Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be | Journey to the Justice Brennan award

January 13, 2017 · 14:08

On this Friday 13th

There have been a few events going on, with all the hustle and bustle from America we are moving towards a possible point that this nation will be officially renamed, when that happens other domino stones will be pushed into a different direction. Yet there is still time, so we can ignore it for now. What was interesting for me, was a Facebook mail that has all the elements of becoming a flame, a wave of emotions, intentionally set in that way. Yet the part that was actually interesting were the facts that it had. Those facts were indeed interesting to look into, yet not by themselves. At this very moment I am digging to confirm certain numbers and see if they hold up.

	Income 2013	Income 2014	Change
Aetna, Mark Bertolini	$30.7M	$15M	-50%
Centene, Michael Neidorf	$14.5M	$28.1M	93%
Cigna, David Cordani	$13.5M	$27.2M	101%
Humana, Bruce Broussard	$8.8M	$13.1M	48%
United Health, Stephen Hemsley	$12.1M	$66.1M	546%
Wellpoint Joseph Swedish	$17M	$8.1M	-47%

These are health insurances and their CEO’s. This group of 6 have in their hands the health options of the bulk of Americans. Now, before we act in outrage, which we might still do, we see that two of them lost half their income, which in the worst situation, that person (Joseph Swedish) makes in 2 days the same I make in a year. In opposition, there is Stephen Hemsley, who makes in a day, the same I would make in 6 years. Now, we can make this about the imbalance, yet that is not what this is about.

Let’s not forget that these are manages health carers. In September 2016 we saw CNN report “A recent report by Kaiser/HRET Employer Health Benefits forecasts that the average family health care plan will cost $18,142, up 3.4% from 2015. That’s faster than wage growth in America“, and “Premiums on the Obamacare exchanges are expected to rise by double-digits this year“. Now, we need to tread carefully here, health care systems require more work and they need to look to what happens in the future, not just what happens now, So when we see Aetna report in 2016 a total revenue of 60 billion, yet an operating earnings of 2.7 billion, we see that there is a margin, yet not an overly exaggerated one. This is part of a system for 23.5 million members. In this on page 7 we see that the revenue is comprised of commercial and governmental premiums totalling 51.5 billion. Yet it goes further, when we see the growth that Aetna has had, the merger deal with Humana, which is interesting as it is set as a 37 billion merger, yet when we see the quarter of quarter growth of 3 years at least, does it make sense to see this as a mere 37 billion dollar merger when the operating revenue has been in excess of 58 billion for well over 3 years? In addition, Aetna reported an operating gain against costs of over 30%, so when we see the CNBC quote on November 10^th 2016: “The Affordable Care Act was built on a flawed model that required getting as many people as possible into the insurance system, Bertolini said. And he said he thinks the Republican Party will make good on its promise to repeal it“, we wonder with their operating profits, a managed health care system no less, what are we not seeing? As stated, compared to the revenue, the profits are not outlandish, yet the entire Obamacare issue seems to give another view, one that clashes with the view that we see at Aetna. Now consider another quote, one we see on December 13^th 2016, in bizjournals.com. Here we see: “As one of its arguments against the acquisition, the U.S. Justice Department says the deal would drive up prices on health insurance exchanges in 17 counties where Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Louisville-based Humana (NYSE: HUM) now compete“, you see where there is competition, prices are pushed down, so how come I suddenly see an increase in health insurance exchanges? The final part is one that strikes a sting on the violin of chaos too. Consider the quote: “Bertolini also testified that Molina Healthcare Inc., which has agreed to buy Medicare assets from Aetna and Humana for $117 million if the merger is approved“, now let’s be honest that $117 million is nothing to sneer at, yet what are these Medicare assets exactly? Where is the write-off? You see, two companies with a total revenue exceeding $100 billion annually over the last 3 years, in that light $117 million is close to no blip on the radar (0.11%). So why was it mentioned, why put Molina Healthcare Inc. in the picture? Well, like the other two players, they have had quarter on quarter growth for 3 years too, more important, even as their revenue is not as impressive of the two others, we see that annual on quarter, 2015 brought close to 50% growth, whilst 2016 is expected to surpass the 30% mark, those are operating revenue growths nearly unheard of in this day and age. And this is not the adult media sales, this is healthcare, so as we expect that there will always be growth, we need to see where the interests are of these players. Let’s not forget that the picture is changing. Humana Inc. is a for-profit American health insurance company, they clearly state this, so what will become of Aetna when that merger goes through? How will the picture change and how will that impact the members? They are both Managed health care, yet Aetna is not outspoken ‘for profit’, the numbers do bear this out to some degree. Yet in all this is not about the members or patients. This is about the shareholders and both have plenty, the question becomes what direction will Aetna take? Will we see a board of directors that find themselves in agreement with the senate under Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero, when in 19 AD they proclaimed: ‘Puer Pauper‘ (fuck the poor), which by the way coincided with the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, life is full of irony at times. The reason to make mention of this is because Israel has a health care system not unlike the Netherlands. A compulsory plan where all Israeli citizens are entitled to basic health care as a fundamental right. There a person can sign up with one of four official health insurance organizations which are run as not-for-profit organizations, this is where we see the massive difference. ‘run-for-profit‘ comes at a price and that price is the additional dividends that the members must pay the shareholders. It is not that simple, but you get the idea. In all this the fact that this approach made Israel 4^th in terms of efficiency and Israel was ranked 6^th healthiest country in the world by Bloomberg rankings. These are numbers any government could be proud of. Neither the US nor the UK make that top 10, according to the article in Bloomberg, the UK doesn’t even make the Top20. So as we realise a few numbers and this all leads to a lot of questions, we can agree that there is nothing against ‘for-profit’, yet who remains in the US with the option to afford this? Perhaps that is why the link to Molina Healthcare Inc., just a small token proclaiming to remain ‘for the people‘, whilst relying on tax deductions and write offs to remain ‘for the shareholders‘. However, let’s face it, these two (Mark Bertolini and Bruce Broussard) are almost the lowest ones on the Health Care CEO list of incomes, still making per day about what I make per year. Yet even as their incomes drew the attention, it is the coverage, the operating profits and the for-profit sides in some of these Managed Health Care groups, whilst we see places like fortune.com inform its upcoming ‘victims’ that the costs will go up: “costs are expected to grow 6.5% through next year. While costs have finally reached a point of equilibrium after years of double-digit growth” as well as “36% of employers are even considering a defined contribution strategy where they would provide a set sum of money to each employee to pay for health care, and if a health care plan exceeds that sum, the employee is on the hook for the remainder of the cost“, so whatever increased quality of life the Americans did not get, there is information that well over 10% of the employers have adopted this strategy. Such plans, especially with the for-profit health care managers will see a shift in costs, from employer to employee. Fortune.com gives as reason: “There’s two primary factors that affect health care costs: how much is being consumed and the price for services and drugs. As it turns out, prices aren’t what’s primarily adding to the rising trend. It comes down to more people consuming more care“. I personally believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle lane. Both the needs of an aging population and the pharmaceutical patents driving up prices as pharmaceutical patents are chomping down on maximised profit per pill. In this Forbes reported two days ago that the pharmaceuticals are not happy. Here we see the quote “Much of Medicare is now run by private sector insurers like Humana or Aetna, who already bid on drugs to get lower prices (this is known as Medicare Advantage)“, Yet President elect Donald Trump stated: “I worry today that the pharmaceutical industry has a very false sense of relief or security because of a Trump administration and a Republican Congress. I think we should recognize that the drug pricing issue is a populist issue. Americans are rightfully angry. The fault is not, surely, on the pharmaceutical industry’s shoulders, but we bear that because we make the drugs. We innovate the drugs, and as a result of that, whether we like it or not, or we want to try to explain it or not, we have to deal with it.” As stated more than once in the past, I do believe in capitalism, yet at what point does capitalism become plain greed? When we look at the top 20 pharmaceuticals, they are hiding behind a 2% growth, yet these 20 companies which include Novartis, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson were making 547 billion in 2014, whilst we see that 13 of them are turning a profit with one of them 127%, these are only the 2014 numbers, the profits have been steadily increasing, at the expense of those requiring medication, at the expense of a health care system that can afford less and less. In all this we see that places like Pfizer kept a gross profit of well above 38 billion and they weren’t even the best scoring one. Yet, the connection go on a lot further. You see, with Pfizer we see James C. Smith who is also on the public board of Thomson Reuters, Suzanne Nora Johnson is also on the board of American International Group, Inc. (insurances). James M. Kilts serves on the board of MetLife Inc. as well as Nielsen Holdings N.V. The list goes on. A group of board members already on a massive income, adding the incomes from other boards where they serve with incomes most people dare not dream of. What is more interesting is how we see an almost illuminati sized cloud of interaction with media, insurances and other interactions. All essential and profitable for Pfizer. When we look at Novartis that list of directors takes an even more interesting turn. Ann Fudge who also serves on the board of the US Council on Foreign Relations, with additional functions at Unilever as well as the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Pierre Landolt, Ph.D. who is also the chairman of the Swiss private bank Landolt & Cie SA, a Financial Institution in Brazil and a few other enterprises. Andreas von Planta, Ph.D, linked to HSBC, Moller Finance, and the regulation board of the Swiss stock exchange and finally Srikant Datar, Ph.D., who goes beyond mere Novartis, with additional board placement with ICF International Inc., Stryker Corp. and T-Mobile US. The pharmaceutical boards read like a weave of corporate interaction with links all over the Fortune 500. A conspiracy theorists wet dream.

For us it is not about who they are connected to, but how such links could be used to maximise profits. The idea that the Pharmaceutical industry has its representation, and on the other side we see an optional Novartis with its board member Ann Fudge who also serves on the board of the US Council on Foreign Relations, how is that for hedging your bets on both sides of the profit sandwich?

On this Friday 13^th we see news in the Guardian mention of the NHS winter crisis, we have been seeing from all directions the Obamacare and how Obamacare Premiums are expected to Increase by ‘Double Digits‘ in 2017, one can only hope that the first digit is a ‘1’. With pharmaceuticals and insurances both on the maximisation of profit, the people in several places are pushed in a corner with no place to go see about any options.

Only the superstitious will think that the health care news will be better tomorrow, it is Friday 13^th after all.

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Tagged as Aetna, American International Group, Andreas von Planta, Ann Fudge, bizjournals.com, Bruce Broussard, Centene, Cigna, CNBC, David Cordani, Donald Trump, Emperor Tiberius Claudius Nero, HSBC, Humana, ICF International Inc., Inc, James C. Smith, James M. Kilts, Managed Health Care, Mark Bertolini, MetLife Inc., Michael Neidorf, Molina Healthcare Inc, Moller Finance, NHS, Nielsen Holdings N.V., Northrop Grumman Corporation, NOVARTIS, Obamacare, Pfizer, Ph.D., Pierre Landolt, Regulation board of the Swiss stock exchange, Srikant Datar, Stephen Hemsley, Stryker Corp., Suzanne Nora Johnson, Swiss private bank Landolt & Cie SA, T-Mobile US, The Affordable Care Act, Thomson Reuters, Unilever, United Health, US Council on Foreign Relations, Wellpoint Joseph Swedish

January 11, 2017 · 20:00

Grasping change

We all tend to avoid change. Not because it is a problem, but we all believe in the expression: “When it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. You, me all of us tend to go forward in our small circles, because for most comfort is king. Yet where is the moment when continuing the same is no longer an option? There is a lot of consideration in that because we tend to be like the frog in such manner. When you throw a frog in boiling water, he’ll jump out. Yet when you put a frog in a pot of water and put a flame below it, the frog will willingly boil to death. We are like that frog in many ways. Yet this is under normal circumstances, when we see an attack on our quality of life, we tend to get active real fast.

