Tag Archives: American Express

August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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June 1, 2019 · 12:19

Minus eleven

This is not for the faint of heart, neither is this a story for those with a weak disposition towards directness. Early this morning 11 jobs became available, and several apartments are ready to find a new tenant. This all happened by the acts of a man, according to the news outlets it was the act of a disgruntled man.

I am not blaming guns or gun laws. Guns do not kill people, people kill people; it is that plain and simple. The question becomes why? I have been disgruntled, I have been angry. I decided not to kill anyone, I merely relaxed at home with a game of Minecraft, which can be very therapeutical, let me tell you that. We all have ways of dealing with it and one player (American Express) even has a 5 step program on how to deal with a disgruntled worker (at https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/the-5-steps-to-managing-a-disgruntled-employee/).

I particularly like part 4, where we see: “The best policy is to document everything that is taking place. Whatever the disgruntled employee has done that needed to be corrected should be documented, as should how you addressed it. Documenting everything, from warnings and discussions to termination of employment, if you have to go that far, will help to protect you and your company.” and at the core of the article is the matter: ‘It was never your fault!‘, the biggest flaw on it all, the ostrich (or the possum) that is at the heart of the matter. The exact reason why a person became disgruntled in the first place is a lot more important to learn. We all know it is an essential part, but no one wants to address it, not even when dead people are part of the equation.

We can ignore September 2018 with: ‘Woman who killed 3 people at Rite Aid center was a disgruntled worker‘, we can go on February 2019 in Aurora Illinois, September 2012 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 1999 in Atlanta Georgia. This list will go on for a very long time, the issue is that there is a problem of actually dealing with a situation. Managers let issues fester, or more disastrously mislabelling it like: ‘How to Handle the Disgruntled Employee Out to Sabotage Your Business‘. These people started happy, so what made them unhappy? More importantly how did you as a boss screw up your staff members? It might not be you, it might be the bosses of your bosses, but there was a start and not knowing where it started is the first flaw. American Express goes further with: ‘Don’t empower them‘, you see, it is again not your fault! But it is, it is the fault of the manager and that evidence is seen in that they ‘did nothing or far too little to defuse the situation‘, no matter how it is applied, the rules of contract killing (aka ergonomically and silently permanently removing people from any workplace) apply in the same way here:

  1. Segregation

Get the person apart, start a dialogue. That dialogue can give loads of information, because if one person is disgruntled now, there is every chance that up to 5 people are optionally soon to be disgruntled people as well. So that first dialogue can give a truckload of information of what is happening. In addition you might learn that things are not that bad, but his/her partner walked out and the small frustrations have grown into the real mindboggling issues (for that person) and they are optionally not, they are optionally pathways to solutions

  1. Isolation

So in the good case you merely had to deal with small frustrations, like software that was never properly tested before you started to sell it, or departmental changes that now imply that people will miss out on commission that they desperately need to pay the mortgage, things you wave away with: ‘That is just how it is!‘ and you never realised that it had real crunching impact on others. There can be a whole range of options, and the dialogue gave way to defusing the issue. One straight relaxed conversation with a bottle of ware, tea or fruit juice (this is the one place where coffee tends to be no help at all).

  1. Assassination

Dealing terminally with issues is a call at times, a manager merely refers to it as ‘terminating employment‘, but the core is larger, it means optionally replacing that worker, or not. So at that point others get to do the work the ex-employee did. With additional pressure, the risk of additional new disgruntled employees is born, that is how it works and when you realise the pathway, you see how wrong the foundation of the American Express article is. Even as the article started with: ‘Disgruntled employees are something that us entrepreneurs have to deal with, more than we like‘, the failure is seen when we forget is that your workplace created the ‘disgruntled employee‘ in the first place. And it is important to go through the stage, even if it is to make sure that all the right things were done. Proving it was not you or your environment is as important as the setting of the stage of what happens after.

