Category Archives: Politics

June 8, 2015 · 00:31

A slave to greed

It is time to take a stance a little more vocal and a little more ‘anti’ certain voices. You see, the people are being led astray, misinformed and basically lied to. It is a clever lie that some people spin, where the involved players (like in Greece) focus on one part of the story and after that story is told, those who think they are getting informed, are told a fairy tale with no concrete connection to reality or to the factual complete truth. Those advocates work from the concept of ‘in the eye of the beholder’, which sounds nice, but when you pay your electricity bill, there is no eye of the beholder, there is just the invoice!

To get this party train started, let’s take a look at the definition. We are looking at Austerity!

According to the Investopedia it is: “DEFINITION of ‘Austerity’ a state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits“.

Whilst dictionary.com tells us “strict economy”

Both apply here!

So when I am looking at an article in the Guardian by Heather Steward called ‘Austerity isn’t ‘good housekeeping’: it’s dogmatic, risky and unjust‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/07/austerity-isnt-good-housekeeping-dogmatic-risky-unjust), it is time to get a few things out of the way. To help me, there is a source I used for part of this, which is at http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/. You see, in the time 1997 – 2010 several things happened, even though around 2007 the total debt was at a record low, the increase in spending has changed that. The debt is getting out of control, plain and simple. Governments (both sides) tend to hide behind GDP percentages to validate their spending, yet, in the previous conservative government, it was at 40% of GDP, by the time Gordon Brown was done, it was at 45% of GDP, considering that the UK GDP is decently high, that 5% amounts to a lot. Yet, that figure does not tell you the whole picture.

The UK public sector debt went in the period 2008 – 2010 from around 36% to over 65%, which is massive, this current government has been adding to that, but they are trying to stem that tide, which is not done overnight. Now this is not me blaming Labour (which is always fun), Health care spending almost doubled in real terms between 1999 and 2010, which is a Grim Reaper reality. Some were massive bungles by labour, but the added reality is that the UK population is growing old, that is just a natural part and we have always known that. So there is no blame, but it is therefore of a much higher importance to get a handle on it and none of the choices are nice ones.

You see, the source gives a possible connection, but not the reality behind it. We see the mention whether Keynesian economics are to blame, with the quote “Keynesian economics calls for counter-cyclical spending and deficits. Thus, in a period of strong economic growth, Keynesian economics would advocate balancing the budget or even pursuing a budget surplus“, but that is the problem, the politicians, in the era 1997-2004, in such a ‘good’ climate did not adhere to that. The GDP debt is evidence of that. You see, to some extent, politicians are like children, give a 17 year old boy  a credit card with one million pound, stating that he must be careful, and that person will find a reason to get the PS4, the Xbox One and get personal biology lessons at the ‘Steam and Sun Health Club’. At which point that person is feeling that the good life is here, alas, at some point the invoice is due and whilst it is not getting paid, the interest is getting paid from the credit card, dwindling reserves even further, this is EXACTLY where Greece is at!

So now to the first article as mentioned in the beginning!

“the spending squeeze the Tories now hope to implement, starting in the current financial year, is intense, as the spreadsheet wizards at the Institute for Fiscal Studies made clear last week. Shortly before Osborne’s statement, Carl Emmerson, the IFS’s deputy director, warned that achieving the Tories’ planned cuts would be “anything but easy”” Here I agree, it will not be easy, it will be hard and it will be even harder on the people, the issue is however that £1.56 trillion comes with the added issue that at 1%, this bill gets an added 15.6 billion in interest, however, the interest is not 1%, it is higher, so we see that the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £43bn (which is roughly 3% of GDP). In an age where some people get instant orgasms from reporting a 0.2% increase in GDP, they seem to forget that this amounts to the part that the UK is annually down 2.8% of GDP. If we act harshly (really harshly) it can be dealt with and even be reduced! Which is the real deal. That interest is benefitting banks and foreign investors. It boils down to ‘money for free’. So now we get the second quote “the belt-tightening is likely to be profoundly unfair. Osborne has repeatedly said his cuts plan will involve a £12bn reduction in the welfare bill. Since pensioners are protected, and out-of-work benefits are a relatively small part of the £250bn social security budget, much of the burden is likely to fall on low-wage workers and their children” I agree, it is very unfair, but when the economy was high, no one was shouting loudly to decrease spending as bad times are always around the corner, no one stopped Gordon Brown to give away the keys to the kingdom, which is what he pretty much did!

So, the term ‘pursuing a budget surplus’ sounds nice, but politicians will avoid bad news whenever they can, so cutting down on expenses will only be done when there is no other option, and preferably in the 11th hour, whilst there is no guarantee that there is a surplus at that point to work with!

“More austerity is risky at a time when recovery appears to be fragile against a background of the bubbling Eurozone crisis” this is a clear misrepresentation. You see, the statement is true, but there is no ‘fragile recovery’ at present, Greece is making sure of that by not doing its part. Which is exactly why the UK is contemplating getting out of the EU in the first place. The bulk of the Euro nations are all not balancing their books and getting out now might be the only way to preserve the little gain the UK can get. Now we get to another ‘failed’ view. It comes from Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. The statement is “A nation’s debts are mainly owed to someone else within the same society – for example the pension-holders whose funds are stacked full of gilts“. Is that so Mr Sen? Well, if you did your homework on this then please elaborate where the 1.5 trillion in UK debt is? I feel 99.324% certain that a massive amount is in other hands, not in the hands of pension holders, in addition, with the annual increase of needed funds over the next two decades, that amount is about to dwindle to record lows really fast, so where is all that debt?

The next statement is a view that I oppose “a report from the International Monetary Fund, rarely considered a hotbed of fiscal recklessness, warned about the risks of trying to tackle a country’s debt burden too quickly“, what is too quickly? You see 1.5 trillion is not going away overnight, it will take 2-3 decades to truly slim it down, so for the next generation, someone is walking away with £43bn a year, so we should get the debt down soon, preferably by a lot because the annual interest bill is around 7% of the received revenue in 2014, that whilst George Osborne spent 15% more than received, so to cut back on that increasing debt austerity seems to be the only answer.

Now we get the next issue “Paying them down rapidly distorts the economy too much to be worth the risk“, the risk to whom? To banks not getting ‘free’ money? Debt is a kicker, it always has been it has never been different. We will never be completely out of debt, but the debt at present is unacceptably high. You see a debt driven economy is based on the illusion of never ending growth. How did that work out in 2004 and 2008? In that light, how is it working out for Greece? They can no longer pay their bills. Whatever they get now in bail-out will be swallowed by debts and interests before Q3 ends. So, when I read “Debts should be “reduced organically through growth, or opportunistically when less distortionary sources of revenue are available”, the IMF’s researchers argue“, I am reading more misinformation. The theory sounds nice, but in the time when there was the option of surplus NOT ONE government created surplus. President Clinton was the only one who got a true surplus, after that due to circumstances the US could not foresee, the debt went completely out of control. In reflection on Austerity, Germany did tighten the buckle and got part of its debt down, which is why they are in a better position at present.

So this is the first article, Heather Stewart is not stating anything untrue, but the article is missing a lot and some of these points I very much disagree with (figure me, disagreeing with a Nobel prize winner, whilst I have no economy degree).

Now let’s have a go at the second Nobel Prize winner. In this case Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the John Bates Clark Medal. The article that in centre of this is ‘Greece’s creditors need a dose of reality – this is no time for European disunion‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/05/greeces-creditors-need-a-dose-of-reality-this-is-no-time-for-european-disunion). The first paragraph is the very notion of the beginning of my disagreement. “Athens has met its creditors’ demands more than halfway“. And we care….why? Why is Athens not meeting those demands 100% of the way? You see, Greece took the debt, it went back to the markets and sold 5 billion more in bonds (I still have not figured out the name of the idiot allowing for that act of stupidity). Greece vowed to make payments again and again, yet at present the already deferred TWO payments. Now, let me be frank. They were allowed to do that! The rules were there and they played by the rules, yet we all know that Greece is out of money, there are no more options. This will be the first time that a nation goes extinct through economic inaction! Even when Syriza won, instead of going after their predecessors, instead of sitting down and getting to the tax evaders, we see (at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4358352.ece) “The country’s financial crimes police, the SDOE, had begun shredding scores of documents linked to cases of corruption. What remained was stuffed in bin bags and discarded outside the bureau’s headquarters in Athens, in public view” the title ‘Greece shreds files on tax cheating by rich and powerful‘ Kostas Vaxevanis reported this on February 19th 2015. So, why was there no prosecution here? The entire debacle on tax evasion has been treated like a joke by 4 previous administrations, so as they cut their own jugulars, why allow for just a half way approach? So far this Greek administration has not done anything to give ample faith that there will be any level of resolution. Then we get “Greece has made clear its willingness to engage in continued economic overhaul, and has welcomed Europe’s help in implementing some of them“, is that so? So far there has been no overhaul at all, the public sector cuts were undone by rehiring. Greece needs to lower its cost by a massive amount. In all that time, which of the over 2000 of wealthy Greeks ended up in court for tax evasion (from Swiss bank accounts), perhaps one? Oh the Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis ended in the dock too, a massive miscarriage of Justice as I see it!

The one part I do agree with is the dangers of Greece exiting “I believe such views significantly underestimate the current and future risks involved“, this is true, but Greece can no longer be trusted to do what they stated to do and as such, some of the players prefer to get out, before the total debt grows with another 20% which is basically no more than a year away. There is not concrete evidence that the economy will truly pick up and those who have enabled this debt driven event are not held to account either (that small matter of a massive amount of Greek bonds on the market).

Then the last part “The ECB president Mario Draghi’s confidence trick, in the form of his declaration in 2012 that the monetary authorities would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro, has worked so far. But the knowledge that the euro is not a binding commitment among its members will make it far less likely to work the next time“, yes, how did it work? By spending a trillion or more one areas that are still not recuperating and will need at least a decade to regain the trillion that was spent in under a year? How is that anywhere near a workable solution?

In all this, whatever should work might have worked to a degree if politicians would control their budgets and that financial institutions would not be as greed driven as they are, which is why it all failed. When we see the quote “16 banks in five years to the end 2014 reveal £30bn increase in payouts, fines and legal bills on previous five-year period to end 2013” and this is linked to a total of well over £200bn. Lloyds alone got £117m in fines, how is this linked? Well, such losses means no taxation in the books as profits are gone, whilst many involved walked out with enough money (read: bonus) to pay their full mortgage in places like Golders Green.

Mr Stiglitz never lies or misinforms, but his view is incomplete. It is very dependent on the people involved doing the right and the correct thing. Politicians and bankers tend to be not those kind of people, Greece has shown it, Gordon Brown has spent it now the Conservatives need to repair the damage, Prime Minister Tsipras is ‘forced’ to play a high stakes game, whilst those involved are no longer willing to give leeway. In my view, that game should never have been played in the first place. By setting austerity, whilst going after the Greeks and their wealth benefitting from all this was perhaps one of the few acts that could have opened wallets all over the place, that act was never done, which is why many see that meeting half way is not really an option.

Austerity might seem unfair, and it is not fair on the payers at present, but someone opened a tap whilst the bulk of those knowing what was going on should have spoken out, and spoken out very loud. This was not done, so behold the consequence of that little caper.

There is one gem in his article at the end that is part of the entire Euro mess, which is fun as I have raised it a few times over the last few years. Not bad for a person devoid of an economics degree!

He states: “Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the euro. They thought they were looking beyond the short-term demands that usually preoccupy political leaders. Unfortunately, their understanding of economics fell short of their ambition; and the politics of the moment did not permit the creation of the institutional framework that might have enabled the euro to work as intended. Although the single currency was supposed to bring unprecedented prosperity, it is difficult to detect a significant positive effect for the Eurozone as a whole in the period before the crisis. In the period since, the adverse effects have been enormous”

This is true, the one part I have an issue with is ‘Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the Euro‘. I think Europe’s leaders had nothing to do with that part. I have always viewed this change as an essential; step by the US. Their benefit of trade with a single currency was titanic in proportions, in addition, the US would keep its option to float the currency as any economy tends to do in times of hardship, whilst the nations that are part of the euro are part of a collective, which removes the option of floating a currency. This was centre in the additional growth (or diminished fall) for the US, yet, even they did not bank on the credit swap meltdown, which did hurt them. The US is getting better, but their 18 trillion in debt is choking them, even with the option to float the dollar, the Euro in the massive debt it is, can only remove the debt by paying it, which is strangling France and Italy. The UK is dealing with it, and the Euro is hurting them, but not as much as being part of the Euro is. Which is just my view on it all.

