Category Archives: Uncategorized

April 13, 2018 · 10:15

The wrong claim to make

I have been taking a much larger interest on the entire Facebook and Cambridge Analytica issue. Not because of what was done, but because of what US politicians are about to try. In that view it seems to me that the media is assisting the US government. Pretty much every media publishes ‘Zuckerberg on Tuesday faced a variety of questions from 44 senators‘, yet not one gives us that list of these 44 senators. Online publication Vox had a list of 103 which was equally useless. So why are the readers not getting properly (read: more completely) informed?

As I have a promise to keep (to myself at least), let’s take a look at the first one who really pissed me off. The person in question is U.S. Representative David McKinley, not even a senator. Yet with the quote “Your platform is still being used to circumvent the law and allow people to buy highly addictive drugs without a prescription. With all due respect, Facebook is actually enabling an illegal activity and in so doing, you are hurting people. You’d agree with that statement?” he opened himself to all kinds of issue. So let us take a look. CNN gives us (at http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/11/technology/mark-zuckerberg-questioned-over-facebook-opioid-sales), with the additional quote “Google agreed to pay $500 million to the Department of Justice for showing prescription drug ads from Canadian online pharmacies to U.S. consumers. It stopped the practice in 2009 once it became aware of an investigation by a U.S. Attorney’s office. But sellers are still finding ways of posting about drug sales on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which critics have accused of being reactive, largely waiting for activists, or the press, to surface issues and help police their platforms“, so the issue is a lot larger and has been around for a long time. So the US representative is not opening legal avenues attacking the Canadian Online pharmacies, no it is attacking Facebook and Google. The issue here is hypocrite on several levels. You see we see part of that evidence (at http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/oxycontin-in-canada-1.4607959), even as the investigation into Purdue Pharma is underway, the issue is a lot larger. We get one part from ‘OxyContin was aggressively marketed as a revolutionary painkiller. But many patients became addicted, leading to a country-wide class action lawsuit against its maker‘, the other part is seen in the NPR event “Doctors In Maine Say Halt In OxyContin Marketing Comes ’20 Years Late’“, so we see the news that is given in February 2018. These facts alone give rise to the geriatric dementia dangers that are possibly within business man David McKinley, a man currently elected as a U.S. Representative. In addition to that part, the fact that the US government failed its citizens is open to discussion in the 2015 release of “the Food and Drug Administration. (FDA) approved, in August 2015, extended-release oxycodone for use by children between 11 and 16 years old with “pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment for which alternative treatment options are inadequate“, so there is a much larger failure in play. The fact that the FDA approves (for specific reasons mind you) the use of OxyContin and the fact that it is FDA approved makes it a much larger issue.

The fact that there is ample evidence that US politicians were sitting on their hands for close to 2 decades gives rise to the thought that U.S. Representative David McKinley should give up his seat in what I personally would see as too old to hold any public office position, perhaps at 71 he no longer sees the need to correctly set the dimension of information of any issue. His attack, the fact that this is a lot more complex, in part because the US government chose to not act for 2 decades is also decent evidence to add in this case. In addition, we see that the reformulation to make it harder to abuse opioids (which is an act that makes perfect sense), gave way to ‘Making opioids harder to abuse led to a spike in heroin overdoses‘ (at https://www.axios.com/opioids-heroin-overdose-deaths-1523481019-63cfb423-e1fc-4925-9a80-3406625389b5.html). Here we see “Adapted from Evans et. al., 2018,  “How the Reformation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic”, The National Bureau of Economic Research; Note: “Opioids” includes all opioid related deaths aside from those that are exclusively attributed to heroin“, so basically the junkies and their facilitators found another way to get high and they died in the process (serves them right). It seems that as I found all this evidence in less than 30 minutes and there is almost 20Mb of unread text for me to go through, shows just how lame (or is that blatantly idiotic) U.S. Representative David McKinley is showing himself to be. There is an accepted issue that in some cases non-US advertisements have no business being shown in the US, yet in that situation, my e-mail wad been flooded with the options for silicone tits, 14 inch sausages, Viagra and Cialis for well over a decade from US sources, so how much ‘policing’ did these US senators opt for from 1996 onwards to ‘protect’ non US citizens from these ‘illegal’ drugs? It seems to me that this is an almost perfect example of ‘sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander‘, yet we can feel decently certain that U.S. Representative David McKinley will not see it that way. In addition to that CNN gives us “More than 63,600 lives were lost to drug overdose in 2016, the most lethal year yet of the drug overdose epidemic, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of those deaths involved opioids, a family of painkillers including illicit heroin and fentanyl as well as legally prescribed medications such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. In 2016 alone, 42,249 US drug fatalities — 66% of the total — involved opioids, the report says“, this has been going on for a while; this was not merely some Facebook advertisement issue. The CDC shows data going back to 2000, long before Facebook became the behemoth entity it is now. So whilst everyone is kicking up every stink in the place, the issue remains that the FDA approved Purdue Pharma to start making it, so even as U.S. Representative David McKinley could have been visiting their office in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. It is now shown that kicking it on the soul of Mark Zuckerberg is much more personally rewarding for him. In that his quote “why Facebook hasn’t done more to remove posts from sellers offering illicit opioids“, in equal measure does not show the efforts that the FBI has done to crack down on the sellers either. You see, if he had done that we would have ended up (at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/opioid-fentanyl-darknet-drugs-fbi/), showing just how easy it is to the evidence we see here: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions said darknet vendors are “pouring fuel on the fire of the national drug epidemic” and this year doubled the number of federal agents working on those cases. It’s part of the Trump administration’s tough approach to the drug crisis that has focused on harsh punishments for dealers. Critics say the overall strategy resembles a return to failed drug-war tactics and that the record $4.6 billion included in the spending plan the president signed last month is not nearly enough to establish the kind of treatment system needed to reverse the crisis“, it does not absolve Facebook, but it shows that when you are in a house without a roof, blaming the faucet for all the water is just as stupid as it gets. So with this small article I introduce the honourable U.S. Representative David Bennett McKinley, who should, as I personally see it, be up for replacement at the next election.

And may he be replaced by someone who truly takes a proper look at the dimensionality of events and present them equally correct and fair. So we will leave that consideration up to the people who are part of the West Virginia’s 1st congressional district. I reckon that with a population of 615,991 (2010) there is at least one other person who is up for the job.

Now, let’s take a look at the data of the next elected numbskull, have a great Friday all!

 

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April 11, 2018 · 11:41

The congressional sham

The papers are ‘covering’ live the entire Facebook hearing, we see several papers covering it and I think that this is a good thing. Yet, most papers are not without flaws. The fact that I have been writing about the entire mess of data privacy since 2013 makes it to the best of my knowledge a Capitol sham at best (pun intended) . you see, these so called senators are all up in arms and we see the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-hearing-congress-testimony) give quotes like “from data privacy to Russian disinformation“, you see, it is a lot less about data privacy than it is about the Russians. The anti-communist gene in Americans is too strong; the yanks get too emotional and become utterly useless in the process. So is it about the 44 senators grilling Mark Zuckerberg, is it about their limelight and about their re-election visibility, or is it about global data privacy? I can guarantee you now that it will not be about the last part and as such we will see a lot more warped issues shine on the congressional dance floor.

In that regard, when you read “They demanded new detail about how Facebook collects and uses data and elicited assurances that it will implement major improvements in protecting personal privacy“, it might be about that, but it will be a lot more on oversight and how the US government wants to be able to ‘check’ all that data. They wanted access to all that data since Facebook became one year old. So when we see ‘Sen. Kennedy: “I don’t want to have to vote to regulate Facebook, but by god, I will. That depends on you.”‘ you better believe that the ‘depends on you‘ can be read as ‘as long as you give us access to all your data‘, which contains the shoe that fumbles.

So when we see “Several asked for detailed answers about how private, third-party companies, such as the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, gained access to personal data on 87 million Facebook users, including 71 million Americans“, we see the valid question, yet that did not require a congressional hearing, so that is merely the icing that hides the true base element of the cake. It is the honourable Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Commerce Committee that gives the first goods: “Many are incredibly inspired by what you’ve done. At the same time, you have an obligation, and it’s up to you, to ensure that dream doesn’t become a privacy nightmare for the scores of people who use Facebook”, you see, freedom of data and misuse of information as set by insurances. The statements like ‘Insurance companies warn that under certain circumstances, posting about your holidays on social media could result in your claim being declined if you are burgled‘. These senators were not really that interested in all this whilst the entire insurance issues have been playing as early as 2010; they were likely too busy looking somewhere else. The entire privacy mess is a lot larger. We see this at the Regis University site when we take a look at: “A new survey by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) reveals nearly one in five Americans (19%) has been the victim of some form of cyber stalking, defined as any persistent and unwanted online contact with another individual. Through aggressive social media contact, repeated emails or other methods of online connectivity, cyber stalkers represent a serious and growing threat to men and women who otherwise wish to disengage from those who make them feel uncomfortable. Still, the NCSA report shows only 39% of those who believed they were being stalked online reported the incident to authorities“, so was there a senatorial hearing then? No, there was not. In addition, a situation where one in 5 Americans is subject to stalking, yet in all those years almost nothing was done. Why is that? Is that because the overwhelming numbers of these victims have tits and a vagina, or merely because they are less likely to be communist in nature?

Does this offend you?

Too bad, it is the direct consequence of inaction which makes todays issue almost a farce. I stated almost! So, is the issue that the data was downloaded, or that the data on millions of Americans is now in the hands of others and not in the hands of the US government? This loaded question is a lot more important than you might think.

The fact that this is a much larger farce is seen when the Democrat from Illinois decides to open his mouth. It is seen in “Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), asked Zuckerberg what hotel he stayed at Monday night and the names of anyone he messaged this week“, was it to break the ice? If all 44 senators do that, then we see evidence why the US government can’t get anything done. It is actually another Democrat that gives rise to issues. It is seen in Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, “We’ve seen the apology tours before… I don’t see how you can change your business model unless there are different rules of the road.”, the man makes a good case, but I am not certain if he is correct. You see, unless the US government is ready to lash out massively in the abuse of data towards any corporation found using social media on exploiting the privacy of its members, and insurers are merely one part in all this. You see, the rules of the road have been negated for some time in different directions, unless you are willing to protect the users of social media by corporate exploitation, Richard Blumenthal should not really be talking about traffic rules, should he? This directly links to the fact that 90% of hedge funds were using social media in 2014. Were they properly looked at? I wonder where those 44 senators were when that all went down.

The one part that will actually become a larger case comes from Massachusetts. “Democratic Sen. Edward J. Markey (Mass.) plans to introduce a new bill Tuesday called the CONSENT Act that would require social giants like Facebook and other major web platforms to obtain explicit consent before they share or sell personal data“, it will change the business model where data is no longer shared, or sold, but another model where all this is set up by Facebook and he advertiser can get the results of visibility in top line results. That is the path Facebook would likely push for, a more Google approach in their setting of AdWords and Google analytics. Facebook is ready to a much larger extent on this and it is a likely path to follow for Facebook after all this. Yet in all this the theatre of congress will go on a little longer, we will know soon enough. In the end 44 senators will push regarding “The Federal Trade Commission is investigating violations of a 2011 consent decree over privacy policy at Facebook that could lead to record fines against the company“, in the end it will be about money and as it is more likely that the data on Americans made it to Russia, the fine will be as astronomically high as they could possibly make it. They will state in some way that the debt of 21 trillion will have nothing to do with that, or so they will claim. In the end Mark Zuckerberg partially did this too himself, he will get fined and so he should, but the entire theatre and the likelihood that the fine is going to be way overboard, whilst in equal measure these senators will not chase the other transgressors is a much larger case and calls for even more concern. You see, there is a much larger congressional sham in play. It was exposed by Clay Johnson, formerly of the Sunlight Foundation, (more at http://www.congressfoundation.org/news/blog/912). The issue is not merely “On the Hill, congressional staff do not have the tools that they need to quickly distill meaning from the overwhelming volume of communications that they receive on any given day“, it is that Facebook has been able to add well over 400% pressure to that inability. That given is what also drives the entire matter of division in American voters. I myself did not think that ‘fake’ news on events did any serious damage to Democrat Hillary Clinton, from my point of view; she did that all to herself during her inaction of the Benghazi events.

