Category Archives: Media

March 23, 2023 · 09:14

One thought counters another

This is a case we sometimes face. My thought counters theirs and their thought counters mine. There is nothing unnatural about it. In a setting where we applaud, respect or even merely accept the scales of balance, we see that one side counters another. Balance is natural and that is important here. You see, players like Microsoft have been fighting balance for their own selfish little needs for the longest of times. Now, this does not mean that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are not like that, but they tend to go with the flow for most of the time (Facebook perhaps a little less than the other three). Apple might be the most in tune with the scales of balance, but that is from where I sit and might be incorrect. And this all started with ‘Microsoft says ten years is “sufficient” for Sony to create Call of Duty rival’, yes, I can do you one better. They can do it in half that time. More important it will not be some Call of Duty rival, it will be better. As Microsoft is becoming more and more of a hollow egg, the $69 billion more in the near future is also the face of a failing company. You see, You can buy all you like, but when the creative people walk away because they see the failing of a company who fails against Apple with their Surface, who fails with their Azure against AWS, who fails with their Bing against Google search is a company that is doomed and as I personally see it, it is in its last 1,375 days before it crumbles into a joke, that firm will lost a lot more soon enough. And it is not that hard an equation. To merely break even Microsoft will have to exceed 72.8 million of PROFIT every day between now and 31/12/2026 and that is merely to cover the last three spendings, not all their waste. That is why I know that Microsoft will fail. So I created in the past blogs the foundations of more RPG that I made freely available to people designing for the Amazon Luna. It is the final blow of failures for Microsoft. I don’t need to do anything for Sony. They have their horses in a row and they are ready to race. Nintendo has its own niche and they are doing fine. All settings that two gaming giants had racked up correctly. Microsoft betrayed their own gamers, blew its audience who is now taking a distance from Microsoft, and as such their population is dwindling down. Still think I was delusional?

It goes from bad to worse after that. Their own cornerstone is having more and more issues and people are willing to push away from that too. Microsoft office is too bulky and there is a lot of power in Open office and Google’s solution which apart from their spreadsheet is doing above OK, not to mention the fact that it is a free product. And in the graphic settings Adobe surpassed them in several ways all at once and in the age of Meta and their metaverse Microsoft will merely lose more and the need for the daily profit of 72.8 million that marker will merely bite more and more. With the Luna set to overtake (with a little help) the Microsoft streaming service they will get another opponent. It is Chinese Tencent who is already taking serious time to create Unreal Engine 5 applications. Another soft spot Microsoft was ignoring. Yes we are given all the spin in the media, but too many is created by ‘Microsoft Friends’ and we see AI claims all over and when we think things trough, we will realise that ‘their’ AI is data driven and they lack data. There is no way that some AI claim can create scripts. You see (deeper) machine learning can only react to data, react to events they HAVE and that means that they can copy and edit, but they cannot create. That is the first larger flaw. And now as I had another idea for Streaming gaming, there will be a much larger case for people to connect to systems that will deliver, not are bought and then altered to fit another need. That is a sure way to fail. One source (a few, but seemingly all from the same source) gave us “Redfall PS5 version was in development, but cancelled after the Xbox buyout”, so how does that align with a Microsoft statement that they would be everywhere? Now, lets be clear Microsoft is allowed to do what they do, they bought Bethesda, they are trying to own Blizzard. But what happens when we design new versions, new IP exclusive for Amazon Luna and Sony? What is their win when they spend $100,000,000,000 for a console that as some sources gives us 

As of June 2022, lifetime unit sales of Xbox One consoles in North America reached 31.58 million, while in Europe, lifetime unit sales surpassed 12.8 million with some partial addition of what was estimated that Microsoft had shipped at least 18.5 million units of the two consoles (series S and X) worldwide by December 2022. Now look at the Sony equation. PS5 sales have now climbed to 32 million, with 7.1 million consoles sold in the last three months alone, a dramatic increase over the 3.9 million sold in the same quarter last year. This means that the PS5 is almost equal on the Microsoft last 3 consoles, all whilst the PS4 has surpassed 117,000,000 consoles. Now they want to go to the cloud whilst their consoles are already doomed. So I am willing to set aside some creative time to make sure that they fail there too. 6 directions (tablet, SAAS, office, search, gaming and GAAS) where Microsoft fell short and keeps on failing, no purchase will counter that and the message merely gets to be worse soon thereafter. Now, do not discount some options. Microsoft will get some parts right, Starfield looks for all accounts amazing, but when there is an alternative people will go for the one solution that does not betray them. And should Amazon (or Apple) select my IP, they stand to get more than 50,000,000 more accounts making the failure of Microsoft even more dismal, especially as I predicted this setting for the better part of 2 years. No spin will work when there is a published article countering that. They are all about making a spin towards the future, but what happens when the ‘future spin’ becomes past and does not hold up to the numbers? That is the part Microsoft seemingly forgets about (again and again) and that wheel is merely spinning faster and not for Microsoft. They will merely lose more and more control. At some point they will need more money to repair the potholes of their shoddy road. Consider the Solarwinds issue and the fact that Microsoft was going to buy a cyber powerhouse (which became part of Google) and after that the media went dark, the spin failed, so darkness is all they had and the media complied. There were no questions on how Microsoft was going to deal with it after that. Weird he?

