Tag Archives: Apple

September 30, 2016 · 14:48

The smokescreen of a Smartphone War

Yesterday’s news gives us ‘The secret smartphone war over the struggle for control of the user’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/29/smartphone-war-operators-user-phone-service) held my initial interest for about 7.0 seconds. You see, it is an interesting story, but it is not the real battle that is being fought. As I personally see it, the secondary war is about the agreements that the Android phone makers seem to have with one another. That war we are kept in the dark about. In the end, the Telecom companies want you to be dependent on them, their products and their solutions. They give you some BS reasoning of ‘we weren’t offered that option‘, whilst their head office is all about containment. They only hold they have is by pushing you in a position where you need a new phone EVERY year. That is the service path we are all getting pushed into. Which is one reason why outright buy seems to be so overpriced in many cases. For the next bit we need to see GSMArena.com. There we find the following parts:

32/64 GB, 4 GB RAM
32/64 GB, 4 GB RAM
32 GB, 3 GB RAM (EVA-L19/EVA-L09)
64 GB, 4 GB RAM (EVA-L29)

You would think it is all the same, right? The last two are the same brand. I will get back to the list, but for now, what you would like to do is to check where you can get a 64GB edition, and for some that list is zero, you see, in Australian (not the only place) they are making sure that you cannot get the 64GB edition, in an age of consumerism, is that not weird? In that regard, Apple is the only one offering this, because of different reasons.

In all this, I have used my phone with a philosophy. It is a simple one and in my life of budgets an essential one. In the past, I learned the hard way early in life that chasing technology is a race that costs money and never leaves you with a true advantage, the gaming industry in the 90’s on PC were all about that. The mobile industry, like the PC industry learned this from the arms industry and they were really good students. So no matter what competitiveness they have, if they agree on a few ground rules, there will be enough space for exploitation for all of them. Now, in 2015, Huawei decided to rock the boat and as such they got a larger share than ever before, now that they are on par, they seem to go with the average lot of them. My hopes are that LG tries a same approach, which will cost Huawei et al dearly this year.

When you have been around your mobile for a little while, you will see that storage is (nearly) everything on a mobile and with marshmallow, a 32GB system will end up having about 22GB space left. There is the Android system and the mandatory apps, the amount leaves you with 10GB less. This is not a big deal you think, but over the year we will see an exponential growth of apps and they cost space too. Some people already learned this lesson with Pokémon Go and all the pics that were taken. They were realising how much space was lost. Now, we know that you can add a SD card and store pictures there, but apps must be run from the main storage and those apps are growing too. So over 2 years you would have run out of space. Meaning that you either clean up your system, or buy a mobile with more space. This you might have learned if you had an iPad or iPod. Storage was running low for some a lot faster than they bargained for.

So in this age, when the difference between 32GB and 64GB is one component which is in total a mere $32.87 more expensive, why would we even consider a 32GB system? Because at this point, the mobile warranty of 24 months could be served completely and we would not need another phone one year later! In addition, after 2 years we would have the freedom to choose a better and cheaper provider, so as I see it, neither Optus nor Telstra wants a 64GB phone in their arsenal and the only reason is that the iPhone is that size is because Apple has in general a global approach to their hardware.

Now let’s look again:

32/64 GB, 4 GB RAM – Samsung
32/64 GB, 4 GB RAM – LG
32 GB, 3 GB RAM (EVA-L19/EVA-L09) – Huawei P9
64 GB, 4 GB RAM (EVA-L29) – Huawei P9

Unless LG takes advantage of the option they have now, none of them offers the 64GB version in Australia! Is that not weird? Amazon UK offers both, and at times the 64GB is definitely more expensive, yet consider that at $100 more (for some a little more), you have peace of mind that this phone can last you 2 years without storage issues. That seems a pretty big deal to me. In addition, unless Android past Nougat (V7) grows a massive part, the user will have plenty of space to update their system, if the update would be offered. In addition, with all the other stuff we carry (photo’s music and so on), twice the size is pretty much the only way to go.

So why the mobile providers refuse their product to be on sale is just beyond me and the fact that none of them are offering a product in a place seems to be massively out of bounds. With Huawei the fact that there is a single slot and duo slot 32GB option makes even less sense to me. In my mind, this is all about control of the users, and controlling where the users go, which is a limitation on freedom devices have never offered before, so in my mind it was not with the consumers consent. The fact that Samuel Gibbs did not mention that part in their article is not as quoted “Fewer purchases mean the big smartphone players are now under pressure to extract more revenue from their existing user base, which is easier for Apple and its App Store than others reliant on Google’s Play Store, and to try to convince users that life is greener on their side of the smartphone divide“, it is to make sure that continuity prevails, to some extent for the smartphone makers, to the larger extent to mobile providers to keep them in their not seeking another providers place!

In addition the quote “At the same time, the mobile phone operators are in a similar competition. Switching between the major phone networks has always been an issue, whether it’s over price, customer service or the latest handset“, more important it is over bandwidth and facilitation, the more limits the hardware has, the less issues of competition the provider needs to deal with. So is Samuel Gibbs informing you on some ‘secret war’ or is he trying to keep your sight away from the options that matter? The fact that phone limitations is not part of his view (which could be because the UK offers both models) is equally disturbing that he did not look at this from a global point of view, when you are not made aware of what is by me expected and therefore implied is the limitation of hardware offered is as I see it, part of a secret war that they require you not to be aware of. If that is done intentionally, what do you think is in play?

So as the Samsung Note 7 is now an ISIS tool (when you install the 10 second countdown app) and only LG remains to go public with their new model, they now have an option to capture a much larger share of the audience as several of the participating parties refused to consider the consumers’ needs and seems to cater to the telecom request of limitation. LG has an option to grow much stronger in this market than ever before. Apple as IOS has a different situation and as seen on many fronts they have created their own walls of disturbance, so LG could even go after that lot, but we must respect that there is a huge offset between IOS and Android and as such, people are at times less willing to switch there. For now the latest rumours are that the V20 will start the pre-orders this Sunday in the US and European markets will be getting them, yet there is at present no confirmation for both the UK and Australia. So we will have to see about that part too.

The article had more. So consider my words and now see this quote: “Bibby says: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Flexibility like this is just the next stage of innovation so we’re not surprised to see others adopting it. Manufacturers are trying to ensure that more of their own handsets are sold in the market. They’re trying to clearly compete with each other.”” I disagree with Nina Bibby, marketing and consumer director for O2. The quote is not untrue, but incorrect. It is the presentation of what they want the issue to be, because is sets our mind at rest. I believe that the more correct quote is “They’re trying to clearly compete with each other within the agreed limits of the presented options“, which is not entirely the same! In that same view, the limitations due to the telecom agreements are equally in question. The fact that none offered the complete spectrum is just as much of a worry. Because it is like a corporation trying to make sure that its employees can never truly become independent, because that would be too dangerous for their own continuation. The second part in all this is the entire upgrade service program. It creates brand dependency, which is not essentially a bad thing, but guess what! I reckon that soon thereafter the 64GB option will come and there will be a churn for 12 and 24 months. At that point, the telecom providers would want a phone to last as long as possible. It could be in different ways. For example after 12 months 65% off and a $1 upgrade after 24 months. This is just speculation, so this is not a given, yet overall not that far-fetched.

The most interesting quote is at the end “For now, the battle for control of the phone in your hand is happening behind closed doors. Soon we’ll begin to see the phone-as-a-service idea pushed by one of the big manufacturers, but only once the operators are no longer crucial to sales“. The first part is that not all of the closed doors is about the phone, bandwidth has been a forever war between iiNet, Optus and Telstra in Australia, and the phone-as-a-service is not all in the hands of the manufacturers, that will come soon enough (in one case it already is) in hands of the Telecom companies, because that is a direct factor for customer loyalty, who does not see the $45 a month phone as the margin, it is the $90 a month subscription where their margin is and that part can be set to non-taxation a lot faster too. The phone is merely a hardware write-off, increasing their ROI.