In the end I believe that the bulk will go after Mark Zuckerberg for whatever reason they think they have, whilst all hiding behind the indignation of ‘transplanted data‘. The fact that doing this directly hit the value that the rest of his data has is largely ignored by nearly all players. In addition, the fact that the BBC gave us ‘More than 600 apps had access to my iPhone data‘ less than 12 hours ago is further evidence still. So when will these 44 senators summon Tim Cook? The fact that the BBC gives us “Data harvesting is a multibillion dollar industry and the sobering truth is that you many never know just how much data companies hold about you, or how to delete it” and the fact that this is a given truth and has been for a few years, because you the consumer signed over your rights, is one of those ignored traffic rules, so the statement that Richard Blumenthal gave is a lot larger than even he might have considered. It is still a good point of view to have, yet this shown him to be either less correct on the whole, or it could be used as evidence that too many senators have been sitting on their hands for many years and in that matter the least stated on the usefulness of the European Commission the better. So when we read “The really big data brokers – firms such as Acxiom, Experian, Quantium, Corelogic, eBureau, ID Analytics – can hold as many as 3,000 data points on every consumer, says the US Federal Trade Commission“, we see that Equifax is missing from that list is also a matter for concern, especially when we consider the events that Palantir uncovered, whilst at the same time we ignore what Palantir Gotham is capable of. I wonder how many US senators are skating around that subject. We see part of that evidence in Fortune, were (at http://fortune.com/2017/10/10/equifax-attack-avoiding-hacks/) we see “Lauren Penneys, who heads up business development at Palantir, advised companies to get their own data and IT assets in order—both to better understand what risks do exist and to improve readiness to respond when a breach does happen“, she is right and she (validly) does not mention what Palantir Gotham is truly capable of when we combine the raw data from more than one corporate source. With the upcoming near exponential growth of debt collection, and they all rely on data and skip tracing of social media data, we see a second issue, which these senators should have been aware of for well over two years. So how protective have they been of citizens against the invasion of privacy on such matters from the Wall Street Golden Child? Even in London, places like Burford Capital Ltd are more and more reliant on a range of social media data and as such it will not be about traffic rules as the superrich are hunted down. We might not care about that, mainly because they are superrich. Yet as this goes on, how long until the well dries up and they set their nets in a much wider setting?

We claim that we are humane and that we set the foundation for morally just actions, but are we? The BBC actually partially addresses this with: “Susan Bidel, senior analyst at Forrester Research in New York, who covers data brokers, says a common belief in the industry is that only “50% of this data is accurate” So why does any of this matter? Because this “ridiculous marketing data”, as Ms Dixon calls it, is now determining life chances” and that is where the shoe truly hurts, at some point in the near future we will be denied chances and useless special rebates, because the data did not match, we will be seen as a party person instead of a sport person, at which point out premiums would have been ‘accidently’ 7% too high and in that same person we will be targeted for social events and not sport events, we will miss out twice and soon thereafter 4 fold, with each iteration of wrong data the amount of misconceptions will optionally double with each iteration. All based on data we never signed up for or signed off on, so how screwed is all this and how can this congressional hearing be seen as nothing more than a sham. Yes, some questions needs to be answered and they should, yet that could have been done in a very different setting, so as we see the Texan republican as the joke he is in my personal view, we see “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Zuckerberg about 2016 reports that the company had removed conservative political news from its trending stories box, and followed up with questions about its moderators’ political views. When Zuckerberg said he didn’t ask employees for their political views, Cruz followed up with “Why was Palmer Luckey fired?”“, we wonder if he had anything substantial to work with at all. So when you wonder why Zuckerberg is being grilled, ask yourself, what was this about? Was it merely about abuse of data by a third party? If that is so, why is Tim Cook not sitting next to Zuckerberg? More important, as I have shown some of these issues for close to 5 years, why was action not taken sooner? Is that not the more pressing question to see answered?

 

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April 9, 2018 · 10:21

Identity denied

There are moments when we resort to other ways of expressing ourselves; it is in our nature to find alternatives to the story, so that we can tell the story. Nearly every person does it. Sometimes we ask ‘would you take that extra pastry?‘ instead of telling someone that you really feel like having another pastry. So when it comes to social media, we see not ourselves, but the person we want to be. We want to own the Hall of Faces (Game of Thrones) where we can mask ourselves with the identity of a dead person, like Ethan Hawke in Mission Impossible, walk in, sound like the person we are not, because we do not like ourselves in that particular moment. So when we look at Facebook, are we thinking the Hall of faces? In light of all that was revealed, are we in a stage where we prefer to be someone else?

You see, the shit is on the walls as some would say. Mark the Zuckyman did the right thing, he stood up (after a few days of silence) and held himself responsible and we are all over this that he is the culprit, but is he truly guilty? We see all kinds of articles on Facebook, like ‘You’ve decided to delete Facebook but what will you replace it with?‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/youve-decided-to-delete-facebook-but-what-will-you-replace-it-with), even after a week this is still highly valid, because for millions of the multibillion users of Facebook, it has yet to sink in. Go to WhatsApp? Instagram? Both are owned by Facebook, so where does that leave you? So when we try to trivialise it with #DeleteFacebook, we need to realise that this is new territory. We now talk about the Social Media Landscape and it is not small. It is huge and most importantly, this is the first true generation of the Social media generation. We were not ready, and i have been trying to explain that to people for nearly 3 years. Now we see overreactions whilst sitting down contemplating it all was never an option. The law was missing it as it is more interested in facilitating for commerce, exploitation and profit (Sony and Microsoft are nice examples there), Human rights are failing, because the issue of Digital rights is only seen in the relation of commerce, not in the relation of privacy, in this the entire Google and the people’s rights to be forgotten is merely a reason to giggle, a Google giggle if you preferred.

The article has one funny part, with “For those determined to exit the Facebook ecosystem, the best approach is more likely to be a patchwork of sites and apps that mirror individual features. Messaging is the easiest: apps such as Telegram and Signal offer messaging and group chats, as well as voice calls, with encryption to keep your communications private. Telegram even has a thriving collection of chatbots, similar to Facebook Messenger“, you see, it is done on a smartphone (mostly), so you could consider dialing a person and have a conversation, your mum if she is still alive is not the worst idea to have. You see, the plain point is where you end up. So when we see “Part of Vero’s appeal to Facebook deleters is its determination to be ad-free. It is planning instead to start charging a small annual subscription at some point“, you see these people designed it for wealth (as one would) so where are they getting the money? The small annual subscription does make sense, but in light of that you better remember where all your data is and even as we see ‘emphasis on privacy‘ we need to realise that there are clear situations where the word Privacy is open to suggestion. What people forget is that ‘The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share common themes‘, so are their settings of what is private the same as yours? Also, when they sell their company for a mere 2 billion, make no mistake, the word privacy is not open for debate, it will be whatever the new owner decides it to be. This is merely one side of data, as data is currency. That is what I have been trying to explain to nearly everyone (for 5 years now) and they all shrugged and stated, ‘it’ll be right‘, so is it right? Is it all right now? If you are considering becoming a member of the growing party of #DeleteFacebook it clearly was not.

So when we are treated to ‘News of Facebook’s secret tool to delete executive messages caps days of chaos‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/06/facebook-using-secret-tool-to-delete-messages-from-executives) we see another part of Facebook, we see new uproar. The question is whether this is justified. You see, when we see “the company has a two-tiered privacy standard (one for executives, one for everyone else) and over its use of facial recognition software“, in most cases this makes perfect sense. Corporate executives tend to be under scrutiny a lot, as it sometimes is valid; they still have a job to be done. I was amazed on how many people Mark Zuckerberg was connected to in the beginning of Facebook. It was awesome and cool, but I reckoned that it was not always constructive to productivity. I have been in places where the executives had their own server for a number of reasons, mostly for HR reasons and whether it is valid or not, it is a corporate decision, in that light I am not amazed, only when I was doing work for Google was I on a system where I could see everything and everyone all including what I thought was the board of directors. Here is where it gets interesting, because Google has a (what we refer to) a true open system for all who work there. It is invigorating to get access to so much information and my first night was me dreaming of combining things, what if we did ….. and ….. would we then be able to …..? It was exhilarating to feel that rush of creativity, in areas where I had no skill levels to boot. With a ‘closed’ system like Facebook, we need to consider that by setting the state of all is open that it is a legal trap when you give billions of people access to systems and situations. The mere legal differences between the UK, US and AUS, all common law nations would be the legal nightmare of decades. Shielding the executives from that is a first priority, because without them at the wheel it all falls to chaos.

That reality is seen with “Facebook says the change was made following the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, when a mass data breach at the movie studio resulted in embarrassing email histories being leaked for a number of executives, ultimately costing co-chair Amy Pascal her job“, some might remember the mail that George Clooney send in regards to the Monuments Man, it made pretty much all the papers. I love his work, I enjoy the artistic values he has, shares and embodies, but without certain levels of privacy and shielding his artistic side might take a large dump towards uncertainty, not a side I am hoping for, because even as he is merely 360 days older than me, he should be able to create another 30 years of movie excellence and I would like to see those movies, especially as we see that he is doing to Matt Damon in Suburbicon, what the Coen brothers were doing to him in Burn after reading and Hail, Caesar!, so plenty of fun times ahead for all us movie fans.

Even as we are all looking where we want to go next, the foundation of issues remain. There is an utter lack of Social media legislation; there is a mess of issues on where privacy is and what is to be regarded as privacy. The users gave it all away when they signed up for options, apps and ‘solutions’ again and again. Until that is settled, any move we make moves the issue and moves the problems, it will not solve anything, no matter what some of the app developers decide to state. In the third part “‘The third era of Zuck’: how the CEO went from hero to humiliation” (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/06/mark-zuckerberg-public-image-cambridge-analytica-facebook), I think he got kicked in the head real hard, but not humiliated, although he might think he was. So as we recall Dean Martin with Ain’t That a Kick in the Head? we need to realise that is what happens. That is what happens when Social media becomes a multi-billion user behemoth. Mark Zuckerberg made mistakes plain and simple. What do you do? You get up from the floor, fix it and restore the need for growth. And now still we see that mistakes are made. This is seen with “On Friday morning, the company apologized and pledged to stop deleting executives’ messages until they could make the same functionality available to everyone“, the largest mistake and it opens social media to all kinds of organised crime. Merely send the threat, tell the people to do …. or else and after an hour, after it is seen to have been read, the message is deleted, it becomes a miscommunication and no prosecution is possible.