The list merely grows and at some point the media needs to do a 180 or accept that they are a Microsoft tool. So how many failures until the media actually turns on Microsoft? Perhaps the larger advertisement deals come through, but not for all and that is the counter that vanishes, especially when you consider that the world has 18,000 registered with the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). Some will lose and that is the beginning of a lot more pain for Microsoft. 

So whilst all of that is in play. I considered a new RPG, free for Amazon Luna and Sony developers. Consider the absolute hit the first 4 God of War games were. Now consider an RPG where Tartarus is actually mapped out. As such it is no God of War and you have no special powers, but a battlefield the actual size of America named Tartarus, the underworld where you need to keep standing, where you need to survive and each death restores you, but with the millions of opponents you cannot run into battle all the time. You need to find the relic weapons that have additional powers and perhaps you will at some point find an Olympian piece of armour or. weapon that gives you an edge. And it will be first person. So 9.9999 years before Microsoft imagined I gave Amazon and Sony a rival. That is the power of creativity, something Microsoft lacks, they surely lack it, because if blizzard is bought, many creative souls will retire with their part of billions and Microsoft end up with another near empty shell, product but without driving creativity. So how long until the makers at Bethesda will have had enough? How long until they think that Ubisoft is a better deal than Bethesda under new management? That is how I know that Microsoft is ticking away towards implosion and when that happens (within the next 1380 days) I will merely sit, sip a little Ice water and tell you ‘I told you so!’ Because I get to do that at that moment. Yay me!

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March 22, 2023 · 22:39

What was this about?

That was the second thought I had, not the first. To be honest, I was swept up by emotional phrasing that was done rather well, but the whole mess changed when I had some time to think it through. It started about 2 days ago when I saw ‘My bank did not stop £6,500 payment to holiday scammers despite my pleas’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/mar/20/bank-did-not-stop-payment-holiday-scammers). The initial thought was what screwed up thing did the banks do this time, it was accelerated by the small issue of £6,500, which for a lot of people is regarded as loads of cash, especially when you arrange your budget in pints, which in some places outside of London will bank you 1,625 pints. For some people that is a drinking option dragging you on for well over a year, 18 months and that is a lot. So why the beer reference?

Money is a direct number, but how to compare it? There is a discussion whether an annual event can be compared to  normal monthly budget. Personally I do not believe it is valid or even acceptable. If we did that we might never have a vacation ever again at present. But back to the article. We are given “Graham says that for more than six hours after she had authorised a €7,155 (£6,500) payment to a Bank of America account in the US, the money continued to sit in her First Direct bank account. When she received an email an hour after making the payment warning her that the villa’s listing on Vrbo had been removed for security reasons, she immediately phoned First Direct back to halt the transfer”, now there are issues here, but that gets to legal to consider, but VRBO removed the villa AFTER payment was processed, there will be legal issues for VRBO. The second part is that this is a US setting, with seemingly no representation in the UK, that is the actual issue for me. Then we get “At this stage, she says, the people purporting to own the villa said they might be able to do Graham a deal if she was prepared to move outside Vrbo’s email system, and to email directly.” Taking VRBO out of the loop sets VRBO free, why do you want to be out of ANY loop? And that is where the victim gives us “They have been about as useless as they could be”. The woman who is referred to as Sarah Graham is wrong. 

In the first the bank correctly performed a payment setting. At the time of the payment it was ‘agreed’ on by both parties. In the second, the move outside of the VRBO loop got VRBO off the hook because they were unaware of what was going on. 

Now a small education for the stupid people out there. Scammers are pretty much everywhere, where ever there is a quick deal, a cheap deal (£800 cheaper) there is an exponential growth of a scam in place. There is a travel agency in almost every corner of any street in the UK and EU. There is a reason for that. Looking at a hotel in Crete I see one for 113€ a night, that is including the flight a lot less than £6,500 for a month.

There is a growing issue with people thinking that they can get the cheap deal and when you do not know the party on the other side, there is an increasing chance of losing your money. With local travel agencies (in the UK) they tend to have ATOL protection. 

This means that the scheme provides protection for travellers who book a holiday, which includes a flight. If an ATOL licensed travel company collapses, it ensures that your money is protected and you can get home. And now we get to the real part, the article does not once mention travel agency or ATOL. As such the question towards writer Miles Brignall becomes. Did you do anything more than exploit the victim? If you wanted to alert the people you would have mentioned travel agencies, ATOL licences and the issue with foreign organisations, even though I will admit that all facts taken aside, VRBO is in the clear, the scammers made sure that they were out of the loop so that they could collect, and in this the banks have no blame either. A service was performed and the bank performed it. 

This was about a person trying to get the golden deal for a lot less whilst she knew none of the parties. How does that usually go over on the internet?

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March 21, 2023 · 23:45

The unplanned story

That happens to us all and there are any number of reasons. I thought I was done with the subject for now, that is until CB gave me ‘Nordstrom Canada will launch sales at its closing stores starting Tuesday’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nordstrom-canada-liquidating-stores-1.6784540) about 11 hours ago. There was no surprise. I covered this in part in ‘It as one keyword’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/04/it-was-one-keyword/) and that story links to a few others. I casually captured the folly of Nordstrom but I left a few things out. You see, we can all agree if you have been working from a place of loss from day one, there is a weakness in your business model, but I do not think it was enough. Covid was too unexpected and the world reeled on it, but it was already to late as I saw it and even if my IP was accepted by the right people, for Nordstrom it was already too late, it would have merely given them a little more time, time they could not hand them a better result. Their business model and their prediction model was off by too much.

