December 8, 2014 · 16:37

Should I run for office?

That was the question I was wondering about yesterday. I am not much of a politician, but I feel that the current batch is not getting anything done in the UK, so why should I, an Australian consider running for office in the UK? Well, first reason is that my heritage is there, but more important, whatever hits the UK, will impact on Australia in more than one way later down the track, so getting the punches in for the commonwealth all over is not the worst idea to have.

So who to join? Labour, well, they are not getting anything done at present, and in two nations, Labour had spent enough to cover the budget of more than two nations. Liberal Democrats?

I do not think they are anywhere near fit enough to govern and Nick Clegg is not making it any easier with promises that get set back. I see them as the party that grows a little by having the backs of the conservative party, which makes it a follower, they are not leading. I have seen man great and small, I have met leaders, I do not regard Nick Clegg to be one.

So now we have two remaining, the Conservatives and Ukip. Now we get a new issue. If we regard today’s news: ‘Ukip recruits BBC’s ‘Gobby’ as communications director‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/07/ukip-bbc-gobby-communications-director-paul-lambert-nigel-farage), we see a game changer. Ukip is beefing up their political engine with a heavy weight. We see the quote that draws us in first “Over the past few years I have been following the work of Ukip and Nigel Farage, and I feel that he is changing British politics for the better. I am delighted to be able to add my experience to his team“, now we get to the issue! Yes, Nigel Farage is changing politics, the question is, is it for the better?

It is a dangerous issue to debate, I can only debate it from my -point of view and for the most we seem to depend on past political achievements, what are they? Here, we see the Telegraph and the Daily Mail handing us a part that actually matters (who would have thunk it). The headline already gives us the beef of the issue ‘British politics is broken – and only Nigel Farage is profiting‘, which is how we seem to regard UK politics, within the UK and outside of it. The article gives us this bit “There has been no Axelrod figure lurking behind Mr Farage, trying to make him say the right things or wear the right clothes. He has advanced to his position of unprecedented public influence on his own terms. Voters sense this and respect it“, it is in actuality a much stronger recognition than most realise. The people want a person who does HIS (or HER) things, not chewed down, analysed and reshaped for maximum potential. We all want to meet the ‘real’ politician. Nigel has been playing that part and played that card brilliantly. He has a decent amount of charisma which does not hurt either. The Daily Mail is less subtle about it. ‘But this is what you get when a smug metropolitan elite treat the people with contempt, writes Dominic Sandbrook‘ here we see “What Mr Farage has tapped into is a widespread national discontent that cannot merely be dismissed — as some metropolitan commentators have tried to do — as racism or xenophobia“, there is a little more than that, but the elements are shown, by the way, the picture of Nigel Farage holding a pint helped Nigel enormously. The people are seeing a person THEY can relate too, both Ed Miliband and David Cameron forgot about that. I saw Ukip as a serious concern in May 2013 at ‘UKIP or U.K.I.P? (Ur Kiddin’ I Presume?)‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/04/ukip-or-u-k-i-p-ur-kiddin-i-presume/)

I still see myself as a conservative, yet here things are not going so good either. Part of this is David Cameron’s own fault. Ukip should have been treated more seriously long ago, now they are gaining momentum, whilst the conservative train is losing speed. I think that the conservatives did play the game right for most, but it is the game that the voters have had enough off and they are looking somewhere else at present, which gives us this predicament. So where should I run for office in the UK? (Beside a few minor glitches regarding not being a British citizen). When I look at my family’s history, then there are a few options. I would look at my family’s history to behold my options. The first place is Saffron Walden, which has a link to my grandmother’s heritage. There we see the conservatives with Sir Alan Haselhurst clearly in seat, no threat of Ukip coming there any day soon. The next part is my great grandfather, which gives me Exeter. Here we see Labour as a temporary majority. Now we have ourselves a ball game. I have to work the brain magic, because on looks, Ben Bradshaw, will easily win. Dominic Morris is in the prospective seat for the conservatives and he is not strong, he needs support. Perhaps Dominic would consider the photograph on his LinkedIn profile? Which if the 5 persons is he? Not the best setting for a former RAF trained pilot, only two jobs of 2 years of more, the rest were all mere months. Not the greatest profile here, but it does read slightly distinguished.

You see, here Ukip has an advantage; Keith Crawford is a business man, on YouTube you can see that he knows how to address an audience, showing how EU costs are costing the British people a fortune. He is a former soldier who shaped himself and went into business, her shows that he has options, he worked hard and he made it, an Englishman in England. Dominic Morris will have one hell of a fight on his hands and not just a real fight; he is less likely to win on the data I am seeing. Especially as Keith Crawford is discussing both cheap labour and freedom of movement, we see that Keith has the ability to win this election. I am ready for this fight if need be!

The weirdest part is that I worry about in this fight is that Keith Crawford could have been a formidable Conservative, not with the looks of Ben Bradshaw, but with the voice, the insight and knowledge to be better than Ben Bradshaw. Not that Bradshaw is all looks, as a graduate from the University of Sussex, he has his degrees and he has been a member of parliament since 1997. Still, at present it is about economy and jobs, which is why (as I see it) Labour is to be regarded out of its depth and with a less then strong representation from the conservatives, Ukip could sweep the votes with no less than 45-54%, which leaves the other 2 (we will disregard the chances of the Liberal democrats here) by a lot.

So, where do I stand, how can I make a difference? That is not a given at all, I remain conservative, but to some extent Ukip is voicing the issues many conservatives have, which is why there is such problem. To some extent, there is more at play then the visible items and those attacked by Ukip do not bare them out, moreover, if Nigel Farage gets the majority and he makes an exit from the EEC, we will see those hidden issues out in force, moreover, the act will drive both Germany and France into a coalition of desperation, they will drive every opposition to anything the UK brings and they will try to remove the economic wind from the sails of economy as much as possible, with less than a 1% positive economy, that could play out to be a very expensive lesson. Yet something must be done ant the status quo is no longer acceptable as is, which conservatives to some degree acknowledge in relative silence, Ukip is shouting out the slogans, but there is more in play then a slogan, which is the issue the British audience will learn the hard way after that.

So as we see that Ukip is now bringing out the big guns, we see an electorate that is leaning towards a massive win for Ukip. Consider that only 19 months ago, Ukip was not regarded as a serious threat. I think it is time to see that Ukip will change the landscape, now you the British readers think back to how your Labour/conservative MP regarded Ukip and see the now, wonder how trivialising their presence has resulted in Ukip becoming the next party as it stands. Now ask that MP what else he trivialised and get to work on those items, because as I see it, avoidance of Ukip is no longer an option, but make sure that all MP’s are awake now and that the Tories (and Labour to a lesser extent) have a fighting chance. Because, like Front Nationale (France), Ukip was disregarded as serious opposition, now we see this “The far-right Front National (FN) scored a historic victory in elections to the French senate on Sunday, winning its first ever seats in the upper chamber as the ruling Socialists and their leftwing allies lost their majority to rightwing parties” (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/28/front-national-wins-seats-french-senate-first-time), we are about to see a lot more changes, many we will not like in the long run.

 

 

 

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December 6, 2014 · 20:43

Not just telling you so!

This article took a little time. There is so much not happening, it is almost scary. Yet, I found a few issues that gave way to the following topics from both the past and the upcoming present.

The Dutch Economy will recover slower according to the IMF (at http://nos.nl/artikel/2007483-imf-langzamer-herstel-economie-nederland.html). Here we see the following statement in regards to this: “Het IMF dacht in oktober nog dat de Nederlandse economie volgend jaar met 1,4 procent zou groeien, dat is nu iets naar beneden bijgesteld op 1,2 procent. Dit jaar wordt een groei verwacht van 0,8 procent. Dat is overigens iets meer dan de 0,6 procent die het IMF een jaar geleden verwachtte“. “Translated: The IMF expected the Dutch economy to grow next year with 1.4%, which is downgraded to 1.2%, this year the economy will grow with 0.8%, which is slightly better than the 0.6% expected a year ago“.

Yet, when we look at my blog dated May 15th 2013 ‘A noun of non-profit‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/15/a-noun-of-non-profit/), we see the following: “The Dutch NOS reported the prediction that even though the Dutch economy will shrink another 0.5%, they do predict a growth of 1.1% next year, so basically, they expected the economy to grow 1.1%“, so that story about “this year the economy will grow with 0.8%, which is slightly better than the 0.6% expected a year ago“, seems to be retroactive rhetorical whimsy (a sort of economic BS using numbers, as I see it). When we see the predictions on how they were ‘so close’, it is in its most colourful form an example about a guy having unprotected sex and then cry out ‘but I almost did not get her pregnant!’, yes, pragmatically speaking he failed by a mere six inches (you the reader can connect the dots, can’t you?).

You see, this is not whether I am right or wrong (it is a nice side effect), I am postulating the issues of managing Bad News. We see this happen all over the world, even in the more respectable places like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. There are cogs in the system, but between these cogs is one extra cog that is slightly variable in size. You see, if the cogs are consistent as a watch, then they are always at one speed. Yet economies do not run like that, so the spring that drives it is not consistent in strength and resilience, as such the cogs would be a little variable in displaying the economy, now here is the magic cog, it is placed between two cogs so that it can shrink or expand, so as the economy slows down, then so does that cog, which means it rotates faster and commercial times will move through with the same consistency, we do not get to notice the slowing. Yet, this approach is virtual, it is nice on paper, but in reality, the money is not coming in, so the people have to make due with less, but the economy shows growth, no matter how much we cannot afford food and the items for our creatures comfort.

