loud were these two (on every channel) fighting for this a year ago? Why was there nothing to be seen in the mass of newspapers and digital news bringers? 

Yes, after the fact is nice, but AI and HRW do get get to sulk like little bitches a year later. There could be a case if the bulk of the newspapers and media had mentioned that setting over the last year, but they did not, did they? 

I get it, it is not completely fair on some places, but what options were given to these locations by the UN buying vaccines for these regions? 

When we consider the setting we see in the first “At the WTO meeting, the governments will discuss a proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily waive some provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of the Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. The proposal would facilitate technology transfers so that Covid-19 medical products, including vaccines, could be produced quickly and affordably by manufacturers around the world”, and in the second “Higher-income countries have already made deals to buy up the vast majority of the world’s potential vaccine supplies for 2021, so the move would help scale up access for people in lower-income countries”, the question is what will the pharmaceutical companies do? 

We see the Washington Post give us ‘Coronavirus vaccinations have started. But people in Africa face a much longer wait’, and before we start screaming foul, remember, that so far only 1.6 million on 75 million people died and these numbers show is that 23% of ALL the deaths are in America. This leaves us with a mortality rate of 2.13% (which is not a really fair setting), yet what is also given is that 70% makes a full recovery, we seem to forget bout those parts. In this the survival part is more accurate than the non-living part on a few issues, we see that basically, 27% of those who contracted the disease are not out of the woods yet. As such, n this setting we see over reaction and opportunity seekers, opportunity seekers is that this is happening AFTER THE FACT. I get it, they didn’t want to do it ahead of time, because the pharmaceuticals have no intentions to make something for free, which makes sense too. So when we see “Kenya, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Pakistan have joined India and South Africa to co-sponsor the waiver proposal. The proposal was welcomed or supported by 100 countries, most of them low- or middle-income. But a small group of high-income countries and their trading partners have opposed it; including Brazil, the European Union, Canada, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom”, we get that the low income nations need a solution and it will come, but the overreaction in light of the numbers we see are a bit out there and even as I have been against a whole range of pharmaceutical issues in the past, they do have their rights too, and TRIPS was there to enforce rights and duties. So to abolish it to deal with fear is just a bit of a no-no as I personally see it.

Is it fair on India and South Africa? Well that remains to be seen, but I do not see why, in India 144,914 died of the disease whilst India has well over 1.35 billion people, implying that their national mortality rate for Covid-19 is 1% of 1%, so what are they needing a vaccine for? The fact that 9,530,530 recovered from the 9,987,949 cases is also debatable, but that gives them that 95.4% fully recovered, as such why is India so up in arms on this? Perhaps the fact that for well over a year the numbers never made sense, perhaps India has a much larger problem, yet their pride got in the way of it all, so if they cannot properly inform us, why should they receive special consideration? I know, you might not agree and that I fair, but that is the setting. That is what we think plays. The Print (at https://theprint.in/health/india-is-missing-about-90-infections-for-every-covid-case-latest-govt-analysis-shows/567898/) gives us “Latest analysis by DST panel, that predicted end of Covid pandemic in India in February 2021, finds that about 60 per cent Indians have been infected so far”, that in light of the reported 9,987,949 total Covid cases, whilst the population of India is 1.35 billion makes less sense when those numbers were reported, all whilst they give us now (well three days ago) that 60%, implying that 810 million people in India have Covid-19, so what happened to the 800 million Indians in the numbers? 

At some point the ego of governments need to be held to account and I see no reason why they get to take the pharmaceutical players for a ride. In this I wrote this on October 31st “Even as India has well over 3 times the population of the US, there is no way that the numbers add up, with the US having over 9 million cases and India barely passing 8 million, the stage is not completely seen”, almost 2 months ago I questioned the Indian setting, the numbers never added up. I did that in ‘As jobs become available’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/10/31/as-jobs-become-available/), but no one (in the media) asked serious questions regarding that stage, why not? 

As such, as I personally see it, India has nothing to complain about, perhaps they need to elect officials that will give them the actual setting, not some story by Mother Goose. It is the stage they set themselves, as such the ‘After the Fact’ premise that we see given now is as I personally see it, a cold spud in space.

And the 100 supporters need to consider their own numbers. India might be the most visible one, but it is not the only one and this Covid-19 stage was a serious one and another one will come, there is no doubt about that part, as such these governments better start playing nice, better start giving the others the numbers that are true, a much larger stage could have been prepared by the world as India hd been upfront about the 800 million missing infections, perhaps the lesson they are handed now will improve their view of what matters, their ego or reality. 

Yes, it almost sounds inhumane, but we accepted responsibility of certain choices, like laws, trade laws and IP Laws, we cannot switch them off when it pleases us, because we might as well throw all laws overboard in that game, a stage that bodes a lot of harsh stages when this happens.

There is of course the conversation that India and South Africa can have on what to do the next time around and that is fair, that is just and yes, it is a stage we must acknowledge, yet it is not after the fact and that is the proper stage to play and perhaps it will result in an adaptation to TRIPS, I cannot deny of oppose that setting, the question is what the pharmaceutical players will set at that point. We can all accept that their IP, is just that, it is theirs. It does not mean that a deal cannot be worked out, but it is done in advance, it is a set stage where they can decide how to act and at that point the HRW can be all dog and less humane, what happens then? Time will tell, for now we have this issue in play and we still have no real view on how many distribution point there are and how 4,000,000,000-6,500,000,000 vaccines will get to their destination. Because that too is a stage we forgot to look at, that many vaccines will imply that mutations are almost a certainty, yet how many we will see is not clear, when that happens, global travel as we know it will change forever. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 18, 2020 · 17:11

Not for minors

OK, this is not the most subtle article I have ever written, but at times subtle just doesn’t do the story any justice, it happens. So this is a question to parents “If you have a daughter between 22-32, and she looks like Laura Vandervoort, Olivia Wilde, or Alexina Graham. Can I please fuck the bejesus out of her vagina?” To be honest, I don’t really need to, but it has been a while, so there. 