You see, to see this we need to look at a picture. The picture is below. 

As you see here, we see a mall and this time around it is not the Toronto Eaton Centre, this is the Hyat Mall in Riyadh and it show the same weakness, which is the problem for malls. Yet as I see it, the problem is a lot bigger for western malls (USA, UK, EU) they have the same touch, the tough of non identity. You can scream the name all you like, but these malls are all the same. Go to a mall anywhere in the US and you could not tell where you were from walking there. It was a formula that malls were based on and between 1990-2015 that made sense, but after Covid the world changed and that is where the problems starts for these malls, all 116,000 of them. Yet there is a solution and both Gucci and Tiffany is already tapping into that, but I reckon they are missing part of it and that is where Google, Samsung and Apple come in. I wonder if these two players figure out what I saw over 6 months ago and it is a juicy one. Optionally Elon Musk could use it to give more needs to his Pi Phone but in itself it is still an android solution. The image is based on identity and interaction. You see, that need is not effort, it is engagement. Market Research (at least a few of them) have seen that engagement is the metric that really matters and Augmented reality is the core of that and that is what is missing in malls. Lets be clear, for Nordstrom it is too late, the question becomes will malls change into retail graveyard places over the next 5-10 years or are they given a new lease on life and that matters. How much real estate is in 116,000 malls? When they die the local places will light up and I personally am a firm believer in ‘Support your local hooker’ which was an expression we used in the 70’s. 

So am I right because Gucci and Tiffany are tapping into that idea? No, I believe I am right because the nature of the beast (the consumer) has changed and is still changing. They are catching on that a new prerogative is required and AR gets them there. So when they are done with ageism and other forms of consumer categorisation, they will figure out that their predictive model is wrong on a few levels and that is where we see the larger stage change. I merely wonder if some of them will wake up in time. If not, I watch it all go to hell and when it does I can point to my previous articles and tell them “Told you so” and whatever excuse they have will not hold up, because I wrote it months ago and I wrote it in several stories over a span of about a year (perhaps a little longer). So when they wake up, I wonder if it is to the board directors who are fed up with the colour rd in their books, or the conveyancer trying to measure up the place for new usage. I can’t be to the smell of coffee, because it is too late for that and it will not be to me as Amazon, Apple and Google all decided they never needed me. Fine, whatever.

So when we complete the consideration of “In approving Dacks’ liquidation request, Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz agreed, saying Nordstrom is facing a “difficult time, but this process is unfolding in a very co-operative manner.””

At least I kept it out of the hands of Microsoft, not a bad stage to consider. Yet consider two final things. The first is Nordstroms liquidation actual liquidation or euthanasia? The second is, is Nordstrom alone? How many other places are on the brink of really bad times in the next 5 years? 

Have a great day.

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March 21, 2023 · 00:50

When we just don’t know

This happens, at times we are in the dark, some more than others, but we have all been in that lane where we are utterly in the dark on what is up.

For me it started in April 2022 when I wrote ‘Comedy Capers it is not’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/19/comedy-capers-it-is-not/) there was no blame, there was no wrongdoings. An Iranian woman was kidnapped by people in fake police uniforms and that is where it pretty much ended. I had a few thoughts and I put it in ‘Loser investigations unlimited’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/25/loser-investigations-unlimited/) yet a few things kept nagging at me and I stayed quiet. It is a parallel to ‘You are not paranoid when everyone is trying to kill you’, there was something in this that had a connection, but I could not clearly see it and now, thanks to the OPP et al, I feel that I do. You see, CBC gives us ‘Woman charged with kidnapping in Elnaz Hajtamiri abduction case’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/elnaz-hajtamiri-kidnapping-charge-1.6782534) there we see “In a news release issued Friday, Ontario Provincial Police investigators said that on Thursday, 30-year-old Brampton woman Krystal P. Lawrence had been arrested and charged with kidnapping”, we see a lot more and I think we need to give people from the OPP and York Regional Police a huge applause. They got things done when most of us (me included) thought they were out of options. They did more than OK, they got something impossible done, except perhaps finding the missing woman. To be honest I am not sure if she will ever turn up. You see this all reeks of VAJA (or VEVAK if you prefer). The one part I cannot answer is why she was a target, I am not sure if the RCMP, CSIS, or OPP has a clue. Is it because she is/was connected to someone? I cannot tell. But the entire fake police touch makes it more than simple abduction. Then there was the headline ‘Elnaz Hajtamiri’s ex-boyfriend hired a private investigator to watch her before Wasaga Beach abduction’ there was always something wrong with that. It is not beyond VAJA to speak to the lack of honour in the ex-boyfriend and he (for a nice amount) was willing to help out. But the reason as to why remains a mystery to me. Robert Redford (all the presidents men) taught me ‘Follow the Money’ and that makes sense, but it is at times not enough. I personally need data to investigate what happened in the month before someone hired Loser Investigation Unlimited (see the article for more). You see, they might not talk, but their books will and that amount when you mine the funds of the ex-boyfriend will either absolve him (massively unlikely) or shows him to be complicit. That might get us more, but unlikely that it will lead to Elnaz Hajtamiri. For now we need to congratulate the police factions involved of getting this far, a place I never expected them to get, because the entire setting was skewed from day one and dressing up as fake police officers is just a little too weird for it to be normal. 