The matter comes to blows when we see the ABC quote: “The shooter, who was a long-term city employee, has also been killed“. The realisation that he was a long-term employee gives light to the change that has happened. Perhaps it was nothing from work, but we need to learn what changed. Guns do not kill people, people kill people and this person decided that going postal was in his case better than delivering mail. Whatever this person did before, learning the trigger is important and there are dozens of articles on how you get rid of the disgruntled worker, learning on how he/she became one is not regarded as important in many of these articles, which I consider to be the biggest flaw of all; especially, as they are about enabling you the entrepreneur on getting on with being one. The flaws seen in that part are often the size of the Grand Canyon.

USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/31/police-shooter-opens-fire-virginia-beach-courthouse/1305277001/) is giving us: “The shooting broke out in Building No. 2 of the sprawling Virginia Beach Municipal Center, which includes several city facilities, including the police department. Building 2 houses offices for planning and public works and is adjacent to city hall.“, it is fair that most do not have too much info at present yet the largest issue is going to be the monumental one soon enough. What was the trigger of the event, and it might be that nothing could have prevented it, there was no real blame, yet learning the case is important, the fact that no one is looking at that part is already a flaw. I can understand that the people do not want to hear about ‘comprehension‘ and that is fine, yet it needs to be on the top of every agenda in that place even if it is merely to learn whether this is just one person or if pressures had been brewing in that area for a longer time, giving the risk that this is not a one off occurrence.

Not doing so is like being in bomb disposal and refusing to look at the countdown before you start. A person who goes by the setting of ‘whilst the alarm clock is not going off, there is no boom‘, even when we realise that a 2 second check would give the part that the clock is at 11:56 and the alarm will sound in 193 seconds. The difference between ‘no boom’ and ‘193 seconds’ gives light to what could be done instead of all that has not been done yet when boom time came knocking, and believe me (or not) it makes for all the difference.

It is entrepreneur that also gives light to other ways. When we look at ‘7 Steps to Defuse Workplace Tension‘ (at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/207680) we see: “Conflict is all around us, and it occurs in every office to varying degrees and with almost every employee” we get some of the goods. The problem is twofold, what one lives with will turn the other player into a pressure cooker, with all the dangers when the pressure valve is not working. I will not go too deep into this, because you should read it. This 7 step part is actually very enlightening. It is a 7 step path EVERY manager that will be confronted with disgruntled employees will get to deal with. And the fact that there is a path that diffuses the issue and optionally makes a disgruntled person happy (or way less disgruntled) also means that you achieve retention and optionally renewed loyalty that becomes the golden ticket. A disgruntled employee that got over it in a good way is more than loyal, that person will have your back when the shit really hits the fan and 2-3 of those in your company can save a company when the markets collapse around you. They optionally become your powerbrokers and brand ambassadors. In light of 11 deaths I am not making light of the situation. In this case it was too late, the question becomes: ‘Could this have been prevented?‘ and I say ‘No!’ Gun laws would not have prevented this (because the bulk will blame gun laws), because an axe can achieve up close and personal just as lethally as any gun would.

If there is one part of the article I am not entirely in agreement with than it is the part that Dr. David G. Javitch discusses at ‘5. Encourage Compromise‘, with “each person must be willing to give in a little” we need to first establish the stage. For example, if the trigger was a guy who was a former Football players and all girls in the office want to date him (with additional nightly beneficial needs), and the man blew up because his wife cheated on him (with someone else mind you). The compromise of: ‘What if your wife cheated a little less‘ is not a setting that will work. I am of course taking a ridiculous example, but the foundation of internal and external pressures (internal being the workplace) is still valid in many cases. Like the loss of commission impacting mortgage is the nightmare that many US workers have faced in their life and millions face that pressure even today, so finding out that part is crucial. The internal issues can be dealt with, but when external impact is seen (like healthcare, personal care, financial care and mental care). I would find it important towards resolving the issues that all internal pressures are to be removed (if at all possible). Perhaps (especially if this was a long term employee) an immediate 2 week paid leave so that the person can focus on the pressure could have resolved everything.

All elements that are part of resolving the pain a person faces whilst being disgruntled. And in that case it was not the office, but in that case the pressure was the straw that broke the camel’s back and as a good manager you want your whole caravan to make the journey to the end, so as a manager you optionally get to compromise close towards 100%, yet when it creates loyalty you win in the end and you could win a lot when the chips are down in reverse, it is a path that many ignore for no reason at all.