That is the biggest mistake of all, to set a multi-billion user group open to the needs of organised crime even further then it likely is. How stupid is that? You see, as I interpret this, both Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg are in the musical chair setting, trying to do things on the fly and that will hurt them a lot more than anything else. We get it that mistakes were made, fix them, but not on the fly and not just quick jumps overnight. Someone has pushed them into defence play and they actually suck at that. It is time for them to put their foot down and go into offensive and attack mode (pun intended). When we consider what was before, we get it that Zuckerberg made mistakes and he will make more. We merely need to look at Microsoft and their actions over the last 3 decades to see that they screwed to pooch even more royally than Zuckerberg will be able to do, but the media is silent there as it relies on Microsoft advertiser funds. IBM and Apple have made their blunders in the past as well, yet they all had one large advantage, the impact was never towards billions of users, it potentially could have hit them all, but it mostly just a much smaller group of people, that was their small blessing. Apple directly hurt me and when I lost out on $5500, I merely got a ‘C’est la vie‘ from their technical centre, so screw that part!

There will be a large change sooner rather than later, the issue with Cambridge Analytica was too large to not make that happen. I merely hope that Zuckerberg has his ducks on a row when he makes the jump, in addition to that was Steve Bannon arrested? Especially when we consider Article 178, violating the Free decision of Voters. You see, it is not that simple, social media has never been used in that way, to such an extent, the law is unclear and proving that what Cambridge Analytica did would constitute a clear violation of the free decision of voters, that is what makes this a mess, legislation on a global scale has failed when it came to privacy and options regarding the people in social media. Steve Bannon can keep on smiling because of all the visibility he will get for years to come and after years when no conviction comes, he can go on the ‘I told you so!‘ horse and ride of wealthy into the sunset. That situation needs to be rectified and it needs to go way beyond Facebook, the law itself has faltered to a much larger degree.

The fact that politicians are all about terror cells and spilling inflammatory messages whilst having no resolution on any of this is merely showing what a bunch of apes they have proven themselves to be. So when we saw in January ‘Facebook, Google tell Congress they’re fighting extremist content‘, where were these congressmen? Where the fuck was Clint Watts, the Robert A. Fox Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and National Security analyst as CNN now reports that optionally 78 million records have been pushed onto the Russian servers? (at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/08/politics/cambridge-analytica-data-millions/index.html), now implying that Cambridge Analytica has undermined US safety and security in one operation to a much larger extent than any terrorist has been able to achieve since September 13th 2001. That is 17 years of figments, against one political setting on the freedom to choose. I wonder how Clint Watts can even validate his reasoning to attend the US Congress at all. And this goes way beyond the US; in this the European Commission could be regarded as an even larger failure in all this. But it is unlikely we ever get treated to that side of the entire show.

The media needs both players a lot more and bashing Facebook makes for good entertainment they reckon. Time will tell whether they were right, or that the people at large just never cared, we merely end up having no social media identity, it will have been denied for reasons that were never real in the first place.

 

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March 16, 2018 · 14:45

The rocky road of Congress

There are issues all over the Middle East, and whilst saying that, we see that the UK and the US are now ‘caught’ with their fingers in the big pork pie.

The setting is best seen when we start with the Israeli Haaretz. The article (at https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/top-three-stunning-admissions-from-the-top-u-s-general-in-the-region-1.5910066) gives an initial view.

The title ‘Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia: Top Three Stunning Admissions from the Top U.S. General in the Middle East‘ sets the pace to the smallest degree and sets the topics to a much larger degree. So let’s take a look.

  1. Assad has won
  2. Iran deal should stand
  3. Saudis use American weapons without accountability in Yemen

Each of these three settings are partially a given. In the first we see that as Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin has been successful in setting the pace and the plays that are about to follow. Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is linked in all this gives the push for Concord Management and Consulting as well as its subsidiary LLC Megaline, a large push for optional multi-billion dollar contracts. It is yet unconfirmed what exactly will happen, but the setting of the end of the Syrian war will have long lasting repercussions in the Middle East. It is also the first setting where there is a very clear indication that the influence of the US is declining. It will quite literally need to cater to the needs of Saudi Arabia for a much longer time to undo the damage that inaction has brought to the US. So whilst the world is getting torpedoed by news, fake news and gossip regarding to the US and the Internet Research Agency (IRA), there are more and more indications that LLC Megaline is moving beneath the radar to start setting up their infrastructures to grow close to 500% and become the construction facilitator primarily for Syria and after that who knows. Let’s not forget that the $500 billion required for NOAM will go a lot further than Saudi Arabia by its self can currently facilitate for. So as America has been making gruesome steps towards optionally fumbling the collaboration it had created and grown over 75 years. As we were treated earlier this week (at http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/378132-us-must-push-saudi-arabia-away-from-the-chinese-model-of-governance), so when we see “The widespread concerns are that Saudi Arabia simply won’t meet the stated targets set by Vision 2030. Facing a demographic tidal wave — nearly 45 percent of the population is under the age of 25 — Saudi Arabia needs to generate millions of new jobs to absorb a growing workforce it can no longer afford to subsidize through generous government handouts“, that whilst the US has been unable to even closely set its own agenda for, at times, no more than a quarter in advance at each stage and ending up missing their own forecasts by a lot, we see here that the vision that requires another 12 years is already set to fail, according to the Hill. Now, there is a clear setting that things have to change and there are changes coming, there are even more optional changes in the works as the EU has been playing the wrong settings to cater to the wrong people, in addition, the stress settings between Turkey and several European nations are now impacting a little wider than before. You might see this as separate and as acts they are, but the impact is much wider. France is getting less and less obliging towards Turkey in regards to the Afrin offensive, and the Turks are also getting less and less warm receptions from the Netherlands, so there are political stress situations all over the place. So as we now hear (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-turkey/swiss-investigate-alleged-turkish-attempt-to-kidnap-businessman-idUSKCN1GQ2UD) that allegedly accuses that “Turkish diplomats planned to drug and kidnap a Swiss-Turkish businessman as part of a crackdown after the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey“, we see a new iteration of cooling notions. These matters have an impact to a larger degree. You see, there is not just the Saudi issue, issues 2 and three all include Iran, not merely the nuclear deal, but the Houthi support that Iran is giving with the supply of missiles and other goods is still largely ignored by too many players. It is a setting of filtered views, trying to isolate the players and deal with one sided responses. It is the Yemeni setting that makes that utterly impossible. So as we see on one side “The Senator followed up, citing reports that U.S. munitions have been used against civilians in Yemen, she asked, “General Votel, when you receive reports like this from credible media organizations or outside observers, is CENTCOM able to tell if U.S. fuel or U.S. munitions were used in that strike?” “No, senator, I don’t believe we are,” he replied“, we are shown a one sided part in all this that a significant amount of acts was to act against the Iranian missiles as they were targeting civilian areas. That part remains unasked. So in all this, as we realise that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is one of the smarter cookies in the US Senatorial jar of cookies, we need to wonder on her actions and her reasoning. The idea that the US (especially the democrats) needs the nuclear deal to hold, whilst we get (at https://www.ft.com/content/22845a20-27d2-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0) an accepted view from the Financial Times with “The US will on Thursday ramp up pressure on European countries to “fix” a landmark Iran nuclear deal that president Donald Trump has threatened to scrap“, with in addition “A state department spokesperson said: “This is a last chance.”” we know that the end is nigh for that bad situation. It is more than Israel wanted, the additional settings that we see is that the US has played a very dangerous game on the Turkish, the Iranian and the Saudi side, whilst there is enough indication that they never had the Trump cards to make it happen. That view is given more strength when we see “The senior US official said “it was diplomatic malpractice to exclude missiles from the original deal”, adding that long-range missiles are inherently associated with a nuclear weapons programme“. In that regard, it is not just the acts of the US, but the EU and UK players in all this will also be given the spotlight. As we see that things were missing, the hasty excuses like ‘there was no time‘, or ‘this was as good as we were going to get it‘ will hit back with enormous force as it gives more and more view that the initial views of Israel were correct. Now as there is an increased escalation with Iran, it is the view we see (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43419673) where we see “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told US network CBS News his country did not want to acquire nuclear weapons. “But without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible,” he added“, which now gets us in that stage that comes with the Hollywood phrase ‘This shit is getting real!‘ It was the setting that Israel had dreaded for the longest of times and whilst that shit is getting real we see, or better stated, we should see that the escalated and unbalanced pressures are showing the EU as well as the UN to be set as paper tigers that have no power and in the end no options. It is like Reuters stated in regards to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, merely “a 47-nation human rights body that has no legislative powers“, yes that was a setting that really helped it all along, were they not?

It goes further than this

You see, some of the players are waking up (or so it seems), with ‘GOP leaders want to put off Yemen war powers vote’, (at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/15/politics/yemen-war-powers-vote-congress/index.html), they realise that the setting is less clear, there are intricate settings that have been ignored by some of the players (read: Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren), the issue is not how, what, when, where or why it was done. With “GOP leaders would prefer to put off a final vote on the divisive issue until after it can be more closely studied in committee” it is not merely a stalling tactic (stalling might still be a factor). The issues that Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren danced around are still very much on the table for the governing party and in all this it is also squarely on the plate of Mike Pompeo, who, if confirmed, as Secretary Of State, will need to make sure that his office does not become the SOS signal that breaks the loom before the strings in all this have been separated, untangled and isolated so that the matters do not become some Gordian knot that ends up pushing Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey over some edge, because these connections will set flame to the threads connected to others on the loom of diplomacy. Even as we are ‘treated’ to news items like ‘Iran-Qatar alliance deepens, says Iranian naval official‘ and ‘Iran stands with Qatar, says Guards official‘, the truth remains that a direct head to head with Saudi Arabia is one that Iran is reluctant to have, because when it comes to making choices between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is clarity that the US, many European nations as well as Israel, pretty much none of them will support Iran, as the deepening cliffs are drawn between the EU nations and Turkey, the support it had with Turkey could essentially fall away further, and in that Turkey has been famous for merely supporting whatever pleases Turkey, getting in bed with Iran that deep is a choice Turkey will not be willing to chance. In all this Iran requires players like Qatar to make the blunders of setting themselves into a light of harm whilst Iran plays the ‘I know nothing‘ card.

A game that ends even before it starts in all earnest. So in that regard, the second and third setting we saw in Haaretz will have stronger impacts and the entire Yemeni setting will not be played out the way some would like that to be. that part was seen merely an hour ago when Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-mattis/mattis-dont-restrict-u-s-support-to-saudi-led-forces-in-yemen-idUSKCN1GS00N) gave us “Defence Secretary Jim Mattis defended U.S. military support to Saudi Arabian-led coalition forces in Yemen on Thursday as he explained a personal appeal to lawmakers who are considering whether to end Washington’s involvement in the devastating conflict“, and it is not merely in regards to support. When it comes to appeasing Turkey or Saudi Arabia, having strong ties with Saudi Arabia would be roughly 1,000% more important than anything else and not in the smallest regard for economic reasons. So as we earlier (in previous bog) saw that what is now stated by Reuters as “A bipartisan group of senators, Republican Mike Lee, independent Bernie Sanders and Democrat Chris Murphy, are attempting to take advantage of a provision in the 1973 war powers act that allows any senator to introduce a resolution on whether to withdraw U.S. armed forces from a conflict not authorized by Congress“, we see that congress might be having the right cap on whilst considering this, the cap would prove to be a massive blowback for Saudi-US settings in the Middle East for the longest of times. So as we might to some degree agree with “Lawmakers have argued for years that Congress has ceded too much authority over the military to the White House. Under the Constitution, Congress – not the president – has the authority to declare war“, we need to also see that the US has not declared war against Yemen, it merely is seeking to stop the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, a group has been firing missiles into Saudi Arabia as well as target commercial vessels off Yemen’s coast, 2 acts that should never have been allowed for in the first place. The US could have a clear setting in those two parts and as such a larger repair of status would be to be more vigorous in countering merely those two dangers anyway possible.