Are we all awake now? So consider ‘Facebook and Apple are in a fight. Your browsing history is in the middle’ (at https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-apple-are-fight-your-browsing-history-middle-n1251612), apart from all the hackers getting access through Microsoft, we see another stage develop. The headline might not get you on board, so perhaps the by-line will “Facebook on Thursday ran its second full-page newspaper advertisement in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online”, which implies that Facebook does NOT want you to know that apps are tracking your every move, and Apple does. It seems to me that Apple is in a stage to put awareness and security at the centre of your digital life, Facebook not so much. Now, I have no problems with Facebook keeping track of my actions ON FACEBOOK, but dos their ‘free’ service imply that they are allowed to do that anywhere I am? I believe that this is not the case and the money Facebook is getting is starting to feel tight around my digital profile, their actions had already made it important to delete Facebook software from my mobile phone (it was draining my battery), but the stage is larger and that is seen in the NBC News article (and a few others too).

So as the quote “Facebook on Thursday ran its second full-page newspaper advertisement in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online” is given, how many of you are considering the following:

  1. A full page ad in the newspapers is pretty expensive.
  2. Facebook is seemingly untouched that multiple apps are following us.
  3. We are seemingly not allowed to know all the facts!

This is the big one “attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online”, so why are we not allowed to know what is being done to us, that we are being followed in a digital way and Facebook does not want us to be aware? This is where we see my (not so) subtle hint regarding your daughter and “fuck the bejesus out of her vagina”, how many fathers will be slightly less than enthusiastic? I get it, your little princess (your consenting and adult) little princess needs a knight on a white horse and always bring flowers and chocolates, have honourable intentions and to set your mind at ease keeps your daughter a virgin until the day she marries. It is not realistic, but parents are allowed to be overly protective of their princes and princesses. Yet Facebook seemingly does not want you to be in that park, they want you to be unaware of what is going on, and Apple drive it to the surface. So when we see “Apple is planning to roll out a new feature on its devices that will alert people when an app such as Facebook is trying to “track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites.” People will have options such as “Ask App not to Track” or “Allow.””, they did something really clever, if Microsoft (after they resolve all their hacks) does not follow suit, Microsoft stands to lose a massive slice of the consumer pie and that will not make them happy. I for the most am completely on the Apple side when we see “Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites — and they should have the choice to allow that or not”, I personally am realistic enough to see that Apple has an additional side to this, not sure what yet, but this is about a lot more than mere advertisements, I am however not too sure about what that is. When we see “Facebook uses data such as browsing history to show people ads they’re more likely to want to see, and to prove to marketers that its ads are working”, we need to realise that I would have no issues with any link opened within Facebook towards whatever we were going to in any advertisement. For example, if Facebook opens up a browser window, within Facebook and tracks the clicker, I would not completely be opposed to it, but Facebook realises that the data it I tracking is a much larger stage and I feel that this is not merely about “prove to marketers that its ads are working”, I believe that these trackers keep tabs on a lot more, keep tabs on what we do, where we do it and how we do it. I believe that it is a first step in the overly effective phishing attacks we face, Facebook might not be part to that, but I reckon the phishing industry got access to data that is not normally collected and I personally believe that Facebook is part of that problem, I also believe that this will turn from bad to worse with all the ‘via browser gaming apps’ we are currently being offered. I believe that these dedicated non console gaming ‘solutions’ will make things worse, it might be about money for players like Epic (Fortnite), but the data collected in this will cater to a much larger and optionally fairly darker player in this, I just haven’t found any direct evidence proving this, in my defence, I had no way of seeing the weakness that SolarWinds introduced. It does not surprise me, because there is always someone smarter and any firm that has a revenue and a cost issue will find a cheaper way, opening the door for all the nefarious characters surfing the life of IoT, there was never any doubt in this.

And in this, it was for them NEVER directly about the money, in this look at the ‘victims’:
The US Treasury Department, The US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), The Department of Health’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The US Department of State, The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) (also disclosed today), The US Department of Energy (DOE) (also disclosed today), Three US states (also disclosed today), City of Austin (also disclosed today) (source: ZDNET). It was about the information, the stage of a more complete fingerprint of people and administrations. It gives the worry, but it also gives the stage where we can see that Apple has a point and we need to protect ourselves, because players like Microsoft will not (no matter what they claim). In this I name Microsoft, but they are not alone, anyone skating around margins of cost are potential data leaks and that list is a hell of a lot larger than any of us (including me) thinks it is.

So whilst we look and admire the models, actors and actresses and we imagine whatever we imagine, consider that they are not a realistic path, a desirable one, but not a realistic one and that is the opening that organised crime needs to claimingly give you ‘access’ to what you desire whilst taking your data. It is the oldest game in the book, all wars Arte based on deception and you need to wake up, the moment your data is captures and categorised you are no longer considered an interesting party, you are sold and they move onto the next target. So whilst you get trivialised, consider that Apple has a plan, but whatever they plan, it seems you are better off on that side, than the one Facebook is planning. When was the last time that you were better off staying in the dark on what happens to your data, on what happens when others keep tabs on you?

And in this consider “Facebook is making a last-ditch effort to persuade Apple to back off or compromise with industry standard-setters.With offline ads in newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the social networking company is trying to rally to its side the millions of small businesses who buy ads on Facebook and Instagram”, so in that quote where do we see any consideration on the people or us as the consumers? When we see “millions of small businesses who buy ads on Facebook and Instagram” where is the consideration that they should have for the customers who walk into their business? When you get in any shop what do you hear? How can I be of service? Or do you hear: What do you want? I let you consider that whilst you consider the position Facebook needs to have and consider that non digital advertisement never kept track of what other newspapers you were reading. 

We seemingly forgot that there is a price for the presence of IoT, Apple is making us aware of that. I am not silly enough that Apple is holier than though, but at least they created the awareness and the greed driven players are not looking too good today, are they?

1 Comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 9, 2020 · 04:27

Markers of identity

There are several news articles out there. They are not related, not directly, not indirectly, but the underlying events are. The first one is (on the light side) ‘Tesla announces second $5bn share sale in three months’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/8/tesla-announces-second-5bn-share-sale-in-3-months), it is the given quote “Tesla’s shares touched a record high on Monday, pushing the electric-car maker’s market value above $600bn”, he has, as one might say, almost reached the midpoint of his directly achievable wealth. The second part is seen in ‘Christchurch massacre: Inquiry finds failures ahead of attack’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55211468), there we see “correcting these failures would not have stopped the Australian national, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole earlier this year, from carrying out the attack, it said”, as well as “the patchwork of clues discovered by police after the massacre – including his steroid abuse, a hospital admission after he accidentally shot himself, and visits to far-right websites – would not have proved enough to predict the attack”. These issues are unrelated. It is about the markers, whether they are markers of wealth, markers of rage, markers of alleged insanity, the list goes on, but we are driven and pushed by markers, all whilst there is a larger stage where these markers matter not, not now, not ever. It is there that we need to look and we need to identify the pushed markers, the driven markers and we need to hold them out to the light and openly debate them. 