However, today Virginia Beach is at minus 11, the Mayor (Bobby Dyer), the Governor (Ralph Northam), the Police Chief (James Cervera), they are all there in their emotional states (which is fine). It will take a few days for the events to settle and at that point we will see what was really what. I just hope that the blaming of guns stop, because that too is a possum move to ignore the truth of the matter, people kill people; what triggered this person kill 11 others is a question no one can answer for now.

 

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September 29, 2014 · 22:50

Vindication

Today is turning out to be a nice day after all. I have made mention on more than one occasion that I am not an economist, I am an analyst and for some time now, the numbers have not been adding up. Certain action had been taken and they never made sense. The issue I had is that because the press seemed not to dig into this gave a decent amount of persuasion that I might have been wrong, which would have been fair enough, yet I know data, I lived data for decades and the numbers just did not add up.

Yesterday I saw a first glimpse, and today there is now a clear indication that I had been right all along. Goldman Sachs had been a part of a lot more than many can fathom. So whilst Cuppa Joe and the press at large has all been about the ‘naughty’ intelligence branch, they all ignored the trap behind it and let the banks do whatever they damn well liked.

One step back

The first inkling was Goldman Sachs directly in my blog ‘Banks, eunuchs of a new congregation‘ of February 7th 2013, more than 1.5 years ago! In there I gave this quote: “It is almost that there is a voice whispering in the ear of Dutch Finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The whispers seem to be about the Bad Bank and the whispers could involve Goldman Sachs” and “This thought was also mentioned by Rolfe Winkler at the New York Daily News. How is it even possible that a company that seems to have been one of the major reasons for the financial meltdown be regarded, or even ALLOWED to make any continued presence?“, this would get followed by my blog ‘The Italian menace?‘ on February 10th, 3 days later. “Berlusconi, who said he won’t seek the executive position but rather prefers to become Finance Minister, has seduced the masses saying he will repeal a property tax imposed by Monti, returning about €4 billion“. These elements are all in league with one massive step. As these members are directly linked to Goldman Sachs. Not just Berlusconi, it is also Mario Monti who has direct links to Goldman Sachs (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html). The independent article shows even more, steps that I had not looked at (for various reasons). Yet, overall Goldman Sachs has been keeping their fingers in all these pies.

In the near past

As we look at the events in the near past I wrote ‘Two deadly sins‘. It was November 27th 2013. There we see the following quote “After the issues we had seen in the last 3 years, I started to doubt the correctness of the Dow (and I reported on that in past blogs). It goes up and up, but with JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, VISA, American Express putting pressures on those numbers, the three big boys (drugs) could rock the boat in a massive way, which scares Wall Street to no extent. Greed and Treason, it is all connected and it hits us all critically hard sooner rather than later!” I had no idea that I was so much closer to it all then I thought. That part has just been made clear!

Now

The Huffington post (at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/elizabeth-warren-new-york-fed_n_5896778.html), has just release this article stating that “Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently released secret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate“, but there is more, like a bad infomercial from TV we see the added flavours that would silence Dante Alighieri and reduce Niccolo Machiavelli to a mere checkers player when we consider the additional quote “Segarra says that she was fired from her job in 2012 for refusing to overlook Goldman’s lack of a conflict of interest policy and other questionable practices that should have brought tougher regulatory scrutiny“. So, this was NOT just the banks, this seems to imply that the US government themselves have been linked to the massive degrees of freedom that Goldman Sachs has been enjoying. So that leaves us with the thought that the EEC is not enjoying any freedoms at all, it is enjoying the allowance to decide on how much they all are in debt to Goldman Sachs and whatever is behind them. Because, a choice of one is not a choice, it is a directive and now we see the amount of people that have been involved in orchestrating all this.

I wonder if the mentioned 48 hours of taped conversations will ever make it into the daylight, chances are that this will get locked up real fast. As the American people were so smitten with a joke called Snowden, they all got played into the side where the banks were given freedom of movement through all this and the press at large did NOTHING to truly look into the dangers their populations faced, it is the ultimate Machiavellian play.