And in all this there is one final danger that the US desperately needs to negate and they do not have a lot of time to achieve it. You see as the Syrian issues are drawing to a close, it is not impossible that PMC Wagner would be growing its influence by offering support to Saudi Arabia against Yemen. You see, Iran painted itself in a corner by denying the weapons shipments to Yemen. In this the strategy becomes that either Iran walks away, or locks horns with Russia too. So as we see “The Iranian Minister of Defence Amir Hatami has denied the allegations about the presumed shipment of weapons to Yemen“, the door has been opened and now Yevgeny Prigozhin as well as Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin could end up visiting Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in his role of Minister of Defence and offer to solve the Yemeni issue. Should that happen, which is largely speculative from my side, the Russian delegations would receive a much larger opening of the door of opportunity in the Middle East as well as optional access to offer services towards NOAM, a situation that must be the stuff of nightmare legends for the US (as well as for the UK to some degree).

If that happens, it is expected to happen before the end of July, so we will know then and I could be wrong, but when it comes to business opportunity we have seen Yevgeny Prigozhin take the lane of opportunity in the quickest way and there is no way that he does not want a slice of that $500 billion Lemon Meringue Pie, or as he would be calling it the: Kremlin Profit Sharing Money Supply, a refreshing desert that is as rhymed as the Kremlin could get it with the available Horn of Plenty for all who agree there.

Do you still think that my speculation is that far off? I do not hope to be right, but knowing how the souls of greed move; the chance of me being wrong is declining really fast.

All because some of the players have (as I personally see it) their own ego’s and personal needs in the play and not the national needs they had to serve, the long term needs that is, because there is no doubt that some of these sparks are the direct consequence of short term thinking.

 

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September 5, 2016 · 14:44

For Only the Messenger

A few things were showed yesterday from several sources. We can see that there is a new peacock session going on, the parade is in Hangzhou. There the representatives of Wall Street and Dow Jones are making themselves heard regarding the world needs by talking about something else. So, as we see Japan (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/04/britain-japanese-brexit-letter-eu) making mention of certain expectations, we wonder who is asking them how their failed objectives by trying Stimulus package after stimulus package whilst not showing any return on that investment. A nation one third of the US having a debt that surpasses 10 trillion dollar. So when I read “a deal that leaves Britain not just in the EU customs union, and single market, but also retains a free flow of workers between the EU and the UK“, it is my personal belief that the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not working with all thrusters. The idea of self-governing is that the British people decide on a course via their politicians. Not listen to some spokesperson who has (pardon my French) been kissing the arse of the USA (mostly large corporations) for the longest of times. When they were all up in arms about the TPP, see what slice of cake they could get. Now that the TPP is near certainly of the books, Japan has a problem, because these so called Japanese reforms were largely dependent on the TPP opening non-taxable options. Politico stated: “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be challenged to find some other way to make much-needed economic reforms to stimulate growth if Congress fails to approve the TPP pact and the initiative dies on the vine, a former U.S. trade official said Thursday” (at http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2016/08/tpp-failure-could-derail-abe-reforms-in-japan-216092), just a week ago, meaning that the G20 is likely to get a side meeting or two between senior US politicians and the Japanese Prime Minister.

So isn’t it interesting how these people are now finally ‘uniting’? The quote “The fear for Downing Street is that other non-EU countries – under internal pressure from their business communities – will now follow the Japanese example and publicly set out the parameters of an acceptable deal from the point of view of their UK-based companies“. This all relates to an equal worry that the UK is seeing within its own borders. It is partially shown in the article ‘Theresa May refuses to commit to Brexit pledges on immigration and NHS’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/04/theresa-may-refuses-to-guarantee-brexit-pledges-on-immigration-and-nhs) that is apart from the quotes like “Tokyo said Japanese firms could move to other parts of Europe unless many of the current privileges of membership were maintained“, which is a simple indication that Tokyo is licking the heel of Washington DC. I can give that speculation with a certain amount of certainty as they had absolutely no issues pulling out of Australia with Toyota and Mitsubishi. That is after they maximised the troth of subsidies and ate the lot. In my view, Japan does not get to have a word in this. So if they want to leave, let them. Consider that they are willing to gamble on 68 million potential consumers to switch to German brands, not a good move Japan! Yet, this was not the issue initially. You see the quote that Teresa May gives: “the best possible deal for the UK in terms of the relationship that we would have with the EU, following us leaving“, there are unknowns, that has always been the case, yet in light of Japan’s actions, the question becomes, what other actions is lame duck Obama playing with? You see, we are all getting played. part of it is shown in Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-finance-idUSKCN10D2OM) the quote “Deepening ties with European companies and “old friends” like the United States and Japan would help Britain preserve its global role in finance after leaving the EU, an industry body said on Wednesday” is only partially a given. You see, the industry bodies do not want their cushy bonuses to fall away. So as they are striking out with the government directly, they are now pushing for the battle stages to be placed with the ‘larger’ economies. The only issue is that Japan has run out of options and the US cannot get the TPP of the ground, meaning that the current lame quack quack is out of options to look good. You see, my reasoning is as follows. When we see the following quotes given to Reuters “they like to do business through London due to the depth of the talent pool and capital markets here“, second quote is “Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris and Milan all hope to win a slice of London’s market share in financial services” and third there is “Britain must make more of how much companies across Europe rely on Britain’s financial services and allied professions like accounting and law to do business“, now we get the what we for now will call the Shinzo Abe list. “Maintenance of the access to workers who are nationals of the UK or the EU“, “Maintenance of the freedom of establishment and the provision of financial services, including the “single passport” system” and “the provision of services as well as the free movement of capital, including that between associated companies“. How is this any list that has validity? We are not here to empower Sony, Apple or Microsoft for that matter. You Honourable Shinzo Abe do not get to make the dictation of a list after your companies moved out of Australia because the profit margin was not up to scrap, even after we learned that every Toyota came with a $1800 bonus per car and including those who got shipped to China, so how does the Honourable Shinzo Abe thinks that he is seen anything else then the voice of corporations who have massively been filling their pockets with margins that are too obscene for words. In addition, when we combine the lists we see a play that is all about giving large corporations a free ‘go’, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. The more voices we see on a compromise of the acts without the title makes me wonder who is in charge in the United Kingdom. We know Wall Street controls the USA, but I still believe that the monarchy that is the United Kingdom needs to hold fast and continue on the path that makes them rulers again, not vassals to the corporations.

By the way, when will we ever allow a corporation to dictate what passport comes into play?

So as we (for now) see the Honourable Shinzo Abe as a mere messenger, we have to worry why he took these steps to begin with. This reeks more towards setting the US corporate needs than anything else. Now it could be that even within Japan tough questions would be asked, if political pressures had not been used to get rid of Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii. Of these I only know Shigetada Kishii to the smallest extent. People in the workplace asking the hard questions, not the useless questions you would get from Lisa Wilkinson (Australia) or Ben Shephard (UK), but the likes of Andrew Jennings (BBC News). So that is a loss!

In all this I see that in more and more nations it is the corporations that decide on news, because those breakfast news shows are all dependant on advertisers, whomever controls them, controls the press to a decent amount. So as we see the messengers on several fronts we see that all of them are now giving way to large corporations and their ‘needs’ whilst the players as a whole are not held accountable for any of this and together they seem to be keeping the non-taxability of corporations a certainty. If you doubt that then wonder why Ireland is now suddenly supporting the appeal from Apple. So not only do they all want a united Europe, but its court rulings are not all that valid. I wonder what will happen if it is ever overthrown. How angry will the people get?

Will the announcer claim protection with the phrase ‘I am only the messenger?‘ Time will tell, but it is clear that Brexit was always going to take a while and for those corporations? They knew the risk was there for well over a year, now they cry wolf? Actually, they are making the Honourable Shinzo Abe cry wolf (which might be worse).

It only shows that they never prepared for this. So why give considerations to people who cannot prepare for these events? Oh and the threat from Japan to take the car makers out of UK? Well, you could do that, but when the Commonwealth population as a whole decide to not to buy a Japanese car, you will make the Korean and Chinese Car industry very happy. Japan? Did the history books not tell me that they became Eastern China in 2018? Perhaps the Yen completely collapsed, as did their economy!

I’ll let you decide on how the industrials are now trying to play the UK!

A friend that threatens our freedom of choice is not a friend. Did they not learn that lesson the hard way on August 6th 1945? I know it’s only been 25,964 days ago, but still!

 

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August 29, 2016 · 18:54

Exit Fee, Brexit Fee

We all knew that there would be backlashes regarding Brexit on a few levels. Now we can argue whether it is legal, ethical or even comprehensible that you must pay an exit fee, but over the years in many places. Especially Gyms, you are faced with the need that you have a renewal and a minimum fee that is covered per year. If the gym delivered on its entrance promises than there aren’t too many objections you can make. The same amounts to your mobile provider who under contract will make you pay the whole lot if you leave within the contract term. So also, the issue rises as the UK is leaving the EU. That part is not really in question. The amount would always have been a path of negotiation, but overall we all saw that part coming. So initially the news ‘UK must pay for Brexit or EU is in ‘deep trouble’, says German minister‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/29/uk-must-pay-for-brexit-or-eu-is-in-deep-trouble-says-german-minister), was not overly a surprise. The added ‘deep trouble‘ was also never an issue. I can do you one better. I made that prediction on May 15th 2013 in the article ‘A noun of non-profit‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/15/a-noun-of-non-profit/), which is in a time when the press on a global scale would remain in denial that this was realistic. Oh how the mighty get slain!

It is however the subtitle of the article that should wake you up: “Sigmar Gabriel warns UK must take responsibility for vote that has left Europe as an ‘unstable continent’“, to which my initial response would be “Is Mister Gabriel slightly non-mentally comprehensive of the mess you economy ministers all over the EC bestowed upon Europe?” It is also in my diplomatic and subtle view that until close to a dozen economy ministers are held accountable and serve actual prison sentences for squandering funds, for over inflating their economy and switching to managed bad news up to 6 months later, whilst we all knew that none of these forecasts were anywhere near realistic. So until those people are in ACTUAL prisons, the UK cannot be held responsible for the irresponsible acts of others. I mean, let’s face it. I saw this coming 3 years ago and I do not have an economy degree. So how stupid are Sigmar Gabriel and his economy cronies to begin with? Then we get the quote “Gabriel warned if the issue was badly handled and other member countries followed Britain’s lead, Europe would go “down the drain”“, which translates to Sigmar blaming the bad track the EC has as France and the Netherlands (and at least two others) are now seriously considering how stupid the Status Quo path was to begin with. Pretty much another issue I have been raising for 3 years. Or as one might diplomatically phrase it: ‘It really sucks to be the Dow Jones Indexes’ bitch!‘, a lesson several nations are about to experience a lot sooner than they bargained for when the second player exits the EU. In addition I can also report that that is also the moment the DJI will look a lot less healthy than it did in 2009, so rough seas are coming.

