Category Archives: Politics

September 15, 2018 · 13:49

The politics of 5G technology

I was watching the news and all the announcements of the new iPhone series and it dawned on me that even as they are not just the most expensive phone, they are close to 400% the price of the top Huawei P20. So why is this now a massive price jump? It is not merely that it is a 512 GB Phone, or that is has 4GB RAM, or that it is IP68 dust and water resistance (maximum depth of 2 metres for up to 30 minutes). I think that Apple is changing the game. It is realising something different, It is also why I designed the ‘dumb’ smart devices for 5G.

You see, for better or for worse, I ask you the question: ‘What is this?’ You swill respond with it is a phone (or variant of it), it is a connection to everything, it is your personal assistant. No, it is none of those. It is important that you realise that this is now becoming your personal data server. When 5G enters your life it will be the foundation of you. You must realise it now, or lose your personal value very very fast; even as we are shown the political ‘BS’ on Telstra regarding Huawei, US telecom companies and other players. This is the vault all the players want. This is the setting of the next generation. Apple is cashing in on mere then just the price of a product. They are setting a stage that Huawei is already walking (slower in some regards, faster in others). This is the future and the Apple version of that future arrives within the next 7 days.

Google is on that path too. Its mint flavoured (or is that coloured?) is arriving in 4 weeks, they too are on the path of the future. That path is you and your personal data server. You better get used to that very quickly, you better realise that you, you yourself enabled all this. So even as we will not know the specifics of the new Pixel 3 XL, we all know that this too will be the personal data server, just like the Huawei P20 series, the Apple Xs series, the Samsung Galaxy and the Google Pixel 3. No longer merely phones, no longer merely the Spotify point. You see, the steps we have had with 4G are closing down, and the marketing changes. It is no longer ‘Fastest Mobile Broadband Network‘, it is no longer ‘Live More Internet‘ (which might be Ogilvy’s worst slogan), and it was never ‘Rethink Possible‘. It will be ‘Whatever you need, anywhere you need it‘. That is the foundation of 5G, anywhere you need it is going to be your cornerstone. It is in that part, when you have transplanted yourself in that new dimension you will get exposed to the change and the need to protect your personal data server wherever you are, because your personal data server (the next mobile phone) will become to some extent: “Your Identity”. Now you will need to consider getting it properly protected, because your data value is you and you need to realise that your mobile phone will have more processing and collection power than any server that was out 10 years ago, facilitating for you and 49 other employees. This personal data server will work for you, on your behalf and to your needs. This was why I came up with the protection layer of ‘dumb’ smart devices. No matter whether you go for IOS or Android, you will be your own cornerstone to social life, to entertainment, to business ventures and to your financial pathway. Consider what you are doing now on your phone. Your banking needs, your radio, your TV, your games, your appointments, your insurances and your investment and retirement portfolio. You do it all from your mobile phone and soon with block chain added to the data stream we are now moving towards a point of non-repudiation. In non-repudiation it means that you and only you could have done this. It is the one step above authentication; it is your future of accountability. At that point you cannot go to the judge stating you lost everything, because your phone got stolen. The easy path is getting removed; that is the future of whatever you want, anywhere you need it. Because only you could have wanted it and the new phones are about setting the stage enabling you and protecting you and foremost keeping your data safe, as long as you realise what you are doing.

So that got me thinking of the old Re-Flex hit: ‘The Politics of Dancing‘

We got the message, I heard it on the airwaves
the politicians are now DJ’s
the broadcast was spreading, Station to station
like an infection, across the nation

We see and hear it all as these settings evolve; politicians are becoming evangelists for places like Telstra, Vodafone and T-Mobile (to coin an example). The speed and radius of influence increased with every technology jump, three times in the last 10 years alone. Forever growing, ignoring borders and natural obstacles.

When we look at the refrain we see:

The politics of dancing, the politics of ooh feeling good
the politics of moving, aha, If this message’s understood

The setting of movement, dance and self-gratification, the fastest way to move the population in the direction they needed you to go in. You better realise this now and not too late.

You see, In Australia Telstra is the best example to look at. In 2016 they themselves set the stage with: “The Connected Government Program is Telstra’s premier thought leadership program for the public sector“. You did not think this was some philanthropic society, did you? This was the initial culling of those good for the in-crowd and those who are not. And I will also include “Dramatic economic, political, cultural and technology changes are creating opportunities and risks for growth, inclusion and sustainability that are making new demands on government and the public sector which require the ability to lead for innovation in conditions of volatile change, ambiguity and fragile trust“. This is all about growing the status quo for Telstra against whatever threatens it (Huawei is a nice example). Whatever they consider to be ‘innovative‘, I personally view it to be, ‘innovative at whatever speed Telstra can manage in an optimised setting of ROI and profit from whatever was deployed before‘. That is not the same is it?

So here we see the setting of 5G, you all want it and your personal data server will be the first choice that either enables of limits you. This is why Apple has upped the ante by a lot and until the answer of Google is ready, I am unwilling to make any choice other than Huawei, especially as it is at merely 25% the price of the new iPhone. 5G is optionally 2 years away for consumers at the facilitated speed of the new apps and protections; we see that this system needs to be at full force when the City Gates of Neom opens, because that will be the first fully fledged setting of a 5G environment giving you whatever you need anywhere you need it. Interactive information posts, shops that inform you 24:7, giving you the data you needed and showing you the products and offer sales and interactivity even when the shop keeper is asleep. All setting the stage for the explosive data growth you will be faced with and your personal data server is your link to all that. In this Google has the advantage as they solved three elemental parts in that essential need, added to that the marketing agents who specialised and focused on actual engagement. That is where you see the benefit of the next generation of data and visibility at the speed it needed to be at. This is not marketing through the eyes of their clients, this is marketing through the eyes of the respondents and how they envisioned it to be. A flexible setting set to the owner of the owner of the personal data server, not the approach towards that server as players like Telstra thought it needed to be, based on their metrics and their perception. Two distinct different ways and many marketeers and self-professed evangelists never understood that part, or learned it too late.

So yes, Re-flex was partially correct when they stated: ‘The politicians are now DJ’s‘, yet they did not forgot it, it was merely in a time when that option did not yet exist. Now there is no lack of choice and the owner of that personal data server can switch channels in the blink of an eye, an engagement opportunity lost as the focus of the evangelist (read: marketeer) was set to the wrong party. The owner who gets whatever they want, whenever they want it also gains the power to decide on what they want, any time they need or desire something, so making sure that there is engagement also gives the strength of retaining that person for a much longer time and in this game in 5G time is close to absolutely everything. It is the one where we start to realise that time is the essential unit of measure. It was there in the old days. CPU time set the stage of costing; it was there in the old phones, where the duration of a call was the unit of costing. Down the road it was trivialised in most places and set to zero, but it was never zero. Now we get to the next stage, yet now it is in the hands of the consumer, because the time of engagement is the sales funnel, so engagement becomes the stage for success. It is close to the end of mass marketing. It will be the stage of smart marketing. In that setting phishing becomes the new skeleton key and there is the first clear need to protect your personal data server and to protect the data it holds. A setting of consideration in 3G and 4G becomes a setting that is essential for anyone that wants to remain in the game in the next generation with a setting of continued value.

#40800SecondsTillMondayMorning

 

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September 14, 2018 · 13:31

FI01, becoming offensive

I will leave the entire Novichok alone for now, there is rustling in the weeds and it is important to look at it, but only when more actual quality information is available. It is time to take a look at the FI protocols. It is time for FI01.

This might not be the article for many of my readers, I will not shun hash words and I will not shun those wading in hypocrisy. Yet to do that, we need to look at certain definitions too and that is the part we get to after we look at the Guardian article (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/13/social-media-firms-could-face-huge-fines-over-terrorist-content). The article ‘Remove terror content quickly or be fined, EU tells social media firms‘. the setting given is “Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will be forced to take terrorist content off their sites within an hour or face multimillion-pound fines under EU proposals“, is probably the biggest part, but let’s look on; when we see some of the parts given by Julian King, the British security commissioner in Brussels. We are given a few truths that matter. “We have got a problem with content; it is not an entirely new problem, we are not starting from scratch, we have agreed to do some voluntary stuff, and we got some good progress – but not enough” is the first part and I will get back to that, yet the more important part is “Every attack over the last 18 months or two years or so has got an online dimension. Either inciting or in some cases instructing, providing instruction, or glorifying“. I get it, something needs to be done. In the first we need to see the list and the proper setting of evidence. I get it that this is not offered online for several reasons. Yet there needs to be a lot more scrutiny. As we see the utter screw up regarding Novichoks, the lack of evidence and linked statements without evidence. We also need to state clearly that the press (to a larger extent) is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Julian King needs to realise that if his peers are dragging their heels on one side, he cannot be part of anything acceptable stating the utter impossibility of: ‘take terrorist content off their sites within an hour‘.

From my point of view, this is about something else; this is about giving governments’ direct access to social media to filter ALL content (at their leisure). To get anything done within the hour is just not realistic and they know it. It is also very clear that when 5G is here, it will be too late and that is what they fear even more, and being stupid about it is just not a solution in any place.

It becomes an even more laughable setting with: “Parties could be fined up to 5% of their annual budgets for breaching data protection rules in order to deliberately influence the outcome of the European elections, including those for the European parliament in May 2019“. So instead of making it illegal and rejecting that party from elected consideration, they get a fine? Allowing for big business to sacrifice via some small institution to cop a few million whilst still getting what they want. So when we see Julian King state: “given the track record, there has to be a chance, and we have to up our game and be more resilient“. How about setting the stage that the use of social media for elections is just out of bounds? Limit it to TV, Newspapers and magazines?

We see the problem a lot clearer when we consider the ‘High-Level Commission Expert Group on Radicalisation (HLCEG-R)‘ report from May 18th 2018. Where exactly is the definition of ‘terrorist content’? You see, the EC is all about definitions all the time. Yet here we see an interaction and a level of interchangeability of ‘terrorist content‘ and ‘illegal content‘. It is found to some extent in the report referred to in footnote 19 where we see the report ‘COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 1.3.2018 on measures to effectively tackle illegal content online’. So is all ‘illegal content’ ‘terrorist content’? It seems to me that this sudden trivialisation is about something else entirely (at least to some degree).

When we look at the second report, we see: “At the collective level, important progress has been made through voluntary arrangements of various kinds, including the EU Internet Forum on terrorist content online, the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online and the Memorandum of Understanding on the Sale of Counterfeit Goods. However, notwithstanding this commitment and progress, illegal content online remains a serious problem within the Union”

This is reference to Article 292. Yet now we see Illegal Hate Speech Online, the Sale of Counterfeit Goods as well as terrorist content online. So is this about a Nina Ricci bottle or a Prada backpack, because the devil is not in the details, the devil wears Prada plain and simple. We see to some extent the ‘aggregation’ of stupidity (as I personally see it) in item 32, where we are treated to: “In light of the particularities related to tackling terrorist content online, the recommendations relating to tackling illegal content generally should be complemented by certain recommendations which specifically relate to tackling terrorist content online, building on and consolidating efforts undertaken in the framework of the EU Internet Forum“, so when illegal content is online, we now see the implicated setting that these people could be regarded as terrorist. With ‘be complemented by certain recommendations‘, which now becomes a rather weird setting. You see ‘political opinion’ cannot be seen as illegal speech, so not getting to barrier one, also avoids barrier two. In this setting, any political drive must be proven to give the reading of proven the need that the speech instils the drive to act illegally. Until a clear act is connected, there will be no success.

This now gets us to paragraph 33, where we see: “Considering the particularly grave risks associated with terrorist content and hosting service providers’ central role in the dissemination of such content, hosting service providers should take all reasonable measures so that they do not allow terrorist content and if possible prevent hosting it“. So at this point what exactly is ‘terrorist content‘? And the reference to that paragraph refers to ‘without prejudice to Article 14 of Directive 2000/31/EC’, are you effing kidding me? That is the privacy part on a section in ‘legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market‘.

So we get this mess presented?

In that regard when we see: ‘Commission proposes new rules to get terrorist content off the web‘ It is my personal agitated view in the matter that protocol FI01 is set to President Jean-Claude Juncker, he is the Eff…ing Idiot number 1.