This is seen when our lives revolve around greed. When that happens the numbers go wildly out of control. This we see in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/10/hard-brexit-threatens-global-financial-system-city-chiefs-tell-mps), where we see people like Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange end up being connected to statements like ‘could spark more than 230,000 job losses‘. In all this the people involved are (as I personally see it) scared for their life filled with mistresses, large bank accounts and an overly rewarded quality of life ask questions like ‘clarity on the UK’s future relationship with the EU‘. You see, those people were lulling the masses around them into a false sense of compliance, but the people have lost too much, the gap of incomes too large and what no one was willing to accept is that Brexit became a reality and as the implementation is starting to move forward, those people are scared, their large incomes based on inaction is now in recession, it scares them, so they go into blame mode and flame mode. As Xavier Rolet called for a five-year transition period for the UK to exit the EU, possibly for additional reasons like a maximisation of retirement portfolios, is now confronted with ‘the Treasury select committee were told the triggering of article 50‘, which officially initiates the departure from the EU. Another Fat Cat, namely Douglas Flint has admitted a more playful response in this. “The ecosystem in London is a bit like a Jenga tower: you don’t know if you pull one small piece out whether nothing happens or whether it has a more dramatic impact”, is his statement and as he is allegedly fetching £7.6m a year (Compared to that, I am merely making 0.3% of that), we can feel secure in calling the man a fat cat of the finance industry. Yet he is not alone, the triplets of finance is completed with Anthony Browne, who is adding to all this ‘the preservation of the status quo‘ is the best solution.

You see, these people (some call them numbskulls) refused to listen for well over 4 years pushing everything forward and they all forgot that a nation is not them with their 322 friends who are all living the gravy train, it is the 68 million voters, who all for the longest time have lived a raw deal, they voted and there was enough to make a majority, too many had lost too many levels of comfort. If we push back to the frog in scenario 2, too many were getting too uncomfortable and the announcements from Mario Draghi on more Quantative Easing programs that can now be extended beyond 2017. The people see the debt growing and more important, the second time now has enough evidence that it will not be any better, almost certain that it will be worse. In all this we remember the action of an insane person. A person who does the same thing twice and expects different results. The people have had enough of fat cats drowning banks with cash whilst only the banks and the financial sector see the fallout bonus of those events. The people wanted Brexit and certain people in the English Financial Sector now see that the good times are ending, a few years too soon when they look at their retirement portfolios. In that they do not realise that the bulk of the population will have to work until the day they die, for well over 30% retirement is no longer a viable option. They all forgot about the people. In my personal view, the sooner the UK is out of that mess, the sooner can it actually grow its national value, the value of the British people! The fat cats all forgot about that, because for the most, their fortunes are all set in some mobile ‘currency’ that ‘avoids’, or is that ‘voids’ taxation in legal ways.

So even as some of these Fat Cats will grasp towards statistics like “median disposable income for the poorest fifth of households had risen by £700, or 5.1%, in the year to April 2016, while the richest fifth of households saw their incomes fall by £1,000, or 1.9%, over the same period” (source: the Guardian), yet what is left out in the shadows is that the poorest group is making less than £10,000, whilst the richest is making in excess of £55,000, with the top exceeding well over £275,000, so we can honestly state that those losing out of £1,000 should for the most not feel its impact and the top won’t even notice it. Change happens and only when it impacts our comfort levels (those not impacted by greed), that part has been ignored and now when the die is cast do we see levels of fear mongering, where a small group is hoping if they can get away with it a little longer. Almost like that little girl Beverly Hills Twist going to the front of the Crystal shop asking for a little more. Charles Dickens would roll in his grave is he witnessed this. I particularly like the Guardian Quote (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/10/uk-inequality-working-people-pensions-ons) “it calculated that the average FTSE 100 boss earned more than £1,000 an hour, meaning it took less than three days to earn the UK average salary“, the start of a new Beatles hit ‘three days a year’, greed run amok. Let’s be fair, I am for the most a capitalist. I have never objected to bosses making more than me, yet when their incomes with bonuses sets my income (me with two University degrees) at 0.3%, we can state that the imbalance is too far out of control. In that regard, I will need to be slightly less diplomatic and refer to the joke that is ONS senior statistician, Claudia Wells who said “a strong rise in pensioner incomes was behind much of the increase in incomes, especially of those in the bottom 40%“, perhaps she would like to show us evidence, especially when we see places like ageuk.org.uk give us:

1 in 7 pensioners (1.6 million or 14% of pensioners in the UK) live in poverty, defined as having incomes of less than 60% of median income after housing costs.
A further 1.2 million pensioners have incomes just above the poverty line (more than 60% but less than 70% of median income)

So in all this, when she hides behind that ‘increase in income‘, how much increase? Because the bulk is not getting any place anywhere soon, too much data shows that. In all this they also tend to miss out on entitlements like Housing benefits because of several reasons. I expect that a lack of social housing is likely to be a first reason.

In this we need change. We will need to consider how business in maintained. The clamp down on tax avoidance was a first, yet the EU borders are too open and too many facilitators for lower taxation remain. With Brexit squarely in place the banks will need to reconsider, try to avoid taxation a little longer by moving, or in light of the European changes stay and pay a fair amount of taxation, at that point only the fat cats lose out, which gave us the three wise crackers at the beginning. When the tax comes rolling in, we will also see a change for the NHS and other parties who have been ransacked due to full infrastructures without properly taxed representations.

In this we need to face a few facts, not just from the HMRC, we see that the Diplomatic Corps needs to take a close look at themselves in the mirror. When we get quotes from the Guardian like ‘Ed Llewellyn told MPs his staff were making contacts with other French presidential candidates‘, whilst stating ‘his embassy will not be forging links with far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen because the UK government has a policy of not engaging with her party, the Front National (FN)‘, he better get his head in the game real fast, unless that order came from Her Royal Highness directly. Apart from these people engaging in discrimination, should Marine Le Pen be elected (not a guarantee at present), the UK will have no options but to sit at the table with France, France is one of the economy pillars for Europe and even as the UK is also one, there is enough indication that player number 4 (Italy) will be entering a very deep valley of recession for some time to come. At that point only Germany remains as a sizeable business partner. Perhaps Ed Llewellyn would be so kind on informing the people of England how often an option of one worked really nicely for the UK, like ever? In this Crispin Blunt is asking questions as should we all, Llewellyn’s response “would be a matter for ministers” will in my humble opinion not hack it as they are making connections to the other political players in France. The consequence of these choices could potentially be expensive for the UK, in a time when the required policy of turning every penny is squarely in place.

That wisdom was given by Natalie Nougayrède of the Guardian in September last year with ‘Angela Merkel and Marine Le Pen: one of them will shape Europe’s future‘. Their visions are opposite and there is no clear evidence where the future of Europe is going. Whilst stating that, we do know that Merkel is in seriously warm waters (read: wibbit, wibbit), as Sigmar Gabriel is challenging Chancellor Merkel, there will be an age of polarisation within the German SDP. This will intensify as my earlier blog now gets a new side to it all. Thomas de Maizière a member of the CDU will have options to influence this polarisation, especially if Sigmar Gabriel is willing to offer a better centralisation deal on German intelligence, which is a dangerous reason to change to say the least. So having France in the UK preference side is going to be rather essential, alienating the current number two in that race is not the best actions, in that regard, the anti-Trump actions within the UK are equally not the good an idea, at some point we get to be thankful for Nigel Farage taking open positive interest in the inauguration of Donald Trump. In this we need to realise the ‘blunder’ Sir Kim Darroch made when he decided to dismiss him as “an outsider and an unknown quantity“, I am not a diplomat (far from that) and even I could have phrased that better. So as the UK diplomats bungle one side of the Atlantic river (that narrow brook between the USA and the UK), blundering on the other side of the North Sea might not be the best action to undertake. This when we look back at a leaked telegram by Sir Kim Darroch, making it interesting why a telegram? How encrypted was it? A little embarrassing that this is happening to the former national security advisor, it could just be the irony of the universe.

So as we are trying to grasp change, the people around us are doing the same. In fairness, like you they are catering to the needs of themselves, we cannot fault anyone for that, yet when their incomes is in excess of 300 times your income, how much leeway should they get? I have never opposed differences of income. Someone made Facebook and got wealthy beyond all means. So did the person who came up with Windows, with Oracle, with Google and a few others, yet those who merely ‘facilitate’, those who live of the vulture principle, those who do not actually create anything, how should they be seen? I cannot claim to know the answer, but there is a massive difference.

What changes do you grasp and who is making them for you?

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Tagged as ageuk.org.uk, CDU, Chancellor Merkel, Charles Dickens, Claudia Wells, Crispin Blunt, Diplomatic Corps, Donald Trump, Douglas Flint, Ed Llewellyn, Facebook, FN, Front National, FTSE 100, HMRC, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Nigel Farage, ONS senior statistician, SDP, Sigmar Gabriel, Sir Kim Darroch, the Guardian, Thomas de Maizière, UK, Xavier Rolet

January 9, 2017 · 15:16

No Health Statements

This is not the first time that we see a level of anger non-management in regards to the NHS and the medical staff. The proclaimed shortages and a government in denial over these elements. Whilst the DMG Media papers (among others) have had their fun day. The messages concerning the NHS are increasing all over the place and when we start reading about the ‘The worst conditions in memory’, we know that we have come to that place also known as rock bottom.

This in contrast of messages like: ‘Hospital pays £1,800 for an agency nurse to work a single shift‘, April 5^th 2014 (at Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597442/Hospital-pays-1-800-agency-nurse-work-single-shift-thats-163-hour.html), Paul Dacre and ‘his’ DMG media. It is not the only case, there was a similar story on July 30th of that same year. The Telegraph gives us a similar story on January 19^th 2013. This in contrast with real newspapers, namely the Guardian who voices (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/01/nhs-spending-agency-nurses-cuts) ‘NHS spending on agency nurses soars past £5.5bn‘, with the second line giving us ‘Government accused of ‘truly incompetent planning’ after years of training cuts push cost of temporary staff way over budget‘, this is a situation that affects both sides of the isle as it wasn’t started by this conservative government, it started before 2010. Neither side of the political isle has given proper vision to the pressures building, and this current government is now watching from the sides as they need to find £25bn. That number is actually pretty easy to see.

Staff shortage, overhaul of equipment, shortage of infrastructure and an overhaul of the infrastructure to protect it from this ever happening again. In this we have two elements. The first is that the press is partial to blame in all this. Consider the speech by Paul Dacre “a kind of show trial in which the industry was judged guilty and had to prove its innocence” (source: betterratailing.com). I like the news in the Spectator even better with “unremitting pressure of fighting what I have no doubt was a concerted attempt by the Liberal Establishment, in cahoots with Whitehall and the Judiciary, to break the only institution in Britain that is genuinely free of Government control – the commercially viable free press“. Yet, Paul Dacre sold out his readers in an instant as he kept quiet on the changed user agreements PSN users were forced to agree to, just a mere 10 days before the release of the Sony PlayStation 4. In that, as I personally see it, he kept the people out of the loop. So as the commercially viable free press is betraying its readers. Possible because he had to orally please the ears of Sony? How can we have any faith on anything we read regarding the NHS, especially when it is coming from DMG Media? You see, the issues are very much linked. The people have been made aware again and again that people like this cannot be trusted. It is Stephen Fry who brings the best definition of the Daily Mail “the only good thing to be said about his Mail is that no one decent or educated believes in it“, which is pretty much spot on, and the news the Guardian gives us regarding: “Paul Dacre steps down from the post of Chairman of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, which he had held since 2008” (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/01/paul-dacre-to-step-down-as-chair-of-journalists-code-of-practice-committee) is only the smallest of positive messages, even as he attacks it on the way out. Yet the Mail Online, which is owned by the mother company DMG media has had a long line of issues, among others with Tom Cruise as he was identified in a relationship between ‘Tom Cruise and the head of the church of scientology, David Miscavige‘, which might or might not be a big thing, what was the issue that the publishers were unable to defend themselves and even as we see ‘diplomatic’ responses like ‘Mail Online had failed to demonstrate that it had complied with its obligations under the first clause of the editors’ code on accuracy’, and as Editors’ Code of Practice Committee is part of IPSO, and they administered ‘penalties’ on a DMG Media sibling, the news that the Guardian gave “Regulator to reconsider whether the editors’ code, and its rules, can apply to a global digital publisher” (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jul/19/ipso-review-after-mail-online-fails-to-defend-tom-cruise-story), so at this level of ‘contemplation’, something I personally tend to see as ‘inbreeding’, they are contemplating ‘a commercially viable free press‘. Are you freaking kidding me?