As I stated in the beginning, the articles are incomplete, misstated, not by inaccuracies, but by incompleteness, which is why people have the skewed view they seem to have at present. In the austerity path, which is unfair to some, we need to add the legal premise and the legal definitions as well as legal obstructions to remove the option of overspending to the degree that was done, we need to make sure that the law will not allow for such overstretching ever again, when that is done, we will return to times when there is hardship, but when there are good times we will all feel it too, in my view, the push of the financial sector to remove the season of ‘financial winter’ resulted in the banks getting by and the rest suffering, this must never be allowed ever again!

 

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June 7, 2015 · 18:14

A dangerous escalation

This is a worrying moment, not just for me, but for everyone around, it should be a moment to worry. I am not talking about the Greeks (they have been extinct before), or FIFA (others are on the ball now). No it is a little more serious at present. You see last night rebels shot a scud at Saudi Arabia, which now ups the ante for all players and all allies involved. So as we see the BBC News (at http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33033842), we also see “In a separate development, the Houthi’s have agreed to attend peace talks in Geneva“, which might be redundant now as a Scud has been fired. We can look at all the fact on how inaccurate these missiles are, but the straight complication is not just that a missile was fired, the question becomes what else do these Houthi’s have access to and at some point, We tend to get confused on what matters, I am not stating that certain elements do not matter (like humanitarian aid), but in the light of escalations, humanitarian aid seems to take a backdrop to it all. The issue of escalation will take another turn when Saudi would be forced to act in protection of its citizens. There are a few options and one of them could be the temporary annexation of Yemen as the House of Saud, in allegiance of deposed president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi takes a ground offensive. At that point, whatever cries for help the Houthi’s then voice, they might not receive too much support. As we look at the humanitarian part, have the involved support groups taken a census of how many of these civilian are Houthis? In addition, when this escalated further, what will be the consequences for Oman? You see, it is not just the players that are an issue, with the growing allegiance of Al Qaeda in Yemen, with the growth of Islamic State, we will see additional escalation both within Yemen, towards Saudi Arabia as well as towards the direction of Oman. What path will be taken is hard for me to tell without better intelligence on the events (there is a limit to the information that the BBC has in its possession). Beyond that is another danger that is now brewing for Saudi Arabia. No matter how they feel regarding the actions against Yemen, it has an effect in the refugee camps in Jordan, Islamic State is more and more active in recruiting the youthful adults there, with over 630,000 refugees, there is every chance that Islamic State has growing numbers not in the hundreds, but in excess of a few thousand. The additional actions of ISIS in Egypt, gives worry on the dangers for Saudi Arabia. Whether scuds are the least accurate missiles or not, it will take one missile from Eritrea to hit close enough to Mecca to make this tinderbox explode. ISIS has never made a secret regarding the capture of Mecca, the question is would they be willing to destroy it? It is an actual question, I do not know the answer. But in the time that several ‘anti-ISIS’ parties were sitting on their hands, escalations are now likely to be all over the filed, which could give Saudi Arabia the premise that they could soon be under attack from more than one side. What do you think will happen then? So, as Yemen has upped the ante with a failed missile attack, we will soon see a different theatre of War. You might think that this is the same as every other attack, but it is not. Reasoning is the following quote from Reuters “Yemen’s dominant Houthi group and its army allies fired a Scud missile at Saudi Arabia“, it is the ‘army allies’, whether valid or not, this now implies that the combatant forces of Yemen are now part of this. I used the work imply for a reason. You see, there is no guarantee that this is truly the case, it could be a collection of sympathising defectors, but Saudi Arabia does not need to take this into consideration, do they? Will it get worse? Most likely yes, but in all honesty, I expected these troops to make more active hostilities against Israel instead of escalating towards Saudi Arabia now. This thought was partially shaped by the incursions and the maintaining of presence of Islamic State in Sinai, with options towards Saudi Arabia, the Islamic State corridor becomes an economic worry for several players, least of all Israel. One source gave me “Muslim Brotherhood also offered to facilitate the entry of ISIS elements to the Egyptian territory, through the western and southern borders of Egypt, in return of ISIS helping Muslim Brotherhood to reach power again in Egypt till they control all country’s joints” I think it goes further than that, I think that there is a growing group of more radicalised members of the Muslim Brotherhood, joining the Islamic State in Sinai and from there move towards Israel and likely (based on the latest information) act against Saudi Arabia too. There is not enough evidence on how likely and how strong these actions would be, but this implies that Saudi Arabia is at least in indirect danger here, this means that Saudi Arabia has to connect with three sides. This also means that the escalations against the Islamic State members in Yemen would require a much harsher turn soon enough. The question will soon become one that America and its NATO allies must answer in more than one way. How much support will their ally Saudi Arabia receive, how much non-interference will be gained from the alliance as humanitarian aid in Yemen could be regarded as politically inconvenient. The only bright spot is that most Islamic State fighters tend to be extremely ad-hoc, so if one of them decides to make a name for himself in Israel, the Israeli air force might be forced to cut down the lifespan of Islamic State in Sinai, a chance that is not that high, whatever attacks Israel is more likely to come from Jordan, especially any attack on Eilat, which will cause other reasons of escalations all over the board. From here we must look at a BBC quote from last March. The quote is “Beyond Yemen, the Sanaa bombings underscore how the American strategy against Islamic State is lacking. The US is not degrading IS fast enough to stop its expansion, and it does not appear to have a plan for confronting IS branches in Sinai, Libya, West Africa, and now Yemen”, there are two problems with the quote. The first one is setting the quote like it should all be the US, or even about the US. This is not the case (only the premise), you see, Sinai is Egyptian turf and Egypt is not making headway here, for Sinai there is an additional complication that it cannot push its army into Sinai, because of the peace accord, which means that Islamic State can move all over buffer zone C, as long as they stay mostly out of sight. In Libya there are additional factors and Jordan is a sovereign state who is working together with the US, yet Islamic State remains a factor here. The biggest worry is that it will grow too large within the refugee community, which would escalate in many way that could cause a slaughter of many thousands of people at the drop of the wrong hat. At that point, the US will not have anywhere near the presence to act, and most likely neither will the Jordan forces. This gives us a map that becomes complicated. With Sheikh Omar Hadeed Brigade making new rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, we must also question who is in control there, because if these attacks continue, Israel would be forced to escalate even further, especially since Ashdod was hit in a missile attack. This is where we get the issue with the quote “scuds are the least accurate missiles“, it only takes one hit for this tinderbox to be in flames and as such, we should be careful on relying on ANY peace talks at present. In my view Islamic state sees it as a weakness and whatever they do there is only to give time to prepare the next assault. So as there is a chance that both Israel and Saudi Arabia will find the risks too unacceptable and we will see how both Yemen and Gaza will fall under increased air attack. Whatever happens next will also determine how the playing parties will deal with the threats they face. In all this the greatest threat is towards the innocent refugees in Jordan as they are very likely to be in the middle of two factions, who do not care about these ‘refugees’, in all this we must face the dangers to both an Israeli and a Saudi Arabia escalation. In all this, I will not point at the US, here I point at the other NATO players who should have become active long ago, but political pressures stopped several actions. If NATO had acted stronger in the very beginning, Islamic State might not have had the support it ended up having. In May 2014, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross stated the following: “Though NATO did its job extraordinarily well, an intervention whose main purpose was saving lives may have ended up claiming more lives than it preserved; and the war certainly helped jihadist groups who are hostile to the United States and its allies while setting back U.S. regional interests“, I think that this is at the heart of a few events. The political elements who remained on the side of caution have inadvertently given strength to the situation that is now escalating. They are not the only factor, but they are a factor. That same reluctance in Syria is now cause for major problems and escalations. It is hard to see whether it would have worked out in Syria, especially with Russia in the opposing way, but we see now that there are a few more escalation on the map, escalations that would not have been there if the Syrian situation had been resolved a long time ago (no matter in which direction it was resolved). The last one is a personal view and personal assessment, which could of course be wrong. Now we get to the quote by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. The quote was given a year ago, but the connection to now is clear when we consider the quote “He said the meeting would involve ‘consultations on implementing resolution 2216,’ which the Security Council passed in April, imposing an arms embargo on the Houthi rebels and demanded they relinquish seized territory”, which we get from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/06/dozens-killed-in-yemen-saudi-border-raids-as-peace-talks-momentum-gathers) this sounds nice in theory, but since when has Islamic State taken any notice of an arms embargo? Or taken any notice of the Security Council in any way shape or form? These ‘talks’ which basically delays definitive action will have a similar effect, no matter what the Council states, if even one missile hits a target with casualties, the Saudi air force will respond harshly and talks will break down almost immediately. So will Yemen escalate out of proportions? I reckon that answer is less than a week away, but no matter in which direction it goes, if even one of the neighbouring parties takes any action, escalations might not be impossible to stop and what happens after that will cause a Middle Eastern escalation unlike one we have seen before, as it is entirely possible that Iran will get involved undoing loads of talks in mere hours. The question becomes, who makes the first mistake here? A mistake with dire consequences for all players involved.

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June 6, 2015 · 00:05

S&M or S&H?

That is the question that should be on the minds of people everywhere! You see Self-interest and Misinformation is every bit a tool of application in the Sade-Masochistic approach that politicians use, or if we use names it would be the dialogue between Alexis Tsipras and Jean-Claude Juncker where Tsipras voices: “You wash my back, I wash yours real hard!” So as we see in the Guardian the call for ‘Sanity and Humanity‘ we must ask the clear ‘why?’ part. You see, we are now getting ‘misinformed’ by laureates and by people in the industry of high economics. They most likely want their cushy job to continue. If Greece falters that is no longer an option, because the repercussions go a lot further than Greece, even the US is now getting involved because the fallout from Greece leaving is a lot more than the people are told.

First Premise: If my thoughts were wrong, then why not let Greece out of the Euro, let it float its Drachma and slowly get back on the horse? Because virtual or not, the fallout of half a trillion whilst Italy and France are so deep in debt is a massive problem!

The names calling for this are: Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, star French economist Thomas Piketty, former Italian PM Massimo D’Alema, and America’s Jamie Galbraith. The list has more names, but you’ll have to get to the Financial Times for that.

You see, the premise of Humanity is nice (and I am all for Humanity), but when the person involved REFUSES to take decent steps towards the solution, the sanity part is to just cut them lose, but as I stated in my first premise, that is not an option, the negative consequences are scaring too many ‘profiteers’ as I see them!

The first untruth by these writers (bleeding hearts seem to be the most apt title). We see the quote: “Six months on, we are dismayed that austerity is undermining Syriza’s key reforms, on which EU leaders should surely have been collaborating with the Greek government: most notably to overcome tax evasion and corruption“. I would call this a lie of the first order! Why am I calling it that loud?

The Greek government has done close to nothing to overcome tax evasion and corruption! Which politicians from former administrations have been arrested and are investigated for squandering government funds? We saw one case of tax evasion for 1.2 million, which is 0.000028436% of the debt, it does not even cover the smallest part of the interest bill.

The next statement is: “Austerity drastically reduces revenue from tax reform, and restricts the space for change to make public administration accountable and socially efficient” the second expression of laughter! Greece has next to nothing in revenue from taxation, let alone revenue from tax reforms, in addition public administration is not holding anyone accountable, the Greek public administration is a joke no one wants to touch (let alone the Greeks), so the claim made here is nothing more than an empty sentence.