When we again look at the headline: “Terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours after it appears online because of the speed at which it spreads. This is why the Commission is proposing a legally binding one-hour deadline for content to be removed following a removal order from national competent authorities“, a one hour deadline? Really? Most EC parts have not been able to clean their act in years, so now social media gets sliced and cut? Is Europe so broke that they want the millions from the three social media providers because they cannot clean their own stables?

Consider the Statistics, Facebook has 2 billion active users a month, and this is not static. We see from sources that Five new profiles are created every second, there is a registered amount of photo uploads approaching 300 million per day as well as the setting that every minute on Facebook: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded and that is ignoring languages and expressions. The entire setting of removal in an hour is so unrealistic it is close to hilarious. When we are confronted with that, whilst ‘the Conservative’ (not the greatest source, I admit) gives us: “The structural defects of the European Commission are plentiful: an insurmountable democratic deficit; not a hint of accountability; and an opaque process of legislative formulation to name but a few“, that whilst labelled individual FI01 is also connected to: “The president of the European Commission is embroiled in a new criminal investigation into claims that “tampered” evidence misled an inquiry into phone-tapping. Jean-Claude Juncker faces accusations that his officials presented inaccurate information under oath in a case involving an alleged illegal wiretap more than ten years ago when he was prime minister of Luxembourg” (source: The Times, December 13th 2017), that is the person giving social media providers an ultimatum of an hour? You have got to be kidding me. The Telegraph gave us in addition: “The new evidence, which led to the postponing of a trial of three senior formers members of Luxembourg’s SREL intelligence service, according to The Times, showed that a key telephone transcript had apparently been doctored”

That’s the person who is part of throwing ‘illegal content’ and ‘terrorist content’ on one pile?

Good to know!

So now we get to the fact sheet!

Here we see (at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/soteu2018-factsheet-terrorist-content_en_0.pdf) the setting of ‘How does the new procedure for removing terrorist content work?‘ We now see the following

  1. National authority detects and makes assessment
  2. If considered terrorist content, removal order issued to host
  3. Host must remove content within one hour

That seems almost harmless, does it not?

Yet we also see:

  • Right to challenge: Hosting service or content provider may appeal the removal order. If the appeal is successful, the content is restored; if the appeal is rejected or the deadline lapses, the removal order stands and the content must be permanently removed.
  • Obligation to report: If issued with a removal order, the host must report on proactive measures taken to address terrorist content online three months after receiving the removal order.

I am missing any level of accountability, too much ambiguity. So from my point of view, anyone abusing the ‘terrorist content’ for mere filtering and censoring on behalf of anyone else needs to be held criminally liable. I reckon that after 2-3 cases there will be suddenly a large need for postponed trials.

When we investigate the member states part in all this, we see no fine for the state when wrongful removal was done, we see a pressure on removing (or else), yet there is a shallow point when it comes the other way around. In addition, we see “coordinate with other Member States and Europol to ensure that evidence of online terrorist content is flagged, and that duplication and interference in national investigations is avoided“, yet there is no registration on who ordered the removal, also, there is no registration per removal id and in that stage set penalties for those having set the stage for recurring unjustified removals giving ample voice to the earlier: “not a hint of accountability“, if this is about terrorist content, is that part not equally important?

I am all for getting all terrorist content removed, yet the systems cannot get it all, that is too unrealistic and pushing a one hour timestamp whilst the other side has no accountability at all is just a discriminating joke in the making. It is also still interesting to see that they claim to fight terrorism and terrorist online activities, whilst Iran state sponsor of terrorism in still a welcome debate and trade partner in the EU. In addition, the entire matter of Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi and terrorist was given light a week before the EU approved plans for the European Investment Bank to do business with Iran. So you want to stop social media, whilst still doing business with these people? How unacceptable is that part in all this? If the EU cannot clean its stables, it has no business enforcing anything on social media that is how I personally see it. Yes, we can agree that terrorist content must be removed ASAP, yet what is that? One hour? 24 Hours? 72 hours? The fact that the EU does business as usual with a terrorist funding government implies that they are clueless on several grounds and the fact that we see an increasing amount of evidence growing on the matter of Iranian Missiles fired into Saudi Arabia is further evidence still that the EU is merely the pot calling the kettle black. It is in that setting that we should conclude that they have no business ‘fine giving’ any social media, especially in light of such a massive funding failure.

You see, what angers me so is the mere filtering of politicians and that needs to stop too! In this I present two elements. The first part comes from Bloomberg last year. We are given (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/facebook-says-99-of-is-al-qaeda-content-spotted-by-ai) where we are treated to: “Today, 99 percent of Islamic State and Al Qaeda-related content Facebook removes is detected by the company’s AI before any user flags it, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, and Brian Fishman, head of counter-terrorism policy, said Wednesday. They said in some cases the software was able to block the content from ever being posted in the first place“. Yet the other part that the Guardian gives us is: “We have got a problem with content; it is not an entirely new problem, we are not starting from scratch, we have agreed to do some voluntary stuff, and we got some good progress – but not enough“. Now we get to the good part, what EXACTLY is ‘not enough’? From my point of view Either Bloomberg lied to us, or Julian King is what some might consider as: ‘an unacceptable piece of trash’. If he wants 100%, he better give us clearly add a few elements of EC accountability and holding them criminally liable when they abuse their power. Also is any abuse of that ‘filtering content’ is found, he is to be dishonourably discharged and shamed in the entire EU, with a clear banning from ALL official positions in the EU and the Commonwealth.

Why the overreaction?

We have been fed two versions again and again and we see a lack of accountability on the EU side too often; for example the elitist banking group of 30 with Mario Draghi as a member. When the Financial Times gave us: “the close links between central bankers and the private sector have aroused public suspicion since the global financial crisis triggered a series of bank bailouts” we see suspected levels of nepotism that raises more issues than 50 successful Islamic State attacks. The article (at https://www.ft.com/content/dc64b6e2-8060-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d) also gives us “The Ombudsman has also attacked the ECB’s argument that it was standard practice for top central bankers to join the club. The central bank chiefs of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, India, Brazil, Russia, Canada, and Australia are not members and Janet Yellen suspended her membership during her time at the helm of the US Federal Reserve”, showing that the European Commission has a truckload of issues, it is my personal view that it has no business acting in the way it does.

Yet, defence of the actions instigated by Julian King can be seen in Forbes. The article (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/05/15/the-problem-with-using-ai-to-fight-terrorism-on-social-media), an Article from last May gives us: “the general public would be forgiven for believing that Facebook’s algorithms are vastly more effective. The New York Times summarized the statement above as “Facebook’s A.I. found 99.5 percent of terrorist content on the site, leading to the removal of roughly 1.9 million pieces of content in the first quarter,” while the BBC offered “the firm said its tools spotted 99.5% of detected propaganda posted in support of Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and other affiliated groups, leaving only 0.5% to the public.” In fact, this is not at all what the company has claimed. When asked about similar previous media characterizations of its counter-terrorism efforts, a company spokesperson clarified that such statements are incorrect, that the 99% figure refers exclusively to the percent of terrorist content deleted by the company that had been flagged by AI.”

This could be easily tested and as such I decided to do so and with ‘ISIS images’ I got hundreds and hundreds of images, videos and other matters in my browser and I got even more with the search term ‘Jihad Islamic state’. The video (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzCAPJDAnQA) shows actions of Islamic State, with sounds, vision and comments. It is News from Vice News, a video from 2014, still online today. At some point you need to as just how ludicrous and useless actions are. We get it that there are actions, we see that numbers become debatable. Yet in all this the mere reported numbers are already an issue, and if I added Vice News articles to me Facebook news feed, would that constitute ‘Terrorist Content’? This small part alone shows us that this is about something else and as such we better take a real hard look at the Actions of the EC, demanding that the censoring side should be held equally liable and prosecutable for their overreaction and inaction. Yet that is never ever going to happen, is it? This is making the EC actions (in my personal opinion) a lot more questionable in all this. It was the overreaction and the emphasis of ‘One Hour’ that set the tone of mistrust, I wonder what else we will see over the coming week.

 

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September 12, 2018 · 12:22

Investigating Self

I have always held myself to the highest degrees, I have always doubted myself. This has nothing to do with ego, or with the fact that I am better than others. This is about the setting that I am not perfect and I too make mistakes. I have never had doubt there. You see, the people claiming that they do not make mistakes are liars, plain and simple. It is not, or has it ever been about making mistakes or guilt. It has forever been about the ability to repair or adjust actions taken. I have forever stood by my words, whether wrong or right, and when wrong I have never opposed being corrected or adjust the view that I had. That is the responsible steps for any person to take.

And in the past I have given a very clear setting of the entire Novichok debacle and now, actually 6 daus later, I am taking a look at the US papers, you see, there are clear screw ups there. Yet there is also news that was never spread by the media to the degree that had to be given, was that not strange too?

So let’s take a look at the UN event (at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/you-dont-recruit-an-arsonist-to-put-out-a-fire-you-especially-dont-do-that-when-the-fire-is-one-they-caused).

“On Sunday, 4 March, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in the city centre after being poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent. Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, a Wiltshire police officer, was also seriously ill after having been exposed to a nerve agent. Following this attack, the United Kingdom notified the OPCW, invited them to confirm the identity of the substance involved, and we briefed members of the Security Council. The OPCW’s independent, expert laboratories confirmed the UK’s identification of the Novichok nerve agent.”

Here in the first part we see that there is already one part (when you nitpick) it. The setting ‘the Novichok nerve agent‘ might be partially correct, we see that the BBC gives us two parts. The first: “The name means “newcomer” in Russian, and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed in secret by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s” and the second part is “One variant was reportedly approved for use by the Russian military as a chemical weapon“. When we see that Novichok is a group, which specific one was it? Some will say that this is merely Semantics, yet the UN and the UNSC are ALL about semantics, the specifics are very important here, because it allows for ambiguity, and that is not a good thing. In addition, when we consider ‘One variant‘, was that the one that was found? A lack of details is already seen from the very beginning from a whole host of media deliverers and that is not a good thing.

The second part is even worse. With: “On 4 September, the OPCW’s independent, expert laboratories have again confirmed the UK’s identification of the Novichok nerve agent with a very high level of purity and to remind Council members, the very high level of purity means that it will have been made by a state“, we are now treated to ‘with a very high level of purity‘, as well as ‘made by a state‘. These two parts are important, the first one was not mentioned in the initial attack, the emphasis on the purity is important, because all parties hit by the initial attack survived, the third victim, the police officer was seemingly indirectly exposed, implying that his exposure was even less and we do get that he was lucky and that the indirect exposure gave him a much better chance, yet the ‘purity’ now gives the question on how the first two survived in the first place. and if we see the reference to ‘the use of such agents on door handles‘ later in their statement, was there evidence of that, merely an example and if it was the door handle, one would be exposed for certain, the second one would have more likely than not evaded exposure for longer, optionally exposed to a much lesser degree (an assumption on my side).

Yet the second part ‘made by a state‘ remains the issue. You see, in ‘Does it taste like chicken‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/07/05/does-it-taste-like-chicken/) we see: “The additional information that was published in 2016: ‘Iranian chemists identify Russian chemical warfare agents‘, which we got from http://www.spectroscopynow.com/details/ezine/1591ca249b2/Iranian-chemists-identify-Russian-chemical-warfare-agents.html. You see, the problem was already clear in the previous attack“, the fact that Iranian academics created the substance for detection with: “The authors succeeded in synthesising and obtaining detailed mass spectral data on a series of unusual nerve agents. The data have been added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Central Analytical Database (OCAD)” we are given the prove that the evidence shows that this is not limited to state actors, hiding behind the term ‘purity level’ is just folly in several levels. The fact that this was done in 2016 also shows that the formulas had been out for a while, the Leonard Rink case is further evidence still, all elements ignored by too many players.