I initially had a few more ideas, but they do not matter. It seems to me that the Canadian police is sharp as a scalpel and they will cut to the heart of the matter, the CBC article of March 17th leaves me with little doubt on that matter.

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March 19, 2023 · 01:32

The quick fortune

Yes, that is how it starts, and there is one little snag. There is no such thing as a quick fortune, not for anyone. On the other hand, it gave me the idea for a new movie called ‘The cure is so much worse’ a nightmare of the most horrific kind, but more about that later. 

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64939146) gives us ‘Thousands may have lost out to crypto trading app’, and I wonder just how stupid people are. You see, when I am given “Trading in cryptocurrencies has become popular, with people often promised large rewards over short periods” I see a red flag, a really big ref flag. If I have something that makes me so called rich overnight. I do not share it, well perhaps I share it with the two best friends I have and only after I have gotten a nice payout, so that I know that I am not setting them up. It is that simple. Its like these house scammers In Sydney almost a decade ago. Housing was so short that people started advertising apartments for sake via Facebook and a few other sources. If I know of an apartment for sale, I send a quick message to my dearest friends and no one else. Because an opportunity like this, I either use myself, or hand it to a best friend who will owe me a solid. With digital currency it is different, I trust none of them and even if The Saudi government or a place like Kingdom Holdings pays me an initial ₿2000 (for my IP) the first thing I do is to go to a bank and transfer it to a dollar number in my bank account. Bitcoin might have some reputation, but I do not trust it, I trust no form of digital currency. Then we are given “She says she lost hundreds of euros when she invested in iEarn Bot. She asked not to have her identity revealed as she fears her professional reputation might be damaged. Customers buying the bots – like Roxana – were told their investment would be handled by the company’s artificial intelligence programme, guaranteeing high returns”, so we aren’t even buying an app, we are buying a bot, more red flags, the there is the AI reference, an issue that does not exist and that list goes on. Then we are given “In Romania, dozens of high-profile figures, including government officials and academics, were persuaded to invest via the app because it was sponsored by Gabriel Garais, a leading IT expert in the country.” This person Gabriel Garais was apparently duped as well, some IT person. 

And then the curtain falls with “iEarn Bot presents itself as a US-based company with excellent credentials, but when the BBC fact-checked some information on its website, it raised some red flags. The man whom the site names as the company’s founder told us he had never heard of them. He said he has made a complaint to the police. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, alongside companies such as Huawei and Qualcomm, are all named as “strategic partners” of iEarn Bot, but they too said they have no knowledge of the company and they are not working with it.” This also holds the third red flag. You see iEarn implies an Apple product, so why was Apple not all over this from days one? There might be a solid reason, but this gets me back to Gabriel Garais, as an IT person he should have known. 

This reeks like a Ponzi scheme menu and the setting and the spread implies organised crime of a new kind. Whether it is Russian, Korean, Chinese, or even American does not matter. When you can spread to this degree things get noticed and when people are getting scammed the lights go on nearly everywhere, as such the mention of 800,000 people in Indonesia and no one raises a brow? It does not add up. But the BBC went further. This is seen when we see “On the website, the company does not provide any contact information. When the BBC checked the history of its Facebook page, we learned that until the end of 2021, the account was advertising weight-loss products. It is managed from Vietnam and Cambodia”, OK, that might be true, but these pages can change hands like a snap from a finger and no contact information is the largest red flag. 

I get it, there are vulnerable people and they are seeing that pensions are coming up short, they see the promise of quick cash and I get it, some are falling for the trap, but the stage of Common Cyber Sense should have been on the forefront of their minds. And finally we get to “With the help of an analyst, the BBC managed to identify one main crypto wallet that received payments from about 13,000 potential victims, for a profit of almost $1.3m (£1m) in less than one year”, so 13,000 people gave someone over a million dollars in one year. When we consider what Indonesia is setup for, this seems like a low estimate and the news goes from bad to worse. You see this is now, when the national 5G networks go live, this amount gos up buy a lot and it will be achieved in under a week. I said in 2020 that the law was not ready and it is still not ready, moreover national police forces do not have the resources or the manpower to stop this and this is what organised crime is waiting for, it would help if the law was ready, but it is not and this is going to get worse. 

Getting back to the idea, it is still evolving, I need. Prologue to make the start, but the setting is nearly done, and to get this in the open I would need an actor, nothing like Ryan Reynolds (or Hugh Jackman). This is deep dark, people will step into a dark room to see a light (compared to my setting) as such I need a proper dark actor. Perhaps even a woman like Eihi Shiina. She scared the hell out of me in Audition (1999), I was even surprised myself that I could have such dark thoughts. A movie that literally scares members of organised crime into their own basements and commit suicide? Yup, that might be a new Netflix (or Apple) hit.

Have fun and please do not fall for these kinds of scams.