This sidestep is essential, because if it does not come from the Guardian, the Independent or the Times, we cannot be certain of anything nowadays, so as we lash out against the NHS, its governance and the consequences its patients face, we seem to be spurred into a false sense of righteousness as we kept on reading regarding those £225 an hour nursing jobs, which should be seen as misrepresentation of the highest order! The Telegraph isn’t helping any as they publish that the NHS now has access to Artificial Intelligence (at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/01/05/nhs-trials-artificial-intelligence-app-place-111-helpline/).

The part that the Telegraph does show that is important is “Joyce Robins, from Patient Concern, said: “I find this quite frightening. People who are ill want a person they can speak to. Typing in your own symptoms and waiting for a result is just ridiculous – what happens if you make a mistake?”“, which is just the tip of the iceberg.

The issues seem to escalate and there are a few players in this dramatic comedy that have to explain their reasoning. I am clear in ‘explain’ because there are sides that I am unaware of, to boast not being unaware of anything is utterly irresponsible. Before I go into the separate points. I did make a case on several levels with ‘The UK NHS is fine‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/09/20/the-uk-nhs-is-fine/), and an even stronger case with ‘Is there a doctor on this budget?‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/02/15/is-there-a-doctor-on-this-budget/).

Staff shortage.
It is the easiest one to solve, but cannot be solved overnight. Yet the shortages have been known for close to 4 years, so what has been done over the last 4 years to address these shortages?

Overhaul of equipment, Professor Angus Dalgleish has been outspoken in the past in several ways, mentioning the budget of the NHS not in the smallest way. We know that George Osborne had cut the budget by 1 billion, which in light of the shortages was a bad idea, the question is, was it avoidable, if not, how can the NHS move forward? With the current unemployment levels, how come it is still so hard to recruit nurses and doctors? I myself have had a lifelong interest in Radiology and Anaesthesiology. I am not alone in this, although in the 70’s when I was initially studying, getting into law or medicine was only possible if your parents were wealthy or if they were in law or medicine (meaning that they were wealthy). Now consider what the governments have done over the last 2 decades. I am giving that frame because we have known for at least 20 years that there was an aging generation coming up. Now the press at large seems to be blaming the immigrants, they might be as factor, yet they are not the main cause. A UK parliament going all the way back to Tony Blair should be seen as responsible for this. Those words are very specific. You see, when we look at the NHS expenditure history (at http://www.nhshistory.net/parlymoney.pdf), we see that in 2004/5 and 2006/7, Under Labour Tony Blair, the expenditure takes a massive hit, it is after that during Conservative David Cameron that expenditure goes straight into the basement, both sides fell short whilst both groups knew that the increased pressure from 2013 onwards would be strangling any budget as the NHS gets to deal with an aging population moving into retirement and an increased need for health care. None of it got properly dealt with by any parliament. In this, a rough estimate would be that the UK needs to hire no less than an additional 2,000 students a year for no less than 7 years to get anywhere near the numbers we will need in 8 years’ time, because the current shortage will increase. Perhaps parliament should take additional looks at places like the Royal College of Physicians (https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/), we can agree that quality needs to be high, Yet when your annual tuition fee is set at £23,190 with an additional college Fee of £7,350 there will not be much appreciation on an international level, unless it is for private practice and that is where the NHS luck runs out, in addition, for the ‘locals’, £9,250 annually is still a big ticket, especially in today’s financial uncertainty. Consider the fact that this goes on for 4 years (the NHS is mentioned in several places to cover years 5 and 6), still, the average student will end up owning over £37,000 before they are actually earning anything and by the time they start earning enough to pay some back, the houses and their prices come across the corner, so these people too will try to find a commercially viable place. Perhaps they will go into journalism? Which is an issue as Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail (read: DMG Media) and Jane Dacre (President of the Royal College of Physicians) are related to one another, so I can only speculate with the question whether the Daily Mail news and Mail Online and others are setting a stage that is leaving a foul taste in my mouth. Now we all know that there are plenty of other sources making statements in the open, yet I cannot wonder if there is a sorted wave of misrepresentation of information is going on. We all know that there is an issue and that the NHS is in serious trouble, yet it requires drastic changes and a vocation that attracts many yet nearly null can afford is still a vocation with no staff.

Shortage of infrastructure.
This is seen in two sections, the people and the technology. Both are in a failed state. Even as plenty of people are looking for jobs, it seems that the infrastructure is under pressure as well. A cut budget as George Osborne had put in place is in addition incrementally debilitating to the NHS infrastructure shortage. Now in this I am not placing blame on George Osborne. The UK got themselves into a £1.7 trillion debt, the NHS is only one side of a national infrastructure that needs a budget, whilst the previous administrations have been burning their budgets like there is no tomorrow, the point has been reached where government credit cards are all maxed out, so finally budgets get cut hard all over the place. The NHS was not the first and will not be the last to suffer near death symptoms for some time to come. Unless parliament takes drastic steps and starts to change the way things are done and perceived there won’t be anything left.

Overhaul of the infrastructure.
The NHS infrastructure requires a massive overhaul, the NHS has to some degree failed itself. This isn’t just about cut budgets, this is about the essential need for hospitals to be lean and mean (read: not average). Processes need to change, the objectives of hospitals need to change. Larger implementations are required that deals a blow to the posts that have too large a cost. One if the implementations would be that alcohol and/or drug related injuries are no longer treated unpaid and only treatment when upfront payments are placed. It will be the first harsh response to binge drinking. It was stated a year ago that binge drinking is costing UK taxpayers £4.9 billion a year, which boiled down to almost £13.5 million a day. Now the researcher set that it equates to £77 per person, so in my view, any alcohol and drug related treatment will be set at £60 per treatment up front. Those who cannot afford it (spent their money on booze and drugs) simply get to wait outside until that bad feeling is gone (or they can die and decrease the surplus population, source: Charles Dickens). It is my personal view that it will take no more than 1000 deaths for people to realise that binge drinking needs to get to an end. This is actually small fry compared to Australia where the annual tally of costing is set to $36 billion and when we accept that the currency is only slightly below 2:1, whilst the population is set to 1:3 (only 23 million in Australia) we can honestly state that Australia is in a much bigger mess than the UK and if the UK adopts certain policies, Australia is likely to follow quite quickly.

If these three parts can be addressed, there will still be a dangerous time for the NHS, but there is also the option that the NHS will move away from near death to extremely sick and hopefully the death of the NHS will be averted. The alternative is to put faith in the aging population to throw their numbers in another direction. You see, at present, the death rate is down. Over the last 10 years it went down on average by almost 14%, so if the elderly could be so nice to do an about face and start dying more increasingly (like an annual average of 2,500 elderly per year), we would see a diminished drain on the NHS, housing prices more affordable, you see the benefit, right? Now, if you feel that this is so inhumane, than this is the lesson you now get to face.

To have a social civil society, or a civil social society, you need to be certain that you can afford to maintain it. As the political parties gave the keys of non-taxability to large corporations, the first step in having no budget was reached, as these players had no taxation, they still would try to find every corner to cut costs. So the car industry moved, fashion production went to places like Malaysia and Indonesia and sales went online via places like Ireland. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that jobs would decrease and governments would no longer have a budget to play with, this is what we see in nearly EVERY nation on the planet, whilst the senior management places in corporations on a global scale left those few with more money than ever before and they do not need health statements, their incomes allow for their private physician with a nurse for the happy ending.

In all this, is this a story of hope? I am not certain, you see, unless draconian drastic changes come along, it might actually be too late for the NHS, merely because of the oldest triangle in existence. I am referring to the triangle of Places, Provisions and People. Any government and corporation can undercut one element for a longer time without consequence, for a short time you can undercut two elements with minimum consequences, yet there is no chance for survival when you undermine all three for anything longer than a really short amount of time. This is what has been done to the NHS for no less than 10 years, that whilst all the players knew that the pressure and needs of the NHS would increase and will continue to do so for no less than 10-20 years. What did you expect would happen to the NHS under those conditions?

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Tagged as Artificial Intelligence, David Cameron, David Miscavige, DMG Media, George Osborne, IPSO, Jane Dacre, Joyce Robins, NHS, Patient Concern, Paul Dacre, Professor Angus Dalgleish, Royal College of Physicians, the Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Times, Tom Cruise, Tony Blair, UK

January 7, 2017 · 13:00

The German mirror that does not show

Ever since the event took place, the news, the gossip and the untold stories that are set without direction have been all over the internet. Der Spiegel (at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-knew-terrorist-was-dangerous-but-failed-to-stop-him-a-1128423.html) start their version with ‘Why Did Germany Fail to Stop Terrorist?‘ with the by-line ‘authorities identified Anis Amri as a potential terrorist threat months ago‘. This sounds nice and plenty accusing yet on what premise? Der Spiegel gives a timeline. Wanted in Tunisia for stealing a truck (2011), convicted for battery and arson. Yet at this point Der Spiegel ads the threat he gave ‘I’ll cut your head off‘. That is pretty much all they have on him. He had changed his identity to Ahmad Zaghoul. The German view is after this shown to be flawed as some substitute papers ID papers came without a photo. Still, none of this screams terrorist, because the amount of teenagers shouting similar words go into the 7 figure numbers, especially on Friday night. There was too much superficial information, so when we see: “Germany’s interior ministry is seeking to overhaul the country’s security apparatus“, I am very willing to state: “an overhaul when there is no clear evidence that it could have been prevented, whilst the intelligence players know the issues with lone wolves and with mere loons is a matter of greater concern than the German interior ministry realises“, I wonder if Thomas de Maizière, the minister mentioned in the Guardian has other motives in this, because he has been around long enough to know this. It is not the question Der Spiegel posed in the headline, it is the fact that they knew that the entire matter is staged in a ludicrous notion. So when we look at the quote: “chain of errors led to the deaths of 12 innocent people in Berlin shortly before Christmas” seems to have been inserted for dramatic reference. Yet the opposite comes to light. You see even with my limited knowledge could have acted and caused a lot more casualties than 12 death and 48 wounded. This brings out the issue that is in play, as I personally see it Der Spiegel is leaving its readers with a story, a fairy tale, a scary one, like the Grimm brothers would tell it. The second part is given by the Financial times with ‘De Maizière calls for German security overhaul to counter terrorism‘ (at https://www.ft.com/content/2c03bed2-d1ad-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1b51). The Financial Times are not the ones trying to bring you anything deceptive, yet the quotes: “an overhaul of the country’s security apparatus, centralising more powers in a contentious response to last month’s Berlin terrorist attack“, “The reforms put forward by Thomas de Maizière would take power from the regions, replacing their domestic intelligence services with a single national agency” and “But Mr de Maizière’s plans follow renewed concern that Germany’s security network is too fragmented and allows potential terrorists to avoid surveillance, including possibly the chief suspect in the Berlin assault“. So in this day and age, a system that actually works in Germany is now overhauled because of one incident? This reads like the resetting of limelight positions. I personally believe that the 16 fragments had a good view on what was happening in their region. Now Germany would need centralisation, data systems that are centralised meaning that cyber security would be a rather large issue and the 16 fragments would not get the access they had in the past, if so there are additional cyber concerns. All these amounting issues because of one case and the clear evidence is given in the shape of ‘ISIL released a video of Amri pledging allegiance to the terror group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi‘, the fact that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had the video gives rise to Anis Amri being a terrorist, yet with the fact that there were only 12 fatalities, was this a failed attack? Consider another fact. The one part that makes sense is the question Der Spiegel gives “How he became radicalized under the eyes of German security officials“. The question becomes, did he become radicalised, or was he self-radicalised? A failed person, a small time criminal (car thief) who seems to have grown on the lower edge of the crime scale. After all that hopping around a mere 11 casualties. The amount of travelling he did to get into Milan is equally a question. Now, I started by giving rise to the question whether he was a terrorist. I had to get through the motions with you. I needed to create some doubt. That doubt is still there, yet another part of this is not in question. For this we need to take a look at what Sky News got from the German police. The quote “A police official says German authorities knew of 14 different identities used by Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri” (at http://www.skynews.com.au/news/world/europe/2017/01/06/police-say-berlin-attacker-used-14-identities.html). The question here is whether he went by 14 different names, like some teenagers do so that they can bed more women from the same college (or a fence dealing with different clients)? Did he have papers for these 14 separate identities? The second one is now the issue, you see, this now implies that there is a support structure in place. Not unlike the video on Heavy.COM, which I discussed in my blog ‘Homerun by UKIP‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/05/01/homerun-by-ukip/) where we see ‘a music video directed to recruit ISIS’ Turkish sympathizers‘.