So when we see the response from Angela Merkel, which was “Rather than rushing into activities, we should perhaps first take time to think about what we, as the 27 countries, must do better“. My sober response would be ‘How about nearly everything?‘ I still think that pouring a trillion plus into some stimulus was not the greatest idea to have, to do it a second time is just plain stupid. Especially when none of the 27 nations have any funds to truly support this, and as per recently, neither does FIFA, so that ship sailed too! So as there was news last week on how resilient the Eurozone was, means also that the claim by Sigmar Gabriel should be seen as null and void, so when after 12 weeks of stimulus (or in Feb 2017, whichever comes first) we start seeing less optimistic news that some expectations had not been met, will they throw Mario Draghi into prison for intentional wasting of funds? Of course not! He is just doing what the Americans want him to do, to create a vacant non-realistic sign of economic increase. You see, that part will happen when you spend 60 billion a month for the second time around. By the way, does anyone know how much those economies went forward after the spending stopped? Not that much, because a second Kickstarter program is required. Oh wait, that program will end next month, so as they need more, can we not see that this is not a solution?

There is one nice quote that Angela Markel gives: “member states must listen to each other carefully and avoid rushing into policy decisions. If you do it wrong from the beginning and you don’t listen – and act just for the sake of acting – then you can make many mistakes.“, which is acceptable and likely to be very correct, yet in that same light, this mess is because the EEC at large (with Germany as a major frontrunner) did whatever they could to keep the Status Quo, which was the first big mistake. Clever accounting has not done anything other than misrepresent the European economy at large. And as Status Quo events go, The Japanese economy who have been trying stimulus for many years is still not up to speed. It is Bloomberg who on August 15th stated (at https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-15/there-s-a-welcome-thaw-in-the-opposition-to-fiscal-stimulus), “U.S. public debt has risen sharply since 2008, and demographic trends will keep pushing it higher in the longer term — but with long-term interest rates at their current depressed levels, borrowing for public investment has never been more affordable. If the money is spent wisely, it will spur growth, which would help to lighten the projected debt load“, really? So not only can the US not pay for the interest at present, it is borrowing even more for public investments. There is nothing against public investments, yet what I see is the fact that not only can the US not afford it, there is on this world not enough funds to cover for only the US and Japanese debts, so where is all that money coming from, because the impact will be massive. That event might not be far away, as Arnaud Montebourg, France’s former Minister of Industrial Renewal is now starting to side with Marine Le Pen on Frexit. President Hollande might be partially blind to this, but former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is no longer that certain. This means that 2 of the 3 parties are considering Frexit, making the referendum a decent certainty. The anger that France has in regards to both Youth unemployment (well over 22%), as well as the terrorist attacks, we might not be able to tell which factor is the strongest here, but both have an impact. Almost 2 weeks before the Brexit call, France had a pro referendum number over 60%, I cannot clearly see where the French stand at present, but with President Hollande not making any statements on that subject that those numbers have ‘dwindled’ implies that the number is likely to be decently past 50% and as we see more politicians there mention the chance of Referendums (other than Marine Le Pen) is an indication that the next large election (France), would soon follow with a referendum call, so then we are at the place where Sigmar Gabriel accuses the UK of, for the economic setting of the EU. An accusation that can be countered quite clearly and decently easy.

So when you consider whether I am just stupid and my view holds no water (a fair point of view). I would counter, because I added the references and the evidence. When you wonder if I am truly that super intelligent I counter equally with the fact that my University grades are mere passes with an occasional Credit or Distinction and none of them in economy, so there are more clever people out there, but I reckon that digging into this was never their priority.

So why is the press not properly investigating (in opposition to reporting on quotes) regarding that side of the events Europe and the rest of the world faces?

I’ll let you ponder that!

 

 

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March 19, 2016 · 12:08

European Exodus Community

There is a reality that people seem to miss. There is a reality that the people at large have been ignoring for far too long. Big business had been until early this year trivialising the entire Brexit issue. Some started the catchphrase ‘Bremain’, but that went out of fashion fast. At some point, in October 2015 something expected happened. An American opened his mount (in this case Trade representative Michael Froman), which gave the Britons “If you leave EU you face barriers to trading with America“, Is that really so? In my view, if the Democratic Party does not get its A-game in place, many will not want to be in trade with a nation that cannot pay its bill anyway. You see, if Brexit becomes a reality, the Euro will take a sizeable dive, which will also hurt the US Dollar. More important, as the US has not been able to keep any kind of control on their budgeting, the US issue would take additional tumbles. Consider that the US exports $57 billion to the UK, should one direction fall away, than so does the other direction, you see pharmaceuticals can come from India, Vehicles can come from Japan and Medical Technical equipment can come from places like the Netherlands (to some extent). We are looking at an easy 12 billion going somewhere else. So that part is not a given, yes, UK export might have a few hitches, yet when other players are found for at least 20 billion in goods, new arrangements will be an option (very fast), not so much for the US of A.

Yet, I get it. The USA is afraid, very afraid because of what the Euro changes will bring and their fear is escalating. This we get from Euractiv (at https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/majority-of-french-back-holding-frexit-referendum/), who is now proclaiming that “53% of French surveyed would like to hold a referendum on their country’s continued EU membership“, an issue I saw coming a long time ago. i was the first one keeping my eye on this, and even as Hollande and Sarkozy are trying to make other ‘arrangements’ they now realise that non-compliance with the French voters will mean that the bulk will demand Marine Le Pen be elected, another prediction I saw coming. More important, should Brexit be averted, than Frexit still remains a real risk. It implies that American will almost be forced to send their own Al Jolson European Tour 2016-2017, yet unlike Al Jolson, this tour will not be a sell-out success, it will be seen as a painful reminder of America not cleaning ‘house’ in the 2004-2009 era. An era that brought many nations to the edge of despair. Now we see the Obama administration trying the option of Al Jolson singing ‘can I have a little more please‘, an idea many Europeans will regard as offensive. The changes will give additional worry. From one perspective, if the dollar collapses, export from America should go through the roof, but the overly mismanaged economy gives a clear clarion call that the funds to cate to this need would end up being insufficient. The latter part is my own speculation, I have no hard numbers supporting that part. From all the export, one in eight is about machinery. This seems to be a solid one, especially from the excellence in the past, yet in all this we in equal measure ignore that the US is not the only place to get this stuff, so if a part will move to an Asian provider, American wealth numbers will take a sharp dive, all that because Michael Froman seemed to have forgotten that they are not the only player in town.

Yet I digress!

There is now the realistic concern that a European Exodus could hit the community, a real danger, which also means that certain borders will come into a different play. This will impact the USA as well as Europe. Yet instead of a clear summary, the press seems to be throwing too much in the air with emotional plays from both sides of that isle which I consider to be not so productive. We see not so helpful articles by Jane McConnell on ‘why Brexit would be apocalyptic for the games industry‘ with quotes like “British gaming receives a wealth of talent and funding as a result of being in the EU“, which is a joke to say the least. When we see PC Gamer giving us info regarding Ubisoft Montreal “but it was built primarily on the strength of Quebec’s generous subsidies and tax breaks, and with a newly-elected government facing serious debt problems, those breaks are being cut back. That has CEO Yannis Mallat taking another look at the studio’s long-term future“, so that billion Euro firm in France is ‘surviving’ due to tax breaks. (at http://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-ceo-ponders-reductions-to-quebec-tax-breaks/). Now, remember that this article is 2 years old. So basically in the time that Ubisoft created mere mediocrity in gaming. In all that time only the recently released ‘the Division‘ seems to be up to critical scrap. So how about not catering to tax breaks? The final argument “and thanks to the EU working time directive, we are guaranteed 20 days a year of paid annual leave, offering us all us all at least one day we can happily set aside for binge playing. That’s worth remembering“, how interesting that she relies on that part, not on the part of government accountability which is actually driving people away. In addition, remember Markus Persson, simple small software firm in Sweden? It made over 2 billion in the end (from Minecraft). So, let’s not cater to mediocrity! The same issue can be stated for Hello Games. It is about the reset the bar for gaming quality, both small firms, just the two visible in a group of dozens. These tax breaks are there for the small players, but they have been overwhelmingly used by large players to not dig into the ‘quality setting’ frontiers they should have been in.

I feel personally decently certain that Brexit is becoming a reality. If the press would focus on truth and fact, not on emotion to sway the people, there would be a certainty that Brexit will be. It will drive Frexit too. The EEC will become a near death-trap for the last one in, which means that Italy will not be in a happy place between 2017 and 2018. I expect it will drive the membership numbers of Lega Nord with Matteo Salvini, I cannot tell how strong, because I know too little of the other Italian players. Yet in all this, certain other players are rearing its ugly head. You see, when we go back to November 2015 we see a paper by Natixis (at http://cib.natixis.com/flushdoc.aspx?id=88106), there we see “In the worst case scenario, the United Kingdom leaves the EU and does not join the European Free Trade Association; there would then be custom tariffs between the United Kingdom and the EU, but given the size of the trade flows, the impact on the economies would be limited. The United Kingdom has a very small industry and its exports of services, which are very specialised, would probably not be too severely affected“, this is the view I also ‘synched’ to. Basically, the bad sides of the EU towards the UK are massively larger than the good sides. The Natixis paper by Patrick Artus might not be complete, but it gives the goods that matter, from that point of view.

You see, the short-sighted users of a spreadsheet forgot the drive that Brexit could have, the view I predicted already in 2014. In addition, the growth and danger that right parties all over Europe became, fuelling one another is a side I did not see coming either. In addition to that view, we saw in November that Wolf Richter, Wolf Street in Business insider had “A Brexit would be ‘a non-event’“. I wonder where that came from. Oh no, I need not wonder because they mention Natixis and quote the relevant parts.

So what changed?

Well, the part I foresaw and everyone ignored is that Frexit is slowly becoming a reality. Now we have ourselves a lot more than a mere horserace, because this is what Natixis can’t use. It is in massive parts a French conglomerate, not a global one. In that regard Frexit will impact on Natixis as a whole. In this I mean that Natixis will see its profit margins decrease by a fair bit (we are talking a game of billions here), whilst in equal part limit certain economic movements and options. That makes it a different event. And the less we say about the impact on the US the better. Ah, here I am wrong!

You see, Lieutenant general Frederick Benjamin Hodges gives us the following last Tuesday (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-usa-idUSKCN0WH0QJ), we get ‘Brexit would weaken NATO versus Russia‘, which is not entirely correct, is it Freddie? It is not a lie either! The mess seems complicated but it is not. We can agree that the General is under orders here. I reckon massively from his Commander in Chief who dropped the ball several times and is sending the General out into an economic field that is not ‘his’ theatre of war. Here is the part that is unwritten (not by me), whilst everyone was looking at Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street players, they all forgot about Natixis, who has a wealth portfolio that delivers an annual return that outranks more than just a few EU nations. When that limits and dwindles many players will panic, because the survival of some is now depending on continuity. Something that behind the screens of Brexit and Frexit comes to terms. With Brexit there was enough time to make adjustments, with Frexit that time will not be there, apart from the fact that it will force Germany to take a different course (one that is expected, but cannot be predicted). In all this that is only one element. The General is right that NATO will weaken, what is not given is that it will change the expenditure that some nations are making, which will directly hit Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which will now be a sizeable dent in the American economy too. Apart from a collapsing Euro, America will get hit by a double whammy, that part is not given (it is ignored by too many), not shown and not elaborated on. It is how expenditure changes. NATO existed since long before the Euro was a reality, but as those evolutions were taken, by lowering defence spending on a national level in Europe, we see that this ignored cluster will have serious consequences, very much so for the American military hardware industry.

Can I be wrong?

