Category Archives: Politics

April 21, 2015 · 02:36

The Defiant Possum!

Yes, Greece is all over the news today, in many ways the people are now expecting a Grexit, the Greek exodus from the Euro. The people are reading more and more about the Greek way and no one is playing nice anymore. Even though readers might disagree with my view, which remains forever valid, let me show you the evidence that brought me to this!

The Centre Party, led by telecoms millionaire Juha Sipilä, must now put together a coalition. And if he invites the Finns into office too (Timo Soini, leader of Finns, who has already vowed to change’s Finland’s approach to Greece), we will see the complication regarding the chances of agreeing a third bailout for Greece. (Source: the Guardian). You see, Finland’s economy not in a great shape and they are now facing austerity. Sipilä had pledged a wage freeze and spending cuts to make it competitive again, which are issues that Tsipras is not addressing, which means that the Finns are no longer playing nice, one less vote that might have been in favour of any third bailout, now lost, the trip from Tsipras playing nice with the Russians did not help either. We now see a direct consequence on inaction where the observing it all are going more extreme, less positive towards the Euro. The Finnish Centrist Party is only a smaller step in the path that UKIP, National Front and the PVV are proclaiming. So, those who were rightfully sceptical of my predictions can now personally see the first of 6 steps fulfilling, the Pro-EU part in Finland lost and the Centrist party now has a staggering 49 seats, they are now in the centre of any coalition, gaining 14 seats. This is the danger I foresaw all along, even if many other parties were blind to this danger.

The second part was seen today when Fabrizio Goria (@FGoria) published the Barclays list on the payments that Greece has to make, these are only repayments and payments on maturity of bonds, the repayments are €1B by May 15^th, €1.7B by June 17^th, €4.7B by July 20^th and €3.6B by August 20^th. This brings the total repayments €10.7B before September 1st. Can anyone tell me how they expect to pull this off? Let us not forget that the days of the Onassis shipping fortunes are gone, the nation has a population of 11 million. We could state that it boils down to 970 Euros from every Greek (including the minors and babies), in addition to the taxation they are mostly not paying at present anyway. Add to that that many Greeks are living way below the poverty line.

So when we hear on French TV (iTele) the fact that Moscovici added that “Plan A is for Greece to remain in the Eurozone, and there is no Plan B. But there’s also no time for prevarication“, so in this story of ‘Moscovici the Possum’, playing dead to the realities of finance, where the next bailout of €7.2 billion, does not even cover the bills due before September 1^st, which add up to a lot more than the bailout money that might not even come in. When we saw that the last payment was almost not made, when the Greeks pulled it off we saw the some triumphant pose of ‘we did it!‘, whilst we also saw that it cleaned out Greece for the most and that the payment made is only 10% of what is due over the next 18 weeks. This is the future I foresaw, one that could be done by nearly all using Excel or an abacus.

But this is not just about my view, others see it in the same way. Although, there is (as will be) an opposition view too and I do not ignore it. Foremost there is the eminent view of Simon Nixon from the Wall Street Journal. He stated: “One option is that Greece fails to get a deal with its creditors (quite plausible), runs out of cash (ditto) and then defaults on a debt repayment payment. But that wouldn’t immediately trigger Grexit“, which is where I am to some extent. Yet, he adds to that “How things play out after [a default] that will depend on who Greece decides to default on and the reaction of bank depositors. If Athens defaults on a government bond or loan, then the ECB will have to raise the price that banks pay to access emergency liquidity from the Bank of Greece, effectively depriving them of access to fresh supplies of euros. If Athens decides instead to default to its own citizens, perhaps by issuing IOUs to pay pensions and salaries, bank customers may start emptying euros from their accounts. Again, banks would quickly run out of collateral for emergency liquidity. In both cases, Athens would have to introduce capital controls and bank holidays to stop the financial system imploding. Some officials believe Greece could carry on for several weeks if not months in this state of limbo while still technically remaining part of the Eurozone“, I am not denying his view, he has a good grasp of things so he is probably a lot more correct then I am. Yet, my issue now is not whether they remain in the Euro, but the ramifications of Greece remaining in the Euro, regardless of the consequences and through the wheeling and dealing of several players who feel profitable if Greece remains in the Euro. Finland is only the first of 6.

Second is the UK with UKIP, that party is still growing and the Varoufakis rock star tour, as we saw it over the last two months, only agitated people all over Europe, the entire German slamming thing as well as the political statements around the refugee issues did not help either. So as UKIP grows, so will the option (and future) of the Euro diminishing in equal measure, the nightmare that Moscovici will like even less.

Third on the list is France with National Front. They will go on growing and the momentum UIKIP gets will massively benefit National Front, the party that was ignored for way too long has become a voice of power in France. Marine Le Penn has become a global player, another member against the softness for Greece and even less in favour of the Euro power as it diminished the force of France will take a steep change for the worse of the health of the Euro as they gain more momentum.

Fourth is the Dutch PVV, by themselves not that powerful or too influential, but with the like minded views they have to some degree to both UKIP and National Front, PVV will be invited to several tables they were not invited to earlier, even though their favour is falling (especially against the Dutch VVD), they remain a higher placed party (higher than they were before) and should the VVD be unable to create a working dialogue with UKIP and National Front, we will see more growth towards PVV, making them another voice that asks to end the Euro.

Fifth is Germany. Their power is actually twofold, first there is the growing opposition from Bernd Lucke, with his AfD (Alternative for Germany), remains on a forward momentum. And as they are anti-Euro, that ship needs to be closely watched, in addition, some German magazines state that one in two Germans are now in favour of Grexit. And here we get the first major Crux. Should some player overextend their reach by forcing some ‘deal’ keeping Greece in the Euro with a last minute ‘miracle’ solution (with ‘some’ hidden costs down the track of course), then the move towards AfD could be a lot more massive than before, the German player is the biggest one at the moment (in economic regard to the other 5 parties) and they have had enough (especially after the WW2 debacle Tsipras reignited).

Sixth in all this is the wildcard Italy. Here we have several unknowns, yet there is also a glooming danger. You see, the party here is Lega Nord, normally, this party is the one that is not the biggest contender it never was. However, Matteo Salvini is making headway, slowly but surely. Now we get the other side of the Greek issue. Matteo could grow in Italy with Lega Nord, the same way Syriza got Greece under Tsipras. Now we have ourselves a different fight, because Lega Nord is the opposite of Syriza and they are anti-Euro, as well as Anti-immigrant. So the issues pushed on us by Greece that are nagging us, are also growing the powers of Lega Nord. Normally it would not be such a big deal, but with National Front and UKIP being similar minded, Lega Nord will now get a more powerful European voice, together they will also push growth for AfD, or through AfD. I feel that they could grow a ‘symbiotic’ relationship.

If you are scared now, then do not be (unless you are a banker). These issues have been clearly in play and the vocally uttered path from Moscovici is helping these six entities and his speeches might help Moscovici a little less over the coming weeks. By trying to hold onto ‘Status Quo’, Moscovici might be achieving the opposite, who is the nice cuddly Possum now? Actually Possums are regarded as pests in New Zealand, so even as the possum is protected in Australia, is gets shot on sight in New Zealand. So as Moscovici contemplates his value as an asset by some, several nations are regarding the steps of Moscovici to be like a pest. Even though most of these politicians are not into the fair wildlife ‘game’, they will regard his policies and the need for them to be shot down at their earliest convenience. Not by the six I mentioned mind you, but as these issues are reason for growth for the six players mentioned, the other parties in those nations will now slowly more and more accept sacrificing Greece (by holding them to account), for them it is about governing and their chance to do so diminishes with every iteration where Greece remains unaccountable.

So here is as I see it the opposition I see to Simon Nixon from the wall Street Journal. Not because he is wrong (he is not wrong), but because the correct path seems to elevate some political parties to the degree that several political opponents do not want to see, which exasperates the Greek position even further.

This all escalates even further when we consider the news from NBC less than an hour ago. The title ‘Greece requires public sector entities to transfer cash balances to central bank’ should worry many, as it could be the first signal for the population of Greece to make a bank run (at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102601803). The quote “Greece issued a legislative act on Monday requiring public sector entities to transfer idle cash reserves to the country’s central bank, as part of efforts to deal with a cash squeeze” gives a fair view that Greece is trying to collect all the ‘idle’ cash there is. Is that not addressing the very last option? The second quote is “Monday’s act excludes pension funds and some state-owned firms. Cash reserves that are needed by these bodies for their immediate payment needs are also excluded from the regulation”, here we get the part ‘excludes immediate payment needed for pension funds’, yet what is ‘immediate’ here? 4 weeks, 8 weeks? This could possibly imply that those on a pension might not receive anything from June 1^st onwards. Perhaps this is just to make headspace (or is it fund space) until May 12^th? I do not presume to know the answer, but the Greek acts only confirms how right I was all along (as I see it).

So as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems to continue to try to convince sceptical foreign creditors to extend new financial aid, we must ask how successful does Alexis Tsipras consider his chances when the state is collecting all ‘idle’ coins. If it takes all coins just to make the next €1 billion, whilst 9.7 is still required soon thereafter, how much faith will the creditors have? So, the earlier statement that Yanis Varoufakis made (three days ago), when he stated “On the 24th [April] there will not be a solution, there will be progress”, he’ll better wake up now and realise that he finds a decent solution before Saturday, because progress might not be enough and when the creditors state ‘no!’, then the Greek default could be regarded as the next reality. By the way, the quote from Bloomberg (regarding the legislative act of Greece) is: “Central government entities are obliged to deposit their cash reserves and transfer their term deposit funds to their accounts at the Bank of Greece,” the presidential decree issued Monday said on the government gazette website. The “regulation is submitted due to extremely urgent and unforeseen need”, I wonder what unforeseen need they might imply, because there was very little un-foreseeability regarding the strapped cash issue, that part was almost crystal clear when the previous payment was barely made.

The only thing remaining is to keep an eye out on the quotes from Pierre Moscovici for the next 48 hours, it might be interesting to see the ‘swing’ it holds (if it swings).

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April 19, 2015 · 10:47

The economy of change

It is now three months to the day that I wrote ‘A seesaw for three‘, in there I spoke about the Swiss Franc and the changes they decided on. In that article you can read: “So the SNB decided to abandon the ceiling on the franc, in response, the spring-loaded franc shot higher“, makes perfect sense. Why should a nation with a relative low debt hold this much in risk? So now we get a new dance! “The SNB’s decision to suddenly go back on a previous policy it had claimed to be committed to will make markets think twice before taking the bank at its word“.