Now we get to an interesting part: “It is wrong to ask Greece to commit itself to an old programme that has demonstrably failed, been rejected by Greek voters, and which large numbers of economists (including ourselves) believe was misguided from the start“. Well, if it was misguided, then the ‘friends’ you have in Goldman Sachs and other financial pool party’s should not have borrowed them the money to begin with! There is no doubt that Syriza has a bad deal, but they wanted the bad deal! They wanted to govern at the expense of everything and everyone! New Democracy under Antonis Samaras was actually trying to sort things out. In addition, the Greek voters do not get to reject this. They voted the people in that spend the money with zero foresight or consideration of the consequences, the Greek people now get to pay for it all. You see, someone spend over 400 billion, it went somewhere. That part is due and the loans made afterwards to get things ‘rolling’ was never realistic, but the top economists were all eager to get the kickbacks that they refer to as consultancy and commission! When a bank allows for events THIS STUPID to get out of proportions, in the end, I do not deny that Tsipras and Varoufakis are playing a clever game. They are willing to let the ‘other’ players collapse. It is a ‘pay our debt or else’ approach. It is not acceptable! And I reckon it should not be tolerated on this level.

What would be acceptable, if the entire debt is paid for by banks, monitored by oversight commissions to ensure that the people (their consumers) never get any additional charges! That banks would need to come up with the money from their own profits and dividends. That I would find acceptable, but guess what? The ‘friends’ of those who signed this letter will not accept that and they will reject that in a heartbeat, so here we see Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, et al all writing about humanity, when it should be about accountability!

Now we get the half-truth in all this “Clearly a revised, longer-term agreement with the creditor institutions is necessary: otherwise default is inevitable, imposing great risks on the economies of Europe and the world, and even for the European project that the Eurozone was supposed to strengthen“, is that so?

My second premise: Yes there will be risks, but the one I see is a more total collapse when the debt is shouldered by those already in too deep. That part is not mentioned and moreover that risk has been trivialised by several players all over the Eurozone field, including by the top of the IMF and a few top players in the US too.

And I reckon that the quote “Syriza is the only hope for legitimacy in Greece” can be discarded out of hand, they actually escalated it all, in all this, as I see it, New Democracy was the true hope for Greece.

Now we get a quote that is truly a worry “Consider, on the other hand, a rapid move to a positive programme for recovery in Greece (and in the EU as a whole), using the massive financial strength of the Eurozone to promote investment, rescuing young Europeans from mass unemployment with measures that would increase employment today and growth in the future“.

My third premise: First of all, this is not the first time that approach is used, Adolf Hitler used it in 1935; how did THAT turn out? Now, let’s not go all Nazi on this and consider the issues in Spain, Italy and France? Do you have solutions for them too? How would you like to voice this in reality? That is the problem, you see, jobs come from places that have income, that have product and that is selling, that allows for hiring and paying staff! This is the entire issue, there are no jobs, because people are not buying, because after the cost of living there is not enough money to spend.

It is not a math issue that requires a Nobel price, a mere abacus, or just common sense, paper and pen could have worked that out! In addition, the prediction I made in my article ‘An Olympic steeplechase‘ on May 26th 2015 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/26/an-olympic-steeplechase/), two days later Deutche Welle publishes this “‘We’ve been receiving reports of a decline in bookings, especially from Germany’, says the tourism manager to DW“. I saw the writing on THAT wall! In addition there is “Andreadis quotes the latest statistics from the German Society for Consumer Research (GfK): Bookings in Germany have declined by 2 percent based on annual figures“, two percent does not seem that much, but in an economy where the Greek GDP is making another step towards 0 and lower, 2% is a lot. The issues with refugees isn’t helping Greece either. The British media reported that Kos, a Greek tourist attractor has become a ‘disgusting hellhole’, which would push tourism down further. Influx from both Russia and Scandinavia is down too, but at present unknown by exactly how much. It basically means that tourism will not bring the bacon to the outstanding invoices for Greece, apart from collecting the taxation on it all that is.

The final misrepresentation is “Like the Marshall plan, let it be one of hope not despair“, it is a misrepresentation, because the Marshall plan did the right thing, whilst the people did their part, the governments were in better control, within the Euro at present not one government has been holding pace with the expenditure and keeping a proper budget, which gets trivialised by those administering it and the extra spending is overstretched again and again.

My fourth premise: So this is not about Mr Marshall and his amazing achievement, this is about the Greek government actually doing something. Pushing the invoice out 30 days is not a solution. In addition to that, nearly every person and toddler can see that the 7 billion that is supposed to be freed up will after paying the civil servants their 2.2 billion in outstanding parts will not even cover all the bills until the end of the year and whilst Greek taxation is not being addressed, another interest invoice of 22 billion will be due in under 10 months. Yes, 22 billion just for the interest payment!

So as we are misdirected by some people hiding behind the fact that IMF payments have been overdue before, the issue here is that Greece is now TWO payments behind, totaling a little over 1 billion, part one due in two weeks! So as the Greeks vow not to leave the Euro, the question will soon become, do they actually have a choice in this, because when payments are not forthcoming, there must be repercussions, the one part Greeks are really good at denying.

I must of course also mention that there is debt restructuring document, which is regarded as being ‘hopeful’. The view comes from Peter Spiegel of the Financial Times and the quote is “The restructuring plan is ambitious, offering ways to reduce the amount of debt held by all four of its public-sector creditors: the European Central Bank, which holds €27bn in Greek bonds purchased starting in 2010; the International Monetary Fund, which is owed about €20bn from bailout loans; individual Eurozone member states, which banded together to make €53bn bilateral loans to Athens as part of its first bailout; and the Eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, which picks up the EU’s €144bn in the current programme“.

The fifth premise: My issue on these document is that they are ALWAYS based on too positive an outlook, which is why they usually fail. In addition, Greece will at least need another 20 billion, that is if the 7.2 billion that they are trying to get their fingers on is already in the given picture, which is not a given at present.

The quote “to get back under 60 per cent of GDP” is just insanely unrealistic. You see, to do that you need to fix expenditure by a lot, the one part the Greeks utterly refused to do, in addition, they just rehired the people they had let go, so expenses are back up too!

As Peter Spiegel (@SpiegelPeter) states: “It also involves eliminating a chunk of Greece’s bailout debt“, which is fine by me as long as the BANKS pay for that part, if it comes from Goldman Sachs’s pocket so much the better! Let’s not forget that part of this entire mess was because Goldman Sachs helped Greece mask the actual debt it had (source: Der Spiegel) on February 8th 2010! How much forward momentum did Greece achieve since then (like lowering debt)? NONE!

I will say again that this is all unfair on the Greek people, but they did elect this lot into parliament, as they elected the previous bunches, how about knocking on those doors to get at least some of those funds back (which also lowers debt)?

 

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June 5, 2015 · 20:58

In reference to the router

Is this a case of Mythopoeia? Am I the JRR Tolkien of bloggers (I wish) and writer of facts by a non-journalist? It might be. You see, this is all about a mythological theme that is constant as war is, because war never changes! Its concept and construct is as old as the first ‘soldier’ who combined a flint and a stick and started to spear people. In this mindset it is all about the other person, an archaic approach to the issue that does not lie beneath, it’s in front of the person not seeing what is right in front of him/her.

It is also the first evidence that we consider the concept ‘old soldier never die, they simply fade away’ to be no longer a genuine consideration. In this day and age, the old soldier gets his/her references deleted from the database of considerations. We remain with nothing more than an old person that cannot connect or interact, the router won’t let him/her!

This is how it begins, this is about certain events that just occurred, but I will specify this momentarily, you see, it goes back to an issue that Sony remembers rather well they got hacked. It was a long and hard task to get into that place Login=BigBossKazuoHirai; Password=WhereDreamsComeTrue;

Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data! The people behind it were clever, and soon it was gone and the blame fell to the one nation that does not even have the bandwidth to get 10% past anything. Yes, North Korea got blamed and got fingered and in all that the FBI and other spokespeople gave the notion that it was North Korea. The people who understand the world of data know better, it was the only player less then least likely to get it done, the knowhow and the infrastructure just isn’t there. I did have a theory on how it was done and I published that on February 8th 2015 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/) in the article called ‘The next cyber wave’. It is only a theory, but it is a lot more reliable and likely than a North Korean incursion because of a movie no one cares about.

The FBI has plenty of achievements (FIFA being the latest one), but within the FBI there is a weakness, not a failing, but a weakness. Because the US has such a niche setup for NSA, CIA and other Intel officers, their offices are for the most still archaic when it come to the digital era. They go to all the events, spend millions on courses and keep up to date, but for the most, these people are following a wave that is one generation old, they follow, they do not lead. The entire Edward Snowden issue is clear evidence. I remain to regard him a joke, not a hacker, so far he is just placed on a pedestal by the press, who have created something unreal and whatever they do not to change it, it will only cut themselves. That is the fall-back of creating an artificial hero who isn’t one.

Yet, this is not about Snowden, he is only an element. Now we get to the concept of paleo-philosophy and how it hits government structures behind IT. This all started yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/04/us-government-massive-data-breach-employee-records-security-clearances), where we see ‘OPM hack: China blamed for massive breach of US government data’. Now first of all, if one power can do this, than it is China! France, UK and a few others can do it too, but let’s just assume it is not an ally! Here is where the entire paleo-philosophy comes into play. You see, even though war remained constant, the players changed and for the most, it is no longer about governments. This is all about corporations. Even the movies are catching on, there is no true side to Russia or China as the enemy. Yes, their students might do it to impress their superiors/professors, but that would just be there defining moment. Ethan Hunt is not hunting a nation, it is now hunting conglomerates, large players who remain and require to be zero percent taxable. Those are the actual ream enemies for the UK, the US and China. You see, I am not stating it was not China, I am only questioning the reasoning and other acts. You see, I tried to get an answer from State Secretary John Kerry at +1-202-647-9572, who does not seem to be answering the phone, neither is his right hand man, Jonathan J. Finer at +1-7234 202-647-8633. This is not a secret, the State Department has the PDF with office numbers, locations and phone numbers in an open PDF and you can Google the little sucker! In the age where loads of stuff is open the right person can combine tonnes of data in a moment’s notice.

So can the larger players! The quote in the beginning is the kicker “the impact of a massive data breach involving the agency that handles security clearances and US government employee records“, you see loads of this information is already with intelligence parts and counter parts. I reckon Beijing and Moscow had updated the records within the hour that the next record keeper moved into the office. Yet, now in 2015, as the engine starts up for the presidential elections of 2016, that data is important to plenty of non-governments, that part is not seen anywhere is it?

Then we get “A US law enforcement source told the Reuters news agency on Thursday night that a ‘foreign entity or government’ was believed to be behind the attack“, which is fair enough, so how was the jump made to China? You see, only 5 weeks ago, the Financial Review gave us “US Treasury pressures Tony Abbott to drop ‘Google tax’” (at http://www.afr.com/news/policy/tax/us-treasury-pressures-tony-abbott-to-drop-google-tax-20150428-1mu2sg). So as the Obama administration ‘vowed’ to crackdown on Tax avoidance, they are really not the player who wants to do anything to upset those luscious donators of pieces of currency paper (loads of currency paper), so a mere 6 months later the US, is trying to undo what they promised, whilst still trying to push the TPP papers through the throats of consumers everywhere, what an interesting web we weave!

You see, for the large corporation that list of who has access to papers, and his/her situation is worth gold today, for the Chinese a lot less so. Yet, I am not writing China off as a possible culprit! Let’s face it, they are not North Korea, which means that they do not need to power their router with a Philips 7424 Generator! So at this point, I would tend to agree with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei who branded the accusations “irresponsible and unscientific” at a news briefing on Friday.