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March 17, 2023 · 05:23

Confirmation and standards

That is what I was confronted with over the last 5 hours. I got a message a little before that and we will talk about it. I mentioned it in my previous article. It connects to more, but that is not important right now. What set me off was the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2268696/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi energy minister: Kingdom will not sell oil to any country that imposes a price cap’. In this I agree, even if it hurts me badly. You see the US has been crying on expensive oil, but the price is set as well by Brent oil, an American firm. One that has the BIGGEST production of oil on the planet.

So when we are given “Spare capacity and global emergency stocks are the ultimate safety net for the oil market in face of potential shocks. I have repeatedly warned that global demand growth will outpace current global spare capacity, while emergency reserves are at a historic low.” I have no other thought but to agree. This has been going on for the better part of 2 decades. No one was complaining when oil was $40, but the setting differs. The US will not buy from Russia (which makes sense) and neither is Venezuela an option. The Arab nations are united in getting the best deal FOR THEM, which is done on a global scale in many commodities, but oil is not the US point of trade, it is THEIR anchor, yet no one looks at Brent oil and what it does, weird, isn’t it? We have seen the massive need to drop dependency on oil and in 2 decades nothing was done. The blame is all on governments for not acting, then 5 years ago an optional sidestep could be made, but the US government pissed of Elon Musk, whilst giving a free ride to that previous Twitter owner, that Dorsey thingamajig. But the Media on a global level REFUSED to ask him the hard questions. And now that it is too late, now that we see that a battery change was required 3-4 years ago, the Governments (especially America) start crying like little bitches. 

When a well can pump 10 cups of water an hour, and there are at any given moment 25 people needing water, some will go thirsty and that setting has been clearly there for over 2 decades. Why was nothing done? So when I see “NOPEC refers to a No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels bill, proposed US legislation that could leave members of OPEC+ open to prosecution under American antitrust laws. The bill, which has been periodically proposed for several years, was revived this month by a bipartisan group of senators in Washington amid ongoing concern about high energy prices.” And here the thought “Are you insane?” pops up. In the first why is Brent Oil not mentioned? And it is so easily fixed. Saudi Arabia (Aramco) could deliver 20% less oil to the US and Europe and sell that to China, everyone happy, or not? It is not a concern for high energy prices, it is the bloody mess of inaction which can be clearly shown for well over a decade and when there was a solution, you pissed off the industrial that could have aided you. So how is that for stupidity?

The second reel
The second reel is different, it is not connected to oil, but optionally to stupidity (as I personally see it). I have seen now confirmation on two of the branches that this will work and due to a few changes, there would be a growing need for the third branch as well. For me it could be good, and could is the operative word as Google was asleep at the wheel and let it pass and Amazon doesn’t seen to be waking up to the billions they can get in this. At present my hope lies with Kingdom Holdings and one other party. That one might not give me the full price, but it is better than nothing, in addition, keeping Microsoft away from there is prime concern, they can only screw up the IP, blame others, point fingers and then refer to miscommunications. I can do without that. There is a small option that Apple might pick it up, but it is not really their turf, so I feel uncertain about that thought. So it is in some regard inverted from oil. Oil everyone wants, and seemingly my IP no one wants. I reckon that the first one that buys it and see what they stand to gain, at that point everyone will come calling, like a Credit Suisse banker with an empty wallet, but that is my weird sense of humour.

The idea that I am right is nice, but I have seen enough confirmations in several directions to know I am right, but that is just me. I still check all forms of verifications, not merely to proof that I am right, but to confirm I was never wrong. That too matters, because I am where banks and oil consumers needed to be, in a place of checks and balances, something both parties require very very fast.

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March 16, 2023 · 18:07

Oh boy, there was more

It all started 4 days ago when I wrote ‘I honestly don’t get it’. I comprehended the stage just fine, it is the lack of comprehension of greed, what people will do to fill their own pockets at the expense of everything and everyone. You see Basel III was published in 2010 after the first meltdown, it was extended to 2015 with extensions going as far as January 2023. So 13 years and the whining bitches (aka banks) still will not learn. SVB is merely one example and the actions by congress made perfect sense. Now we have Credit Suisse and the setting changes.

It now needs (and apparently just received) 45 billion to be ‘secured’. This is a little more than the national budget of Qatar which is 53rd on a list of national budgets with 228 nations with on last place Wallis and Futuna. To give you a better picture, it is twice the amount Oman has for its citizens, they are in 68th position. They need THAT MUCH money. The issue is that big and do not talk to me about journalists or those clowns at the ICIJ. They are all about their Pandora papers and what a joke they are. 

You see, I stated in the first article the Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) and now we see the BBC give us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64964881) giving us “After Credit Suisse shares plunged on Wednesday, a major investor – the Saudi National Bank – said it would not inject further funds into the Swiss lender”, it matters and I will get back to this. In the mean time The Guardian gives us “The bank had been forced to delay the publication of its annual report last week after a last-minute call from the US Securities and Exchange Commission relating to what Credit Suisse described as the “technical assessment” of revisions to cashflow statements going back to 2019. The bank said those discussions had now been concluded” I believe it is more, I personally believe that was why Yellen got involved in day one. I think the SVB and others have too many bonds and they are not ready to mature yet and with interest up these things are making banks bleed money and they are bleeding a lot. You see, there is an estimated total of TWENTY THREE THOUSAND BILLION DOLLARS in US government bonds floating around and I reckon the SVB and Credit Suisse are now in levels of pain, they had too many of those. As such the outstanding part, not merely these two represent $23,000,000,000,000 and no one can cover it they are all stretched beyond thin. This is what I expect is happening and I warned for this as early as 2016, there is a point of no return and the banks are way past that. Putting your IP in the USA is about to become one of the most expensive jokes tech firms have faced in well over half a century.