Let’s be clear, there it is not in question that there is more likely than not a Russian involvement, yet the evidence that it was Russian state remains debatable, that part has always been the case. In addition when we are confronted with “testing of the hotel the pair stayed in in London revealed the presence of traces of the Novichok substance in their hotel room” is clear evidence of the two persons being involved in all that, yet in opposition, the entire matter of  “Looking around in the security business, I have been confronted with quotes like “their lack of covert tradecraft seems kind of bizarre“, “The shitty tradecraft, not just with clothes but by traveling together, and by leaving a noticeable trail“, as well as “Arriving together??? Staying together??? Leaving together?” is a first instance in all this” is equally important. Open sources all over the place by people in the security industry are giving us the question on why these two remained so visible, so outspokenly noticed. Even as a non-Trade-craft person I would be more likely than not be able to avoid clear detection and identification for around 50% of that time, that setting in all this matters, because we are confronted with a government knowingly targeting the wrong player, more likely than not the wrong Russian player.

This now evolves into something more when the statement “The GRU has time and again been responsible for Russian interference in other countries’ affairs, and most recently, we saw US indictments of GRU individuals in relation to the 2016 Democratic National Committee PAC“, not merely connecting two events, we are given ‘we saw US indictments of GRU individuals‘, yet when we look deeper we see in Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2018/08/23/midterm-election-hacking-who-is-fancy-bear) “The group (Fancy Bear) – also known as APT28 and Strontium – is allegedly affiliated with Russian military intelligence agency the GRU. Fancy Bear’s aims centre around geopolitical disruption through cyber influence“, it is not merely the ‘allegedly’ part it is also the ‘affiliated’ part. What officially connects these two? What evidence is there that in the first they are officially connected, and in the second part where is the evidence? The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service has them too in their papers, and I am not debating their existence, yet the clarity of evidence is missing.

For example, we do not question the SVR, the GRU or the FSB. We know who they are and what they do, that was never in debate. Yet when it comes to hacktivists and cyber criminals, the line gets to be blurry, more important, either of them can be both and at that point, is it them, or are they doing what their government tells them, or even a third party? Now we see Ambassador Karen Pierce having her moment of folly connecting the two together, making matters worse, or perhaps better started ‘more impossible to prove‘. That was always the case, proving that it was all state driven. It was never on the Russian part, that part was easy enough (almost too easy), it is the state driven part that is the case and when we get to rely on that some parts were ‘almost too easy‘, you better believe that it is anything but that. It still gives me the stronger conviction that this is organised crime, most likely Russian organised crime. At that point the equation changes by a lot and that is where we are stuck. Even as we accept (with the evidence of trace), how come that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were not infected? Why would anyone be this casual in the usage of the material, but allowing for trace toxin in their room? That question also remains at present. So when we are given ‘we have clear evidence of Russian state involvement‘, we see the speech, but what evidence was handed over showing that evidence? Merely two names and two passports? If that is the evidence then it is evidence that is slimmer than a silk thread, no weight can be applied to it with any confidence, no matter how strong silk is regarded to be.

Yet there is other news too, interestingly not from a government source. We see (at https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/key-suspects-identified-in-novichok-nerve-agent-poisonings-/3009475.article), the acceptable parts come in two stages: “Consequently, the agency was not able to conclude from its chemical analysis that both poisonings were definitely caused by the nerve agent discovered in the counterfeit perfume bottle“, as well as “Impurities in the nerve agent samples taken from the Skripals’ and the unknown storage conditions of the bottle have made it difficult for the OPCW to conclude whether the two nerve agents originated from the same batch” elements I brought out before these articles were released. Now, we must also critically challenge these statements, because ‘impurities’ implies more. It could merely be the humidity it got exposed to, which is not strictly an impurity, merely a lessened impact. So the precision of ‘impurity’ could also spell as evidence that it is optionally not the Russian state, merely a Russian player and my much earlier opinionated assumption that it was not smuggled into the UK, but optionally made in the UK is more visible with ‘whether the two nerve agents originated from the same batch‘, or the UK would have to admit that it is lacks and allowed for Biological agents to get smuggled into the UK twice over, hurting everyone’s ego.

Which leaves us with the final quote: “Consequently, the agency was not able to conclude from its chemical analysis that both poisonings were definitely caused by the nerve agent discovered in the counterfeit perfume bottle“, giving the UK a much larger problem, one I do not envy them to have. Part of me wants to examine all the CCTV footage myself (if it comes with a job). Too much in that does not make sense in the entire setting (yes I am happily paranoid). There is too much flim flam in all this. We see that with the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-45362840). When we are given “A number of vehicles which were used in the response to the Salisbury Novichok poisoning have been buried at landfill. Defra said the “potentially contaminated items” were taken to a site at Bishop’s Cleeve near Cheltenham before “being disposed of safely”“, all this whilst we have been told from more than one source that water and humidity dissolves and the Independent gave us last week: “Within the environment, these agents react with water to degrade, including moisture in the air, and so in the UK they would have a very limited lifetime. This is presumably why the street in Salisbury was being hosed down as a precaution – it would effectively destroy the agent“, such an overreaction is not merely stupid, it now implies that there is more, or perhaps a lot less and no one wants to open that can of worms. If you wanted to overreact, just drive it into a swimming pool and take it out the next day, fix the car and use it again.

Even if we accept that some overreactions are merely due to fear, a healthy dose of fear mind you, then still the entire Russian State part does not make sense. In the end, two targets that are still alive and two unknowns are dead. If I was either a ‘member’ of SVR, FSB, or GRU I would have been hurt in my pride and take one of at least two dozen of lethal solutions (not of them toxins) to remedy the situation. If you doubt me ask anyone in any of the NATO related special forces this simple question: ‘Can you live with your failed operation that left the enemy alive and innocent people dead?‘, some of these people do not accept failure in any way shape or form ever, I have the weird hunch that this ego driven sentiment is also present in Russian special forces. These people are weird that way (all of them, go figure), only fortifying my belief that we are dealing with another fish altogether and figuring out what fish we are dealing with is actually a lot more important than most think. Identifying that player should be the top priority before it is too late, merely because if I am proven right, it will also show that a lot of high end spokespeople will validly receive the limelight with merely one question ‘Show us that evidence!‘ At that point we will see soon thereafter a new option in Google Search:

Which one are you looking for?

  • WMD (US) Iraq
  • WMD (UK) Salisbury/Amesbury

What a legacy for these people to leave us.

#OneStepClosertotheWeekend

 

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September 10, 2018 · 11:51

The Digital Dilemma

Just a few hours ago, the guardian makes us aware of an interesting case. The article by Rob Davies is interesting for a few reasons, apart from the fact that it was nicely written and reads really well. We see the title ‘Google under pressure to refuse Viagogo advertising‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/sep/10/google-under-pressure-to-refuse-viagogo-advertising). I cannot completely agree with the premise, but I understand the setting.

When we are confronted with: ‘FA, UK Music and MPs urge Google to stop accepting payments from ticket firm‘ we are confronted with a few things, all apart from the fact on the path taken and that awareness is a good thing. You see, when the quote “The letter, sent to senior Google executives on Friday and seen by the Guardian, says that Viagogo’s prominence in search rankings is leading to consumers buying sports, music and theatre tickets that may be invalid” we are confronted with two distinct parts, the first is ‘may be invalid‘, the more interesting part is not on Google, but on why there is no criminal investigation and prosecution of Viagogo. Is it not interesting that we see ‘pressure Google‘ and not ‘prosecute Viagogo‘? That part makes little sense. If the law is clear on selling and tickets at vast mark-ups, why is that not clearly in place?

When I enter ‘Viagogo’ in my google search, I am treated to at the very top of the screen. On the Right side I see image below that, which leaves us with even more questions, if you look at that image properly. So we can see that Viagogo is setting the right stage for Digital Marketing, there is no denying this. So as we are introduced to the workings of Eric H. Baker, the American businessman (read entrepreneur), aka founder and CEO of Viagogo, and co-founder of StubHub, a Harvard and Stanford graduate, we need to consider the parts where it counts. Is he breaking the law, and moreover if he is not breaking the law, is the setting of “Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, one of the letter’s signatories, said: “I have heard too many times from distressed customers of Viagogo that they were led to the website because it was at the top of their Google search” a valid one?

You see, whenever I want to go to a concert, I go to the actual site of where the performance is and I see THERE where I can get the tickets. So the fact that some consumers are lazy is one thing, that they do not properly do their homework is another one. That aside, when the law is broken actions need to be taken, that is clear, but was it? In additional, how often did MP Sharon Hodgson look into the matter? With ‘I have heard too many times from distressed customers’ she now becomes a valid target as well, so can we get specifics please? We see her visibility again in the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/2eefe9e0-b04f-11e8-99ca-68cf89602132). Now it is the other way around. Here we see ‘Viagogo sues Ed Sheeran’s promoter for ‘fraud’‘, that different candy, is it not? We setting given here is: “Viagogo claims that Stuart Galbraith, the founder of Kilimanjaro Live, “duped” fans during Ed Sheeran’s 2017 tour by setting up fake “Viagogo booths” outside venues to attract people who had bought their tickets from the site. These tickets, which Viagogo argues were valid, were then confiscated and fans were forced to buy new ones“, an interesting ploy, the question becomes was the law broken by Viagogo? We are also informed by the Financial Times on the action with “Viagogo said that it has refunded the fans who bought from them and has sued Mr Galbraith in a court in Hamburg with further legal action likely elsewhere“, so basically Viagogo refunded the customers, which is the decent act and will seek reparations elsewhere, which is (as far as I can tell) the decent business oriented act to follow. We are also given “senior executives from Viagogo are due to be questioned by British MPs about the site’s resale practices. Mr Galbraith is also scheduled to appear before the MPs“, this implies that the resale practice is looked into, yet it also quite clearly implies that no law is broken. Here is where we see the Labour MP mentioned as ‘Sharon Hodgson, the Labour MP who co-chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse‘. The question is not on merely ‘Ticket Abuse‘, the question is how the seemingly given title of abuse applies. This is a market of selling and reselling, until the law clearly makes reselling illegal, we see a setting that someone found a niche for margins and applied its options here.

So basically we could go to the setting that like most Labour minded ‘officials’ she too is full of (the ess and tea word) and goes with “Google needs to take action in order to protect consumers, and I look forward to working with them on this in the very near future“, to which my slightly too emotional response is: ‘No you stupid fishmonger, you either set the law correctly, or get out of the bloody way!‘ I agree it is not really diplomatic, but the entire setting is just a joke, the way I see it (at present).

You see, Viagogo (on their website) give us: “About Viagogo. Buyers are guaranteed to receive valid tickets in time for the event. If a problem arises, Viagogo will step in to provide comparable replacement tickets or a refund. Sellers are guaranteed to get paid for the tickets they sell and fulfil on time“, to me that is clear valid and acceptable. Yet in all this, I cannot find any setting where the CPS or the DPP is in a setting to investigate Viagogo or prosecute them, so were there laws broken? Now consider the commercial other path. If it was clearly illegal, or shunned Viagogo would have let’s say 200 tickets to any event and that would per gig be 20,000 in revenue lost if no one buys them, the question then becomes why not, and how can you continue this business? It would go into administration quick enough.

Is it illegal? That is not stated anywhere, and we need to acknowledge that it is either illegal, or it is not. So instead of working with this optional digital market provider, we see mere brazen outrage, whilst there is no clear legal definition. I also acknowledge that when we look at Product review, it got 1.3 out of 5, which is actually really bad and normally in eBay terms that score is close to a death sentence, yet they are still around why? I also acknowledge that we see reviews like ‘I could go online right now to Ticketmaster and purchase better seats for a much lower price‘, added only yesterday (what a coincidence), there are also the reviews that should lead the police towards the investigation of defamation against people like ‘Annie’ giving us: “People beware: do not bug from these people as the are comming a criminal offence called FRAUD. You buy tickets off them to get falsified tickets and are useless, get to the event an cannot get it. They send then to you a few days before the event“, so if Annie (optionally a fake FB account) cannot validate that opinion with facts, her opinion becomes defamation, if it is true and validated it becomes a path for prosecution (that was simple, was it not?). There was also a very positive review there, as well as ‘Delivered what they promised and got me out of a jam‘ from a Verified Customer. Now, I get it, there will be happy and unhappy customers in every field. My initial feeling is that a 1.3 of 5 does not instil me with any level of trust, yet their own site gives clear settings, clear business settings and the people acting against Viagogo do not go to the law, do not adjust the law, no, they come crying at the Google office front desk. Pardon my French, but how fucked up is that?