That is what matter, for me as much as for you the reader. We will be depending on two elements, Is Brexit a reality in the first and will it force Frexit in the second. The first is less up in the air, but not a given, in the second, when Brexit happens, Frexit will be a certainty. Even if Brexit does not happen now, the French are worried and they do not want to be the last in the row of decision makers as Italy currently is, the fact that 53% want this referendum is worrying to many players (except for Marine Le Pen). Both Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy cannot ignore the cries of the French, if they do, they will feel the discomfort that Marie Antoinette had on October 16th 1793 (well, one can fantasize, can one not?), because France is for the French (as they see it), not for the Americans. They will come down hard on their government, which is playing perfectly into the hands of Marine Le Pen. No matter what happens, with or without Brexit. Germany cannot sustain the environment without the other three players, which places the UK now in a tactical predicament. Relying on France to keep cool, this is what drives Brexit to additional momentum.

So all this will drive the European Exodus Community, to some extent people, because national business needs the motivated people to get businesses working and moving forward, but for the most it will be about small businesses in a national setting. Those who adapt fast will grow. Larger corporations will feel the disastrous drag of not changing gears, of not adapting to the new environment, mainly because those head offices (many in America and Asia) will not comprehend the old systems that drove them and the changes required to make them. Those depending on decision makers will find that delays will cost increasingly until (often enough) the decision has been made too late. Rowing against the current will be a new slogan that larger players will have to deal with, driving their talents to smaller places where speed is available. This exodus environment will hit in many places, in many layers on several fronts. A front where only the adjusted will make headway. I wonder whether 2018 will be the year of culling the corporate herd. It is too soon to tell, but it will for the most depend on the brethren Brexit and Frexit both leaving this rocky boat called EEC!

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December 6, 2015 · 23:18

Let it (or them) die!

Harsh words that are befitting a slightly harsher world than we bargained for. Yesterday I had one of those ridiculous epiphany. In my view I saw some news regarding ICE and how it is so addictive and how it is costing healthcare 500 million. There is news all over the place in both the UK and Australia regarding the abuse of both drugs and alcohol. We seem to go out of our way to reward and support stupid people. Now when it comes to simple things like consumer protection it is one thing. A person can be misinformed and a person can be misled, for this we have consumer protection to give them additional protection. I have no issue with that, when a consumer loses out on a misrepresented or misled purchase, there should be protection. For the most, many shops will exchange and usually even refund. Yet at some point in this day and age, we need to make changes, we need to adjust. It is not by choice, it is out of necessity. You see, choices were made and politicians will need to be held to account. We need to show to all around us that going soft on corporations and going too soft on the people at large can no longer be supported. You see, it is the price you pay for making a choice.

What if we change the law? As per January 1st 2017 certain medical options fall away from adults. You see, from that date, what if we stop paying for treatment of drugs and alcohol abuse. A person can only get treatment if they pay fully and pay upfront. Without that, there will be no treatment and the drugs and drunk tanks are reintroduced. You see, as stated, we no longer have an option. How can we accept that our governments push us deeper and deeper into debt, unable to keep a proper balance whilst at the same time give more and more breaks for corporations to skim from the top and become more and more non tax accountable! Until we get the law properly to properly adjust certain parts in taxation, accountability and prosecution we no longer have an option. We stop to support certain acts of stupidity. If they die? Let them!

I see images of thousands of refugees, genuinely wanting a future for them and their family, not an extremist thought in sight, just to start a life and create a future for their children. How can we stop these people and keep on supporting junkies? At 7.35 billion mankind is not going extinct any day soon, so why bother with outrageous forms of support for someone so stupid to make such mistakes again and again. In my cruel view, let them die! Let the first 100 be a clear sign to people that drugs kill, there is no next, there is no after again and again. I truly believe that it will push the use of drugs down, when more and more people are confronted that someone they directly know, who had died from drug or alcohol abuse, these elements will soon diminish to a much lower amount. It will never go away, but it will go down to such an extent that people will seriously consider not taking drugs. You see, the drugs pusher will always come with the ‘once will not hurt‘, ‘once is fine, we all do it!‘ He/she lies to you! I and many of my friends never took drugs. And let’s look at the additional benefits this solution will bring. Hospital costs go down, healthcare support goes up, less pressure on support systems and as these people relishing freedom of choice die, their places open up to you me and the refugee. All those who want a real life, a new life or a better life.

This is about more than just booze and drugs. On January 23rd 2015 I wrote ‘The danger topic‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/01/23/the-danger-topic/), here we see the issue I raised almost a year ago. We see “At The Bruegal Institute in Brussels is not the only think-tank to believe the estimated €250bn cost of a Grexit, while covered by the bailout funds, would cripple the Eurozone and delay recovery for a decade we now see that the ECB is about to spend 1.1 trillion for bonds. When we see “The Frankfurt-based bank will use electronically created money to buy the bonds of Eurozone governments – quantitative easing – to try to boost confidence, push up inflation and drive down the value of the single currency, helping to increase exports and kick-start growth”“, yes the Italian Draghi had an idea to kick-start the economy. Now we see ‘ECB Day: markets tumble as Draghi disappoints investors‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/dec/03/ecb-stimulus-qe-negative-rates-mario-draghi-live#block-566070ebe4b073bf0735b3be). “But they may have a point. As Draghi pointed out – the Eurozone economy is growing, credit conditions are improving. QE is working, and they’ll keep doing it. Why bring out a bigger punchbowl?” and “The wave of selling rippled from Frankfurt and Paris to Madrid and Milan, as traders expressed disappointment that the ECB hadn’t expanded its QE programme, or hit the banks with tougher negative interest rates“. This is the problem for us. You see, investors expected more, they always expect more, which is why it would not work. In addition, their push could result in more spending and less and less control on that spending. I foresaw it almost a year ago, but as people ignored me and listened to these good weather forecasters on how the economy would grow, are now confronted with more and more bad news management. How the economy grew between 0.3% and 0.4%, so when we look at http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu/forecasts/2015_winter_forecast_en.htm, and we see a forecast that is written like “Growth this year is forecast to rise to 1.7% for the EU as a whole and to 1.3% for the euro area. In 2016, economic activity should grow by 2.1% and 1.9% respectively“, that 0.3% does not come close, and still these governments are living the gravy train, spending more and more and leaving the invoice for a next government who will borrow even more to deal with invoiced that cannot be dealt with. So how about taking away certain support. How about letting the people see in the street how the future is warped because the symbiotic relationship between nations and large corporations are no longer correctly honoured. Letting the system collapse is one option, letting the people die, so that those nurses can focus on nursing to true health, NHS systems on a global scale will have less and less costs and we can actually move forward.

We can no longer afford to be nice. If you doubt that, thank consider the title ‘Investors got ECB odds wrong but Draghi could pay hefty price‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2015/dec/03/investors-got-ecb-odds-wrong-but-draghi-could-pay-hefty-price), when we read “It’s hard to know who is most to blame: Mario Draghi, for leading investors up the garden path; or investors, for believing that the European Central Bank president’s talk of doing “what we must” equated to a firm promise of a bigger dose of quantitative easing“, in what way ‘bigger dose‘? We can’t even take care of the current dose and the investors want more and more and more. So, we need to think differently. When we get rid of a surplus population, more jobs, more rental places, less costs, which means lower debt options. The investors will go ‘Baahhhhh, humbug!‘, but only because greed is eternal and they require that extra cash.

When we start hitting governments a dollar for dollar (or pound for pound) option, the game will change and we will see additional false promises on how the economy will get sooo much better in 2017. I say, well, when those tax dollars come in, we can consider paying for certain treatments, only when those dollars (or pounds) are actually COLLECTED.

You know, I can already predict the answer, it will be some accounting stunt that allows for ‘spare change‘. If PriceWaterhouse Coopers comes with that option, you should ask how that worked out for Tesco, both them and the press will remains massively silent on either matter. So, we must change the game, as the players have changed the format of the game. We can’t change the players, but we can limit their actions, hence dropping services.

How inhumane is it? In equal measure I ask, how inhumane is it to leave a multi trillion debt to our children? Is Greece not a clear example, they will never escape the debt that previous governments left them, they will go through life blaming those not responsible, whilst not prosecuting those responsible, what kind of a future is that? At http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/greece-debt-crisis-athens-narrowly-passes-2016-austerity-budget-1532011 we see the title ‘Greece debt crisis: Athens narrowly passes 2016 austerity budget‘, you might think that this is good news, but so far all additional debts have been used to pay bills and pay for interest, Greece is not moving forward, which means that 5.7 billion in spending cuts is required, with one third of that as cuts towards the pensions, so the 10,000 not so poor Greeks are leaving, whilst leaving the rest to pay for an invoice no one in Greece can afford, it is not that far a thought that 2016/2017 will be the years when Greek youth, man and women will marry out of Greece so that they can have a future, reducing the future of Greece even further. Public debt will grow the coming year by another 8% towards 188% whilst unemployment will remain at 25%, so how is that any future? Statistica reported that the advantage of marrying a foreigner received 42% of the women and 33% of the men stating that ‘better education and social stability of the children‘ was received, only 2% for both gender relied on same religion, which could be a massive blow to Orthodox Greece. Whether this comes to pass is not possible to predict, but as options diminish, other solutions will be sought by those hardest hit, so is my leap of not caring for a collection of idiots that cannot accept responsibility such a massive leap? The Sydney Morning Herald reported in June (at http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/newtown-gets-busy-as-kings-cross-empties-20150619-ghseco.html): “According to NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research numbers analysed by Fairfax Media, in the 10 months from April 2013 to Jan 2014 there were 86 instances of alcohol-related attacks in Newtown. From February 2014 to the end of November there were 102 attacks, an increase of 18 per cent.  From January to March 2015 there were 34 assaults, compared to 27 in the same period the previous year“, so will the drunk tank be a solution? That remains to be seen, but I feel certain that the first hospital invoice to be paid upfront will definitely have an impact. As people get to pay $300 for alcohol treatment it will not go to bars, if they cannot pay, the drunk tank will be the route to take. How long until someone figures out that this lifestyle gets them killed? How about changing the lifestyle of binge drinking that has absolutely no positive impact other than a fake instilment of Ego?

We have tried all these soft labour solutions and none, I repeat none have worked. It is time that we employ different solutions.

I will be the first one to admit that it is as inhumane as it gets, but people are for the most massively stupid, especially when they are in groups, so as such less intelligent solutions must be considered. Perhaps it will work, perhaps not, but can we truly ignore the option? The cost for alcohol related abuse was $14.352b in 2010 (Australia, at http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/441-460/tandi454.html), yet, can an alternative be found? Yes, there is one other solution, how about on June 30th all Australian residents receive an additional tax invoice of $625. If over 80% pays it, we keep to the old system, if not we will try my option, dollar for dollar. If you are unwilling to pay one way, you get to pay another way. I reckon it will not take more than 3 months until 90% plus suddenly decides to pay that additional bill.

I prefer to let the debt die, not the people, but we are running out of options and those who should truly inform us are hiding behind experts who will treat us to carefully phrased denials, how is that leading to a solution? Yes, in this blog I phrased more questions than answers. I am pretty intelligent, yet a solution cannot be given until we make massive changes to the society we currently live in so that our children and our grandchildren will have any future. When you realise that we are getting to a point that it is proven, that making the life of a person negotiable is a lot less impossible than we ever thought, that will be the point that a push for massive legislative change is more likely than not to succeed, it is the one push big business cannot counter, some things can truly push a shadow over greed, we only have to be willing to push enough people into that shadow.