This was always the issue, why should nations with relative low debt pay for the short sightedness of the incapable? In addition, the claim ‘The SNB’s decision to suddenly go back on a previous policy‘ is also a loaded part, you see, as we see with Greece at present, it seems that policies are not being kept all over the field, even now there is an implied orchestration to let Greece ‘kinda’ of the hook. The words of Christine Lagarde for creditors to go ‘soft’ on Greece is not helping. Then there is the thought I offered with: “Perhaps the question that Katherine Burton (the writer) at Bloomberg should be asking is “How come such managed levels of foreign currency holdings were left out in the open to this extend, especially after the Cyprus issue”“.

The day before that one, I wrote ‘Year of the last Euro?‘ (17^th January 2015), there I stated “previous administrations lived under some umbrella with the picture of a sun, which they took as an eternal summer! Instead of caution, they ignored basic rules and just went all out on a spending spree. Now that all the money is gone, the coffers are instead filled with ‘I OWE U’ notes. When every nation spends more than they are receiving, no one will have any money left, yet governments started to borrow to one another. So, those in debt were borrowing massive amounts to one another, even though no one had any money, is no one catching on?”

I saw the writing months ago, which is why I have been hammering on the Greek issue, it should not be prolonged, and there should be no ‘alternative‘ or a ‘continuation‘. Now we get the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/18/us-interest-rates-rise-federal-reserve-market-crash), the subtitle ‘Janet Yellen’s decision will have global consequences – and the end of ultra-low rates could mean meltdown for indebted countries‘, whatever are you saying Mr Bond?

I have stated again and again that those in severe debt will feel the consequence at some point. Now we see the increased risk that interest rates will rise. Yet again we see dismissals, now from Olivier Blanchard. Was he not the one who came up with “Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy” (at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/spn/2010/spn1003.pdf)?

So are we witnessing the start of targeted inflation? The quote that Olivier makes “companies may have hedged their position, while investors and finance ministers were well prepared“, well, in that regard, my response is: ‘companies that are credit maxed are never hedging positions, an elemental truth at times and as for the preparation of investors we can argue that they are usually geared towards greed (relying on a 15% turnover in a 3% world) whilst in addition, finance ministers on a global scale have been pushing things forwards for a long time, relying on the sun returning the next morning. This approach works for a week, but after 157 weeks of clouds, those finance ministers tend to project sunshine from memory, forgetting the reality of the sun’. If you doubt this then consider the list of finance ministers who correctly kept their budget. I tell you now that this list has diminished to zero for some time now. Some even exceeded their budget shortage through managed bad news, a growing trend all over Europe.

In illustration the IMF wrote in regards to the possible financial crash “It highlighted how any shock can send investors fleeing; with only sellers in the market, the price keeps plunging until someone believes it has gone far enough and starts buying“, yes this is how the rich get to be even richer, my immediate concern is the dangers that superfunds and retirement funds are sitting as they might be facing another 15%-30% write off. I wonder how people feel about the consequence of their retirement funds collapsing again and now they will have to work until they are 75-80.

So, is this realistic? Am I in an evangelising ‘panic’ mode?

One might think this, but if you have followed my blog, I have consistently written over a period exceeding a year that the first need was to diminish government debts. It was the number one issue that had to be dealt with, nothing else mattered, because those without debt would get by and those in debt will get a massive invoice. Now we see that danger. So the initial quote that the Guardian had “higher interest rates in the world’s largest economy could come this year” is not just a fab, it is a reality that will push interest payments to new heights. Did Switzerland foresee this, or were they just too unhappy with the risk the Euro had? No matter what, their act seems to have been a good one and releasing the debts they were holding onto is now a second need.

There is a side that seems slightly offensive to me. When we consider “But while it is almost certain Turkey, Brazil, Russia and many others that have seen their businesses and governments borrow heavily in dollars to maintain their spending will suffer higher borrowing costs courtesy of Yellen“, is that true? Is it due to the courtesy of Yellen, or is it because the bulk of politicians cannot get a grasp on their spending spree?

Let’s face it, rates would never remain low and many are following the good news cycle that it will remain, that change is not good and as such, they forget that in their eyes rate rises are not realistic, but they do not control the algorithm. So here we all are, in a place where change is about to befall many, the outcome largely relies on your personal stability, which is a lot easier when your debts are down.

So where lies the economy of change in our favour? That is the true question that matter and I am not sure if I can answer that. I believe it to be dependent on corporations having a balanced realistic long term view. I am however uncertain to predict who those players are. Yet, if we take a look at British politics, we should consider the following; Ed Miliband states “Labour leader tells ‘one nation’ Conservatives he’s on the centre ground and will keep Britain at heart of EU”, how is that a reality? Then there is the quote “Miliband says the past 10 days of the campaign have seen the Tories become the “incredible party”, whose unfunded promises on everything from the NHS to transport and housing have turned them into the party of ‘funny money’“, so how does this relate to the economy of change?

Well, the simple matter is that Labour decided to spend 11.2 billion on an NHS IT system, that system never came, the money is gone and the NHS is weaker still. These are simple facts that you the reader can Google in any browser. There is housing progress, but not as much as many would like. In this time of change, Labour wants to spend more money, get the UK in deeper debt, now consider the US raising the interest by 0.5%, in regards to the 1.7 trillion in debt, that change could cost the tax payer an additional 8.5 billion, considering that the IMF claimed that the UK will be short 14 billion, adding to that will be a very dangerous act.

So will the economy of change require us to throw Greece out of the Euro? Will the change of interest topple France and Italy? There are too many factors, but there is certainty that the markets will be massively impacted once the percentage changes. Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, will come ‘He will cite figures in Health Education England’s (HEE) Workforce Plan for England 2015/16, which he says shows the service will be employing nearly 2,000 fewer nurses over the next four years – for reasons “mainly driven by affordability”’ This is a fact we cannot ignore, yet the fact that many sides are not willing to make the hard calls on certain NHS issues, does have an impact in all other quadrants, this includes nursing staff. So before Andy Burnham comes with the alleged plan that the NHS cannot survive another 5 years of David Cameron, perhaps Andy would like to look into his own party and find the plus 11 billion that they had spent on something that never came to be. I am certain that the cutting of nurses would not have been a reality if the 11 billion had not been lost to virtual plans that never became a reality.

The last of the pork pies can be found here: “Labour has set out a better plan to invest £2.5bn extra each year, on top of Tory spending plans, paid for by a mansion tax on homes worth £2m, to fund 20,000 more nurses and 8,000 more GPs.”, the current UK plan is at a deficit, so where is the 2.5 billion coming from? Mansion tax sounds nice in theory, but those places need maintenance too, which means plumbers, electricians and so on. Also, why keep on pounding the ‘wealthy’ places again and again? It is like the wealth tax. Stating on how the rich can afford more tax. The simple reality is, is that those making more than 1 million is only 6,000 people and roughly another 16,000 make £500,000 to £1 million. So how will you tax them? 60% addition? Where will you get the money to fund 28,000 health care workers? The idiocy of Labour as they make these claims is just too unwarranted. Now add to that the news from 7 hours ago that the interest rates could rise. Once they do, the deficit will grow even more.

So as we see these interactions of change, many of them not realistic, we need to realise that Austerity is here to stay for at least two more administrations, not because we want to, but because the increase of a mere 0.5% amounts to the bulk of all NHS costs, we might not survive a third increase, so we must fight now, so that we can all move forward sooner instead of never.

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Tagged as A seesaw for three, Andy Burnham, bloomberg, Brazil, Christine Lagarde, Ed Miliband, finance ministers, Greece, Health Education England, IMF, Janet Yellen, Katherine Burton, labour party, NHS, Olivier Blanchard, Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy, Russia, SNB, Switzerland, the Guardian, Turkey, US, Year of the last Euro?

April 18, 2015 · 10:11

And so it begins!

The ink from my WordPad app has not even dried from the articles a few days ago. And in the UK 5 hours ago we see the following events unfurl in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/17/imf-urges-eu-to-slim-down-its-demands-on-greece). The title is already glooming bad vibes as it states: ‘IMF urges EU to slim down its demands on Greece‘, so here is the first part.

Now we look at the quotes “The International Monetary Fund has urged EU negotiators to slim down their list of demands in debt talks with Greece amid fears that time is running out to reach a deal” as well as the statement by Yanis Varoufakis “There has never been a key date. We have to see everything in combination and cumulatively. On the 24th [April] there will not be a solution, there will be progress“. This is at the centre of deception, this is why Europe is about to face the harsh reality of the people having enough!

The realisation was already there two days ago when I ‘accused’ Mario Draghi of being either Reckless or incompetent. That call was very valid in light of the dangers that Greece faces. Now it becomes a viable thought that there was never any danger for Greece to begin with and they can play the game the way they like, because someone else is willing to play footsie with their inaction.

Now we get to the statement by the Chancellor George Osborne, who stated that one misstep in the Greek debt negotiations could return Europe to the ‘perilous state’ of 2011 and 2012. The problem here is not the negotiations, but the fact that Greece is unwilling to do anything. The statement of Yanis Varoufakis makes that a given. In addition, progress or not, if acceptable plans are not delivered by April 24th, they should not be allowed to get the 7.2 billion. But here is the kicker, that makes Grexit a direct reality and if we reiterate the words from Mario Draghi, that was never a consideration.

So here comes my predicament: “If the UK (Prime Minister David Cameron and the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne) do not put the hammer down at this point, there is every indication that the British voters see this in the air of ‘more of the same’ and they would hand the dangers of a massive victory towards UKIP”. This is not just a simple party issue. The taxpayers of the United Kingdom at large will not accept the austerities they face, whilst the Greek politicians are playing with themselves in the shower not doing anything productive. People from all over Labour, Conservatives as well as the Liberal Democrats will then listen to the words of Nigel Farage when he can state with some pride: “I told you so!”, that movement will not be a small one and the orchestration we are likely to face between April 24th and May 5th will only push people towards UKIP faster. Should Mario Draghi, Christine Lagarde and Pierre Moscovici ignore this, then be certain that the cold turkey that is about to be served will not taste too good for them.

They are already making changes to the timeline, as the statement was made 9 hours ago: “European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici has thrown down a challenge to Greece; you must produce a concrete set of reforms by May 11“, why the delay again? To make sure it comes AFTER the UK elections? No, time is up dear players!

You see, the UK is only step one, the tidal wave towards UKIP is nothing compared to the wave National Front and Marine Le Penn will gain under these conditions. Although the matter will not be as strong for the Dutch as their elections are not until 2018, the Dutch PVV would benefit the conditional game that some are playing now.

We see part of the fear in a response we saw less than 24 hours ago. One response is: “GREECE’S MAIN CREDITORS SAID TO BE UNWILLING TO ALLOW EURO EXIT You surprised? Natch they’d like their money back and pref the EU to sub it“, which is what we expected all along and the voters can reduce that risk by well over 7 billion by tossing Greece out of the Euro now. In addition we see the mention: “Greek FinMin Varoufakis: Draghi meeting lasted an hour, he said he wants a resolution soon to help #Greece grow“. Is that so?

