Category Archives: Media

August 28, 2023 · 13:49

The speculated danger

Yes, that is where I am. Whatever I am about to give you, there is a decent amount of speculation involved, as such there is every chance that there are issues that aren’t covered and people with that kind of knowledge aren’t speaking out at present. Not to debunk my speculations and not to enforce it. I believe that the filtered media we are getting is now likely the more danger we face. This all started last night when I saw ‘UAE records hottest day of the year as temperature crosses 50 degree mark’ (at https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2023/08/27/Temperature-crosses-50-degree-mark-again-as-UAE-records-hottest-day-of-the-summer). Here we see “The rising heat in the UAE crossed the scorching 50 degrees Celsius threshold on Saturday, marking this summer’s highest temperature. According to the National Center of Meteorology (NCM), the mercury touched 50.8 degree Celsius in Abu Dhabi’s Owtaid in Al Dhafra region at 2:45 p.m.” We see all kinds of heat messages, but for a place like the United Arab Emirates to give that to the readers is a little new to me and that place is warm on any usual day. This started me to mull several things over and it also made me think back to the 60’s (when I was young and innocent. Yes, I was innocent once). That year is forever marked in my brain. Not because of the year as I am not certain what year it was. Yet I remember that it was -20 Celsius. The coldest I could ever remember. In addition to the ice flowers on my window, something I had never seen before there was something else. The streets were iced. Now we had ice in the winter, I grew up in a city named Rotterdam. But this was different, the streets were covered in ice. I could literally skate to school which had never happened before and I do not recall that it happened since. This is what I would call a temperature outlier. These things happen and there is nothing strange about it. Now consider this heat in the UAE. In addition consider (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/10/the-part-we-seem-to-forget/) the stage I reported in ‘The part we seem to forget’ where I quoted “Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather” (source: the Guardian) You can forget about the decennia part, I personally believe we are there now. To get that stage we need to add three elements. 

  1. “Researchers say deforestation has caused the Amazon to absorb less than half as much carbon dioxide as it did twenty years ago.” With the added “In the last fifty years, Brazil’s Amazon has lost about a fifth of its forest cover—almost 300,000 square miles. This includes at least 5,110 square miles lost in 2021”
  2. “From 2001 to 2022, Indonesia lost 29.4 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 18% decrease in tree cover since 2000, and 21.1 Gt of CO₂e emissions” which gives us Indonesia. 
  3. “Beginning in March 2023, and with increased intensity starting in June, Canada has been affected by an ongoing, record-setting series of wildfires. All 13 provinces and territories have been affected” with a total of 13,999,922 ha displacing well over 250,000 people. With Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/mapping-the-scale-of-canadas-record-wildfires) giving us “Canada is battling more than 1,000 active fires, and nearly two-thirds of them are out of control”

This is where the speculation starts. We have decimated our forests and the ability to regain the oxygen. Now, this is not going anywhere soon, our atmosphere has a curtain of well over 5 miles of oxygen, so we aren’t running out. But we now have a markable point where we use more oxygen than nature can correct for. The three largest places with forests are down by too much and there are side effects. The smoke of the Canadian fires, that go all through to the US will have a secondary impact

People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island Tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline in the Queens Borough New York City, June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

The sun will warm us less and you might think that is a good thing, but you would be wrong and that is why I made mention of the outlier in the 60’s. I personally believe that we are about to face the harshest winters ever and it will not be one year. This will start a trend that will be a 3-7 year stretch, not all at once, but we will face at least 2 harsh winters over the next 5 years with a few more after that. Even if the forests in Canada are replanted using Team Trees with Mark Rober, it will take close to a decade to see that impact and the forest fires will return next year too. Less likely to the same scale, but forest fires are a normal setting in Canada, the three elements combined is different and new.

