Category Archives: Politics

December 11, 2021 · 19:16

A two sided sword

It is nice (novel too) when the press does your work. Al Jazeera (at https://aje.io/xvndmj) with the headline ‘Nobel Peace Prize winners warn of growing disinformation threat’, which sounds nice, but the complication is that the press is part of the problem, in the last two years 

I looked at issues with the NSO group, Jamal Khashoggi (the reporter no one cares about), one sided accusations against Saudi Arabia, bungled investigations involving Jeff Bezos (and the UN), Ignoring the events from Iran and Houthi forces and that running joke known as the ICIJ with their papers of hope (Pandora papers). All issues that show the press being part of the problem, not a solution. All vying for digital dollars any way they can. 

So when I see “Maria Ressa of the Philippines said the greatest threat to democracy is “when lies become facts”, while Dmitry Muratov of Russia said society is currently in a dangerous “post-truth period””, I am not opposing Maria Ressa, I am stating that the disinformation problem is a lot larger than what we hear and journalists are part of that problem. 

Journalists have with some regularity placed themselves on the axial of a seesaw and tried to keep a balance between events taking place and Stakeholders that need things go certain ways (my speculation/presumption). It is a setting that have been going on since 2012 (which is when I started to take notice). So when I see “Muratov also told Al Jazeera that disinformation was a significant and growing threat. “Manipulation leads to war,” he said. “We are in the middle of a post-truth period. Now, everyone is concerned about their own ideas and not the facts,” Muratov said” I feel an involuntary giggle coming up. It is correct what he states, but the part of ‘Manipulation leads to war’, was this communicated to the morning breakfast shows? Was this communicated to newspapers who do this way too often? 

Yes there are problems and they are all over the place, yet the press is part of the problem, it stopped being part of the solution when shareholders needed to see more money from news outlets. A plate for pigs and there are too many pigs and the plate is seemingly getting smaller. 

So it needs to be clear, I am not opposing the person who achieved the standing of winning a Nobel price, I am however pointing towards the wannabe’s behind these people maximising digital coins at the expense of clear reporting. In case of the ICIJ, has anyone seen a clear dashboard giving us numbers of people per nation, nations with government people involved and non-government people? No, you haven’t. More importantly when we see the stage of those in zero tax nations (and their right to be there), what is left? In that stage we see the ICIJ speak like parrots, repeating the same thing over and over without any real revelations, any real criminal activities. So when you see “The new data reveals confidential information about the owners of offshore entities mostly registered in the British Virgin Islands, a notoriously secretive jurisdiction, between 1980 and 2018.” You get no real information, merely some silly essay person waving his dick. The problem is that this so called “confidential information about the owners of offshore entities”, is absent of criminal activities. It is about tax laws and these clowns have not achieved anything, merely made you all angry that some people get LEGALLY away with avoiding taxation. So Boo Hoo flipping Hoo. 

So I get it that some journalists should receive protection, but in my personal view, we could do without those 600 at the ICIJ brilliantly. The term of “when lies become facts” sounds really nice, but that means that we hold journalists and what they write accountable, an act that hasn’t been the case for the longest of times, should you doubt that, read the Leveson report. The stage is changing and to some degree journalists and news outlets are responsible for that mess. Consider that the big papers which include the Wall Street Journal, The Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Boston globe and the NY Times. How many did a real piece on how tax laws have failed a nation? None as fr as I can tell, they are all screaming ‘Tax the Rich’ but it were these tax laws that got them in that setting. The disregarded acts by Iran are visible all over by the bulk of these papers seemingly disregard these parts, just like the assaults by Houthi’s but they are all eager to slam the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one sided reporting is disinformation, I hope that this is clear? Filtered information (like morning shows) is also a form of disinformation and they all serve some stakeholder (as I personally see it).

A stage that has to change and it should start with those calling themselves journalists. 

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December 10, 2021 · 00:15

The reality of non-sense

This was the setting we see in the BBC, it is not on the BBC, they are innocent. Yet the article ‘You apply for a job – only for it to go to an internal candidate. Were you wasting your time all along?’ Should make plenty of people angry, especially if they are over 45. We get to see “Sometimes the requirement exists for immigration purposes, to ensure that a foreign resident is only hired for a job that a local can’t fill. For instance, in Australia, companies generally need to have an open recruitment process, even if they already know the overseas worker they want to hire”, this sounds nice, especially the “companies generally need to have an open recruitment process”, yet the age discrimination in Australia makes that statement a wash. A friend once told me “Australia is great for the young”, I didn’t get it until it was much too late. The phrase actually needs to say “Australia is great for the young, the rest can fuck off”, a setting I have seen rolling out for close to a decade and it is not just the small places, the big players like Google and Apple are every bit as guilty. If you do per level an age comparison these two (optionally several large tech as well) will have numbers that will not make sense, they will look skewed, too skewed. 

So when we are given “all too many job seekers have shared stories of applying for a job, seeing that an internal hire was made and suspecting – or being told – the company’s intention was to hire that current employee all along”, the non ageing affect is seemingly overlooked. So when you consider the story (at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211206-can-you-ever-beat-an-internal-candidate-for-a-job) be aware that a few elements are left outside the door, for Australia age discrimination is a real deal and there are plenty of examples out there.

The Australian Human Rights Commission reported this year on several key findings. 