Growth in Greece is pretty much not an option, when you have nothing left, you can only whether the storm by nailing down the hatches and let part of your crew (read the Greek population) drown. The fact that Tsipras has not done anything substantial since he got elected should be a clear indication, the entire rockstar Varoufakis tour going past every nation (in really nice hotels) has gotten the Greek people nothing more than ‘On the 24th [April] there will not be a solution, there will be progress‘ is at the heart of the matter. Billions (from rich Greeks) are safely out of Greece (read Swiss bank accounts) and those questioning that were thrown into court, no actions on previous administrations have been made and no setting to reduce the costs that the Greek government cannot pay for have been addressed. So tell me, why would anyone desire to keep Greece in the fold, when the first route Tsipras took was a trip to the Kremlin (you know, the people behind the Eastern Ukraine debacle)?

So what is in store for the UK? This is at the centre, because the ‘manage bad news’ cycles that we see from team Lagarde-Draghi will be fuelling the Farage engine more than anything else. It is not just that people are expecting Greece to be ‘saved’ again, it is done whilst those making loads of money are not held to account. By the way Mr Draghi, I hit on hard times and whilst I am doing anything possible. I am making little progress, so can you please deposit £650.000, which I will repay at 0.1% interest annual over 30 year. Seems only fair that you give the amount to people more responsible (especially me) than the Greek elected officials, ‘n’est-ce pas?‘ and ‘sans rancune‘ (after the deposit).

This gives me the next part in all this. When you take a look at the Guardian election page, it seems to me that apart from one piece by Stuart Heritage, the visibility of UKIP is almost none existent. The fear that the other parties have in regards to what UKIP could do is in my view decently staggering. In my personal view, I do not think that UKIP is the right solution for the UK, yet this is decided by voters and as 97.3% of that electorate is nowhere near my intellect and insight, the fact that these people will see it the same way is not a given, more important, when we consider the article by Stuart Heritage (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/17/nigel-farage-was-the-only-winner-in-final-tv-election-debate), which we see in the quote “Calling out the assembled masses for being a bunch of hoity-toity pinkos, though? That’s madness. That’s suicide. That’s the political equivalent of a Blackmar-Diemer gambit. But Farage knew what he was doing. He knew he still had a MOAB in his back pocket. A showstopper. His very own Candle in the Wind. And so, just when it looked like events were spiralling out of his control, Farage pulled out his joker – the old “Foreigners with Aids are making British people die of cancer” line“, which did the trick, but now consider the following quote we are likely to read soon: “We, hardworking brits are paying for expensive Greek officials, we are paying the money they are spending in many irresponsible ways and we have no option but to accept their extravagant spending, even their own rich do not have to pay for anything there!” how long until the anger of these people demand change? Consider that according to the government 17% of all individuals are on an absolute low income (at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/325416/households-below-average-income-1994-1995-2012-2013.pdf), in addition, when we compare this in housing we see that 40% of those on relative low incomes are social rented sector tenants. This is a massive part of the UK that is struggling to get by and the banking wealth is very willing to let it all continue, so that those who made a really bad investment (read Greek bonds) will get their money’s worth. How do you think the British population will react in the coming week to the ‘be nice to the Greeks so that we can keep them in the Euro’ group? That is a massive electorate that UKIP can tap into and I feel certain that we will see this happen in the week leading to the election, so April 27^th to May 5^th as the Greeks will suddenly go into theatrical tragedy mode (read Tsipras and Varoufakis will stand in a ‘we are defeated‘ pose), who will buy it then? If UKIP does sweep the nation Christine Lagarde will have an entirely new danger to deal with, just because she was unable to muzzle the greed driven population trying to get more Greek money. The entire Greek comedy was mishandled from the very day they were allowed to go back to the market (by the way, I think I predicted that one correctly, so please deposit 2.1% of the 40 million in kickbacks the bond traders ended up with in commissions). This should take care of my bar bill for the period 2015-2019.

Yes, when we add it all up, the future looks grim and if team Cameron/Osborne (the team I support) do not bring out the big guns now, my initial prediction in 2013 (where I predicted that Labour and Conservatives ended up in opposition together) could come true. I need to find my application for running a popcorn and peanut stand in front of parliament, because the public bench will be so overcrowded that first year, giving me an interesting enterprising income (to pay back the loan from Mario Draghi), which is what Britain was all about in the first place, to be enterprising!

So, was I enterprising enough? Am I correct?

That part is at the heart of the matter. I do not know, but the dangers of this all happening is growing by the day, every day we see a new excuse on giving the Greeks more time is changing the game we face in both the UK and soon thereafter in France too. So the quote by Michael Gove ‘There will be no Conservative-UKIP deal after the general election, the Tory chief whip Michael Gove has said‘ could be very correct, because if the ECB and IMF do not change their tune, the winnings of UKIP could be large enough for UKIP not to need the Tories at all. But on the positive side, Nick Clegg will end up having a new political idol to follow, isn’t that nice?

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Tagged as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Christine Lagarde, David Cameron, European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, George Osborne, Greece, Grexit, IMF, Laour party, Liberal Democrats, Marine Le Penn, Mario Draghi, Michael Gove, National Front, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Pierre Moscovici, Prime Minister, Stuart Heritage, the Guardian, Tory chief whip, Tripras, UKIP, Yanis Varoufakis

April 17, 2015 · 18:27

I read the news today, oh boy!

It was not today but, yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, this accountant is not here to stay, I hope we fear for yesterday!

It seems appropriate to use the words of the Beatles here. Even though many at times wonder whether London had remained British (it’s a foreign bankers thing), we all agree Liverpool is as British as it gets.

So, what brought this about? Well, it was another part in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/15/imf-forecast-uk-george-osborne-deficit-reduction-growth-fuel-tax). You see, I had an issue with all this right from the start. Perhaps you all remember how in April 2013, the IMF told Osborne to slow austerity and spend more, because that was good for the economy. George Osborne stood firm, ignored the IMF and he was right. Lowering debts as much as possible, tightening the belt was a solution. It was not a popular one, but behold, the UK economy went slightly better. So when we read ‘IMF forecast blows hole in George Osborne’s deficit reduction plan‘, I am faced with all kinds of doubts in the direction of the IMF. the subtitle gives us ‘Gloomy view on UK economy says government spending on welfare may need to be higher than Treasury plans, while lower tax receipts will undermine growth‘, two parts, the first part would be nice, because those on welfare are truly in a bad place. Yet, the UK treasury is less then empty, it is at minus 1.7 trillion and the dangers of Greece is adding fuel to that danger. Lower tax receipts do not undermine growth in my view, it starts spending to some extent and hopefully investments in business and staff to a better extent. Whether that is true remains to be seen, but raising tax receipts is definitely not going to work.

“The Washington-based organisation said the current prediction of a £7bn surplus in the last year of the next parliament would instead be a £7bn deficit” is an interesting quote! What was it based upon? You see, they imply an error of 14 billion, which is 1/3rd of the entire Defence spending. More apt, 14 billion is the budget of ‘protection’ for 2016, which covers: Police services, Fire-protection services, Law courts, Prisons, R&D Public order and safety, Public order and safety n.e.c., so how exactly can we see this 14 billion blowout? The quote “the IMF warned that its officials took a gloomier view of the UK’s growth prospects over the next five years” should be read carefully. Just like the initial mismanaged prediction the IMF made in 2013, what are they not telling us? Yes, we might ‘accept’ the harsh words from Christine Lagarde as given in another place where we read “The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, said delaying the payments would be an unprecedented action that would only make the situation worse“, in regards to the 1 billion Euro bill that Greece has to pay in the very very near future. Yet, Mario Draghi stated only a day earlier in regards to a Greek default “I don’t even want to contemplate that. And based on the Greek government leaders’ statements this option is not contemplated by themselves as well. So I’m not ready to discuss any possible situation like that“. So is Mario Draghi at this point utterly reckless or incompetent? There is clear indication that Greece cannot pay. Bonds for Greece are now set at well over 22%, which is almost unheard off, it also means that repackaging old debts could cost many billions extra. In addition we see the speculation from some economists “If Greece was unable to pay the IMF and is forced to default on payments to public sector staff, pensioners and welfare recipients, economists have speculated it may be forced to introduce capital controls to prevent a flight of funds out of the country“, so what do you mean prevent? Do you remember the Article by Kostas Vaxevanis? It was in 2012, where the journalist (not them tax evaders) was arrested for publishing that list of almost 2100 rich Greeks with well over 2 billion Euro in Swiss Bank accounts. This is less about money leaving and more about those who already filled their pockets (all Greeks) living somewhere else in luxury for a decade or two whilst Greece burns down.

So back to the British budget, yes when Greece defaults (which is a reality we could actually face) it will also hit the British budget. Consider the punch that Grexit will have on Italy and France, export to those two nations will lower considerably, their budgets will hit hard and anyone who financially supported Greece will now face the reality of losing out of that 300 billion means that the money comes from those underwriting those loans. Who and for how much I cannot tell at present, but it will be a distinguished list. So in all this, is the response from Mario Draghi reckless or incompetent? I let you decide!

The next part of the issue with the article is one that is an issue for me as well. The quote “Earlier this week the IMF warned that the UK’s stellar growth was due to slow from 2.7% this year to 2.3% in 2016. A judgment on the likelihood of a messy outcome to the election was behind that forecast, which it said would have knock-on effects for several years to come“. There is truth in it! You see, it should not matter too much, but the one party that could change it is UKIP. I guarantee you that if Greece gets any leniency whilst they have not done one thing to remain credible, there will be a push towards UKIP in a way we have never seen before. The people are angry! They have been cut to below a minimum and at the same time, the Greeks get to toss around 300 billion, unaccountable in any way. Timing is an issue here and I believe it had another part to play. If UKIP gets the infusion because others are going soft on Greece in the 25th hour, it will also push the power Marine Le Penn (France) needed. At that moment the push for National Front could result in a landslide victory, which means that the two largest players will walk away from the Euro, this pushes Germany as well, because it must protect itself. The fallout will be legendary.

First I must warn you that the last part is a personal view, so you should look at where you live and whether my vision has any reality, but if so, consider what would happen and how much it hurts your future!

But back to Britain we go! Those elements have an impact and that is why they had to be mentioned, but the reasoning of the IMF projecting it all 14 billion lower is still and issue. They were wrong before, but are they wrong now? Are they factoring in Greece? The IMF looks further, but now includes greenhouse gas emissions. It is stating a needed change (to some extent) to counter lower taxation due to collapsed oil prices into raised taxation based on energy usage. I am not sure if there is a case here, if the lower oil prices gets people moving, preferably into jobs, that that would also spike the Tax coffers as welfare goes down and taxable income increases. Pushing people into high energy bills is not a solution, especially if that stops a workforce from becoming mobile. So, I have issues with this article on several sides.