You see, prevention was actually possible (as far as I can tell), now I am not debating the 6 guns, I am a gun person myself and if I had the means and a safe place to put them, I might have them, yet no one is debating ‘more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition’, why is that? Even a gun lover like me, having more then 100 bullets per rifle is a bit of a stretch, so why would he have needed the other 5,400 bullets for and to be honest, I tend not to miss, as such, the 51 people who died, would imply 2 magazines optionally 3 and my one FN FAL (the gun I started my training with in 1981), that is 90 bullets, oh and in the military, if there is not an active war theatre, having more than one magazine is pretty much frowned on, actually it is openly questioned. As such I wonder who looked into this inquiry? Especially as he acquired ‘ammunition online’, I might buy ammunition online, yet I also accept that someone is keeping track of what I buy, and the fact that one person was able to buy more ammunition than the average base has in stock calls for all kinds of questions. The fact that more than 1 box is shipped to one address is also reason for questions. So when I see ‘The commission found no failures within any government agencies that would have allowed the terrorist planning and preparation to be detected’, I have to stop and laugh for a couple of minutes. If one man can do that, what can several lone wolves accomplish? So as I took a look at the report (at https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/), I get to the setting here, the 4 documents (or basically one large one in 4 parts) is actually quite good, it is a decent piece of work and even as some state no fault was due, issues of improvement are there. I see the failing in the second PDF where I see “not for the purpose of keeping records of these purchases”, it reflect on the ammunition bought. They were seen and approved, and they were allowed. So how many documents were seen? To get this much ammunition, you would need to make purchases several times. The math is not looking good here. We see a Marker of enabling, but the marker of questioning is absent. I see this as a clear failure on some part, especially on the system, it might not have prevented the event, but it would have lessened the damage and lowered the fatality list. Volume 3 of the report gives us on page 476 “To assist staff in prioritising leads, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has produced a table that sets out various security indicators and the priority associated with them. For example, “Skills/Knowledge – Research into basic weapons, firearms and ammunition” is identified as a critical indicator of security relevance for assessing whether a person has the capability to carry out a terrorist act”, yet keeping records on ammunition bought (for example 7000+) is not. Who would be the larger danger, the man being able and operate a rifle with a 100 bullets, or one with 7000 bullets? I mean, most man hate their mother in law (some passionately do), but ever we think 7000 pieces of ammo is a bit much. Volume 2 gives more (42.21) “We do not know how much ammunition the individual purchased in total as most sellers do not keep records of the ammunition sold in store. We do know that on 24 March 2018, he spent $1,358.00 at Gun City Dunedin on 2,000 rounds of .223 calibre Remington 55Gr SP.” This is the smoking gun (sort of), in one purchase we see 2,000 rounds at $1,358. I would have chimes every bell possible at this point, especially if this was not a gun-shop or a federal enforcement agency. You still think there was no failure there? A marker of investigation was required and none was found, merely a commercial need to enable a person to buy, buy, buy. He was not buying two Tesla’s, he was buying ammunition. We se even more at (42.22), there we get “we are aware of 11 ammunition purchases made online between 5 December 2017 and 12 July 2018. The details of these purchases are provided in the table below. The individual completed the required New Zealand Police mail order form for these purchases” In December he bought enough to outmatch the entire New Zealand Army, and no questions were asked, failure? I personally believe that is the case. Yes, I cannot disagree with the finding that the event could not be stopped, yet I believe that the casualty list would be a lot lower if more effort had been made. As we look at the markers of identity and the markers of enabling, I feel that we all failed, not just a New Zealand administration. Someone delivered these packages, 1,000 rounds is heavy. When we see delivery from Lock, Stock and Smoking Barrel, Gun City, Aoraki Ammunition Company, Ammo Direct NZ, Ordnance Developments, and Arsenal Limited someone should have sounded the bells of worry, the alarms of wondering and in all this no one seemingly did. Well over $5,000 and no one was seemingly the wiser. He could have rearmed the larger extent of Al Qaeda (or the KKK) and it would only be known after the shooting took place. There was a failure, a larger one. 

Let me be frank, I love guns, I am not a gun nut, but I do not have to be, even I think that this much ammo is just insane. And it was at the top of the pile, there are other parts that I found which were not part of the inquiry, yet I feel that it is important to let these issues lie down for a while, I feel that certain people are looking into matters and me ringing that bell whilst they are near the door is a stupid, silly and all kinds of irresponsible, and I tend not to be any of the three (most of the time).

So why the mention of Tesla in the beginning? Commerce is strong all over, it is essential in too many places and the marker of commerce is too eagerly accepted, all whilst questions are not being asked in too many places. No one is debating that Elon Musk is a genius, optionally a visionary and he is on route being the first trillionaire, yet no one is wondering whether that should be questioned. Consider that any person being the owner of well over 1000 billion has more power than most governments, Elon Musk is about to become that person and s an achievement I wish him well, he did it by building something, as did Mark Zuckerberg, as did the late Steve Jobs (well he set the Apple horse in motion). Yet this stage is supported by a marker that is questionable and we need to see this, or failures like the Christchurch shooting will happen again and again. What if the next time it is not ammunition, what if it is something else? Part of this tragedy was enabled by commerce, I will happily sell the Saudi Government $8,500,000,000 in weapons, yet this is a government, not a person. There is a difference and we need to set the systems up to identify certain markers, if we do not do that the next event will happen and no one is at fault then either, but scores of people will be dead, how does that sound? 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 24, 2020 · 01:39

On the fence

Yup we are at times all on the fence, some call me massively pro Saudi Arabia, yet for the most I am more anti hypocrisy. There is way to much of that going on. Saudi Arabia at present has the fastest 5G on the planet, pretty much all over their nation, why is that? Saudi Arabia is attempting to create a large high tech futuristic city well over 20 times the size of New York, who knows this? Be honest to yourself, what do you know? 