I think that the IMF is aware of this to some extent. Euro nations have been optimising their presentations in a few ways. Mind you, then are not cooking the books, but at times as the situation is generic, there are all kinds of posts that could be included or excluded, the difference is billions allowing for an upgrade or downgrade by one or two tenths of a percentage point. That is at the heart of it, now we see this for almost a dozen nations and the colourful loom that is called the EEC economy is now a lot less white and its product shows a fabric in all the colours of the rainbow, which is what we face now. We get incorrect presentation which will require a lot more adjusting. Doubt me? Then consider the two quotes that I showed earlier from the IMF. In an economy of 770 billion (previous Dutch GDP), the offset comes down to 3.85 billion, that covers a lot of bills. Now that you see this, consider how inaccurate some need to be to base a budget on something that is off by almost 4 billion, which is 50% of the entire budget for defence. How can this not have been ‘predicted’ better? Well, here is the crux, prediction are never accurate (and 4 billion out of 770 billion is a mere drop), yet in the end, governments all over the world will always portray them to be in a better position, then downgrade that view, yet with billions at risk, that approach seems short-sighted to me. It is almost a forced attempt to spend where there is no money, which is how we all got to be in this predicament to begin with.

To illustrate it, I will grasp to the article and link of a story done by Greg Jericho, who does an excellent job of it. It is called ‘Why isn’t the government being held to account on the China free trade deal?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/nov/20/why-isnt-the-government-being-held-to-account-on-the-china-free-trade-deal). I do not completely agree with his assessments, but overall the picture that is painted here is quite clear and not incorrect. The first quote in this regard it “The modelling, which was used in the feasibility study, estimates that had a free-trade agreement been signed in 2005 by 2015, our GDP would have been about $3bn more than it would have otherwise been. Is that much? Well it’s about 0.37% bigger. So no, it’s not much at all“. Yes, I have warned in previous articles how dangerous it is to compare statistics, what I had not mentioned at that time, which was not in play, is that changing the base of measurement is also a good way to ‘lie with statistics’, as the article points out. I had done an example in a class I have years ago on founding a hypothesis. In there I used a Dutch municipality data set. When I compared the two in one graph, it showed how the states that were adjacent to the river ‘the Maas’ had decreased in average population, in those years that river caused damage due to flooding in several towns. Yet, the municipalities are all over that state, so does it apply? How to prove it? That is an entirely different question.

Now, I have nothing against free trade, but when we consider the large corporations not paying tax at all due to artistic accounting, adding fuel to the fire to give these large firms even more options to avoid taxation is not a good thing. So that net revenue, how is that taxed, what is more important, once this agreement is in place, how long until Google, Apple and Amazon will change their parameters to include that setup to avoid paying more taxation. How does that help Australia or Australians in any way, shape or measure? When that graph changes, export slows down and imports of all measure go up, how will free trade benefit then? I am not stating that this will happen, I am just wondering what happens if it does.

The one statement by Greg I disagree with is the one at the end “A free-trade agreement is no more a guarantee of economic growth than not having one is“; I would state “A free-trade agreement gives a lot more danger to tax avoidance on several levels than not having one“. Google, Apple and several others proved that point for the last 4 years, at present there is little chance of seeing them pay any taxation for at least another three years, then there is the solar panel debacle, but the least said the better. The fact that there is a decent issue with well over 50% of the panels (out of 600-1000 manufacturers) should give an indication that this free trade agreement, does not necessarily mean that quality will improve, with free-trade in play, that list consisting of dozens upon dozens of articles will sharply rise. How to guarantee that quality? The article does not reflect on that (was not meant to do so), but that issue will be (better stated should be) on our minds too. There is however one side that we should consider. We forget how rich the Chinese culture is. I believe that China could become a serious player on the video games market. Some of these stories would translate into different genres of games on every console. I am not talking about South South East China (most people call it Taiwan), I am referring to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. One of the strongest cultures has not presented itself digitally in any strong way, which is a shame, because in the end, gamers care for good games, not where it was made.

Why the jump to games and gaming? Well, it is one of the markets I know a lot of. We might be on par with IT, engineering and other options, but gaming in China, original gaming in China is a relative unknown. We tend to look at Japan for that. Well, guess what, Nintendo has been rereleasing games for some time now (good games mind you), but they are slowly becoming an iteration of what was an original concept. It is not about the games (well, it is only to some extent), I believe that new innovation, new IP and new, truly mindboggling advances come from interaction. We need IP, advances and new opportunities, these come from fields we have not seen yet. If you doubt it, consider 1993, when a game named Doom entered into our lives. Most will not remember it, but it changed gaming in a massive way. I still believe that this game became the spark that would be the conception of what would become in 1998 the Unreal engine. That would change gaming forever, even today, 16 years later, many games are relying on the unreal engine, and some of the artwork created today through the Unreal engine is so amazingly sharp that it makes the result almost undistinguishable from reality. That is the foundation I believe we can see, another jolt in the advance of gaming. That is a development which will not just remain in gaming, as unreal developed, it developed a commercial need for 3D technologies and it even has military applications in more than one nation today. I believe that the multi-billion dollar games industry has the potential to drive a trillion dollar commercial need for innovation; we only need to find the right combination to make it work.

That’s just the opinion of one blogger, but I feel fairly certain it is a shared opinion.

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December 1, 2014 · 22:12

Show me the money!

That is what I wanted to shout out loud today, not because of a scene between Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr, but because of the story written by Larry Elliot (the Guardian economics editor). He is not wrong, probably with his insights and degrees he is more right than anyone else so why am I all up in arms about it? You see, if he is right then there is something extremely wrong with this world. Here is the crux, either he is wrong, or the bulk of the planet has become demented. What will it be?

Why do I consider this to be my view?

The view evolves when we consider the following aspects of the British economy. First there is “The budget deficit will be almost £100bn this year and is rising. It was supposed to be below £40bn. If the current Treasury chief secretary, Danny Alexander, is foolish enough to leave a little note for his successor, he will only need to insert one word into the one penned by Byrne: still” and “Britain currently enjoys the sort of growth rate that Germany, France and Italy can only dream about. The economy should expand by 3% this year, making the UK the fastest growing G7 nation. Jobs are being created at a record rate, a development that explains why Britain is proving a magnet for migrants from the rest of the EU“, we have seen this. Yet, as immigration is not capped to the extent it should be, jobs go to the cheap Polish workers, whilst we see a massive +50 workforce unable to get jobs, which we get from the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/13/unemployment-fall-masks-jobless-over-50s). “Bennett is one of more than 400,000 people over 50 in the UK who is registered as unemployed, according to the latest official jobs data released yesterday“, you see, the mature experienced workforce is deemed useless in many areas and as such, the economy will take two hits. The first one is that these people in the end still cost money, in the second that as companies rely on cheap labour; we see that they go three steps forward, two steps back; it is getting them nowhere fast and at great expense too. So as those people have an income, the companies are just scraping by, having therefor the dubious benefit of living at tax level zero. That keeps the Osborne coffers (also known as the UK treasury) pretty empty.

Let’s take a look at some events linked here “Former BBC director general Mark Thompson has said sorry for the £100m failure of the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative (DMI)“, “Siren police IT project’s £15m failure a ‘debacle’” and not to forget “Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £10bn so far“. There is a level of sheer incompetence that is beyond measure. Yet, I think it goes further than that, I think that as areas have cut back and scrapped from the bottom of the barrel, we see cogs of non-comprehension that just twirl having no connection to any other cogs. Companies, which are no longer structured in the old ways, but still presented as such, they are niches into rooms, where only the manager has access. Like the American cubicles, that only one person oversees, absent of checks and balances, whilst the people no longer talk to each other, no clear communication. That represents the new era of work. The 50+ population have seen why there are issues with the cubicle approach and the manager who needs to get the task short-sightedly done is barring 50+ from being hired, this results in a sliding slope of minimised success.

What do they have to do with one another?

Let’s get back to the writing of Larry Elliot at this point “It took until 2013, however, for the level of output to get back to its pre-recession level, the slowest recovery of the post-second world war era. Osborne thought the economy would cope with austerity better than it did. He underestimated the impact of higher VAT and cuts in spending on growth. The chancellor thought his tough deficit reduction plan would boost growth by generating more confidence in the private sector that the books were being balanced. He was wrong. The upshot was weaker growth, lower than expected tax revenues and higher than expected borrowing. Half way through the coalition’s term in office, Osborne abandoned the idea of sorting the deficit in one parliament, and reverted to a more modest plan akin to that drawn up by his predecessor, Alistair Darling”

The crux is “The upshot was weaker growth, lower than expected tax revenues and higher than expected borrowing“. I think that it is not entirely correct! Yes, Elliot writes the truth, but behind the curtains we see projects failing due to bad decision making (like the headlines mentioned earlier), in addition we see mergers of an unparalleled size “The chemist chain Boots is being sold to the American retail company Walgreens in a £10bn deal that is delivering a huge pay-day for its private equity owners“, which sounds nice, but how does that fill taxation coffers? It does not!

Corporate choices are made to avoid taxation like “U.S. Treasury Seen Loser in Tax-Avoiding Pfizer Move to U.K.” is at the heart of the second tier of failures. Not a failure by George Osborne, but a failure by their corporations that bleed nations dry, whilst not being held accountable, there the nations have failed themselves by not alter the proper legislations to avoid these acts of non-taxability. Whatever happens next will happen too late, the coffers are empty and those who walked away will do so in non-taxable luxury for the rest of their lives and the lives of the next 3 generations of their family to come.