So when you consider your new phone do not be fooled by the SD slot, wonder why the full version is out nearly everywhere else, except Australia? For Australians, consider one nice issue, the Kiwi’s do get the 64GB edition several stores have it available to order. So, do you feel special now, of just used by both the handset sales people and your telecom provider? More important, what other issues did that secret war of smart phones not inform you about? Perhaps you haven’t seen the implications of not having a choice in certain cases. People have been so busy bashing iPhone’s Apple that they forget that Android phones have their own collection of imposed limitations for the consumer.

 

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September 17, 2016 · 16:11

The Taxing Delicious

Taxing delicious is a new sweet tasting Apple, even sweeter than the golden Delicious, and it is to be regarded as healthy for body, mind and government. Yes, in this case it is not a new Irish Cider (which would be a nice idea too), this is about a company getting a bill. You see, the funny part of it was that if there had been no EU, Apple would have been 13 billion wealthier. How doesn’t that beat the odds?

These are some of the thoughts rising within me again as I read ‘Apple tax ruling must be overturned, says US business group‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/16/apple-tax-ruling-must-be-overturned-says-us-business-group).

As I see it, if it is such an issue, why not do an appeal? You see, this entire issue is as convoluted as it is ever likely to get. When I see ‘Ireland Doesn’t Want Apple’s Back Taxes, but the Irish Aren’t So Sure‘ in the New York Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/business/international/ireland-doesnt-want-apples-back-taxes-but-the-irish-arent-so-sure.html), my initial response to Enda Kenny would be “Are you out of your bloody mind?” Now, let’s be partially fair. There is a method to the governments madness, yet even as giving in to big business might seem appealing, but the US is changing its taxation parameters (as well as tax accountability) and after the elections there is no way to tell how the US governments hats will be pointing, so getting what you can now is not the worst idea. In addition, when Apple et al will make the jump away and to other places, they will leave you with buildings that remain empty and will not have been paid off, so you will have a billion in real estate, whilst not having any return on investment, just empty buildings wasting away. That situation is not as unimaginative or as surreal as you might think. The idea that a government is appealing against a tax bill on behalf of a Forbes 500 company is entertaining, upsetting and obscene all at the same time, but that is sometimes how the cookie crumbles.

What is interesting in all this is how the EU courts will act, you see, if they give in now, it should be regarded as the utter uselessness of that court to begin with. It gives weight that not being part of that very expensive club is indeed the way to go, which will now give weight that Brexit was not a bad move and it will in addition fuel Frexit too. All that over a mere 13 billion invoice. Less than 5% of the costs of Greece, which fuelled Brexit to begin with. This is at the heart of the matter of what the Americans just cannot comprehend. They just received the massive blowback on the lesson that you cannot win every fight and that Economic Status Quo is an illusion that will collapse upon those believing in it.

So as we see the idiotic roundtable threaten those European leaders “In an open letter to the leaders of the 28 European Union countries, the Business Roundtable group defended Apple over its tax dispute with the European commission” and “US businesses have warned European leaders they risk a “grievous self-inflicted wound” unless they overturn Brussels’ demand that Apple pay the Irish government €13bn (£11.4bn)“, I just wonder if they even considered the stupidity of their actions. On the other hand, should those leaders cave, how stupid are the European elected officials to begin with? So as we wonder whether Randall L. Stephenson has looked into the long term issues of his act, when we see that these actions drive Frexit and possibly even Italy’s act on a referendum (although the major influences would be Brexit and Frexit), will Randall respond with a ‘this is much more complex and should not have been pushed by our, what we regard to be a righteous act‘, or will we see a spokesperson state ‘Our Chairman is currently unavailable and is taking his personal time teaching the Youth how to do a proper sheepshank‘? I will let you decide, but consider that tax accountability has been an issue for over a decade and now we finally see an actual result against a large corporation we see people backing down? Perhaps they thought it would never get that far? Just like Brexit was never going to be a reality!

Yet the Irish Times did not remain quiet and less than 24 hours ago reported (at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/apple-fined-in-japan-for-under-reporting-earnings-sent-to-ireland-1.2793469), ‘Apple fined in Japan for under-reporting earnings sent to Ireland‘. So when we read “The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau determined that the unit, which sends part of its profits earned from fees paid by subscribers in Japan to another Apple unit in Ireland to pay for software licensing, had not been paying a withholding tax on those earnings in Japan, according to broadcaster NHK“, I just wonder who the Tax Auditor was here.

Now I am not out to make Apple the bad guy, even though they screwed me over twice! What is important is that through all the presentations and all the boasting and ego based actions, there are now 4 groups in play all trying to get Brussels to back down on a legal verdict. We need to wait the appeal on this, yet should this remain and if the US makes noise we will have clear evidence that the EU is no longer something with validity, even stronger, these events are clear signals that the TTIP is an even worse idea than initially thought of in opposition. The one sidedness aside, the fact that American business has basically become the corporate ‘bully’, we need to reassess the situation and remain clear on where our priorities are. I personally remain with the belief as I always have that the Commonwealth nations need to stick together. In these times we now see the Democratic Party under leadership of President Obama do the following “The Obama administration on Thursday took action to limit the use of foreign tax credits by American multinational companies to reduce their U.S. tax bills, a move that followed an EU order that Apple pay back taxes to Ireland“, which I think is not a bad idea. You see, Apple et al might claim how they are so investing everywhere, but that is only done (as I personally see it) to avoid paying tax in America. It is one of the massive reasons why America is so deep in debt (apart from their impossibility to manage a budget) and something has to give. If those tax dollars are used to lower that debt then I would state: “Barack, you legend you, well done!“, because an America with low debt (read: no debt), would be again the superpower it once was and currently pretends to be.

In the end, nations that have a minimal debt, these nations get to decide for themselves, not having their actions overruled by financial institutions or Large Corporation, or by Randall L. Stephenson for that matter. Yes, we can see that those moves will have impact all over Europe and not in a nice way, but that is part of the game. You cannot have it both ways that was never a reality to begin with. Now they only need to fix the holes that Mario Draghi has in his hands and we are possibly perhaps on route to get something sorted.

Yet there is one part we need to get back to and that is the verdict. You see, what is in play here is the statement “an agreement allowing Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%. In 2014, the tech firm paid tax at 0.005%. The usual rate of corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5%“, this implies that Apple didn’t just get preferential treatment, all the other players were discriminated against. When we see the parts we had already known for a long time, the fact that “Ireland’s tax arrangements with Apple between 1991 and 2015 had allowed the US company to attribute sales to a “head office” that only existed on paper and could not have generated such profits“, which was a given and the result we saw on a global scale “Apple avoided tax on almost all the profit generated from its multibillion-euro sales of iPhones and other products across the EU’s single market. It booked the profits in Ireland rather than the country in which the product was sold“, gives way that a single market is perhaps not the best solution for all but one nation and in addition to this we must realise that the solution I mentioned 5 years ago to set the tax laws that taxation should be set into the nation of the buying consumers physical location could have avoided this and many other issues. A simple taxation change that made all the difference, yet it seems that no one in legislation in those nations as well as those political players ever considered changing that simple law that could have made all the difference.

You see, as the Guardian by-line offers, this case could have another escalation soon enough “Charlie Harrington, 53, a paramedic in Cork, expressed frustration that the Irish government penalized small taxpayers but seemed ready to protect Apple“, which is exactly how millions feel in both France and Italy. If this tax case caves and Apple ends up not being due this invoice, the jump to anti-EU sentiments will go up massively and very fast so. At that point President Obama will only have himself to thank for the mess he started to create when he went 180 degrees on the corporate tax issues discussed in the ‘The Hague Summit of 2013’. That was the first step that could have avoided a few things, this case being one of them.