We cannot disagree with the Guardian quote: “The letter has 24 signatories, including a host of MPs, trade bodies and associations from the worlds of sports, theatre and music. Sporting bodies that have signed include the Football Association, England and Wales Cricket Board, Rugby Football Union and Lawn Tennis Association“, yet there is no mention that the law is getting broken and that had to be the first action. So why is there exactly this anti Viagogo activity? Margins? Mere legal profits? The fact that someone with Harvard and Stanford goes to scam options is just too weird at times (it does on a rare occurrence happen), or is Eric Baker merely an intelligent person who found an option, an opportunity and took that to make nice coins on the side? Is that not the setting that matters?

You see, I still see idiots all over the field having no clear idea on how to properly use digital marketing, the fact that there are those who do know what to do and they can turn opportunity into profit, which is a valid choice, it is in that setting we see the valid response from google with: “The CMA has been looking at the business practices of ticket resellers. We await the conclusion of these inquiries and we hope that they will clarify the rules in the interests of consumers. We will abide by the rulings of these inquiries and local law“, that is the actual setting and it took me 35 seconds to get there from the moment I read the title (before even finishing reading the Guardian article). It is about local law. It might not even be about the inquiry. The inquiry has no legal bearing until set in law. I is that same setting that the Daily Mail needs to be investigated, as we were treated only moments ago to: “‘Worse than a street tout’: Viagogo charges woman £3,000 for two £87 tickets to take dying father on a bucket list trip to the Last Night of the Proms“. The question becomes, why are the DPP and the CPS not all over this? We now DEMAND to see the evidence. If Viagogo was part of that, then against their own settings we might have a clear setting of law breaking, if not, then the public are entitled to see the Daily Mail to be prosecuted on all fronts. there is no ‘press protection‘ here, not in this current setting, but at that point it is more likely than not that people like Labour MP Sharon Hodgson will suddenly be too busy to look at issues around anything involving ‘the freedom of the press’ and holding the press accountable for their actions, that is how is tend to pan out.

You see, this scenario is out of what, all these accusations at almost the same time, with the Daily Mail ‘hiding’ (or is that using) a kidney cancer case, with tickets merely 2 days old, it is all happening at the same time. If that is the case and the DPP and CPS are not all over this in 5-10 hours, the UK has a much bigger issue, a systemic failure of the law on several fronts and that needs to be addressed now, whilst the first question is not merely: ‘was the law broken?‘ The issue then instantly becomes ‘How many parties have been negligent in all this, and what are their names?‘

At that point, when that is proven then Labour MP Sharon Hodgson has a case that demands here to be in the limelight, not before and we better get to see some real answers, not some lame ‘we will look into the matter and make proper changes‘, because at that point, I will seek out Eric H. Baker myself, seeking some funding to set up digital campaigns of my own, demanding the removal from office of Labour MP Sharon Hodgson as she is seemingly too unfit for public office. I can get such a campaign started for a mere £35 a day, giving that campaign optionally 20-30 thousand views a day. With all the profits he is making, he might be up for that, did you consider that path Sharon? And in hindsight, in this inquiry, how much time and effort are you taking in regards to StubHub, Ticketmaster, Seatwave, CTs Eventim and Ticketbis? Did any of those raise flags?

You see, I do not oppose such an inquiry, I do not oppose that he law is adjusted making reselling of tickets to be illegal, and that is a valid step to take. Is it not weird that those steps cannot be found? Oh, there is that. You see the setting we get with: “UK law stipulates that the re-sale of concert tickets is not in itself illegal. But it is an offence to sell tickets in the street without a trading licence“. So there we see the first part and if Viagogo has that, we also see the flaw in the entire setting from the start. So when we consider that setting the law was a first requirement, we see the absence of the DPP and CPS and also a first indicator that Labour MP Sharon Hodgson is unfit for public office. That did not take long, did it?

I loved the article by Rob Davies. It made me question parts and that is always a good thing. Yet, when we see all this, we need to ask the Football Association, England and Wales Cricket Board, Rugby Football Union, Lawn Tennis Association, UK Music chief executive Michael Dugher and Music Managers Forum chief Annabella Coldrick, the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre a simple question: ‘Have you sponsored a bill to make reselling of tickets illegal?‘ If not: ‘Why not?‘ Those are the questions that matter, but are we seeing those questions asked and answered?

It was that simple and crying at the front desk of Google was merely a waste of everyone’s time, plain and simple. I am not friend of Viagogo, I would have personally never gone there, not for one or the other, just because I would have taken the path of the actual venue location and the official venue website, and in all this is it not interesting that when we are confronted with the Daily Mail part: ‘Hannah Maturin, 30, wanted to take her frail father John to see the Last Night of the Proms‘, that she decided to allegedly pay £2959 over £174 and decided not to call the Royal Albert Hall first with her dad being in such a state? It is what I would have done. And we see all this news at the SAME TIME? How is this level of orchestration going for you? So much common sense absent from so many players and no one is asking the question: ‘Why is that?‘

#ItMustBeMe

 

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September 7, 2018 · 11:48

Goodness redirected

Even as I got shocked to the core yesterday with news on how certain Biological Agent accusations are going in the wrong direction (turning my paranoid into overdrive in 7.2 seconds flat), I was also slightly bewildered a few hours later on how a greed driven industry is now getting a rather large shake up. It was the Washington Post that treated us to ‘Hospitals are fed up with drug companies, so they’re starting their own‘ (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-are-fed-up-with-drug-companies-so-theyre-starting-their-own/2018/09/05/61c27ec4-b111-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?utm_term=.8362898ab1fe). It is a not for profit pharmaceutical company that works exclusively for hospitals. That is the first really good unbiased news of 2018. I truly wish I was part of that place. The report by Carolyn Y. Johnson gives us “A group of major American hospitals, battered by price spikes on old drugs and long-lasting shortages of critical medicines, has launched a mission-driven, not-for-profit generic drug company, Civica Rx, to take some control over the drug supply“. And even as it is for now merely the generic side of it all. We need to realise that in the UK, the NHS gives us (at https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Investigation-into-NHS-spending-on-generic-medicines-in-primary-care.pdf) and that they spend £3.5B in 2016-2017. I am using that data for the mere reason that it is more up to date and more reliable at present. Consider that an ‘island’ with only 20% of the population of the US has that bill, yet to a larger extent, they have a similar aging issue and several similarities in health care. Now consider that this is a NFP situation, so basically, we see the optional saving of close to a billion pounds a year, implying that the savings for the US should increase drastically. It is also important to see that this is merely the beginning.

So as the too laid back greed driven US pharmaceutical industry is confronted with two nightmares, the first is not merely the current generic medication part, it is that if the US and UK unite the damage increases for the pharmaceuticals. In addition to that, the Pharmaceutical industry is confronted with well over a hundred patents maturing over the next 5 years, so the generic part is increasing with leaps before 2023 and so far a lot of them cannot be ‘reset’ by altering the patent slightly and forcing exclusivity for another 15-20 years.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel, it will not happen overnight, but there is a setting that the US could remove medicine cost pressures by a much larger amount then even before. So even as we are given “Backed by seven large health systems and three philanthropic groups, the new venture will be led by an industry insider who refuses to draw a salary. The company will focus initially on establishing price transparency and stable supplies for 14 generic drugs used in hospitals, without pressure from shareholders to issue dividends or push a stock price higher“, we need to realise that this is merely the start of something much better in two directions. The first is that if the costs go down, there is more money for other hospital needs and also in the other direction, when people get affordable medication more will work on healing and in addition with added funds, the chance increases that they will adopt a healthier lifestyle and actually get better and more energised in their old age, which might change a few other things too.

Civica Rx

Yes, that will be a name to remember for a long time, especially when they start showing the results that their goals are set for. Yet this is merely the beginning. Let’s not forget that given a set of greedy hungry swine’s, when they get hungry they tend to let go of ‘morals’ and limitations, so unless severe warnings and protection is given to Civica Rx, they still have an uphill battle to fight. Forbes gives us (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/elliekincaid/2018/09/05/that-nonprofit-generic-firm-has-a-name-100-million-and-a-ceo-who-will-work-for-free/#38015e44ce06), gives us the name of the CEO Martin VanTrieste, he was also quoted with: “has agreed to work without compensation“. Now, I could never do that (due rent and such), but that shows a system where we would love to be a part of, does it not?

So when I see: “The healthcare systems involved: Catholic Health Initiatives, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Providence St. Joseph Health, SSM Health, and Trinity Health. The philanthropies: the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Peterson Center on Healthcare, and the Gary and Mary West Foundation“, I am actually surprised that the Bill Gates foundation has not (yet) knocked on that door offering a nice 8 figure amount, but you know, 2018 is not over yet.

So even as they start with 14 generic drugs, there is every indication that this can evolve to a number in the triple digits in the next 3-4 years making life a lot more affordable fast.

So what is the setting? Why is this given so important? Well, again we need to the UK numbers (as they are more reliable). It is not merely the setting of ‘cheaper’ that we need to realise, it is the attached setting of ‘proportion of spending on generic medicines that is in primary care, 2016-17’, which was 81% at that point. The second part is the logistics, a number that is even scarier than the margins and the exploded prices involved. You see there were 3,000 concessionary pricing requests made by pharmacists in November 2017, a few months earlier, basically before May 2017 the amount of requests made were less than 150, so an increase of 2000% of concessionary pricing requests. The impact of diminished budgets had that much a drain on logistical support for hospitals and NHS departments. When that pressure falls away, so much more can be done and that part is not visible to a much larger extent. there will remain a much larger issue when we look at the branded versus generic setting in both primary and secondary care, no one doubts that and that setting will remain, but over time that equation will change as well as speed up as the life cycle of branded patents end.

It becomes a little scarier when you consider that in the UK, Ten medicines accounted for £134 million of the net spend on price concessions. Topping this is Amlodipine 5mg, a medication for high blood pressure. This becomes important when we translate that to US numbers we can use. You see, in the United States, about 77.9 million, almost 1 out of every 3 adults have high blood pressure. Now consider when that becomes affordable and less of a drain for any health facility, the savings on this one drug could change the game for hospitals all over the US and at the same time prolong life for Americans. When we see that 18 out of 134 million is for that one prescription drug only, we start seeing the essential needs that Civica Rx is bringing to the table, and it has a much a much better impact than a salad (especially when reading about the McDonald Salads this morning).

SO what will come next? Well, they are off to a start, but I never trust anyone merely giving up their golden parachutes (referring to the current pharmaceuticals having to spread the negative news to their shareholders) and in light of the pharmaceutical patent escalations in India, I feel certain that Civica Rx is likely to face dozens of injunction meetings before the end of this year alone. After that the political engine will be turned against them as much as possible. I think it is important at that point to make sure that EVERY senator and congressman (m/f), will get the limelight set upon them to make the people aware of the elected officials that will make their lives more expensive.

Yet that is not the only part, the NHS report gives us the part that Civica Rx is trying to address as well, when the reporters investigated the underlying causes of pricing, the following parts were given on that report (attached here) on page 21.

“The immediate cause of concessionary pricing is pharmacies being unable to purchase a generic medicine at, or below, the Drug Tariff price“, as well as “The Department identified three main underlying causes of the 2017-18 increase in concessionary pricing“, and those three causes were:

  • The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and European regulators partially suspending the licences of three manufacturers of generic medicines;
  • A fall in the value of sterling; and
  • Governments and insurers in other countries putting downward pressure on the price of generic medicines, resulting in lower returns and manufacturers withdrawing from some markets or medicines: the reduced capacity and competition then increased prices within the UK market.

Now, the first is only an issue when it keeps on occurring and until more evidence is seen, the solution is not easy in this, the second is an impact, yet short lives and the US might not face that issue as it produced its own need, the UK is much more reliant on American pharmaceuticals. The setting of Civica Rx would when effective take away the cause of that element, making that a non-issue over time, it might initially still be a short term factor for Civica Rx to consider.

And it must also be stated that the elements could not be verified or quantified. There were too many elements in play in all this, but the significance on the factors seemed to clearly shown, but to the extent of how much remains a question that can only be proven over time (and with a lot more precise data).

It is my personal view that the report by Sir Amyas Morse KCB is quite extraordinary and even as it leaves us with questions (as any report does), it also raised the curtain on several issues, not merely showing the essential need of Civica Rx in any nation that is getting drained by healthcare costs, it sets the stage that the report empowers the existence of Civica Rx as well as the essential need for their sponsoring and protection ‘against’ some of the pharmaceutical companies, because generic medication or not, you introduce me to a commercial board of directors who do not care about lessened profits and I will introduce you to a group of people lying to you, it is basically that simple.