The next part has a few issues (none of them are Larry Elliot) “The foundation notes that two-thirds of people who have moved from unemployment into work in the last year are paid below the living wage, the average self-employed person earns 13% less than they did five years ago and there are around 1.4m contracts not guaranteeing a minimum hours. Over half of them are in the lower-paying food, accommodation, retail and administrative sectors” Many of these lower paid jobs are all about areas where we see high rent, a massive drive to turn around orders and well above counted hours are needed. Life in London (as well as in Sydney) has become a life not unlike hyenas. These bosses are trying to stay afloat, which they do by hiring the weak, the cheap and the manipulative. One waitress mentioned this in a forum “Now I understand I am competing with people on the dole who can be near enough forced to work for free but it still sounds a bit shady“, the mention has bearing, as people are pushed more into unpaid extra hours, less rights, less options and less energy, we see a community that has devolved from symbiotic into parasitic, with only one winner in the end, the landlord!

Both the UK and Australia have been unwilling to deal with this entity, leaving the people at large to fend for themselves without any support.

The next part is a statement of fact, there is nothing against it in any way “If it is taking longer than expected to knock the budget deficit back into shape, the same can be said of Osborne’s other objective – to boost exports from a re-invigorated manufacturing sector so that Britain once again pays its way in the world”

How to go about it is at the heart of it and several options are open as they always are, but consider that out of a dozen avenues, one is a solution, three are deadly and the rest tend to have a costly non solving effect. Several parties in play, not Just George Osborne, but in that same view, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown all had the same flaw (as I personally see it). Instead of finding a solution that is a mere band aid, they all failed to seek the solution which had the visionary idea to include the next generation. I had that idea on two instances; the one that matters here is the article ‘What’s in a health system?‘ on June 29th 2014, where I state “When people ask which company will do this, the answer should be ‘None!’. The UK is filled with universities, some of them regarded as the most prestigious and brightest on the planet. Consider that most IT people, might claim experience, yet their drama skills are the only ones that improved for the most, is it not up to the Universities, those who are introduced to the newest ideas, design a solution that would make the work of the doctors and nurses at the NHS better, slightly more efficient and a truckload of less hassle! Is that such a tall order?”

Like a regional solution for a independent Scottish IT environment, the visionary approach is to bring this to the universities, to develop a new system, not just a mere frame that goes on top of something else, but an actual new system, LINUX based option, a security enhanced LINUX for healthcare, one that is designed, not for 2016, or 2017, but for the next generation. Why not give the universities access to design their new future, not leave it to these current so called executives that waste up to 20 billion not delivering anything. That visionary approach is missing and it could be the death of us all (UK and Australia alike), we have so many similar issues, why not tackle them together, open up avenues that have never been considered. If you want visionary, then look at the Netherlands, they decided to change the bicycle lanes into solar panels, do you have ANY idea how many bicycle lanes the Netherlands has? It is actually a visible percentage of that nation’s surface. Now, they decided to give it a second function, which means generating electricity, without needing any space at all, illuminating the bicycle road through fluoresces, making it safer at night. They decided to attack road safety and energy issues all at the same time. That is the level of innovation we need to see, preferably without spending another 20 billion pounds. So how about changing, or better stated evolving universities and giving them a real hand in innovation and solving future problems we have ignored and left dead for granted (like the NHS).

The last part is seen here “Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: “I am not that bothered about being behind on economic competence. In opposition, we are always behind on economic competence. Brown and Blair were at this point before the 1997 election. “I would rather we were further ahead in the polls but the Tories are leaving it a bit late for a feel-good surge. That’s why Cameron is talking about red lights flashing on the dashboard. Maybe he thinks he can scare people into voting Tory.””

I disagree, Ed Balls needs to get scared shitless real fast! George Osborne needs to do something similar! Economic competence is not something that is behind, the indicators are that they are close to non-existent. As numbers are hidden behind the statistics of ‘% of GDP‘ we are diluting ourselves that we have a handle on things, once the message is that the total debt has decreased below 750 billion, we have an actual message, but for now, that 25% decrease is nowhere in sight. Life in the UK is all about meeting the payment of the interest debt, whilst none are tackling any solution regarding the total debt for the future. That danger has been voiced by several players all over the field. The message now is that ‘Investors Underpricing Risk May Threaten Growth, IMF Says‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-17/investors-underpricing-risk-may-threaten-growth-imf-says.html) as well as ‘Flug Flags Underpriced Risk as Investors Drop Corporates‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/flug-flags-underpriced-risk-as-investors-drop-corporates.html), which gets a punch from today’s news ‘New York Hops on $15 Billion Israeli Corporate Bond Boom‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-30/new-york-hops-on-15-billion-israeli-corporate-bond-boom.html). Like the housing in Hackney through Westbrook Partners and Round Hill Capital in the Netherlands, we see again a change in markets (like they always will), but this is different. Like Greece (again) last week with “A Greek official says the country is under pressure from rescue creditors to impose new austerity measures to resolve an ongoing budget disagreement worth a reported 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion)” (at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102222375), we see a market that keeps on getting pushed whilst there is no money left. By the way, those two players (Westbrook Partners and Round Hill Capital), did you consider combining these facts?

Have you considered when Westbrook goes market value and they merge with 2-3 other players (perhaps Round Hill Capital as one of them), when they merge, how much taxation will be missed out then, also, what danger will these tenants be placed in at that point?

So back to Greece and their dwellings, Greece should both be dissolved and offered to Turkey (just to make it sting a little more) or they need to clean up their act, including dealing with these massive strikes. Let’s not forget that Greeks themselves did this to Greece (partially through Goldman Sachs). We see cogs of greed interacting, finding new connections not to be held accountable, whilst its population gets the bill, blaming Germany for all of this. In that same light we see how we are now confronted with underpriced risks. So, not unlike the 2008 crash with all these “sub-prime” borrowers and bailing on 8 trillion, we now see governments trying to intervene by ‘forcing’ banks to make low cost loans to the underprivileged “sub-prime” borrowers, trying to create a fake boom, whilst at the same time, they have created a more likely than not risk that it will only explode in their faces, whilst imploding their economy (this is as I personally see it). Here in the end, we see that the bank wins no matter what, either the government pays them, or they just own it all. Like the landlords of London, it will destroy the quality of life for more and more people, whilst not showing any resolution in solving the actual problems.

This all comes together when we consider the IMF part on underpricing risk (mentioned earlier), there we see the part that is truly linked to all our woes: “Policy makers from the Group of 20 nations meet this week in Cairns, Australia, to discuss ways of boosting global demand. The Fed today maintained a commitment to keep interest rates near zero for a “considerable time.” At the same time, Fed officials raised their median estimate for their policy interest rate at the end of 2015 to 1.375 percent, compared with the 1.125 percent estimate made in June“. The crux: “ways of boosting global demand” it is at the heart of the failures we see. It is worse than bad marketing. The last thing we need to do is boost demand. We need to resolve debts. Yes, the US wants to see demands boosted, as it was one step away from bankruptcy 5 steps ago. They are trying to bluff into a new era of not being dead, whilst they have been unsuccessful in dealing with their debts, having no solution and even less options. We must find another way. If the Netherlands, one of the smallest nations in the world can turn around an age of innovation to their advantage in a novel way never seen before, then so can we! If you wonder how this linked, then consider how their solution can become a new era of energy independence all over South America, parts of America and all over Europe and Africa. Solar panelled roads, a patented solution that can change the face of the earth in one mere step. Once the high pressure solution is done for cars, we will see a new era of energy. Not bad for a place that is famous for wooden shoes and a leaky dike! So where are we in the Commonwealth? Where is our innovation?

In the end Larry Elliott spoke the facts, the truth and wrote an excellent article, I just disagree with the views they link to, in the end, it might be me who was wrong and it is all in the eye of the beholder!

In this age of debt, innovation and Intellectual Property are soon to become the only currency that will have any true value! The Commonwealth needs its own share of those, less it becomes as desperate as America currently is.

 

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December 1, 2014 · 11:33

I have seen this before

It was not a pretty picture this morning. The Australian deficit is about to be blown clearly out of the waters surrounding it. Yes, there was nothing wrong with the initial assessment that Australian would no longer be in the red before 2016. The plan was bold, it was feasible and after the Australian Labor party had blown its spending in the hundreds of billions, from a 57 billion debt, Australian Labor blew the national debt and grew it in excess of 250 billion, in addition, the forward spending spree by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard would give the Liberals a 600 billion headache, and it is a firm headache, which is about to get a lot worse.

Whether we see it as politics, treason or just incompetence, the Labour government seems to have played an intentional game of silencing certain contracts. It is my view that there is not possible, that after only 3 weeks into the liberal government that the car industry decided to just walk away. This was planned all along and they played nice with the Labor party for the view of whatever benefit game was played. So the Liberals ended up with massive invoices and bills that Labor should never have spent, but this is not about that, this is about a second game that has been in commencement. It has been played for a little longer that the Liberals have been at the helm, but in that instance, I will state that neither party is to blame. This is not political; this is political management of another nature.

For the second game I need to take a little detour to the 80’s. When I grew up in the Netherlands, more specifically Rotterdam, I was all about harbours, ships and engineering. My work with IT systems in the harbours gave me an interesting edge. I had access, I was busy all day programming new container solutions in Clipper and I dealt with cargo of several natures. One of the things I used to see on a daily basis was an enormous mountain of iron ore. It was meant for Germany, yet at times that mountain would not shrink; it would grow and grow and grow. In those days it made no sense to me, little did I know!