Cause and Effect

The question becomes ‘What will happen now?’ This is something not easily answered. At present Apple has a few other issues knocking at its door and the iPhone 7 is one of them. The population at large is less money blessed, so paying $1295 for a new phone that according to Forbes is “Purchasing the iPhone 7 this morning from my local Apple Store I found a device that is remarkably similar to last year’s iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6 from 2014. The external design cues remain, the chips inside are faster, and iOS 10 is more polished but is fundamentally the same operating system. Nothing ‘feels’ news even though the package is professional and projects a revolution that is hard to find“, this is at the heart of the matter. Trying to create waves by limiting the system, whilst overall the system is still the same is an issue and at nearly $1300 a very expensive one. That whilst Android competitors are coming into the field with comparable devices, including a headphone jack at 50%-60% of the price of the iPhone 7 and the world is starting to consider the non-IOS alternative. What Apple should fear is not just the market they are losing, the dangers that people could, in regard to the tax pressures they have and the pressure that Apple seems to be able to avoid, is one that could make them feel frustrated and vindictive. The idea that a person could think ‘If the need not pay taxation, they do not need my business either is not that far a stretch‘. People are starting to see the ethical imbalance that large corporations have impressed upon nations and in Europe where the quality of life is not that great at present, seeking the much cheaper alternative that Huawei and LG are offering is one worth considering. That could bring considerable consequences for Apple soon enough. Now I am not stating that the iPhone 7 will be a flop, but for Apple in this stage, should they lose even as little as a 2% market share, the consequence for apple will be intense to state the least. In addition, the fact that the iPad has remained a success for so long could equally be the next problem child for Apple. In that regard releasing the iPad Pro was a really good idea, yet the tablet contenders are starting to realise what it takes to be a contender and if that knowledge is applied properly, there too non-IOS devices (read: android) could start to make a killing and as such undermine that market Apple has at present. The origin is not the device makers, but Google. As Google has been pushing ‘the year of mobile’ for two years, the shift of usage is also growing. There is a growing visibility that at times the mobile screen does not cut it and it gives more and more opportunity to both Phablet and Tablet. These are all examples showing quite clearly that there is no status quo to rely on and the temporary nature of devices shows that Apple needs to really push forward in an innovative way, preferably before the makers of tablets realise that an affordable 128 GB version of an Android tablet is every bit as appealing as the iPad Pro, especially when the Android version could be a lot less than the IOS edition. With Android having its own set of quality games, Apple has more to lose than they are willing to admit to and time is slowly running out for their streak of ignorance to continue. However, it is important to note that Apple has been pretty super innovative with the iPad pro, so there is still a gap to overcome for the competitors. In that regard it is equally interesting that the Android device market have ignored that side of the consumer’s need (read: desire). In all this, it was about taxation and not on markets. Yet one is linked to the other, mainly because if there is no market there is in equal measure no taxable revenue, which gets us to the final part. You see, I have written about these issues before in one form or another and now we see that the Wall Street Journal is finally waking up to this (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/lew-is-right-on-eu-tax-grab-but-lacks-credibility-1473962171), when we read “The Obama administration has had 92 months to tackle corporate tax reform. Now that Europe is making a grab for taxes on profits held by U.S. companies overseas, President Obama is ready to use his last few months in office to address tax issues that were ignored or made worse under his watch“, my response is that neither was done, as stated in earlier blogs in April 2016, when I wrote ‘Ignoranus Totalicus‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/24/ignoranus-totalicus), he refused to act (as voiced by “Senior officials in Washington have made it known“), so the non-actions are now back firing as event are now escalated. Another iteration of status quo.

What now?

This now all related to the issue at hand. IT corporations decided to maximise their profit by a consumer iterative annual approach of products. The IT market in the US nearly collapsed as it allowed for what was once regarded as a Taiwan Clone (a cheap alternative) to a quality A-brand to catch up. This is the problem with iterative thinking, when you are not in a niche market like Northrop Grumman (who at one stage actually there software patches ‘Iteration version’ I believe), you allow the market to catch up with you. ASUS caught up so and soon thereafter surpassed the original market owners. This lesson was not learned and the Telecom market decided that the profit was good in this way. So, please feel free to correct me. What happened to Ericsson and Nokia? Apple came and overwhelmed everyone and instead of truly remaining innovative, they started to largely iterate their device and called it innovation, now that LG, Samsung and Huawei have caught on and pretty much caught up, they are now offering equal, if not better options at lower prices. So how long will it take Apple to learn that status quo is merely an illusion? I reckon will see that revelation close after Christmas, after the annual sales are gone (and they will be improbable but not impossible a bit disappointing this year).

I reckon we will know in about 15-19 weeks!

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September 11, 2016 · 13:27

In This War!

We look at the news that is now taking on a she said, she said path, whilst he said is ignored towards what another he is stating. This is not a battle of sexes (which is a nice change). No this is almost like the US Senate versus Congress (also known as the fruits and nuts department of US politics), this is British politics in the Brexit phase that is now following. People dragging their feet, people going over simple narrow-minded seeding of statements whilst throwing the custard pies in as many faces as possible. It is like watching toddlers getting off the rocking chair. In all this there are also corporate players who have been hiding behind others whilst spreading unsolicited memo’s leaving them in the open to read with a ‘top secret‘ stamp on it. It almost feels like the GCHQ soap that we saw in Cheltenham 1991 (could be 1989 or 1990).

Anyway, when we hold people to account for their statements we will get these ‘miscommunication’ issues which will waste everybody’s time and it will not get anything done. That first part is seen in the Guardian in an opinion piece by Toby Helm (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/10/brexit-camp-abandons-350-million-pound-nhs-pledge). My issue started with “dropped their pre-referendum pledge of a £350m-a-week spending bonanza for the NHS“. Let’s be clear here! Nigel Farage has stated on several occasions that the 10 billion pounds (34 million a day), should not go towards the EU, it should be spend in the UK on people for the UK. In addition, he stated on Good Morning Britain that he could not guarantee that it (£350 million a week) would go to the NHS. That was months ago! Even earlier (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkr_Qjey8s8), we see Nigel Farage talking about the debate that is required around NHS. I believe he is right, in all this the debate he opened is one that the Tories and Labour aren’t stating they are slinging mud. In that part we see that Nigel was promising to put 3 billion (out of the 10 billion) towards the NHS. It was an intent to do!

He literally said ‘we could put 3 billion pounds‘ (around 5:55 into the story). Means it was not a given, just an option! In this Nigel Farage was right. Labour and Conservatives had ideas which meant borrowing more money. Also, let me remind the readers that it was Labour who stuffed up the NHS IT program costing the tax payers 11 billion pounds. It was a complete failure and large loss, one of the largest the NHS ever faced.

Now of course we can sling mud all over and as a Conservative I guarantee you that you will lose at that point. The NHS is on the verge of collapse and neither side has done anything to truly take care of business. UKIP sees it as a disgrace and so it should be, because it has been known for over 15 years that the UK is largely an aging population, meaning the pressures on the NHS will only increase, that while it is being drained. In this we also need to take a look at the TTIP and the dangers it poses. We can try to have faith in the marketing joke the EU is when we see the focal point that is useless (at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/january/tradoc_153010.4.7%20Pharmaceuticals.pdf). This is especially seen when we see the elements around protecting Intellectual Property:

– Companies to profit from their research and remain amongst the most competitive in the world- Patients to benefit from new medicines.
We won’t negotiate anything in TTIP which would:

– Upset this delicate balance, or
– Increase costs for EU countries

The TTIP is about profit, especially for American Pharmaceutical companies!

Places like EFPIA are not lying to you, they are just misrepresenting the needs. Because a strong TTIP is not what they state ‘How a Strong Pharmaceutical Chapter in TTIP will Benefit the EU‘, it gives massive powers to the Pharmaceutical industries, whilst stopping generic medication from getting in. And here is the crux for the NHS, to get part of their budgets to meet up with reality, there will be a massive need for generic medication. For over 2 years I have pleaded to get stronger ties with India that has a growing market of generic medical solutions. A partial solution can be found here! Now, it will not solve all, there are still patented medicinal solutions we need and they will be bought, yet the fact that pharmaceutical industries want another 20 years of exclusivity is just not proper, not realistic and not acceptable. The US should have cleaned house in that market decades ago, but they were only focused on flaccid politicians requiring Viagra. Now that the game is up they all want a little more (read: twice as much). This is not how patents are supposed to work, they never were!

Consider the following two quotes: “The EU and India are taking steps to end a trade row sparked by an EU ban of 700 Indian pharmaceutical products after New Delhi cancelled talks on a free trade accord earlier this month“, which was in August 2015 by the way! As well as “Modi personally argued that the long-stalled talks on a free trade accord should be revived, India’s turnaround puzzled the 28-nation bloc, which insisted the ban was a minor, technical issue unconnected to trade“, it was all about the product, not about trade, the issue that the EU licking the heels of Washington gives us “the delays risk leaving India isolated. While Modi is trying to double India’s global exports to $900 billion in five years, Europe’s top negotiator now spends more time on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Washington“, you see, this 900 billion market is stopping an almost 2 trillion market of US pharmacy. Even if it is not all UK, what would you rather see? The NHS spending 90 million, or 2 billion on the same amount of medication? Let’s not forget it is down for over 13 billion at present. The NHS needs this generic solution and at present having strong ties with India makes a lot more sense than the ties with the US that are bringing the UK down, all because they would not clean their own stables!