I particularly liked this quote “In one instance, she said she alerted a colleague that a senior compliance officer at Goldman had said that the bank’s view was that “once clients became wealthy enough, certain consumer laws didn’t apply to them.” Segarra claims that her New York Fed colleagues asked her to ignore the remark and change meeting minutes she had taken, which contained evidence of what the Goldman executive said“, which basically means that the rich do not just get a free play in the game, they remain unaccountable beyond a certain point. Did we who will never be rich sign up for that? I have no issue with people becoming rich, providing it is through non-criminal ways, yet the fact that this also implies non-accountability to the law is an entirely different matter. If you think that this is not an issue, then wonder what a firm like Microsoft is getting away with or Goldman Sachs for that matter. It is easy to remain unaccountable when the lawmakers are in your pockets.

Recently

Now this all links to another party, who only recently got visible thanks to a ‘dubious’ ideologist as he exposed the Swedish left winged system. I am talking about Natixis! Its assets exceeds well over half a trillion dollars, not bad for a French bank! Why are they here? You see, I always saw that there was more to Goldman Sachs, yet as my stories were never explicitly about Goldman Sachs, but about events that involved them, Goldman Sachs was clearly on my radar. Natixis until the Swedish election was not, nor needed it to be. Yet when we look at their Portfolio of Investments – as of December 31, 2013, we see that they are linked to the bulk of large corporations and their financial needs. They also have a nice little chunk of Goldman Sachs. Now we have a race, because together they hold over 1.5 trillion in assets. Are we all awake now?

Two corporations with the power to shift, change and pressure government oversight in America and pretty much the entire European Economic Community, is more than just a nuisance. Remember how Goldman Sachs promised (read threatened) to transfer a substantial part of their European business from London to a Eurozone location – the most obvious contenders being Paris and Frankfurt. It was a statement by Michael Sherwood, co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/04/goldman-sachs-warns-london-exit-britain-eu), at this point we get to wonder whether it was a business decision, or whether it was a phone call from a person with direct access to the ear of the President of the United States (yes the last part is an assumption on my side, but is it such a wild one?), if any of this is ever confirmed, I reckon that this is the one straw that breaks parliaments back and results in a shift of power to Ukip so fast it will make all the heads in Whitehall spin.

This is just the parts I got a hold on, I feel certain that a REAL investigative journalist (if one still exists) would have been able to find a lot more, yet nothing has made the papers in this regards for close to two years. You should really start to ask the question why!

Because, when we see the press entrap MP’s with fake profiles, whilst ignoring these levels of power, then the press has failed on so many levels it is not even funny anymore.

Tomorrow

Today is the start to plan for the questions that many should be asking government and the press tomorrow, the press because they seem to be asleep at the wheel, asleep that two companies have so much power that they can set the entire political tone. Freedom has never been about this. Freedom lost, because of what I regard to be cowardly (and possibly greed driven) politicians who are enabling a group to be flaccid economists to empower wealth and greed and condemn us to consumer based slavery until our numbers are no longer balanced as profitable.

How can we ever attain a better life, or in regards to the links that I recently discovered any form of a healthy life at all? Will be see vindication, but who in the end gets vindicated is an entirely different discussion.

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November 27, 2013 · 17:01

Two deadly sins

This is the second attempt to this story. I was still on the Sony horse when writing the first attempt. Yes, it will hurt us and it will have long standing consequences for many to come, but I realised that it was not really the story (even though the press remaining silent on it is).

Of the seven deadly sins (Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Envy, Wrath, Pride and Sloth) I only truly hate Greed! It is also represented in Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem ‘the Divine Comedy’, which actually introduces something I would like to call the 8th deadly sin, which is depicted in his 9th level of hell. It is Treason! These two sins are the most debilitating sins to consider. These sins are not against one, or against one’s self. These two sins are acts by one against many and we see the consequences every day. These are not just acts by people against people. They are also seen as acts by governments against people or even against their own nation. We must arms against these two, we must do so fast, because the liberties we lose as we allow this to go on will hurt billions and many care for one thing, they care for number one, they care for themselves!