Now we have the new situation, as the video could be made with a simple smartphone, forwarded to a place where the minions of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi could download it and show it if such a wannabe or lone wolf makes a successful run. Mass marketing on an explosive ‘no cure, no acknowledgement’ foundation; the new methodology! In all this we need to recognise that Der Spiegel was all about the emotion and in some cases some of the information was made visible after the article was published, still plenty of facts have been missing and some statements are questionable. Were the speculated trips he took via Nijmegen and Lyon planned? Were they desperation or were they guided? In fact that part is extremely important, especially if it turns out that people like him have a support system that stays far behind the screens. The speculation becomes a lot more reliable if Anis Amri had papers for some of those 14 identities. Too many unknowns and more important, there is absolutely no evidence that the overhaul of German security and Intelligence will get any better with centralisation and there is plenty of experience around to see that the data quality take a massive dive as data systems get merged.

As I see it, the German political objective is getting in the way of the requirements of an efficient system and even if we accept that some level of centralisation is needed, until there is a clear path of how to resolve the refugee issues, align the logistics of a million refugees all over the place, making larger changes does not seem to be any solution. That is a given certainty. with Thomas de Maizière giving his ‘desires‘ to the Deutsche Welle we see the following: “more responsibilities for Germany’s federal police force“, “central tracking and investigation responsibilities“, “supplementary enforcement jurisdiction for residency termination” as well as “capable of truly recording all movement across the external borders“. There are a few more but let’s look at those another day. The first one makes perfect sense, as does the third one. It is the second one that seems to be not the greatest idea when we consider the issues involved, the path of changes and as stated the data. The fourth one makes sense to some degree, yet there are too many issues with that one, and I am not taking that one apart here.

In all this the German mirror (Der Spiegel) is not showing us all the parts and more important the reflection they bring is very incomplete, some parts make sense, but not all the missing parts, with all the ‘honest’ revelations we saw Der Spiegel bring regarding Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, they seem to be off their game a fair bit this time. I wonder why!

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Tagged as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Ahmad Zaghoul, Anis Amri, Berlin, Der Spiegel, Edward Snowden, Germany, Heavy.COM, ISIS, Italy, Julian Assange, Lyon, Merkel, Milan, Nijmegen, Thomas de Maizière

January 6, 2017 · 17:29

Short Stories, part 1

The Newspaper, the cross and the arrow

Today is not about a big issue, today according to some it is a moment of a few small issues. Like for example the Washington Post and the act of what some call Misogynous pre-emptive striking. Many might have seen the ‘gender symbol mix-up‘ (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38518943) and as such nearly all posts that I did see I saw, the mention “erroneously published“. The mention of blunder with the additional mention of a quick apology. The press seems to be leaving it alone. What I see is a form of misogyny, an intentional quick jab for free publicity. The question is how high it goes up the ladder. It might mention Washington Post, yet it still is a tabloid. So did this act go all the way into Nash Holdings LLC? Was Jeff Bezos aware and involved, or does it end with his editor?

You see, this is not some empty accusation. When you look at the images, the front cover is clearly a high end art work. The circle is the indicator, the virtual people are in an identical setting, with the two elements the male arrow and the female cross. These two parts rely on shadows and the characters seem to have a lower resolution.

I added one part for you to decide. So, as I see it, the fact that both artworks existed implied that they seem to both have been prepared. This conclusion comes forward as the Male was the original (read: initial) artwork, so the entire symbol should have been of much higher quality and resolution, that apart from the text that implies clearly a female march and whichever art designer cannot tell the difference between male and female symbol should never be hired ever again.

In the second there is my experience in this line of work and any issue that passes by any editor without proofs being viewed and approved is just not a realistic part, so as I see it this ‘error’ was intentional and from my logic and experience, the editor must have been in on it. The more news coverage is see with the word ‘mistakenly‘ the more anger I am actually feeling. The fact that the rest of the media is not all over these ‘mistakes’ (besides calling them mistakes) is beyond me and the fact that the Washington Post is now linked and part of these events is even more baffling. I reckon that next week Nash Holdings LLC, more important Jeff Bezos who shelled out a quarter of a billion for the newspaper will most certainly take another look if their value got impacted and I wonder what will happen to the editorial staff of the Washington Post Express. On the other side, at least one newspaper in the US did start the New Year with a little noise of a scandalous nature.

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Tagged as Gender sign, Jeff Bezos, Nash Holdings LLC, Washington Post Express

January 5, 2017 · 12:22

We get it, but we don’t

There are times when we love to see the big boys getting sued, yet this is not that time. When I saw the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/03/apple-lawsuit-facetime-car-crash-iphone-patent), I had to wonder whether I had to laugh out loud, or just let my head hang down and shake it slowly. I get it, when a bad thing overcomes you and your family, the one you sue is the one who has the cash to settle or pay largely (read: deep pockets). That part I learned in my first week of Torts, so the fact that a couple goes for Apple makes sense, yet it does not. You see, in this global community there are these pesky things called ‘traffic laws’, so to make a point I decided to take a look at the traffic laws of California and that was a trip so psychedelic, that no amount of mushrooms could ever equal it. It all started with the California Driver Handbook (at https://www.dmv.ca.gov/web/eng_pdf/dl600.pdf).

I was off to a great start, because on page 21 we see ‘distracted driving‘ with “Anything that prevents you from operating your vehicle is a distraction” and it mentions ‘Visual-Eyes off the road‘ and ‘Cognitive-Mind of the road‘, so it seems that there was a good start. Then on page 86 we see the things that you must not do, which states ‘Do not operate a cell-phone without the use of a hands-free device‘ as well as ‘Do not drive a motor vehicle whilst using a wireless Communication device to write, send or read text-based communications‘ as well as ‘do not drive a vehicle equipped with a video monitor, if the monitor is visible to the driver and displays anything other than vehicle information‘. So, I saw the ground pretty much fall away from me whilst I realised that the first mention was ‘Do not smoke at any time when a minor is in the vehicle. You can be fined up to $100‘. Is this for real? Smoking is fined, yet the more hazardous issues are not dealt with? I cried wolf almost too soon. The DMV (at https://www.dmv.com/distracted-driving-penalties) gives us for California: $20, so we now know that we can plan for the accidental execution of ex-wives, people we do not like and people with a price on their head, because California has decided that this act of ‘gross’ negligence carries a fine of $20, or perhaps $40, because it could be proven that both visual and cognitive were transgressed upon. We just need to look really really sad, remorseful and get a great lawyer. If you have any such plans, after the deed is done in for example San Francisco, you should call Chris Dolan of the Dolan Law Firm (at https://dolanlawfirm.com/), they might be able to help you all the way avoiding jail.

So, as some places take distracted driving serious, there is a clear indication that plenty of states do not. This is upsetting in a few ways as the level of distracted driving (video chatting whilst driving) amounts to nothing less than manslaughter. Now the California Penal Code gives us Penal Code 192(a) voluntary manslaughter and Penal Code 192(b), involuntary manslaughter. The second one is set apart as it does not require intent to kill. I thought that we were in the clear with voluntary manslaughter as there is the option of vehicular manslaughter. Although here we see the needed:

A. in an unlawful way (not amounting to a felony), with or without gross negligence;
B. during the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner, or
C. knowingly causes the accident for financial gain (which is also a violation of California’s automobile insurance fraud laws).

Now part c seems not to be the case. In my fictive example the prosecutor would require proof. Good luck getting that part from my banks in Riyadh! Hah!

Yet part A and part B are still filled at present. The issue is that distracted driving is not said to be a felony or unlawful. In that regard video chat driving is gross negligence through common sense, yet the California driving rules and the DMV do not state it as such (as far as I can tell at present) and as such someone’s 5 year old little daughter ended up with a dead one, for the fine (as currently stated in the DMV penalties list) no larger than the price of merely 4 MacDonald happy meals? How screwed up does that sound? The fact that the DMV could have clearly set in motion the change that caught with more than one element of distracted driver means an automatic suspension of the driver’s license for no less than 5 years as well as setting the bar towards a felony and not keep it at a misdemeanour, an act that would clearly be turning faces real quick. As minors and adults seem to worship their cars and their needs to drive somewhere, setting that change in motion could have resulted in a living child, very likely loads of non-dead individuals because of acts of utter stupidity. The fact that the DMV was very willing to add statistics to the drivers guide shows that this is a massive amount of lives that could be saved.

Let’s face it, in the world of common sense, video chatting whilst driving seems to be one of the more stupid acts to pursue. It is at the end that I disagree with Nora Freeman Engstrom, a Stanford law professor, who states “Apple’s inaction in the face of that knowledge may not trigger liability here. But it may well expose Apple to liability down the road”, in that I disagree as the pressure should have been on the irresponsible driver from the very start and the driving laws should have been adjusted as such for a long time. It is time to set the blame where it should have been, with the driver!

Now, we all understand that the personal injury lawyers tend to have a go at those with the deeper pockets, yet how fair is that? Actually, fairness does not come into question, the law was already clear on distracted driving, it just needs to become a little more clear and let those relying on distracted driving either have a really good insurance, or let them feel the sting of prison when harm comes to victims due to their negligent actions. In that we can agree that texting, video chatting whilst operating a vehicle will always have a negative impact on the lives of people they hit.

The fact that this is not addressed on a national level is equally disturbing. When we see statistics like ‘Every year, about 421,000 people are injured in crashes that have involved a driver who was distracted in some way‘, whilst we see in addition, that ‘64% of all the road accidents in the United States had a cell phone involved‘, so any clear change will have an adverse effect on those two statistics. That seems clear enough a reason to make distracted driving a much harsher transgression with a penalty and fine large enough making it a felony. In that logic, the misconception that people can drive and text or video chat is a mismanaged perception that should be addressed as soon as possible, or better stated, with the statistics shown this should have been addressed years ago. So in that we do get that the parents want to lash out against the guilty parties, yet we don’t get that this is done, making guilty a party that had not implemented a patent, to be more precise a patent that might have gotten itself circumvented as well as the clarity that any usage in combination with driving is already defined as dangerous. The fact that the State of California regards this to be a $20 transgression makes the situation just sad and not really a valid guilt trip for Apple, Google or any other Android mobile smartphone brand.