So we enter Friday with goodness form another direction, today brought to you by the Washington Post, a paper that still states that ‘Democracy dies in Darkness‘, I say that this is not entirely true, it is currently actively getting smothered with a pillow by the needy for greed and those who get their coins from a similar direction, but again, that is just me thinking with temporarily a few paranoid clouds overhead.

#MondayMorningIsOnly60HoursAway

#HappyFriday

 

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September 6, 2018 · 12:44

Could I be wrong?

That is a question I always ask myself. You see, I never proclaim to know the facts (unless I was a direct witness). I have tried to use the better journalistic sources as often as possible and whenever I look at issues I try to look into different directions, and from different directions to get the better view. It is not a perfect solution, and I have never claimed that my version is the only option. So as I have written in regards to certain steps in the entire Novichok matter, the pushed actions by Natixis as well as settings into Tesco, The Geert Wilders case, the Yemeni conflict and other matters, I believe that I did a decent job, and one that was a lot better than any of the Rupert Murdoch gossip hounds could have ever hoped for.

So when I am confronted with: ‘Novichok poisonings: what is the GRU and how does it operate?‘, as well as: ‘PM points to Putin as Russian pair accused of Novichok poisonings‘ I wonder what is going on, because certain matters do not make sense.

This is the initial setting we need to contemplate when we look into the entire Novichok case. When I see the mere 4 hours old article with “In a special statement to a packed House of Commons, the prime minister, Theresa May, revealed the two suspects who flew into Britain to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March with the military grade nerve agent were officers in the GRU, Russian military intelligence“, I wonder what drives this train wreck.

Consider that this is true; now consider that in the entire Skripal matter, no evidence was ever revealed on HOW they got infected. Then we get the setting that they SURVIVED that part matters when we consider the part ‘military grade nerve agent‘, all whilst the operation was a failure. Was it intended to fail? Were they ever on any CCTV in the surroundings of the Skripals? Then we get the mention “Photograph issued by the Metropolitan police of the Novichok poisoning suspects Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov“. So tell me, where was this picture taken and WHICH metropolitan police had issues it? And when we get “The GRU is a highly disciplined organisation with a well-established chain of command“, which is true, and no one opposes that, yet they could have been merely there as tourists (if it was actually them), that is wherever that shot was taken. You see, from the facts given, we can in equal measure consider the arrest and extradition of Major-general Charles Stickland for the alleged killing of a US Navy Seal in Djibouti. Let’s face it, when it comes to the training and ability to even wound a US Navy Seal, he might be one of the few persons with the skills to do that. How ridiculous does that sound? Well, in that same light, we need to see a lot more when it comes to the Novichok. I get it! We are not privy to national security investigations, that part is not in doubt. Yet the entire matter, the lack of evidence presented and the Media merely boastful setting the stage of events, whilst evidence is lacking is a much larger issue, it literally serves absolutely no one.

So when we are confronted with ‘The Salisbury attack has all the hallmarks of the audacious actions of Russia’s most secretive intelligence agency‘, my initial personal response towards the writer Shaun Walker would be ‘What a fucking idiot!‘ You see when you look at the two parts ‘all the hallmarks of the audacious actions‘ and ‘most secretive intelligence agency‘, we see hem cancel each other out. Audacious actions is in the light, most secretive is not. Oh, and before I forget, how successful was the operation? They are both still alive and let’s not forget that a 7.62mm bullet from a silenced Tokarev has no risks of biological agents and would NOT have failed. The article gives us historical anecdotes that are useless, especially as the first one was from BEFORE the Spetsnaz GRU was even created.

Then we get to the second part in this. With: “The GRU has been identified as the main culprit in hacking ahead of the 2016 US election. A recent indictment from the team of special investigator Robert Mueller named 12 apparent GRU officers over the alleged hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails. Like the US operation, the Novichok poisoning fits an apparent pattern of GRU operations: ingenious and audacious, yet uncovered and publicised by the target countries“. Here again we see the issue of evidence. How was the GRU identified? I am not stating that the Russians were not part of it, but between political hacks (or is that hackers), optional Russian Cyber units and the GRU is quite the leap and what evidence has given that part? When we see ‘Robert Mueller named 12 apparent GRU officers‘, how did the identity of the members of ‘Russia’s most secretive intelligence agency’ even make it out to the open? Is that not a weird thing either? In that we get to the final art of the first article, and it is again given with “the Novichok poisoning fits an apparent pattern of GRU operations“, so is the GRU about failures? In that, how does the second attack fit, and there we get the different news articles where the victim is dying in one and to be released in the other (see Yesterday’s blog at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/09/05/the-target-is-killing-me/).

The Article Two fiasco

The second one was from Marc Bennetts in Moscow. This gives us “Vladimir Putin signed a presidential decree making information about freelance agents working for Russia’s foreign intelligence agencies a state secret, two days before Theresa May accused Russian secret service officers of carrying out the Skripal attack in Salisbury“, this gives us merely two elements, it is implied to be connected, yet through what evidence? Basically we see the non-denied truth that ‘information about freelance agents working for Russia’s foreign intelligence agencies a state secret‘. That might be the case and that is fine, but is it related to any of this?

Now we get to the beef of the matter. It is seen with “The Fotanka News Agency appeared to confirm claims by the Metropolitan police that the men had used their Russian passports before. The force said the pair travelled regularly to Europe between September 2016 and March 2018, with trips to Amsterdam, Geneva, Milan and, repeatedly, Paris. Petrov visited London between February 28 and March 5 2017, the news agency said, citing its own unnamed sources“, now add to this “They purchased return tickets from London to Moscow for both Sunday 4 March – the day Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned in Salisbury“. So these two experts fly into Salisbury with no preparations time, no options to set anything up, infect them with a Novichok and get out (all in 48 hours)? This would essentially need a second team prepping it all (if it were them), this implies a team of at least 5 people in total. I admit that when I see ‘for both Sunday 4 March‘, there is something we need to contemplate, yet from my point of view they could have been used for a mere embassy courier drop, or any dead drop. However using that for the Novichok is ludicrous, so much could go wrong that failure was almost a given. A flight with zero leeway, that is not the acts of a secretive agency that is merely an advertisement of something else, what else? I have no way to know that. Oh, and for all the travels. That might be perfectly valid and true, but do we have any intelligence on where they went (exactly that is), where they stayed and which CCTV’s showed them? London and Amsterdam have a sizable CCTV system, also where did they go in Geneva? When we combine it all, there is a chance that they were optionally state security, no one denies that it is a possibility, yet the other side is that they might be the couriers or the personal assistant of one of these Russian billionaires, and if that is anyone related to organised crime we see my initial setting where I never stated that it was not Russian, merely that it was not Russian state and that does fit the bill. When you want your essential secrets to be transported, will you turn to the Randstad employment agency, or to Russian State Security offering people like that, offering a cushy job with a nice income that guarantees a lovely golden pension parachute, who would ever resist that?

Let’s not forget, we still have no actual evidence that these two (Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov) were GRU. They might be FSB, SVR, or perhaps merely intelligent and optionally well trained Russian citizens, where is the evidence? In finality Marc Bennets adds the anecdote of Dmitry Gudkov, for whatever value that has.

So far all articles that merely set optional allegations lacking evidence, so far when it comes to the Novichok, there has been a lack of evidence and even less cohesive evidence. The small parts that might have been an optional were overturned with the easiest of searches by me; all lacking the proper setting. Now I want to get back to the initial part, because I was not ignoring “assistant commissioner Neil Basu, laid out a compelling trail showing how the suspects travelled from Moscow to London and then on to Salisbury“. You see, when we see compelling as ‘not able to be refuted‘, it does matter, yet why not a mere CCTV pic of the Train platform or Bus platform to Salisbury? That is the part that is so weird, when a picture gives 1000 words and you rely on the one that gives merely 50 words, questions need to be asked and in that part the entire Novichok case (both attacks) is all about questions and no actual answers, mere allegations and accusations. So now we get to the quote “Police produced CCTV footage of the Russian assassination team during their 50-hour visit to Britain, entering at Gatwick airport at 3pm on Friday 2 March, and smuggling in the Novichok“, so where was the Novichok? It is another accusation that is lacking evidence. Apart from the fact that a biological agent got past Gatwick Airport which gives us a whole range of other questions too, but that is for another day.

I will also get us to the setting of the CCTV images. There were a few and I never ignored them. So let’s take a look at the setting (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/05/novichok-poisoning-what-we-know-so-far)

Arrival Friday March 3rd 15:00

There is no mention what was done between arrival and the first image, that part is actually important too. You see, that part might have supported or even denied the defence of mere tourists.

Saturday, March 3rd 16:00 Image one

Sunday March 4th 11:58 Image two, different outfit from image one, different shoes too, different hats. So are these the same people? (I wonder), the walk implies that the legs are slimmer too (what diet is that, please gimme some of that.)

Sunday March 4th 13:05 Image three seems to be the same as image two, yet now one of them has a backpack. Jeans of one of them looks different, could merely be the contrast of the two cameras.

Sunday March 4th 13:08 seems to fit image three, yet from behind, we can agree that it is most likely the people from image three, yet how certain are we that these are indeed the ‘culprits’? You see, from my (optionally wrong) point of view. We might have clothes to travel within 48 hours, yet two coats and two pairs of shoes? Also, in the end the mention of: ‘CCTV footage of the Russian assassination team’? Is there clear evidence that they were an assassination team? Yet the article gives one part that is the heart of it. That was given with: ‘For six months since the incident in Salisbury, the government has faced criticism over the apparent lack of evidence linking the crime to Russia‘, which was my case all along. I would love to get my fingers on that presentation and go over it with a really fine comb. I wonder what else I can find when I get access to all the raw data and raw footage, and let’s remain fair here, if there was a clear case of guilty in that mix, I would be able to find that too.

I am still willing to consider that I have been wrong, but the lack of evidence gives me the edge and some of the evidence seen is a little off, giving me the edge of my conviction even more. Oh, and in all this, the second ‘attack’ is still an issue and the fact that the second attack was a lot more lethal than the first one, in the light of humidity being a factor in making the Novichok less efficient remains a factor too, especially when we consider the time passed and the Charity bin part is just too vague on a few sides, as well as the setting that no one else got caught with any issues, too many parts are off there too (but that could be my lack of knowledge on how the entire charity bin path goes).

If I had to speculate on this, I would give the comparison of a factory making Jigsaw puzzles. Two different puzzles of the same size gives us two different puzzles with the same cut of pieces and someone mixed parts up so that we get a partial part of puzzle one in puzzle two and vice versa, that does not give us two puzzles, but basically 4 puzzles with an incomplete and incorrect view. In data we get the comical setting that: ‘to get any linear correlation, merely plot two observations’, yes it is 100% linear, as well as 100% unreliable mind you. I personally feel that the issues are pushed in one direction not because the evidence is there, but because the presentation was orchestrated, optionally by a third party, so who was this 3rd party?

I never stated that I was not wrong, I could still be wrong, but the evidence looks too tainted to be accepted as such we are all (including me) set on the wrong foot, you merely have to Google ‘Charlie Rowley’ and look for the news in the last week to see that (also mentioned in my blog Yesterday, as in the link given earlier). In the end, we must not forget the official government news (at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-statement-on-the-opcw-report-into-amesbury), where we are given “The police continue their investigation into the poisonings in Amesbury and Salisbury and we await their further conclusions”, when we read that on 4 September 2018, whilst we were given “Two Russian nationals named and charged over the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury have been identified as officers from Russia’s military intelligence, Theresa May has said, saying the attack was clearly authorised by Moscow” the day after in the Guardian. So what evidence was added in those 24 hours?