This is and remains the foundation of Brexit, so when we see the Guardian quote “Anna Soubry, the pro-Remain Tory MP and former minister for small business, said it was outrageous that the Leave campaigners had “peddled that lie” during the campaign and were now quietly abandoning it“, we need to tell Anna Soubry that she needs to stop whining like a politician and start giving out papers that clearly define on how the NHS can be stopped to collapse, because as a fellow Tory she does know that from the moment the Tories came to power in 2010, too little has been done to revive the No Holy Sanctum, so actions are required. The fact that the previous administration from 1997 onwards also made its shares of mistakes as well as waste an additional 10 billion, means that massive effort needs to go into the NHS, having to listen to a whining Anna Soubry (in this matter) is a waste of everybody’s time. I am actually not happy to phrase it this way, because Anna has had quite the political career. Not into the limelight for too much, but I always saw her as upcoming House of Lords material, mainly because she has been outspoken on more than one occasion, at times this is how we hope our Lords would be. I never minds whether a person was right or wrong, just that they would be an evolving wisdom. Those vague stating politicians (as too many are) would never be Lords material, Anna still is in my eyes. This does not mean I will agree on her, or on my party. Things need to get done and too many aren’t getting it done.

In addition, we see all these financial doomsayers who are now resetting the view of Brexit in less negative ways. It is not as bad as they thought it was. This is their view on managed bad news. Another piece of the puzzle, where too many people were trying to demand that the Status Quo remain. When spending has not had the incentive of growth and managed bad news was used to dim the impact, now we see the opposite where their doom is not happening and now they are revising the numbers upwards (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/09/city-banks-revise-brexit-doom-and-gloom-forecasts). Here we see the ‘bitches’ of Wall Street: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse revising their numbers as the trade deficit is now falling for the UK and that gap is now optionally turning into the momentum of a better economy. So, is my view too extreme when we see the quote “Morgan Stanley initially forecast the economy going negative by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2016, but this week changed that to expectations of 0.3% growth“. This makes me state ‘How stupid or non-comprehending is your staff?‘ I would like to add personally to James P. Gorman: “You now have 7 quarters of data showing that managed bad news is never a real solution and that the Status Quo of finance is a mere illusion. So will you in the near future clean house and start being a visionary instead of remaining a facilitator?”

I know, diplomacy has never been my forte, yet as Apple is likely to lose up to a 2% market share over the coming tax year, he needs to wake up and kick the right people into gear before he has to do a negative 2 trillion dollar speech, and perhaps I might just have oversimplified the problem for both you and him!

These are only parts of the solution, but we need to tackle them one at a time. Because the intricate mess both sides of the isle is trying to make them will not solve anything. I will go one step further, I am almost driven to get one additional degree in Medicine, move to the UK and work at the NHS trying to resolve the problems! You see, one of my lifelong idols is Lord Baden-Powell. I was never a boy scout (in more than one way), but I have always taken one of his quotes to heart “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it!” It is the master of all thoughts, because it does not make you solve things, it is not my burden, just leaving it a little better, a little cleaner is all we all need to do. The simplicity is that if all 68 million Britons do just that, we could all turn the UK into the paradise it once was and can be again in almost no time at all.

The simplicity of any solution is the one step you actively take! Because when it is done you take the next step! This is what happens when we are not stopped for too long by too many managers trying to figure out WHAT to do, just to start doing it. That is the brilliance of Brexit. That step has been taken, now we take the next step and the one after it. So many politicians have been too worried about looking good that they forgot about actually doing anything good. I reckon that the inactions towards the NHS and housing are ample pieces of evidence to show that I am right, and the Mud Ladle of Blame goes to both sides of the isle.

In all this the one massive reason for me to remain towards the Brexit side is the one no one seems to discuss, or perhaps the press is being told not to dig too deep into that side. You see, one of my major issues has been and still is Mario Draghi. Bloomberg gets close with the quote “About three months ago, the Draghi-led European Central Bank started buying corporate bonds in the region for the first time. The results have been dramatic and, at times, alarming” (at https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-09-07/companies-are-getting-paid-to-be-rated-junk-in-europe). You see, the simple clarity is that you cannot use a credit card spending over a trillion thinking it will have no impact of your credit score. The quote “Investors are now literally paying European companies to borrow. Sanofi, a French drug maker, just became the first nonfinancial private company to issue debt that yields less than zero” as well as “Bonds of some investment-grade European companies now carry negative yields” are just two examples of the mess and the nightmare that will soon hit too many places. Then there is “Less clear is how investors are justifying purchases of junk-rated bonds that promise nothing and come with big risks“, which is what we saw on Cyprus and in Greece. No one is held accountable and those screaming for more money have no idea and no option to pay it back. It was never a solution! So Draghi spending a trillion plus leaving the credit card to be added to the workload of his successor is not ever a solution. Moreover, the EU nations have to come up with paying it back somehow, so leaving this collection of spenders seems much better than to play possum and ignore that credit card, because that debt comes with interest and there is not one government in the EU who doesn’t have their own national credit card maxed out, which means that our children will have to work of this debt. That is not a world I ever accepted to be in!

Now consider the last quote “Does this mean risky debt in Europe getting less risky? No. Fundamentals are, in fact, deteriorating, according to the Bank of America strategists, with investors recovering less from defaulted debt than they have in the past“, which is partially the problem and the issue I have with the USA. Wall Street is setting up a scenario that is reminiscent of the old Pyramid schemes, with the difference that they quickly want to cash in one more time and breaking free from whatever remains. It is wrong on many levels, so as there is one more round of bonds and stimulus, the previous instigators cash in and get out with as much as possible, knowing that they will survive in the next two decades whilst the ones not getting out drown and lose all. This is why the Draghi method is so dangerous and we need to get away from it Brexit was part one, although Frexit (part two) is not a guarantee, the fact that Sarkozy is now ready to set a referendum if elected should be ample warning for the US (read: Wall Street) that the status quo route is no longer acceptable and too many nations are willing to let it all fall back to nationalism if pushed, should be more than enough for Wall Street to find a ‘live with the loses solution‘. Something we all know will never happen!

So in this war there is the immediate need to stop misinformation and above all get something done, in this case fix the NHS, it should be the only issue on the agenda of both isles for the rest of the year, that whilst Brexit moves forward. It is a tall order to deliver no matter how you slice it, but whomever does will have the support of the people for a long time to come, because that aging population will still hold the majority for well over a decade.

 

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September 8, 2016 · 13:13

Brilliance or Donkey mode?

The Guardian gives us two stories. One is of course all about the iPhone 7. At https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/07/apple-iphone-no-headphone-jack-second-generation-watch we see the revolution of another iteration by Apple. The interesting side is that the head jack is no more, so no headset plugging into your phone. The quote “one that tech pundits predict could have consumers staying away in droves” is one that I find debatable. You see, the article goes on (via two sides) on how head jacks need to remain. Yet Apple decided on a model that is more waterproof. A statement that I find slightly debatable as there is still a lightning connector and speaker holes. Yet that could be an error on my side. What is striking is the quote “Apple announced another new product on Wednesday – AirPods, a pair of barely-larger-than-earplugs headphones that Schiller said use a new kind of chip to deliver a “magical experience” without the usual hassle of Bluetooth pairing and un-pairing“, which means a new era of listening technology. I will not go deeper into that side, especially as I have no idea on the Airpods, yet one side unmentioned is that these ways of transmitting ‘audio’ means that the battery will see a new level of draining. Whether this is better or worse than the head jack is one I can only speculate on. What is a given is that these moves are usually paired with the gravitas of cajones that tends to change the technological battlefield by a fair bit, so it might not be a donkey idea but a brilliant one. Time will tell which one it is. So far Apple remained quiet on the field of true technical innovation so the bar is open on the gamble, but the fallout could be one worth watching.