Do not take the last sentence as an assault, I am not talking about selfishness perse, but we are in a life cycle where we are almost forced to survive. Greed and Treason pushed us there. The Dutch NOS showed us several parts in one newscast. It was the news of the 26th of November 2013. The first piece came from the news on the scale gas winning in the Netherlands. I had written about part of it in July 2013. The blog was called ‘The Setting of strategies‘ where we see that the Dutch are trying to get billions in gas using a technique called ‘fracking’. There were major concerns, but should you watch the issues, you will see that parties involved were trivialising it all to some extent. Now questions are called for a large investigation. The most interesting part is the quote they stated in the news [translated] “the NAM will not drill for any less gas as this is not a mandate handed by the stockholders“. In addition reported e-mails by the Dutch Gas drilling firm (NAM), which from their side, remarks and ‘interpretations’ seem to be taking a negative term. The mail showed that they knew that earthquakes in excess of 3.9 (on the Richter scale) were to be expected. This means that not only is this, the possible start of a class action in damages against the NAM, the NAM could be seen as a major contributor into damaging a unique Dutch landscape. Not just the land, but also the cultural heritage that the Dutch area of Groningen has. Many buildings, most of them predating WW2 are structurally damaged. It is an area that had been culturally unique for over two centuries, even by Dutch standards. Are you fracking kidding me? Stockholders are allowed to ruin the state of Groningen? So the government oversight knew this going back to 2012? So what were these investigations in 2013? Party favours? This is greed gone wild as I see it. The most important part is that the UK and the conservatives are facing similar issues at present. The conservatives are very willing to go this route. It was reported in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/03/uk-dash-gas). The question becomes whether George Osborne has been properly instructed involving the risks he would place Wales in? If he is briefed by stockholders, the UK should take another look at these proceedings. I understand that heating is hard and very expensive, but can people continue when they are faced with long term, perhaps even unrepairable damage to England itself? Can that be acceptable? I am not a geologist, so there are elements I have no knowledge of, yet it might be realistic that many Walesians did not sign up for Shale Gas experiments when it could cost them both Cardiff and Swansea, both containing the largest population in Wales. Is Britain ready to pay for 350,000 damaged homes? I agree, that is an exaggeration, yet the true damage will not be known for some time. Perhaps there will be ZERO damage. I am fine with that, but the Dutch evidence shows that greed trumped safety and health easily. Can the UK afford such a mistake?

The second link to greed, are the changes that Finance Minister Dijsselbloem is trying to push within the Netherlands. He is aiming for commissions not exceeding 20% of a banker’s income. I think that this is a good idea. I also believe that he is on the right track. Greed is debilitating to say the least. The Dutch Union of Bankers stated that this law is not needed; there are enough rules in place. The interview with Chris Buijink, who is the chairman of that union, is not in agreement. He is mentioning that with specialist jobs, temperate commissions are to be expected. You see! We all agree, so make it no more than 20%, which is temperate enough (in my humble opinion). I, personally think that a group of Dutch banks, after the SNS Reaal and other banking issues, including the RABO LIBOR fixing issue, need to expect much stronger measures. Greed must be stopped!

This is not what he called ‘a black page’ (as Chris Buijink stated), the banking issues from 2008 onwards show that there is a structural issue with the banking industry. The fact that the Yanks are too cowardly to act (see the non-passed tax evasion act and the Dodd-Frank act for my reasoning in this), does not mean we should sit still. That part gains even more weight as we read more and more about the ADDITIONAL issues the RBS is now facing (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/26/mark-carney-rbs-deeply-troubling-serious). So on one side Conservatives are trying to get the economy going and the banks on the other hand… (You get the idea).

There was a video linked to this, which states “Bank of England’s Mark Carney ‘offended’ by Labour MP’s questioning“. Is Mr Carney for real? As Labour MP John Mann asked questions in regards to the ‘distance’ between the governor of the bank and the political wings. I do not fail to see that it is about quick economic restoration, the issue that it is now likely that small business got sold down the drain into non-viability to get this done is indeed an issue for concern. Why is there no stronger oversight on this? I think that it is time for governments to intervene in stronger measures. What they are? Not sure, but it should be somewhere between nationalising a bank and barring the transgressors from the Financial industry for life!