Could I be wrong?
Yes, that is the case, but that can be tested quite easily. You see, if you make a tally of where all these US government bonds were and you set that tally in a mineable solution especially with pre 2016 and past 2016 when Dodd-Frank got cancelled you will learn a few things and this is what I saw on day one, but weirdly enough the media is not going there (neither is the ICIJ), so you get to wonder why.

Oil in the family
now we get back to the Saudi National Bank. In this I agree with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. Oil is a commodity, there is no cap, if you need oil more and more, you are working from the wrong business plan and if that relies on exceeding your budget by over 30 trillion dollars you get what’s coming to you. In addition I would add the Republican Party making small talk stating that they need to pull away from Ukraine, I lose the little sympathy I had left for them. The US has slammed Saudi Arabia again and again, in some cases with the assistance of a United Nations essay writer. There is only so much people will take. They had the option to help Saudi Arabia create a nations defence strategy, they bailed out and now China is there. They made fake promises and most were not kept and now we see banks asking Saudi Arabia (in Oliver Twist style) can we have some more please? 

As such we see event after event and now that things are on the rails, the train has speed and they just ran out of rails. This is early and before I expected it, but I never considered the impact of Russia being stupid and attacking the Ukraine, it merely escalated things. 

America has two options, does it become part of China or part of Russia. It seems that the Republicans want to be part of Russia, the rest I do not know, but we are now in the process of the final financial act. And my evidence? Investigate the CET1 setting of EVERY bank (especially the two in trouble) and then look at where the bonds are and how many of these bonds are/were with the SVB and Credit Suisse. I have no doubt they both have too many. Then consider Basel III and see how many banks hold up at that point. They were warned for 13 years, so let them rot, let them collapse and let the investors and share holders take the fall and live life in minimum wage. 

And in all this, too many of the media are all about flaming and not doing too much about it, merely pushing towards bailouts. That time has gone as I personally see it. 

All whilst the Australian Financial Review gives us a mere 45 minutes ago “The failure of Silicon Valley Bank has exposed fresh divisions on Capitol Hill over banking reform, as US lawmakers from both parties trade blame for the lenders’ collapse and squabble over future legislation to shore up the financial system” squabble on something that was shown 13 years ago. Still think I am wrong? 

Enjoy the money you have, there might be a lot less soon enough.

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March 15, 2023 · 01:23

An actual surprise

That happens to us all and to me about an hour ago when I was about to go imitate a sawmill when a tweet reached me. The Tweet came from Democratic Jeff Jackson, United States Representative since 2023 for North Carolina. And the tweet was worth it, I would call it the best political video I saw in years. 

It gives a clear concise and brief overlook of the Silicon Valley Bank situation and the actions that are in play. Now, I do have questions but not on the video, everyone should see that one. The video can also be seen on YouTube (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFo-AQ5aQm0), so watch this. 

This was about soothing and assuring people and that is a good thing. It was a one of the best surprises I have seen in years. Then we get to the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/14/first-thing-global-markets-gripped-silicon-valley-bank-collapse) there we see
“The bank’s parent company, SVB Financial Group, and two top executives have been sued by shareholders over the collapse of SVB. The bank’s shareholders accuse the group chief executive, Greg Becker, and the chief financial officer, Daniel Beck, of concealing how rising interest rates would leave its SVB unit “particularly susceptible” to a bank run”, for this we have a few items and it is not the Simpson illustration even as that was a hilarious one (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovfap2VtpHM) and even to some degree on point even as Bart Simpson never went to the Silicon Valley Bank, the run shows that something set it off, in the case as I saw it, the bank trying to raise 2 billion dollars. Yet I still have questions. You see, I comprehend what happened, I merely do not understand it. I never understood greed (as I personally saw it). I raised the issue (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/12/i-honestly-dont-get-it/) with ‘I honestly don’t get it’, there I made mention of the European phrase CET1 (Common Equity Test), it was an essential step into Basel III. When the US (under non-leadership of the town clown Donald Trump) lifted the Dodd-Frank act which stopped banks take unnecessary risks, without that act these dangers are back and now it comes to the question as I also gave you in the previous article “mainly US government bonds” that is the setting of the question which is:

How many US government bonds did EVERY US bank buy since the Dodd-Frank act was lifted and I reckon that the SVB bought too many, but they are nowhere near the only ones and as such the US needs to look at these stages and what is required to set a decent level of footholds in place so that the US banks can pass some level of Common Equity Test. Now, there is every chance that this list of banks are limited and that is OK, but remember that a run on two banks nearly started a new financial crises, which would close to immediately sink their economy. And make no mistake, I was a Republican once and I cannot stand this level of stupidity, so the Republicans get to wear that cloak of shame, all thanks to the Trump disaster creation team. He took such great pride of dwindling down Dodd-Frank, now let him face the fallout too.