Some will have seen the Netflix movie How it Ends and we aren’t facing that, but the nuclear winter that follows such fires are not entirely impossible, I would go on stating that they are becoming more and more likely. The media will trivialise this and state that I am a doom sayer, yet they have never given us the real deal in this and they are unlikely to do so now. I am not saying this will happen, but I feel certain that we are heading to really harsh winters and the first one will hit us before January 2025 which is expected to cripple the UK and Europe to a larger degree. Canada and the nordic nations will not be crippled to such a degree, but they too will feel the bite of the winter that comes. In the meantime with the winter hitting us and the heat being a larger problem extreme weather is coming our way and it is coming now, not in a decade. 

So consider what I told you, fell free to check the numbers you can and be certain that you take note of the trivialisation you see in the media and take note of the media that trivialised it. They are no longer to be trusted ever. They are filtering the information to keep you asleep, especially in a time when you should have been awake a lot more. It is not the one thing, there is no one thing, it is the combination of a whole range of issues and it is not the private jet setting, that is utter bullshit. What they are all happy to ‘ignore’ or forget is what I mentioned in ‘A COP26 truth’ a setting we see (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/13/a-cop26-truth/) two elements stand out. “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?” The Guardian was all about private jets and made no mention of this element. Do you really think that these flights were essential? Then there was “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.” How interesting was it that the Guardian and its environmental pages did not mention that report. Two elements and you were kept in the dark and now these elements start to form a biased opinion (from me) but feel free to come up with better settings and this has been going on since 2021. So with all the space they had they ignored the European Environmental Agency? 

It is my personal speculated believe that these elements are part of a greater impact and the Canadian fires with the deforestation elements are adding up to a new picture. I might be so brazen to suggest that the 8 billion people this year onwards (for some time) will be using more oxygen than the planet can renew, this has a larger impact now, the winters and summers will both be harsh, more harsh then anyone can remember. I would leave it to the media, but I don’t thin they can be trusted any longer. In fact there are trust issues on all sides and so there should be, but those who give us the news aren’t (it is now filtered information). Am I right? Am I wrong?

I honestly do not know, but this is my speculated opinion. I might be going from numbers, but it remains speculation. 

So breath and get through the day, the weekend is behind you the next one might be coming in 5 days. Enjoy.

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August 27, 2023 · 14:56

The Funny Money Paradox

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

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

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

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

Enjoy this Sunday, Monday is a mere evening away.

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August 26, 2023 · 16:11

You were saying?

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

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

Enjoy the weekend.

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August 25, 2023 · 19:06

And then there were 6 more

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

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

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

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August 24, 2023 · 19:41

The brotherhood of NASA

OK, I took notice of news today. I only took notice today as it either escaped my attention, or the western coverage has been dismal. But the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66590446) gives notice that India is now the 4th nation to land on the moon. Preceded by USA, Russia and China it nows becomes a member of a very exclusive club. Not the UK, not France and not Germany. None of them made membership to the American Express Stellar Black Card (an extremely exclusive version of the AMEX card), it was India who did. And I am happy for India. A nation most nations and its citizens look down on, sneer at and make fun of. That nation is now a lunar nation.

The interesting part is that no one is ‘cashing’ in on that, on the pride. So above is an image, part of an image of a board game I remember playing in the 70’s. It was all about NASA then. I was watching in amazement to the TV when someone left a footprint on the moon (no negativity implied). The board game fuelled our excitement. This is a different board game, but that is the part I remember. Now consider that same game on Facebook, on your mobile. To play with friends and others. 

All now watching the ISRO logo on their board. On trains, in the office (during coffee breaks) and the ISRO has earned it, they are 4th in a game that most would say that India is a horse no show. And India got there ahead of many others, even many G20 nations. They have earned their laurels. 

And for comedy, in light of the accusations that a NAFO fella kicked the Russian moon lander out of orbit I would like to offer the idea of a NAFO block card. If you have it, you can play it whilst the lander is orbiting the moon BEFORE it lands. Then you roll the dice again. With 1-5 the opponent is halted for one move, if you get a 6, the lander is destroyed and that player has to start again at the liftoff point. I saw the NAFO fella ‘documentary’ on Twitter, so it must be real.