Turkey has the most incarcerated journalists on the planet, sources also give us “64 names of journalists killed between 1909 and 2009”, this happened in Turkey, can you even name one person? (At http://www.cgd.org.tr/index.php?Did=22), that is not even the beginning, we are also given “A published a list in April 2012 that contained 112 names of incarcerated journalists” (at https://www.gazeteciler.com/gundem/103-yilda-112-gazeteci-ve-yazar-olduruldu-50058h.html), I had problems getting the actual page and it is 8 years ago, so it might be that it was removed. Reuters gave us last year “More than 120 journalists are still being held in Turkey’s jails, a global record, and the situation of the media in the country has not improved since the lifting of a two-year state of emergency last year, a global press watchdog said on Tuesday”, so how much screaming do we get on that front? How many care, in sight of the one Saudi journalist no one cares about, I think that these 120 people will just vanish. As such when I see ABC giving us ‘Calls for countries like Australia to boycott Saudi Arabia’s G20 summit over the jailing of female political prisoners’, and I see the name of QC Baroness Helena Kennedy connected to all this, I am at a loss to consider what the fuck she thinks she is connected to. How much actions did she take on the 120 journalists? And when we get to ‘calls for countries like Australia’, I wonder what the hell is going on, how can we be blind in one direction and give rise to the other, for me that touches on discrimination. 

As such the Irish Law Gazette, gives us ‘‘Bubble has burst’ on Saudi crimes – Khashoggi fiancée’, yes, please tell us WHAT CRIMES? The stage is clear, apparently and allegedly a journalist is missing, we expect foul play, but at present we cannot prove it, the investigators screwed up the setting, some UN essay writer made it all worse and we are given “The fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said that G20 leaders have a moral duty to solve his case”, a nice touch from the Law Gazette, but murder must show intent, or it is at the most ‘alleged murder’, the G20 leaders have no criminal expertise, so why should they solve it and all the tainted evidence comes from the nation with the most incarcerated journalists, are we catching on yet? As such we see a fiancee (Hatice Cengiz) shouting out to any media that will print and that is fair enough, but we need to see the larger picture of a missing person, not unlike the alleged murder of Suzanne Pilley (UK), in this even the BBC printed in 2012 that they hope to find the body, and this is the issue, I am not stating that Suzanne Pilley was not murdered, I am not stating that Jamal Khashoggi went clubbing, I am stating that the evidence is not there, that UN essay writer spend 105 pages on it and was able to set a political agenda as well, which she hid on page 98 (Support to freedom of expression in the gulf region), yup her mission was done and it took only one journalist to get the game rolling. So in all this will Baroness Helena Kennedy have anything to add?

No one is debating that Saudi Arabia is a nation adjusting to modern times, or did you forget the small detail that Women were not allowed to vote in Australia until 1911, and in the US when the 19th Amendment was passed, it was done because of the Republicans? Over 200 Republicans voted in favour of the 19th Amendment, while only 102 Democrats voted alongside them, as such only 102 Democrats thought the women worthy of the right of voting. It was introduced in 1878, but it would take up to 1920 to ratify it, small details we tend to overlook, so when we see the 102 democrats, which democrats were against it? Can we see names please?

We think we are all so uppity uppity clever, but we dropped the ball again and again, this is not a shame, it is merely life and those denying its lessons will repeat it again and again, so as we claim to be a nation of laws, let’s then adhere to the law. I never claimed that certain Saudi Arabians were innocent, I am merely stating that there is no evidence at all towards their guilt, and is there not a saying that people are innocent until found guilty in a court of law? In the case of the journalist nobody cares of and we consider the massive amount of tainted evidence, no conviction will ever happen, not in a true setting of the application of law, but most people knew that, did they not?

I remain on the fence, I personally think that something happened to him, what? I cannot tell, the evidence is lacking in too many places and the essay that the UN released merely adds questions, not solutions, merely the beginning of political plays. Neom City was the start point of some of my IP design, that is why I take notice, I expect to get at least 3-5 more pieces of IP out of that setting and a city that big, how can that not happen? I feel certain that others will get their IP, construction firms are starting to figure things out and when (not if) the EU collapses under mounting debts, Neom City might hold the ticket for optional new wealth, yet this time it will be by adjusting to Islamic law and islamic rules, a stage that might dread plenty of people, yet if new growth is gained by change, what new borders will we all surpass? The US is heading to darker waters, the Covid issues, the Paris accords, all choices that the US is allowed to make, but these changes have alienated the EU in the process, and even as some are awaiting President elect Biden to take up the baton, the larger stage is not set and when we see that (Newsweek) gives us ‘Pompeo Says U.S.-Saudi Ties Are ‘Strong,’ but Biden Looks to Pressure ‘Pariah’ State’, we optionally see a much larger problem, but that I OK, I am ready and willing to find an alternative solution to a $8,500,000,000 arms invoice that the US is squandering, I have two parties willing (read: chomping at the bit) to satisfy the needs of Saudi Arabia, one mans loss is another mans new castle and I do have a nice castle in mind with the 3.75% bonus I would gain from that, so here, at least that is what Guan De of the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group thinks, they are willing to take it of the American hands, when they fumble the ball someone has to pick it up, it might as well be me.

So when you get all huffy and puffy, consider that at least Baroness Helena Kennedy is working of at least some level of evidence, you see that the acts of Hillary Kennedy were not wrong, there are flaws in Saudi Arabia, but when we consider the progress they have made, the progress they are making and the silence we see all sides give Turkey, I merely wonder how stupid the actions of some are. It is admirable that the US is willing to face hunger for morality it for the most cannot prove, yet what about these 80 million hungry Americans, will they like the decisions that come? I reckon so, they voted, did they not?

So that is why I am on the fence, evidence that is failing, accusations that come without evidence, all whilst the players with evidence are taking the long road around those problems, I have always had an issue with that, all whilst Saudi Arabia is the top player in 5G speed and they are setting a construction endeavour the sight we have NEVER seen before and why isn’t every paper in the world looking at that part, is that not weird too? 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 23, 2020 · 06:03

The speed of rumours

Yes, we have all heard of the speed of sound and the speed of light, yet have you heard of the speed of rumours? In this, I was amazed at how quick it actually is. On the 14th of November, I wrote ‘Outdated?’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/14/outdated/), and now, less than 9 days later we see the Guardian give us “State-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are engaged in concerted attempts to steal coronavirus vaccine secrets in what security experts describe as “an intellectual property war”” and those are merely the ones they are willing to name, yet the larger stage is that ANY and ALL IP is under duress, if ownership can be reregistered, as such I see the need for a clear data vault, without it I am keeping my IP on the one system that never connects to the internet, is never networking and is never handed out of hands. It is (for now) safe. And all these so called data vaults in the Apple app store can reconsider what they are, because as I see it they are many vaults, but not really a data vault, what a surprise. 