The action was great, the question remains, but that is for another day, for now this administration needs to avert a new financial crises, and they seem to be doing just this. The end will not be known until early next week I reckon, but that is a pure speculative timeline.

Have a great day!

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March 13, 2023 · 22:05

The first letter

Yes, sometimes the connection between articles is merely the first letter, it is what connects Aramco and Amazon. I had several articles to look at but they both started with the first letter. The first article is about Aramco. 

Aramco
The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64931074) gives us ‘Aramco: Saudi state-owned oil giant sees record profit of $161bn’ in this, I can tell you right upfront that there are days that I have nowhere near that amount in my wallet (weird eh?) Even as we are given “Aramco rode the wave of high energy prices in 2022,” said Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It would have been difficult for Aramco not to perform strongly in 2022.” We might think all kinds of things, but the one that matters is missing. You see, the world removed Russia as a delivery agent of Oil and after that the choices were rather slim and Saudi Arabia was a natural first choice. But then we get a small stab. It is seen with “Aramco – the world’s second-most valuable company only behind America’s Apple – is a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change”, which might be correct, but was it not America and England begging like little chihuahua’s to deliver more oil cheaper? Would that not be a contributing factor to the emissions? So when I see “Responding to Aramco’s announcement, Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnès Callamard said: “It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than $161bn in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel – the single largest driver of the climate crisis.”” Another partisan response from everyones United Nations joke Eggy Calamari. The individual who seems to be a Saudi hater right of the bat, like her best friend who is a Guardian ‘investigative’ journalist named Stephanie Kirchgaessner. I have written several pieces in this in the past. You see, Eggy can yap like the chihuahua she is all she likes, but lets see what happens when Aramco lowers output by 20%-30%, what BS ballad will she utter then? And towards the Guardian, like the BS articles on private jet owners. The Environmental report a little over 1 year back, when we were given that 50% of all damage came from 147 facilities in Europe, who of them spend any time looking into that? 147 facilities creating 50% of the damage, now that does not put Aramco in the clear, but they are not alone in creating climate issues, but leave it to these two individuals to spin BS. In the meantime lets see what happens when the Saudi government decides to shut the valves if that Calamari individual does not clean her act. Just a thought. Then we get “Saudi Arabia is the largest producer in the oil cartel Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).” Now this is true, yet the larger truth is that Saudi Arabia is not the greatest producer in the world, that is the USA by a fair amount. As such the Calamari shit becomes a debatable issue on a few sides. As such we need to consider what the Saudi government does when it had enough, when they close the taps by as little as 5%, there will be widespread economic issues for both the US and EU, as such we need to start looking at the actual image, not the image from some hating dodo in the UN building. 

As such in the first yes, Saudi profits are up and the war has something to do with that, but mainly because people stopped buying Russian oil, so how much more oil did Aramco sell because of that? Oh and tanks are expensive they need 3 gallons per mile, how far does one tank go? Now consider that Ukraine has over 400 tanks. That implies 1200 gallons per mile and the war has been going on for over a year. They are not guilty, neither is Aramco. Russia started that event and they are still playing that game. So when we take a look at the bigger picture, Aramco has a commodity that everyone needs, everyone wants and most of them desire. Prices go up especially when Aramco has 100,000 barrels per hour (simple speculation) and each hour people are trying to buy 125,000 barrels. It is a simple economy and it as in place for several decades. So stop whining like chihuahuas and either come with an alternative, buy less oil or shut up. That is my simplistic view on the matter.

Amazon
The second article touches Amazon. I saw it (at https://www.thegamer.com/nobody-wins-if-amazon-luna-succeeds/) it was a debatable article from beginning to end. I have personal connections here, as such, I am a little biased. The title ‘Nobody Wins If Amazon Luna Succeeds’ was like a red flag to a bull. It is wrong on many levels. You see we all win when Luna succeeds. Luna is the beginning of a new stage in gaming. Streaming gaming can up the ante for gaming in many ways, I have written about it several times. It allows for much larger games, it allows for more versatile games and for an evolving game line. Now this is all possible on a PS5 (a console I love), but only in limited way at present. Nintendo cannot go near this because it is limiting in other ways. Still the Nintendo Switch is a system I love and now that Metroid Prime remastered is released I play it a lot more than anything else. That too is gaming. After 21 years Metroid Prime is just as addictive and beautiful as it ever was and I still claim that no FPS can get near this game, this game is a reason to buy a Switch, even as aSony fat with my PS4 and PS5 I make that claim. Gaming is seen in many stages and many ways and the Luna is merely the next wave towards gaming. The next issue is “Amazon Luna and Google Stadia have the same problem – there simply aren’t enough games to guarantee success” that is a mistake that both Amazon and Google had, I set the premise to almost guarantee 50 million subscriptions (one essential rule comes into play) and they had the option to win this, but Google dropped the cloth and evicted the stage, now Amazon has the option to rule it all alone with plenty of games too, so whomever is making that claim (a Tessa Kaur), she is not looking at the field, there is a lot more and some makers had a starting advantage, but apparently they squandered the advantage and now indie developers could end up with the larger stage. So as we get to “It’s the same with game hardware – they’ll discontinue the PlayStation 4 one day, I won’t be able to repair it when it gasps its last gasp. That will be that, all my games will be unplayable.” We get the first element. The article mentions NOTHING about Microsoft, why is that? Yes, they will discontinue the PS4 at some point, yet at present I will have had a PS4 for well over 11 years and several of these games can be played on the PS5, so I could have that one game for another decade, that part is missing too. The element also missing is that any streaming system will need a proper 5G connection, in many cases there are issues with 4G and 5G is still in a deployment stage in some countries a hell of a lot more then in others. The other element missing is that streaming gaming sucks in rural areas which amount to well over 35% of Europe. We do not see that either. I believe that the Luna is the next generation and with a fully deployed 5G it becomes a hell of a lot better and when developers start thinking of streaming as the ultimate goal, not some game that ALSO plays on the Luna, the game changes a lot more in favour of the Amazon Luna. Streaming is the future and we are only seeing the start of it at present. Microsoft is making their Xbox cloud gaming claims and they are hopelessly lost. Even as they are betraying their population, even as their consoles are not getting it done, they stand to lose a lot against Sony (console) and Amazon (cloud) and that is their real fear. Google might have bailed, but that doesn’t mean that Amazon will too, they actually have a few additional options that they might not have considered yet (speculation on my side). And that is where Apple comes in. If Apple (in their own way) starts in this field, Amazon will have a tough opponent. Microsoft is hopelessly lost and when Apple comes into play they will be doomed. But that is for 2024 I reckon. So far I have faith that Amazon will deliver in the end and create forward momentum in cloud gaming. They need not spin anything, they merely have to create the titles and the population, a setting they have a better hand on then Microsoft ever did. But that is merely my view on the matter.