  1. Ageism exists in Australia
  2. Ageism affects Australians across the adult lifespan.

I am merely mentioning two as that should be enough, the report that you can download (at https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/age-discrimination/publications/whats-age-got-do-it-2021) gives a lot more. We see the article that makes all kinds of references, but ageism is left out of the consideration. There is not one mention on it, and when you see the article on ‘were you wasting your time all along?’ That same thing can be said for anyone applying for jobs when they are over 50, they are seemingly disregarded in every walk of life, even now when we see the massive shortages, the aged worker seemingly does not stand a chance. 

Forbes even came with ‘10 Steps To Proactively Address The Problem’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/sheilacallaham/2021/11/29/workplace-ageism-requires-leadership-action-10-steps-to-proactively-address-the-problem/) There we see “10 Ways Leaders Can Take Action Now”, yet the reality is that these so called leaders will have to listen to superiors too, and they will hand out some policy notice that they are working on it. 

In all the reality of non-sense is that there is no sense, it is about sales and populism and when that segment is depending on the young, the old will have to sit in a corner to wait until they die. Harsh but that is how it seemingly is at present.

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December 8, 2021 · 20:43

Somewhat connected news

Yes, news has two options, it is either connected or it is not. This sounds silly, there are plenty of news articles with no connection at all, but what happens when there is a link (to some degree)?

It is that setting we regularly face. I actually wanted to link in Reuters news, but they screwed up their system, there is no replacement for competency and Reuters seemingly lost that. But to some degree there is a larger stage. CNBC gives us ‘U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries to lower gas prices’ yes that is a setting we get, but the article at Reuters, which is now beyond reach is alerting us to market volatility, that is a setting we get. Yes we see all kinds of voices to state that we have to let go of fossil fuels and I get that, it makes sense. Yet we now get “The U.S. will release 50 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the White House said Tuesday”, this sounds great, but consider that this represents a little under 10% of that reserve. So what happens when the reserves are gone? So when we see “part of a global effort by energy-consuming nations to calm 2021′s rapid rise in fuel prices” we all tend to see a good thing, and it is for the most a good thing. The issue that Reuters cannot give us is that there are larger concerns. These oil executives are right, even though they are in part buttering their own bread, the reality is that the need for fossil fuels is so in our systems, the need will remain for at least a decade, a decade we actually do not have, but COVID could kill over 22.8% and solve the issue for us. 

You see, if you want to debate that and oppose that, that is fine. To these people I say ‘Drop the use of your car and your furnace for a month, just one month and you will be right’, that is a lot harder to do is it? How many can go without your car, your motorcycle, and your oil based heaters? You might think that you are in an apartment building, so it does not hit you, but your entire building has a heater, shut that down for a month and see where you are then. These two alone will result in the ‘Yes, I will, I just have to’ group. They cannot leave their car alone, it is part of them and that is fine, but you cannot have it both ways. 

I think it is a decently wise move to sell from the reserves now, but there is only so much reserves and this will not go away, so when we realise that, oil will go from $87 a barrel to $154 a barrel in a hurry and there is a second thought, that market will be a lot more volatile when the reserves are gone. And that is before people realise that agreements when dropped tend to be more expensive once they pick them up again, because that is most likely the result of enduring volatility. The US is not alone in this, but in this case their setting is important. You see, France became part of this. We can say it serves the US right for messing with their submarines, or we can look at the larger station. The news ‘France signs $18B weapons deal with UAE’ (at https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2021/12/03/france-signs-18b-weapons-deal-with-uae/), which replaces the Reuters news, for competency reasons, is one that shows us “The UAE is buying 80 upgraded Rafale fighters in a deal the French Armed Forces Ministry said is worth €16 billion (U.S. $18 billion) and represents the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also announced a deal with the UAE to sell 12 Airbus-built combat helicopters”, I am honestly happy for France (even though I lose out of 3.75% commission now), but the larger stage is that the US loses the anticipated $18,000,000,000 as well. And it is not that they didn’t need it with debt ceilings, resource shortages and contracts they might lose after that. And this links to it as others (Saudi Arabia) will also consider alternatives. So when you see this in the light of ‘the sector’s largest 25 companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, 8.5 per cent more than in 2018’ (source: Sipri) a setting where the shift in the top 25 will shift to other players in that list, the US economy would take a massive hit in 2023-2024 I reckon, a setting that they could have avoided and the senate issues next week are important. When they are cancelled, take notice of ALL the senators who opposed them, you see they will give you some BS human rights setting, and that is fine. But the consequence is that Americans will face larger and harder heating bills and fuel prices. And then there is the setting that Rand Paul (Kentucky), Mike Lee (Utah) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont) leave you with, not the setting of “argued earlier on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen’s civil war, including an air and naval blockade of Yemen, “is an abomination.”” What they (intentionally) forget to mention is that the Houthis are the aggressors and they get direct support from Iran, and to some degree Hezbollah too. A stage that the people do not get to see, the media is making sure of that, or at least their stakeholders are. 

And it will fuel the fuel prices. You see the US needs these funds to pay debts and to get a smooth quality of life result in the US, when that falls away settings that I have stated over the last few weeks will hit US citizens hard, much harder then ever before with dwindling sources of revenue. 