The other side gives us the consoles. The lacking brilliance of Sony has been evident for a little while and now that they have released batch 1 of the PlayStation Pro for this November, pre-orders are off the hook. Yet in my view, this is more definitely going to be the Donkey idea for a long time. Apart from the price which is not too bad, the massive issue now is that they are offering 4K gaming. Now apart from it not actually being 4K gaming (for now), those in charge of this were blatantly lacking brainpower when setting together this package. You see 1TB just does not cut it. Consider 4K.com (at http://4k.com/news/unsexy-hard-drive-technology-needs-to-keep-up-with-4k-4872/) gives us “Given that a single minute of full ultra HD 4K video in native resolution takes up a full 2 GB of storage memory, large amounts of drive space become more crucial than ever before“. Now, games and movies are not the same, but consider that cut scenes are still going to be large and the average game has at least 30 minutes of cut scenes. That’s 60GB, which exceeds the Blu-Ray disc, which is not an issue for 4K Blu-ray’s, but how about your storage? What happens when you run out of space? I warned about this with the initial PS4 and 500 GB, so I updated to 2TB immediately. Now, that does not worry me, because I am not the average player, yet let’s not forget that after 10 games, the 500 GB edition had run out of space, what do you think 4K gaming will do with a 1TB drive? To equip that system with anything less than 2TB was sheer stupidity!

Even Microsoft saw that one coming and gave all these new versions a 2TB drive. It is likely that the Scorpion will have more than 2TB, but we will have to see. So not only did Sony drop the ball on hardware, they did it TWICE in a row, the same mistake. It seems that someone there is not thinking things through!

By the way, do not take my word for it, Sony themselves announced the new Blu-ray standard with a 1TB disc in March 2014, so I reckon that they are creating their own slippery slope all by themselves. Microsoft only needs to release the original Mass Effect trilogy on 4K within 6 months of releasing Andromeda and Sony could lose a massive stake in the gaming population. EA has clearly said that this would not happen, yet Microsoft has an option it did not have ever before, it has a title both gaming sides revere and desire. If that becomes a XB1 exclusive, Sony would end up crying a river of losses.

 

Still there is now a given we have not seen until these new systems, Sony botched the ball a second time and this time, the Sony fans might not be as forgiving as before, not only because of the initial PS4 launch fiasco (most day one games were not ready and the big title was delayed by well over 40 weeks). The issues that some faced with HD space, an issue most had not experienced on the PS3 gave more stress than people bargained for and the clarity of drive space is a lot more obvious on the PSPro than it was on the PS4.

So even if we see Sony to be in the ‘not so bright mode’, where should we see Apple? As stated before, I am not certain as there is no way to expect how the people will react to the new requirement of Airpods, the fact that the phone will now be waterproof could be the quality band aid the iPhone fans will accept as a trade-off. However, at $229 they are not the cheapest solution, so that also counts against them. Anyway, with the lightning adapter the old solution remains operational and if that cable is included with the iPhone 7 (yea right!) Phone owners would not have anything to complain about. Time will tell how Apple is seen. I think that they took a bold step in another direction and that might not be a bad thing.

Another part I found debatable was the quote Julie Ask, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research made. When we see “They’re not trying to win the race to the bottom like [competitors] Samsung or Huawei; they tend to go after the middle-class consumer that can afford the products“, we have to wonder what her data proves. Not unlike the claims she made on Bloomberg, there are a few sides that are actively ignored. For one, Huawei is NOT a bottom competitor (the quote was very peculiarly phrased), Huawei has shown to be an Android top runner and has been giving a stronger bang for the buck than the iPhone has been giving for the longest of time. My issue with Huawei is not the quality of hardware, but the limiting of availability of the higher models is an issue, one that seems to be due through agreements with the telecom companies, which is a big no no in my view. Which now also reflects back to the iPhone, which is now standard have larger sized phones, making Huawei trail. This is what the show from Apple revealed. Now for the fun part, I mentioned on my blog on July 28th 2016 how stupid this move was in the article ‘What we waste away‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/07/28/what-we-waste-away/), so less than 8 weeks later I am proven correct in more than one way. So not only is Huawei not offering a decent storage driven system, it is likely to lose a lot of market share as the 32GB Huawei P9 is pretty much the same price as the iPhone 7 128 GB Jet Black. How did Huawei not see this coming? Let’s not forget that (rumour) their CEO would be able to ask PLA Unit 61398 (Chinese Cyber warfare) what Apple was planning to do, nobody in charge there considered calling the honourable Ren Zhengfei informing him on the actions that ‘Imperialistic America’ was planning (read: Apple CEO)?

Brilliance can be found in all levels of technology, yet many of the players here seem to have been asleep these last 8 weeks.

Anybody for pancakes?

 

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September 5, 2016 · 14:44

For Only the Messenger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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August 27, 2016 · 15:47

The Validity of Targeted Killing

This is not some euphemism like the trials and tribulations of Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This is not a game, nor is it some romantic twist. It is the harsh reality of a government that didn’t get it to begin with and now as the body count ads up, it has painted itself into a corner and until it wakes up and gets active, its citizens will be placed into immediate harm. The undeniable consequence of a flaccid government set to inaction. The nice part is, is that governments at large are all on the same boat. The US, nominated as the most stupid one, followed by the European Community at large, the Commonwealth and a few more nations. It seems that in this specific case China is the only clever participant (in this specific case).

To give you the connections at hand, we need to realise what exactly is Targeted Killing. In this case it is the ‘Assassination by a state organisation outside of the judicial procedure or a battlefield’. Yet in this, the existing definition is not complete or correct. In this day and age, assassination is done in a multitude of ways, not always corporeal being lethal, but in some cases that might actually have been an act of mercy if it ended that way. So what is this about?

You might think that it started with ‘WhatsApp privacy backlash: Facebook angers users by harvesting their data‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-backlash-facebook-data-privacy-users), but you would be wrong. This is not the start, but it might be the end of the beginning. You see, the one part that people forgot is that data once captured will be an entity onto itself, it will take on a life of its own, your shadow self, but a part you no longer have control of. You see, you still control your shadow, you step away from the light and it moves your shadow, when all the light is gone, your shadow is dead, because it only lives through your indirect interaction with light. The link we have initially is: ‘WhatsApp to give users’ phone numbers to Facebook for targeted ads‘, which the Guardian published 2 days ago. You see, the subtitle “Messaging service will begin sharing private information with Facebook and is preparing to allow businesses to message users” gives us the consequence. Our data is no longer our own, we gave that right up and as such, data is now starting to get shared with people we did not consider it could be shared with. So even if we see that this reflects on ‘phone numbers’ this first step is more than that as we see ‘sharing private information‘, when you consider the quote “They will have 30 days to decide whether to opt out of their information being used for ad targeting on Facebook, but will not be able to opt out of their data being sharing with the social network“, you might get a first idea of how bad things could possibly become. The quote “Whether it’s hearing from your bank about a potentially fraudulent transaction, or getting notified by an airline about a delayed flight, many of us get this information elsewhere, including in text messages and phone calls“, this quote seems nice, but that is not the information some are looking for. Consider how often you called a health professional. Now consider that the insurance agencies start digging into all the calls they can get their hands on. They can data-mine it by linking that to all the health professionals that work through them. Let’s put that into a state of reference you will understand.

Any person is likely to be connected to health professionals and pharmacies. Like your GP (physician), a Chemist and perhaps a Medical Clinic. Now consider that if you have called any of these places in total 4 times or more this year, your insurance could go up by 10%, and an additional 2% for any additional call in that time period. This will be worth Millions to that insurance agency, because they will get the data that involves 10% or more of their customer base. Now, this last part is a little speculative. The reason is that clear information is not out there. Some state that WhatsApp has 8% coverage in the US, whilst another source states 34%. There is no clear number we can trust because those behind WhatsApp are also aware that high numbers will cause concern, so we get bombarded with specific information, not giving us an exact picture. Yet for the US, we see that the number of users is between 26 and 79 million, which is too large a fluctuation, yet in other places like South Africa, where the usage is 68% and 72% in Brazil. Now we have another matter, because insurance agents, in these areas can form a health hazard image with much greater precision, it maximises their profits and changes a health entity into a ‘milking solution’ of healthy people, the others can sit on expensive bills and die of their own good accord.