You see, in itself, the article is not that important. So someone is suing Apple, la di da! Yet behind all the fun, frolic and charade is the hidden issue of responsibility. We seem to avoid responsibility, feign unawareness or advocate stupidity the difference in this case seems to be mere semantics depending on your point of view. There is a decent argument to be made that the law makers have been too lax, yet to what extent? To what extent can any nation continue when common sense is thrown out of the window? It is an equal valid view that not the law, but the person in situations can be the point of decision, yet when we decide to avoid that, we do get to spend life in jail, especially when our own negligence and lack of common sense gets other people killed. There is no ‘I’m sorry‘ and ‘I thought it was OK‘ or ‘It was not illegal‘, I especially like that part. Well, I got my in-laws killed, but it was not illegal, so have a nice day Justice! We can even argue whether killing a person we know is less punishable then killing a stranger, but that is a discussion for another day. What is very much the issue is that Moriah Modisette died because Garrett Wilhelm, of Gainesville thought that he could safely drive a car on the interstate at 65 Mph whilst using FaceTime. Yet, this did not happen in Santa Clara, it happened in Texas on interstate 35W, near mile marker 81. Now we see a change, because Texas has harsher rules, and here we see “Denton bans texting and driving on city streets, but the city ordinance does not include the interstate“, so now we get a new ballgame, even as we see “Manslaughter is a second-degree felony in Texas and carries with it the possibility of up to a $10,000 fine and a prison sentence of at least two years, but no more than 20 years” yet the DMV states that distracted driving applies to Drivers younger than 18, which Garrett Wilhelm was not, so is it mere luck that he is up on a manslaughter charge? How come that death gets a different value, that stupidity is rewarded in some states? The fact that there are rules, regulations and city ordinances all giving a different value to this serious transgression. Now, as an Australian I accept that the US has different values and even though they too work on the premise of Common Law, doing so on a national level is not easy. Yet should this matter not have been dealt with more severe and on a national level? Especially when we see the statistics and a massive gap as to how the transgression and the implied consequence of the transgression holds up?

In case of Garrett Wilhelm, the trial date got set in the end to 26^th September 2016, whilst the report of June stated that a request for continuance is to be expected, so over two years later there is still no justice for Moriah Modisette which would drive any parent insane with grief, rage, bitterness and sadness. All these emotions at the same time would be devastating. It still is not fair to have a go at the mobile maker, but that is only my personal view.

Perhaps it is time for someone like Bill O’Reilly to champion another law, just like he did with Jessica’s Law. Perhaps the US needs a Moriah Law, a law that makes the use of any mobile, other than hand free voice calling whilst driving a car a felony and it would be a law that covers all if the US, every state, regardless whether it is in the city or not. They shouldn’t need a law like this, yet the acts of Garrett Wilhelm (who is not the only one mind you) clearly state other whiles.

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Tagged as Bill O'Reilly, California Driver Handbook, Chris Dolan, DMV, Dolan Law Firm, FaceTime, felony, Gainesville, Garrett Wilhelm, misdemeanour, Moriah Modisette, Nora Freeman Engstrom, Penal Code 192, Santa Clara, State of California, Texas, US

January 4, 2017 · 16:01

The reality of danger

The entire Palestinian UN issue or as some call it Resolution 2334, certain players decided to make certain moves. There will be long term consequences, yet what they are can only be speculated on. The Washington Post gave news last year (4 days ago, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/29/trumps-plan-to-move-the-u-s-embassy-to-jerusalem-could-help-the-peace-process/) that is another issue that will play. There is a choice at times to place anything governmental, yet where to place it has been less of an issue. You see the initial quote: ‘move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could help the peace process‘ is a loaded one. Like in the Netherlands, Israel is one of the few places where the embassies are not in the capital of that nation. Tel Aviv is the most important city in Israel and the central hub for all business. There is a reasonable speculation that Ben-Gurion airport is a driving reason in that. Yet Tel Aviv is only half the size of Jerusalem, which does not make the move wise or foolish. What is a given that moving the embassies to Jerusalem will spark massive response. What is interesting in the Washington Post article is the reference to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.

In this we see:

(1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.
(2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and
(3) the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.

We can see that this act was either ignored or basically not taken too serious. The quote “However, a built-in waiver provision intended as a temporary measure has allowed every president since then to delay the move at routine six-month intervals” gives voice to that. So in case of the Israeli case as a solid ally, the US would state ‘not this time around‘ twice a year. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, 10 years of delays, 20 delays. Now, we see that the new president will push forward. Still at this point there are a few considerations to keep in mind. It is the quote “But a reversal of the long time U.S. diplomatic boycott of Jerusalem could bode well for Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects. Sending a strong message that the new administration stands with the Israeli government on a major symbolic issue with high potential costs could push the Palestinian leadership to a greater sense of urgency in negotiations” that I have an issue with. You see, Mahmoud Abbas is on his last options, quotes like: “Mahmoud Abbas, Re-elected as Fatah Leader, Moves to Solidify Power” is one side the other is “Hamas delegates find welcome at Fatah conference, but not trust“. The ties between Abbas and Hamas are strained and the Jerusalem move could implode the connections. This comes from a 2007 statement by Mussa Abu Marzuk ‘the failure of any political process to solve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict will lead to ultimate victory and the destruction of Israel reflects the Logic of Implosion of the Resistance Network‘, This resistance network is not that visible. Unlike some claimants to be ‘all for Palestine‘ they tend to brag on social media using photo ops for visibility. There are connections we see regarding Mussa Abu Marzuk, yet there is clearly another side. The conspiracy theories regarding Assad’s mercenaries are as unreliable as it gets, yet there are seemingly links in Beirut that do require scrutiny (an open blog is not the place to do this), the reason for these mentions are the reality that the move to Jerusalem will spark actions by Hamas and anyone with anti-Israel sentiments. Jerusalem could become a powder keg in more than one way. When we look at the same quote again ‘move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could help the peace process’, I have to conclude that this is not likely to be. The so called burning bridges tactic could become the fire that lights dozens of fuses. Even as Iran had seized funding to the larger degree (implied that this was done), it could be a move that will reopen acts of support from antagonists like Iran, I very much doubt that Iran will be the only one. You see, the embassies not in Jerusalem gave some parties the idea that certain topics could be reopened. This move, when it happens takes that off the table and several parties will not like that at all. Yet it is not all doom and gloom. The reality is that Palestine has a massive benefit when the Embassy moves go through. Consider the benefits that Jerusalem traffic towards a place like Bethlehem brings, which is on the Palestine side.

Yet, this is not about tourism. It is about the rationale of moving the US Embassy. There have been a few voices that the US Embassy would not be safer in Tel Aviv, yet my issue is that there will be more opportunities for extremists to attack it in Jerusalem. Perhaps I will be proven wrong, time will tell. It was last year, just before Christmas, when the Washington Post stated “The United States recognized the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian armistice lines as the new borders of Israel outside Jerusalem, but as for Jerusalem the U.S. position was to support the provision of the 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, which called for Jerusalem to be a “corpus separatum under a special international regime . . . administered by the United Nations” (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-us-embassy-is-in-tel-aviv-not-jerusalem/2016/12/23/89b5b5a8-c703-11e6-acda-59924caa2450_story.html). As well as “By 1953, the United Nations had shelved plans for a “corpus separatum,” and West Jerusalem was de facto understood to be part of Israel. Keeping the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had no relationship to the status of East Jerusalem. Not moving the U.S. Embassy to West Jerusalem in 1953 or thereafter was essentially a bureaucratic decision, devoid of any legal justification“. What is now an actual issue is that less than a day ago we see ‘State Department ‘not aware’ of efforts to move US embassy to Jerusalem‘ (source: Times of Israel), where we see “We’re not privy to any moves, any decisions or active efforts to go ahead and move the embassy,” Kirby told CNN“, which reads like a load of ….. (you know the missing word). This is because on November 10^th we get “Adviser says Trump tsunami will shift U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem“, making John Kirby an actual idiot. His additional clue word ‘privy’ like it was a secret makes this even more ridiculous. The president Elect has spoken on the intention of this happening. Now the DNC might not like this, yet intentional misinforming the public to this degree in the last 3 weeks of office is just stupid. How can we see John Kirby in any serious continuation when he is racking up disaster statements like this?

So we have ourselves a ballgame, because we now see: “intended ambassador to Israel David Friedman said last month that he looked forward to working “from the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said subsequently that the PLO would revoke its recognition of Israel if the US moved the embassy“, here we now get the direct consequence of dealing in any non-lethal way with terrorists. The mere ‘revoke its recognition of Israel‘ is a clear sign that Palestine cannot now, or ever be trusted. In that regard, when we see the Fatah–Hamas Gaza Agreement of April 2014, with an indefinite delay on election, we should see in that light the situation of Palestine. With president Mahmoud Abbas in lock-down whilst we see people speaking, clearly with the old man in charge, making him either a puppet or unreliable, likely both. This is the group that the UN wants to do business with. This is the group, which via Egypt started Resolution 2334. In that regard, regardless of the dangers. The option that the US and possibly even Australia are moving their Embassies to Jerusalem. A stronger message needs to be given, either we stand with Israel, or we let it all burn and in this day and age, and from my point of view burning it all is a waste of resources.

We have seen for more than a decade that the Palestine high command is not in charge. That same organisation that tried marketing in the form of “It sought to convince a sufficient core of leftists that the PLO wasn’t really committed to its goal of eradicating Israel. It actually was a peace movement in terrorist disguise”, how has that been working out? The Haaretz quote “Lemon asked Ashrawi to explain what steps the Palestinians have taken for peace with the Israelis, to which Ashrawi answered, “I think we are trying our best to make peace in every possible way” sounds deceptive to say the least, although we must take into consideration that Haaretz will always be pro-Israel, so we can’t really hope for fair and balanced in this equation and I am trying to take this into consideration. My evidence are the loads of Hamas Rockets, a Palestine leadership that plays turncoat depending on ammunition reserves and a so called nation that has decided to delay elections. All these elements are in play when we consider the Israeli issues. A side that we see repeated when we look at the US State Department (at https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/12/266119.htm). The quote “Both sides committed to a plan to transition much of the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinian control during permanent status negotiations that would put an end to their conflict. Unfortunately, neither the transition nor the final agreement came about, and both sides bear responsibility for that“, which is true, yet in 1995 onwards, we see bombings and suicide bombings in bus stations like Ashkelon and Jerusalem in addition to markets and streets. With an explosion of events in 2001 and 2002. Now that there is more and more evidence that Iran is backing away with their funds (likely because of oil prices in the basement), now we see there is so much need for a solution, for a suddenly giving in to Palestine. Perhaps the US wants to remember how they dealt with Benedict Arnold. How he was given land and prestige in the US? This question comes to the frame of mind when we see the Times of Israel (not the only source) state “Transcript claims to show US worked with Palestinians on UN resolution” with in addition “An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements“, even as it has been denied by the White House, the actions and the statements from several sides give way to acts of desperation, trying to flush a result that is beneficial to the image of those proclaiming a deal, yet negligent on the State of Israel as it has remained under attack non-stop until 2011. Is it possible for President Obama to remember what happened on September 11^th 2001, perhaps he can also remember how there were no UN resolutions to chastise the Taliban with subsequent acts of diplomacy? Perhaps he remembers them, perhaps he was too busy politicising things. In all this the act of Resolution 2334 seems to be more and more a rash act. Without it, the move of the US embassy might not have been on the table, now to patch things and state that the US is an actual friend of Israel the move seems to have been pushed, with that the additional instigation of questions and requests in Canberra to move the Australian Embassy as well, which in light of Operation Paladin with 12 man could have beneficial logistical options. Operation Paladin is part of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO).