But that last part is merely a funny moment for me to add an element. What matters is that there have been moon games going back to the 70’s, perhaps even before that and India can now use that to spread the fame of the ISRO, they have earned it. We can be all kinds of jealous, yet in the end they got to the moon. They might be 4th, but there is no way to tell what else they will achieve and we need to be reminded that greatness comes on all shapes and sizes and from almost every direction. The ISRO showed us this with the Chandrayaan-3. A moonlander who completed its landing on August 23rd 2023 and we should remember this. India has every right to be proud of this moment and so they should be.

Enjoy today and feel free to dream of whatever you want. 

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August 22, 2023 · 20:51

Turning the pages

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

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

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August 21, 2023 · 22:11

A mindful detour

I made one hell of a detour today, it was a virtual one. So my shoes were spared the support they would have needed otherwise. It all started thinking back to an event (some time ago) when I was making a muslim friend the compliment that his beard was so pronounced, that it was the envy of every garden gnome in the state. This got me thinking of a new kind of garden gnome, one based on Muslims Clerics. The reason for that was two fold, on the one side there were the ‘empty’ gardens and lawns in Dubai Jumeirah, the other was a video of gardens in Dubai featuring Smurfs. The thought evolved from that and now we get to the good part, a additional (or new) theme part based on the Dutch Efteling. Dubai has a few theme parks, but Riyadh not that much and I believe that the Efteling part would play nice. Not a copy but one based on the stories of 1001 Arabian Nights and other fairy tales. You see I remember being young one (yes I was young once) and I must have been between 5-7 when I went the first time to the Efteling and I saw the story of the Fakir and the gardener and I thought it was magic. 

I could stare at that part for hours, it was so magical. The analytical side of my now can clearly see the elements of the show and it is not magic anymore, but whenever I think of that show I once saw well over half a century ago still fills me with nostalgia. I think that if Riyadh wants to up its tourist setting, the idea that such a themed setting is in a place like a 400-metre-high, cube shaped skyscraper named Mukaab. Not all of it, but over the first 3-5 floors giving the shops the incentive to show more, ‘lure’ in the family is not the worst idea. And the size of that cube implies that there is plenty of space for a lot of things. The lower (up to) 5 floors with souks, shops and food-stands that could compete with the Dubai Global Village. 

The only way is to be unique and there is no real timeline, as such giving a place like the Mukaab that kind of visibility could draw in nearly every YouTube travel influencer on the planet. Of course there are other places where this could be done. And I believe that Saudi Arabia needs to do its share to call in the people they are hoping to call in and why be like every American theme park? 

It might only have 4 water rides and 6 rollercoaster, but it snatched the coveted theme park price away from Disney in 1972, 1992, 1997, 2005, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. It got the best theme-park in the world ribbon (by theme park insiders) in 2017 and 2018, a Pomme d’Or and several other mentions. As such the Dutch Efteling is a great choice. I have visited that place well over half a dozen times over a period of close to 50 years and I have always had a good feeling about that place. As such it should interest people like Ahmed Al Khateeb (Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia) As Riyadh grows, so will the need to entertain local and international families and I believe that a place like the Efteling had set out its version of excellence going back to 1952. The fact that it has accumulated that many awards in its lifespan should be a good reminder that Disney is not the only entertainer in town and there is place to grow a unique form of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with the Dubai IMG Worlds of Adventure and it looks awesome and perhaps one day I will see it for myself, but it is not the only way. Even now I still have fond memories (and only fond memories) of the Efteling and as I live on the other side of the planet, I cannot go there at present, but that yearning is still in me. That place was that awesome. Even now, you might think that you are too old for fairy tales, but your mind will react to seeing that setting as long as you live. I have to accept that people like Anton Pieck made it special and I accept that, but when you realise that something like that has please people for well over 50 years, it is not the feeling of a mere fashion setting, it was a form of excellence we seldom see. 