And the jester from Kentucky adds to this with ““For years now, ships that would otherwise carry food, fuel, and medicine are turned away by the Saudi-led coalition, depriving the Yemeni people of the necessities to sustain civilisation,” Paul wrote in an op-ed published in The American Conservative” Yet when we see “Three-way talks between the Houthi rebels, the UN-recognised government of Yemen and the UN have foundered, despite repeated warnings, including at the UN security council, of the impact if the tanker explodes, breaks up or starts leaking. UN officials have been unable to secure guarantees to maintain the vessel, including its rotting hull, which is now overseen by a crew of just seven”, I am giving you another part, yes, there is a blockade by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, yet the setting is that too many goods will end up in Houthi hands and it is something that US intelligence operations know as well, it is a dirty mess down there (not part of this conversation). 

The stages are fossil fuels and revenue. The US needs both, and as the reserves are now tapped, the US will desperately need revenue, a setting that is diminished by some of the players. Not merely the stage of lost revenue, the stage of catering to Iran is a much larger problem. 

So the articles are merely casually linked, or perhaps more correctly stated ‘seemingly casually linked’, seemingly is a much larger word in that equation and it is ‘hindered’ by my personal view, yet I have shown (way too often) that I tend to be correct in that setting. So enjoy the future people in the US (EU too) will face. When the reserves run dry (no exact date can be given), the loud Ka-Ching sound in the sky will be the start of your energy and fuel prices going up by 20%-30% again and again, I personally believe that it will take a few more months after that months until the previous maximum of June 2008 at $156.85 per barrel will be reached, but after that the sky will be the limit for those selling fossil fuels. You did realise that, did you not?

So when you consider that over the last year energy prices have gone up by almost 50% (in the US), consider where it ends as revenue goes down further, consider how much reserves would be needed to address just the last year price hike and the price hike seen over the next 12 months. I reckon that the reserves will end up getting tapped by well over 10%, and I have no idea how long that will stop the price hikes, there is too much data missing and those who have that data are not lining up to share it with the world, let alone little old me.

So the stage of somewhat connected news is set to raise the bar on several fields. And for people to feel the need to stop Saudi arms sales, I get it. I would feel the same way if I was given such a one sided story by the media, but I learned to look to a much larger station (and a lot more sources). Yet with all the COVID protestors help will come from an unconsidered option, we merely need to lose 32% of the population to halt fuel price hikes, stop pollution settings and reduce the carbon footprint by enough, as well as food shortage that will come next. 

Yet I feel certain that plenty of people will disagree. 

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December 8, 2021 · 02:34

Six of one

Six of one, or half a dozen of the other. You will have heard the expression. It is widely used, yet the meaning has changed. This reminds me of an old WW2 movie. A sergeant tells the soldier, we kill them, they murder us. It is more than semantics and weirdly enough there is a chance that this was on the back of my mind when I wrote ‘Jump into the deep part’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/12/06/jump-into-the-deep-part/), yet the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-trudeau-china-media-1.6270750) just drove it to the forefront of my mind. You see the article gives us in the article ‘Spy agency warned Trudeau China’s tactics becoming more ‘sophisticated … insidious’’ and here we see “As Canada’s spy agency warns that China’s efforts to distort the news and influence media outlets in Canada “have become normalised,” critics are renewing calls for Ottawa to take a far tougher approach to foreign media interference”. I am not debating the events in Canada, but the field is actually a lot larger. The media with (as I personally see it) unsubstantiated accusations towards the NSO group by the Guardian. Attacks without supporting evidence towards Saudi Arabia, the papers are drenched in that mess and it is not merely ‘foreign media interference’. You see if these people are serious they will take a hard look at media stakeholders, but they will not, will they? 

So as we see “One way foreign states — including the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — try to exert pressure on other countries is through media outlets, say the documents, obtained through an access to information request.” Do they realise that it is not merely ‘foreign states’, in this ‘corporations’ are equally to blame, they all have other goals and they use the same channels, the problem is that the media has become too unreliable, people do not know what or who to believe. In this the CSIS has equally a role to play, and for the most they are all about the safety and security of Canada (as it should be), yet in all this I wrote a few days ago about Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri. So as some might remember “Aljabri gained worldwide attention last year when he filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging he had been the target of a failed assassination plot orchestrated by Mohammed bin Salman”, an assassination attempt? In Canada? So why is the US courts involved? Why is this not set in Canada? Then we get “Sakab Saudi Holding Company, “had no operational business” despite receiving $8 billion US in government funding and was used “almost exclusively” as a vehicle to funnel money to the other companies”. My issue here is not merely whether this is on the up and up, it is happening under the noses (optionally with blessing) of the CSIS, this is an Unites States setting (with $8,000,000,000) and it is happening in Canada. Now, the point is not merely on what the CSIS is doing, because they care for their nation (Canada), yet the media gives us a different view and the Human Rights Watch is joining them with “(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should immediately release the imprisoned children of a former Saudi official following an unfair trial that took place in an apparent effort to coerce him to return to Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said today. Omar Al-Jabri, 23, and Sarah Al-Jabri, 21, the children of Saad Al-Jabri, a former top Saudi intelligence official, were arrested in March 2020 and held incommunicado until January 2021.” Yes, the thousands of children of Yemen are casually forgotten (for that moment) but the children of a multimillionaire, in the eyes of the government of Saudi Arabia a traitor and a thief. The man walks into Canada with $385,000,000 and what we get is “he made at least $385M — and says there’s ‘nothing unusual’ about it”, really? Last time most people made a mere few millions, close to every tax agent within 50 miles came calling for a cup of coffee, but then I must have forgotten about the US and their $8,000,000,000 investment opportunity