 

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October 5, 2015 · 11:25

How to cure economic sickness

The Guardian is bringing me grim news today. As a British conservative and as an Australian Liberal the news presented does not look good, it is slightly beyond critical. It also reminds me of a small gag I heard in the Netherlands 3 decades ago. The one-liner was: “Due to a death, this cemetery will remain closed for the next few days” (source Fons Jansen), yes it seems like a laughing matter, but the Grimness behind it is less amusing and more dread based than we realise. The news ‘Ministers ‘are hiding details of £2bn NHS cash crisis’‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/03/ministers-hiding-details-nhs-cash-crisis) is at the centre of all this. As a conservative my response (with all due respect) to Prime Minister David Cameron is ‘Sir, are you barking mad?‘ I will direct this at the Prime Minister because he is ‘our’ leader, the man in charge. If there is even the slightest hint that he was not aware than a massive reshuffle will be needed within the next 48 hours.

You see, I have forever opposed hiding bad news. Managing bad news will always bite the parties involved in the end. When the implied deficit amounts to 0.5% of all collected taxations in 2014, we have a massive problem which must be addressed and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. You see, no matter how trivial this 0.5% might seem. The coffers are down well over a trillion pounds, which requires 100% of all collected taxations for three years to address. Now that act is not realistic, but that show you the massive damage the United Kingdom faces. Economies are slowing down, partially due to Asia, partially due to acts that America is about to do and as such the American economy will soon take another tumble. As I see it, Thanksgiving and Christmas might hide the events, but the end of January through March, especially when the US Department of Defence will make 40,000 people redundant, that economy will shift over the following 4 months. In all this, the UK can no longer afford to hide bad news of this nature. The Commonwealth in general needs to realise that as the US seems to enable greed based corporations, we as members of the Commonwealth will have to stick together. This is no longer about national pride and ego. Our collective politicians are more likely to walk away with opportunities that will guarantee the well-being of their families for more than two generations, whilst in all this the people will end up getting saddled with a debt that will stop them from moving forward in any decent future for decades to come. None of us agreed to such imbalance.

The quote “Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, said on Saturday: “This appears to be a cynical attempt to suppress bad news ahead of the Tory party conference. It makes a mockery of Tory claims to be committed to transparency in the NHS, and leaves Jeremy Hunt with very serious questions to answer. These figures must now be published in full as a matter of urgency”” gives weight to this. Part of me is also very cautious on her statement, let’s not forget that it was Labour that squandered 11 billion from the NHS and they have not been forthcoming at all, so let’s realise that this still remains an issue of the Pot calling the Kettle black.

The next part is set over two quotes. The first is “Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund think tank, recently said that the NHS’s fast-ballooning deficit was leading to “panic” at the health department and “denial” at the Treasury. The service’s overspend was so large that it needed an emergency injection of £1bn in the comprehensive spending review to keep functioning, added Ham“, the second quote is “Without extra funding, he argued, the NHS would end up unable to cope, “most likely during the winter when many hospitals run out of money … With NHS hospitals unable to go bankrupt…, the Treasury will be forced to intervene or accept a rapid decline in performance.”“. The issue is in more than one part. In the first we must question how the NHS ended up short by 2 billion. We have heard all the wild accusations in the papers, but what news there has any reliability? No matter how little of it is true, Jeremy Hunt has an official problem, because if he has kept facts away from the public than he has no right being in his position, if he is falling on his sword for the party, we have an even larger issue. Because the conservative members feel that they should be told the facts, good or bad. We cannot fix when things remain hidden. We within the Commonwealth will become puppets to those operating the machines. It is a fake freedom which does do no one any good.

Yet the NHS has issues on several levels. One level was discussed in my blog article called ‘In Greed we trust‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/09/22/in-greed-we-trust/). Here we looked at Turing Pharmaceuticals AG and the little caper they pulled on Daraprim. They weren’t the only ones. The Financial Post (at http://business.financialpost.com/investing/global-investor/valeant-pharmaceuticals-international-inc-shares-plummet-as-525-hike-in-drug-price-draws-fire) gave us “Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. shares fell as much as 20 per cent after Democrats in the U.S. House asked to subpoena the company for documents relating to drug price increases, the latest move by politicians seeking to curb price hikes on acquired drugs“. When we see places like Turing Pharmaceuticals ‘hiding’ behind places like PrWeb and PrNewsWire, you better believe you are facing marketing from the bottom of the barrel. Yet in all this serious demands from the government looking into these companies who bought up niche medications and driving up prices by hundreds of percentage points is a matter this government (as well as the previous one) did not have to content with and as such the NHS will receive even more pressure. This is exactly why I have pushed for close to two years towards a stronger Commonwealth coalition. India with its Generic pharmaceuticals that will become one of the pillars of salvation for the NHS. This needs to happen now, before the Australian government (as well as the previous one) does something irreversibly stupid like signing the TPP. We must recognise here that it was not Australian Labor or the Australian Liberals asking the questions that had to be asked, it was New Zealand that put up a fight against the TPP issues. So have we been watching a media event by Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals?

Because we all need to realise clearly that once the TPP is signed, the signing government will have placed a knife on the throats of nearly 21.7% of the population of Australia, whilst that group will be left with no medical alternative!

That part reflects on the NHS!

When we consider some information from the ABPI (at http://www.abpi.org.uk/our-work/library/industry/Documents/OHE%20ABPI%20Medicines%20Bill%20Forecast.pdf), we must also acknowledge that they, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, represents commercial enterprises, a branch not to favoured, or flavoured towards generic medication. They are given, as I personally see it (read: speculate) the inside track from ‘friends’ on how far they must lower the price to remain seated. It is a form of let’s say branded exploitation that can no longer be afforded. Now, we must be clear that there is nothing illegal on branded exploitation, but we have to acknowledge that the NHS can no longer afford to play that game (a 2 billion deficit is ample proof of that).

Within the ABPI we see plenty of information, now consider this one quote from one of their presentations: “Loss of exclusivity of some major brands is projected to yield £3.4bn cumulative savings to the NHS between 2012 and 2015 with £5.4bn cumulative lost revenue to industry“. Do you think this is about the savings to the NHS, or the revenue lost to industry? If you think that this is about ‘savings to the NHS‘ than you, the respectful reader, will be slightly too naive than is good for you! I cannot fault the ABPI, because it is doing what it needs to do, represent its industry, we all forgot that they are not living in a symbiotic relationship with the government as they provide THEIR solutions to the NHS. The people the ABPI is representing, is a commercial group. They want to get the most out of whatever they can. Culling their needs by having stronger ties with Generic brands, even Indian ones is essential. They might cry about their low prices, but the reality is different. These players claiming the high costs are hoping you forget about news from 2001 (and many other years) where we saw “The UK government is introducing tax incentives aimed at persuading British-based pharmaceutical companies to boost their research into diseases affecting the world’s poor, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria“, so they get the tax breaks for research, they have the inside tracks on ‘maximising’ product pricing solutions, yet overall they still complain. Which in light when we consider the ABPI document showing a 15% growth in spending on medication to be another issue. This is was a projection over 4 years (up to 2015), yet the facts remain, the NHS needs another solution and we agree that generic medication will not be as strong, however a medication that needs to be taken 10% longer might be preferable to medication that is 30% more expensive. Clarity is what matters here and for the implied accusation that Jeremy Hunt was keeping people in the dark should be offensive to all of us. There is one more side to all this, which is shown in that same presentation. The Office of Health Economics (OHE) is stating with their key message 6 that: “By 2015, new branded medicines launched between 2012 and 2015 will account for less than 2% of the total medicines bill. This underlies the issue in the UK of slow uptake of innovative new medicines“. From an analyst side I want to offer this thought to you. the quote ‘new branded medicines’ implies not that they are new medication, but new versions of existing medications, which means that rebranded and possibly marketed solutions is now implied to be below 2%, yet whatever deal is in place, it could also imply that this 2% is also a group that for now cannot be replaced by generic mediation. This is a speculation on my side, yet these kinds of presentations are never about ‘informing’ the people, it is about awareness on which questions to ask and what solutions to push for. Both tend to be expensive exercises for any NHS.

Yet medication is only one side, it is the one side we can clearly fight for with the possible reward of direct savings, but other sides need to be considered too. This we see in the comment article in the Guardian called ‘This junior doctor contract puts patients in danger‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/junior-doctor-contract-patients-danger). Can anyone explain to me how the stupidity of “The contract that the Department of Health is threatening to impose on junior doctors once again raises the prospect of 90-hour weeks being written into rotas“? I went to University with some of these upcoming doctors, the pressure on them is just beyond harsh. How can a 90-hour contract be allowed? apart from that being a step just one hair fraction away from being regarded as slave labour, the pressures on these people will result in a certain harm to them self, an implied certain harm to their patients and a long term harm to the NHS as a whole. Because this will fall over within 2 years after which there will be no doctors left, there will be nearly no nurses left and the UK gets to rely on the medical care we can import from Siberia and Africa, how would that end well?

As a final year student in Intellectual Property law I call upon my peers to aid the NHS, give aid to them by creating strong patents for Generic medication, for patents that  lessen the stranglehold on prolonged exclusive medication. In 2008 in the Financial Times, Yusuf Hamied, stated: “I am not against patents, but India cannot afford them. I am against monopolies”, he is correct! In addition, now 7 years later the UK and many other nations cannot afford them either. That part has been ignored on many governmental levels all over the Commonwealth. The response the article gives: “he is a “pirate”, an opportunist who has exploited others’ intellectual property to swell his own profits. In the process, they say, he is undermining investment in future medicines, including the next generation of HIV therapies“, this fake response is flame baked with emotion, the reference to ‘the next generation of HIV therapies‘ does that. You see they had a patent, they had exclusivity for 20 years, but the people in that house became lazy and greedy and now they do not want to give it up. They try to revamp the drug to the tiniest part (they will call it an innovative new drug) and then they reshape it with a patent for 20 more years of exclusivity. They are now learning that this is not always successful. As a Patent Attorney (if I make it to the end) I would want to work on the patents of Generic medications, lowering the barricades to NHS on a global level, which is one of the reasons I oppose the TPP. Governments (including the UK) have squandered the position they had by prolonging a solution that never worked and voila, here we have the trillion pound deficit!

OK, I admit it is not a completely accurate statement and as such the issues are more complex, but we must fight the wars we can win and the NHS war could be won, however if Mr not so bright, I am hiding the numbers Jeremy Hunt MP is indeed hiding the numbers, any NHS solution will come too late, which puts 68 million in peril.

I feel that I am on the right track. Some will question my view towards Generic Medication Patents. When I consider my duties as stated in the Code of Conduct for Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys 2013, I see section 11 that a registered attorney must act as a patent attorney or a trade marks attorney in the following:

  • In accordance with the law; and
  • In the best interests of the registered attorney’s client; and
  • In the public interest; and
  • In the interests of the registered attorney’s profession as a whole.

The first two would carry for certain, the latter two are the debate. I believe that Generic Medication and protecting these is in the public interest on a global scale, I never believed that ‘reworking’ a patent, unless it is truly a new substance was in the public interest. You see exclusivity is a right given to the actual innovator, not giving in perpetuity, which only propagates exploitation, the last part is that the profession as a whole relies not on the cash of the rich client. It relies on driving true innovation, when we start repackaging the same solution with a new delivery method (which costs less than $15 dollars to make), the price hike from $20 to $175 is not just a tough pill to swallow it is a dangerous escalation in our greying population. The fact that Patent Laws as well as Patent Regulations have not been properly updated (even though this example is specifically for the US, not the UK) should give warning to other parts that needs to be overhauled.