Beyond the budget, the first duty will be to lower to total debt. It will be a hard road and it will mean ongoing austerity, but if now, consider how Greece could be a factor in toppling the governments of France and Italy as their debt is maxed out, we must walk away from the walk softly approach, we must battle the debts if we want to come out on top, which relates again to the IMF and some of their statements, who are they representing stronger with their ‘status quo’ message? Japan? US? Or their own chance to survive?

The question there is too complex for me to see a solution in, but there is clarity that the first duty of the Commonwealth will be to get our budgets right and to get rid of the debts we have. Germany already showed the evidence a few years ago, now the Commonwealth must follow!

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Tagged as Christine Lagarde, George Osborne, Greece, Grexit, IMF, Marine Le Penn, Mario Draghi, National Front, tax receipts, the Guardian, UK, UKIP

April 10, 2015 · 22:09

An exceptional pound of flesh

Two articles hit my eyes as I took a small break from my midterm exam. When you dig into the: who, what, when, where how and why of Patent Systems, your sanity prevails if you take a small break every 2-3 hours. It is just the only sane and safe way to avoid getting stuck on the same page.

The two articles were ‘Cuba seeks foreign investment as it shores up increased diplomatic ties‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/10/cuba-seeks-foreign-investment-as-it-shores-up-increased-diplomatic-ties) and ‘Pound volatile amid general election uncertainty‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/10/pound-volatile-amid-general-election-uncertainty), there is no real relationship in these matters, or is there?

First, let’s take the last part first as to get it all out of the way. The end gives us: “Investors were also positive on Greece’s payment of a €450m (£325m) debt to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday“. Why? Let’s not forget, this payment is nothing more than 1/3rd of a billion against outstanding HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS, so why are investors relieved? Greece has not presented any decent acceptable plan and the visit from Tsipras to Moscow to rattle some cages will count against him sooner rather than later. In addition I would like to call attention to the ‘altered’ view from Christine Lagarde as she mentioned “developed and emerging economies still suffering the after-effects of the 2008 crash must collaborate better to avoid an era of low growth”, which reads like a detour, an extra train stop on the track where the distance between recession of true growth seems to be increasing, not decreasing or remain stable. Apart from the fact that Greece only has 5 days left to present their plan (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32229793), the one part everyone simply ignores is that after they get the money, then what? If these newly elected officials will not push through and re-debate the issue again, the Eurozone is down another seven billion euro plus, then what? Will Greece become a vulture funds target? Will we see newly created carefully phrased denials on what will never be? That one part can be found in the quote “Without new money it will struggle to renew €2.4bn in treasury bonds due to mature in the middle of April, or pay back another €0.8B to the IMF on 12 May“, so consider that Greece might be unable to pay back 770 Million Euro on May 12^th (decently likely scenario), what else can they no longer pay? Let’s not forget that the 12^th of May payment makes up for 0.25% of the debt, the interest would be is a lot more than that, so how will any ‘investor’ choice pay out? Are you people awake now? So, I dealt with Greece! Now to the linked other parts!

You see, the link to England will become apparent soon enough, when we consider the quote “Analysts have warned that the pound could have further to fall as financial markets react to uncertainty created by the closest general election for more than 20 years” l, we have to wonder how reserved these analysts truly are, a stable growing economy is scaring them? I agree that the plans from Ed Miliband are decently ludicrous, bus in the end, if elected, he must do what is best for the nation (which means that he would have to vote for David Cameron, hawk! Hawk! Hawk!). In all seriousness though, a close call or not, there is something wrong with the statement Michael Hewson makes: “The pound has started to come under some pressure in recent days as the prospect of political gridlock“, whilst the market is positive as Greece pays back less than a percent of its debt, this whilst it is clear that Greece has no funds left. How is that dimensionality rational in any way, shape or form? That is, unless you take into account the part that the Guardian is not mentioning. If the market is truly worried on what happens when Nigel Farage comes out on top, or ends up with too much of a gain, then the united front that Farage and Le Penn would show, would truly be a concern to investors, because those two have had enough of the entire Eurozone issue on several levels and Greece only worsened their resolve (meaning that both are more eager to pursue the end of their EEC membership. a nightmare scenario for markets on a near global base.

Now, the markets also made the following ‘claim’: “Currency traders have also been unsettled by signs of weakness in Britain’s manufacturing sector. Production figures are due out on Friday morning“, this is fair enough, you see, manufacturing is an issue and it is not that strong in the UK or in many other places for that matter. Yet, two hours ago, the following was reported: “UK industrial output is weaker than expected: it edged up 0.1% in February, vs expectations of a 0.4% gain, while manufacturing met City forecasts with a 0.4% rise. Industrial production is the wider measure, which comprises manufacturing, mining and utilities“, so manufacturing met the expectations, so why the hesitation? I am not making any assumptions here, but I am wondering on how much certain markets assume that met expectations were supposed to be exceeded. Especially in a European mess that is still all over the place. It is almost like the markets will not tolerate any bad news, is this linked to some views on US bubbles (housing for one) that could burst before June 30th? This is a question, not an assumption or an implied issue. but the question should be asked in a very clear way and certain parties should answer it in very clear ways too, because at present, when you see some journalists report on economy, they quickly move all over the field, pretending to draw a picture, whilst the sketch we end up seeing is that of something we did not ask and it leaves many with too many questions. Did I oversimplify the matter again?

So now we get to the true path in all this, the link between the Pound and Cuba. Some might know them, some do not, but I remember the Cuban Fleet Freight Services (Cuflet). I reckon that looking into options with Cuba via Cuflet could spell good times for several players, if manufacturing options are found in emerging markets, why not see what offers could be made and found there. The Dutch could gain a headway by looking into the Bicycle market, engineering projects, the issue is clarity. When we consider the article ‘Navigating Complexity in foresight: Lessons from the UK future of Manufacturing Project‘ (at https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/fta2014-t1practice_52.pdf), I personally am willing to get a few giggles from the futility that figure one shows (2008, Popper’s foresight Diamond). I do not disagree with the image of with the elements of creativity, interaction, evidence and expertise brings, but in the end Manufacturing is about what one has and the other one needs. So elements like Viability, opportunity, economy and shipping brings us the need for what can be manufactured, what could be sold and what is to be delivered. So when I read the conclusion on page 11, where we see “The high level of complexity of manufacturing systems and the diversity of forces acting on them make anticipating future configurations , challenges and opportunities particularly difficult. Manufacturing foresight needs to deal with multiple units of analyses, assimilate a variety of evidence at different levels of disaggregation from a variety of sources and integrate diverse stakeholder’s perspectives“. A view from academics from Cambridge as well the government office for science.

So let’s break that down in something we all can understand.

Good business is where you find it. (Robocop, 1987), which gives us opportunity
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction (Ernst F. Schumacher), which gives us a handle on complexity in regards to manufacturing systems (the reason to avoid complexity whenever possible).
We have to choose between a global market driven only by calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face (Kofi Annan), which gets us to the economic side.

We have been so blinded looking at those who only seek short term maximised personal gain, that we forget the satisfaction that can be gotten from a long term goal where both sides make gains and interact with their economy in a profitable way, without denying the other party their goals. Here we see the option for both the UK and Cuba. It is not a given, it is not a guarantee, but an option, an opportunity to consider. It is the one side of Warren Buffett I do (partially) admire, he thinks long term (in case of Tesco, not long term enough), but overall the long term side will always pay off, which is the path we should walk, which is of course not the path that the bulk of hedge funds operators want us to consider and as too many listen to those people, we end up having a problem. So as we look at the pound of flesh that could give us a sterling reward, we tend to ignore that part for the fake glory of short term boosts. Yet, if we see Lidl and Aldi where we clearly see exactly that this longer term approach will keep them afloat, unlike their competitors, which is the issue at hand!

Because in the end, the conclusion quote from the academic article gives us the massive anchor that they did not properly dimensionalise ‘assimilate a variety of evidence at different levels of disaggregation from a variety of sources and integrate diverse stakeholders perspectives‘, too often the data presented from the view of the stakeholder cannot be trusted. Whether it is the weight applied to the source, the way the question was formulated and set into the data collective, or the methodology of analytics that was pursued afterwards. It was a painted view from a person with a goal and a presented image, that ‘presented’ image tends to colour all connected evidence, which gives us a view of many games as they are played, but in all this, we all make the same mistake, we compare presented results and statistical results, whilst the individual sources are often too unknown, which is truly a bad an unexceptional path to walk.

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Tagged as Aldi, BBC, Cambridge University, Christine Lagarde, Cuba, Cuflet, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, emerging markets, Ernst F. Schumacher, financial markets, Greece, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Kofi Annan, Lidl, Marine Le Penn, Michael Hewson, Nigel Farage, Popper's insight, Robocop, Tesco, the Guardian, Tsipras, Warren Buffett

April 8, 2015 · 11:20

Is it illogical?

Today the news is all about Greece, not because they are getting it done, but because they are now less than 24 hours away from a 450 million euro invoice and whilst Prime Minister Tsipras stated that they have the cash to make the next payment (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-04/greece-has-cash-to-make-imf-payment-next-week-minister-says), of course, that statement is now an issue as we wonder why Tsipras took the fast plane to Moscow.

In other news (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/06/varoufakis-extends-washington-charm-offensive-after-talks-with-lagarde), where ‘rock star’ Varoufakis is smiling all over the place. the quote “The hope is he will gain the support of Treasury officials in persuading lenders to cut Greece some slack” seems highly misplaced as the Greek elected officials have been sitting on their hands in feigned acts of ‘activity’. Yet the article shows two interesting quotes. The first one is “it has been openly critical of a German-dominated Europe pushing the country too hard on austerity and fearful of the effects that might have on European unity. A Grexit would spin the markets out of control. It is the last thing Washington wants“. It seems that the US might have issues with the German approach of reducing debt. You see, that hits the bottom dollar, the US can only partially recover if THEIR banks get the slice of the multi trillion dollar debt Europe has, once the debt goes down, their income slows down by a large margin.

The second part here is the market response to Grexit. Yes, the US has a fair point trying to limit that event, but this implies the following:

I had been correct for well over a year in my statements that a tumble of the Euro would massively hit the Dollar and the market.
The fact that the Greek exit, with 500 billion in debt has SUCH an impact, whilst the Greek economy makes up for less than 2% of the European economy implies that the European nations at large are borrowed up to the max and this first stone falling, gives us a domino effect that will wound the market for a longer time, which means the US holier-than-thou DOW will also feel the massive impact one way or another.