So I digressed, but it was important. You see, I am not opposing “Chinese-language media outlets operating in Canada and members of the Chinese-Canadian community are primary targets of PRC-directed foreign influenced activities.” But the problem is larger, PRC is a paid engine, and in this that scammers, Iran and a few other players also use it. I do not think that I am telling director David Vigneault anything he does not know, but the stage is that PRC is used by stakeholders, marketeers, media outlets ho need some ‘casual’ link of evidence, the list goes on. The problem is not that China is involved, they probably are. Yet in that same light Russia is optionally using PRC media pages to make China look bad, Iran uses it to set misinformation onto other streams. In this Forbes gave us in April ‘China-Iran $400 Billion Accord: A Power Shift Threatens Western Energy’, we get to see the references towards Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a few other matters, yet what is kept in the dark (not intentionally) is how Iran and Turkey are using PRC for marketing politics, a marketing engine devoted to the ‘headlines only people’. And in that stage there are also the corporations. They merely pursue their need for green (dollar bills), but the ploys they use are larger and taint all parties and in this the global media does close to nothing, because corporations represent advertisement dollars and they are all desperate (like a crack whore for a fix) to get those dollars. A little like the Sony 2012 Q3 advertisements needs, yet now a lot larger and many corporations that are a little shy of the limelight. 

This gives us the one part I do not fully agree with, it is given in “Mainstream news outlets, as well as community sources, may also be targeted by foreign states who attempt to shape public opinion, debate, and covertly influence participation in the democratic process,”, my issue with this is “may also be targeted by foreign states who attempt to shape public opinion”, it is not wrong, but I think it should state “Mainstream news outlets, as well as community sources, need to be more proactive to stop outside influences from state players and corporations who attempt to shape public opinion, debate, and covertly influence participation in the democratic process,” because corporations have everything to gain and they are trying to do just that, on a global scale no less.

As such six of one or half a dozen of the other is not the same, the two elements tend to represent a very different currency. Consider the alternative six apples or half a dozen bananas, that might make more sense. As such I tend to ‘alter’ another expression to make sense: You say tomato, I say potato. My approach to the setting we see here on a global scale.

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December 7, 2021 · 17:29

Stating the obvious

It happens, we all do it and we do it for all kinds of reasons. We get into a place, or a state of mind and we state the obvious. There is no accusation, there is no giggle, it happens to us all (me too). So when he Dutch NOS stated ‘Education Council warns of inequality of opportunity through private tutoring’ (at https://nos.nl/l/2408491), I merely raised an eyebrow. You see that setting has been known since I was in school there well over a quarter of a century ago (around 1974). In those days it was merely to keep up with others, a stage I never actually faced. 

As such when we are given “Access to quality education now depends too much on the wallet of parents. Therefore, the role of the growing number of commercial tutoring, exam training and homework guidance providers in primary and secondary education needs to be carefully considered.” I think it was not stating the obvious, I started to think that the game of education in the Netherlands has changed and not for the better. I personally believe that it is not about “Access to quality education now depends too much on the wallet of parents”, I believe that there is a larger chance that overall education is slipping and the standard foundation of education will not allow the average student to push ahead to higher education. The reader gets the blah-blah “Government and school boards are not sufficiently aware of the risks that this development entails. The Education Council advises schools to think more carefully about ‘what is necessary’ for education and ‘what is nice’ to do with it. Everything that is needed should be freely accessible to everyone.” I believe that this is a shot across the bough. Those in eduction have been ignoring a setting that had been around for decades and now the government remains inactive on the premise the stage is shifting, the people without funds become those without a future. A stage that Dutch Entrepreneur and writer Luc Sala had been warning the people about since the late 80’s, it will become a setting of ‘those who have and those who have not’ and I am still around to see his wisdom come to fruition. The larger problem is that the EU is close to bankrupt. 

We see “European Union Total Debt accounted for 732.5 % of the country’s GDP in 2019”, a debt that increased with 7%, amounting to well over € 10,000,000,000,000. As such nations all over the EU are cutting corners and schooling is one of the earliest (and for some easiest) cuts. In the article we see with “The Education Council advises schools to think more carefully about ‘what is necessary’ for education and ‘what is nice’ to do”, yet the arts tend to be ‘nice to do’ and the business people do not realise that art and considering the artful is an essential element in what drives innovation. Looking at spreadsheets does not make you innovative, seeing how something could also apply, that does the trick and I have over a dozen of IP setting proving that (presently alas not cashable). But it is not about the cash, it is about the ability to get there. I have no idea how Sony makes their TV’s, but I found a way around it and come up with the concept of a printable solution for entertainment, education, information and military applications. No essential or necessary part of the education got me there, it was the ‘nice to do’ part that got me across the finish line, it also gave me a way to optionally meltdown the Iranian reactors (which will be more essential soon enough). 