There is still the issue of the actions that led the UK to push for this as well as unconfirmed rumours that New Zealand had received Phone Calls from London regarding the matter. There have been protests on all levels, yet the one in London remains for now a mystery. In light of the upcoming Brexit, this resolution was a bad idea for the UK, having the UK and New Zealand abstain at the very least, although opposing it might have been a better idea. In light of the changes that Iran is showing gives several lights, not all of them good or positive. The implied changes towards Hamas and other players give light that Iran is changing priorities on several levels. It is the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center who gives the best quality info in this matter. The quote “A member of the Majlis (Iranian parliament) committee for national security and foreign policy told the reformist newspaper Ghanoon that unless Hamas changed its strategy towards Syria and stopped supporting the Syrian opposition, Iran would be forced to establish new ties with other Palestinian groups“, gives way to this (at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/21125), it is almost like reading the alternative play ‘One man’s folly is another man’s fiend‘, a not so gentle or secure way to play this game, yet it does give the additional view to the changes in Iran, a shifting of borders, lines of acceptance without diplomacy. A view we see reinforced with “Hossein Salami added that the United States, the Europeans and the Zionists were planning to contain Hezbollah’s activity, but that Hezbollah had become a significant regional force. If Hezbollah could operate in the unlit ditches and winding alleys of Aleppo, without a doubt it could fight even better in the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv, he claimed (Tasnim and Sepah News, December 25, 2016)“. Is this merely the wishful thinking of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the presentation inviting Hezbollah, a combination of these or something else altogether. It is up to Mossad to see where there actual enemies are, yet with Resolution 2334 their game has changed, because the clarity of friends lost means another strategy, one that the west hasn’t had for some time, because in all this, until there is clear crystallisation of who is an actual friend, certain parties will no longer receive any indirect intelligence from either Mossad or Shin Bet on anything NATO intelligence parties would need to know. As this part will get politicised very quickly, the next attack that gets missed will be a clear first indication on the not so clever act of Resolution 2334.

There is a reality of danger in all we see do and act on, yet imposing it and inviting it whilst certain parties have again and again refrained from being anything but unreliable is cause for concern. The map of the Middle East is being redrawn and the rash acts shown so far have had no positive effect at all, which should be a decent wake up call for a collection of foreign offices all around the world. Whether they do is up to them and good luck to those who get to clean up that mess.

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Tagged as 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, Australia, Ben-Gurion airport, Benedict Arnold, corpus separatum, Donald Trump, Fatah–Hamas Gaza Agreement of April 2014, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hossein Salami, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Israel, Jerusalem, John Kirby, Mahmoud Abbas, Mossad, Mussa Abu Marzuk, New Zealand, Obama administration, Palestine, PLO, Resolution 2334, Saeb Erekat, Shin Bet, Syria, Tel Aviv, U.S. Embassy, UK, UN Security Council, Washington Post

January 2, 2017 · 09:08

An audited symphony in Green

This all started yesterday when the honourable Mark George QC sent a tweet (see picture), which was followed by my answer, and that one was given because I was feeling frisky. When you are done killing people in Constantinople as Ezio Auditore, I relied on Twitter to see some of the news messages on the air. His was one of the first ones I saw.

Was he wrong, was I? At that point it did not matter, the image that is given was based on three different matters and they could very well be valid, so I decided to dig today and see what is exactly going on. The first thing I am noticing is how much emotions are going all over the place, it is all about the wealthy getting bashed. Now, this might not be wrong, but what is actually happening? First was the Week, who referred to an article in the Guardian, so I am looking at that one (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/21/sir-philip-green-bhs-mps-pension-schemes). The title is catchy enough ‘Sir Philip Green could face £1bn BHS fine under MPs’ plan‘, yet is this going anywhere? The first quote is “BHS collapsed into administration in April, leading to the loss of 11,000 jobs and leaving a £571m deficit. The regulator has started legal proceedings against Green and Dominic Chappell, the former owners of BHS, in an attempt to fill the deficit. They collected millions of pounds from the retailer“. You see, the issue behind all this goes a little further and of course, the red cloth of the bull became very visible. The Accountant Online (at http://www.theaccountant-online.com/features/comment-bhs-and-the-silence-of-the-auditors-4923573/) gives us the news that the Guardian was unwilling to give us here. When the Accountant gives us “The Accountant magazine professor Prem Sikka painstakingly analyses PwC’s role as auditor of UK failed retailer BHS“, so the same group of less capable reviewers (read: idiots) connected to the entire Tesco disaster are also linked to BHS? Can anyone explain to me why Pricewaterhouse Coopers is still accredited to work anywhere in the UK at present? The additional quote gives us “Recurring losses and negative equity should have encouraged auditors to issue an emphasis of matter type of audit report which might have alerted employees, pension scheme members, pension regulators and others of the possible inability of BHS to correct deficits, but PwC did no such thing“, is that not odd? The fact that everyone is in emotional state, including the one person that should feel the strike of shame too. You see the right honourable Frank Field, Labour MP for Birkenhead and Chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee makes no mention of the PwC side either. I find that very odd, the fact that such large companies do not get red flagged by the auditor should actually have been higher on his list than Philip Green was. So Frankie’s response in the Guardian on £1000 million instead of £350 million is (as I personally see it) merely a load of rubbish, something to set at ease the engine of anger from the 11,000 people without a job, because if he had actually cared PwC would have been on his list in that interview in massive 350 feet letters, sending shock-waves through that decrepit organisation of abacus users.

This is not nearly the end of it. When we look at the Guardian in November, We see (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/02/philip-green-may-be-forced-to-pay-money-into-bhs-pension-scheme) that Graham Ruddick and Kevin Rawlinson have more to say on the matter (at an earlier stage) as we see ‘Pensions Regulator begins legal proceedings against Sir Philip Green‘, still the PwC stays unmentioned. Is that not weird? When I see ‘regulator‘ and ‘legal proceedings‘ I see, in my mind, in equal measure the need to look at the books and at that point the auditors. You see a £571 million deficit should not have been unnoticed, more interestingly anything over £100 million should have instantly called for a pension check, the fact that the Accountant online gives us “Page 1 of BHS Limited 2011 accounts stated that “The directors believe that preparing the financial statements on the going concern basis is appropriate due to the continued financial support of the Company’s ultimate parent company Taveta Investments Limited”. This statement is repeated on page 1 of the 2012 and 2013 accounts. Page 1 of the 2014 accounts stated that “during the year, the company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Taveta Investments Limited“, this should have been more than one moment where the senior abacus users at PwC should have been ringing the bells of red flags, the quote “BHS and its controllers had persistently failed to eradicate pension scheme deficit. In the light of that why did PwC have confidence in management assertions that it would provide financial support to ensure that BHS would remain a going concern“, shows what I personally believe to be a massive level of negligence, one that at this point is missing from the Guardian and several other news media. Can anyone explain how PwC seems to be receiving this level of non-accountability? Is this the price of hiring cheap graduates in places where seniors need to work? So as we see the massive amounts of deficits in place, we see that “since 2009, PwC collected £2.282 million in audit fees and £9.04 million in consultancy fees from Taveta Investments Limited, which included BHS“, which gives me the fact that in total (including Tesco), PwC received £25 million for what I personally regard to be overly negligent, that whilst I over my life for being capable and overly service oriented have never received anywhere near 0.3% of that amount annually pre taxation. So we can state that whilst the emotional and feigned state of anger by Frank Field sounds nice, but it is merely charades and the man should remain quiet until he actually achieves anything in regards to the pension schemes.

Now let’s get back to the original part, because there is a lot more than PwC in this matter. The quote “As part of any deal, it is understood that Green wants the regulator to ensure that Chappell pays into the pension scheme as well. The billionaire tycoon believes he was misled by Chappell about his track record in business and the money that Retail Acquisitions was paid by BHS“, which can easily be rectified, because if this was done properly there would have been records, like mail messages with attachments (resume amongst others), there would have been reference checks with phone numbers and annual statements showing the track record of Dominic Chappell, who according to some is seen as a former racing driver lacking 100% of retail experience. I cannot vouch for that, yet simple investigation should be able to set that one straight in mere minutes. If Philip Green cannot show any mail messages with evidence, my message to him would be “If it isn’t written down, it does not exist“, one of the oldest golden rules in administration, I reckon a billionaire should know small things like that. In this there is a third side of the problem. This side comes in the form of Lesley Titcomb, who is the current Chief Executive and former COO of The Pensions Regulator (TPR), in the shape that “it was yet to receive “sufficiently credible and comprehensive offer” to bail out the BHS pension scheme, which has more than 20,000 members, despite Green pledging to fix the problems facing it“, she too remains mindlessly numb on any mention of PwC. A pension hole this big should have raised questions years ago. They all remain silent on the auditor which gives pause as to why the hell that firm is:

1: Allowed to be in business in the first place; and

2: Able to cash in on 25 million (including Tesco).

We see that continuation in “The regulator said that after a “complex investigation” and months of talks with Green about a rescue deal for the pension scheme it was sending warning notices to the billionaire tycoon, Chappell and their companies“, the auditor that facilitated for all this remains out of sight, out of mind and out of mention in all this. I have a massive problem with that part, especially as the Guardian has stated more than once to be such an ‘investigative entity‘.

In all this we now see the final part leading to the wise tweet that the honourable Mark George QC made and it makes him a lot more honourable than anything that the UK Labour party has to offer. In my view, I questioned whether the £580 had been a valid destination. The Guardian quote gives “Green controlled BHS between 2000 and 2015, during which time his family and other shareholders collected more than £580m“, so he did not get all the cash, so there is the smallest of discrepancies here on the statement of the Honourable Mark George QC, yet he only had 144 characters to make it. I would want to see 15 annual statements of all the payments towards the Green family and shareholders. Because in that regard, a firm that had a pension scheme in deficit for 11 years and negative equity for at least 7 years, how would it have been possible for shareholders to get anything at all, in addition, how much did Philip Green actually receive as payments from the BHS side of his businesses?

There is a growing list of concerns, concerns that should also be used against PwC, the TPR as well as HM Revenue & Customs. I think that it is safe to say that the days of ‘Walk softly and carry a beagle‘ (Charlie Brown) are over and we need to look at ‘Shout loudly and carry a machine gun with the safety off‘ (Rambo) as an actual deterrent for the non-actions of all these players. In addition, I think we need to put Lord Grabiner in the spotlight who was a former Chairman of both Taveta companies. You see, what Frankie Fields did carefully avoid to mention is that Lord Grabiner is linked to the Arcadia group, also owned by Taveta Investments, as is his family member Ian Grabiner, in all this Baron Grabiner might be seen as an academic administrator, but there is nothing academic about this half a billion pound mess and with Labour members remaining very silent on their peers, it seems that the 1 billion pound levy threat is merely a hollow action giving the implied value of £0 towards Frank Fields and his valued point of view, especially when we look at a non-actioned and non-mentioned gap of 11. One person (@the_MourningSun) gave me the answer to my tweet that this was down to a difference between the letter and the spirit of the law. I think both have failed miserably for well over half a decade when the larger players get to play the game the way that the BHS was played. In the end, it will be for a court to decide whether Philip Green broke any laws or failed anyone he cares for (read: implied view he only cares for himself). What is overly clear is that too many parties are leaving the auditors in the shadows, away from the peering and prying eyes of the public, which is a massive failure on every level.

So as you think that the TPR is currently on the ball, you all better take notice of the Guardian quote “By the standard measure used by the PPF, 4,272 defined benefit schemes are in deficit and the size of the black hole is £195bn“, so as we see that part, I wonder when we get a list of those 4000+ schemes, who is auditing them. I wonder when we look at 2 pie charts, one based on the deficit amount against the auditors involved, and one based on the number of schemes against the auditors involved. I wonder which auditor will end up being the most prominent one. Would you like to hazard a guess?

Let’s see if we can revisit this part somewhere this quarter and see how many spins the media and Lesley Titcomb (Executive Officer TPR) will end up doing.