Now we get to the quote that is central to the entire paleo-philosophy matters: “DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion”, first of all, I am not having a go at the DHS. I have done so in the past with good reason, but this is not that case. I think that in many areas government in not just falling behind, it started to fall behind in 2005 and has been falling behind ever since. Not just them though, organised large corporations like Sony, CVS Health, Valero Energy and Express Scripts Holding are only a few of the corporations that do not even realise the predicament they are in. The Deep Web is not just a place or a community, some of the players there have been organising and have been sharing and evolving that what they know. A massive pool of information, because Data is money, governments know it, corporation know it and THE HACKERS know it too. For them it is all relative easy, they have been living and walking the cloud data with the greatest of ease they can conflict data points and flood certain shared data hosts, only to achieve to get behind the corridor and remain invisible whilst the data is available at their leisure. In that environment the intelligence community is still trying to catch up with the basics (compared to where the hackers are). You see, whilst people in corporations and government are all about politics, those hackers were bout mayhem and anarchy, now they are figuring out that these skills get them a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle and they like the idea of not having a degree whilst owning most of Malibu Drive, a 21st century Point Break, where the funds allow them to party all the time. Corporations got them into that thinking mode. So were the culprits ‘merely’ hackers or was it a foreign government? That is the question I am unable to answer with facts, but to point at China being likely is event less assuring. Consider who gains power with that data? This much data can be up for sale, it can be utilised. In the premise of both, China is not unlikely, but what is ‘more likely than not’ is also a matter, even though that question is less easily answered and without evidence (I have none) any answer should not be regarded as reliable!

Now we get to the quote “Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said China had made great efforts to combat cyberattacks and that tracking such events conducted across borders was difficult” it is correct, it matters and it is to the point. In addition, we must accept that trackers can also be set on the wrong path, it is not easy, but it can be done, both the hackers and China have skills there, as do the NSA and GCHQ. Yet, in all that, with the Sony hack still fresh in memory, who did it, which is the interesting question, but WHY is more interesting. We tend to focus on clearances here, but what else was there? What if the OPM has health details? What is the value of health risk analyses of 4 million people? At $10 a month that is a quick and easy half a billion isn’t it?

You see, the final part is seen here: “DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion”, This is to be expected, but the intruders know this too, so how did they get past it all again? That is the issue, I gave in my earlier blog one possible solution, but that could only be done through the inside person, to be clear of that, someone did a similar thing in the cloud, or in the stream of data, in a way that it does not show. Perhaps a mere pressure of data in a shared cloud point is all it took to get past the security. How many data packages are lost? what intel is gained from there, perhaps it is just a pure replication of packages job, there is no proper way to monitor data in transit, not in cloudy conditions, so as we see that more data is ‘breached’ we all must wonder what the data holders, both government and non-government are not ready for. It is the data of you and me that gets ‘sold’ who does it get sold to?

So as we see an article of a data hack and a photo of routers and wiring, which looks geeky and techy, was this in reference to the router? Or perhaps it is in reference to a reality many in charge are not ready to face any day soon, and in light of the upcoming US elections of 2016, some of these politicians definitely do not want to face it before 2017. Like the Google Tax, let the next person fix it!

A preferred political approach that will allow them to lose exclusivity of your data real fast!

 

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June 3, 2015 · 19:18

Dr Temp MD

It did not take too long for things to get outspoken, the elections are gone, Greece is against the wall making all kinds of claims regarding Blackmail and creditors and the NHS issues are also waking up. Actually, it is the Health Secretary that is waking up. Actually, that is a little too unkind. Jeremy Hunt was not asleep, let’s just state that the elections slowed issues until the ‘after’ election moment. That moment is now!

I have kept my eye on the NHS issues that play. The NHS IT, which partially collapsed the NHS due to 11.2 billion under labour, which impacted all sides of the NHS, yet it is not all political, the NHS has many sides that do need addressing. It was not their fault, I am not laying blame here, but the pressure that the NHS gets from binge drinking must stop!

If we go by the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32418122), we might see that a detox centre is saving millions, which sounds nice in theory, yet the problem is not the saved millions, it is the £3.8bn a year that is a concern, a worry and the NHS can no longer afford it. So we can go two ways, we can shift the problem with drunk tanks like in ‘the good old days‘, which suits me just fine, and if you have enough money to pay for private treatment, that that is fine too, yet here we see a debatable injustice, should the rich be non-accountable? Do we approach this from a ‘if you can afford it, fine!‘ which amounts to the same. When we see statistics that 1 in 3 for A&E is alcohol related, than there is a clear issue, if there is the additional pressure that the weekend gives up to 70% of the cases which are alcohol based, we have an issue.

There are of course other means, three strikes in the weekend and your academic options are forfeit, it is an option, but will it actually make a difference? The article also has a worrying side, the quote “as much as 50% of the patients [that we see], were not open to any services and some of them had never been seen by alcohol services before“, in that quote Dr Chris Daly is illustrating that the drinking population is changing, which makes for an uncomfortable truth, is it truly alcoholism, or escapism from austerity and bad economy? It makes all the difference, but the NHS is still getting hit, so it is time to seek alternative solutions, but where to go? You see, many solutions is about shifting blame and responsibility. In my case it is about shifting responsibility and in my view, the responsibility is given to he/she who drinks! They get the bill or go into the drunk tank. My view has not unique, I did not know this last year when I championed the idea, it seems that in 2013, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO for short) coined that same idea, those who get thrown in are fined and that pays for the upkeep. The ACPO is now getting replaced by the NPCC (National Police Chiefs’ Council).

I know that there are issues and it is not the best solution, but in a perfect world, the large corporations would not be ‘screwing over’ the nations it is draining of income and as such, the tax coffers could have paid for it all, but that is not the case at present. When a trillion in commerce is taxed at less than 1%, any government comes up short and that is exactly where the UK is now and changes, drastic ones will need to be made. If the pressure of 1,000,000 patients goes away, staff will be under less pressure, £3,500 per shift doctors become less on an issue, which saves additional coin and the NHS can than better be reassessed. The problems of the NHS will not be gone, but the £2Bn gap it faced as was stated on the BBC in June 2014 would suddenly drop to almost zero. How is that for a good idea? Now if we can find a few options for generic medicine by cooperating stronger with India and the NHS will suddenly show signs of life again. Now, there is every chance that people will object. They will mention that there are medical risks and I agree, but guess what, the ‘adult’ who thought he could quickly have 15 pints was supposed to be an adult, now he/she gets to see the consequence of this choice. Should the patient ‘pass away’ than we could also see a drop in rental pressure, which helps more people, and possibly another job opens up, lowering unemployment rates further. Now, if you think that this is over the top, than I will not disagree, but my side states, ‘well, stop them from binge drinking!’ It might seem hard, but dying solves everything!

Hey, that could make for a nice health care advertisement.

The doctor walks into the waiting room, states “I apologise, your … passed away”, “I have a cousin who is very interested in the apartment, and we gave his job details to our janitor, he thought it was a cool job, I heard he starts on Monday!”

Then it fades out and we see the slogan “Alcohol kills!” and under it we see “your apartment and job were filled quite quickly! Only your mother/spouse will possibly miss you”, is that not a killer advertisement?

No, it is not! But it seems that being soft around this subject is not solving anything either, that part has been proven for some time now. I think I know what you will state next. ‘It will be about the alcoholics and their mental health!’ This could be valid, yet some studies show that binge drinking is for over 70% associated with the premise that it is ‘really fun’. Most doctors and nurses disagree and they are NOT laughing!

So, even though I feel that it is not fair on the population at large, the NHS can no longer facilitate any of it. There is a small shimmer of hope, consider that the drunk tank comes with a £150 fee to get out, that invoice should be scary enough, because there will be no more money for food, rent and a few other things, which will reset the focus of such a person. Perhaps once is all they need to get a grip on the consequences, apart from looking like ‘road kill’ and smell like nothing anyone want to be next to, so that person will hopefully sober up, has to walk home and will have no other options for a little while. I personally am not convinced it would work, but if the binge drinking group is lowered by a mere 5%, we would see massive savings, deep into the millions, which opens up the debate, is it worth the risk? I would say: “look at Greece, inaction has now pretty much made them slaves to the creditors for the next 5 generations”, as binge drinking is self-inflicted, I would go for the yes vote, but in all this there is another side, how are they able to get into the binge drinking habit? There are a few options that comes to mind, but this is not about binge drinking, this is about the NHS.

Alcoholism and drugs are only a few factors, the NHS has a massive problem which for one part was addressed in the article.

We now get to the issue that is hard to oppose (but I will try). The quote “Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association, said the NHS’s greater reliance on agency staff “is a sign of stress on the system and the result of poor workforce planning by government”“. Is that entirely true? I think that there is a hidden non-mentioned fact here. The NHS stresses have been an issue for a longer time and yes, there are issues, but let’s go over all this. Simon Stevens is the government CEO now (that title never stops making me chuckle), before that it was David Nicholson and before that it was Lord Nigel Crisp. I want to step over all the scandals as they are just getting in the way of the issues. You see, the entire chuckling bit is an issue. It is hilarious to see a political appointed CEO, I personally believe that it is a recipe for disaster with a 100% chance of leaving a sour taste in the mouth, one way or another! It needs to get a more commercial appointment with a new board, a board of executive advisors, one political, one financial and a few medical advisors. It would be great if the CEO is a medic, but the UK is short of them already, pushing them to a governing desk is not really a solution, which of course is a little shoulder thump to Dr Mark Porter (with the friendliest intention). Of course, the quote by Shadow minister Andy Burnham is equally entertaining “mistakes by the Conservatives had led to the expanded use of agency staff“, which sounds a little over the top as the staff issues would be resolved by an IT overhaul, which Labour fumbled whilst spending over 11 billion, so that solution did not pan out and now, the conservatives are still fixing the mess. In addition, the statistics show a sheer increase of costs. In the term of Labour 1997 – 2010, the costs for the NHS doubled. The earlier mentioned IT failure being a chunk of it. Before Labour the hospital services represented 4.9%, whilst by 2010 it had grown to 21%, which is like 400% more. Yet, be careful and do not just blatantly accept my numbers either! My source (at http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/wp02.pdf) has a few issues, and there is a lack of clarity on reasons here. However, pharmaceutical services went down from 43.5 to 39.8 and even in 2010 to 31.8, which is good, but the history of generic pharmaceuticals is not clear in this regard, which is reliant on the ending of patents. Dental services has a fluctuation around 5%, so there does not seem to be a lot of options here. Yet, we must give clear admittance that there are elements that Labour could not foresee. The NHS costs went from 6.6% of GDP in 1997 to 9.6% in 2010, which happens when people grow old and do not die, they require treatment. The adjusted GDP was £279Bn in Q1 1997, £373Bn in Q4 2010, which means that the shift is a lot more than 3%, it is an additional £11Bn on top of the 3% shift. That shift in this ‘greying’ population will only get stronger. I am all for giving them the best care, they did their job. Which made me look at the drunk tank for those who have not done anything yet.

Yet, there is also other evidence. One part is found in the Public expenditure on health and care services (at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhealth/651/651.pdf). On page 35 we see “The evidence presented to the Committee demonstrates that the measures currently being used to respond to the Nicholson Challenge too often represent short-term fixes rather than the long-term transformations which the service needs“. I do not disagree with that statement, yet the commercial side remains an issue. Sir David Nicholson needed to cut 20 billion, or more. The Nicholson challenge was there to (attempt to) achieve this. When we see the political side whinge left, right and decently less from the centre, we need to accept that they are not paying the bills, when was there an agreement on both sides on how much the NHS was allowed to cost? Drastic cutbacks were the challenge and I am not stating that it was a great or the right solution, but it was close to the only solution. By the way, these cutbacks got started under the previous administration, headed by none other than Andy Burnham, so as he is stating issues with agency staff, I need to voice ‘howls of deriving laughter!’ it amounts to this blogger calling MP Andy Burnham a dunsel. You signed off on the need to cut back, you now do not get to steer the conversation in that manner Mr Burnham! The additional quote in his name is “Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has further complicated the picture by suggesting a reformed NHS may need less than £8bn“, in what universe? After we dehydrate the drunks and drown the elderly? The mere increase in needed funds over the term 1997 – 2010 is an adjusted £11 billion that is just the increase, not including the required amount, which was already £18 billion in 1997. If I was a mean man I would point out to Mr Burnham that Excel does not treat the mean and the sum function in the same manner. So the sum over 4 years is not the same as the average per year per 4 year term. As stated, I am not a mean (not the same as average) person, so I will not say that to Andy Burnham MP for Liverpool. However, we need to be fair, Liverpool has its share of famous people, but perhaps no famous science people? In music there are the Beatles, in comedy there is John Bishop, there are actors, writers, but perhaps not any math people? Ah Darn, the famous John Horton, who came with the Combinatorial Game Theory (CGT) as well as revelations in Quantum mechanics. Mr Burnham, you should have known better!