This all hits back to the NHS. The Independent showed a few sides which reflects mighty badly on Jeremy Hunt. You see the quote: “it was his intention that no one should lose out financially” might sound nice and perhaps the change to a schedule where doctors work 7 days a week might not be an avoidable part, yet in all this the 90 hour a week part is still one of the deadliest issues. That person might not feel a financial ‘pinch’, but I guarantee you that these hours will drive most doctors bonkers within 2 years. How can the NHS survive when by 2018 23% of the medical GP’s are in a sanatorium? Did Mr Hunt add that risk to his spreadsheet?

So how will this end? Well, for Jeremy Hun MP not all that good I reckon (speculation on my side), but we have to wait to see all the facts to place judgment on this. In all this, as I see it, I started with the title: ‘How to cure economic sickness‘.

The answer in my case is by changing direction, by changing it massively. There is now more than half a decade of data and Business Intelligence that the US only considers the US and there they falter and fail as they refuse to deal with Greed. They hide behind more and more emotional stories (especially when there are school shootings), even there the US legislative branch is failing its people. The Commonwealth cannot afford these steps. We the Commonwealth must unite as never before. We the people of the Commonwealth must also realise that to make this work we must be willing to make large changes if needed. I always lived a global live, so if I am required to move to the UK, Canada or perhaps even India, than I will! In this day and age, holding onto your one little hill (especially those with tertiary educations) we must consider a global (read a complete Commonwealth field). The UK must start to realise this too, because they have squandered too much funds on solutions that never worked. Australia is moving into that direction as well as Canada, they just move in that direction more politely than the other players.

And finally my message to David Cameron. David, your Conservative party can be the solution, we all can be part of that solution, yet in all this we must know how bad things are and the playbook you currently use needs to change, the US can no longer be seen as a potential ‘solution’, they burned that bridge by themselves. Our Commonwealth can grow towards the empire it was, we have the skills, we have the innovators, we have the drive and (most of us) the loyalty to the crown, yet in all this, not enough drive towards a Commonwealth Union has been made. The SNP is partially evidence of that. They now realise that their oil revenue is not making it work, they need to realise that together we are stronger. Yes, perhaps that will be as an independent Scotland, but then it should still be a Commonwealth Nation, we must propel on all sides to show both the US and China that the UK is the 5th largest economy, yet as a United Commonwealth we can surpass China and become the second largest economy! The next 12 years will be about the innovators that propel ideas in many fields. We will see a growth in Trade Marks, in Patents and in Business solutions and all this will be resulting in new avenues of growth, yet as a single nation the UK can no longer compete to the extent it needs to. The costs are too high, the NHS is the first and clearest piece of evidence.

So economic sickness can be cured, it needs the right medication and this can be administered by acquiring the right medication, the current providers have shown that they are not up to the task!

I leave it to the honourable David Cameron to set the right course!

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August 31, 2015 · 01:41

And so it begins!

Even though Marine Le Pen still has to deal with her daddy, the one person who seems intent to drown the part his daughter was able to make a reality. His extreme approach was never going to work, now that she has shown this, his intention of making that future a non-possibility. Of course her opponents are happy as can be that Jean-Marie seems to go on tantrums making National Front seem too extreme, but the National Front members know better and soon Europe will know this too. What I predicted well over a year ago is still on course, and now, finally the press seems to take a little bit of notice. The quote in the French RFI is “French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for an end to all immigration to France, legal and illegal. In a speech aimed at rallying her Front National (FN) ahead of regional elections, she failed to mention her father’s expulsion from the party but did lay into immigrants, Islamists and President François Hollande” and “They don’t tell you this but the immigration situation in France is totally out of control,” Le Pen said at a meeting to mark the start of France’s new political season. “My aim is clear: to stop immigration both legal and illegal. The FN’s programme officially calls for immigration to be limited to 10,000 people per year but Le Pen went further, declaring, “We need national borders for France”“. Of course there is an issue getting this to move as Hollande is still president, but the clarity is a fact. National Front is now on the move, the data as given shows that the anger after the 21 August failed attack on a high-speed train from Belgium to France, France itself is becoming more and more extremely unaccepting regarding Islam extremists and foreign Islamists. Marine Le Pen called for “all foreigners on file for links with radical Islamist movements to be deported“, adding that ““radical mosques” should be closed and their imams be thrown out of the country if they are foreigners“. The French are realising that they got lucky, according to CNN “The three men — a member of the Air Force, an inactive National Guard member and a civilian” stopped what could have been a massacre. The French have had enough and so they should. This view, partially due to what seems to be President Hollande’s inaction. Whatever actions he undertakes now will only fuel the Le Pen campaign.

Now we have a problem, one that hits many others. If France remains on this course, England have no other option but to invoke Brexit. It needs to do so before Frexit becomes a reality. My reasoning is that whomever goes first will have the best options, not the worst options, after that the curve goes down fast. It is for that reason that I oppose the view from François Heisbourg in the Financial Times (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/20eb52bc-4cb1-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html) the quote “It has a xenophobic and illiberal force all too keen to take advantage of popular fears about the impact of migration in the shape of the National Front (FN), Europe’s largest extreme right wing party, with a base representing some 25 per cent of the electorate. But, until now, Paris has not indicated that it has any clue how to cope“. You see, some might call it ‘xenophobic‘, yet this is the second attack within France and this one was almost successful. We should regard the circumstances a miracle, most will downplay the events into ‘the public can protect us‘ but in all, the governments failed and an open Europe is a dangerous situation, not all nations have the benefit of a tunnel and 5 ferries. Many other places are leaky as a sieve. France has entry points from many overly liberal nations, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Italy. Belgium also gives access for the Netherlands and the boats are pouring into Italy. France no longer feels secure and yes, it is clear that National Front is pressing that issue as the Financial Times states, but is that fear incorrect or inaccurate? In addition the quote “Europe’s leaders need to live up to our responsibilities as humans and as neighbours, assume part of the burden, and talk straight to the electorate. Continued European and French fecklessness will only improve the far-right’s prospects of success, and will deepen what is already an unprecedented crisis“. This sounds very logical and ‘civil’, but Mr Heisbourg forgets that as the Chairman of the IISS and of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy he lives a nice sheltered life in the areas of far higher income then most others have. I will immediately agree that the bulk (let’s say 99%) are true refugees hoping for a better life, it is the 1% that is a problem, moreover, if we should learn anything it is the fact that most European nations do not have any level of infrastructure to take care of these refugees. That is the part many are ignoring. It is a direct consequence of bad budgeting. France and Italy are direct examples of evidence here. The UK and Greece are also in a place where funds are lacking. Together we are looking at close to 7 trillion in debt, in all that those governments are seeing an influx of thousands of refugees trying to find a future whilst support is no longer a financial option. Interesting how so many players ignore that part in all this. Yet the people of the UK, France, Italy and Greece see the immigrants for what they perceive them to be: “a direct threat to liveable income” any refugee who is sincere in his travel is also sincere in finding a job, a way to support their family. One in 10 in Europe does not have a job, any job given to them will be another job not going to their own citizens. This is a warped number as these people are often not equipped to do most of the jobs but the low schooled ones, bring a wave of fear to those in lowly paid jobs, fuelling places like UKIP and FN, which is why the French issue is escalating. What is not clearly shown is the effect that 270,000 refugees in Greece and Italy alone have on the EEC. I understand that people like François Heisbourg have an idealistic view. For the most people like him truly believe in that vision, but as governments cannot maintain their budgets, as large corporations are paying less and less taxation and as they fuel their own board of directors, governments at large no longer have any proper means to support such an influx. Whatever these people tell you, whatever fairy-tale you get told, realise that 270,000 people will cost us between 270 and 500 million each month. So this takes up to 6 billion a year and that is just from the present group, now add the 2014 group and in addition the people that will come in until December. Now explain to me how these nations who are already missing out on billions a year will add that to their invoice?

In all this, the people all over Europe see their cost of living rise, their past income is not coming back and the financial troubles for Europe are only just beginning. The Chinese market is a mess and it will influence the American market too. To what extent? I cannot tell, I actually do not know, but what I do know is that any change in the EEC will have a massive influence on the American bubble and the American way of life. Most of these facts have been ignored by many players of the media, there was always a whiff of ‘prosperous foresight‘, followed soon thereafter by ‘managed bad news’. Now as more and more people feel the pinch of non-sustainable cost of living, their Samaritan tolerance went straight out of the window.

With the Chinese market in turmoil, Germany, France, the US and the UK are now feeling the dangers that a collapsed Chinese market brings. The 0.7% growth in the UK could soon become a negative number, fuelling fears for the people who are not even close to move out of the valley of debt. With that fear in the UK, the fear in France will grow even faster and Germany will soon fill the ranks. We are so willing to be Samaritan when our lives are decently secure, but that is no longer the case and François Heisbourg should know this. Yes, they are correct that some places like Calais are incidental, but overall 270,000 people are not incidental and that number is only a small part of the entire collection.

These ignored facts and half-truths all moved under some rug is part of all the events that allow for groups like National Front to grow the way it does. This all falls into nothingness when we realise the millions, yes millions of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. If you think the price from Europe is high, then what is the price that falls in those two nations? Even if we do not completely ridicule the statement in the Sydney Morning Herald, where we see “Alarmists overstate risk of deluge in West from refugee ‘flood’“, we see a flood of ’emotional’ statements like “Australia could relieve some of the pressure on Europe by taking in several thousand genuine refugees to resettle here” and “Everyone has the right to seek asylum, the hysteria over the tiny minority around the world who do so by sea is bewildering when we consider people have been sailing around the world for centuries” (at http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/alarmists-overstate-risk-of-deluge-in-west-from-refugee-flood-20150828-gj9urp.html), all nicely ignoring the fact that this planet is not at 5.7 billion as it was in 1995. No, 20 years later when it is 7.3 billion. Nearly all the nations are deep in debt and their infrastructures can for the most not even contain its own population. If the people truly, really truly wants to be humanitarian, then get a majority to agree to a 10% rise in taxation. No, that will not do either, that money will have to come from the rich. 4,000-10,000 will have to pay for billions they do not have. A social structure that failed from the get go, because those so into support of that, have been unable to cull business by properly taxing them. Labour giving billions in subsidies, draining the treasury coffers. They did this in Australia, the UK, the Labour way and now as there is no money they all cry foul. Is that not weird?

The initial issue of budget, no one seems to be able to do it and now, as there is no money left, they all wonder where our humanity remains. Well, that went to the car factories so that they got to make a car $1900 cheaper and now they moved to Asia. The UK has the Flagship £1bn youth unemployment scheme, as well as the issue that Prime Minister David Cameron has failed to curb welfare spending. That is not an attack or a bad thing. It is a mere consequence of the economy in the UK that only appears to be growing but it is nowhere near where it was and the people in the UK are for the most down in their finances and will remain to be so for at least a decade. As such, the infrastructure suffers as loads of money basically go down a drain. In all this we hear about the need for humanitarian aid, but none of the treasuries has the funds to allow for this. It is the most basic of failings, perpetrated by governments on both sides of the isle for the better part of 2 decades. It is not about blame, it is about the reality that the bulk of people are ignoring. In the end most lives depend on what a spreadsheet allows and none of them have allowed for any substantial space for ‘the budgeting of refugees’ a massive failing. I wonder if the power players hoping for an Arabian spring had any idea the massive backlash their actions would have. Now well over 200,000 killed and millions displaced, with no end in sight. When the millions of refugees start dying of starvation, or disease, where will the humanity of our soul be budgeted?

 

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