This issue goes on in another direction too. If we accept what was written by the independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/royal-charter-on-press-regulation-may-be-redundant-says-culture-secretary-maria-miller-8919775.html), we see that in the end the Press might not ever be held accountable for the acts they did. Not only are they advocated in their need for greed (as in circulation and advertisements), we see that they are in a connected center of treason against both their readers and the audience at large, again as I personally see this.

How?

Well that is a fair question. As the big papers have steered clear from the Sony issues as they became visible just over a week ago, they seem to remain extremely taken with their advertisement needs and less with protecting the audience. “£3bn: the total price-tag for Christmas gadgets” is a nice tag to have and even though we see news on Microsoft and Sony all the time, those messages are small and do not hit the bottom dollar. The small technology hit “Cody Wilson created a gun that can be download and built with a 3D printer – is he too dangerous for Britain?” is a small article and iterates something I wrote many months ago. He is now linked to advocating bit-coin, which is another matter. I have not taken a stance on it. I think it promotes white washing and I personally do not think that virtual currency has a foundation, once it goes bust in whatever way it does; these people just lose whatever cash they had in it. I reckon that these ‘victims’ when they come will have no turn back and the first case against any government should be thrown out immediately. The story how Sony (and Microsoft too) will hurt an entire industry and how they are setting up the events that could stop local commerce is completely ignored. How quaint!

I see it as a form of treason, because this is no longer ‘the people have a right to know’, but ‘the people have a right to know when we see fit’. That same application can be made for the banks. If we take the RBS case, then the people involved could be seen as committing treason against their customers. Is that not EXACTLY the issue we saw in the US where we see banks setting up mortgages and then betting on them failing? Why is this not under control?

The Dutch examples are their own version of treason. A company that seems to be betraying the people living there by submitting them to intentional dangers is no small matter. This is not the end by a long shot. Treason can go further, from governments towards allies. I am not talking about Snowden, that loon is a simple traitor for personal gains (in my view). The damage he caused will take a long time to fix. No, I am talking about the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership. I mentioned it in previous blogs linked to the Sony/Microsoft issues, but that is small fry. The big price is the pharmaceutical industry. You see, America wants it passed soon, because of the powers this partnership gives. I will not bore you with the patent law details; the issue I see is that America is afraid of India. Apart from being really decent in Cricket (a game America does not comprehend), the Indian industry had made great strides in generic medication. With a population of vastly over 1 billion, they simply had to. The changes are mentioned by IP experts like Michael Geist as Draconian. The Guardian covered part of the TPP (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/13/trans-pacific-paternership-intellectual-property), the changes could impact this market into a damaging result which will go into the trillions. My issue is that Australia sides with America. Why?

America had been asleep at the wheel. Instead of opening a market, forcing affordability towards a population, we see segregation for industry against people. How bad is that? Canada kept its consumer driven approach, which is why Americans love Canadian medication. As America does not keep its house in order and they got passed by! Do not take my word regarding these parts; you should however take a look at what Doctors without Borders think. I reckon we can agree that they have always been about healing people. I consider them a noble breed. A group of physicians, who spend a fortune on an education, making less than the personal assistant for a middle manager in a small bank, which is not much to live on! At http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=7161 they state “Five countries—Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore—have put forth a counter-proposal that tries to better balance public health needs with the commercial interests of pharmaceutical firms” As an Australian I state that Australia need to take the high-road with Canada and New Zealand, not follow the cesspool America is trying to force down our throats. In the end, I suspect that this is about more than just plain greed.

Consider that the Dow index is based on 30 major companies. Now consider that 10% comes from pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer. After the issues we had seen in the last 3 years, I started to doubt the correctness of the Dow (and I reported on that in past blogs). It goes up and up, but with JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, VISA, American Express putting pressures on those numbers, the three big boys (drugs) could rock the boat in a massive way, which scares Wall Street to no extent. India had made great strides in affordable medication; the TPP is now a danger to affordable medication for people on a global scale.

Greed and Treason, it is all connected and it hits us all critically hard sooner rather than later!

 

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