Category Archives: Politics

September 12, 2023 · 03:00

The future is today

That is a small reference to Beaker, the assistant of Muppets lab where the future is being made today. The thought came to me after seeing an article which took me back to one of my articles. The article in question is ‘On the way to……’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/07/28/on-the-way-to/). In that article I give the readers “Yet the larger part is how the prices (allegedly) dip a little in early 2024, as I see it as these settings continue, the world (EU and USA) will face oil prices of $90+ from December 2023 onwards. I have no idea how high they will get, but the larger setting no matter how managed it is, the shortage will continue and press pressures up to weird levels all over Europe.” So that was my prediction at the end of July, two months ago. I was called all kinds of things, including Arab buddy and wog friend (whatever that is). So now we get ‘Oil prices ease after Saudi, Russian output cuts but hold above $90’ (at https://ara.tv/24w46), so basically we are already at the $90+ point and it was (as I personally see it) clearly visible. And when we add “The supply cuts overshadowed continuing concern over Chinese economic activity last week, but investors looked to be focusing on demand drivers on Monday, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) due to release monthly reports this week.” It is more than the simple demand drivers. Yes, these drivers are a first, but the environment, the effects are now becoming a second. The larger setting is that the hot summers are likely going to be the fuel for a drastic and much colder winter. If that is true (and it is pure speculation) the west and especially the northern hemisphere could require a lot more oil for heating and that will drive up the oil price ever further. I have no idea how high it will get but it is already above $90, as such $100 per barrel is not out of the question, but this is not my ballgame. I saw the increase, but how high is less my issue, or my interest as I do not own any oil wells. 

So what will happen next? Well, there is some confusion on that. The EU and US have alienated Saudi Arabia as well as some of the other OPEC nations and with Russia in the state it is in a lot of oil is no longer available to the EU, yet the US is the largest producer at present and where it all goes is up to all of you, but it comes at a price. What that price will be is anyones guess but the demand of oil keeps on pressing and the needs during coming winter could reach new heights. But that is pure speculation from my side. I have no information that could be ruled as acceptable evidence. What does matter is that whilst I saw this moment two months ago, too many were in doubt or flat out denying this and we are now entering a stage where denial is the start of disastrous folly. For me the fun part was that I was right all along (yet again) and I am perhaps Beakers twin or assistant and I predicted the present two months ago. OK, I expected this to happen in a few months, but we are already there, all whilst others were playing possum with the reality of events.

Enjoy the day.

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September 11, 2023 · 19:48

Folly and opportunity

Yup, a setting that has both. You see yesterday I offered the quote “I made mention of Deeper Machine Learning. This is awesome, it is not AI (AI does not yet exist) but it got me thinking. You see, we now see mention of AI in construction. This is about to go bad, really bad and Trusting these buildings will become folly soon enough. I will try to explain that soon enough” and that soon is now. To see this we need to make a few sidesteps, but it will be clear soon enough. For this I selected ‘Building a smarter future: The impact of big data and AI in construction’ (at https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/digital-construction-news/big-data-and-ai-in-construction-trimble/132005/) there are several sources, but this one got a few things really right and that matters to me. They give you “Because computers can be programmed to analyse questions and situations using thousands of parameters in the time it takes most of us to type them in, they’re an incredible tool that we can use to do complex calculations in a fraction of the time it takes any human, and because they approach every situation with logic, they can make the most rational decisions even when we can’t. Artificial intelligence in construction simply takes that to the next level, applying machine learning, which allows those same computers to learn from situations they’ve encountered before and to adjust their results accordingly.” I do not fully agree, but they give a better explanation then most others and they made the big good one by giving us ‘applying machine learning’ this is correct. 

Why is this what?
That is the setting, you see to see this I will need to take you on a little time travel. That is after you realise that machine learning depends on data, loads of it. But in all this the right category is also important. We are about to overlap best practice and best results onto the cheaper way, the cutting corners way. We might rely on movies like the towering inferno (1974) where the movie based on two books namely the Glass inferno and the tower. In the movie we see the bastardly electrical engineer who cut corners (played by Richard Chamberlain) and the architect played by Paul Newman. There we see the little conversation that the electrical engineer Roger Simmons kept to building codes and that the demands by the architect Doug Roberts were outlandish and to cost driving and fair enough, the building burns down on opening night.

Children of Mediocrates
The previous one was a story, fiction. But reality is not. In the 90’s captains of industry shook hands with politicians and a lacking drive was introduced. Almost like the philosopher Mediocrates who introduced a new life lesson ‘Meh, good enough’. I was actually in some of those meetings where we were told. “What if the strive of excellence is not 100%, but 80%. What had is it to be still really good. How much easier is it to build your bonus when we expect a 80% line?” I was there, I heard it all and I was told to adhere to it all. And yes the bonus for me was easier and I was merely in customer service, but it felt wrong. 