If economies at large are THIS dependent on that Dow Jones Index, then what failures are we going to see in addition to Greece?

The second quote that is interesting is: “Varoufakis, was scheduled to meet Nathan Sheets, US Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, two days before Tsipras heads to Moscow for talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday“. This is interesting for the simple reason which is found in the question: Why?

You see, when we look at Nathan Sheets, the treasury page (at http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2640.aspx) gives us: “Sheets will lead Treasury’s Office of International Affairs, which protects and supports U.S. economic prosperity by strengthening the external environment for U.S. growth, preventing and mitigating global financial instability, and managing key global challenges“, so why was Varoufakis meeting Nathan Sheets? Is he not all up in arms to protect Greece from collapsing? Which might be the same goal both have, but that gives extra weight to second implication I mentioned, the Greek debt has far fetching consequences, so why would a flight to Russia have any positive result for Greece, it would suit Russia just fine to see the DOW tumble. So unless Greece is making a deal that includes the option of a Russian base on Greek grounds, we should consider the possibility of watching a linked smoke screen we see here.

That conclusion (the smoke screen) is given weight by the following quote we see in another Guardian article: “Mrs Lagarde … stressed that, in Greece’s case, the Fund is willing to show utmost flexibility in the way in which the government’s reforms and fiscal proposals will be evaluated“, as well as “It added that in separate meetings, US Treasury officials who also met Varoufakis expressed the willingness of the US government to play the role of an ‘honest broker’ in helping Greece to strike a deal with its lenders“.

The question becomes, flexibility in which direction? That question follows the ‘honest broker‘ offer from US treasury officials. If this was (very likely), the Nathan Sheets meeting, then we get a new issue, not just who gets the brokered deal and at which percentage, we now see a second instance where IMF and US needs meet hand in hand. Did we not see a similar evolution with Argentina? If that is so, then who is catering whom and how much will it cost the Greeks, when the actual full invoice is revealed after a massive black out through smoke screens, miscommunications and incomplete data. Yes, those are presumptions on my side, but when you recall the Argentinian debacle, where they were pushed towards vulture funds, after IMF help was denied through a request by the US, many press members did not properly follow up that part and no clear information was ever published, so are my assumptions that far out of bounds?

Now we get to the interesting part. You see, he Guardian has another piece by Phillip Inman titled ‘IMF needs to see the bigger picture – that debt can choke off growth‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/07/imf-needs-to-see-the-bigger-picture-that-debt-can-choke-off-growth). Here we see the following parts that are a decent chunk of sizzling debate that we can charcoal grill in an instant. “Yet the remedies outlined by the IMF to counter the threat of persistent low growth in Britain and other developed world economies, as documented in that report, show that debt influences growth and in extremis can choke it off” as well as “the IMF says the world’s major economies risk a long period of low growth unless governments do more to overcome the after-effects of the financial crisis and the longer-term problem of ageing populations“.

I do not deny the correctness of the statements, but the statements are all extremely short sighted, especially when you consider that the people making the statements are on high 6-7 figure incomes. Let us not forget that these governments decided to get themselves in debt and that for well over a decade, no proper budget has been pushed through. It was Germany and Germany alone, that tightened their own belt by a lot and as such they have been enjoying lessened interest payments, which is now saving them billions each year. The second part is that ‘overcome the after-effects of the financial crisis’ is all about proper budgeting, which has gone amiss all over Europe (not just in Greece), in addition ‘longer-term problem of ageing populations‘ is not completely a valid concern as this had been known for well over a decade, which means that plans should have been in place for a long time.

Now we get to the interesting part. As governments on a global scale were so eager to be the bitch of large corporations, the involved governments painted themselves in a corner. Yet, the IMF is not innocent here either, I had a go on their numbers in 2013, when they had published ‘World Economic Outlook April 2013‘ (at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/text.pdf), where they stated that advanced economies would be performing at 1.2% in 2013 and 2.2% in 2014. I pretty much labelled the group behind that piece of ….paper ‘bonkers’, now we see “Looking forward, the IMF said potential growth in advanced economies was expected to increase slightly from an average of about 1.3% a year in the last six years to 1.6% until 2020, but not reach the 2.25% average seen between 2001 and 2007“, So this means I was right, my simple use of an abacus got me numbers more precise than they did with their ‘economists’ that they bunched like grapes in an analytics department. I did expect numbers to be a lot better in 2016, but that was based on the limited information I had, irresponsible elected officials did skew my numbers more in a negative way, silly me for having hope that elected officials would keep a level head in all this. Serves me right!

Yet, behind all this is a little more. It is the quote “But growth is not the only way to diminish or pay back debts. Cancelling them is another. Banks do it with their worst performing customers. Unfortunately for Greece, the IMF refuses to use the same criteria as Lloyds or RBS would when confronted by a failed business” that gets to me. As an assumed speculation this path is not a bad option, and any Journalist has my blessing to entertain such a thought in the proper context. But this article does not do that, it is left in the air at the end of an opinion piece, without proper merit. This makes me wonder why Phillip Inman economics correspondent added this. Just to give visibility to his book? I seriously doubt that, the statement in the air is the issue in this, perhaps like me he is postulating that the ‘forgiving’ of debts is what certain banks are hoping for, because it puts them in the clear and leaves the debt with the underwriting governments, a step Germany is opposing rigorously (and rightly so).

What is in my view decently clear is the prediction I made earlier, that Greece is playing Possum in the 11^th hour is coming to fruition, my issue becomes, why is the Greek population accepting this and why is there no proper investigations in lighting up all the sides on how previous Greek administrations accepted tons of debt without any decent exit plan. In my view, Antonis Samaras was sailing the only path that had the option of keeping the Greek population independent and proud, a plan that is certainly becoming less and less a reality under Tsipras, because no matter what happens next, whether it is feigned forgiven debt or any Russian deal, there will be consequences for the Greek population at large, an issue ignored by most players involved, especially their elected officials.

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Tagged as Argetina, bloomberg, Christine Lagarde, Dow Jones Index, Germany, Greece, IMF, Lloyds, Nathan Sheets, Philip Inman, RBS, treasury.gov, Tsipras, US Treasury, Vladimir Putin, Vroufakis, World Economic Outlook April 2013

April 5, 2015 · 20:29

The Labour Manifesto

Ed Miliband presented his Manifesto Res Rei. In light of what we here in Australia laughingly refer to as ‘the Labour party’, it seemed like a good idea to take a closer look at the speech. The full speech can be seen here http://labourlist.org/2015/03/miliband-launches-labours-business-manifesto-full-speech-text/.

So let’s take a dip into the claims pool.

‘Playing by the rules and paying the taxes that support our public services’, Really Mr. Miliband? So how will you solve the issues involving Apple, Google, Amazon et al? What measures are currently in play, what measures did Labour in its previous governing term put into play. I say naught!

The second part is found soon thereafter ‘With a government that balances the books, invests in infrastructure and works with you to improve skills and open up more competitive markets‘. The Tories are trying to get the books balanced, which means austerity. Labour had a massive hand in giving the UK that debt, so we can offer that Labour has no ability to balance books and the investment that they talk about will drive the UK into deeper debt.

Then the story changes a little and Ed Miliband goes into waffle mode. We see ‘despite the odds‘, ‘too many obstacles‘, ‘the lack of certainty about the long term‘ and my favourite: ‘Our productivity gap is at its highest level for nearly a quarter of a century‘. That last one is full of fun, because what is it based on? Weighted numbers, a lack of insight or the added anchor of virtual corporations?

Now he gets to the promise: “So we’ll balance the books and cut the deficit every year“, yes, how will you do that by investing and balancing the books at the same time? The current debt spring is loaded, because the UK has to come up 23 billion every year to pay the interest of the current deficit, so good luck with that statement, you do remember that your predecessor was cause to a massive slide in debt Mr. Miliband?

‘The struggle to find the workforce they need‘, which sounds nice in theory, but many corporations hire young unexperienced people to get away with what some want to slide under that table, when we see the issue where Ross Etherson, who admitted 21 counts of making or supplying articles for use in fraud, cost the NHS more than £37,000, Isleworth Crown Court heard, we clearly see that there are other issues at play, when we take the info from the BBC at http://www.bbc.com/news/10604117, we see that unemployment has steadily dropped under the Tory government. Now, I will in all fairness state that labour was confronted with the 2008 problems, but that mess was not properly dealt with under labour either. The mess left from their debacle 1997-2010 is still getting cleaned up half a decade later.

Now we get to the fishy side of it all: ‘It is a partnership for a purpose. We will give you control of the money for apprenticeships and in exchange we will say that any firm that gets a major government contract will have to provide apprenticeships to the next generation‘. How is this even realistic? Giving control of the money means that all kinds of accounting irregularities are likely to surface, then what? And in regards to ‘major government contract‘ and ‘provide apprenticeships to the next generation‘, how is that not discrimination towards the current aging workforce? In addition, we see that there are situations where apprenticeships are not a solution in the first place, which is just the reality. Consider a new frigate that is getting build with 500 engineers and 10 apprentices on the job, how many delays and what security breaches could the new frigate face? So not apply this rule to all fields? That is just a mess waiting to explode in the faces of those proclaiming it to be a solution.

Then we get (after another wave of waffling by Ed Miliband) ‘the priority for business tax cuts‘, yes, that has always been a good idea, especially as Google and Apple seem to pay 0.1% in taxation. How about infrastructure? Ah, that is next, where we see: ‘That’s why we’ll follow the recommendation of Sir John Armitt and set up a new independent National Infrastructure Commission‘, yes, spending more money on something that will not prove to be a solution, whilst the UK is down a trillion, so at this point, after we saw tax cut and infrastructure and invest, let us remember the earlier promise “So we’ll balance the books and cut the deficit every year“, which I see as:

No balancing the books
Increasing, not decreasing the deficit.

Now we get to the ideological part, which Ed Miliband is of course entitled to: “There could be nothing worse for our country or for our great exporting businesses than playing political games with our membership of the EU“. that is partially true, yet as the EU is unable to muzzle Greece with their flim flam rock band approach of not dealing with their debt and whilst several players are now willing to push Greece into deeper debt, both the UK and Germany need to realise that Greece is getting their credit for nothing and their luxuries at the expense of the other EU nations. How long until it is just safer to let the rest of the EU drown in their inactions against Greece? Which by the way has every likelihood of pushing both Italy and France over their maximum debt threshold, which has massive implications for any member remaining within the EU, all because no one was willing or able to stop Greece?