Now consider one of the true treasures of the Efteling. The Anton Pieck Diorama. Not a simple diorama, but one that is 700cm by 400cm by 200 cm in size. It has trains, buildings, people and the moving trains make it amazing. It opened in 1971 and has been working ever since. What is nice to know is that Märklin for many years manufactured the Minex steam trains specially for Efteling. A Minex train on that big a diorama. Now consider that setting of excellence in a Diorama that has a Middle East setting. Not just trains, but moving caravans, cars and all those buildings giving you a view on the past in a fantasy setting. That is what could draw in the crowds towards Riyadh and optionally to a place like the Mukaab. I wonder if anyone has looked into this in Riyadh (or Dubai for that matter). 

Well that was my Monday being active. Time to make some food and snore like a sawmill and in western Canada enjoy Monday, you still have all day to get through.

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August 20, 2023 · 22:20

Look back in anger

We all face moments when we sort of lose it. I had that yesterday when I saw an article by the CBC. I learned a long time ago that I should not write from a setting of anger (it never ends well for the writer), so I parked the article until now and now is the time. I am still angry, but a lot less so, as such I feel certain I can give the little bastard tit-for-tat.

The article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-war-us-cluster-bombs-1.6940961) gives us ‘U.S. provided Ukraine with cluster bombs to fight Russia. Survivors say they should never be used’ as a sentiment I cannot disagree, yet in this case Nick Logan (the bastard in question) is giving us a very one-sided non-informing setting. One view given to us is “Russian use has been extensive while Ukrainian use has been more limited. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories of the of the 2008 convention limiting the use of cluster munitions”, and that is not all.

Another source gives us “Although the Russian side denies accusations of using cluster munitions in residential areas, international and non-governmental organisations have reported such attacks. By the beginning of April, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were reporting cluster munition shelling in Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Donetsk, Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. By July 1, Cluster Munition Coalition reports shelling in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions. Testimony from independent weapons experts confirmed that a number of cluster rounds were dropped on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.” This comes as an amalgamation of sources which includes the Wall Street Journal, BBC News, the Guardian and the Monitor. As such, why is (what I regard to be a little shit like) Nick Logan diminishing the actions by Russia and mentioning Russia 16 times, but extremely often as a ‘victim’ all whilst Russia demolished most of the Ukraine, including Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions and pretty much all of these regions whilst utilising cluster munition. Why is the article by Nick Logan falling short there? Russia is getting what it has served the citizens of Ukraine and that is the first thing that Nick Logan should have reported on. I get the sentiment that cluster munitions are horrible. War is horrible, yet the Ukraine did not start this and having someone making nice with Russia to THIS degree has no business being a reporter for CBC or a reporter for any Commonwealth nation for that matter. So when I look back in anger, I look towards the facilitation of a terrorist state by too many media sources. For that matter, how many corporations are still doing business with Russia? How many are Canadian (or Commonwealth for that matter) and how much longer will we allow people like Nick Logan making BS reports whilst facilitating for some terrorist state? According to several sources (see above) the Russians started using cluster munition in 2014. It was in July 2023 when we got told “John Kirby confirmed later on Thursday that Ukrainians forces have begun using the munitions.” That is almost 9 years later, but the CBC did not give us that, did they? They merely gave us “Police look at fragments of Russian rockets, including cluster rounds, that hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Dec. 3, 2022. In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had a ‘sufficient stockpile’ of cluster munitions, warning it ‘reserves the right to take reciprocal action’ if Ukraine uses the controversial weapons provided by the U.S.” So, how deceptive was that part? How much reporting do we see that Russia used these cluster munitions from 2014 onwards? 

As such the next part is for Brodie Fenlon (editor of CBC). Brodie you have some fixing to do. This level of reporting is unacceptable. I expected the CBC to be better than this and it is up to you to fix this, no one else. It was allowed on your watch, you get to fix your watch (and your watchdogs). A massive injustice was done to the Ukraine and to your readers by allowing this hatchet job to become mainstream news. 