Now we get back to today, the current administration is about to bleed out no less than 20 billion for the simple reason that revenue of iron has gone down 40%, not that less is produced, no, iron is worth a lot less now. So, to get even, Australia needs to ship 250%, which is not an option. So why sell it at all? Now we get to an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald (at http://www.smh.com.au/business/price-drop-signals-the-end-of-the-iron-ore-age-20140912-10fxr7.html), we see here that the initial rise and fall was all in the previous government, there is also a clear view that not only is this rise temporary, the overall trend shows that the previous government had a lucky break (and still overspend by close to half a trillion), yet the current government is not innocent either as their view on iron revenue should have been downgraded by at least 20%, which would have lessened the impact. Neither is to blame, but also, neither is innocent here. So as we see the solution, we need to worry what will come next?

This is where it gets to be dodgy; it is sheer speculation in my side. I think that someone is playing chipmunk here. I think that a mountain is created using all manners of non-taxation and then they will sell it all off at a massive profit when iron price suddenly makes an upturn. Between March 2010 and April 2010, the price went from 139.77 to 172.47. Even though such a jump is not conceivable, the fact is that if housing improved only a little, iron prices will grow again and it is a global market, so as one person needs more, iron will do better again. so buying and storing when prices are down, transferring to a foreign account and then selling as prices bounce back, will yield massive profits for those non-taxable entities. Is it true? No, it is speculation (from my side), yet we have seen similar acts before, so it is not inconceivable, in addition, the Australian government is bleeding deficits fast, and they are amounting to serious amounts within the next three months.

This part is all on the Liberal side, it is not their fault, but they will need to amend their budgets and forecasts accordingly. And it is not just Australia, the UK has similar issues, yet not to the same extent, but the pressure is there too. The UK will take a 30 billion dive, which is a sizeable amount. This all beckons, why were predictions not made a little less enthusiastically? You don’t skin the bastard until it is dead (and very healthy for the poacher seeking crocs). This again shows the need to take a better look at how certain items are anticipated and budgeted. If you doubt that part, then ask George Osborne and Joe Hockey on how many complications those billions bring and it is not the only worry, because there is a second downside. Whoever has these current mountains of ore, they do have a firm grip on driving prices high soon enough, then what will we do?

So, when did I see this before? Well, that is the fun part; I saw it happen around 1989, when the prices went up a little (16%) form $12 to $14. Yes a mere $2. It becomes an interesting view when we look at the data form the last 30 years. The entire mountain of increase and decrease started pretty much in December 2003, when the price was $13.82. From there it would shoot up to almost $178 (2011), now if it is going back to its foundation price. Why was this not better investigated? How come that a commodity is driven up by 1369%? The final part we see in the Economist (at http://www.economist.com/node/21564559). The quote “In the longer term, overall iron-ore demand will grow as China’s march to urbanisation goes on. Demand in the rich world may be drooping, but Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy, says steel consumption will not peak in China until 2026“. Is that a given? When we consider the site macro business with the article ‘Chinese Iron production is booming‘ (at http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/08/chinese-iron-ore-production-is-booming/), we see the question I had in my mind.  “The one question that nobody in the iron ore sector (or Australia more generally for that matter) dare ask is what if Chinese iron ore production does not close as Australian miners ramp up output. The reason nobody asks it is that the outcome will be calamitous“.

It comes down to, why should China import? They have cheap labour and resources, and they have iron (at http://www.srk.com.au/en/newsletter/focus-iron-ore/iron-mineral-deposits-and-projects-peoples-republic-china), so why import when they can become a supplier themselves. It is not inconceivable that Australian iron moguls like BHP, Fortesque, Rio Tinto and Hancock will see a decline in numbers. There is no way to tell whether it will return to pre 90’s prices, but if China gets their own iron and their demand for it goes down by 70% or more, the hard news hitting us now will be nothing compared to the bash we get when an industry of 250,000 miners will shed part of their people. We thought the car industry was a nightmare, well; consider that under current conditions if 40% less minerals are needed, we might see the shedding of 100,000 people, a level of bad news Australia has never faced before.

Even though Australia mines a lot more than just Iron, the metal impact could be harshly felt in 2015, if the situation does not improve.

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November 29, 2014 · 12:00

Prosecuting the ministry

It is an interesting day, when you get the message that the courts demand the prosecution of the Ministry of finance. Yes, we could feel that a brand new day in the moments of out entertainment will be revealed. It is only 6 days until the feast of Saint Nicholas in the Netherlands; yet, it is already an issue that state secretary Eric Wiebes and minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem could be regarded as naughty boys, with all the trimmings of lessened sweets and candy (at http://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2006257-gerechtshof-eist-vervolging-ministerie-van-financi-n.html).

So what happened?

Well, it goes back to 2009, a tipper sold to the tax office a list of those who were ‘hiding’ their savings in Luxembourg to avoid the Dutch wealth tax. This is a tax that you pay over wealth that you accumulate, you get to save 21,000 euro, a couple can safe tax free 42,000 euro, so above that, you get to pay taxation. The amount is achieved as follows: The tax office takes a position of assumption, that you make 4% over that wealth (in ways like profit or interest), over that profit, 30% taxation is due, so basically, you end up paying around 1.3% over your taxable wealth. It is the Dutch way of showing that saving your wealth is not a good idea, so people left this money in other places, many in Luxembourg. So at this point, the issue gets a little murky.

You see, those ‘black savers’ (from the Dutch word zwart spaarders) demanded in court that the tax office released the identity of this tweeting canary, so that the reliability could be established. The courts agreed on this, and here we have it. Even though the Ministry of Finance did not appeal the issue, they have thus far remained silence on the identity.

Here is my first issue: Was there tax avoidance or not? Either these people have found to be guilty to have funds across the border, or they are innocent. The identity has little or no bearing here, which only seems to make sense in criminal pleads.

So as the courts again demanded the identity of Mr (or Mrs) blabs-a-lot, we get a new issue. The two civil servants remain silent. They claim to have been given instructions not to talk. Yet, these two civil servants are not beyond the law and as such they have no right to remain silent. So what is at stake?

The only quote we have here is the quote “there are other interests in play and there has been tuning towards the choice of actions on the highest levels”, according to the attorney representing the tax office.

So is this about 1-2 billionaires? Because the penalty of the evaded ‘donation’ could be as high as 300%, which means that it will represent a massive bill. This case is all about the money, but about whose money is this? The tax office, as some might decide to walk away taking all their business outside of the Netherlands?

Whatever we speculate, in the end it will be what will happen to these two civil servants and whomever gave the instructions, reason here is that the influencing of witnesses could be rewarded with 4 years in a less comfortable Dutch hotel (read prison).

Yet this song and dance is also showing another side and perhaps another trial. You see, why was the identity of the informer needed? Truly, does this give value to the statement? Let’s not forget the Dutch government could just seize 100% of those accounts, after which those who decided to ‘black save’ will be left with nothing, which is not fair, but it shows another side, these people chose to place their fortunes out of taxation ways, there will be a consequence to that. In addition, if the informer ends up getting harmed, will the court be liable for endangering lives? Is it so far-fetched that the person not getting away with his/her 12 million euro tax bill, that they might take it a little personal?

That will be a discussion for later, yet consider the action as the news of June 10th 2014 revealed (at http://nos.nl/artikel/659185-7500-zwartspaarders-melden-zich.html), where we see that 7500 people reported themselves with illegal savings outside of the Netherlands (to avoid the 300% penalty fee). It seems that these ‘savers’ had well over 4 billion in foreign savings, which is now getting the tax office another 75,000 euro per person, which is a serious amount of money. Yet that information does not seem to be used, how many names have proven to be correct is also a factor, because, no matter how we feel about the act, those who learn the identity of the person costing them 75,000 euro’s might get hunted down, then what will happen, more important, will those who passed verdict be safe from prosecution themselves at that point?

So is revealing the name of Mr Insider correct? Legally yes, but morally?

Yet, we now get to part two of all this, you see, the hunt for the illegal tax sheltering saver is only the tip of the iceberg. As we see nations and taxation make new options, or even heralding other investors, we see that there is a chance that the people by large will be endangered because of this.

For this, we need to consider what I wrote earlier this week in regards to ‘The reality for poor London’ as it was published on November 24th and how there is now a larger danger to the people in Hackney, due to the changes as brought by Westbrook Partners. There it was a mere 99 apartments; in the Netherlands we now see that Round Hill Capital is purchasing almost 3800 apartments for a mere 365 million euro, which means the dumping of apartments for less than 100,000 euros each. This is not the first time that this happens in the Netherlands, last June well over 1500 apartments were sold for 180 million Euro (at http://nos.nl/artikel/2006203-britse-investeerder-koopt-3786-nederlandse-huurhuizen.html), it seems to me that this shifting of funds all over Europe has a second view. Not only are the people facing dangers down the track, the question is that people have been under pressure for living as the cost of living had become almost unbearable, now we see that well over 5300 apartments are now under the watchful eyes of an investment firm. When we regard Hackney and the upcoming 99 evictions, what dangers will these tenants face when the economy might take the smallest turn for the better?

On one side we see people running their savings out of the Netherlands, on the other side we see more insecurity as investment firms are taking a leap to lower yielding fields, what happens when the apartment field is no longer yielding enough? Who gets to deal with that mess then?

I can decently guarantee you that those enabling the current transfer of ownership will not be available for comment at that point.