Now we get back to part of the speech that is an issue ‘Two years of uncertainty in which businesses will not be able to plan for the future‘, how about the fact that most of Europe in a denied recession, due to massive debt dealing is not the way to get any level of certainty? In the Netherlands, unemployment is at 7.2%, In Belgium it is 8.5% and in France it is at 10.4%, so when we look at what business options there are in Europe, we will see a cold turkey that comes home to voluntarily roost in the oven at 190 degrees, because the crispy warmth is loads better than the cold outside, even if the turkey is about to get eaten in the process.

If there is ONE business plan, that that would be the one, where the UK gets by for now, trying to grow, but most importantly is reducing the debt it has, so it does not have to fork out +20 billion in interest to banks for money the Labour party had spent.

So as he goes on reminding us on ‘We need to be a country that rescues our NHS with more doctors and nurses‘, yes, we all remember the NHS 12 billion computer scheme, that did not go too well for all parties involved, perhaps listening to others would have helped the Labour party heaps, but that was in those days never an option, so why trust them now? so the phrase ‘Not what we have seen over the last five years where the NHS slides into crisis‘ is a little misplaced as it was Labour who did messed up 12 billion, an amount that could have kept loads of nurses into jobs and grown the NHS. It was not meant to be!

So when we see the following quote: ‘To carry on with a Conservative plan based on the idea that as long as the richest and most powerful succeed, everyone else will be OK, or a Labour plan, a better plan, that says it is only when working people succeed that Britain succeeds‘

We ought to consider another option. To cut drastically on medical services for those on drug and alcohol based events. These people only get treatment if they can pay in advance for treatment.

Let’s take on the binge drinking issue heads on!

Those who fail the first two parts are thrown into a drunk tank like in the old days. If they die, well that is just too bad, we can blame the parents, we can rejoice on a growing number of available housing (the deceased do not need them) and the nations has even more jobs available and the cost of the NHS goes down.

Now, it will be fair if you disagree with me on this and I admit that this step is hugely inhumane, but consider: these people cost the society 21 billion on an annual base, which includes the 3.5 billion to the NHS. To protect the victims of their crime and violence, they will be remanded into prisons/work houses. So, you see, production will be better off if we change that workforce too!

Yes, I agree it is inhumane, but why must the people at large suffer for those who think that the rules do not apply to them? I have no issue with these people receiving treatment, however, if you are so willing to binge yourself for £39-£69, you can either fork out the £78 for treatment, or sleep it of in a drunk tank, either way, we reduce spending on NHS, which helps towards the actual spending balance Labour is actively ignoring.

So as I ended the look at the Speech of Ed Miliband, I must conclude that it reads political and in addition, decently devoid of realism. Which is a shame, because UK Business is in dire need of realism, which means the solution will come from somewhere else.

Which now gets us to part two of this event. It seems that Nicola Sturgeon is all about getting Labour into No10. It sounds nice, but how is the Scottish National Party any help there? Now, it is fair that they feel a lot more comfortable with their future if Labour is in charge. It is a valid call to make and it is theirs to make it to begin with. Yet, we must not forget the issues that Scotland is already short 11% on their budgets and with oil prices the way they are, their independent future is a lot less certain. This is a shame and I mean that. I was all in favour of Scotland attracting all kinds of Businesses from all over the Commonwealth to grow their economic footprint. I am still reasonably certain that Indian generic medication could grow all over Europe if they have a foothold in Scotland, which allows easy access to places all over Europe. With Oil being a problem and not a solution, other fields must be tackled to grow Scottish interest and the Labour party is nowhere near able to help Scotland there. If we revisit the issue of balancing the books, it will take less than 6 months for Ed Miliband to find way to move business out of Scotland, just to make his side look better, I wonder if Nicola Sturgeon is realising the trap she is setting herself up for.

So if we look at the Guardian article, which is less than 24 hours old, we see ‘Scotland’s SNP revolution terrifies the main parties’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/05/scotland-snp-revolution-terrifies-main-parties), which is an interesting light to see after the Labour-SNP link. There is one debatable quote that caught my eyes was: “Underpinning these analyses is a barely concealed narrative of contempt, which says they will all come to their senses when they realise there will be no land of milk and honey in a Scotland under the absolute control of the SNP“, this is fair enough, but I do not think that this is due to the SNP, I firmly believe that independence too late saved Scotland, if Scotland had been independent whilst the oil prices went into the basement, the damage would have been unimaginable. I remain in faith that growing business in England and Scotland is the only solution, it will be important for both (mostly Scotland) to look at fields they had not considered before. The Indian generic medicine growth is only one branch. The open remoteness (hence securable locations) Scotland has to offer, could spell interesting times for any manufacturing option that does not require the pressure of London, with added benefit of the lower costs that Scotland brings. Consider the Ferry from Scotland to the Netherlands, opening additional paths of revenue. Scotland can grow options, it is just the question whether the Labour party is truly a solution here.

So as we all get to ponder the choices the voters face for England and Scotland, I do hope that they will all look seriously at these flimsy speeches that rattle on all sides. This applies to all parties, not just Labour!

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Tagged as Amazon, Apple, apprenticeships, Australia, BBC, Belgium, Binge drinking, Conservatives, Ed Miliband, England, France, Germany, google, Greece, India, Isleworth Crown Court, Italy, Labour, labour party, labourlist.org, Netherlands, NHS, Nicola Sturgeon, Oil, Ross Etherson, Scotland, Scottish National Party, Sir John Armitt, SNP, UK

April 4, 2015 · 12:41

A traitor as an ally

This was the first thought I had when I saw the news on the Iranian nuclear deal as it is being ‘stamped’ out. First let us take a look at some of the information, so that you all can see how I got to the conclusions I got to. The first one is the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/iran-nuclear-deal-negotiators-announce-framework-agreement).

So let’s take a look at the miscommunicated truths we can clearly see. The first one is “In a joint statement, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, hailed what they called a “decisive step” after more than a decade of work“. There has not been a decade of work, the ‘work’ has been no more than 20 months. Before that, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in office, the man was such a sociopath, that he makes the average British skinhead sound like a docile conservative. So, this is not a plan of a decade, this is, as I see it a situation that has been a bad idea for well over a decade. Now we get to the Kerry sound bite: “The test is whether or not it will leave the world safer or more secure than it would be without this agreement. And there can be no question that the comprehensive plan that we are moving toward will more than pass that test” You see, as I see it, it will not leave the world safer and it currently puts Israel in clear and present danger, in addition, the danger to Europe will be illustrated as well.

The quote from the New York Times is “The president promised to increase security consultations and cooperation with Israel to “remain vigilant in countering Iran’s threats”“, when? You see, the issue is not just Iran, it is the Iranian military, who have been openly supporting Hamas. The news (at http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.646624), shows us the title ‘Hamas and Tehran boost ties as Meshal meets Iran’s Larijani in Doha‘, this is not a secret, the quote “Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview two months ago that Hamas sought to re-join the Iranian-Syrian axis” could be discusses in how good those relations are, but in this there is one non mentioned fact. The fact that these officials are talking is also a clear path that military officials will have been able to meet with them too. It only takes one ‘misplaced’ shipment for many houses to come crashing down. You see, some will state on how weird it is that only Israel is reporting on this, my issue is that the meeting between these parties was open, there were photos taken on March 10^th through March 12^th, which implies (no evidence), that they had all the options to meet with some of the ‘assisting’ military too. Is that such a far-fetched assumption? That news was shown by RT, IB Times and a few others, including American, yet the American sources all stopped around July 2014. It seems that freedom of information comes at a price there too. Now, there are plenty Israeli sources, all with photographs. It includes Debka (http://www.debka.com/), who had additional news recently regarding arms deals, but in light that one localised source is always debatable, I am willing to remain cautious on this. Let’s not forget that Israel also has a political path to walk, to state America has one and Israel does not have one is just ludicrous.

As for the current situation, I have no doubt that Hassan Rouhani is a decent person, who has the best intent for Iran in mind. Yet, in this situation, we must not forget that Iran has a ‘democratic’ election system, which means that in no more than 5 years a new president shall be elected. There is no guarantee that the next elected person will be a former diplomat and a moderate. If the next elected president is an extremist like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, than the future of Israel will move from debatable to non-existent in soon thereafter. Is it not interesting how a proclaimed axis of evil is suddenly an optional choice for between the sheets? Is that what American bankruptcy is getting us?

Now consider the Guardian quote: “Iran will cut its nuclear infrastructure to the point that western governments are satisfied it would take a year to ‘breakout’ and build a bomb, if Tehran chose to follow that path“, so this American administration is willing to be on a one year deadline, whilst they know that whatever hits next will be on the plate of the next administration? How is that anything less than treason? Are you the reader not aware that Iran got more done while it is a clear threat, whilst thawing between Cuba and America took decades, which in light of other events calls for additional questions!

So now we get to the good stuff, because I made a claim and it is important that I show reasoning, if not, it is just noise. You see, the danger from Iran goes a lot further then just Israel. Until recently, my mention would have been ‘If Hamas’, but now, as things escalate, we get ‘When Hamas successfully detonates a dirty bomb’, we get a different picture. What do you think will happen? If the wind is towards the west, which it most likely would be, we get a radioactive cloud that will hit all over the Mediterranean. Now we get a direct danger to the fishing industry for Greece and to a smaller Italy too. Greek tourism will be non-existent for decades to follow, the ‘glow in the dark scare’ will do that to tourism, which might be nice for Portugal. Turkey will also see the fall out here, but not as much as Cyprus and Crete. Once the current spread the radioactive love, there might be larger implications. Then we will suddenly see all kinds of phrased denials, but then it will be too late for Israel and America will get its low cost oil for decades. They only had to be willing to sell their ally Israel down the river.

So is my view too extreme? Not if we believe the New York Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/world/middleeast/arab-leaders-agree-on-joint-military-force.html). The first paragraph is already a clear notion “The Arab states said on Sunday that they had agreed to form a combined military force to counter both Iranian influence and Islamist extremism“, in addition to this we see “While the Houthis have received financial support from Tehran, the Iranians do not seem to exert a strong influence over the group as they do, for example, with Hezbollah in Lebanon“. It is in part all about the financial support, the Arab league needs to counter extremism, that is getting support from Iran, and now, in the same breath America is seizing the pressure that could have made a real difference. I reckon we all have the same question, ‘what gives?’ which is a statement that is not asked my many in press positions. Is that not odd?

Yet, these thoughts alone are not enough and the facts are not all in my favour. You see, many (including me) would see the previous president Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami as a moderate too, but the danger that another Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets elected is too great to suddenly ease on any nuclear deal. Instead of the Cuban approach that is all about reducing tension, we see an unacceptable willingness to just cast it all aside, hoping that Iran keeps a decent form about it all and as such, Israel is placed in immediate harm. That, in my view is not an acceptable act from a true ally. The linked truth to this is that the pressure also includes to the other Arab nations, so what game is America playing, what does it have to gain and why, as such is it willing to risk its ally Israel? No one has a clear answer here!