Back to the NHS issue we go!

You see, it is in its most basic concept a simple equation BUDGET = SUM(COST1,COST2,,,COSTn); budget is known and for a while budget had to go down, which implies (using the word ‘means’ here might be confusing) that costs MUST go down. The biggest ones are usually location, maintenance and personnel. Location can usually not be tempered with, maintenance can be looked at, but with too much specialist equipment in NHS locations, there is not too much you can do and these devices usually come with a servicing fee that is not the cheapest one and with 20 devices you are usually looking at 15+ contracts. There are more devices and parts that fall under maintenance, yet there tends to be minimal movement here, so personnel remains. It is not fair, I completely agree, yet the list tends to be not that large and staff is usually the first cut (or not replaced). We all agree that it is short sighted, which The Health Committee agreed with. By the way, how many committees are there in the NHS and how much do those events cost? I’ll bet you that they are not playing for the cat’s violin, so there are costings there too. So as we see the following “As set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, each CCG must have a governing body. This body must have an audit committee and a remuneration committee“, now what will that part cost?

So you see, the list goes on and on. Some costings are a given, some are not and the needed funds increase every single year. In 10 years, the percentage increase over the GDP growth amounted to those eleven billions alone. We would like to do it better, more intelligent and cheaper, but how? If healthcare depends on high quality, there was never that much leeway to begin with. So are we left with the inhumane choices? I refuse to believe that, but to start to be less pampering to the binge drinkers seems in my humble opinion to be an acceptable first step.

I also believe that Jeremy Hunt is on track with the agency staff cuts, which is outrageous, but where to get the people then? I mentioned to him that he should consider opening the door to Australian medical graduates. Even though there is a rural shortage (no one wants to go there) the urban shortage is less true shortage. Perhaps Canada has that same option? What if these graduates work in the UK for a few year, for a decent income and an annual percentage payment to their study debt? It is usually easier to find graduates willing to be a little adventurous for a few years. It could work (at least lessen the pressures) and it will be a lot cheaper than £3,500 per doctor per shift, that will be an absolute given. If this solution works in getting the issues of the boil, the agencies will have no other option but to lower prices, their prices are linked to demand plain and simple. The NHS is literally experiencing the pounding the CIA got in 2003-2010, analysts went external as their income went up by 250%-400%, which was all the rage back there! So as the NHS HR literally knows how a CIA HR representative feels, we giggle a little more. But it is no laughing matter, analysts are 13 a dozen, Medical practitioners and nurses are an entirely different ball of wax and that equation is not easily solved.

So as the pressure of shortage remains, so will the existence of Dr Temp MD, it could even shift further into the temp direction, which spells bad times for the NHS. There is however one final part. In that Dr Mark Porter has a role to play too. The British Medical Association (BMA) is the trade union and professional body for doctors in the UK and has always ‘pushed’ for the highest standards, this was done to such an extent (before Porters time) that willing graduates from several nations were unable to get a VISA and rebuild their life in the UK, there is something to say for that ruling, but by keeping the ‘projected’ level of care so unobtainable high, the UK now faces a shortage issue. I think that these rules of immigration need to be looked at and additional solutions should be tapped into. I cannot guarantee that this will be THE solution, but it seems clear that not looking at this possibility will leave the NHS in the near death state it is now!

It is only one step, but any solution for the NHS should only be taken step by step, which is always better than no action at all.

 

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May 31, 2015 · 00:52

Losing Blatter control

I initially dreaded today, not just because I had heard earlier that FIFA will get a few more years of bladder control, but because of the news waves that would come after. The first one that came to view was the Guardian (of course). So this is what the Guardian had to say: “The re-elected FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, has said he was “shocked” at the way US authorities targeted football’s world body and slammed what he called a “hate” campaign by Europe’s football leaders“.

Dear Mr. Blatter, are you (allegedly) insane? This is not a little get together, this is a structural failing of an organisation, where over 150 million went to personal gains. All this whilst you were in control! I suggest you wake up and consider the fact that possible events calling for criminal negligence with Sepp Blatter in the next indictment has not been ruled out yet! As for the statement “arrests were timed to interfere with Zurich congress” could be regarded as misdirection, when you send in the ferrets, you send them into the hole when all the rabbits are together!

Let’s re-attach the original indictment: fifa-indictment-webb-etal

Then we see the comment: “The FIFA president condemned comments made by US officials including the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who said corruption in football was “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted, both abroad and here in the United States”” Is that the fact Mr Blatter? The indictment specifies 13 criminal schemes, so if you want to condemn anything, it should be your choice of organisation and your inability to prevent any of this. The articles have not even looked at the implications on the overturned appeal to release Michael Garcia’s original full report. Consider the votes who blocked this and the people who are now indicted for corruption. How many influence was there?

Consider the appeal response by FIFA (at FIFA.com) “The FIFA Appeal Committee, chaired by Larry Mussenden, has concluded that the appeal lodged by the chairman of the investigatory chamber, Michael J. Garcia, against the statement of the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, Hans-Joachim Eckert, is not admissible“, the people want to know what actually was found. So, in all this, with this much money involved the three top dogs: Larry Mussenden, Hans-Joachim Eckert and Sepp Blatter. They are all in awe and shock that there was corruption? I mentioned it yesterday Andrew Jennings with ‘The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup’, consider that this was 2006, we get two parts “A few days later we encountered Warner at Trinidad’s international airport and tried again to ask him about his ticket rackets and the fact that he steers lucrative FIFA contracts to his two sons Daryll and Daryan. After the World Cup Andrew obtained two confidential Ernst & Young reports from FIFA sources revealing that Warner had illicitly obtained 5,400 ticket for Germany and sold them to package tour companies in Japan, Mexico and Britain” as well as “FIFA vice president Jack Warner makes threatening gestures to Andrew’s cameraman“. Now we see that the sons have been arrested, Jack Warner proclaims his innocence and now we see reports that in the statements from the sons that their father is mentioned as being involved.

I think that Mr Blatter needs to take a long hard look at his own indignation and consider what he will do next, because his legacy has been burned down, it happened on his watch. In my view he has no one to blame but himself. Not because this unfolds now, but because there has been a decade of clear indications that things were amiss and no corrective steps had been made (as far as I can tell).

So when we see the Guardian part where we see the Defence of Blatter, which is shown at “But Blatter also appeared to discount his own responsibility for the scandal. “We can’t constantly supervise everyone in football,” he insisted. “You can’t just ask people to behave ethically just like that.”“, is that so? So, when we see the events from 2006 onwards, what did you do Mr Blatter?

Now, before people start overreacting, or trivialising on how large FIFA is, let’s not forget that amongst the arrested people were Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo, both Vice Presidents of FIFA, so the list takes us to one step from the very top, which gives additional weight to both the inactions from Sep Blatter as well as the overturned appeal from Michael Garcia. Not to mention the fear they NOW have as they are fighting extradition, it does not matter what rank you have in FIFA, once you are a member of the State Penal League, those ‘rich’ boys will end up becoming somebodies bitch, how will that feel?

A side fact to mention is that I talked to dozens of people today regarding the FIFA corruption, not one person, I say again, not one person was surprised. So Mr Blatter, how truly undignified can you be, when there is almost a decade of presented evidence, as well as the press coverage over the years. It seems that in my humble view, Mr. Blatter should currently be presented with an Oscar for best theatrics, 2015!

Now let’s take a look at the part that matters, not just the press, not the ‘opinions’ from people (or from me for that matter), let’s look at the allegations in the indictment.

The enterprise is set as FIFA. It only has a written Code of Ethics in October 2004, revised in 2006 and 2009, it states that ‘that soccer officials were prohibited from accepting bribes or cash gifts and from otherwise abusing their positions for personal gain‘. On page 32 we see: ‘The Initial Corruption of the Enterprise’, here we see “WARNER worked closely thereafter with Co-Conspirator #1, whose fortunes rose with WARNER’s and who was appointed to be WARNER’s general secretary at CONCACAF. Following his appointment, Co-Conspirator #1 transferred CONCACAF’s administrative headquarters to New York, New York. WARNER established the president’s office in his home country of Trinidad and Tobago“, in addition we see “the defendant JACK WARNER established and controlled numerous bank accounts and corporate entities in which he mingled his personal assets and those of CONCACAF, CFU, and TTFF. Beginning in the early 1990s, WARNER, often with the assistance of Co-Conspirator #1, began to leverage his influence and exploit his official positions for personal gain. Among other things, WARNER began to solicit and accept bribes in connection with his official duties, including the selection of the host nation for the World Cups held in 1998 and 2010, which he participated in as a member of the FIFA executive committee“. Even though we can all understand that these people are making a nice amount of coinage. The growth in real estate by ‘family members‘ should have spurted questions on a few levels. the fact that the indictment states “with money drawn from an account held in the name of a soccer facility that was ostensibly affiliated with CONCACAF and was supported in part through FAP funds” gives voice to additional questions on how the books were kept, who was keeping the books and how can a FIFA president remain ignorant of these situations as they are now being documented?

I keep on going back to the work of Andrew Jennings ‘The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup’. You see, Jennings is an investigative reporter, he worked for the Sunday Times and BBC Radio 4. He is not some glossy wannabe on the Telegraph or on any Murdoch shouting-wannabe-outrageous press view. This man did a decent job, looked at the issues and this all is reasonably nothing compared to ‘FIFA’s Dirty Secrets’ (November 2010). These are several clear-cut allegations that should have been points of action into investigation and adaption of rules and regulations within FIFA, yet all indications are that nothing was done, which makes the position of Sep Blatter a lot more worrying. Now we get to the one defence Blatter gave that does make sense “At the end of my term I will be able to hand over a strong FIFA – one that is integrated and will have enough safeguards to not need political interventions” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32925227). In my view, the only way to do this is to be open and strict investigative. So, that did not include, or should it have allowed for the statement “the way US authorities targeted football’s world body and slammed what he called a “hate” campaign by Europe’s football leaders“.

In my view Sep Blatter is off to a negatively rocky start.

Additional evidence for questions on how finances are managed. Even FIFA.com is massively unclear on all of it. It that not strange for a multi-billion dollar industry? The fact that there is one president and then there are committee members, no clear CFO, of head of Finances, at least not clearly stated on their website. That does not raise any questions? Something this widespread should have a clear list of names and functions, especially financial ones. So when you see the Governance part of FIFA and we see “According to article 69, paragraph 2 of the FIFA Statutes, FIFA’s revenue and expenditure “shall be managed so that they balance out over the financial period”. Furthermore, “FIFA’s major duties in the future shall be guaranteed through the creation of reserves”“, when we see that line and we should all wonder on how some of these operations are in play. Consider the representation (at http://www.martingrandjean.ch/data-visualization-the-fifa-budget-2015-2018/), I cannot attest to the accuracy of it all, but it shows something interesting. With 5 billion coming in and when we look at the massive amounts of projects in funds going out, whilst leaving 100 million in profit, now consider posts like ‘competitive management‘, ‘Football governance‘, ‘Human resources‘ so many involved projects, linked people and other elements, can we now see that Sep Blatter should have acted in many regards a lot sooner, especially when we see the allegations thrown at the members of governance of FIFA?

This graph might be debatable for the amounts, but what is clearly shown are the amount of venues linked in all this and I feel decently certain, that considering where the 500,000 dollar from the Football Federation Australia went. If that went to ‘a stadium upgrade in Trinidad and Tobago’, if so, where is the accounting? Apart from the payment calling in to all kinds of questions, there are logistic issues. Something this big, this complex requires accountants and oversight. Can anyone explain why we see a second Tesco evolve? If you think that this is an exaggeration, then consider the data visualisation and all those projects costing millions, some totalling hundreds of millions out of a cash flow of 5 billion. You still think I am exaggerating?

When you look at these ‘facts’, I state facts loosely, because the source and quality of the data visualisation cannot be validated/verified (even though the source ‘FIFA Financial Report 2013’ is mentioned). But overall it shows several paths and many of them are known entities, so when we ignore the amount except for the two elements adding to 5 billion, which are publicly known. Can you even imagine how weird and unacceptable the ignorance of Sep Blatter is, how totally out of place of is for a president of an organisation the size of FIFA?