 

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November 26, 2014 · 23:50

Perception from the outside

It is hard to write about this. Not because of the topic, but because of the implications that derive from the thoughts I have. You see, I have thus far always had faith in the intelligence branch. When we look beyond the implied Hollywood drama of all matters, the intelligence branch is a dedicated underpaid group trying to keep its nation and its citizens safe. Yet, what lies beneath the veneer when we look deeper into certain matters. Are they for real or are we all played by the press to some extent?

This is at the foundation, as we cannot rely on any first-hand information, especially when the press is part of it, we are left with a question mark. One that might not need answering, but one that should not be ignored, this is at the core of me, for better or worse, I seek answers.

This all started yesterday when I got wind of a Guardian article at the earliest of dawn, as a final paper was due, I just left it to look at later (that later is now). The article is ‘Lee Rigby murder: internet firm could have picked up killer’s message – report‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/25/lee-rigby-murder-internet-firm-could-have-picked-up-killers-message-report-says).

Now, this should be a shock, especially to the family members of Lee Rigby, so why is this even a story? It starts with the first paragraph “Internet companies face intense demands to monitor messages on behalf of the state for signs of terrorist intent after an official report into the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby said one of his killers wrote on a website – later named as Facebook – of his desire to slaughter a soldier, without the security services knowing“, was this written by someone who had a clue? If we consider CNet (at http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-processes-more-than-500-tb-of-data-daily/), we see that Facebook processes 500 Tb a day, now this is all manner of data, yet consider another indirect connection when we see ‘Tesco director facing questions about lobbying government over dirty chicken report‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/25/-sp-tesco-director-facing-questions-lobbying-government-dirty-chicken-report), the first paragraphs says it all (as far as information goes) “Former FSA chief Tim Smith understood to have warned Department of Health that revealing food poisoning contamination rates could provoke a food scare and damage the industry“, so when we add the text “Tim Smith is understood to have warned the Department of Health in June that FSA proposals for publishing results, which included naming and shaming individual supermarkets, could provoke a food scare and damage the industry“, so when was all this released to the media? how much delay was there? Consider the implication of the statement in there that “it kills around 100 people and makes an estimated 280,000 sick each year“, now we get back to the implied message that might have saved Lee Rigby, if we take that a message in total is no more than 60Kb (it is a lot smaller, but could include graphics), we are looking at 8 billion messages each day (those we make, we forward or share, those we get offered as advertisement). Now, there is more, Facebook has applications with within that application message options. Not one or two, but a few dozen, which means additional messages, like simple online messengers, all that data, now also consider the implied message that the Guardian mentioned. “The report said the authorities were never told that one of the killers, Michael Adebowale, wrote of his murderous intent six months before he and his accomplice, Michael Adebolajo, brutally attacked Rigby in May 2013 in a street near his military barracks and attempted to behead him“, so finding the message, investigating it and acting on it. In well over 2.5 billion optional threats, the National lottery in the UK has better odds of winning a big price in it, so how did all this come about?

Here we get to the issue “The ISC chair, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, accused internet companies of providing a “safe haven” to terrorists but said a despite a string of failings by the security services, which had repeatedly monitored both men before the attack, there was nothing they could have done to prevent the murder of Rigby“, here I start having an issue, particularly with Sir Malcolm. Consider one sincere threat in a place where there are millions of threats, boasts and pranks, all claiming something pretentiously grandiose. It is my believe that Sir Malcolm is all about trying something different and he going about it the wrong way, he is trying to get to Damascus, via Washington and Los Angeles. Not the brightest route to take. Apart from the approach he is implying to take, he is also forgetting about a series of events that he needs to take, which will fail and in the process will enable commercial companies to actually hammer down on consumers in the wrong way. Does Sir Malcolm realise that, or did he intentionally forget about that part?

What did I mean by that? You see, the intelligence branch has access to enhanced statistical algorithms; they match it via other created profiles. Now, normally such a profile is only created when a person has too many flags in his/her name. For example members of an extreme faction, people with links to organised crime and those with additional political agendas. There is a bunch of reasons which will result on the eye of the intelligence community on you. For the most they are checked every now and then and if nothing happens, nothing happens, it is that simple, which an accumulative approach to sifting data tends to be. This is all good and proper; it is a way to protect national interests. For the most they end up verifying that you are not a threat, or not a concern to them, it comes with their territory.

The intelligence branch has resources, they are there, but they are finite. Sir Malcolm seems to be pushing for a change that is extremely dangerous, you see, at some point, Facebook, Google and others will all be shanghaied into becoming ‘volunteers’ in data oversight. They will get all kinds of tax breaks, so there will be interesting benefits for these data farms, but now we get to the real dangers. At one point, they want more and push for a change that will allow these farms access to those advanced algorithms, now we get a new problem, now we see a change where those farms will get to analyse US ALL! they will have the algorithms and the linked data no commercial enterprise should ever be allowed to have, now we will all be set into those who get access (viable as retail commodity) and those who do not matter, we will get marketed into oblivion, but now directly into the realms we use to love, it will be a push to sway us into a direction we never wanted to go, our freedom becomes a point of pressure. Consider, you might love ‘the Office’, once social media digs deep, how much will you enjoy getting 10-20 sales pitches a day on your personal interests? How long until you stop sharing interests?

Now consider the following:

The ISC said in its report: “Whilst we note that progress has started to be made on this issue, with the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (Drip) and the appointment of the special envoy on intelligence and law-enforcement data-sharing, the problem is acute. The prime minister, with the National Security Council, should prioritise this issue”.

The part not mentioned or looked at is data retention. I wrote about it on October 2nd 2014 in ‘Advice from the press?‘ there I wrote “I am still convinced that if data retention becomes a larger issue, the intelligence community will be lacking in hardware, knowledge and staff to deal with these massive amounts of data, which leaves us open to other issues, yet this is just my view!“, now we see a push that social media will do more scanning.

The next two paragraphs illustrate certain dangers down the track: “Adebolajo, the more dominant of the two, had featured in five MI5 investigations and Adebowale in two, but none found evidence of an attack. The ISC said MI5 made errors and was plagued by delays, but even if corrected none of this would have helped the security service to spot the level of danger posed by the attackers before they struck“, so how could we have kept Lee Rigby alive? The information to the better extent is stating that this would not have been the case and I am not the only one thinking this.

When we consider “The Guardian understands senior figures in MI6 expressed anger at the criticisms in the report. One source familiar with the committee’s work said: “It is fair to say that the chaps across the river are not happy at all.”“, we see another part. This is not just within the UK, the UK needs to protect itself, especially with the ISIS acceleration we see all over North Africa and in the Middle-East; this all requires a new strategy. Data is at the centre of it, that part is correctly seen by Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the ISC. Yet, my issue is the view the man seems to have in regards to integrity. Commercial enterprises have no integrity and to a larger extent, neither do internet providers. So we have an upcoming issue. The next part you the reader might observe is the part that was not clearly seen in the article and it has been part of the events that miss one item as we see these discussions.

What time is it?

Yes, the timeline! That is part of all this. No matter how lovely that ‘donut’ looks in London, the people there have been delaying with an increased amount of data. I personally would consider it to be in excess of 30% in growth per year, which means that the data collectors and analytical group grows over 100% in size in a little over 3 years, the accumulated requirement for the UK, and beyond that the Commonwealth requires growth beyond that. In my view, letting places like Facebook crunch that data and giving them access to some of these algorithms is clearly a bad idea. In addition, consider that these firms could harbour ‘sympathisers’ to chaos. Once these algorithms gets into other hands, how long until those supporting ISIS and like-minded extremists will get a handle on lowering their profile even further, making this entire approach pointless?

That danger is twofold, storage, which is the non-essential part. As storage seems to become cheaper and cheaper, that part will be decently manageable overall, the other part is the issue, processing power. We can want for all the processors we can, but the power processors of tomorrow are less and less equipped to deal with such a growing load of data. Now consider that this is just Facebook, how much additional data will we need to see mail providers, twitter, Instagram and loads of other multi Gigabyte collecting options. There is no denying that data needs to be looked at, yet direct data crunching is less and less an option. The question becomes how to tackle it, can or even the question should it be tackled like this at all?

That is the dangerous side, isn’t it? When we are confronted with such an abundance of data, why seek the pressured solution? Let’s not forget that the example taken here, namely Lee Rigby, would not have been saved. So why try to seek a solution in such a pressured environment? Consider the lottery example; if 1,000 out of the 5 billion are death threats, we get a number one in 5 million, now we need to tackle these 1000 messages, which ones are genuine? Consider that some are below the radar, which means that some could be WRONGLY disregarded. Add to that the danger of a prank jest where a group and all THEIR friends send one threat regarding a VIP, politician or regent. It would drown out intelligence resources in mere minutes.

So yes, no one denies that something must be done, yet giving social media these responsibilities is not the best idea, giving them access in some way to other algorithms is less a solution, we are in a shift of dimensions, an interaction of data dimensions and profiling intelligence. Consider the NSA data center in Utah, costing over 5 billion in total, in addition, the cost of electricity, manpower and other costs, taking it to an additional 50 million a year (for just one location). Now consider that this centre will need to grow processing power in excess of 50% within two years, how much additional costs will it require? Add to this the energy needs, well over 60 Megawatts, yet within 2 years, that could be closer to 80 megawatts. That means in excess of 10 wind turbines, just for one location, the equivalent of 15,000 households of energy. I think that certain parties are not thinking in the right location, if we disregard the lack of expertise and an offer (in abundance) of revenue based (read commission seeking) expertise, it seems to me that even though data should never be ignored, certain approaches will require a different hand.

Perhaps it is not a new solution they need, but to reinstate a very old one.