That is what the article does not bring forth and that is what is only just below the surface. It is all happening because of two sides. On the one side, political players left too many backdoors open, meaning that in reality these players will never be prosecuted in any way. On the other side, a clear information pass to all people alarming them of the dangers that data collection brings was not in the cards either. Here, the governments get a little bit of leeway as no one truly saw the impact that social media would have, Facebook changed it in many unimaginable ways.

With WhatsApp now surpassing the 1 billion user market we now have a player that has global coverage, making that data worth a lot to some players, the insurance world is only one of them. Consider the interaction of Mobiles and the internet and what other information is being collected. That is now becoming clear and as certain cases saw in the past, data might be deleted, but will never be wiped, so as such we now have a massive issue and this is only the beginning. You see, even as the people at WhatsApp are trying to put your fear to sleep. The quote “WhatsApp said: “We won’t post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook, and we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number to advertisers.”” should not diminish that fear. You see, “we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number” is not the art that matters. What does matter is what unique identifier will be shared and no matter what the foundation of that number is, once it is decomposed to its core and can be made uniquely identifiable, it will start the next push towards the epitaph of privacy.

So how does this relate to targeted killing?

You see the plain fact is, is that we no longer have a correct view on how politicians view ‘the long term’. You see, ‘for the good of all’ is now a hollow statement, especially when we consider the latest president of the US and more important, the impact that whomever comes next has. We can see that in the following links ‘Corporate tax reform is vital to boosting America’s growth‘ (Financial Times), where we see “In the intervening years, nearly every developed country has reformed its tax codes to make them more competitive than that of America. Meanwhile, the US has allowed its tax code to atrophy“, which is one way to tell the story. What is the crux is that for too long tax breaks were given to large corporations. Tax breaks that allowed them to operate for nearly free, making the revenue they obtained, to be ‘the profit they got’. In addition we see ‘Treasury Department Criticizes EU on Corporate Tax Probes‘ (at http://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-department-criticizes-eu-on-corporate-tax-probes-1472059767), here we see “U.S. officials also see a potential risk to the federal budget. Under current law, U.S. companies owe U.S. taxes on the profits they earn around the world and get tax credits for payments to foreign governments. To the extent they pay more in Europe, they could pay less to the U.S. when they repatriate the money or when Congress imposes a mandatory tax on their stockpiled foreign profits“. Here we could go into ‘Yay, America, good for you mode‘, but the truth is that part of 325 American Consumers (many of them being non-consumer) is nothing compared to the billions of consumers companies like Apple are getting their profits from. The linked White paper (added at the end) states “Beginning in June 2014, the Commission announced that certain transfer pricing rulings given by Member States to particular taxpayers may have violated the EU’s restriction on State aid. These investigations, if continued, have considerable implications for the United States—for the U.S. government directly and for U.S. companies—in the form of potential lost tax revenue and increased barriers to cross-border investment. Critically, these investigations also undermine the multilateral progress made towards reducing tax avoidance“, a paper that comes from the US Treasury. Perhaps people there like Jacob J. Lew and Sarah Bloom Raskin should have realised the long term consequences that they thrust towards others and are now thrust back onto them. If the treasury would not have been so stupid to send a member of the USC (United States of Cowards), namely President Obama to make a presentation in The Hague in 2013, where we see a refusal to back international taxation laws to allow for tougher calls on digital companies. The official quote was “senior officials in Washington have made it known they will not stand for rule changes that narrowly target the activities of some of the nation’s fastest growing multinationals“. I dealt with this in my articles ‘Delusional‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/07/delusional/) and ‘Ignoranus Totalicus‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/24/ignoranus-totalicus/), which I wrote on April 7th and 24th of this year. So perhaps hoping for as they state it an “unforeseeable departure from the status quo” was not the best idea to have, especially as maintaining the Status Quo screwed up Greece for economic life and it got them Brexit! Two elements that will push taxation changes in the European Union even further.

So how stupid were they?

Well, from one side we could state ‘extremely so’, yet that would ignore the part that is ignored by many. The truth is that players like Apple, Google and Facebook now have powers that exceed many governments and they have the benefit of not being in debt. So it amounts to Facebook giving a presentation to these so called ‘Senior Officials’ in Washington with on the last slide they see ‘Monkey see, Monkey do!’, and the presentation, minus the final slide gets send around by so called senior officials. Our lives now firmly in the hands of non-elected officials.

That is the crux, because it can only stop with massive changes to the taxation system, with the dangers that it will break the back of national economies. It is that regard that made Brexit a necessary evil and when official discussions start in 2017 as Article 50 comes into play, the line of taxation will change even more. All because those who needed to advocate change were unwilling to clearly speak out and now hell comes for its pound of flesh.

Now we can complete the targeted killing part that was unclear. You see the definition should be: ‘The Assassination by a ruling organisation outside of the Judicial procedure or a battlefield‘, which now puts Facebook in play. You see, when Brad J. Bushman Ph.D. wrote ‘It’s Time to Kill the Death Penalty‘ (at https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-psyched/201401/it-s-time-kill-the-death-penalty), he forgot a few parts. Now, this is a good article and seeing the sides he discusses in the frame it was written is well worth reading. Yet, when he states “The Death Penalty Models the behaviour it seeks to Prevent” is about the act of corporeally killing a person. Then we get ‘You Might Kill the Wrong Person‘ which is a valid argument any day of the week. Now consider those who would kill you in different ways. When Facebook bans you for life, it stops you from interacting and as such you become a social pariah, an outcast and you are withdrawn from social circles, yet their model is not about your limit to interaction. When they sell on your data you run the risk to get barred from certain rights. Rights to medical support as insurance agents find you a risk and make the monthly fee no longer affordable. It will potentially change your data as you are a risk to finances and limit or stop creditability for a house. Algorithms will stop you to move forward. You will be dead in the soul as the rightful interactions for your way of life are removed from you, mostly all from predictive modelling, an expected future, not a given fact. You become guilty until proven incorrectly processed. It is still targeted killing, but one of a different kind. And in all this Facebook would never be made accountable for any of this. That is the part that all seem to ignore. Those who do prosecute it will try to get a large fine out of it, yet the people wronged will still be regarded as ‘executed’.

Now in light of all this and all of you would have seen, consider the statement that the ACLU gave “The capital punishment system is discriminatory and arbitrary and inherently violates the Constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. The ACLU opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, and looks forward to the day when the United States joins the majority of nations in abolishing it“, being excluded from healthcare as insurers make certain paths unaffordable is certainly discriminatory, especially as the true vetting of the data that is used against the people cannot be verified and is forced upon a ‘victim’. In addition, the isolation that results from these actions can be regarded as torture.

So how was there not a stronger level of protection? That part is harder to argue as it was your personal freedom to join up to these services and once the data is given, when the service changes its foundational work, we have no say over the removal of already collected data. So when we consider the quote “The service will not be merged with Facebook’s other chat-based service Messenger or photo-sharing service Instagram. But all services under Facebook will gain access to WhatsApp users’ phone numbers and other account information, and it can be used to suggest contacts be added as friends“, so now we see the dangers that professional contacts become social contacts (read: ‘friends’). I have seen that this could end up being a great way to kill your own career and in this day and age, those without a job tend to lose a lot more than just a job. An efficient and bloodless way to expedite targeted killing whilst not leaving any blood on the floor or a corpse. They are true fears beyond the death sentence in this day and age, a fear which cannot be altered as taxation dollar to support these people are not coming in any day soon. It is a potential nightmare to many registered users. If only the right laws had been enacted to prevent this from happening. So even as there might not be any validity in targeted killing, we are now in a place where it can happen, and it is not considered as such, as there is no corpse to process and in the corporate spreadsheets validity is not an actionable point, it merely is not illegal, making it valid and legal for all pushing towards an economy of data sales.

Have a great evening and do not forget to update your status to ‘it’s complicated‘, because it truly is about to become that for plenty of registered social media users.