The setting that Dutch entrepreneur Luc Sala presented decades ago is now tapping on the doors of Dutch schools and this scares a few people, as well it should. It is not merely about the stage of those who have and those who have not. It will be the stage of lasses that will be pushed upon everyone and there are more than a few people walking beyond their station (relying on the BS principle) where that is a concern, not merely those who follow guidelines. It will impact who gets to be on those guidelines and with schools failing all kinds of needs that setting will increase all over the EU, not merely the Dutch. The French, Italians and Spanish will see similar changes soon enough. It becomes a larger setting when it is NOT reported on there. Schools with all their ‘allegiances’ to international schools and their stage for international students will impact soon thereafter and that is when the budgets fall over. Because governments all over the EU will cut corners more and more and education will take a dive giving the US and Asia, especially private schools, a much larger advantage in the coming two decades. So whilst plenty of people in the US, Asia and Middle East are looking towards the boundaries of 6G in 2026, some people in the EU (in the Netherlands too) will then wonder what 6G is. Those who have and those who have not will polarise at that point and that setting is optionally less than half a decade away.

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December 4, 2021 · 11:07

Merely a dream

I had a decently weird dream last night. It might be a movie, but I think it is not good enough for that. It might be a popcorn movie, merely for streaming and DVD sales and that would be fine too. The setting is that the dream started a few other things and I wonder where we are in less then a year.

It started in Toronto, I was there for whatever reason. There was a lot of chaos, a lot of shooting and a lot of damage. It was primarily in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It is around February 2022, the US has defaulted on its loans. The people lost almost everything they ever owned and the stage is that ultra right angry people are whipping up the others who are coming to terms that their politicians are as useless as everyone expected them to be. Canada suddenly has to deal with 30-50 thousand invaders all angry and all taking whatever they can, they have nothing left. I saw police officers in Yorkville getting shot, store windows were getting crashed and houses are overrun. The American had turned into rabid dogs. The army was trying to create bottlenecks but an army spread over Canada having to deal with three clearly way to large fire points and a lot more in the rural areas is not an army that can get a whole lot done. And nearly all Americans were wielding firearms. It is then that I see the army starting to shoot to kill and I wake up.

Now, that was merely a dream, but the larger station remains. Everyone is in this ‘lets hope’ phase, but America has been utterly broke for well over three years. And every time the debt ceiling is raised. A political system that cannot take responsibility, that uses the blame game and points at the previous party if it is a different political party. They both failed and they both refused to overhaul tax laws for well over over 25 years. In the 90’s the idea of a trillion dollar firm was ludicrous. Now they have 2, maybe 3. These firms did NOTHING wrong. They adhered to tax laws and they did what the tax laws demanded that they would do. So every time I see another tax the rich, whilst these people look at three parties (ignoring 15 others), I get nervous. The larger station is not that they refuse to overhaul tax laws. It might be that they are too stupid to overhaul them.

And this too is nothing new. What will be new is that the US government will take a look at their patent office and make (forced) deals with any isolated (registered in America only) patent and demand a financial deal with that owner. So lucky my IP is not registered in the US. A setting of grab it whilst you can will start soon enough and whilst the US will be in denial, there will be behind the scene deals with Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and IBM. All to get a little more use and traction out of the failing US economy. All whilst it has been clear for decades that the tax laws need a complete rewrite, a setting where everyone is taxed fairly. But that will not likely happen. That will upset the large donators and political friends they have and they would lose them, so nothing will happen and the dream that I have will come closer to becoming an optional reality. 

Is it a wish or a dream? No one wishes for this. Not when you consider all the innocent lives struck by American stupidity, but the larger station is that a lot of Americans are close to desperate and the default will push them over the edge, I feel certain of that. Even as the news (mainly media) is now flaming their need for digital advertisement, hiding behind the announcement that the US of A could default next week, we also get a mere 16 hours ago that ‘U.S. Senate passes bill to avert government shutdown, sends to Biden for signature’, but that is not the same is it? A shutdown is one thing, a default is something else. There are paths that they could walk, set up a massive loan with JP Morgan, Blackrock or Morgan Stanley, the turnaround will need to be massive and that is how the slippery slope becomes a diagonal sheet of ice. A timeline extended and extended, all whilst the premise of stopping this going from bad to worse is ignored.

It was but a dream, I realise that, but perhaps my brain is working out a few financial items covered in nightmares. 

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December 2, 2021 · 04:43

The shoddy essay

I actively dislike certain people, especially as they use their position to merely lash out at others. This is seen (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/saudi-arabia-yemen-un-human-rights-investigation-incentives-and-therats) when we see Stephanie Kirchgaessner have another go at Saudi Arabia. I honestly think that is all she does. So here is my take. The article ‘Saudis used ‘incentives and threats’ to shut down UN investigation in Yemen’ Of course my first reaction was ‘What UN investigation in Yemen?’ And the article starts off with “Political officials and diplomatic and activist sources describe stealth campaign”. I go into the article and I am treated to “according to sources with close knowledge of the matter”, “Riyadh is alleged to have warned Indonesia”, and lets not forget ““You could see the whole thing shift, and that was a shock,” said one person familiar with the matter”, so what people were familiar to the matter? What actually happened? It is a fair question, especially when we are given “The resolution was defeated by a simple majority of 21-18, with seven countries abstaining”, it is in this case that I am apparently a much better investigator. So, lets take a look.