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November 26, 2014 · 20:20

Below the skin of life

Like many others, I looked at what is going on in Ferguson Missouri and I wonder how things went so out of control. As per today, as I saw events erupt, I decided to take a little look at why this was happening. Not the fact of the boy who was shot, but what brought all this about. Doesn’t it seem strange that the events as they are evolving, that there is little to no mention at all in the press on this?

So what got all this started?

Well there is more than one story. First the one in USA Today (at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/michael-brown-ferguson-missouri-timeline/14051827/)

12:01 p.m. – The officer encounters Michael Brown and a friend as they walk down a street. Brown is shot to death as a result of the encounter.

This is not much, is it?

We get a lot more from the NY Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at-least-6-times.html) Here we see: “At 12:01 p.m., they were stopped by Darren Wilson, a police officer, who ordered them off the road and onto the sidewalk, Mr Johnson, who is 22, later said“.

So this is because two kids were walking on the road and they were told to get on the sidewalk?

I am certain that the press is not hammering on this fact, but it seems to me that this escalation is purely due to events that go way beyond the mere shooting of a teenager named Michael Brown.

The wiki page (not too reliable a source) is slightly more informative, which seemed to be a combination of three papers. There we find: “Michael Brown, an 18-year-old male, died after being shot at least six times by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old Ferguson Police Department officer. Brown was walking in the middle of the street along with his friend Dorian Johnson when Wilson stopped them and told them to use the sidewalk. From there, a conflict between the two erupted at the vehicle, as Brown allegedly assaulted the officer through his window. The officer allegedly reached for his weapon inside his vehicle shooting Brown in the thumb then shooting when Brown allegedly charged the officer, ending with Brown’s death from multiple gunshot wounds“.

So from this part we see a policeman alleged to be under attack. I use alleged as there is conflicting evidence on this. As you read the NY Times article, which is a very good and informative read, we also see a first inkling on how much limelight attention this is drawing.

The article also has a statement that is part of the problem “Thousands of protesters demanding information and justice for what was widely viewed as a reckless shooting took to the streets here in rallies that ranged from peaceful to violent“, this reads in two ways. The first is that if the entire part of moving to the sidewalk is true, then not only did Michael Brown bring this on himself (based on the evidence), but consider this, a cop tells you to get off the road and walk on the footpath, you do this, matter closed, no deaths, no shootings and no city on fire.

Is this oversimplifying the matter?

The second part is that if we alter the previous statement a little (for illustration) “Thousands of protesters demanding information and justice for what was widely viewed as a reckless shooting took to the streets here, rallying violently“, this is not done for correctness, this is done to illustrate one particular group that has been there all along. If you doubt me, then look at the photos of Ferguson in flames. This also leaves a clear indication that there is a lot more at play then we are seeing.

What we see here does not even come close to the London Looting scene from August 6th until August 11th 2011.

There is however a lot more, certain events are escalated in view by possible the press and possibly several political players. Can someone explain to me how it comes that the Brown family, they are, as we can all agree under a sad situation allowed to address a UN conference in Geneva on torture? This is seen in ‘Brown family returns to Ferguson from UN conference in Geneva‘ (at http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/brown-family-returns-ferguson-un-conference-geneva). If we look at Amnesty International (at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ACT40/001/2003), we see a document where on page 36, at 2.4 we see “The CRIPA provided the federal government with an important civil remedy, enabling the US (federal) Department of Justice to seek federal court orders or injunctions to eliminate patterns of abuse or unconstitutional conditions in state and local institutions“. This in itself is not an answer, what is shown that there are issues in play, there are remedies and legal avenues, so why were the Browns in Geneva? Was this a political play and a waste of time? Yes, I state a waste of time, because there are many issues in the world, many nations where torture is a real issue, where in many nations domestic violence against women (which I personally see as torture), is still at the foundation of society ignoring it all the way up to the top of national legislation. This includes Australia, the United Kingdom and several EEC nations as well.

It sounds extremely harsh to say it, but the shooting of an African American walking on the road does not cut it for the UN on torture (but it should be investigated).

It should be investigated, for the reason that we see the statement by Dr Baden in the NY Times to be “The bullets did not appear to have been shot from very close range because no gunpowder was present on his body”

Yet, NBC (at http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/vonderrit-myers-case-cops-say-shot-teen-had-gunshot-residue-n225761) states: “The St. Louis teenager fatally shot by an off-duty officer, which set off fresh protests in an already tense atmosphere, had gunshot residue on his hand and the waistband of his jeans, according to lab results released Tuesday by the police department“.

So there is a conflict of data already, according to the NY Times: “Dr Baden, 80 80, is a well-known New York-based medical examiner, who is one of only about 400 board-certified forensic pathologists in the nation. He reviewed the autopsies of both President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr., and has performed more than 20,000 autopsies himself“. It seems that this person is top notch in his field, which gives ample questions on where the NBC information comes from.

The entire issue that the police officer was attacked in his car! If we go back to USA Today, we see as the timeline for August 10th at 10:00 “10 a.m. – Michael Brown, 18, was unarmed, St. Louis County Police Chief Joe Belmar says in a news conference. Belmar says Brown physically assaulted the officer, and during a struggle between the two, Brown reached for the officer’s gun. One shot was fired in the car followed by other gunshots outside of the car“.

We now have an issue, there is conflicting evidence and the gunshot residue is part of the smoking gun (it really is). So, what happened?

There is an issue on several levels and no matter how the Grand Jury goes; there are massive issues, because the death of one teen (in a nation with well over 17,000 homicides in 16 states) does not seem like a big number (statistically speaking). Linked to this is one more part that we saw in the NY Times “According to what has emerged so far, on Saturday, Aug. 9, Mr Brown, along with a companion, Dorian Johnson, was walking in the middle of Canfield Drive, a fistful of cigarillos in Mr Brown’s hand, police say, which a videotape shows he stole from a liquor store on West Florissant Ave.“, so we see a possible result of a crime, which can only come to light after the facts, we see a shooting with conflicting data.

There is a lot going on in Ferguson, Missouri, yet the press are all focussing on the fires, I have seen little to nothing in regards to how these fires got started in the first place. Is this the direct consequence of a collapsed economy, a collapsed morale anticipating no future? If so, then Ferguson is only the tip of the iceberg and we will see a lot more escalations, likely far beyond the state borders of Missouri.

 

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November 24, 2014 · 11:20

The reality for poor London

It is not a new concept, people who are getting drowned through greed, yet as the Guardian in a video shows us: (at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2014/nov/21/new-era-residents-fight-us-owners-westbrook-london-estate-video), the dangers where greed will not turn people homeless. In addition, the people behind it, Westbrook partners are hiding behind walls and the law. Here is the first part I object to. The law is a shield of protection for victims, not a cloak of unaccountability for the greed driven. However, part of the article that is not shown is the fact that the UK government might have fumbled the ball in a massive way here. I reckon that David Cameron has to attack these issues immediately, because if left untouched, the move from all parties INTO UKIP might be one we have never ever seen before in the history of politics.

So what is actually the case?

Westbrook Partners has been buying real estate on a massive scale; London, New York and Tokyo have been met with a spending spree on acquiring real estate. Buildings have changed ownership, but this change has a difference. This is done for investors of American workers Pension funds (to name but one). They bought property as mentioned in Hackney (inner east London), the residents were told that the rents will now go to market value, this is stated to mean that rents will triple almost overnight, how is that even close to acceptable, moreover, how many will be left to afford such a rent? Consider a rent of 2,500 pounds a month, this comes down to $4,500, I have had decently good paid jobs in IT, but I cannot afford those levels of rent, not in the best of days. Hackney council is currently expecting Westbrook to issue eviction notices. This is worse than just a bad nightmare; dozens of homes will be uprooted for what? Replacement by high rise new building, offering a massive boost to Westbrook Partners, which by the way is a US firm with offices in the UK.

It is not just the immorality of it all, consider that investment firms are now focussing on lower yield options, lower yield locations. Is this because the American wells have dried up? Now, I know that for the most, these things are not an option (or were not an option) in Amsterdam. When Amsterdam saw the 70’s boom in London, they made sure that these dangerous times could not happen there, but it is not a given for all buildings in Amsterdam (outside of the inner city). Consider other places where governments have been lacks with affordable housing. With this I mean Melbourne, Sydney AND Brisbane in Australia, Rotterdam, Delft and Leiden in the Netherlands, Several places in Germany and a few other places. When Westbrook and companies like them start changing the game to this extent, what will happen to the population at large? San Francisco had some events in this direction as Google expanded its views, but this is only the tip of the iceberg, now it is not just housing for a large company, now it is about returns for investors, how long until that part collapses leaving people not just in a state of destitution, but homeless as well?

When we see the article, we see the American Workers Pension Funds, with an image of fire fighters, did these fire fighters know that they are not just saving people, but for their retirement, they are making them homeless too? So is there an issue? Well, Yes!

The issue is at present that what is being done in not illegal, but highly immoral. To force a population out of an area, because of income is like stating that the poor are not allowed in London in any way, how is that not discrimination?

More interesting is how Westbrook was unreachable by the Guardian, their website views like a two page joke giving no information at all. When has an investment firm hiding behind wall of unreachability ever been a good thing? Goldman Sachs has been bad news on a global scale, yet they at least remained reachable. This new era of Westbrook is something entirely different. To see just how dangerous this rent rise is, take a look at the image on this link http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/19/new-era-estate-scandal-london-families-international-speculators, even more interesting is how the New Era estates included a minority share by Conservative MP Richard Benyon, who is pulling out this month, when confronted with these levels of changes. We might think of blaming it all on London’s Westbrook Principle Mark Donnor, but is that fair? Consider that this mess is the continuation of a mess which I witnessed for well over 22 years! Prices in London have always been outrageous and now that the wells are drying up, rental spaces are one of the few low return yielding options. Both political parties should have harshly intervened long before 1995, but they decided not to, now we see a new iteration which could break the London infrastructure. If you wonder why, then let me explain.