I let you decide, but consider the stories we see, the information we are not seeing and how the FBI was the one acting at present. In addition, as I requoted the 500,000, which was according to sources for a ‘stadium upgrade in 2010’. The information I found was that it was to upgrade the Marvin Lee Stadium. In 2007, the Stadium became the first in the Caribbean to have an artificial playing surface, costing TT$8 million, which was made possible through a FIFA development grant. This comes to AU$ 1.6 million, or £824,000. So where did the 2.4 million TT$ go to in 2010? And why did a stadium needed that much for an upgrade? Interesting on http://stadiumdb.com/stadiums/tri/marvin_lee_stadium is the fact that we see there that renovations were made in 2007, there is no mention of the 2010 upgrade as was stated. I am certain that some upgrades were made, but for how much? In addition we see all the artificial turf, but who costs it and is it competitively costed (especially when it sets someone 1.6 million back)? I do not know the answer, I am asking, I wonder who else if any are asking these questions in plight of the corruption allegations as well as the arrests made.

There is one final part. It puzzles me, hence I mention it. Especially in light of what is now visibly passing. The indictment, criminal counts three and four involve two wire transfers totalling 13 million in name of CONMEBOL at Banco do Brasil in Asunción, Paraguay. In light of the financial hardship Paraguay has had, with the crises of 1995, reforms demanded by the IMF due to corruption, with the banks having a long time history of laundering. Why would FIFA act in such a naive way? It is a fact that the HQ of CONMEBOL is in Paraguay, so there is a valid reason for the transfer, In 2013 Chile had one of the 50 safest banks, and Paraguay does not get mentioned on that list at all. Even if we accept the validity of the bank transfer (which seems to be the case), but what happened to the money after that? You see, that becomes the question. In addition, we see that apart from the Australian ‘donation’ counts 10 and 11 where additional donations went to the CFU Trinidad. Again, it seems valid, but what happened after that? The indictment is now 11 days old. Any quality CFO could have gone public stating where the money had gone to, in effect blowing the entire indictment out of the water. The fact that we see that certain FIFA members are fighting the extradition, in addition to the fact that conference and election or not, clarity on several points could have been able to give (read: should) in matters of hours give added question to what is going on.

My issue is not the ‘what next’ part, it is the ‘what did they not yet find’ part.

You see the indictments are on the transfers and payments, in the first degree. we see over time that CFU got two payments of a little over half a million, which should not be a blip on a 5 billion dollar radar, but for the indictment, it is, so what information is not shown at present (the trial will bring that out)? You see, are counts 10 and 11 a clear indication that they have certain evidence, or are these counts the crowbar to open up other issues, issues that could come up in ‘operational expenses and services‘ which the data visualisation sets at 990 million. I reckon that true digging into ‘building and maintenance’, ‘human resources’, ‘other’ and one element not even named could be the field where the FBI knows the issues are, the question now, does FIFA have a correct and precise account, if not, why not? If so then the comparison will leave a few highlighted fish, which will put Jeffrey Web in an uncertain location. The CFU will get into other waters as well as this is all British terrain (artificially grassed or not), the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will soon get additional work, because they will now have their own investigation as well and as I see it, it will go a lot further than just a few banks.

FIFA might be all about the ball, but it seems that Sep Blatter has not been on it, not for a while now.

 

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May 29, 2015 · 23:09

Condoning corruption!

There is no escaping the news, FIFA is currently getting smeared all over the place, but before we start painting the roses red, the question we must ask is who are we trying to appease?

Our own sense of morality perhaps?

My first writing on all this started on March 19th 2014 in ‘Any sport implies corruption!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/03/19/any-sport-implies-corruption/), There I looked at the first allegations against Qatar. The evidence presented was highly debatable. It took me to a response Lord Denning gave in the trial Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372. The statement was “more probable than not”. In the end, I had reservations on whether Qatar was guilty of bribes. I finalised my view with “it is more likely than not that three people were falsely set in an illegal light so that several unnamed persons could walk away with many hundreds of millions of Euros“. My view was apparently a lot more optimistic!

Now we get to the news of the last few days.

On May 27th FIFA officials get arrested on corruption charges. (06:00)
On May 27th Criminal investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards opened (09:30)
On May 27th FIFA presidential election to go ahead, no 2018 and 2022 World Cup revotes (10:30) (source: http://www.espnfc.com.au/)

At 14:30 4 members, Chuck Blazer, Jose Hawilla, Daryan Warner and Daryll Warner plead guilty. So, even as daddy Warner proclaims his innocence, it seems that he was able to instil values of corruption in his boys. However just now in the Wall Street Journal (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-men-with-ties-to-former-fifa-official-aided-probe-1432859617) gives us the quote “businessmen who have been involved in ventures…including ventures involving their father”, which gives way to daddy Warner being in water a lot warmer than he might find comfortable.  But in all this, the disturbing part is not the fact that FIFA seems to be corrupt through and through, it is odd in my view that this has been going on under the watchful eye of police forces all over Europe, as well as Interpol. These events were all brought to light by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (of FBI for short). Is that not puzzling? I was not the only one thinking this. A similar thought came from Chris Bryant MP (at http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-32925653)

When we consider certain facts.

From USA Today we get “Blazer was a member of the FIFA Executive Committee from 1996 to 2013, when he was replaced by Sunil Gulati. That same year Blazer was accused of taking over $15 million in payments from FIFA over the course of his tenure and was suspended“, so now suddenly he is regarded as a ‘Report: Former FIFA executive-turned-informant‘ and he had a $6000 apartment for his cats! So, basically he had a pussy place for that cash? Yet the part that is linked here is “CONCACAF’s offices took up the entire 17th floor, but Blazer often worked from two apartments where he lived on the 49th floor“. It seems to me that there is a lot more going on here. Is it perhaps (mere speculation) that certain meetings were to be taken in a deniable setting? More important, I get it that the FBI caught on, but why did the Police forces all over Europe remain blind to all this? In addition, this also brings the entire Michael Garcia debacle again into focus. The fact that this level of corruption had been going on, and as far as we can tell, it happened under the nose of Michael Garcia. When we consider he had been digging into the entire corruption issues for both 2018 and 2022, it seems odd that no flags were raised when we consider the lavish lifestyle of some members. The fact that his appeal to publish the entire document he worked on was overthrown, now these people will get to explain a lot as the corruption scandal spins out of control and anyone now trying to withhold information could end up painted black by the ‘corruption brush’!

It is Attorney General Loretta Lynch who says it best: “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks”, so over two generations, decades in activities and the President Sep Blatter remains blind to it all? I am not stating whether he was involved, that is up to the FBI and they did not find anything, the fact that he should have been aware something was wrong is ample evidence that Sep Blatter is nowhere near fit to preside over FIFA. Not when something like this goes on for decades under his presidency.

If we accept the view from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/fifa-expose-british-press-andrew-jennings-sunday-times-corruption-fa), where we see: “Andrew Jennings, 71, who has traced Sepp Blatter’s footsteps for more than a decade. Jennings worked for the Sunday Times and BBC’s Panorama. His BBC film about FIFA corruption, The Beautiful Bung, appeared as long ago as 2006“, so as we consider these facts and the fact that this happened, for a large extent under the eyes of Sep Blatter, as we see that he had made no moves since the 2006 film, which should have been an eye opener for him, Scotland Yard and Interpol, but it was the FBI in 2015 who got it done!

Is there no blame? With this level of negligence? I hardly think that is the case and as I see the presidency of Sep Blatter should be cut immediately. In addition, if FIFA wants to regain any level of credibility, it has in my view, no other option but to publish the full report by Michael Garcia. You see, what is in there will be revealing, but I feel certain that what is not in there might be worth even more. Because all this happened, because certain steps were not done and even the tail coat of Michael Garcia is very likely to get smudged. Now let me be clear, I do not believe that Michael Garcia did anything wrong, yet as he started his role in July 2012, he must have had a few thoughts on how he can remain so isolated from the entire pack, as it was devouring the better part of 150 million. Red flags should have been raised in the corner of his eyes, but that might be just me speculating!

The other part hit me when I read the article “Chuck Blazer: FIFA ‘supergrass’” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/32913599), when we consider the quote “it was at this time that Blazer signed a contract with Concacaf that entitled him to 10% commissions on all sponsorship and TV rights deals through his company Sportvertising, giving rise to his nickname of ‘Mr Ten Percent’“, so he gets 10% and still he gets on the Trans Corruption Express? In 2011 he gets the option to become the inside man, the informer. It seems to me that this person has been given a way to lavish life, with 2 repayments. The first one of 1.9 million and another one still to come. I reckon his attorney will use the ‘colon cancer card’ for maximum effect.

I reckon, the FBI did in light of the inaction by so many others, a great job!

The question on everyone’s mind will be regarding the future of FIFA, because without a complete overhaul and without a complete rewriting of the rules, there is every chance that FIFA might not be tolerated any further. There is one more matter, which was set at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/28/australian-police-asked-to-investigate-500000-payment-to-fifas-jack-warner. Here we see ‘Australian police asked to investigate $500,000 payment to FIFA’s Jack Warner‘. So this is another ball game. My question is in the first degree, what was the payment for? Was there a receipt? The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting part: “The $500,000 payment by the FFA to a football association bank account controlled by Warner – a payment ostensibly made to redevelop a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago“, so why was the Football Federation Australia paying to redevelop a stadium there? The second quote “The FFA on Thursday defended its failure to report the matter to Australian or US police on the basis that FIFA – the organisation now at the centre of an international corruption storm – asked them not to” is even further troubling. Basically, FIFA officials seem to get away with it, the moment the word ‘FIFA’ and ‘request’ are mentioned together, the simple application of Common Sense went straight out of the window.

Even though there will be no resetting of 2018 and 2022, issues still need to be addressed. There is now an additional side to all this. Editors seem to forget at times what they do, but let me remind you regarding the article I wrote on November 14th 2014 called ‘Sacking the editor?‘, in there Martin Ivens is quoted by Reuters: “Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported that some of the “millions of documents” it had seen linked payments by former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam to officials to win backing for Qatar’s World Cup bid”, is that not interesting? So, did the police act on any of that? Is it perhaps possible that the allegations from a newspaper actually hindered a criminal investigation? It is hard to say as the direct facts are murky (and my view on UK Criminal law is murky too), but it all gives way to a hidden stream of events under the FIFA tsunami that is now hitting the press. Has the press shouted ‘wolf’ so often that certain officials stopped acting? That is the direct question here, because the indignation that Chris Bryant MP voiced (Labour) is very real. Why did the FBI solve that what should have been squarely in the corner of Scotland Yard and Interpol. Andrew Jennings is only one of many sources that seem to have been ignored by many people and players on numerous levels.

So, are we condoning corruption? Before you say ‘no’ consider how long this issue was unattended and the fact that the FIFA president, who remained oblivious to the entire matter is at this point likely to be re-elected calls for even more questions. The last part was released half an hour ago. We must give option to refer to the Serious Fraud Office with some laughter as it is now assessing the ‘materials’ which give voice to the fact that Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank were used to transfer cash. Didn’t we see two of those banks in other ‘issues’ involving cash?

Is anyone else finally waking up?

The Original Indictment: fifa-indictment-webb-etal

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May 25, 2015 · 00:03

Dark side of the moon

The Guardian ended up with an interesting article on Friday. The title ‘Malware is not only about viruses – companies preinstall it all the time‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/22/malware-viruses-companies-preinstall), it is a good article and Richard Stallman is a great man, but there are parts in this article that I have an issue with. Mind you, the man is not telling stories or lying, but he is showing one side of the coin. He is also reinforcing other sides to the software industry that are a definite issue.

The first part is a part I am completely in agreement with “In 1983, the software field had become dominated by proprietary (i.e. non-free) programs, and users were forbidden to change or redistribute them“, a side which I do not oppose. In addition there is “But proprietary developers in the 1980s still had some ethical standards: they sincerely tried to make programs serve their users, even while denying users control over how they would be served“, I have a partial issue with the last bit ‘denying users control over how they would be served‘. I disagree for two reasons.