First lets look at some headlines ‘UN calls on Yemen’s Houthis to release detained staff’, ‘UN: Houthi rebels impeding aid flow in Yemen’, ‘Yemen: Houthi Terrorism Designation Threatens Aid’, and these are just three headlines from dozens in the last two years. In this, the UN and other parties (like essay writers) have been really active in silencing any actions that included Houthi and Iranian forces in Yemen. The article has two mentions on Houthi, one in a photo and none (read: Zero) mentions of Iran. We see one mention of all in “committed by all sides”. The article is that one sided and that much of a hack job. The situation in Yemen is large, much larger then this essay writer makes it out to be. 

I am not making some claim that Saudi Arabia is innocent, but I can tell you it is definitely not that guilty either. Houthi and Iranian forces have at least part of that blame (well over 50%) and we seem to forget that all this started by Houthi forces, The Saudi coalition was asked to come and no one seems to notice that. So whilst the Guardian hides behind “the Saudis appear to have influenced officials”, I merely wonder if there isn’t a much larger picture. We see mention by John Fisher giving us “It was a very tight vote. We understand that Saudi Arabia and their coalition allies and Yemen were working at a high level for some time to persuade states in capitals through a mixture of threats and incentives, to back their bids to terminate the mandate of this international monitoring mechanism”, here we see the stage, but we ignore the lighting. In addition to that stage, what evidence is there for “through a mixture of threats and incentive”, you see Iran and  Houthi Yemen do not want any monitoring for a few reasons, and they are non-mentioned parties, why is that? Shovelling BS all on one pile is nice at times and we love to see all that BS piled up at Strasbourg, but that will not happen either will it? 

You think that this I the end, but it is time to add flavour to it all,  because in all fairness, Stephanie Kirchgaessner is not in this alone, the stakes against Saudi Arabia are much larger. That is seen when we add the Conversation (at https://theconversation.com/jobs-are-no-excuse-canada-must-stop-arming-saudi-arabia-171792) where we see “Jobs are no excuse — Canada must stop arming Saudi Arabia”, and I would state ‘Yes, handing more revenue to China is the way to go!’ I would love to get a larger billion dollar stake holding a 3.75% bonus setting. Even as we are given “The bulk of Canadian arms exports to the Saudis are light armoured vehicles, known as LAVs”, We see the attack using ‘Human Rights’ all whilst Saudi Arabia is under actual attack, Houthi (apparently Iranian operated drones) are attacking civil targets in South Saudi Arabia, so whilst we are given “Canada has twice been named by the United Nations Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen as one of several world powers helping to perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia”, and we are not given the clear involvement of Iranian and Houthi settings, it is all a one sided attack and it matters, these people attack one sided for a larger need, an ego driven need and the media is helping them do this. But feel free to state I am wrong, and I am happy to be wrong, especially if $12,000,000,000 going to China might fetch me a nice 450 million dollars (I can dream, can’t I?). when the numbers are this high 3.75% makes a very nice number. And the world is making this happen, so when we see project after project fail in Europe and the US because the moral high ground came at a price, consider the names of people who made that happen. Hunger on the moral high ground is not rare, it usually is linked to all kinds of revenue that they never got. This is not a perfect world, I never claimed it to be, but a commerce world needs to sell all kinds of stuff, also stuff that seems to be wrong, there is no denying that. And when it comes to that side, these two articles leave Houthi and Iranian actions in the dark. You should wonder why that is, because a nation does not spend 12 billion in any one sided event. If it was truly one sided one billion would have been more than enough. Did you consider that?

The US and the EU have at presently dropped 48 billion in revenue, revenue that they desperately needed and now that von der Leyen revealed the ‘300 billion euro answer to China’s Belt and Road’, how will that be paid for? Not from the revenue that Saudi Arabia required to defend its borders. That revenue will support China’s Belt and Road projects, a nice pickle they got themselves in and no one is wondering how this farce can go on, because soon there will be no money left, the overdrawn credit cards from the US, the EU, France, Germany and the UK makes any economic action close to impossible. And soon (in about 3-5 weeks) when the US has another debt ceiling, consider all the things that the US could have done to stop the new stress settings; the EU and the UK as well, now that these funds are going to China, the stage changed, the electricity bill can no longer be paid and there is no fighting ring, there is no event to watch, it is just a dark room in a dark location and that I the setting we all had to avoid. But rejoice, you then know one element that Yemeni people face, they have no electricity either, the Houthi forces made sure of that. 

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December 1, 2021 · 21:37

Covering one another

In light of yesterday, it is equally important that other information is given to you. Remember headlines like ‘South Africa slams ‘unjustified’ reaction as Omicron continues to spread across the globe’? We saw the ‘unjust’ approach and even as we accept that some nations (the Netherlands) apparently have data showing that they had a case before South Africa reported it, the source of that case is still unconfirmed. That does not mean that South Africa is too blame for this issue. And as we are now given (by Reuters) that “the Omicron coronavirus variant detected in southern Africa could be the most likely candidate to displace the highly contagious Delta variant, the director of South Africa’s communicable disease institute said on Tuesday”, do you still think that it is a bad idea to close borders? All borders no less. There is still a lot that the scientists do not know and we get that, but leaving the borders open in a stage where a disease has now killed over 5 million people, that is a stage that should worry everyone and when we see that 263 million have had the disease, we do get that the mortality rate is low. Yet how do you feel when your parents and grandparents are the dead ones? Still think that closing the borders is the wrong move? Mine are all dead, so I do not care, but you might. 