London needs workers, they always needed them and most of them live a long way from London, yet now we see a new group, those on a ‘higher’ lower income like Nurses and some tradies who lived in places like Hackney, as they are evicted, they will move further away and they will try to seek work in a place that is not London, as London faces a rental crash, it will also face a workers crash as people are less willing to live 2-3 hours away from work, we see the need to find other avenues to contain their work-life balance, that means working somewhere else. You might think that this is exaggeration in regards to 92 households in Hackney, but do you think it ends here?

If we consider the quote “The letter said they had secured an agreement not to increase rents again until 2016. However, it added: “Since this week’s departure of the Benyon Estate we understand the council have now been informed that Westbrook no longer plan to honour that plan, and have been told that their plan is to refurbish the current estate in its entirety and then rent all the properties without secure tenancies at market rent levels, with no affordable housing”“, we get another view, we get the view of several investment firms seeing what could be acquired in London for refurbishment and upgrades to market value housing. Consider areas like Paddington and Kilburn, what happens when they get refurbished into market value? In addition, when we see “Councils are acquiring properties in Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Sussex and further afield to cope with an expected surge in numbers of vulnerable families presenting as homeless as a result of welfare cuts from next April” (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/04/london-boroughs-housing-families-outside-capital), is this perhaps just the beginning? What happens when the situation goes from 92 households, to 992 households? What will happen to the smaller businesses as these places are all upgraded? The London economy is an interaction of classes and groups, when the city changes the dynamic that has worked for decades, we see a change in culture and options for all workers involved, moreover, what can we expect to see when these locations start to lose the reliability it has had for so long towards an entire iteration of workers and traders. Once that is changed, other elements will become in play as well, then what will happen?

In my view, David Cameron will need to make large strides in changing a current approach, to allow for long term sustainability. If not, we will see entire areas no longer in a state of survivability. These events that Westbrook has started will also make a change to the policies that London Lord-Mayor Boris Johnson is trying to introduce. No matter how strong the need for a living wage is, as Westbrook is pushing for market values, we will see a living wage that needs to go from £8.55 to £18.55, which is something that is not just unrealistic, it will be totally unmaintainable. The fallout will be long term.

In the end the UK government did this by not acting and others might be in the same predicament soon enough. I will be honest and state right here that no one anticipated the fact that rent would ever become the preferred return on investment for investment companies, which is an entirely different conversation I will have with my readers at a later stage. A change none saw coming, but now that it is here, it will prove to be additional hardship on the Conservative party, whilst giving even more options to UKIP.

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November 22, 2014 · 11:51

A beefy certification!

There was an unsettling report on the news at 06:30 this morning. It showed issues with Halal classification with references to terrorism. Oh, the man was very ‘precise’ in stating there were at present no indications, it was all about clarity. So before we take a look at this, let’s take a look at George Christensen, a Liberal who seems to represent the people from MacKay going north, his area stops before Townsville, which beckons the question how many Muslims are there in his constituency? Did he meet with them, or with a Muslim spokesperson to discuss this BEFORE this was given to the press for HIS visibility? (Ne thinks not, but I could be wrong).

This part was the part I had an issue with: “I have never said there is any evidence of links between halal certification and terrorism in Australia. Consumers should be able to know where proceeds derived from all forms of certification go, including kosher certification. There is a clear reason why many Australian’s are talking about halal certification and not kosher certification. There hasn’t been any terror plots found in Australia nor have there been any terror attacks killing Australian’s in Bali or New York City or elsewhere that were masterminded by Jews or even extreme sects within Judaism”

The first question in my mind is why? If I do not live for Halal foods, why have the interest on how certification is set and where proceeds go to? In my mind I am at times curious how Halal and Kosher certification is done, but that is for a mere academic curiosity. I would think that George Christensen should look into other meaty issues. Perhaps some will remember the scandal that had hit the UK a little over a year ago, on how 29% of beef had added horse to it. So George, how much Phar-Lap can we find in a Queensland hamburger? Have you looked into that part at present? You know, whilst having your Vegemite sandwich, as you come from the land down under!

You see, when we see news like ‘Campaign to boycott halal food gains momentum in Australia after yoghurt company ditches certification‘ (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-20/campaign-to-boycott-halal-food-gains-momentum-in-australia/5907844), I wonder what is driving this. It is as I see it a deceitful approach to anti-Muslim sentiment. Australia is not and should never be anti-Muslim. Like the UK we are anti-Extremism and as such we keep our watchful eyes open, but to attack Muslims all over by becoming anti-Halal is like Idi Amin walking up to Mahatma Ghandi stating ‘Dude, you are too intense!‘.

Consider the quote regarding the anti-Halal movement “Its carefully anonymous leaders keep a low profile, directing their members to swarm target companies’ online profiles and boycott their products“, this reads like a page of the manifesto of white supreme-cysts letting the dumb masses do their dirty work. It is not unlike some early KKK approaches into changing commercial interests to fit personal needs.

When we consider the quote “I think it’s fair to say that people from all walks of life, should be able to ask are you halal certified? It’s not a hard question“, we need to ask another hard question. Why? You see, Halal is an issue for Muslims and Muslims alone. As far as I always have known it to be: ‘the animal must be slaughtered with a sharp knife by cutting the throat, windpipe and the blood vessels in the neck, causing the animal’s death without cutting the spinal cord. Lastly, the blood from the veins must be drained, it is done according to religious standards’ (I got this part from Wiki, because I was lazy formulating my view on this). In the back of your mind, these animals are slaughtered in a humane way (it sounds strange, I know), so this meat is prepared in a certain way, so that it is the finest beef, now consider the slaughterhouses Christians use (in mass quantities), one could consider that Kosher (Jewish), Halal (Muslim and Jhatka (Sikh) will always have the best meat. When we see in definitions ‘killing the animal whilst causing it minimal suffering‘, gives thought to a humane approach on preparing food, I can guaranty you that when you see modern slaughterhouses, ‘humane’ is a word we need to leave behind before we get within a mile of many slaughterhouses (isn’t there at least one in Christensen’s district?) I wonder if George Christensen ever took time to properly investigate matters before he started, you know, opening his mouth.

There is one additional part that should be looked at, which is that the killing of animals, in Islam is set in two categories: 1, for food and 2, to eliminate danger (like rabid animals). In response to this anti-Halal I would like to add the quote in the second article: “‘If they don’t change their ways and start acting as patriotic Australians, they deserve what they get. Its market forces,’ he said“. Is that so? In that case, I reckon their next change is to shut down EVERY Target and K-Mart, which should be closed until all the cheap $3 articles from Myanmar and Sri-Lanka have been removed and replaced by articles made in Australia. You see, when your members see the quality of life decrease as expenses go up from +50% to +150%, they will likely move away from sanctimonious statements regarding ‘patriotic‘. It seems to me that Certifications like Kosher, Halal and Jhatka do have a religious ground, yet behind that is a hidden quality because of these practices, making these certifications interesting to consumers all over the religious spectrum. In the end, we the people want good food, good quality items.

So when I see opportunists talk about ‘patriotic’, then I wonder if they are aware of ‘Value of ‘more sophisticated’ counterfeit goods increases by millions‘ (at http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/value-of-more-sophisticated-counterfeit-goods-increases-by-millions-20140426-zqzu8.html), where we see the two quotes “Among the 2012-13 seizures were 43,200 bottles of beer in Western Australia in March 2013” and “Up to 86 per cent of all goods are manufactured in China, he said“, so Mr Sanctimonious, when did you last buy your Australian beer on special? How Australian was it, or perhaps you could not tell the difference?

It seems to me that local certification is preventing counterfeit and forged processed foods just fine, by not letting this happen. A local market like that cannot cheat when there is a clear view of where things came from, from Cow and Lamb to final piece of red meat. Something the ‘mass-market’ seems to be completely unaware of, that part was shown a year ago when most European nations enjoyed Phar-Lap sprinkled burgers and sausages.