So as we take notice of “The cyber struggle involves western intelligence agencies, including Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, who say they are committed to protecting “our most critical assets”. But they discuss only a fraction of their work in public”, I merely wonder what our side is up to, with the US as broke as it is, with the media filtering what people are allowed to know, the issue is not who can we trust, but is there anyone left to trust? I know that this is not the way we tend to feel on Monday morning, but when will we feel ready? Even as the news is limiting the scope through “Adam Meyers, senior vice-president at the IT security specialists Crowdstrike, said countries including Russia and China had been engaged in hacking western companies and agencies “for the past 20 years””, I tried to bring you up to speed with with Hollywood and how easy they find it to reassign ownership, there are a few cases out there, and how protected were the original creators, Do you think that 5G IP is any safer? Do you think that given a chance, corporations are even hesitating to claim millions, of not billions? I cannot guarantee that Huawei would keep its word, yet would Amazon or IBM? Google has a larger disadvantage, this gets out and as such they would get a brain drain the size that could snowball into the greatest loss they ever faced. But the settings out there are not in favour of the average inventor and for some of us time is running out, making it public domain is all we might have, in that field the cheapest maker gets the largest slice and when that is out, they get hired for a nice fee and it is what comes next that gets the money rolling. It might be the only option for some. So when we are told “western governments remain reluctant to point the finger of blame in all cases of hacking attacks for fear of diplomatic repercussions, with the UK, for example, particularly cautious about accusing China”, I am wondering what the reluctance is, I am speculating that it is not merely governments, it is the large corporations directing some key people in those governments. The Financial Times gives us (at https://www.ft.com/content/26903a94-3617-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993b04) ‘Americans are wrong to paint China as an intellectual property thief’, as well as “Now that the US has reached the top of the ladder of tech supremacy, it wants to kick it away”. In all this, we take notice of “the US made the claim that China’s IP theft violated “public morals” prevailing in US society, while noting that such behaviour “may not offend China’s sense of public morals”. That allegation is both wrong and offensive. IP violations bring about civil, administrative and even criminal penalties in China, as well as in the US. China cherishes a culture of fair competition and respect for innovation. “To steal a book is an elegant offence,” has long been misread as a permissive aphorism peculiar to Chinese culture”, yet the setting is larger, when you do the Google searches on IP theft by the US you find none, only mentions of China stealing from the US and they tend to be opinion pieces and allegations, a lot of them absent of any level of evidence. It does not add up, there is no mention of the scripts that were ‘reacquired’ other events that I know happened do not get a mention, the setting is too unbalanced, and I do not trust any equation that unbalanced. Yet the article is failing in one respect, it does not show the imbalance that iterators versus innovator bring and that is important, Huawei is only the first of I reckon a dozen that can conquer others a dozen times over. It is the larger setting we face, because we face it now as the underdog, 30 years ago the lines were blurry, now we see that China has telecom, cars, motorcycles, an d many more, it is now the world’s leading manufacturer of chemical fertilisers, cement, and steel. A stage that remains growing in a time when the US and the EU are in a stage of mounting debts, a system of deranged stupidity and we are all idly sitting by, whilst the captains of balance sheets are setting another tone and in this we all get slammed, Some might say we are getting hammered, yet in the UK they will think we are merely getting drunk. Yet the Wirecard issues which is costing some $2,200,000,000 is merely the beginning of a larger stage and soon the players need whatever IP they can get, just to keep their heads above the water. And in all this thousands of inventors are trying to keep whatever they had secure, all whilst app stores are looking at data vaults and think it is to keep pictures safe by transferring them via a camera roll, yes really inventive move!

So what is being done (nation by nation) to keep IP safe? With 70% of the cloud getting hacked, I do not think that will be the place to keep them, but that is merely my idea.

Have a fun Monday!

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 20, 2020 · 22:40

News, fake news, or else?

Yup that is the statement that I am going for today. You see, at times we cannot tell one form the other, and the news is making it happen. OK, that seems rough but it is not, and in this particular case it is not an attack on the news or the media, as I see it they are suckered into this false sense of security, mainly because the tech hype creators are prat of the problem. As I personally see it, this came to light when I saw the BBC article ‘Facebook’s Instagram ‘failed self-harm responsibilities’’, the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55004693) was released 9 hours ago and my blinkers went red when I noticed “This warning preceded distressing images that Facebook’s AI tools did not catch”, you see, there is no AI, it is a hype, a ruse a figment of greedy industrialists and to give you more than merely my point of view, let me introduce you to ‘AI Doesn’t Actually Exist Yet’ (at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/ai-doesnt-actually-exist-yet/). Here we see some parts written by Max Simkoff and Andy Mahdavi. Here we see “They highlight a problem facing any discussion about AI: Few people agree on what it is. Working in this space, we believe all such discussions are premature. In fact, artificial intelligence for business doesn’t really exist yet”, they also go with a paraphrased version of Mark Twain “reports of AI’s birth have been greatly exaggerated”, I gave my version in a few blogs before, the need for shallow circuits, the need for a powerful quantum computer, IBM have a few in development and they are far, but they are not there yet and that is merely the top of the cream, the icing on the cake. Yet these two give the goods in a more eloquent way than I ever did “Organisations are using processes that have existed for decades but have been carried out by people in longhand (such as entering information into books) or in spreadsheets. Now these same processes are being translated into code for machines to do. The machines are like player pianos, mindlessly executing actions they don’t understand”, and that is the crux, understanding and comprehension, it is required in an AI, that level of computing will not now exist, not for at least a decade. Then they give us “Some businesses today are using machine learning, though just a few. It involves a set of computational techniques that have come of age since the 2000s. With these tools, machines figure out how to improve their own results over time”, it is part of the AI, but merely part, and it seems that the wielders of the AI term are unwilling to learn, possibly because they can charge more, a setting we have never seen before, right? And after that we get “AI determines an optimal solution to a problem by using intelligence similar to that of a human being. In addition to looking for trends in data, it also takes in and combines information from other sources to come up with a logical answer”, which as I see is not wrong, but not entirely correct either (from my personal point of view), I see “an AI has the ability to correctly analyse, combine and weigh information, coming up with a logical or pragmatic solution towards the question asked”, this is important, the question asked is the larger problem, the human mind has this auto assumption mode, a computer does not, there is the old joke that an AI cannot weigh data as he does not own a scale. You think it is funny and it is, but it is the foundation of the issue. The fun part is that we saw this application by Stanley Kubrick in his version of Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is the conflicting part that HAL-9000 had received, the crew was unaware of a larger stage of the process and when the stage of “resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission”, which has the unfortunate part that Astronaut Poole goes the way of the Dodo. It matters because there are levels of data that we have yet to categorise and in this the AI becomes as useful as a shovel at sea. This coincides with my hero the Cheshire Cat ‘When is a billy club like a mallet?’, the AI cannot fathom it because he does not know the Cheshire Cat, the thoughts of Lewis Carrol and the less said to the AI about Alice Kingsleigh the better, yet that also gives us the part we need to see, dimensionality, weighing data from different sources and knowing the multi usage of a specific tool.