White-Paper-State-Aid

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July 28, 2016 · 21:07

What we waste away

This is an issue that bugged me for a little while. Even though it started small, the near exponential growth of waste is now looking towards me, looking at me as I look into an abyss of squandered opportunity. You see, this is in part the Monday morning quarterback speaking, whilst in that same view I should hold a mirror to my own choices. Just like you should do.

The idea for this article started small, it started when I realised that Huawei was willing to sacrifice its Australian market share by tweaking the skewing profits they have. They are now making short-sighted decisions and as they do that, they stand to lose close to 10% of the Australian market share. So why waste that? Let’s not forget that before the P7 Huawei was almost synonymous with ‘whazzat?’ and now after the P7, which was and still is awesome, after a less appreciated P8, Huawei is close to being a global household name. Now with the Nexus being a little outdated (Nexus 6P), the 9P could have been ready to gain a decent market share, hurting both the iPhone to a lesser degree and the Samsung phones to a larger degrees. So what does Huawei do? They decide to not release the 64 GB in Australia. Now until recently, we could have expected that, yet when you consider the exponential demand for mobile games that Pokémon GO is pushing, the fact that we now see ‘Apple plans to invest in augmented reality following success of Pokémon Go‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/26/apple-earnings-pokemon-go-augmented-reality-steve-cook), whilst the players are not thinking their decisions through could be regarded as a larger (read: massive) act of wasting away opportunity.

So why is this a waste?

Until Pokémon GO, the need for storage had not been visible to the degree we thought we needed. Even I did not see this coming and I have been connected to games and gaming in excess of 30 years. Forbes (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016/07/25/these-photos-show-how-crazy-the-pokemon-go-craze-is-in-hong-kong) gives us a clear view with the quote “special phone plans from local companies offering unlimited data usage just for the game“, which shows the amount of users, but not the need for storage. The fact that millions of people are now getting dozens of screenshots every day (more than before) of every Pokémon they caught and even more interesting where it was caught. Of course the average teenager is also feeding the image streams on how they caught a Diglett on their boxer short, so the wildfire of images is growing. All these images require storage and this is only the first game, within a year I expect close to a dozen games with features requiring storage, because there will always be copycats. So do you really think your 32 GB phone will suffice? I think not, with all the other needs your mobile life has, buying any phone less than 64 GB from this point onwards is a massive flaw. It is short-sighted, even if you are not a gamer, this market is erupting into new fields and the chance that this will not affect you is near impossible. So as the difference should be no more than $100, sticking with the 32 GB is in my view for the nuts and fruits, the fibre based mobile user needs 64 GB, yes there is in some cases a 128 GB, yet this is except for the very few really overkill, you need to be a seriously intense user of large files to really need something this big, but by 2019, who can tell?

In my view, you need to consider a mobile phone for the next 2 years. 32 GB will not cut it, especially as Android OS is also growing and will require more space.

Now it is time to take a look at the Apple side, the Guardian gives us “The comments came during an earnings call to discuss the results of the company’s third financial quarter, the three months ending 30th June, in which the company earned $42.4bn in revenue, a 15% decline from the same period last year“, so as Tim Cook is making claims towards Augmented Reality (AR) he seems to have forgotten that Nintendo, with their 3DS got to that point 5 years ago. So, not only did he miss that entire cycle, we can conclude that 3 iterations of new Apple products were not near ready either, so he is running behind the ball, whilst someone saw the AR on the 3DS and game it a little more thought. As we see how Microsoft has been bungling some of their projects, in all of those steps Apple wasn’t just absent, they had no clue where the gaming world was, so as they are trying to pick up the pass, we see the lack of innovation and shear absence regarding the creativity of options that Apple happily avoided. Now as some ask questions we see a sudden mention of AR whilst none of the hardware is ready to facilitate innovation for this track.

As I stated that all (including me) missed the hype this caused and yes, it is a hype but one that is creating a beachhead, not one that is fading away. So Nintendo has options and opportunity here. Beyond the IP needs that are now rearing its ugly head, we need to realise that Apple is now moving to the shallow end of the pool. They moved from innovator to facilitator and until they change the mindset on what a gamer wants and what a game needs to be Apple is now the one barking up the wrong tree. In that regard evidence of their hardware is simple enough. Only the iPhone 6 started to have 2GB or RAM. The issue is that games tend to be memory hungry and no matter how good the swap architecture, the fact that you need it will drag gaming speed and swapping speed down, which makes for a bad solution. The fact that Huawei is skewing profitability by limiting storage is less on an impact, but knowing full well the impact on mobile gamers, the fact that Huawei has not adjusted it view means that they will not be able to keep up. That last one is a little incomplete for Australia, because it is one of the few places where the mobile phone providers do not offer a 64 GB edition, whilst the models do exist. Here we get that Kogan.com is the only open provider offering 64 GB phones, in the non-open field it is only Telstra that offered it (their iPhone 6S), the rest is now trailing storage land with a dangerous backlash that could come their way.

So how important is storage? It might not be that big on one side, until you run out. Ask yourself, when was the last time you deleted pictures, removed MP3 tracks and removed APPS you never use? The moment you run out of memory and as you suddenly see that you do not have enough storage you will freak out like the short-sighted PC users who used to think that 20 GB was enough for their PC. Most of those people ran out of resources less than a year after getting their PC, when they did not know how to clean up their PC they started everyone except themselves. That is what you now face with your upcoming needed Mobile, because that moment with your kids, or your partner who just made that one gesture just as a bus passes by and the water pool near her feet became the inverted waterfall covering her, that moment when you miss it will introduce you to the term ‘frustration’, which is the moment as you realise that storage was everything at some points.

Yet these were not the only parts, just the directly visible ones.

There are more options and several are being missed out on. I am currently sitting on a billion in revenue, yet until the right person comes along. I can’t afford to move towards it without leaving it open for others to pick it up. I just need to get lucky. In that same way, some game developers are sitting on optional IP, some are now finding its way towards us in other ways, some through redesign, some through the mini console gadgets, yet they are coming. Is it enough? That depends on your point of view. For those coming with the mini console, it is a way to cash in on old IP in an easy way, a way where the seasoned gamer will get joy from. Just remember that this $99 solution, with the original games which would have come at a price of almost $1900 when the games were initially released, yet I digress.

You see, the need for gaming is still growing and it is moving away from consoles and moving towards the mobile realm of gaming needs. AR is only one field and it is not the only field. Ubisoft had initially created a small wave with a brotherhood app, one that interacted with the console/PC games and soon thereafter stuffed it up with the AC Unity versions by not proper testing and considering options. Yes, that Ubisoft! Still, they are not done! Consider the options they still have. For one, they have the IP of Just Dance. How long until they get the idea to push songs to the mobile and kids in schools and colleges start holding a little Just dance marathon? Sydney of all places is one place where a dance app could make it big not just in the parks, but on the streets too and summer is coming!

How long until that Just Dance would evolve to work in selfie video mode, so that you can get a rating? This would require storage and some of these speculated options could be just around the corner. Even though Ubisoft dropped the ball initially, they are leading the way of combining gaming with mobile gaming. So there are more options that AR games, even if everyone is running that direction (which is not a bad idea), it will require an open mind to find something that could create the interest that the tsunami of Pokémon GO gamers crave. I will let the developers work that out.

The final part can be seen outside of the economic requirements of technology. It is found in the overly eager acceptance of ‘speculative estimation’. It is not based upon what could be, it is not set on the prediction of what already exists, it is seen in the quote “Shares plunge 10% as revenue falls short of analysts’ estimates amid modest gain of 3 million users“. In this case it is Twitter, you know that great tool. A connectivity tool that link you to existing interests, both professional, personal as recreational. No matter that it is limited to 144 characters, it enables you to get the information you care about. An invention that is profound and its value drops as revenue falls short of what a limited group of people expects it to make. So as we see a solution that is making “Twitter forecast current quarter revenue of $590-$610m“, we get the cold shower because some people claim that it is “well below the average analyst estimate of $678.18m“, so we have half a billion profit and someone says it is not enough. This is the waste, reduction in value, reduction of what those who do not create anything is just not good enough. Yet, this picture that the Guardian initially paints is not accurate either. We see should consider this when we take into account Revenue and Profit, no matter what the profit was, it did beat the expectations of some, making me wonder why analysts cannot get their act together.