Another linked statement from the Guardian is “The smiles in Lausanne are detached from wretched reality in which Iran refuses to make any concessions on the nuclear issue and continues to threaten Israel and all other countries in the Middle East“, the person speaking this was Yuval Steinitz, as both Minister of Strategic Affairs and Minister of Intelligence. I wonder what former Mossad director Nahum Admoni would think of all this? He was at the helm when Israel had its ‘lunch’ displayed all over the British press through Mordechai Vanunu. There is however another side to this, one quote from Yuval was “Israel cannot place its security in the hands of international forces instead of relying on the presence of IDF soldiers“. I partially have an issue there too, even though I very much understand the position Mr Steinitz has, the European community at large has felt diplomatically negative about that statement, diplomatically speaking it was the wrong thing to say, tactically speaking, it is an understandable quote, as in the last few decades parties all over all Israel’s neighbourly borders have been single minded regarding the annihilation of Israel.

These are all clear facts, we know that Iran, might be on an improved path, but there is no guarantee passed 2020, so why so eager to give them nuclear freedom? That is a plain reality, the information stated “There is a very rigorous transparency and inspection regime with access for international inspectors on a daily basis, high-tech surveillance of all the facilities, TV cameras, electronic seals on equipment, so we know remotely if any equipment has been moved” sounds nice in theory, but remotely, errors, failings and other issues would not be unheard of, in that ‘confusion’ many acts and miscommunications could and with some degree of certainty WILL happen, then what? What options would be left to Israel? As stated, my issue is less with Iran and more with the willing extreme military officers that have been and are still supporting Hamas and as I see it, any other linked party willing to go against Israel. That path will become a lot clearer as the Arab axis becomes more visible against Iran, let’s not forget that Egypt is next to Israel so a dirty bomb would most definite have the consequence of a panic attack on Egypt too.

Even in America there are sides that to some extent agree with my views. The guardian had this quote “Republican senator Mark Kirk compared the agreement to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler” (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/03/obama-republicans-iran-nuclear-deal). Now if you think that Mark Kirk is so out of centre, then think again. He is Senator of Illinois, a state, where the Daley family stands strong, two of them former Mayors of Chicago for almost half a century, in addition to several other high placed governmental officials, so we can state with certainty that the Daley family does not suffer fools on any side of the political isle; In that environment Mark Kirk survives, so he is no loon! Another quote is “Tehran would have to remove the core from its heavy water reactor in Arak, making it inoperable. It would have to dilute or export at least eight tons of low-enriched uranium, leaving it with only 300 kg“. Here is my issue, at least 8 tons, means that numbers this inaccurate allows for a few hundred kilo’s to be shipped or stored in non-visible places, one of the fears that Israel validly has. In addition, Iran has played fast and loose with lives in the past. What happens when someone figures out to shift the core from steady state to mobile? Yes, the core can be removed, but the supporting system, the steam system and the cooling system will still be there. So what happens when someone MacGyver’s a removable mobile solution? Is that so far-fetched? It took me 10 minutes to come up with that idea, so is Israel that far out of bounds? When we look at the info from http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Conversion-Enrichment-and-Fabrication/Uranium-Enrichment/, where we see “the centrifuge process uses UF6 gas as its feed and makes use of the slight difference in mass between U-235 and U-238. The gas is fed into a series of vacuum tubes, each containing a rotor 3 to 5 metres tall and 20 cm diameter. When the rotors are spun rapidly, at 50,000 to 70,000 rpm, the heavier molecules with U-238 increase in concentration towards the cylinder’s outer edge. There is a corresponding increase in concentration of U-235 molecules near the centre. The counter current flow set up by a thermal gradient enables enriched product to be drawn off axially, heavier molecules at one end and lighter ones at the other“. A tank engine is mobile and has the power to get the power shifted, it just needs to get shifted into a carbon coated caboose. Of course it is in reality not a simple 44 minute episode of MacGyver solution, but the overall view of static equipment is relied on too eagerly. My issue remains not with what is now, but what comes next in Iran and it seems to me that Israel is keeping that in mind, but why Is America and why are the European partners at large ignoring that?

So here we get the title, as Israel sees it, the nuclear changes pushed through, with so much ‘enthusiasm’ are more than dangerous and I reckon, when it goes pear shaped, in hindsight, when the event does actually happen, Europe at large will turn away from America for ever allowing such a dangerous event escalate to begin with. Then what will happen? Well, I can speculate on that (remember, pure speculation), whatever Global corporations that would like to remain in business will leave the United States, Google and Apple will announce themselves to be global and move to other shores. So Apple represented by 187 billion will move away, because the bulk of that is not coming from America, in addition Google’s 66 billion comes from all over the world. So a quarter of a trillion dollars will move away, whatever ‘deal’ America thinks it have will become obsolete and whatever economy it has will collapse overnight. I have not even considered another half a trillion that IBM, SAS and Microsoft represent. In a world of over 7 billion, 325 million do not add up to that much in the view of revenue eager corporations. When Europe sees the consequence of any fallout (pun intended) from this deal, how will they react? Nicely? 500 million that makes up the EEC and the Commonwealth that makes up for 2.3 billion, how incompetent, are the politicians pushing for this deal end up willing to be seen as?

Part of me, in all honesty would hope for the Iranian deal to work. All indication of Hassan Rouhani are positive. It is the person after this that is the problem. I am all for a better deal less restriction with Iran, as long as they are non-nuclear for the upcoming decades. That would already be progress. So as I see it, the administration on the way out, an administration that could go into history as one of the worst in recorded American history is playing a dangerous game, a game they will leave to others to pay for.

How is this the responsible act from any ally?

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Tagged as Apple, Debka, Egypt, Federica Mogherini, google, Hassan Nasrallah, Hassan Rouhani, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, Houthis, IB Times, IBM, Israel, Larijani, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mark Kirk, Mark Kirk R-Il, Meshal, Microsoft, Minister of Intelligence, Minister of Strategic Affairs, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Mordechai Vanunu, Mossad, Nahum Admoni, Neville Chamberlain, New York Times, RT, SAS, Tehran, the Guardian, U-235, U-238, United States, www.world-nuclear.org, Yuval Steinitz

April 3, 2015 · 11:42

Why do we bother?

This article is not for the faint of heart, or for those who ‘believe’ in equal rights. This piece is as misogynistic as it gets, for the simple reason that being nice, being considerate sounds like an idea, but in the end, it seems to me that

No one cares
The prosecuting side of the law at large seems to be ill equipped.

What brought this on?

It’s been going on for a little while. Usually in the form of these ‘innocuous’ advertisements through Facebook linked pages and other sourced forms of mass marketing.

You might have seen them, pictures of photo shopped women, ready and posing to be ‘coitussed’, with added statement like ‘Male Gamers Only‘ (EDGE, by UDM), an advertisement for a game called Wartune, with the ‘warning’ Adult content! It is all promoted by a site called ‘utterlypettable.com’ (one of several places), in this case regarding the 21 most deadly animals. So can anyone explain how a transgression on sexual discrimination is not being prosecuted? Because they are just ‘facilitators’?

It seems to me that those facilitating mass advertising have a lot to explain for. To just get through and to just get the revenue in, they will overlook many issues. Of course these pages are usually linked to advertisements like ‘Hurry before this video is banned‘ and ‘Rich people Do Everything To Ban This‘. I normally ignore them all, but in this light, I decided to take a gander on the idiotic side, which now links to ‘Free money’ sites with additional spamming scripts. The fact that pressing the button to close that window steals the act and forces you to submenus only give way to the dangers that these places present. You see, if they were all on the up and up, they would not resort to these tactics and closing the window would not be hijacked. A world limited to Hijacking and Misogyny. It all goes even further when we consider the damage Facebook is handing out (from https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/26915213/stop-being-selfish-outrage-over-anti-c-section-facebook-page/). This shows us A Facebook page criticising women who have given birth by caesarean section. How is this ‘freedom’ of speech? So as we see the reasoning for this need, which is “A Caesarean section is often performed when a vaginal delivery would put the baby’s or mother’s life or health at risk“, we should ask how we can condone ‘freedom’ of speech, attacking people for diminishing a person’s health, in this case both mother and baby. Yes, there is a growing concern that more women ask for it and not always is there a health danger, but that is between the upcoming mother and her physician as I see it. My question becomes, the ‘offender’ known as the Disciples of the New Dawn, how many of them are man and what percentage of this group is female?

At this point I must also illustrate that this is not a new issue. The guardian had an opinion piece in May 2013 (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/23/facebook-violently-sexist-pages-twitter-fbrape) called ‘Facebook’s violently sexist pages are an opportunity for feminists’, directly stated, not only do I disagree, these pages are a lot more dangerous than both genders realise. When we see eBay pages, selling T-Shirts stating ‘I’m feeling rapey’ we can honestly state that there are massive issues. The 2013 offensive T-shirt “Keep Calm and Rape A Lot” being the clearest of these transgressions. The article explained on how the automated phrase was in the hands of ‘Solid Gold Bomb’ and as they stated ‘these shirts were computer-generated and we didn’t even know we had a shirt that says that‘. The article does not touch on the part on how the phrases were collected, if we take the logic on the event that the act required someone to type it in, it would take thousands of people to type the phrase to get detected by these algorithms, which means that there is a larger problem hidden behind the issue which was not addressed by the press at large either.

This is partially seen in the UK where domestic Violence is at a massive high. At this point I want to mention an article I mentioned in the past (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/13/domestic-abuse-violence-victims-crime-survey-figures). Here we see ‘Domestic violence experienced by 30% of female population, survey shows‘, if this is anywhere near the truth, then tomorrow, when you get into the Underground and look at the women on route to their destination, then consider that over time it is likely that out of every 4 women you see, there is a small chance that one of them has not yet experienced abuse. Now ask yourself if you can live with that number, one out of four!

So when we see Jeri Ryan as the Female Borg, we can consider that being 7 of nine, that she could be one of 7 currently receiving domestic abuse. These are not nice statistics and the failing of the law is getting ever clearer and ever more unacceptable.

All this is propelled from the statement ‘Male Gamers Only‘, one of the most unacceptable calls for a game. I have played online many times, several friends on the multi-player Mass Effect 3 are women and they are quite good too! Games are a great channel, there we need to be part of the pack, part of the group and there the gender, age and religion has no bearing, only that you are part of the team, propelling victory for the entire group. The most unbiased of acts, to be together and just have a fun time. So when we see a T-Shirt stating “You provoked me” and “I was drunk“, we should worry on how this was regarded as ‘freedom of speech’. When we see the dreadful statistics of domestic violence, those ‘slogans’ have no place in this society and merely removing the page from eBay just does not cut it in my train of thought.