You see a tradie knows that a monkey wrench is optionally also useful as a hammer, an AI will not comprehend this, because the data is unlikely to be there, the AI programmer is lacking knowledge and skills and the optional metrics and size of the monkey wrench are missing. All elements that a true AI can adapt to, it can weight data, it can surmise additional data and it can aggregate and dimensionalise data, automation cannot and when you see this little side quest you start to consider “I don’t think the social media companies set up their platforms to be purveyors of dangerous, harmful content but we know that they are and so there’s a responsibility at that level for the tech companies to do what they can to make sure their platforms are as safe as is possible”, as I see it, this is only part of the problem, the larger issue is that there are no actions against the poster of the materials, that is where politics fall short. This is not about freedom of speech and freedom of expression. This is a stage where (optionally with intent) people are placed in danger and the law is falling short (and has been falling short for well over a decade), until that is resolved people like Molly Russell will just have to die. If that offends you? Good! Perhaps that makes you ready to start holding the right transgressors to account. Places like Facebook might not be innocent, yet they are not the real guilty parties here, are they? Tech companies can only do so such and that failing has been seen by plenty for a long time, so why is Molly Russel dead? Yet finding the posters of this material and making sure that they are publicly put to shame is a larger need, their mommy and daddy can cry ‘foul play’ all they like, but the other parents are still left with the grief of losing Molly. I think it is time we do something actual about it and stop wasting time blaming automation for something it is not. It is not an AI, automation is a useful tool, no one denies this, but it is not some life altering reality, it really is not.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 19, 2020 · 21:17

Citizens of Jahannam

Yes, the bulk of us transgressed to a new village, a new town, optionally a city. We all moved to the city of Jahannam, we enabled the politicians who diverted the laws that enabled the corporations. And as Eve spoke to the guy on her needs of an apple product, she stated, yes that would be nice. So he got her a iPhone 7 SE (Swedish edition) and to make sure that it would last longer, the maker of Apple products slowed the battery down, to enable it to be older. Does it sound familiar? The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54996601), give us ‘Apple to pay $113m to settle iPhone ‘batterygate’’, basically it took 76,000 victims to break even. Yet the news gives us “Millions of people were affected when the models of iPhone 6 and 7 and SE were slowed down in 2016 in a scandal that was dubbed batterygate”, and as such we see the first part, the second part is seen in the Verge who gave us “11 million customers that didn’t need to buy a new iPhone”, you still think that crime does not pay? Yes, there will be all kinds of noise that there wee more cases, more settlements, but all that money is TAX DEDUCTIBLE, as such we get to see a larger stage and it is high time that the people involved get the limelight. When we consider “Any legal fees or court costs incurred will be deductible as well as the cost of resolving the suit, whether the company pays damages to the plaintiff or agrees to settle the dispute”, So this is how you get to become a trillion dollar company, you set the stage in one direction, and as long as it cannot be proven, you tell the people something fitting, take the profit and pay the fee which is a tax option, so can we come to the conclusion that in this world criminals are better protected than the victims ever will be?

That consideration comes (in part) from “Two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft were partly due to the plane-maker’s unwillingness to share technical details, a congressional investigation has found” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54174223), with the additional ““Boeing failed in its design and development of the Max, and the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft,” the 18-month investigation concluded”, even as we suspect t the there is something wrong with the statement ‘the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing’, yet could that ever be proven? What does matter the the lives of people are optionally ignored when the bottom line of a corporation is under fire, just like the USS Zumwalt that cannot fire any of their smart bullets (at $1,000,000 per shot). As such, when we read the “The nearly 250-page report found a series of failures in the plane’s design, combined with “regulatory capture”, an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator, which compromised the process of gaining safety certification”, I wonder what the optional price was of ‘an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator’, several ideas come to mind, none of them really proper for vocation, yet the setting is there. Again corporate needs are protected as the courts seem to be in a stage of protecting those who do not deserve it and fail to protect those who were in need of protection. And the people wonder why we do have become so distrustful of governments, really?

We might have a few questions on the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates of the USS Zumwalt, yet will those who heralded the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates the inside of a court having to explain their actions, I doubt it, as such is the thought that we have become Citizens of Jahannam.
Too much of a leap? 

Consider the issues that we face, the political egos we allow for and ask yourself, how much more will we have to accept before the law does what it showed do and protect victims? As such, we need to ask the questions we at times fear to ask. And even as we accept the pragmatism is at times the safest course of action, yet the acts of Apple and Boeing give us a very different story, the story of pragmatism being the death of far too many people, yet that is a side we are seldom to see, is it?