The issue given in the government statement with: “The recklessness of the Russian state in bringing a nerve agent in to the UK, and total disregard for the safety of the public, is appalling and irresponsible. Our thoughts are with the family of Dawn Sturgess and with Charlie Rowley” is the one in question. You see, no one ever denied the fact that Novichok is of Russian origin, yet there have been several sources in the past that showed that somehow Novichok got to be out in the open and that gives us the part where: ‘The recklessness of the Russian state in bringing a nerve agent in to the UK’ is the debatable part, merely ‘the Russian state’ as the setting whilst there is more than one alternative part in that trajectory. The push of that path is giving so much doubt and so much consideration towards a botched investigation on several levels. Even if we accept the optional two names to be Intelligence officers’ aliases, and if I was the Russian Mafia, I would definitely use names that at the mere sight of them would be intentionally ignored by border officers at Moscow airport. The fact that this path was ignored FROM DAY ONE is just too big an issue, add to that the failures of the events and we get something quite debatable.

I am always happy to be wrong, yet the presentations we have seen so far makes it more likely then not that this is actually not the case in the end.

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September 5, 2018 · 11:17

The target is killing me

The BBC gave the news 4 hours ago. We are treated to ‘Men planned ‘driverless car’ attack‘ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-45409925). In the article we are also given “She said both men supported terrorist organisation, the so-called Islamic State (IS). The two had decided that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) could be made and used in the UK in a way which would spare their own lives but harm others they considered “infidels”, she said.” At this point three red flags went up. Then we see “In November he is said to have shared a propaganda video showing warfare and beheadings “to inspire supporters of IS [and] frighten those who do not support IS”“, which is red flag number 4.

Finally we are treated to “When the pair were arrested in the early hours of 19 December police seized three air rifles, two Samurai swords, a wine bottle of sulphuric acid, homemade fireworks, and “a variety of improvised homemade fuses” at Mr Star’s flat“. These are not Jihadists. They are losers in the first degree and they are playing the decoy in the second degree. When you see ‘My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver, everything is perfect only the programme is left‘ do you not get that?

The problem is not that they were caught; the issue is that they are draining essential resources. You see, from the early view (optionally not the correct one) we see the clash of ‘martyrdom operation‘ against ‘spare their own lives’; you see martyrdom opposes sparing one’s life. It is nice to see that Islamic State people are implied to be this stupid, because that is a war we can easily win, yet the reality is far from this. Some IS people are actually really intelligent and resourceful and lowering our guards will be the one fatal mistake we cannot walk away from. So the makers of ‘were trying to make an explosive device’ whilst the police went home with ‘three air rifles, two Samurai swords, a wine bottle of sulphuric acid, improvised homemade fuses‘, yes those people are indeed all kinds of dangerous, are they not? Even as this case is in the trial stage, we need to realise that the danger is still out there. Those people are not the ones in the dock. Al Bawaba gives us ‘ISIS militants in Afghanistan are still posing a potential threat to carry out attacks in the U.K. and Western Europe as they are in communication with cells there, British government warned Monday‘. That news less than 6 hours old is a more directly drastic given in this. The article gives (to the smallest degree mind you), the indication that British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Andrew Parker, director general of the MI5 are not entirely up to speed on the levels of danger. Now, coming from an outsider that is quite the accusation and it is not meant to be as such. When we see: “intelligence work had thwarted 20 plots in the last four years“, I would sincerely hope that the two earlier mentioned losers are not part of that equation. You see, I look at issues in a different way and something that I was ‘accidentally’ made aware of, merely because I am from that area and I speak the local language, and it gave rise to another thought. The article (at https://www.ad.nl/rotterdam/containers-in-water-door-menselijke-fout~a8e56404/) gives us “Forty sea containers fell from an inland vessel into the water on the Second Maasvlakte. Employees of the Port Authority pushed the containers out of the navigation channel“, let’s be fair here, mistakes will be made at any given day of the week, yet the math does not add up, not even if there is a human entry error. This was not merely one or two containers; it was a bunch of them (40 to be more exact). They were empty and when we see “The seaport police is researching the matter“, I have full faith that this is being done. Yet, will they find something? You see, these were 40 empty containers, what if the weight system had been intentionally ‘offset’ to give an additional 200 Kg to the empty weight of the container and the transgressor had forgotten to properly reset the system after they were done. Take that by 40 and we now get an 8 tonnes error; now we have a setting of a game; now we have the foundation of the problem. You see, I kind of remember (I am pleading the fifth here children) that the transport options for the people engaged in discrete entry and removal operations tended to have really good options if they could only get the goods to the UK and for the most, the police would concentrate on the Belgium and German borders. UK Customs tend not to dig too deep into any container and the weight would have been the trigger in those cases. Now we know that container weight and cargo weight makes for the total weight. We know the trailer weight, we know the cargo weight and the rest is computer calculated in an instant when the truck goes over the scales. So as the offset of 200 Kg was achieved there will be no alert. When you consider that a full 40 ft. container can be anywhere between 18 and 23 tonnes, the mindset will be set on only the ones raising flags and then more often than not only when the provider is an unknown one. So ever since the 90’s there has been a setting of partial containers (a container with 2 or more users), and adding a pallet of flat screen TV’s is an easy thing, and 50 displays per container leave no mark and when packed on a pallet and foiled all around leave no mark at all, an easy 25K, adding a bag of the white stuff (more risky) allows that profit to go to 2.5M, yup that is the easy money and now that we see that Some ISIS and IS supporters are willing to dish out serious cash, we see that an almost empty display with 1Kg of C4 is at present almost as rewarding as the white stuff and cannot be detected in similar ways. Add one container in the entire bunch set to setting off the alarms and not offsetting that container means that the basic defences seemingly work, everyone feels like a champion and 4 containers with C4 got through. That is an actual danger and many of the playing parties are still a bit in the dark whilst too many people focus on Andy Star and Farhad Salah. So whilst these individuals are stating that they supported ‘the so-called Islamic State‘, whilst in fact they are all about singing the song:

I love the limelight
I want to nooky
whilst I’m creaming the ground, oh yea.

Yes it is a whole new day for those wannabe’s; they too could get lucky at some point. Yet the dangers remain and I am slightly more worried that the statistics are changing as we underestimate the actual IS threat because of people like these two.

Oh, and before you think that they had any brain cells, consider the earlier mentioned part with ‘he is said to have shared a propaganda video showing warfare and beheadings “to inspire supporters of IS [and] frighten those who do not support IS”‘, so as they wanted to have that Sci-Fi solution in place, they give visibility to themselves by sharing a video that screams ‘We are here!’, yes like that would be the best course on any given day. The fact that it took up to 5 weeks after the shared video to arrest them is an equal worry on a few levels, but let’s not go there for now, because in equal measure it took weeks to consider that the ‘three air rifles‘ might have been considered Weapons of Optional Destruction, which is a new acronym in all this and intelligence logistics would have been required to validate the WOD acronym is currently assigned to ‘Workout of the Day‘ confusing MI-5 to optionally walk into the wrong Gym during an operation.

Yet the setting is not merely eerie, we see in several ways that this is still going on in a lucrative scale. Even as the Dutch police was able to capture a corrupt harbour worker with 363 Kg of Cocaine, I remain in the setting that he only got caught as Greed became his middle name and at that point, the chance of exposure grows exponentially with every shipment. It is the patient one, the one with a setting of small portions, that is the one who does not get captured and let’s not forget, after the container makes it into the UK, after that, on route the seal can be broken and at that point, finding the culprit becomes the stuff of nightmares (aka not the one you will find). Now we get the good stuff, because if it is not the large option, we see that the additional danger is not the drugs, but the 4 displays having 1Kg of one of the 2 Novichok parts, so 4Kg of processed Novichok, that is the actual danger and even as we are treated now to the news that Charlie Rowley has lost hope and doesn’t have long left to live, we must equally realise that we still do not know the transgressors. I refuse to believe (without any actual proper evidence) that this was the Russian State, not whilst the Russian Mafia is ten times more likely and above them is the true optional culprit Islamic State, or Islamic State sympathisers (funding the facilitators mind you), willing to become the martyr, an ‘actual’ martyr, not one interested in the setting to ‘spare their own lives‘, that is the growing danger and in all this the proper solution is yet to be found. If there is one given at present is that the optional trial runs should have been considered a success from their point of view. The fact that something as fast acting as a Novichok is seemingly still instilling death 2 months later. So even as we have an issue with News.com.au giving us ‘Novichok victim Charlie Rowley ‘close to death’ in the UK‘, as well as ‘This article originally appeared in The Sun and is republished here with permission‘ a mere 5 hours ago (at https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/novichok-victim-charlie-rowley-close-to-death-in-the-uk/news-story/549fb81c17db8ff0400cedf488b33abd), whilst (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/novichok-poisoning-salisbury-attack-russia-charlie-rowley-meningitis-loss-eyesight-a8522991.html), we see ‘Novichok poisoning victim Charlie Rowley treated for meningitis and loss of eyesight‘, as well as ‘45-year-old hopes to be discharged ‘in next two or three weeks’‘ one hour ago. So if the media cannot get their fucking act together, how can we ever resolve the dangers to our nation when greed and circulation decides on what is true? In the end it is not whether Al-Qaeda and ISIS are trying to kill us, it is whether the media is enabling to do just that for them is becoming a much more important question. I personally have a lot more faith in the Independent than the other providers, but in all this someone needs to take a serious look at the news released and the factual setting o the stage, because being pointed at the wrong target is just as dangerous as ignoring that the target and method exists.

I will let you decide on where the danger is, but make sure that you choose wisely because in the end you might only get one shot at the factual danger, so make it count.

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September 4, 2018 · 11:57

Democracy is dead

If there is one thing that the UK situation showed is the mere fact that not only is democracy dead, the question becomes has it even existed in the last 10 years? The fact that bullying and harassment are now the core uses of the media in facilitation towards power players (not even the political players) is at the heart of it all.

What started as an actual discussion became a trodden lane of smear campaigns and misstated innuendo. In the end a golden cage is still a prison, no matter how you slice it and even as the UK is all over the place, I do hope that they realise that they are about to become part of an additional 3 trillion in debt. The part that the media has refused to look into for the longest of times, the mindless spending by Mario Draghi and now a mere two hours ago we are confronted with “some economists argue that rapid technological development keeps a lid on prices, forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower fighting an economic paradigm shift, and leaving them with few tools for the next downturn“.

How does that relate?

Part of an issue I mentioned yesterday was (source: CNN) “Europe’s third biggest economy has suffered years of anaemic growth, high unemployment and budget deficits, while neighbours such as Germany and the U.K. have enjoyed a stronger recovery from the global financial crisis” at present the forecast is that the economy will rise by 0.2% less, giving a setting that is close to stagnant. In addition, even with the news from yesterday, we also now see: “Italian Economy Minister Giovanni Tria is pushing the parties in the governing coalition to keep next year’s budget deficit below 2 percent of output, sources close to the dossier said on Monday, lower than the party leaders have indicated so far“, as well as the part I mentioned last week as the article (at https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-view-friday/daily-briefing-italian-debt-yields-get-stretched-idUKKCN1LG0T2) was giving me “Fitch is due to provide the latest evaluation of Italy’s creditworthiness with national debt standing at 130 percent of GDP. The Italian-German bond yield spread is already at its highest since 2013 – a downgrade will widen it further and make Italy’s borrowing even more expensive“, there was an overall loss of faith, yet we are now treated to ““The actual rating wasn’t lowered, and anyone who follows Italy closely will know that a lowered outlook for the future should be taken with a grain of salt because so much of the political situation can change so quickly,” Alessandro Polli, an economic statistics researcher with Rome’s La Sapienza University” and when we add Bloomberg (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-03/italian-bonds-get-a-respite-as-fitch-affirms-credit-rating) with: “Basically the politician with the greatest clout is saying Italy will remain within the 3 percent deficit band“, which is not only 1% deficit more, it is also an initial indication (indication mind you) that the 2% deficit marker is now more and more likely not the be a feasible one. But in all this, it would all rely on Germany and now we see the play, the EU and ECB are desperate to thwart UK democracy, because without it there is no euro, no Eurozone and no options remain and big business is willing to betray 65 million people to keep their cushy 7-8 figure income jobs, they are willing to do that at the drop of a hat, any hat.

The political players let the media be the facilitator for big business, first the banks, then tech companies and now the car industry. One by one fear mongering until the people got too scared and according to the Independent, 2.6 million people jumped ship and decided the swim to remain. So the new UK lyrics become ‘Ruled Brittannia, Brittania is the bitch! We shall never never ever trust in Fitch‘.