The first is based on resources. In those days, an IBM PC was a massive behemoth, it had 256Kb memory and if you were really really rich, you also had a 10Mb hard drive. So, yes, the expensive personal computer had less resources then the cheapest $39 Non-smart Nokia phone. Go figure! By the way, that 10Mb hard drive was priced at $1499 in those days. So, user control was an issue, because resources did not allow for them, but soon thereafter, the 512Kb PC was released and there was so much we could do then! No sarcasm here, it was true! In those days I learned and mastered Lotus Symphony an excellent program! This was also a time when we started to get some choices in control, control remained limited, but some control was gained.

Next we see the first part that is an issue, even though he makes a nice point on End User License Agreements. I would like to add the Terms of service as a clear point here, but overall there is a part that is too coloured. The quote “So many cases of proprietary malware have been reported, that we must consider any proprietary program suspect and dangerous. In the 21st century, proprietary software is computing for suckers“.

I cannot completely disagree that Microsoft soured the market by a lot, it has done so in several directions, yet Corporate Earth is at times too stupid to consider growing a brain, which is also part of the problem. It is an element that is shown all over the place. The Netherlands, Sweden, UK, France, Germany, Denmark and even Australia (I worked in all those countries). Instead of sitting down and considering a switch to LINUX with open office, the IT and other elements are just too lazy and too under resourced to push for a change, so the users are no longer people, they are for the most mere meek sheep following the ‘corporate standard‘, which means that they too use windows and Office.

Another direction is the hardware world. Windows comes preinstalled, more important, Windows and Microsoft have been a driving force, forcing people to buy stronger and more expensive computers. Even though many users have not needed any need for more powerful and stronger hardware, Windows forced them to upgrade again and again. Anyone not into gaming and using their computer merely for office activities and browsing mail on the internet should not have needed to upgrade their computer for the better part of 10 years, but that is not the reality, go to any computer shop for windows hardware and we see how the ‘old’ ASUS, ACER, Lenovo, HP or Toshiba no longer hacks it. Which is actually weird, because if you reinstall your old laptop with LINUX and Apache Open Office there is a high chance that you will work in 90% of the time just as fast as with that new $2000 laptop on Windows 7. Setback? You have to install and configure it yourself. Upside? LINUX and Open Office are both free software, no costs and no fees!

Is it not interesting how companies are not jumping on that free horse? Why is that you think? In addition, with all the needs for government costs to go down, why are they not more pro-active to push for a shift towards LINUX? Is it security? This is also odd, because with the massive amount of non-stop security patches, Windows is not that secure to begin with.

So where do I disagree? Well the first clear quote is “Some are designed to shackle users, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM)“, I believe that if a firm makes software, it has every right to prevent illegal use, for a long time, how many people do you know that have a LEGAL version of Adobe? Even when the stars are in your favour. In many Universities, Adobe offers the entire master collection (all their software) for $400, which is an amazing deal! I got my legal versions of both Windows 7 and Microsoft Office Ultimate for an additional $199. Why not buy it? No many just find a download place and get the software for free, in addition you can get the codes. It goes even further that I stumbled on a place in Germany some years ago where they were offering the OEM stickers for PC complete with license key for 20 Mark. I could not tell the difference from the original sticker in the software box I had bought. Do you think that DRM would have been such a push if people just bought their software? I will take it one step further, I feel certain that if every person was charged $275 a year, we all would have the complete Adobe, Windows and Office programs free to download, with no need to illegally copy anything.

But there is still that other side. You see, I still believe that Microsoft and hardware providers have been forcing a technological armistice race upon the consumers, which now adds up to us all wasting resources on iterative junk we should not need. So even though I do not completely agree with Richard Stallman here, he does have a point.

Now we get to an issue that I actually faced without knowing it “Even Android contains malware in a non-free component: a back door for remote forcible installation or deinstallation of any app“, you see, I thought I was bonkers (which I actually are) but for some reason one of my apps had suddenly be removed and not by me. It was not something I needed. I had just downloaded it from Google play out of curiosity, but suddenly it was gone! In addition, on more than one occasion it just decided to update my apps, without my permission. When you have bandwidth issues, seeing a force upgrade which could cost you is not that nice a moment.

Yet, for the most, I remain a loyal fan towards Android, even though at times programs use background resources for reasons unknown, or are they unknown?

We get the next part from the quote “Even humble flashlight apps for phones were found to be reporting data to companies. A recent study found that QR code scanner apps also snoop“, there is a lot more at http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/ejsmith/scan.this.or.scan.me.2015.pdf; now we have ourselves a massive issue, although the paper shows that there is a prompt for GPS and the sending of GPS, none of them has the situation where they do not prompt for GPS and still send it. Eric Smith and Dr Nina A. Kollars who wrote the paper give us another consideration on page 8. There we see “Moreover, contemporary privacy norms are increasingly threatened as what initially appears to be signals of consumer preference slide further into determining bigger-picture life patterns and behavior. The term most commonly used to address this creeping phenomenon is the literature on consumer panopticism“, which now refers to ‘Gandy, Oscar H. The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information‘. Before getting the book (which is worth the purchase), you might want to take a look at a paper by Adam Arvidsson, from the Department of Film and Media Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (at http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(4)/prehistory.pdf), you see, my partial issue with the article by Richard Stallman becomes slowly visible now. He is right in his view and his vision as he sees this, but you the user did this to yourself! You think that Facebook is ‘free’, that these apps are there merely for amusement (some actually are), their goal is income! Some work the Freemium game market, where games like ‘Book of Heroes‘ gives you a free game, but if you want to grow faster and better in the game, you will have to invest. For the most, these games will rely on the investment from $10-$25 to truly open up, which is, if you consider the amount of hours played still great value. Freemium games also come with that ‘try before you buy’ approach, as you can play the game, but to enjoy it, to get more moves and more joy a few dollars will be essential. The other part that relies on ‘captured data’ did they inform you? If not, there is an issue, but the app programmer will get his pound of flesh, either by cash of by data!

Yet the other side is also true, you see, as Richard mentions and as Adam Arvidsson report on, there are places like Red Sheriff, that rely on hidden script, which is more advanced/intrusive as it keeps track of ALL your online movements. You get this script as a ‘present’ when you visit one of its affiliated sites. Did you the internet user sign up for that? When we see the reference on who pushes this. We see “since most major commercial sites use Redsheriff“, which means that nearly all will somehow be tracked. I for one do not really care that much, but I never signed up for any of it, so should we see this as an invasion to our privacy?

This is where we see that freeware is almost never free.

Yet Richard also alerts us to another state of freedom, or lack thereof! In the quote “If the car itself does not report everywhere you drive, an insurance company may charge you extra to go without a separate tracker“. Can anyone explain to me why it is ANY business of the insurer where we are?

In the end, Richard states three parts, which are fair enough, but overall the issue is missed. The issues reported are:

“Individually, by rejecting proprietary software and web services that snoop or track“, here I do not completely agree! I used Adobe as an example for a reason, there is simply no viable alternative, it only became worse when Macromedia bought Adobe (I know it is the other way round, but I will remain a faithful Macromedia fan until the day I die!), there is in addition, no tracking done by Adobe, other than keeping track whether you have a valid license, which I never opposed.

“Collectively, by organising to develop free/libre replacement systems and web services that don’t track who uses them“, which I whole heartedly agree with, I am even willing to devote time to this worthy cause (not sure how I could ever size up to the hundreds of Richard Stallman’s, but I am willing to give it a go!

And last there is “Democratically, by legislation to criminalise various sorts of malware practices. This presupposes democracy, and democracy requires defeating treaties such as the TPP and TTIP that give companies the power to suppress democracy“, this is the big one. The political branches all over Europe and the Commonwealth have sold us short and have not done anything to properly enforce the rights to privacy. In addition, Google and Apple remains in a state of non-clarity on what data these apps capture and what they convey. In that regard Facebook is equally guilty. Facebook goes further that it does not even proper police those who claim to give a free app, only to no longer work, but when you went to the install the data is as I see it already captured by the app provider, which gives wonder to where that data went.

In regards to suppressing democracy, which is perhaps partially overstated, there is an issue with the TPP that seems to empower large corporations and nullify the protection to smaller innovators and even governments as the TTP wants to enforce “where foreign firms can ‘sue’ states and obtain taxpayer compensation for ‘expected future profits’”, how long until we get an invoice for overinflated ego’s? Especially from those people in the entertainment industry claiming the loss of so many billions in an era when the bulk of the population can hardly pay their rent!

I regard Graham Burke of Village Roadshow to be one of the greater jokes this era has brought forth. Consider who he is supposed to ‘protect’, he goes on regarding “‘crazies’ whose hidden agenda is the ‘theft of movies’“, which is not that far-fetched a statement, because movies will be downloaded and not bought, it happens, yet not to the degree Graham Burke claims it is! So we get him soon enough to claim billions from losses due to the massive download of ‘the LEGO movie’ perhaps? Yet in the public forum on copyright infringement, we did not hear him utter a word on bandwidth, perhaps the response from Telstra’s Jane Van Beelen would likely have been a little too uncomfortable Mr Burke?

You see, in my view it is less about the democracy as Richard Stallman sees it. The legal protection seems to be massively delayed as bandwidth is income, and when piracy is truly stopped bandwidth will simmer down. If we accept the word of Village Roadshow with global revenue of 13 billion since 1997. Yet, I wrote about movie piracy in ‘The real issue here!‘ on June 17th 2014 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/06/17/the-real-issue-here/), in the calculation, which I kept very conservative, Telstra could lose up to 320 million a month in revenue, due to diminished bandwidth, which gets us 4 billion a year. Consider that Village Roadshow is global, which means that Australian revenue is a mere fraction of that, how soon until they see that Village roadshow might only get 5-10 million a year more, against the 320 million a month loss for Telstra? So Mr. Burke is not regarded as a serious party as I see it (yet he is not an invalid party), Telstra would have too much to lose, not to mention the loss Optus and iiNet could face. However, if the TPP changes that with ‘expected future profits’, whilst there is absolutely no quality data to prove that the loss is nothing more than there ego’s talking.

There is the crunch that politicians are too afraid to touch!

Yet, in light of many factors, legal protection (including protection for Village Roadshow) is essential, yet the large corporations seem to hold the game to the need of their bottom dollar, which is the dollar, not democracy or decent rights. If it were decent rights than telecom companies would properly monitor abuse of digital rights, because the movie is for Village Roadshow to sell, or to stream for a fee via Netflix. I do not deny this at all, I just oppose the outlandish income some of them claim that they ‘lost’!

So on the dark side of the moon we see that (actually we do not see any of that) things are not right. I do not completely adhere to the idealist view that Richard Stallman validly has (we are all entitled to our views), but he touches on several parts that definitely need change and until we see a governmental push away from Microsoft solutions, we will see that the government will spend loads of money on never-ending updates to hardware and software. We all agree that such a change is not easily made, but in light of the cost of living, the fact that nearly no one makes that change is equally worrisome.

When we stare up to the sky we always see the same side of the moon, the dark side is wild, and is covered with impact craters, impacts we never see. It is a lot more reminiscent of the chaotic wild life of malware, a side that is constantly lacking the exposure it should have, mainly because it affects the bottom dollar.

 

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May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

  1. Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
  2. Who kept check on the expenses?
  3. If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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May 22, 2015 · 10:26

Is it all Greek to you?

Greece keeps on tracking the news in several UK papers and newscasts. Greece is big news in a few regards, but I will not go into that too deep. What should be known in this premise is that I still believe that Greece for the larger extent is playing a game, the fact that Greece is playing this game is because (as I agree), the downfall of Greece could topple Italy and France to a serious extent, which will hurt the United Kingdom to more than a minor extent (it would have been massively worse if the UK had the Euro) and it will debunk the premise of a united Europe in several ways.

Now let’s take a look at the news:

BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32790726) ‘Greek debt deal within next week, says Varoufakis‘, stated on May 19th, this gives us the oral deadline of no later than May 29th.