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March 12, 2023 · 22:23

I honestly don’t get it

It started early this morning when I saw ‘Silicon Valley Bank: Regulators take over as failure raises fears’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64915616), now I have never denied my lack of economic knowledge and these Simple Voluptuous Bobo’s should know a hell of a lot more than I do. So when I read “a key tech lender, was scrambling to raise money to plug a loss from the sale of assets affected by higher interest rates. Its troubles prompted a rush of customer withdrawals and sparked fears about the state of the banking sector. Officials said they acted to “protect insured depositors”.” You see, this left me with questions. Bankers should know this stuff, they should know about margins and leave room to spare to take a breather when things tenses up. So when I read “The collapse came after SVB said it was trying to raise $2.25bn (£1.9bn) to plug a loss caused by the sale of assets, mainly US government bonds, which had been affected by higher interest rates.” When one bank needs to cover losses to the effect of more than 2 billion dollars things go south fast, yet it was that one part “mainly US government bonds” that send my non-knowledge off flying. You see the US has a debt of well over $30,000,000,000,000. Is this the first signal that the US debt is buckling banks? I honestly do not know that, I am asking. You see, the fact that I see “Concerns that other banks could face similar problems led to widespread selling of bank shares globally on Thursday and early Friday” supports this. That does not make me right, I simply do not understand this setting and the setting that it merely happening to one bank. Then we get “US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was monitoring “recent developments” at Silicon Valley Bank and others “very carefully”.” One bank goes the way of the Dodo and she wakes up? This does not make sense to me. Especially when other banking Bobo’s (read: fat cats) are not responding to this. Then we get “The firm, which started as a California bank in 1983, expanded rapidly over the last decade. It now employs more than 8,500 people globally, though most of its operations are in the US.” Now this makes it not the smallest bank, but we also see that HSBC shares fell 4.8% and Barclays dropped 3.8% that ain’t hay. This implies that either the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a lot larger, or the bonds are taking a massive dive and I wonder is this the beginning of the end for the USA? 

I am not telling it is, I am asking if it could be. We see the sleep sussing by people like Alexander Yokum and we get that, but consider that this hits one bank that needs to secure over 2 billion. Did they buy up way too much bonds and how many banks have bonds and how much bonds do they have? So when I see “Silicon Valley Bank would not have lost money if they hadn’t run out of cash to give back to their customers” did we not see a similar setting in 2016 in the wake of the LIBOR scandal? Perhaps they are two different things, but I remember something on Basel III, it was about stress testing and liquidity requirements. It was something with CET1 (Common Equity Test). I only know about it because it was a big thing in a program called Clementine, people were all over this and a program called Clementine was bought by SPSS and it became SPSS Modeler (later bought by IBM). So I saw the emails pass by, but it was not on my plate and this was a decade ago. So in a decade someone ignored the Common Equity Test? That is what it looks like to me and I will admit that the article has limited information and this is not the case, but this landed on the desk of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen? One bank? She wouldn’t even read my love letters (her glasses are too thick), so this one bank has her attention? Things do not add up, but that is my take and there is every chance I am wrong. Yet I saw a few articles and no one seems to be asking questions and that seems weird to me. 

Still my brain is asking, is this merely the first sign that banks are anchored to the titanic as American bonds are dragging these banks down. And the SVB is merely the first one as it had too many of them. I am ready to be called wrong, but the media isn’t looking very active. I do not care, I have been in a haze of achievement with my 8 IP’s and the fact that both Gucci and Tiffany are driving in my IP minefield 9 months after I published my stories on Augmented reality. I was in a daze of happy feelings and a bank that is not on my continent did not worry me, but HSBC is, so the puzzlement came back and the surprising nature was that one bank should not see the reactions of Janet Yellen, she is too big for one bank, as such my worry started. Was this the beginning of a lot more?

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