13 people on a flight from South Africa had that variant, so it is being spread and that might not be the South Africans that are at fault. For all we know (I do not know) the people infected were Dutch people visiting South Africa (for whatever reason). We can guess all we want, but the data is limited and it has too many gaps. We also do not know what causes the mutation, so there is a lot that the scientists do not know. And to help them it seems (to me) important to lockdown as much as possible. Am I right? I do not know, but the politicians are seemingly helping one another out and that is an actual flaw we cannot afford. And as some papers (the SMH in this case) gives us ‘Infections in Europe pre-date Omicron’s identification in South Africa’, we still cannot tell where that version came from, or what made it mutate. And before some people want to use the brush containing the blame paint on South Africa. Consider that Germany gives us “German authorities said they had an Omicron infection in a man who had neither been abroad nor had contact with anyone who had been”, as I have a few issues with ‘nor had contact with anyone who had been’, there is too much we do not know, as such the traveller might have sat next to him on a bench, in a mall, behind him in a coffeeshop and so on. But the fact that he had not been abroad still matters. Either this version is massively infective, or there is an element the scientists are still in the dark about. 

The larger problem is that this entire equation has too many captains and not enough crew, which is a generic failing in the EU. As I personally see it, this will cause more and more gaps and less standardisation of data, as well as reporting over the European nations. We get it that there is a global issue, but this issue should not exist in the EU and I saw just how largely this failing tends to be from my (trying) approach to getting some form of clear data. And now, as the amount of nations with Omicron rises, so will the uncertainty, the fear and the economic drawbacks. A stage we all saw coming (to some degree) yet we never thought it would come this fast, or this completely. So as we view the news of more people ignoring lockdowns, ignoring safety and considering that bleach is a much better anti covid solution than a vaccine is, also consider that now with Omicron we might relax as it will be the death of them. Some might argue that the benefit of these actions is that in California 117 jobs a day open up. I get it, it is crude, but that is the setting. Do you think for one moment that Wall Street cares about you (or me for that matter), it sees the revenue needs, and unemployment numbers drive that down, so they are (silently) happy. And this is not some USA push, the UK is in a worse shape, with only 20% the population it has twice the amount of deceased people, and now we all get Omicron and a larger unknown of how effective our vaccine is, because that is unknown, we hear speculations, all lacking evidence at present. 

So as politicians are covering each other on points of view, we see a larger lack of support of the scientific and medical staff. The media is in part to blame, they are all about flames. Yet I personally believe that EVERY newspaper on the planet has a responsibility to make sure that the views of Dr Fauci (and medical experts like him) are shown everywhere and the absolute idiot at Fox who caused ‘Outrage as Fox News commentator likens Anthony Fauci to Nazi doctor’ should be taken off the job, and optionally get treatment from Dr Mengele, so he can feel firsthand how wrong his view was. 

Lets make one thing sure, we need the medical people and its experts. They can wait for us to die and take over all the good mansions on a global setting. We need them, they do not need us to be a risk for them and their family members. Take that consideration to heart. So if you see a medical professional today and tomorrow, buy him (or her) a coffee, a tea and say ‘Thank you!’ We owe them a lot more, but this gesture might take away some of the stress they face on a daily basis and I would like it if politicians take that message to heart, they should be championing that resolve all over the world.

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December 1, 2021 · 13:07

Ego versus tax dollars

Yes, that is the setting. It is not a new setting, we have seen it before and it comes with a surprise, just like the Ferrero kinder surprise.

It is a chocolate egg, but in the middle there is a toy, a surprise. And ego versus tax dollars also have a surprise for the people. Yet in this case it is a little less nice, in this case the people, the tax payers pay either way and optionally they get to pay both ends of the equation. This is seen in BBC article ‘Multi-billion EU bid to challenge Chinese influence’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59473071). Here we are given “It’s regarded as part of the West’s efforts to counter Chinese influence in Africa and elsewhere. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present the “Global Gateway” initiative on Wednesday. The EU is looking at how it can leverage billions of euros, drawn from member states, financial institutions and the private sector”, now consider the setting:

  • member states
  • financial institutions
  • the private sector

And here is the rub, here we see how the tax payer gets that bill twice. Or a speculated once for the duration of twice the timeline. The member states sounds nice, yet the credit cards of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy are severely overdrawn. So who will pay? Poland? Austria? Hungary? Estonia? Gimme a break please.

Then we get the second setting the ‘financial institutions’. Yet they will BORROW you the money for an interesting percentage, which means that a load with up to 15% interest is still payable by the tax payers. 

The private sector? Who has that kind of cash? I reckon that Webuild SpA (formerly Salini Impregilo SpA) will take the job, as long as they get the job with a few long term tax benefits, optionally at cost + 3% + tax benefits. And who do you think pays for it in the end? Yup you got it, the poor poor taxpayer (you). 

As such when I see “It has been criticised as a means of providing “predatory loans” in what is labelled “debt-trap diplomacy”” I am not opposing this (as I never looked at that data), yet the wording is almost exactly like the big tomato of MI6 (you say potato, I say tomato). Isn’t that a nice coincidence. Almost orchestrated. Now, I accept that it might be true, but in that same way Iran has been doing all over the Middle East and the same parties were eager to avoid shining the limelight there, and now that Huawei has a much stronger case (made in Saudi Arabia) and their 5G is 700% faster then anything the US has. The link here us that both Huawei and Saudi Arabia have a larger case for Egypt and that matters. With Neom city smack in the middle, they are likely have an operating 5G network long before the US figures out that marketed speed is not the same as real speed, but they will and they will see the cost involved. In that same light the BS approach to the arms deals with Saudi Arabia, China has a larger stage now, a stage that will cost the US well over 9 billion with a nominal maximum of $23,000,000,000 over the next 5 years, revenue handed to China and we see European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen getting ready for a presentation that is as I personally see a joke the EU cannot afford. Not with the US handing business over to China as they did over the last 12 months alone. 