Nowadays
So back to today when we look at the application of what some call AI (a wrong term). The data it relies on cannot tell the difference because best practice and cutting corners are all the same thing and it will set a flawed recommendation and the larger folly is that the people in control of that data will not distinguish between the two fronts either. They are to young to tell, or they cannot tell the difference, because those filling their pockets are no longer around. It is a recipe for disaster and when was the last time when construction disasters went without casualties? 

This is the setting I see coming and there is also an opportunity. You see, those cutting corners did not protect the original path. As such these patents and IP points are now open and unprotected. As such these options are there for the clever people to create new innovation patents based on the open original patents, the ones the cutting corners people let be and there should be a fair amount of them all over the field. This is merely because best practice was too expensive for them and now those options are open. An example here might be the Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). We are now seeing all the issues and the hundreds of buildings that have them. It was an invention in the 1990’s, making the timeline fit. And now we see “Concerns were amplified in 2023 following reports of an earlier roofing collapse at a British primary school, which fell without warning in 2018” Now, one does not mean the other, but there is a premise that fits and as such we see the larger danger. Consider that this all gained popularity in the 50’s. So how many new patents were created based on this idea, and what was left behind and unprotected? I will let you do the math, but whomever has those innovation patents will have the option to fill there pockets with the best practice approach whilst too many are merely in it to make a buck. As such the folly of hiding behind AI is about to hit a lot of people squarely in the face, all whilst the clever people will be able to turn a coin as they have the patents and they will be the only player to be considered soon enough.

Hiding behind hyper words suddenly gives others a chance to become serious players where the big boys never wanted them. How is that for poetic justice?

Enjoy the day, most of the week is still in front of you.

 

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September 9, 2023 · 22:01

America is for criminals

That was the realisation that I got today. The reason that I had that thought was a BBC article. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66747694) gives us ‘Another FTX executive Ryan Salame pleads guilty’. It is there that we find “He agreed to surrender more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to authorities. The pleading comes ahead of the October trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.” I had issues from the very beginning, the total lack of checks and balances were the first hurdle I saw avoided by too many. The fact that someone can just push over a billion dollars out of the way is what I personally regard a first piece of evidence. That in itself does not warrant my thought that America is for criminals. That is seen with “authorities said they would accept $6m, two properties in Massachusetts and a 2021 Porsche as part of the plea deal, according to Reuters.” That is the deal for criminals. Fail your criminal empire, you get millions, two houses and a Porsche, that is nice too, not? Has anyone gone insane? That I the way you hand over the keys to criminal empire makers and no matter how you think it goes. The station of crime pays in America. My question becomes what did after former Alameda chief executive officer Caroline Ellison, former FTX technology chief Gary Wang and former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh get? The setting of such a deal that they all get some plea deal with houses and millions is just too sickening to my stomach. In the end we have one month to go until we find out what happens to Mr Bankman-Fried (or Mr Bonky-Fired as I call him). I wonder what plea deal awaits him. What option do they offer him as he was too confused for matters. Perhaps it is the the crypto currency what drove him insane, it gave too much imbalance to whatever medication he was on. prosecutor Damian Williams, US attorney for the southern district of New York gave us “Ryan Salame agreed to advance the interests of FTX, Alameda Research, and his co-conspirators through an unlawful political influence campaign and through an unlicensed money transmitting business, which helped FTX grow faster and larger by operating outside of the law,” Yet I wonder not what was said there, I wonder what was possible to set the station to advance criminal intent within the law, that is the stage that is connected and it is the parts that is not drilled on. Yet, that is pure speculation from me. 

The fact that billions went awry is still matter for the court, because that is the stage that is perhaps largely ignored. I personally see it as an absence of checks and balances. And yes, I could be wrong here. But when you consider the way that billions were moved from left to right, from the US to untouchable to the US is still matters to consider and with proper checks and balances this should not have been possible. So in the end, is America merely a place for criminals and greed driven people now? I will let you ponder that, but remember that the plea deal here included millions, a luxury car and two houses. That person will be allowed to live in a style that well over 98% of Americans will never know. Consider that part of the equation too.

Enjoy you weekend without millions, a Porsche and two places to live.

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September 8, 2023 · 09:28

Has the world gone mad?