I, the Lawlordtobe.com (that’s me) stated on May 6th in the article ‘What’s the matter?‘ “You see, there we see May 1st an IMF interest loan payment (now due May 6th) and May 12th we see the part that 760 million is due. The part that was unknown to me is also the part that is not loudly voiced to EEC nations, because this knowledge will influence the voters (as I personally see it). You see, the missing part that is not voiced in many sources is the small fact that two T-bill batches mature, the first one on May 8th and the second one on May 15th, each worth 1.4 billion“.

Now we know that the May 6th payment was done, but the May 12th payment could NOT be made, for this Greece used its own IMF emergency funds, this means that this is now due 30 days after May 12th. In addition, the amounts due in June is 1.5 billion initially towards the IMF, yet because the May payment was not made, that debt is raised by 50% and Now we see that 2.3 billion will be due before June 30th. In addition 5.2 billion in T-bills will mature, so how is that going to get paid for?

Alas, this is not all, even though payments are not due, the Greek debt ceiling has been raised (again) now giving to total debt ceiling at 80 billion, when we add the outstanding debt, this nation with 11 million people will be down almost half a trillion dollars! Now one fact that many are ignoring, this all amounts to an annual interest that is close to 22.5 billion a year, Greece cannot even raise 5% of that at present!

Let’s get back to the news!

The financial review gave us this news on May 19th (at http://www.afr.com/news/world/greece-wants-europes-bailout-fund-to-pay-maturing-bonds-20150518-gh4ljr), the headline ‘Greece wants Europe’s bailout fund to pay maturing bonds‘ gives you the rising nightmare that I was pushing towards for some time now! The quote “Greece has proposed to its international lenders that Europe’s bailout fund pay back maturing Greek government bonds held by the European Central Bank as a way to overcome a funding crunch, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Monday“. It feels a little like going to that nice place in Amsterdam (with all those red lights), then after you had your fun, you ask the girl if she would be so kind enough to ask Mr.  Eberhard van der Laan to front the bill (the current Mayor of Amsterdam). What do you think is going to happen next? Including May, through to August a total of 11 billion in Bonds will mature. So, how is this a good idea?

Syriza has, since it came to power, only made things worse for Greece. The Greek people might think that they are protected, yet as I see it, the only thing they achieved is to alienate its creditors, leaving them with no alternatives, for now let’s get back to the news!

Less than 20 minutes ago (whilst writing the draft), the Guardian got wind of a possible extension of 4 months (source: Helena Smith, the Guardian), which is likely today’s topic between Angela Merkel and Alexis Tsipras. Which now gives us more worry, because EVERY delay and every inaction from Syriza gives less and less chances for Greece. Yet from Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-eurozone-greece-schaeuble-idUSKBN0O61C220150521), we learn that there is no happy expectations at present. The quote “But Schäuble poured cold water on this idea, saying reports from the international institutions involved in negotiations with Athens suggested talks were progressing ‘very hesitantly’. ‘What I know from discussions with the three institutions does not back up the optimism arising from announcements from Athens,’ Schäuble said in an interview published on Thursday“, whether the latest news is more accurate is harder to see, because the ‘earlier’ news from the BBC amongst others see a game played where Varoufakis and Tsipras are in ‘managing bad news mode’ and overly optimistic, an approach already rejected by more than one participant and as I showed, the amounts due means that my prediction on May 6th (in the article What’s the matter? at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/06/whats-the-matter/), where I stated “Why do I feel that I am the only one seeing this, or at least the only one clearly voicing this, because the UK elections, when the voters learn that Greece is about to desire up to 30 billion before the end of the year, so that it can pay the outstanding bills“.

Now we see that Greece is hoping on an 11 billion bonds bailout, a bailout deal of 7.2 billion and an additional bailout is already a certainty, the amount at present is however not stated (possibly unknown to the involved players) and up to August we see the need for 6.7 billion in payments to the ECB. In addition there would be interest payments too. My prediction of the needed 30 billion has been surpassed, yet no one else made clear mention of these required funds, especially the UK papers, as this would have opened the floodgates towards UKIP. How informed was the British voter allowed to be?

Back to the news!

When we consider the extension, we also see first voices. Now let’s take a clear look at what the European public is being offered and the shear insanity of it.

  1. “experts are saying after four months of seemingly stalled negotiations the gap-stop solution makes eminent sense – not least because it gives the leftist-led government enough time to either hold a referendum or call fresh elections, polls that the governing Syriza party would almost certainly win hands down”.
    a. How will new elections solve anything?
    b. Is Syriza wins again, then how will progress ever be made?
    c. Setting up an election takes months, which means that in 4 months no achievement will be made, whilst the internal costs of new elections will be added to the debt.
  2. “Both scenarios would allow Tsipras to deal with militants in his party and move to the centre stage offering clarity to a political landscape blighted by Syriza’s two seemingly incompatible aims: to ensure Greece stays in the euro zone while at the same time eradicating austerity”.
    a. Is it possible that the militants Syriza were never the problem to begin with?
    b. Staying in the Eurozone and eradicating austerity is as I see it a mathematical (and statistical) impossibility. It is only possible if all debts are forgiven, which should never be an allowed option!
    c. Is it even possible to offer clarity to the current political landscape? The political landscape includes the people behind the banks and the bonds, which makes for very murky waters at best.
  3. “This scenario makes sense because it would provide sufficient time for Greece to hold a referendum or election both of which would ease Syriza’s position,” said Kevin Featherstone, who heads the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics, which basically reiterates the issues in point 1.

I cannot oppose Kevin Fatherstone academically as he is a professor and that title is not given out with boxes of Weetabix, but my logical insight in data opposes his view and a few others on intense levels. I have nothing against Greece and even less against the people of Greece, but why should we not hold politicians both present and past responsible and accountable for their acts? The current financial dilemma Greece faces should call for public scrutiny of what was done, which includes openly naming and shaming those who did this to the Greek people and in that regard, let’s all stop blaming ‘Ze Germans’!

But this view would not be complete without the two theatre plays that are also linked to this.

In one house we see Grexit, a Greek production with Director Tsipras and the supporting soundtrack by Varoufakis. You see, the emotional bytes from a Greek paramedic stating “We don’t have enough money to help people – we don’t have enough ambulances” is less than an appetizer, it is not even close to interesting, the issue is, how will the retired people of Greece buy water and bread? When the cash runs out, when people do not get paid and supermarkets cannot get paid, that will show the nightmare Greece is heading to in a very straight line, one that active non-posturing could have prevented in February 2015, Antonis Samaras was on that path, it was a painful path, no one will deny that, but the alternative we see now is about to get a lot harder and many times less humane! At http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32332221 we see the bills due, most of it was a known part, now add to that the public sector wages of 2.2 billion. There is only one part that could offend me. The quote “For some economists, potentially the best option would be for Greece to pursue a ‘managed default’” is the one I cannot find peace with, you see, managed default means that it is a staged setting of non-payments. Yet in those situations, the banks, the causers of grief will get paid, the retirees are very likely to end with nothing, or perhaps a mere two drachma on the Euro deal. Now, I could be COMPLETELY wrong here. I do not know how a managed default would pan out, but in my view, the ‘for Greece‘ is not the same as ‘for the Greek people‘, the second one should take precedence no matter what, but that might just be me.

In the other house we see the upcoming production of Brexit, a split Farage/Cameron production in different halls. The production is in turmoil, because duo ‘Fat Cat’ and ‘Bully’ are taking notice of this production and they do not like either play. The newspapers have been mentioning these issues. Latest noise comes from Paul Kahn, the Airbus UK chief “the company would reconsider its position in the country if Britain left the EU“. Why, is my question at that point? These industrial settings were a reality before the Euro and as such, they should remain a reality after Brexit. Several banks (like HSBC) and other firms made similar noise, many of them reliant on people who would lose fortunes when the Euro debts would strangle the nations as the larger players try to remains relatively safe from the Greek collapsing fallout. I question (to some extent) the actual issues that are at play when a Brexit would follow. In my view, the strict regulation of Greece and its debts would have diminished that risk. The fact that the Status Quo game was played so long after it was not feasible is at the heart of all this. A certain group of people now feel that they are in danger as they kept on sucking on ‘the tits of plenty’. These people went for the breasts of milk and honey in perpetuity, whilst ANY mother can tell you that this is not possible, a mother must rest, regain strength and resources. With the minimum of common sense any man can tell that a mother will need these parts too, yet the economy is not a mother, it needs no rest, it needs no nourishment, it will continue ‘ad infinitum’, or does it?

So now we get news that is viewed as bully tactics from industrials and exploiters towards the UK, with the clear message ‘stay in the EEC or else!’ Now we have the issue at play, because Greece is the first of three elements that imply that staying in the EEC is no longer feasible. I personally believe that David Cameron is trying to push the referendum forward, not to get out of the EEC, but to stay in the EEC, because if National Front (France) does get the votes, they will move away on principle and then the British population will follow ‘en mass’! Which will only drive the power of Nigel Farage. This paragraph is again speculation, but I believe it to be the true path we all face.

Now for the final part of the speculation, again, it is like a virtual path in data, to get anything tangible is not an option. I do not move in the circles that these players move, so I have nothing but my instinctual view on data. You see, I mentioned them before. Yet, one piece I did find. It is at http://cib.natixis.com/DocReader/index.aspx?d=6159546E36436C53616F365A3346735064757A5239413D3D. (attached below)

Here we see what I predicted all along. It is nice to see confirmation on such a high level and they foresaw it before I did (but not by much). Their paper is dated 26th May 2014, almost exactly a year ago. The quote that gives it is “It is therefore unlikely that we will see the GUE/NGL group – which brings together leftist tendencies from socialism to radical anti-capitalism – form a block with representatives from the PVV, the UKIP or the National Front. At the right, the ‘soft’ Euro sceptics in the ECR find it difficult to agree with the ‘hard’ in the EFD, as the parties they represent are often opponents on the national political arenas (e.g. Tories vs. UKIP or PdL vs. Lega Nord)“.

This is exactly what almost happened and the danger has not gone away, it is actually increasing. Yet, if the UK referendum falls before the French elections, the chance of separation is much smaller. Which means that with the UK referendum no longer an issue, if National Front does win, Natixis will have time to rescale their assets. That is at the heart of the linked matter. Natixis has well over HALF A TRILLION Euro in assets. One French firm, 15 members of that board (including 4 women) yield a bat that is more formidable then David Cameron can bring to the table and these people stay OUT of the limelight. Headed by François Perol, together with the members Daniel Karyotis, Thierry Cahn, Alain Condaminas, Laurence Debroux, Alain Denizot, Michel Grass, Catherine Halberstadt, Anne Lalou, Bernard Oppetit, Stéphanie Paix, Henri Proglio, Philippe Sueur, Nicolas de Tavernost and Pierre Valentin represent the unspoken brilliance of the assets economy! They achieved without the economic power of the United States, what Alan Greenspan couldn’t achieve with the powers of the US Federal reserve behind him. Consider that in the game of Roulette the bank always wins, in this game the bank lost and Natixis bested both the odds and the bank, they just did not advertise it. Now we see that the worry of Natixis never left and the play is still moving towards what Natixis regards to be a radical anti-capitalistic unity. I for one am not opposed to capitalism, but they too must be held to a level of accountability, an aspect that they denied existence of and as such the situation has escalated to the point where we are at now.

So, if this is all Greek to you, then you are not alone. I am not an economist and I am also in doubt on the correctness of my view, yet my data expertise pushes me to these elements and so far my predictions have panned out correctly. Which means that Greece is at the centre of many events and driving additional other events. Nigel Farage has grown UKIP and as the economy deteriorates that power growth is only getting stronger, but for the next 55 months it is not an issue, the French Milestone of National Front is only 22 months away and that is a worry for Natixis, 22 months is not enough to resettle well over half a trillion euros, especially when none of the moveable markets would remain stable.

So behind Greece and its debt is a tsunami of economic turmoil, the Greek people might not realise that Greece is small compared to some other issues, but those other issues will not allow the Greeks to be the reason for the other domino stones to fall. As I see it Alexis Tsipras was nowhere near ready to play the game he played on the level it needed to be played at!

Is it still all Greek to you?

Natixis_20150522

 

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