We get that to the setting of ‘Fitch ratings review gives reprieve to Italian govt bond yields‘ (source: Reuters). It is seen with: “Italian bond yields edged lower on Monday after Fitch left its credit rating unchanged at BBB, revising only its outlook to negative, though mixed news flow from senior ministers and manufacturing PMI data due later this morning could mean the rally is short-lived, analysts said” where we need to focus on ‘manufacturing PMI data due later this morning‘ which gives me that the rating was done ‘just in time‘ to avoid having to lower it, which implies to me that it was not a reprieve, merely the application of time management to force an upped rating. In that regards, when we see that and the UK realise that the EU barge cannot be stable, not with only one solid anchor, we get to see the equation where the UK becomes the force anchor to keep the EU dinghy from sinking on the spot. So as the industry will see ‘assurances’ of their value protection from the ECB. You see when we look at Section 9.4.5 of Part II of the AnaCredit Reporting Manual (this is about to become a massive leap of speculation on my side), we get to see:

“If the appraisal aims to estimate the spot value taking into consideration market conditions, then “market value” is reported; on the other hand if the appraisal aims to estimate the market value ignoring cyclical factors, then “long-term sustainable value” is reported”

Now consider that the UK is in Brexit and the Italian economy is rated down, when we now consider “APP holdings, Purchases of marketable debt instruments increase the Euro system holdings of such instruments and inject liquidity into the banking system“, we would see that under those conditions the entire ‘expanded asset purchase programme‘ would have to stop as per immediately and that is what the members of the ECB do not want to do, no matter how useless their exercise is and still seems to be regarded as (by critical outside minds). As I personally see it, the reported net acquisition of €24 billion a month, will need to stop before the current held holdings of €2.51 trillion might end up being regarded as dumped value, the setting of a ‘bad mortgage’ write-off. And do you think that this bad ‘mortgage’ is suddenly whisked away? Nope the outstanding amount becomes a taxpayer’s debt to deal with and without the UK the other players get a nightmare amount to deal with and that is what none of the 27 members want.

Now in all this I will be accused of comparing apples to oranges and that would be correct, yet what those people are (intentionally) forget to mention of illuminate that the ECB is a fruit vendor in all this. They are not the apple sales person or the banana (republic) sales vendor. In all this the ECB does not get to compartmentalise any of it. They bought 3,000,000,000 barrels of fruit at €1,000 each, so when some of these barrels contains rotten fruit, it becomes their loss, not the salesperson who they bought it from and as the barrels were unattended for the longest of times, more barrels and larger portions of every barrel become infected increasing loss over time to amounts too large to even contemplate. So, when the Italian shipper and the French shipper state: You bought it, it’s yours now; they will have no defence. In this it is the British supermarket that they need to buy some of these worthless goods or they go belly up and that is what they deserved in all this.

They should have sold the stock a year ago and stop purchasing those barrels of fruit and they are still buying junk fruit. And when we were treated to the earlier mentioned ‘manufacturing PMI data‘, when we see that it was reported down from 51.50 to 50.10, in the setting where highest was 59.00 and lowest was 48.00. So when we see the Trading Economics report and when we focus on that part and see the statement: “The reading pointed to the weakest pace of expansion in the manufacturing sector since a contraction in August 2016, as new orders fell for the first time in two years and output posted the first decline in over three years. In addition, employment growth was the weakest recorded in nearly two years and expectations slumped to the lowest since May 2013 amid concerns over future global trading conditions, particularly in relation to the US” is there any doubt on orchestration? This was done to stretch the game, not truly act on the reported value, if that was done the setting of ‘BBB’ could not have been maintained, it should have been dropped to ‘BBB-‘ (my speculated view). So whilst we think we are being told the truth, in my personal opinion, we are sold a bag of goods, because that is how the game is players and we are all being duped, just like in 2008, I would have thought that those players had learned their lesson, but apparently they did not and I truly believe that the UK needs to get out before that tidal wave hits them. When it does and they were still in that boat, they get to lose it, to drown just like the other players. So if all else fails, I hope that those players grow a set of gills, because they will need them and right quick at that point.

All this wheeling and dealing gives me the impression that the people are merely offer the choice between poor and destitute, I wonder if any of them can tell the difference from this point onwards. Oh, and if you think that I am kidding there, consider Greece that is under all that oversight. And only 12 hours ago, the Greeks decided to strand all the tourists on a strike. so as we see “Members of the union are reportedly seeking a 5 per cent increase for ferry crews, a request which they claim is long overdue as pay has remained static for eight years“, which now has two impacts. The first is that “affect around 180,000 people who have booked travel to and from some of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations“, who will optionally infect another 600,000 tourists not to consider Greece in 2019. In addition the fact that those people are demanding an additional 5%, because ‘pay has remained static for eight years‘, then those Greeks better wake up, because static incomes will be the cornerstone of their life for perhaps another 15 years. that is the long term effect of austerity, that is the impact of that massive a debt, so tax breaks are basically a thing of the past for them and the UK is still steering to a similar setting, that €3 trillion will make of that very clearly and it will over time affect all 27 member states to some degree, likely to Germany the most. In this, the Politician and environmentalist Nikos Chrysogelos has even more to deal with. the man is correct on all counts, yet until the Greeks are willing to strangle these dangers by installing Singaporean like methods (like a €500 fine for any environmental transgression) the tourists (and to some degree the people) will not change and the Greek islands will transform into an open sewer soon enough.

These are all issues that will impact the citizens of other member nations in some form or another; the impact of long term austerity and short term thinking. It will be about “some sustainable model of tourism” soon enough, but that also implies one thing. It implies that people will still be able to afford a vacation, because that group is actually shrinking and the economic upset that Europeans are currently facing makes that issue a non-option to at least some degree. That evidence was seen earlier with ‘forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower‘, so when that stagnation shifts to downturn the economic hurt will be on all over Western Europe and the ECB will have 1-2 options reserved for themselves and their ‘friends’; and the people in Europe? Well, who cared about them anyway?

So in all it is not merely the economy for the now in all this. The setting is also the backwash from the consequences we see in Saudi Arabia. Canada, Sweden and Germany are all losing business in Saudi Arabia. Let’s be honest, we see that Iran is their enemy; we see that there is more and more evidence that Iran is facilitating missiles for Yemen, who are then fired on Riyadh. All this whilst the EC nations are bending over backwards to keep a nuclear deal alive that is quite honestly not worth the paper it was printed on and they expect to rake in billions in Saudi Arabia as well, whilst criticising Saudi Arabia at almost every turn. So as I am contemplated (read fantasising) on “an $11 billion arms deal between Saudi Arabia and Canada may be scrapped“; and how I could optionally sell that deal to a few alternative players (for a 1% commission). Whilst at the same time we see the quote “To German news outlet Der Spiegel, an unidentified businessman said, “For Germans, the doors in Riyadh have suddenly been closed” here I see a few non-European options as well (the 1% commission still applies) and when I see “Saudi Arabia is Sweden’s fourth largest recipient of arms outside the EU with sale totals in 2014 reaching approximately $39 million“, I see an opportunity to consider talks to get that shifted to perhaps a ‘Northrop Grumman X-47A Pegasus‘ consideration and perhaps even more, once the abilities are confirmed. Of course for all the extra work I will be taking an additional 1% on top of the 1%, so in all this, the European Hypocrisy works well for me, providing that Wesley G. Bush is still taking my calls, or I will have to postpone that deal and start wining and dining Kathy Warden (at her expense, it is an emancipated world after all) and she might be hungry for the setting of an additional 200 million, especially as the doors to Sweden and Germany are closed. All economic settings that are clear to all and clearly visible to all, so in all that, how are we not seeing that there is an increasing realisation that economic stagnation is closer to mere millimetres away from an actual economic downturn.

All elements that will hit the UK one way or another, because if it took this little to get the economy down with the smallest of efforts on two EU nations by up to 1%, how unstable do you think that the EU economy was in the first place? You see, the ECB ‘forcing central banks to exhaust their firepower‘ is one without firepower and options, making it merely a logistic system administrating €3 trillion of debt. So how desperate do they need the UK and how dim sum is the view that being a ‘remain’ member will make their lives easier? When everyone around you says: ‘Stay with us, or else‘, how much does who need who in the end?

Consider the truth there, if it was such a bad deal for the UK and a good one for Europe, do you think that the bullying and harassment would have been this severe? Until the EU and the ECB stops facilitating for the large corporations, you need to realise that those ‘facilitating’ are merely ‘tools’ trying to get a ticket on the next gravy train and those rides always cost the taxpayer and most often way more than acceptable.

 

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September 3, 2018 · 12:19

As the car industry dies

Yes, today is the nicest day of the week. After the weekend, after all done, it is again Monday morning. So, happy, happy, joy, joy!

I am waking up with the news ‘Shaken-up Aston Martin hopes to stir investors with a public offering‘. When it comes to cars, the Aston Martin is about the coolest car in existence. I would favour it over the Jaguar XF, the Infiniti Q60, the Tesla Roadster (2020) and the Lexus LC500, yet to be honest, I cannot afford any of them.

Now, I have nothing against cars, by themselves they killed each other. It was too much about ego, all about status and too few about what mattered, to get safely from A to B. So even as I have nothing against cars, the setting of those behind them? Yes, that matters a great deal, and most of them fuelling each other, most of them pushing for more models, more options and all financed in a try before the debt phase. Just like the PC industry. Makers having a dozen models every year, the market just could not sustain it and it collapsed. The same is happening here now in a few ways. We will always have a few exotic members (like Aston Martin), or a brand that is unique because of the niche they choose (like Morris Mini Cooper). For some of them, there will always be a market, they are established. The Japanese market made a mess of close to everything and now we see an entirely different kind of fallout. So even as we are treated to the ‘threat’: “Japan’s ambassador has warned Japanese companies will quit the country if a botched Brexit hits profits“, it is not a vague threat, but overall that does not matter and it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. You see, I discussed this in February 2014 when the Australians got confronted with ‘The last Australian car‘. Here we see: “The world’s largest car maker announced it would stop building cars in Australia by the end of 2017 and would operate in this country only as a sales and distribution company. One additional factor needs to be told, which will have bearing down the road. Namely “Toyota is Australia’s biggest vehicle exporter with around 70,000 of the 100,000-plus cars it builds here being sold in foreign markets”“. What is even more upsetting is the part that Business Insider gave with it and my response to it in the article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/02/12/the-last-australian-car/) ““The car industry is estimated to have received a total of $12 billion in direct subsidies and protections over the past 20 years, including $1.8 billion to Holden in the 11 years to 2012.” is at the heart of this. So basically, 4 car makers have enjoyed an annual $600 million in subsidies a year. This is so off the wall it is not even funny!” In addition, the Australian, via Judith Sloan gave us the overall view: “Australia has subsidised almost $1900 per vehicle produced. If we take that and we add the initial quote I mentioned “Toyota is Australia’s biggest vehicle exporter with around 70,000 of the 100,000-plus cars it builds here being sold in foreign markets” leaves me with the question whether we have been sponsoring that part too“. So here is the crux. This is not about mere profits; this is about subsidies and what I personally see as legalised slave labour. This is about maximised potential without accountability or taxation. In all this, let them move away, let other nations subsidise it all and when their coffers are empty, we will see another ‘Cars from Japan’ setting soon enough. From my point of view, let them move out and lose 65 million potential consumers. When those wells dry up, when they see that the free ride is over, they will suddenly offer some price package, or is that prize package?