I think I got the anger out of my system, after I let it wind down a little. I let you decide to see if I was wrong or not. 

Enjoy the last day of the weekend.

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August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August 19, 2023 · 00:41

Our house is burning down. Down!

By now we have all heard of the fires in Canada. There is nothing that I can say, invent or imagine that makes this setting easier. These fires are making the fires of Rome (64AD) and burning of London (1666AD) look like a simple BBQ (or clambake if you are from the US). At this time the fires are well over 13,500,000 Hectare, and it has displaced around 200,000 people. Which is almost 1% of the population. The largest fire in recorded history. I have never ever heard of a fire this big and I have been around for well over half a century. I wonder what the eco-deniers make of this setting, who will they blame? The fact that from all over the world firefighters are coming to Canada to fight a fire too big to comprehend is only one setting. The stage that planes are so loaded that they need to turn away those fleeing the disaster they face. 

People wear protective masks as the Roosevelt Island Tram crosses the East River while haze and smoke from the Canadian wildfires shroud the Manhattan skyline in the Queens Borough New York City, June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

And that is before you realise that NYC is orange, orange from smoke by Canadian fires. An event that has never happened before. So yes, I looked at plenty of issues before I looked at this. I am on the other side of the planet, but I took notice, I took notice several times and now I decided to write about it. 

The setting hasn’t changed, I did. I am starting to realise that that much forest gone will impact our oxygen supply and it will take lose to a decade for a decent amount to be rebuild. We can argue on the timeline. But the forests in the Amazon are depleted, the ones in Indonesia have seen depletion as well Indonesia lost 29.4 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 18% decrease in tree cover since 2000. Did you think that was nothing? Now the forests of Siberia are almost all that remain and I reckon that this is not a path we want to walk on. This fire might not be what we wanted, but there is a negative part in me that states that this is the fire we the people (not just Canadians) have been entitled to. A small reminder that exploitation of our world will hurt us all and people more intelligent than me would have been aware of this for several years and the Canadian fires are merely bringing it to the foreground. Some articles are drawing in the people by looking at how it started, some are set on the blame factor, but if you need someone to blame you only need to look into a mirror. Politicians are not held to account, all whilst driving the gravy train. We are being told that places like the UK that woodland creation has increased by 40 percent since last year to 3,128 hectares. It isn’t much, but it is a start, all being it being half a decade late. People like Mark Rober (formerly with NASA) have aided organisations like Team Trees, an organisation that as of 29 June 2023, the project has raised $24,438,806, exceeding the fundraiser’s goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted. So one ex-NASA with an organisation achieved more in 2 years that the UK achieved in a decade and it is people like this that Canada will need, their solutions will be required when the fires are stopped. When? Your guess is as good as mine and it will rely on guessing as we have never faced a fire like this ever before, not in well over 2000 years as far as I can tell. 

So what is the option? I am not sure we have one, our house is burning down and whilst most houses have a garden to evacuate to, the planet has nothing surrounding itself but empty space and that is a place where we cannot survive. I wonder how long it will take some to blame the rich, tax everyone and whatever other solution people give, but the simple equation is that until we change our lives from a consumer based life towards an essential goods stage this will keep on going on. And with a little over 8,000,000,000 consumers in this house, we are destined for a larger failing than we care to admit to. You see it is not merely the fires, it is the simple equation where 34 million acres are not there to give us the oxygen we need to breath. So how short will our oxygen supply be in 2024? You can ignore it all you want but that will be the largest topic we ever faced and it is coming. None of it is the fault of Canada or Canadians. We all did our best to ignore Brazil and Indonesia. The media skated around the issue and now the blame game starts. Well as soon as the fires have been digitally exploited to the maximum. That is how I see it. Do you think I am wrong?

Enjoy the weekend and consider the numbers, the numbers tend to be correct.

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