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Tagged as Arcadia group, Baron Grabiner, BHS, BHS limited, Dominic Chappell, Frank Field, Frank Field MP, Graham Ruddick, HM Revenue & Customs, Ian Grabiner, Kevin Rawlinson, Labour MP for Birkenhead, Lesley Titcomb, Lord Grabiner, Mark George QC, Philip Green, PPF, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, professor Prem Sikka, PwC, Taveta Investments Limited, The Accountant Online, the Guardian, The Pensions Regulator, TPR, Work and Pensions Select Committee

December 31, 2016 · 14:41

This last day

This last day should be a day of reflection, a day of consideration. I feel none of these things as I am observing the mistakes that Marine Le Pen is now making. I get why she would get the referendum vamped up and get stronger waves towards Frexit, yet her call to leave NATO makes a lot less sense. For one, NATO still does mean the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, France is part of that North Atlantic, she has a duty of care there (a lot less so for the EC, the EEC or the Euro for that matter). She does make a point when we look at the expansion into Eastern Europe. Let’s face it, when we look into the original line, there was Germany which goes a lot to the south, then basically it is Italy. Getting into Eastern Europe makes a lot less sense. Let’s not forget, the Americans at present no longer have the means to play this game. A fact Lockheed needs to take into consideration, even if the price of the F-35 is given without an engine ($133 million, without engine), making it basically the most expensive paperweight in history. In addition, it came with a truckload of issues in 2014, whilst the 2015 report states “the majority of the fixes and for capability deficiencies being discovered are being deferred to later blocks rather than being resolved“, with new items of concern added. I found the additional quote form the 2015 report “inherent design problems that are only becoming more obvious and difficult to fix” most amusing, so if Marine Le Pen has in mind to not go anywhere near a Lockheed design, that would make sense. Now I do not want to brag, but with all my flying hours in the Microsoft Flight Simulator (2004), I might actually beat that latest flawed Lockheed F-35 with my experience in a Mikoyan MiG-35 (OK, I am bragging a little as I have never flown ANY jet in my life). What is the issue is that the politicians have not kept a good accord on the military abilities of the armed forces, not the people mind you, but the equipment they get stuck with. As such we see a 1.5 trillion dollar project showing more holes than an IKEA Pasta insert (named ‘Stabil’, which is hilarious as it is also means stable in Swedish). A project $160 billion over budget and 7 years behind schedule, and these were the numbers in 2014. A defence project that was too big to kill and that is what the NATO partners have to content with?

So why these topics? The world is changing, it is changing faster than ever before and the minders of the store have been so selfish in regards to their own personal needs (read: visibility of self via ego) and achievements that the duty they had was pushed under the rug. This is how I personally see the F-35 project.

The financial sector in the UK alone these financial boys (girls also) had the bulk of the £44bn in bonuses this year, so did your quality of life increase any (the topic jump will make sense in a few moments)? Now, even as wealth increased, it did not do so to that extent. It is not that fair to just have a go at the financial sector, apart from the fact that they ended up with bonuses of 1900% more than the amount all the others got, so balance is not that much in play. That view is shown stronger as we look at Forbes this week (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/12/28/greece-the-game-is-on-again/#2585dbd946e5), the quotes that matter here are “Euclid Tsakalotos, the normally mild-mannered Finance Minister, accused the IMF writers of “economizing on the truth”. He pointed out that the main reason why so few Greeks pay income taxes is that their incomes have crashed, and that nearly half of Greek pensioners are living below the poverty line” and “The IMF’s case is that pension cost as a proportion of GDP is now unsustainable, and further, that the creditors are not going to agree to debt relief while pension cost remains so high. It is probably right on both counts. But once again, what really matters is the psychological framing“, in that regard I will be on the side of the Greeks, but not on the side of Greece. You see when their previous governments got loans and misrepresented their value, they had zero consideration on what pensions were in regards to the loans that they were getting under false pretense, in that regard, did any of those politicians go to jail? Did they refund 90% of their incomes? I am certain that the answer to both is ‘No!’, in addition those elected officials are sitting pretty and nowhere near the poverty line. Yet in all this the hardship is not over, in addition, the facts (as I personally see them) requires a little more digging, especially when I read “Attica Bank, the country’s fifth-largest lender, was poised to install a new management team he thought was capable of turning round the struggling lender” which were the thoughts of Yannis Stournaras, the governor of the central bank of Greece, which was followed by “While he was in the air, the government in Athens reversed the decision to award the job to Mr Pantalakis. It was his introduction to a web of allegedly related events, ranging from a raid on his wife’s business to an unsuccessful bid for TV rights backed by Attica loans“, this gives the implied issues on Yannis Stournaras, which gives more cause concern when we see “A confidential report on Attica carried out this year by the European Central Bank, the Eurozone’s top bank supervisor, and seen by the Financial Times, cited “severe findings” of poor governance and inadequate controls on lending. With some 70 per cent of its loans rated as non-performing, Mr Stournaras and others believed Attica urgently needed a professional banker at the helm. Government sources denied any intervention in the process to select Attica’s CEO” (at https://www.ft.com/content/aab0aaba-c6db-11e6-8f29-9445cac8966f). The implications are on a few levels especially in the light of ‘government sources denied‘, there is a mess on a few levels and the idea that personal needs were adamant in decisions is not without probable cause. The levels that are in question cannot be set because too much information is missing, but there are issues, make no mistake about that.

These issues connect, not directly but in the view of national voters, governments have made absolute shambles of their nations giving power to those with key wealth management options, in that need those who need to be at the helm are politicised and set to markers that are off the table and outside of the scope of visibility to scrutinise, whilst the presentations are showing markers that do not fit the person best suited for the job, in that Greece is not the only place with such issues. In the UK Mark Carney is facing similar issues, yet in the opposite direction. The best person for the job is the one the elected government seems to have an issue with. The independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bank-of-england-mark-carney-theresa-may-attack-monetary-policy-tory-conference-speech-a7380016.html) gives us “Mr Carney argued that the monetary policy pursued by the Bank in recent years has had a positive impact that is “without parallel”, despite the Prime Minister using her speech to claim it had led to “bad side effects”“, in addition we see “Since quantitative easing was first introduced in the economy in 2009 … there’s been 2.6 million jobs created, GDP is up 16 per cent, per capita income is up 9 per cent and this is following a trauma in the economy“, we might see this as good news, but the good news is in the UK not dripping down to the other people just yet. In addition, the dangers will change if sharp budgets are not maintained. Getting the debt down is an absolute first, it will have additional benefits down the road, yet the initial benefit is that money could go to other destinations than paying for the interest of the debt, the interest of a debt amount that is currently in excess of 1.6 trillion. This was not the first attack, Michael Gove had a go at England’s Marky Mark in October. It is always nice when a person is called arrogant, especially when that person has proven to be amongst the very best in his field on the planet. I myself had had some issues in the past with Mark Carney, yet not against the man, but the economic issues that the UK faced because of actions (read objectives) pushed for by politicians, however his speech in the House of Lords showed him to be the expert he is and he nearly got me away from the Brexit team. Yet Mark Carney himself states it very well when he said: “Politicians have done a very good job of setting up the system. Where it can be difficult, sometimes, is if there are political comments on our policies as opposed to political comments on our objectives“, in this we see the issue that is part of the problem. as the politicians set up the objectives, they are then confronted with the policies from technocrats and those two groups do not see eye to eye, so friction goes back and forth, the Lockheed F-35 lightning is an excellent example here, in addition that part got an extra iteration as the military requirements were added by yet another group (read: the military). In all this the political objective is hampering the essential need against ‘it needs to be done by date X for no more than amount Y‘, which gives us the political joke that the NHS IT project was. A present from the Labour government which boiled down to a £11.2 billion wrapper around an empty box. Two projects set through objectives that ended up being off the wall and the back and forth friction that resulted in something unmanageable and non-functional. I reckon the political side of both events needs a new level of scrutiny, one that we have not considered before. In that regard having people like Mark Carney around is essential for the wheels of a state to remain functional, because if there is one clear thing, it is that America lost that oversight some time ago, before this Democratic Administration, the previous republican one lost sight of the needs and the accountability of the intelligence network and data processing side no later than 2006, we can all agree that the 2007-2012 total budget of $435 billion was money massively spent in all the wrong ways. This was shown in a Foreign office document that was quoted in an article stating “Army officials, though, said Palantir wasn’t up to the job. Now, a 57-page report by the Pentagon’s acquisitions arm basically says the Army was wrong to dismiss the Palantir system. The study instead gives Palantir high marks on most of the Army’s 20 key requirements for the intelligence system, including the ability to analyse large amounts of information, including critical data about terrorist networks and the locations of explosive devices, and synchronize it in a way that helps troops on the ground combat their enemies more effectively“, so there too billions were spent when millions could have sufficed. When the EGO of an individual with the power to decide is on the line, the results could be disastrous. In my personal view, if we accept the wrongful spending of 25 billion, how many extra troops could have been saved by adding fire support groups to those in IRAQ in those years? How many of the 4486 fatalities could have been prevented?

Politicians, advisors and ego are a really dangerous combination in many ways, even as we look at what is coming now, we need to be mindful of the changes that some are pushing for. Even if we are in favour of dropping the EC altogether, pushing NATO boundaries might not be the best solution. France might be privy to one of the better intelligence machines, that machine is also dependent on the intelligence it is fed from allies, an essential element that will fall away when NATO does, Marine Le Pen should be very mindful of that.

Yet this year and more important 2017 will go beyond Frexit. There is still a large debate on the Netherlands making any move away from the European Community, the numbers require people to be realistic on what will happen, yet those numbers are nowhere near the numbers Brexit had, so it is still unlikely that this will happen at present, no matter how certain Frexit will be. Italy might not have any manoeuvring space, it requires a massive infuse of funds, when we see the Reuters quote “An Italian government official told Reuters on Tuesday that €20bn earmarked for the rescue of the Italian banking system should suffice“, we need to wonder in how much trouble Italy is. This question is raised as we see Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena will issue €15 billion of debt next year (source: RTE). So we see another iteration where “The Treasury may have to put up around €6.6 billion to salvage the lender, including €2 billion to compensate around 40,000 retail bond holders“, so, how exactly is it acceptable that people ‘invest’ with a risk, yet when that risk comes calling, they still get compensated? How did any of us ever sign up for that?

Anyone who mentions that it is for the good of all is of their rocker plain and simple. Here too we see connection between France and Italy, mainly that the Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM) thought it was a good idea to list Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena as a major purchase right next to Ubisoft. I reckon a little less ‘lack of nationalism’ and putting all of that cash in addition to the other amount into Ubisoft might have been a decently better idea. I feel certain that next year when we see the ‘Top Ten Holdings’ in the Natixis report will not make mention of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which could just be me though.

So in this last day we see that we have quite the collection of choices to deal with, some good and many bad ones. Yet no matter what is happening, no matter what will fall, there is a decent indication that unless changes are made 2017 will not be a good year. I might be too negative to see some level of collapse in Q2 (no later than Q3) in the next year, yet the proper setting and if the key players are willing to forego ego and focus on cooperation, they would be setting the stage for a lucrative 2018, that is beside the initial technological presentations of the new age of G5. G5 will be the pushing power in IP, especially Trade Marks, yet that path is also loaded with new growth opportunities for IT and developers as they start setting the tone of what 5G could personalise, it will be the first firm push to switch providers to SaaS. That is almost without question, the degree to it happening is very much depending on actual cooperation. In that the Telco providers need to realise as per immediate that thinking SaaS whilst selling Paas and charging IaaS, which sounds nice on bonus day. Yet the boomerang effect is that clients will walk away a lot faster and they will also automatically entice 10 personal connection to not seek the services of the telecom provider being that stupid. Infrastructure as a Service is almost a thing of the past. It seems weird, because there should be space for it, yet in our new outfits we see that infrastructure is a long term commitment and with annual mobile purchase the people have learned to be as flexible as possible, so the limited mobiles that some sell (32Gb instead of 64Gb editions) is why people are realising to walk away from those offering limitations instead of solutions. It is at times harder with Platform as a Service. You see, PaaS might sound nice when we see Apple and SAP connecting, yet the bulk of the revenue will be the smaller fish in the pond, the small players will be 80% of the revenue, one can argue the actual taxable cake of government will be largely depending on those players and for them IaaS is a laughable solution when they are trying to get as much as possible in the first few years and those smaller players want as much flexibility as possible taking to some extent PaaS from the table. SaaS will be solution of choice and those now adhering to that need will fall short in 2018 and they are unlikely to be part of anything in 2019. In that we see the government need of objectives that cater to what the SME’s need. A mere application of supply and requirement. You might think that this is not connected to the previous parts, but it is. When we see the NHS, Banks and government, their needs to address their audience, they need to consider that no matter the infrastructure or platform for communications, they all need to see that their clientele is no longer rigid, no longer bound to certain paths for the simple reason that the infrastructure of places like the NHS can no longer deal with. It is by definition a mobile customer base that needs addressing, this means, or at least implies that the SaaS solutions require a wider setup, other paths of non-repudiation and a very different approach to data, its quality, its controls and the application of the results in any report or estimation towards costings and profit. It is a path of contribution, which is set as revenue minus costing.