So when we see the quote “T-shirts that make a joke of rape are still available, of course, even on the biggest retailer of all, Amazon, but Laura Bates at Everyday Sexism has vowed to keep fighting to stop rape being regarded as a joke, rather than the violent crime it is“, we have to ask more than serious questions, we should ask whether a retailer like Amazon would be allowed to continue to cater to any Commonwealth nation. In my view, removing fields of revenue tends to be a great motivator to start being actually correct (in comparison to being ‘feigned politically correct’).

As stated, these events are not opportunities for feminists, they are just dangerous grounds for additional victims, which brings us to the second part of all this, the act of trivialisation. There are two kinds, there are at times trivialised moments when we have a vocal ‘spas’ with friends, we all say some things that are way outside the realm of politically correct. Men will giggle when we hear (as I did) the words of one woman saying to the other ‘No knickers? Laundry day or lunch with Mr Big?‘ (At Paddy’s market, Sydney). The mention is essential because it is a simple dialogue between two women I passed whilst looking for a polo shirt. Is objectification wrong when female friends do it among themselves? Was there objectification, or was ‘Mr Big’ about to get himself objectified over ‘lunch plus’. I feel unable to answer as there are too many unknown variables. Yet, linked to something I do know is the article ‘If you want to write about feminism online, be ready to take on the haters‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/apr/01/if-you-want-write-abaout-feminism-online-be-ready-to-eal-with-the-haters). You see, in my view, the photo is part of the issue. Three women wearing ‘no more page three‘ texts. I for one was never against page three (being a guy and all), but moreover, I always felt that those women used the Murdoch system to hopefully get ahead. Was that wrong? I do not know, but it was their choice to make, just like it is the right of these women to oppose page three. I mentioned the issue before. You see, when we see Keeley Hazell, who became known for working with charities, which include those working for animal rights and breast cancer awareness, we should wonder how bad the act was. There are not too many examples like these, so over 4 decades we can wonder on the numbers of good versus evil, but in my view, it is not about feminism, it is about the causes that matter. I am not convinced that page three led to domestic violence, but all this effort on a page in a paper that has been faltering versus the national issue that plays in more than one Commonwealth nation makes me wonder whether energy and effort are pushed into the right direction. There I have my questions and I am not convinced. The article does mention my feelings in a way when it raises the paragraph ‘There are more important issues to worry about’, which is exactly the issue I have. It is also for that reason that I am such a fan of the effort Emma Watson who is bringing us ‘HeForShe‘. I disagree with The Age (at http://www.theage.com.au/comment/emma-watson-speech-hardly-a-gamechanger-20140925-10lhz9.html), where Clementine Ford (a woman) is stating that it is hardly a game-changer. I disagree, As Hermione Granger she spoke to the imagination and reverence of an entire generation, a generation that now entered the real of young adult. A generation that consists of both man and women. She had an opportunity and she is forging a change from within this generation. That is not ‘hardly a game-changer’, this is huge and as far as I can tell, almost unique in our history, which makes it even bigger. There is a part I feel uneasy about. The quote “Gender inequality comes as a direct result of the enforcement of patriarchal structures. Although men are impacted negatively by it, they are not impacted in the same ways or to the same drastically violent extent as women“, is not wrong, but as I see it, it is incorrect. You see, a lot has changed, many changes that started in the last two decades are now coming to fruition. So as I see some women ‘whine’ about inequality (not judging right or wrong), I see that it is not wrongly seen, but wrongly shown in dimension. At University, now as I complete my Masters in Law, I see that the gender gap is no longer equal, I see that the man are now a minority, moreover, the people becoming partners and the higher echelons of law are slowly being replaced by women, who have completed the journey from legal aid to where they are now. This was not a simple task, these women excelled in law for a long time and now, those women get the positions. This is not a patriarch side, this is an evolving side. Now as the changes come over the next decade, women are more likely to be in charge in many fields, not because they are women, but because over time they had proven themselves to be equals. The second part of the article I disagree with is “Men have always been welcome to ‘participate in the conversation’, most notably when that participation involves action, change and acknowledgement of their own privilege and power“. That was (as I see it) never the case. I remember at VNU (Dutch publication house) that there was a guy who offered several pieces on promoting IT and IT skills for women. He literally got laughed out by those working at the Cosmopolitan editorial. So do not come to me with ‘welcome to participate’, because that was not the case. I am not making a judgment whether the act then was valid or not. Change took a long time and we are not there yet, but the wheel has turned and the acts of Emma Watson and women like her will be essential in propelling it all forward. So as we allow the issues of some advertisements, some T-shirts and on trivialised domestic violence, I wonder what fights still need to be fought.

So in the end, why do we bother?

Because within ourselves we acknowledge that moving forward requires equilibrium and equality, they are one and the same in our mental position and championing this position will end to be good for all. This is exactly why I am all for women in gaming. Not because they are women, but because I want a better game and it has been proven again and again that originality is found when new views are added to the table, in an age of mediocre sequels, originality is the essential ingredient. I look at it from the world of gaming, because I know this world the best, in IT it does not matter what gender the person is as long as there is skill and innovation. The result there is never seen in gender, if you doubt that, then list the names of all who worked on either Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Adobe Photoshop. There is the simplest shape of evidence. Here we do not care, who did it, as long as it works, the ultimate equaliser of gender.

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Tagged as Amazon, Clementine Ford, Commonwealth, Cosmopolitan, Disciples of the New Dawn, Edge, Emma Watson, Facebook, HeForShe, Jeri Ryan, Keeley Hazell, Laura Bates, Mass Effect 3, Misogyny, Page 3, Rupert Murdoch, Solid Gold Bomb, the Age, the Guardian, the Sun, UDM, utterlypettable.com, VNU, Wartune

April 2, 2015 · 23:35

As we seek options

There is a clear delight in looking a little longer at the Greek comedy that is about to become a tragedy, but I reckon that their loss is now a certainty to so many that the blogs and the news as it is released is no longer truly in the interest of many to watch.

Instead of that, it might be more interesting to take another look at what should be regarded as the shifting trend of danger as it hits on a global scale. It is an opinion piece by George Monbiot, which was published 3 days ago. The article called “‘Wealth creators’ are robbing our most productive people” (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/wealth-creators-klepto-rewards-bosses). George is touching on several issues I have written about and many have known for a long time. The following quotes are at the centre of the issue “A report by the Resolution Foundation reveals that two-thirds of frontline care workers receive less than the living wage. Ten percent, like Carole, are illegally paid less than the minimum wage. This abuse is not confined to the UK: in the US, 27% of care workers who make home visits are paid less than the legal minimum“. So here is number one. Mr President, your claims on healthcare for everyone, in this view, did you intentionally set it up to be affordable through the use of what might be regarded as slave labour? There are heaps of jokes involving slave labour and African Americans, but then, I am not sure how many of your involved advisers fit that bill. Yet, it is not about health care, it is only a factor in a larger scheme of things, so up to the next part. “As the pay gap widens – chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today – the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration“, this is an interesting view. You see, ‘klepto’ implies what is ‘not theirs’, yet the system had been destabilised to maximise exploitation by those in charge. What George sees as ‘klepto-remuneration’, I see as unbalanced unaccountability. Because the board of directors has a clear responsibility, to ensure the future of the corporation that they are heading. It seems to me that these board members are doing whatever they can to fill their need for comfort. When people doubt that approach then take a look at the mediocre collection of bundled fiascos. Tesco, RBS, Northern Rock, Polly Peck and the list goes on for a decent time. The US is not innocent their either, it is a global problem.

The interesting part is that these events have been known for a long time and in some cases there was a change to the UK Corporate Governance Code and other laws, but overall the massive need for change to ensure (read: force) fairness to the corporations and the bleeding of revenue (read solvency) towards their own board of directors is nowhere near the changes that are required, which is shown on a near global scale. The issue will only increase over the next two years as we see mergers and therefor non-taxable solutions for certain moguls TEVA, Horizon Pharma and linked to this there is Deerfield. Yet, Deerfield has other options, so what will they do, will they drown their board into a group of massive commissions, or will they exploit their centre position and grow larger into the need to corner the pharma and generic patent market. Deerfield could grow its market from 4 to well over 11 billion if the right patents are acquired. So the question becomes, where is the cut-off point? When will we see the appropriate response of those boards, not for profit, but for opening markets and allow taxability to become a true value of restoring its government’s coffers, whether it be US or Commonwealth? Yet the proper laws to truly state the changes are not in place. The draconian shift would not just be unacceptable, it will result in a change that could choke a commerce, but the current unchecked options are equally non-working and equally devastating, all due to the lack of accountability, so how to change the setting?

I do not pretend to have the answer. I am not sure what the best course is to properly adjust the law, but as we saw in the article written by George, he had one final part I did not mention yet “There is no end to this theft except robust government intervention: a redistribution of wages through maximum ratios and enhanced taxation. But this won’t happen until we challenge the infrastructure of justification, built so carefully by politicians and the press. Our lives are damaged not by the undeserving poor but by the undeserving rich“, you see, here I slightly disagree, not with his statement, which is fair enough, but in this view ‘a redistribution of wages through maximum ratios and enhanced taxation‘, will never be a proper long term solution, it is a flim flam approach to a non-working premise. It is like the additional taxation of the rich, now consider that this money comes from less than 10,000 people, how can we see a redistribution on fairness, whilst only a small part of these rich are undeservingly so? If we cannot bolster their move, or tax their efforts, the only part remaining is to limit their actions. I had seen several moves in the past, which are still ignored by nations (and their taxation offices at large). I reckon that corporations are unwilling to receive taxation, in addition, several tax sheltering governments (Ireland & Netherlands) are unwilling to let go of the little advantage they have, but it is that unwilling part that is hurting all.

Laws to ‘maximise’ industrialisation have become anchors, minimising wellbeing, none of these elements are dealt with by ‘enhanced taxation’. It can be achieved by removing tax write offs. What if there is no longer a benefit for merging? What if Teva Pharma (TEVA) was not allowed to Acquire Auspex Pharma unless there is full taxability? So no tax write-off, no benefit for either. Why give tax breaks to companies making millions/billions? In addition, some of these mergers are done to allow for some patents to be prolonged. I believe in patents, I truly do, but I also believe in an end date of that exclusivity, so that the innovators of generic solutions can make a product that is affordable for all, solving more than one issue in one go.

Was that so hard to begin with? The solution providers only had to let go of a little greed!

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Tagged as Auspex Pharma, Deerfield, George Monbiot, Health care, Hedge Funds, Horizon Pharma, Minimum wage, Northern Rock, Patents, Polly Peck, RBS, slave labour, Tesco, TEVA, Teva Pharma, the Guardian, UK, UK Corporate Governance Code, US

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