I merely wonder what corporations are saved from facing next, I wonder if my choices to be slightly selfish were so bad in the end. If Apple can become a trillion dollar company the way it did, could I not become slightly less rich without dec option and by keeping my (slightly stubborn) disposition of fair play?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 17, 2020 · 22:39

The jeopardy lingo

It seems fitting that I do see sort of Homage to Jeopardy, I was never a fan like a lot are, but Alex Trebek pretty much put his heart and soul into that and it seems fitting that we acknowledge that, if only for that one simple part. This article is largely based on the Al Jazeera article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/17/report-us-military-buying-location-data-on-popular-muslim-apps)

So as we see “US military buys location data of popular Muslim apps: Report”, the question becomes ‘Who bought a lot of religious tainted data?’ Yes the military did. It was a setting that was always going to happen and there is every indication that this has been going in for quite a while. It is one of the flags that I saw coming over a year ago setting the stage that Saudi Arabia with its (at present) vastly superior 5G might want to offer apps and such from their locality. Even though it is not about the apps, but consider all US and EU data missing Arabic data, it is something to think about and I saw this scenario taking shape some time ago. 

Next we get “several used by Muslims that have been downloaded nearly 100 billion times” gets us to the question ‘Who at Motherboard was unable to count and weight their data properly?’, yes another point for the blogger, the numbers indicate that the apps in question had been downloaded by every person on the planet at least 12 Tims, in light of the fact that less than to thirds of the planet has an internet capable phone makes the setting a little dubious. 

And as it is time to see “Monday found the US Special Operations Command was procuring location data from several companies”, we get to ‘What did US politicians allow to happen in light of personal privacy?’ Which is a loaded question by itself. You see there is every indication that a lot of people have all kinds of apps, there is another indication that those in the extreme know (those who know extreme actions taking place) have a digital footprint that is close to zero, as such I actually wonder how interesting the data is, as I downloaded the Quran on Android, they might have my details, well good luck to the and if they get personal details on Olivia Wilde, Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Natasha McElhone or Olivia Munn, would US Special command please forward that to my personal phone? I gratefully thank you in advance for that. 

As such when we get to “the Motherboard investigation noted some companies obtain app location data when advertisers pay to insert their ads into peoples’ browsing sessions” we almost get to the end of round one where we wonder how foreign intelligence organisations react to the US military acquiring the location at a of its citizens. It is a slippery slope, you see if advertisers can buy it, why not the US military? Isn’t that a fair question? Stating that Halal Malik, on 34th street, best Islamic butcher in New York can get data, yet the US military can not is basically discrimination, as such there is a much larger station there and the question becomes, what additional data was given to the US Military that Malik was unable to get, which boils down to another level of discrimination. So when we get to Timmy the sea-rat Hawkins (allegedly his nickname) giving us “We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens”, I reckon that it has the emphasis on ‘legal rights of American citizens’, anyone not in that group might not have any rights. So at that point we get to “it tracks 25 million devices inside the United States every month and 40 million elsewhere – including in the European Union, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region” we get to ‘What rights do the 40 million tracked mobile devices have?’, yup they allegedly have none, but that is a speculation from my side, in addition how many players outside of Al Jazeera have this and how much visibility will this part not get, especially in Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I reckon France (for obvious reasons) will go along with whatever the politicians connected to this will say to them. 

You see there is an almost dangerous setting when we see “US Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard that X-Mode also admitted selling data it collected to other “US military customers”” I am setting the emphasis on ‘almost’, from my point of view if you have no issues with commercial corporations digging on your needs, then why object to governments doing the same thing? As I personally see it, there is a lot more to question when healthcare insurers get your data than the government does. It seems almost fair, they all get access, and this is what I stated again and again is the price of free apps and free social media, so now that the cat is out of the bag (he is just to the right of your peripheral vision) we will see all these people scream, shout and cry yet I wonder why and what do you have to hide? It pretty much boils down to something (I believe it was Stephen Fry) that was said “If you do not want your nude pictures on the internet, do not pose naked”, the man has a point and it is a point we can adapt or use in emphasis as the actor Chris Evans gave joy to a billion woman, whilst setting his staff to the notion to go vote. Yes that was an accidental unintended pun. 

So even if we consider both ends of the spectrum and the setting where we keep all our data sacred and separate, we will soon find that it is much to late for that. Apart from the things I reported recently giving some people 5 versions of the customer data, and part from these mishaps, there is a whole station of data that is on back-ups, legacy systems and there is close to no stage of any kind of legal rights. We saw the Guardian give us close to a year ago ‘NHS data is a goldmine. It must be saved from big tech’, if you really think that big tech is the larger danger you are quite out of your mind. Even now we see the emotional response to Islamic data on Al Jazeera, so how about your health data available for health instances to tweak your annual premium, or them adjusting the questionnaire? Did you consider the simple question ‘How often do you smoke?’, whilst most people automatically answer ‘Don’t smoke’, yet social media has you puffing something and the health records give them certain other parameters, so when they ask you for verification purposes, you unwillingly set yourself up for a massive price hike, or a stage where you might be discontinued as a customer when you actually need help, because they will claim you lied. The setting eludes a lot of people but it is an important stage, because there are close to a dozen other settings the will give you health issues when you turn 50, 60 and when you are pre-dead.

Which almost gets us to the question ‘Who, what, when, where, how, why for $50’ and you will see that the bulk of the people are not ready for what is linked behind it all.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 17, 2020 · 17:20

Cursed by choice

It is a setting some will remember, some fondly, some less so. It is a state where you have too much options. Let me try to explain this, for example, your iPod you find after a year and you see hundreds of songs you have not heard for some time, but you cannot decide, or perhaps a choice of 5 RPG games and you have select one to play. The inability to seek between good options if you want.

It is a setting the reflects on to situations. The first is the one, the only, the musk (Elon to insiders). BBC reports “Tesla’s share price surged about 14% in New York following the news it was being added to the index. Given Mr Musk’s 20% stake in Tesla his net worth rose to $117.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth has jumped $90bn this year as Tesla’s share price has continued to rise”, I look at the setting differently, some say he has the Midas gene, he can anything he touches to gold, I reckon like Steve Jobs and a few others, he has the ability to turn generic outliers into commercial successes. We can go from the fact he knows what is useful, we can go with he knows where to push, who to push and how much to push. We can look at it in different ways, but in basic “Tesla’s share price surged about 14% in New York following the news it was being added to the index. Given Mr Musk’s 20% stake in Tesla his net worth rose to $117.5bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth has jumped $90bn this year as Tesla’s share price has continued to rise”, and that is before he realises (perhaps he already knows) that he is optionally sitting on an additional $1.2 trillion (meaning $1,200 billion) and the wired has seemingly no caught on, I had a few ideas in support of that, but the IP is already his, so why bother, he will figure it out. And that is before he goes to space, there he might make a few coins more. 