The nice part is when those brands fall away; we will see a revitalisation of other brands, those who will grow inside the UK. It might be a harsh reality, but it is a reality none the less. Will consumers miss out? I do not know, their ego’s might, but in the end, if a decent affordable car gets you from A to B, does it matter? This goes beyond the British car brands and who owns then nowadays, Morgan is seemingly the only one still in British hands, but again a niche market. So if the Japanese walk away and Daewoo and Kia walk in, would that be such a hard thing? Then there is China and India. They might actually like having a much better spot in the UK car industry. Many brands left life over time, all killed by the subsidised markets and drowned by subsidised cheap options. Who even remembers the Dutch brand DAF, or the German brand NSU? We have options, there are opportunities and the bottom dollar that japan wants needs to be barred. In all that, the only acceptable conflicts were the ones that Honda and BMW offered, which are about customs delays. I believe that to be the valid part and for the most, it is not merely about custom deals. It is about the EU trying to pressure into a another vote, trying to get Brexit killed, because Europe has no actual solution for the debt now moving towards 3 trillion Euro that Mario Draghi created. Now with the Italian economy is an approaching freefall, unsurmountable debts, Greece still in a bad spot, Europe cannot survive without the UK, now that France is also lowering expectations via: “The French government has revised its growth forecast for 2019 downwards to 1.7 percent from 1.9 percent, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told the Journal du Dimanche” also implies that the Economy is not really moving forward, creating a setting that the debts of Europe are becoming a much larger issue. All those interests, when they come due there will be no infrastructure. That is the setting and the 1500 voices in charge of all that money are seemingly now scaring 15,000 politicians into pressuring others, because their life of well-being is about to end and someone must pay for their way of life.

That is the setting that is behind the cars, not merely the cars, but when you realise that your taxes were funding cheaper build cars, please show me where you signed up for that part of the equation. You cannot, can you?

I do agree with Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis of Cardiff University. He is correct Aston Martin is making a move at the right time, and when the economy truly picks up, their fortune is set for close to two generations. They are in a niche, but one with a good margin and with the growing of millionaires all over the place, they are also creating demand, because getting seen in the 007 choice of wheels does count (as your ego is able to foot that bill) even as the car looks supercool regardless. And when you consider the quote: “Issues such as Brexit are quite different for Aston compared with mainstream manufacturers because it is not as reliant on the EU for sales as the volume producers“, when you consider transport and other elements, why were they in the UK anyway? With these brands margins were always the case, for well over a decade, so in all that, why were they here? Is the reason merely because there were 65 million optional consumers in the UK or because the EU was all about big business, and a lot less about the people living there? Well, that was a rhetorical question, because Reuters in 2016 gave us:  “Compensating carmakers in Britain for any post-Brexit tariffs on exports to Europe could see the government hand the companies more money than they need to pay the salaries of all their British workers, a Reuters analysis of corporate filings shows“, that was exactly the image that we saw in Australia and there is the crux, what is the use of having a company in the UK, when we see that the UK government is paying for the wages? Where was that ever a solution? A flawed presented image on the presentation of great industrial UK revenue whilst hiding some of the costs?

So many questions and in the end, merely a drain on the coffers, so let them leave, let them move to Germany (Mercedes & BMW will love that), or France (at the loving side of Citroen, Peugeot and Renault). So when the subsidies are demanded, will those local brands even accept that? I wonder how long until they move back east and let the reality of the cost of manufacturing hit these players full on. I wonder how many brands will still be around in 5-10 years. A lot less that seems almost certain, but that is pure speculation on my side.

 

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September 1, 2018 · 12:15

That did not take long

Wow, it has been a mere 22 hours since my last Blog. In there I wrote: “The additional part where we see that Pakistan is importing close to $400 million from the Netherlands each year is optionally be getting hit as well“, which comes to pass when I see the flames on Twitter between Geert Wilders (https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv) and the Pakistani Government (https://twitter.com/pid_gov). Even the the Pakistan Defense forum(https://twitter.com/defencedotpk), they immediately went to their copy of ‘Art of War‘ and gave us “Royal Dutch Shell, Phillips, Unilever, ABN AMRO interests in the Muslim World should be nationalised, levy heavy duties on Dutch shipping passing through the Suez, Hormoez shall be closed off for Dutch ships. Their airlines should be barred from using OIC airspace. Watch it melt!“, now a forum is not a government speakeasy, so there is time, but this riled up well over 100,000 Pakistani’s in all walks of life. Yet in here a few cool heads prevailed with: “Doesn’t matter to them, as it will hurt Pakistan itself, thousands will be unemployed, lakhs of people are working directly or indirectly in Unilever Pakistan, not even 0.1%profit generated from Pakistan, of total Unilever profits, even all oic countries ban it, it will hardly damage them“, yes it will hurt Pakistan, yet will it hurt enough? When Pakistani interests are moved from Unilever to European or American alternatives, do you think that the pain is long term? No, that is unlikely to be the case, yet the long term pain to Dutch industrials will be clear when they lost the ability to meet quota’s and to meet the expectations of analysts. That pain will be very visible. So even when we see the response by Geert Wilders with: “Don’t claim victory too soon @pid_gov I am not finished with you yet. I will expose your barbarism in many other ways“, we have to wonder if he is exposing barbarism or instigating discourse through attacks on Islam? That has always been the setting here. Perhaps we need to take another look at the setting, which started as early as 2015. I implied it in my title ‘Lollies to the Right‘ (Yesterday’s blog), in this lollies is an English slang for money. Someone is funding all this. The Cartoon competition shows another side, from the $12,500 in Garland Texas, and the amount (unknown) for the Dutch event. This is not from the pocket of Geert Wilders, someone is funding these fumes hoping that a war will erupt and we need to find out who is behind the screens on the far right, it is more important then you know. It is not merely about the hatred, the setting of economic strike backs was always going to be a clear setting. And I was right all along. We now see in the Daily Pakistan: ‘Dutch govt seeks improved bilateral ties with Pakistan after blasphemous contest saga‘, where we see: “Dutch envoy to Pakistan, Ardi Stoios-Braken announced on Twitter that the Embassy team will work with fresh energy and focus on promoting the bilateral relationship with Pakistan and mutual understanding“, yes I saw that coming a mile away and the question becomes, how much will that cost the Dutch government? By the way, in that same period of contemplating my correctness, I also designed two new (optional) Google devices, so it required close to no brainpower, so I had three other things running in the back of my head. Here too we are fed the lies by Geert Wilders. The lie “to avoid the risk of victims of Islamic violence, I have decided not to let the sacrilegious cartoon contest go ahead“, yet that was not really the case was it. The game was not set on the competition, but on the backdrop and I wonder what happened on May 1st 2018. When we were shown: ‘Far right leaders gathered in the southern French city of Nice‘, we were not in the picture on the rest. There was another player there, ready to use Geert Wilders as the tool he is. This was merely foreplay, binding the hands of certain politicians and setting the stage for others. The Independent gave on that very same day: ““The European Union today has catastrophic consequences for our countries, and yet another Europe is possible, the Union of European Nations,” she told a rally as she met with the leaders. “Europe is a good idea and the European Union is killing it.” The next European Parliament elections are scheduled for the 23 to 26 of May 2019 – after Britain is set to leave the European Union.“, that is the part that matters more, when things go out of balance, other players can come in and have some fun making money fast, that is the one part were the right seems to be blind. With Italy much more firmer in the right, with the AfD (Alternativ fur Deutchland) we see that they are still growing, even more so as Angela Merkel is now in a much lower ratings than ever before, so even as that does not indicate that AfD will push to better staging and more seats, that is not a given. Yet, in this I was proven wrong in my assumptions (based on data) on how Matteo Salvini was not really a risk and he got a much larger slice of Italian politics then we imagined and with Germany we cannot afford that mistake again. In all this it is more and more clear that the UK got out in time (a little too late though), with the European settings we all get to look at, there is a clear path that half of Europe will be in an anti-Muslim stage soon enough and not being part of that war is the only good we can hope for.

Yet the only links that I get back to in the end (thanks to some data that I found in Austria) from sources like the Wiener Zeitung and the Freedom Party of Austria and Heinz-Christian Strache is Steve Bannon of all people. Right on the same day that Cambridge Analytica became a non-entity, we see that Steve Bannon was always part of this, the question becomes: Was that why the data was needed? Was this why there was a nice dinner in Nice? OK, I admit that this is slightly too ‘conspiracy theoretic’, but the elements are there; we forgot that 87 million Facebook users are not merely there to use for the far right, they can also be used against the left and more important, once properly mined and grouped, other elements can also be addressed. We were treated to Channel 4 and their ‘Cambridge Analytica CEO filmed boasting of using entrapment, bribes and honey-traps to influence election‘, but the much larger cake is not merely the elections, it is the fact that creating discourse in Saudi Arabia as it is ready to start a trillion dollar investment setting (well over half for the creation of Neom, city of the future), we see a lot more opportunity for those players. Even in history we saw the UK push Egypt in another direction as it feared the larger hold and more importantly the hold that the UK would lose, we see a variation now by the escalations of Islam and anti-Islam and in all this Geert Wilders is the most visible tool. In this Steve Bannon played the game very well. Even as we saw him being close to Islamophobic in Breitbart and his film script, on which the Washington Post reported with “The script for the film, Destroying the Great Satan, which was never produced, opens with a fantasy scene of the US Capitol adorned with a star-and-crescent flag and broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer, according to a script obtained by the Washington Post. The film imagines a “fundamental clash of civilizations” between the west and “supremacist” Islam“. So, this is clearly not in my imagination and there is heaps of data behind it all, but there is no clear link, all the direct links are hidden. I am not speaking about ‘advertised’ open admiration between the players. No, there is a larger part in this and it is between middle men so there is nothing to prove. That evidence is not out there and it unlikely never ever will be. Steve Bannon is slightly too intelligent for that, because over time it comes knocking at his door, so he got it truly insulated against that, using tools like ‘Wilders’ as he sees fit. Marine Le Pen is in her heart too nationalistic (French) so she is an ally, but just up to a level and the same can be said for Matteo Salvini, all set in a stage of anti-Islam. Now that we see the Dutch impact others will be more cautious. When the Guardian informed us of “Steve Bannon has announced plans to establish a foundation in Europe that he hopes will fuel the spread of right-wing populism” we also got the push from Politico with “his potential European partners are ambivalent, saying they want to keep the controversial American at arm’s length even as they seek to tap his expertise on how to disrupt politics on the Continent“. I do not think it is false, but I do believe that there is orchestrated caution here. Yet as we also see: “Bannon’s connections to Europe’s leading populists, many sound unsure about letting an outsider play a central role in next year’s election, let alone one with his reputation. Some pointed out they are already working on their own pan-European alliances“, as well as “Rivière, his party’s international spokesman, said he has talked to Bannon about how he could “provide us with new ideas or share his experience.” Rivière said The Movement would be “a good non-partisan tool box” to achieve that. Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart media, helped lead the successful Trump campaign in 2016 and went on to serve in the White House for seven months“. Here we see levels of facilitation and that facilitation will only go as far as Steve Bannon gets an industrial upper hand and it is not clear to me if these political players will be aware. What is very clear is that both Israel and Saudi Arabia need to become a lot more cautious when it comes to America. In the end, the Iranian escalations, the Syrian, Russian and Turkish setting in all this sounds nice and it sounds nice that America is on THEIR side, but only for as long as the economic fallout blows the wind to America, in the end those nations stand alone, in the end, America has a protection barrier called the Atlantic Ocean and they can retreat to ‘home ground’ , that is the play any bankrupt nation makes, lets others do the work for them, they only come when the cream is there to be scooped. When that does not happen, they walk away and we need to find a way to stop anti-Islam movements now, because they endanger the State of Israel in a similar way and even if these far right settings do not care, we should because when escalated it is a mess that no one can visit for at least a generation.

I think (as I stated before) that the seriousness of Saudi Arabia and the push for innovation has scared America and Europe. You see, the last time anyone was this driven we ended up with Google and now they are 4th in size on a global scale, that is until 2023 when they will jump back to number 2. Both IBM and Microsoft have issues and they will polarise clearly in view in 2019, at that point we will see a new shift and Google will bypass them pretty much overnight with all the 5G issues brought to the well willing hands of close to 2 billion people within a year, it is that same fear that made certain governments strike out against Huawei technologies. And that has nothing to do with security issues. When you realise that, we also see why the entire Wilders cartoon issue is a larger one. So, when you consider that the richest companies’ revenue wise in 2017 had Royal Dutch Shell on 7th with 240 billion in revenue. Now consider that the entire Wilders situation is still playing in Pakistan, with escalations still opening up in the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. So when you consider that Shell could get hit and those hits are translated to additional opportunities for Exxon, which country benefits that? In the end Exxon and Shell might up trading revenue places on that same list in 2019.

There are enough markers in all this, but no direct evidence, that is likely to be seen after it is too late. At that point what will Europe do? Wake up, or just let it slide? I will let you decide, just be aware that the impact will be the economy, it usually is the first one to take a body blow in such events.

 

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