So when we consider “Mrs von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech in September: “We want investments in quality infrastructure, connecting goods, people and services around the world.”” We need to see the word ‘investments’, which is nice, but does that not imply that you have the funds? If not (which is the case) it ends up being a mere ego loan and that is not what is supposed to happen. I am not against it, as long as CORPORATIONS are properly taxed and that has been a horse no show for over two decades. I wonder what happens if Huawei and not Amazon decided to buy my 5G (and a few other matters). We then get a setting that shows that the European ego race was over before it even began, it was over when the ego driven tailored to stop the innovations because it did not give them a nice percentage, that is the larger stage we need to see and that is merely one of 4 elements stopping this ego driven presentation that is coming in hours. So even as we are given “Wednesday’s 14-page document isn’t likely to explicitly pitch itself as a rival to China’s strategy.” A setting that gives us the not explicit, it is relying on implied settings, a stage that can be revamped any given stage and there is the second rub, if you cannot go out and say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. That has been a truth for a lot longer than we had the internet. The EU relying on nudge-nudge-wink-wink settings (sorry Monty Python). When was the last time time you saw that going well? And now it involves multi billion euro plans that they cannot even afford. So in the end you the tax payer (if you are in the EU) get to pay that bill too. So hows that going against the rising prices of energy, Gas and petrol? Oh and how about the food prices, inflation of food which was 0.1% in April 2021, which is 2.3% in October 2021. Which is nothing to what I saw at the supermarket. I saw minced meat go up almost 20% in the last few months. So enjoy that extra tax bill with all the expenses you have in Europe. You elected what is there, so you get what is coming. 

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November 30, 2021 · 22:49

Notice not given

We get that, we sometimes do not inform people. Yet in a stage where lives are in danger, where lives are on a stage where we cannot say whether they live or they will die. Is it moral, or even justified not to inform the people?

That was the setting we have seen in the last few days. I took notice to some effect, but in a stage where I have no influence, I merely set myself into some setting of a wait state. Awaiting more information before I take a larger stand against or for something. 

So the BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842) 22 hours ago ‘South Africa’s president calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans’, you might want to say that is fair, but is it? Consider “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, unjustified? How about informing the people and the experts of the larger setting that omicron forms? The Dutch NOS gave us (at https://nos.nl/l/2407414) ‘Omikron is in the Netherlands, many questions on this new variant’. As such 13 of the 624 passengers have the omicron variant, so the Dutch get a plane full of the people and no one thought of making sure that these people do NOT travel? And when we see “Little is known on the omicron variant”, as such the other message on the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59463879) where we see ‘No need to panic, South African minister says’, I think he has got to be out of his fucking mind. And even as we see “The heavily mutated variant was detected in South Africa earlier this month and then reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) last Wednesday”, and how come the Netherlands are seemingly in the dark? The variant is seen in several nations, so it is clear that a travel ban needed to be more complete and a lot more shown across nations. It is now in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. We are told that the Ditch cases come from South Africa, I cannot tell if the other nations have the same origin. Yet the stage of a new version in this many cases and South Africa crying on lifting travel bans is just too ludicrous to consider. The larger question remains. How did this variant gets out so far and so wide? I wonder if we ever get a clear answer to this. 

And when we see “South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week” we see a larger setting. It is not sure how this version got to be, but South Africa has been instrumental to allegedly spreading it all over the globe. In addition, the NY Times reports that scientists are trying to find out whether the current vaccines can stop Omicron, it seems that they do not know. So as such the response we see in the BBC article “Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted”, is complete BS. If anything the travel ban should have ben imposed a lot sooner then it was. 

In addition, when we see “Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks”, which now implies that several nations will be in serious trouble soon enough. In this Salim Abdool Karim is the South African government adviser and epidemiologist. And from those assessments, there wee see a government person stating that the travel ban is unjust? Go cry me a river (please).

A stage that might not be blamed South Africa, but in light of what we see, I reckon that Cyril Ramaphosa needs to be clearly considering that the rest of the planet is considering that it was unjust that he let this variant spread on such a global stage. And this is not the first time that governments are slow to react, or to impose clear restrictions. Well on the upside, if this kills off another few million people the unemployment issue will be largely solved, optionally housing issues in metropolitan areas might be solved too. 

And there is a larger stage that will be there soon enough. How many houses/apartment will not be sellable until it has been biologically cleansed? How long until COVID statistics are part of the reporting governments? These are a few of the notices not given, but governments (always eager to blame someone else) might not get a choice here. If COVID is an impediment on commerce, the reporting of COVID will be regarded as important and there will be government needs to belittle related issues soon thereafter. 

What a nice week we are heading into. 

P.S. There are no numbers from Russia, China, Egypt, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It is possible that they avoided this risk, but I do feel it is too soon for them to howl hurrah! Especially as the World Cup in Qatar started this week.

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