So back to George Christensen, why is he on this horse-meat to begin with? When I see the following in the ABC article referred to earlier “The trouble began for the Fleurieu Milk and Yoghurt Company last month when Mr Hutchinson received an email asking to confirm whether his company had halal certification. Six months earlier, the company had gained halal certification as a requirement to supply a $50,000 yoghurt contract with Emirates Airlines. ‘It was a $1,000 fee. It opened up a business market to continue to become viable. It was a necessary step,’ Mr Hutchinson said“, here we see a simple certification step, which brings a $1000 fee, but opens up a $50,000 market for an Australian company. I think that Fleurieu is doing a good thing here, they went to adhering to a market, which requires certain high standards, they met the challenge and they are in business, in this regard how UN-Australian are the people attacking this? Is this about where the $1000 went to, as George Christensen seems to question? If that is true, then I wonder what George Christensen is up to wasting our precious time on this issue (I do not care if he wastes his time on this, but his constituents might ask). What was this really about? If my ‘response’ would be a personal one, I might ask why this ‘entertainer’ (can we call George Christensen a politician when we read these facts?) is a Liberal member, he sounds like Labour party material at present. Yet when we see the mention “George Christensen wants halal certifiers to open up their books“, I wonder what he is really trying to get at, the people who paid for certification, or the list of certifying instances. When we see the $1000 fee, to make any serious contribution one would need many thousands of companies getting certified, I think that this is about something else entirely. That view became visible as I found a blog regarding Carol Vernon, running for the Greens in September 2014 (at http://mncgreens.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/george-christensens-statement-labelling.html), the quote is “Mr Christensen is referring to people who oppose the industrialisation of the Great Barrier Reef as terrorists and in the current climate that is utterly unacceptable, wrong and incredibly dangerous and irresponsible“, yet in August we see his statement that his approach was wrong (self-admitted by GC, at http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/great-barrier-reef-federal-mp-george-christensen-says-i-got-it-wrong/story-e6frflp0-1227040230696), so what is this about? When we consider the site ‘they vote for you’ we see that George Christensen is labelled as ‘George Christensen voted very strongly against increasing marine conservation‘, this makes sense when we see his view on the Great Barrier Reef and on other matters. It seems to me that he is firmly in the pocket of ‘big business’, you see, as I personally view it, Halal, Kosher and Jhatka is all about quality oversight, something big business abhors. they want freedom of unaccounted actions (like the Phar-Lap burger), so, when we see businesses making changes that could be regarded as morally correct activities like Halal certification, we see that it is not about the dollars, but about the quality, an approach the connections of Christensen might not like as it undermines their profitability as they are stopped from dredge dumping and so on, Dawson has abattoirs and mining items in their constituency, which beckons other questions too. As a population wants a better quality, we see a better community, seems to me that Halal certification might be a threat to these abattoirs, for who do (or did) they cater to?

An electorate with 92,000 votes (at 94% turnout), is not that sizeable a community. So why was George Christensen bothering with all this?

Consider the quote “there has been some evidence in other countries that there has been dubious activities on halal certification“, so where is that evidence? George Christensen is outraged that his grocery spending could be propagating a religion, in regards to Vegemite (as stated by ABC news), we should consider the following: There are 22 million jars produced every year. Halal certification is $1000, according to one source stated earlier, which means $0.00454 per jar, which is less than half a cent, so when we consider this in regards to George Christensen, should he be regarded anything less than a joke? There was never a security issue, as I see it, there was never any issue on religious certification, it was as I see it a waste of time from beginning to end, perhaps to avert talk from his disastrous approach to the Great Barrier Reef. Which is of course a second joke (a story lacking humour in this case) when we see Julie Bishop state that there was no threat in response to the quote by President Obama “Mr Obama told the audience the ‘incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened’ because of global warming and said he wanted to be able to return to Australia with his daughters when he had more time“, that statement that there is no threat, is of course debatable as George Christensen was extremely willing to use it as a dumping ground for dredging activities, which we see at “In January 2014, a proposal for Abbot Point was approved to dispose of 1.3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil“, so how will that ensure a long lasting reef? If we are to accept the report (at http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/17164/ShenNengGroundingImpactAssessmentReport.pdf), we see “contamination by TBT such as from anti-fouling paints is likely to have a significant and persistent ecological impact on biota at a ship grounding site and potentially the surrounding physically non-impacted areas“, which is just one quote from the 160 page document. As we saw that the captain was given a $25,000 fine, how large was the total fine for this one event, and how much will it take to fix the reef? In light of the fragility of the coral reef, how could any positive light ‘be given’ towards dumping sludge on ecology this fragile?

It seems to me that in regards to the reef, both sides have been playing it fast and loose towards the health of the Great Barrier Reef, when we see that 85% of Australia is all for a healthy GBR, we can only wonder why George Christensen is all about certification of red meat and not that much for a great reef.

Did I oversimplify matters again? Silly me!

 

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November 20, 2014 · 21:40

Classifying defection

This is at the centre of my dilemma today. Part of me knows that some of my exam results have been posted. I have two more exams, which makes me too scared to check them. If I fail, my life will feel it is over and I feel like admiring the great view a person has when he leaps down the Empire State Building, some say that this view is the best and it is apparently a one-time option. Anyway, if I fail, I will get more depressed then I already am, If I pass I might relax a little too much whilst I have two exams between now and coming Tuesday morning, hence the fear to check.

On my 2 hour point of rest, I got my hands on this article ‘Rochester by-election: “two more Tories ready to defect”‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/20/rochester-strood-byelection-voters-polls-ukip), for most of my life I  have seen defection for the most as an act of treason, we take a team and we stick by that team (or company), I have watched scores of ‘managers’ ‘defect’ to the status or situation that benefited them the most, which I considered betraying the company that hired THEM to do a job. The then hid behind words like ‘miscommunication’ and ‘what was the best option’ the added part ‘for themselves’ was a bit of an issue to me. Corporations take this as the cost of doing business, but is that the acceptable truth of the matter? I actually do not know.

So these thoughts were in my mind as I read the article. You see, the question becomes who does an MP owes allegiance to? The party he is in or the people who elected him? That part is now unclear. Are these two MP’s Tories who serve Rochester and Strood, or are they Rochester and Strood MP’s who serve the conservatives? That is the question that phrases my mind. Yet when we look into the article another option is started to form. When we see the following parts: “My view is that Ukip membership should come back and join the Conservatives and be part of a centre-right majority in this country” and “Tolhurst said she was still hopeful of winning, but was reduced to begging for votes from supporters of other parties in an attempt to keep Ukip out of the constituency“, so what are we dealing with? Is this a situation where two MP’s are actually trying to sway both sides to stay in a seat, no matter whom they serve, are they playing both sides against the middle or are we looking at another play, one of voter management into getting the waters slowly managed by surfing the questions of the voters and through surfing these waves, to guide themselves into the opportunity to make the waves alter slightly, little by little into a new direction.

It is consistently illogical to expect the waves to react to the surfer, but is that entirely true? As the surfer becomes part of a wave, does that surfer not influence that what he is part of, or does the surfer just glide the wave, enjoying the motion but never to interact the wave so that the surfer will not get crushed by the wave as it engulfs him? What is true, by which definition and to what extent?

So why is this small part of Kent so distinct? I do not think it is distinct, I think that there is a play in motion, but to what extent is not clear. Consider the entire change as UKIP is growing beyond what most parties considered possible. Tories are scattered, Prime Minister David Cameron is all over the place to get a hold of the change, but the issue is not conservative based or Cameron based, it is in my mind constituency based. What is planned for the 75,000 voters and how should they be regarded as? In that area Mark Reckless does have a massive advantage, so why is there an issue with UKIP? The question becomes, what will happen, will the 23,000 people support conservatives and all move towards Kelly Tolhurst, or are we witnessing the sentiment within a constituency as they align and identify with the values that UKIP is advocating? If that is happening, are the conservatives on the right path, or are they ignoring the drastic need to educate the people towards why UKIP is the bad choice. Let us not forget that the conservatives got the economy started to the smallest extent whilst the EU is bleeding recession all over. The cautious approach by George Osborne is what is moving England towards better economic waters, which is also why the influx of immigrants is taking massive shapes, all towards better times. It seems to me that UKIP talks nice, but they have at present no way to continue the positive waves, in addition, the needs of change they will force upon the system could undo the forward strides the conservatives achieved within the first 6 months Nigel Farage starts implementing change, which he will believe to be ‘for the better’. The greatest danger here is that the results are only known after the fact, then it will be too late, so there is the link to my own fear, knowing will have repercussions. Ignorance is bliss to some extent; it lets me focus on what needs to be done. I can do it to my issues, Mark Reckless can do it towards the change he believes will make the difference and Kelly Tolhurst will just focus on becoming the new conservative for Kent. Yet Parliament will not get to ignore anything, it needs to dynamically alter its strategies on changes as they happen. David Cameron needs to remain dynamically active, but what of Nigel Farage? Is he dynamically active as we see ‘Farage rejects deportation claims amid UKIP migrant row‘ (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30111694), is he tactically changing points of view in regards to the battles he can win versus those that halt him (a dynamical act), or is he stating dynamical changes whilst not actually being dynamically active? As we see the quote in the BBC article “But Conservative MP Damian Green said Mr Reckless had come ‘dangerously close’ to advocating a repatriation policy while Labour’s Yvette Cooper said Mr Reckless had ‘let the mask slip’“. Is he truly slipping the mask, is he opportunistically inclined as the bulk of middle managers all over the place, or are we watching a different tactic, one that requires the voters top change course, just like the waves for a surfer, yet if waves cannot change direction, was the direction of the voters an actual direction which was never seen correctly?

This is part of my thinking, part that all parties seemed to have ignored, or at least it is a change that many did not consider. These matters are centre in the upcoming by-elections. The people have made mental changes to the parties and what they stand for. Instead of waiting election, Nigel Farage seems to be changing the landscape by these tactical changes, as areas move towards by-elections, we see a shift for the worst (if you are a conservative), so as the deck is stacked in favour of Farage Ukiporated, we see the approach where the 2015 elections are already being drawn vastly against the conservatives. Yes, 75,000 people in one part of Kent is not a big thing, but as this is only one constituency, which others are under attack? Let’s not forget that it is not just the conservatives that are under attack, the Liberal Democrats and Labour both have areas where the voters have been making changes, waves that are all taking other turns and directions, what will happen there? The UK, 650 surfers (read constituencies), and its politicians all trying to ride the waves, will they change boards or get crushed in the waves as they are not respecting the power of the wave. In my mind we will see plenty of surfers adapting to the waves, so will they therefor be the betrayers of the party that gave them the surfboard, are they respecting those who voted for them as they change the waves in a mindset of the price of doing business or are they doing nothing more than serve themselves as they surf for as long as they can. Who do they surf?

 

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