It is one setting and the opposing view is seen when we look at the lovely youthful youngling known as Taylor Swift. That BBC view (at https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54969396) gives us “Writing on Twitter Swift said it was “the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge””, here we want to answer in anger, yet the article also gives us “Swift signed a deal with record label Big Machine in 2004 granting them ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums in exchange for a cash advance to kick-start her career”, as such if there is no clause with a mandatory first option to buy back, I wonder if Scooter Braun did anything wrong. The news gives us that she signed over ownership on her first 6 albums, so I understand that she is not happy, but did Scooter do anything wrong? She is not the first, I learned a lot later in life that Paul McCartney has lost ownership of Beatles songs. I actually never knew that. And he is not alone, as such, and especially as we know and have seen that Taylor is very intelligent, why she learned her lesson the hard way. As one is cursed by many options, the other one was forced by a lack of options. The most dangerous part in all this is doing something expecting them to act in another, when we see “US entertainment magazine Variety first reported on Monday that Braun had sold the rights – known as masters – to an investment fund. It said the deal is thought to be worth more than $300 million (£227m)”, I wonder how much the songs were bought for, as such still, one third of a billion is a whole lot of money, I would not sell my IP for that (I would set it to a percentage of the patent value), yet overall I could be tempted. And there is a setting switch, it is about awareness, how many people in the music industry have a real grasp of IP and what it is worth nowadays. Games, movie, TV series, they are all in need of music and there is so much one can compose, it was perhaps one of Ubisoft most brilliant moments in all this, get well known songs or well known artists to support the IP, Imagine Dragons is perhaps one of the more known artists, it propelled the game, not merely the graphics, the music was a large part of it and Ubisoft was exceedingly clever there, they might not own the IP, but they knew a good deal when it was there and musicians need to catch up, especially in this age of Netflix and streaming. Now this is not an attack on Taylor Swift, this might have been her only option, yet the stage remains, what kind of legal advice did she get? I do not know, I am merely asking. So when I see (according to the BBC) “When his company, Ithaca Holdings, paid $300m to acquire Swift’s former record label last year, Swift saw it as an act of aggression that “stripped me of my life’s work”. She accused Braun – who also manages Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato – of “incessant, manipulative bullying”” we see a lot of emotion, but the stage is did Scooter Braun do anything wrong or illegal? We might say immoral and unethical but neither is a crime according to law and that is the setting we need to see and perhaps Taylor should have appealed to Elon Musk who has well over 3,000 times what she apparently needed, it is merely food for thought, although, I reckon that Elon gets a dozen of these attempts to contact an hour, and optionally when he figures out where his optional missing $1.2T is even more.

Such is life!
There are two groups cursed by choice, one group has too many, the other has (far) too few. Which one do you belong in? And what makes you think that you are in one or the other, because that contemplation tends to be a solution in itself at times.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 15, 2020 · 23:06

Dead on arrival?

Yes, we get the at times, not when the ambulance is racing to get to the ER with a guy wearing 10 knives in his chest, but a setting the is less obvious, almost like the movie dead on arrival, I saw the Dennis Quaid version (1988), I never saw the original from 1950. Yet in this version the victim (USA) does not yet know that it is carrying a deadly toxin, it was the benefit Dennis Quaid had in the movie. So as we see the USA in a stage of what they think matters, we see a larger stage, the stage Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) gives the people, with a still open invitation to India, it is the first time we get an economic bloc of this size where the USA is no longer a consideration, their 300 million consumers are in a stage where they can afford less and less. So as we get (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54949260) “President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) shortly after taking office. The deal was to involve 12 countries and was supported by Mr Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama as a way to counter China’s surging power in the region”, we need to see the partial truth that was a problem, a global one. Some give us (in regard to the TPP “Most of the gains in income would have gone to workers making more than $87,000 a year. Free trade agreements contribute to income inequality in high-wage countries. They promote cheaper goods from low-wage countries”, in addition we get “The agreement regarding patents would have reduced the availability of cheap generics. That could have raised the cost of many drugs. Competitive business pressures would have reduced the incentives in Asia to protect the environment. Last but not least, the trade agreement could have superseded financial regulations”, and there was more, so now we see the RCEP, optionally with similar issues, yet with India optionally joining we see a severe blow to patents (not good for me), but generic medication gets better protection (really good for me), and as we now get “The RCEP is expected to eliminate a range of tariffs on imports within 20 years. It also includes provisions on intellectual property, telecommunications, financial services, e-commerce and professional services”, so if that pact grows any further, we see a larger stage, one where the US and the EU see their cushy incomes diminish by well over 25%, yet it might take a decade, but it also means that the stage cannot be continued, as such their economies will need a vast overhaul in the next 5 years or living there in 2030 might not be a nice ideal in several places. So whilst the players are all about their financial services, we see a field that will vastly adjust in the next 5 years. And as I personally see it, it means that the death clock on Wall Street is pushing towards midnight. This is the consequence of catering to the greed stricken, this is what happens when ego takes over and in this case the ego of the USA and the EU are limiting their options, but the EU can always cater to Iran. And as I see it, a third of the global population is holding on to its 29% of the global gross domestic product. A stage that is a little new for a lot of us. As I see it, in 2030 when the national budgets become reality, I wonder how many people will herald the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, remember these grannies holding up the banner, stopping the arms trade against those bad bad Saudi’s? So when their pension goes down another 20% (if it still exists then), who will they blame? Will they call for Jeremy Corbyn? Will he still be alive? The same for the USA, yet here it will be president elect Biden calling the shots (he is entitled to that), but. Can they foresee the impact that the RCEP will have on their economy? I very much doubt it, yet endangering the $8,500,000,000 deal out there tends to be a really bad call, so as the RCEP will deliver to a larger population, we see a slow push take the USA from the pool of those who matter. As I personally see it, hypocritical high morals are nice, that is until the invoices come in, and these always come in.

Today the largest trade agreement in history was signed and the USA was no longer part of the big things happening, it might be a first, but it is no longer a last, that is the impact of close to 15 years of stupidity, short sightedness and ego, all set in a near package, it is efficient, I merely wonder for who it was an efficient setting, not for the USA, not for the EU, that much is certain. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,