For the better part an entirely new path in a setting that has for too long been about a rigid collection of data, which when compared to a setting in a flexible framework no longer holds a candle and will come with the implied death of data quality. in these places there will be a growing need for a data team that has the sole purpose of managing the quality of data, this path is one that IT has never worked on to the degree it had, because in the past systems were set in concrete and after the correct data pass had been made, the data usually would not require ‘resetting’ it in another framework, a change that will be almost evident in the systems we will see start in the next 4 years. There, for some the problem becomes that they have never contemplated the changes, which now also means that once they go into the deep of it all, the time required and the resources required will be a lot more draining than ever before. It is in that path that we see the danger of politicians and technocrats in the required path of objectives and policies. As there is plenty of evidence that so far this track record is not that great, we will see a squandering of funds and a dangerous curve of unprotected data whilst no one will be actually held accountable for the transgressions against those consumers aka victims.

So on this last day there is no way that any solution will be found, just take in the information and next week wonder what on earth is about to hit you, there is some speculation in this, yet I believe that the ‘objective callers’ (read: politicians) will rely on the word ‘glitch’ a lot more than ever before, it might just become the most popular word for 2017.

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Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as 5G, Attica Bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Brexit, EC, EEC, Euclid Tsakalotos, F-35, Financial Times, Forbes, France, Frexit, IaaS, IMF, Lockheed, Marine Le Pen, Mark Carney, MIG, Natixis, Natixis Global Asset Management, NATO, Nexit, NGAM, NHS, PaaS, Pantalakis, reuters, Saas, the Guardian, The Independent, the Netherlands, Ubisoft, UK, Yannis Stournaras

December 30, 2016 · 13:22

In speculated anticipation

This is on a matter that is slippery like a promiscuous nymphomaniac lady contemplating monogamy. In a world where any person next to you could be a pimp, a whore or merely psychotic. Welcome to the cold war! Merely a few hours ago, the Guardian gave us ‘Obama orders sanctions on Russia after campaign hacking during US election’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/29/barack-obama-sanctions-russia-election-hack). Now, we have known the CIA and other parties to be blatantly incorrect when it came to Sony and North Korea. Yet, here in this case, there are a few elements in play where it is indeed more likely than not that if there was real interference that Russia would have been guilty, involved or at the very least privy to the events. In this China is a lot less likely, because as business deals go, they are a lot better of with the Ignorance of former State Secretary Hillary Clinton, than they will ever be with President elect Donald Trump, so as the calling of garden grooming spades, the one turning the soil is overly likely to be the Russian side.

There was an earlier article referred to in this one, where we see: “He dodged whether Putin personally directed the operations but pointedly noted “not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin”“, which is actually incorrect. You see, and President Barack Obama know this to be an absolute truth is that deniability is essential in some operations. Yet, in this even as President Vladimir Putin would have been kept in the dark (likely by his own request), it is less likely that Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu is involved, yet if the GRU was involved than Igor Korobov would know for sure. You see, the FSB is the second option, yet for those who have seen some of the reports that Darknet has regarding investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov gives at some parts the inclination that the FSB funding on more advanced cyber actions was lacking making the GRU the opponent of choice. This comes with the assumption from my side that less advanced equipment would have given US cyber sides a lot more data to show earlier that Russia was intervening with the elections. The reports of a group called Fancy Bear gives way to the technology they get access to and the places they can access them at. There is another piece that I have not been able to confirm, it is speculative and even as it gives base to giggles of all matters, it remains a speculation. It is said that Fancy Bear operatives have been able to work from North Stockholm, if so, they might have accessed the IBM backbone there, which has a massive amount of data pushing power. Giving way that the US gave powers to enable hacking of the US election system, live is just too cynical at times.

Another quote is also linked to this, but not from the cyber point of view. “Obama repeatedly weighed in on what he saw as increased polarization in the United States. “Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave. How did that happen?”“, in that my response would be ‘Well Mr President, if you had gotten of your ass and actually do things instead of politicising things. If you would have actually kept a budget and not push the US into 20 trillion of national debt people might be less on the fence for the other side, right?‘ There will be no reply because not only as this administration been close to useless, the actions of the last few days where the new electorate gets an agenda pushed down its throat where a clear cooperation with terrorist organisations is seen is plenty of food for thought, yet that rave needs to seize as it does not completely apply to the case at hand!

There are however other matters for concern “In a conference call with reporters, senior White House officials said its actions were a necessary response to “very disturbing Russian threats to US national security”“, which beckons three things:

1. Why was it a conference call and not on every video or a live presentation?
2. Wow long has this been actually known?
3. Where is the actual evidence?

Like Sony, like other parts, the press wants to see evidence and NONE has been presented. No station, as far as I have been able to tell has shown any schematic on how the election could have been tampered with evidence. There are hundreds of anti-Clinton and anti-Trump conspiracy theorist videos, yet none form any reputable news channel. Which also now gives voice to the thought whether the US intelligence branch in this administration has been the biggest joke ever (North Korean accusations et al).

Still in all this, the US is pushing for a cold war, which might not be the worst thing, yet as the US is to be regarded as bankrupt, the upgrades that will involve a data centre and 4-6 billion in equipment and resources is something there will be no room for any day soon.

So what is this about? Is this about the Democrats being really sore losers? I am not sure what to think, yet the entire approach via conference calls, no presentation of evidence, there are a few too many issues here. In addition, if there was evidence, do you not think that President Obama would present it, to show at least that he is capable of publicly smiting President Putin? Let’s face it, he does need to brownie points. Yet, in light of some evidence not shown, the actions at the 11th hour, are they a sign that the Democratic Party will be relying on act that some could regard as Malfeasance in office? Of course these people will not need to give a second thought as they will be removed from office in a few weeks, yet to leave open the next public officials to added pressures to clean up not just their last 8 years of action, but in addition acts of impeding elected officials could have long term consequences. Let’s not forget that the Republican Party starts with both a Republican Senate and Congress, as well as their guy in the White House, so if the Democratic Party wants anything to happen, being nice is pretty much their only option.

In addition, when we look at the US recount (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/28/election-recount-hacking-voting-machines), we see first off ‘US recounts find no evidence of hacking in Trump win but reveal vulnerabilities‘, in addition we see “In Wisconsin, the only state where the recount was finished, Trump’s victory increased by 131 votes, while in Michigan, where 22 of 83 counties had a full or partial recount, incomplete data suggests was a net change of 1,651 votes, “but no evidence of an attack”“, which is not amounting to evidence in total, we do see that two places were not intervened with, still the system is setting the pace that there are future concerns. The message ““We didn’t conclude that hacking didn’t happen,” he told the Guardian, but “based on the little evidence we have, it is less likely that hacking influenced the outcome of the election” does clearly state that hacking did not happen, it is given with some clarity that any hacking if it happened, that the outcome was not influenced by hacking. This now gives rising concerns to James Comey and what is happening on his watch. More important, the responses that the Guardian had (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/fbi-dhs-russian-hacking-report) where we see “The report was criticized by security experts, who said it lacked depth and came too late” as well as “Jonathan Zdziarski, a highly regarded security researcher, compared the joint action report to a child’s activity center“, which is not the first time we see it. More important is the quote “Tom Killalea, former vice-president of security at Amazon and a Capital One board member, wrote: “Russian attack on DNC similar to so many other attacks in past 15yrs. Big question: Why such poor incident response?”” is exactly the issue I had in the initial minute of the information being read by me and that is not the only part of it. The fact that the involved parties seem to be lacking more and more in advising actions as well as a clear cyber security pathway (the Clinton private mail server issues) that is correctly enforced and checked upon. The utter lack of proper ‘Common Cyber Sense‘ as seen for close to a decade at present all over official and governmental US is cause for a large amount of problems, yet the amount of evidence produced that there actually was Russian Cyber actions into changing the election results have not been brought and was brought was done in a very unconvincing way, in a way that top people had deniability of involvement in fingering the Russians. The PDF reads like something less serious in a few ways. You see, the techniques described are not wrong, but it leaves it open to who was the participating party. It could have been mere private hackers, the Russian Mafia is also a cyber-player. The fact that alleged actions from summer 2015 are only now coming into the light. Is that not equally strange? By the way, the fact that Russian intelligence would try to ‘visit’ the files of the US Democratic Party is not that weird. Is there any indication that NSA, GCHQ and ANSSI would not have been accessing (or trying to) the United Russian party servers for intelligence is equally silly! Neither shows intent to influence an election. Let’s face it, Benghazi was a large enough mess to sway the vote in the first place and US insiders were all too happy to leak information, the Russian merely had to sit back, laugh and drink Vodka. In addition, the fact that malware was on the systems in not in question, it happens too often in too many places, yet clear evidence that APT28 or APT29 were the culprits implies router information, router data and clear information on when EXACTLY is happened (summer 2015 is a little too wide). More important, this also implies that proper malware defence was NEVER in place, so how shallow do these people want to get?

From page 8 we start seeing the true ability of the intelligence to envelope themselves into the realm of comedy. Items like ‘Update and patch production servers regularly‘ and ‘Use and configure available firewalls to block attacks‘ as well as ‘Perform regular audits of transaction logs for suspicious activity‘, these events should have been taking place for a long time, the fact that registered events from 2015 and now show that these mitigation elements are mentioned imply the fact that IT reorganisation has been essential is a larger issue and heavy on comedy if that has been absent for 2+ years. I think negligence becomes a topic of discussion at that point. The least stated on ‘Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls‘ the better, especially if they haven’t been in place. So in retrospect, not having any ‘evidence’ published might have been better for the Democratic Party and especially for James B. Comey and Jeh Johnson. The main reason is that these events will have a longer term implications and certain parties will start asking questions, if they don’t, those people might end up have to answer a few questions as well.

In that regard the Guardian quote “The question hasn’t even been asked: ‘Did you take basic measures to protect the data that was on there?’“, a question that seems basic and was basically voiced by Sean Spicer on CNN. The fact that according to 17 intelligence agencies agree (as quoted by CNN), brings worry to those agreeing and the laughable bad quality PDF that was released. Consider that we are seeing the reaction of unanimous agreed intelligence without any clear presented evidence, actual evidence, so what are they agreeing on? As stated by Sean Spicer in the CNN interview, the burden of proof is on the intelligence community. Especially as there is an implied lack of due diligence of the Democratic National Committee to secure their IT systems. The fact that the implied lack of diligence should give view to the fact that there are plenty of American citizens that are anti democrats in the US alone to give worry on WHO have been jogging through the DNC servers.

A view that seems to have been overlooked by plenty of people as well.

In the act of anticipated speculation we should speculate that proper presentation of the evidence will be forthcoming. The presentation on a level that will give a positive response from security experts will be a lot to ask for, yet in all this, you should be asking yourself the one question that does matter, it is possible that the FBI got it wrong three times in a row? If so, in how much trouble is Cyber America?

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Tagged as Andrei Soldatov, ANSSI, APT28, APT29, CIA, CNN, Democratic National Committee, DGSE, DHS, FBI, FSB, GCHQ, GRU, Hillary Clinton, Igor Korobov, James B. Comey, Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obama, President Elect Donald Trump, President Vladimir Putin, Ronald Reagan, Sean Spicer, Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoygu, State Secretary Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin

Lawrence van Rijn – Law Lord to be

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Short Stories, part 1

The Newspaper, the cross and the arrow

We get it, but we don’t

The reality of danger

An audited symphony in Green

This last day

In speculated anticipation

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