Yup, this was my very first thought, it was not a nice thought (I’ll admit to that) and it was given to me by Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/6/us-eu-uk-officials-visit-uae-to-discuss-russia-sanctions-cnn-report) where we are given ‘Western officials visit UAE in efforts to halt exports to Russia: Report’ the byline of “The Wall Street Journal initially reported plans to jointly press the UAE to halt shipments of goods to Russia” does not help much. In all honesty, who the fuck do they think they are? You see, we were only given a week ago ‘Beer giant Heineken sells its business in Russia for one euro’ (at https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/beer-giant-heineken-sells-its-business-in-russia-for-one-euro/news-story/1f6e65254890bfbd6d1757d70deb351c). In part I think that it is nice that it happens after well over a year when things should have stopped, but let things flow (especially beer). You see, the largest problem is that places like Align Technology (USA), Cloudflare (USA), BT Technologies (UK), Fenzi group (Italy) and a whole range more are according to sources still operating in Russia. Yale is giving us a list (at https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-1000-companies-have-curtailed-operations-russia-some-remain) where we find ‘Over 1,000 Companies Have Curtailed Operations in Russia—But Some Remain’ after 560 days of war. I admit that the list is from 2022, yet there Heineken wasn’t even on the list. So I would kindly like to request that the representatives from the United States, British and European Union who are visiting the United Arab Emirates amid concerns regarding shipments of goods, including computer chips, to Russia that could help Moscow in its war on Ukraine would kindly ‘Shut the fuck up’ and clean their houses first. This group of snivelling little clowns do not get to tell anyone anything until their citizens and corporations seized all operations. I think that same message could be given to anyone visiting any Middle Eastern nation with a similar request. I do not disagree with the sentiment, but to do that whilst your places are still operating in Russia is just too hypocritical for any consideration. And even after that, there is still China to consider, they will never consider that request beyond certain levels and as such, why is this request coming to the UAE? Are the American parties making money of puppets in the UAE to keep their hands clean? I cannot say that this is happening, but there are plenty of ways for zero tax nations to make a bundle being the front person of a large deliverer. Oh, and by the way in 2021 on September 20th, Jesse Benton and Doug Wead pleaded not guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges of making a straw donation to the Trump campaign in 2016 on behalf of a Russian national. So is that case going? I am just asking, because On February 17, 2023, Jesse Benton was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the other one died in time to avoid conviction. With the US in shambles and the US setting up all kinds of foundations of avoidance by US Republicans into stopping assistance to the Ukraine, I think that envoy should take a breather and stop being silly. Some of that ‘anti-assistance is less than a month old’, as such I wonder who on earth would be this stupid. So when we are given “The senior Western officials arrived in the Gulf nation this week to discuss sanctions on Russia, as concerns mounted that Moscow was bypassing them through various means, a US embassy spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday.” All whilst the US, UK and EU are still very much invested in Russia is just too crazy for words. 

I am not stating that you should believe me, I added the sources that were available to me and that list, I made mention of it earlier this year (might have been in 2022), so when I saw this article in Al Jazeera I wondered why the other media are shunning investigating businesses with vested interests in Russia, there are apparently well over 1000. So why is the UAE such an issue? I honestly do not know, but the idea that there are western politicians with a ‘look there’ all whilst they are filling their pockets (the Trump Case) is just too silly for words and these representatives should take a hard look at what they are not doing at home. Just a thought to entertain.

Enjoy the upcoming weekend that is for most a mere day away.

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August 28, 2023 · 13:49

The speculated danger

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

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

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

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

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

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

So consider what I told you, fell free to check the numbers you can and be certain that you take note of the trivialisation you see in the media and take note of the media that trivialised it. They are no longer to be trusted ever. They are filtering the information to keep you asleep, especially in a time when you should have been awake a lot more. It is not the one thing, there is no one thing, it is the combination of a whole range of issues and it is not the private jet setting, that is utter bullshit. What they are all happy to ‘ignore’ or forget is what I mentioned in ‘A COP26 truth’ a setting we see (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/11/13/a-cop26-truth/) two elements stand out. “over the last 15 years 15,000,000 additional flights were added. That amounts to 41,000 flights a day, every single day. So how much CO2 do these flights create?” The Guardian was all about private jets and made no mention of this element. Do you really think that these flights were essential? Then there was “We are that close to suffocating. On the other side, we have seen clear reports that 50% of the damage comes from 147 plants, the media ignored it, I wrote about it and placed the documents of UNEP and the EEA for you to read, they had graphics too.” How interesting was it that the Guardian and its environmental pages did not mention that report. Two elements and you were kept in the dark and now these elements start to form a biased opinion (from me) but feel free to come up with better settings and this has been going on since 2021. So with all the space they had they ignored the European Environmental Agency? 

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

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

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

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August 25, 2023 · 19:06

And then there were 6 more

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

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

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

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August 22, 2023 · 20:51

Turning the pages

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

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

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August 20, 2023 · 22:20

Look back in anger

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the last day of the weekend.

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August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August 19, 2023 · 00:41

Our house is burning down. Down!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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