Some of those are pretty much the same types who would increase the value of Nintendo by 10 billion, even as Nintendo themselves did not make Pokémon GO. Those same category of people who seem to expertly know that Twitter is supposed to have up to $70M more in revenue, did not realise that “Tokyo Stock Exchange has plummeted 17% in one day, apparently due to investors belatedly discovering that the company doesn’t actually make Pokémon Go, the latest mobile gaming phenomenon“, even as we all knew from day one that Niantec is an American development company in San Francisco, they were not making any mention when Nintendo stock went through the roof. So is this just plain playing the field or just short-sightedness? Even as shares went up 13 cents per share (up 3 cents), they had no good news on Twitter. It seems to me that there is a massive waste coming from analysts predicting values, setting targets that are a little too weird even as Twitter had achieved 20% revenue gain, it still missed targets (according to analysts). The pressure on false targets and fake values is dragging down people and it is dragging down quality of life for those who still made well over half a billion dollars. How is that not a waste?

It seems to me that we need to make large changes, not just on the way we think, but on the way we accept certain values. How is pushing by externals in any way acceptable? Let’s consider the following parts. These analysts we all about predicting the ‘opportunities’ for Greece in the era 2009-2012, even as we saw misrepresentation in more than one way. How did that work out for the Greeks? Brexit was never going to happen, they did not catch on to that part until the day of the election, how again did Wall Street overreact? Now consider the following definitions: ‘Slavery existed before written history, it continues through such practices as debt bondage & serfdom‘. Now consider debt bondage, where we see ‘a person’s pledge of their labour or services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation‘, our debts, our essential need to work, the pledge of labour as analysts seem to chasten Twitter (and many other companies). Serfdom is another issue. It is not the same as it was. As the description might be seen as: ‘Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the lord of the manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence‘, many might deny that this still exists, yet in an age with high levels of unemployment we seem to push out own boundaries to do whatever it takes to keep levels of ‘protection‘ (read: not being unemployed) and ‘rights to exploit your position‘ (read: additional work requirements), even as we might disagree with parts of this (which is fair enough) the similarities are close to undeniable. In all this we see an iteration of analysts changing predicted needs, raising expectations, after which their errors are released through waves of managed ‘bad news’. Now, this might be just my speculative error of insight. Yet the evidence is all around you. In that regard, many analysts also get it wrong the other way. When we see Facebook exceeding ‘expectations’ by 59%, can we at that point agree that the analysts making the predictions have no real clue? In this age where we can all miss a trend, the fact that we see a 60% miss is not as much as a miss, as it is a massive inability to read your market, which is how I would see it (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/27/facebook-ad-sales-growth-quarterly-results).

You are now wondering how the latter part connects to the initial part. As I personally see it, we are receiving more and more hindrance from places that make one claim, yet in reality they are mere facilitators towards profitability to ‘satisfy’ the greed of ‘investors’ on the terms of analysts. I have nothing against profit and profitability. No company forsaking its ROI will live for long, yet when we see a company surpassing the 600 million revenue and they are turning a profit, everyone seems to have this surrealistic love affair with ‘Number of Users’. This gets us to what is behind the screens, you see, when we see the blind focus on number of users, is it about the product you have, or the data you collect? Those who are still about mere virtual profit through acquisition of personal data, those who proclaim comprehension, those are the same people who were unable to comprehend the value that products like Minecraft and Pokémon GO. Even if I got one wrong, I did not get both wrong, in that same light I can see that No Mans Sky will raise the bar for gaming and even as some proclaim the word ‘disappointment’ with the initial Alpha release of ‘We Happy Few’, I believe that this game can be a lot of fun and can end up being a decent game with a 90% score. Now, it is important to mention that this view was from a reviewer with a good reputation, it is a good review and as such it should not be ignored, yet in all this, it is still an Alpha version and as such there is plenty of space for improvement. This is possible, because the initial engine does look good.

These elements are all linked, the link is imagination and creativity. Not the imagination of hope in the view of ‘I have the winning ticket‘, no it is in the path of ‘What can we do to make a change‘. It is about the imagination to employ creativity to achieve a result. In the first case it is for Huawei to adjust its incorrect (as I see it) stance of that what they make available and for which nation at the bequest of whatever Telco. This is a mere adjustment of policy, it comes with the smallest requirement of creativity and a decent comprehension of data.

The second case with Tim Cook, which requires both immense creativity and imagination (and a good development team). We can make whatever claim we want, but the reality is, is that too much value is given to reengineering, and way too little towards actual true innovation. Where is the creativity and insight that brought us the iPod, iPhone and iPad? Oh, right, I forgot, he died! Yet, should Tim Cook be any less than his predecessor? So why are they not looking at raising the bar and instigating a different mode of gaming? Perhaps the next hype is not gaming at all. I might not have the answer here, but the bringer of the next challenge that will create a real hype might know, for Apple the need of finding that person makes all the difference.

Pablo Picasso once said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”. I wonder if that is still just the case. So far I have learned that “Any innovator will soon after their first big success become the pawn of the needs of Wall Street”. If you doubt that, then consider Adobe, Apple, Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Nintendo and Twitter and let’s not forget that they all started through true innovation.

 

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May 16, 2016 · 20:38

No Man’s Brexit

Yes, I am not kidding, the day after the release of No Man’s Sky, we will see the UK referendum regarding the UK leaving the EU. The two correlate in a simple way. The game has 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets. That same number seems to be the number of opinions that the 743 million Europeans seem to have regarding Brexit, so we need to take heed what to believe.

Personally, I feel that Brexit might be the way to go, yet as stated previously, Mark Carney, aka Governor of the British Bank, aka Marky Mark of the British Coin seems to be swaying me towards ‘Bremain’. Let me explain this. For the most, the reasoning is given here (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/may/15/mark-carney-defends-brexit-intervention-eu-bank-england-video). The important quote is “identify the issues, come straight with the British people about them and then take steps to mitigate them“. That is one thing this governor seems to have been doing from the beginning, to state it bluntly, that is what he gets paid for (nothing Personal Mr Governor)!

In opposition a case could possibly be made regarding ‘transparency’, but let’s not try to cut the bacon with a piece of string.

The issue in this case is a quote in the Guardian on that same page as the video, which was “Earlier in the programme, energy minister Andrea Leadsom accused Carney of ‘dangerous intervention’“. Let’s take a step back. The Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the person, who according to the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-minister-andrea-leadsom-asked-whether-climate-change-was-real-when-she-started-the-job-a6710971.html) had to ask ‘whether climate change was real when she started the job‘ (which was on May 11th 2015), that person is questioning Governor Carney on being straight with the British people? That’s a barrel of laughs on the worst of Monday mornings imaginable. Oh, I stand corrected, the 11th of May 2015 was a Monday!

So from this quote, I am willing to state that Andrea, a politician was unaware or just didn’t watch An Inconvenient Truth, a 2006 documentary film about former United States Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming. I think that she failed on multiple levels, especially as she studied political sciences. This gets to be even more interesting when we see the quote “in the past she has written to the Prime Minister calling for cuts to wind farm subsidies, and has criticised the pre-coalition Labour government for signing up to an EU target that called for 15 per cent of the UK’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2015“,

That is the person accusing Governor Carney on ‘dangerous intervention’ activities!

Now, there is not enough information for me whether cuts to wind farm subsidies was right or wrong. Let’s not forget that the UK is over a trillion in debt and certain cuts need to be made. The other part is in this case (without more evidence) equally debatable. That does not change the fact that regardless of her past economic positions whether she is anywhere near qualified to comment on the actions of the Governor of the Bank of England.

In my not to humble opinion, I would state no! You see Mark Carney was quoted as: “Carney defended his impartiality, saying it was important that people do not ignore economic risks“, I reckon that leaving the EU could have a few consequences tax wise and the issues regarding her Guernsey-based brother-in-law, Peter de Putron. This is in light of the title ‘Top Tory has family link with offshore banker who gave party £800,000‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/08/andrea-leadsom-family-links-offshore-bank-donations-tories). You see, I am an Australian Liberal, meaning that I regard myself a British Conservative and let me tell you, I would contribute to my part, yet if I am really lucky, I could perhaps donate 0.05% of that amount at best. When I work day and night I expect to receive some form of income, not pay an additional 800K (an amount I will likely never have, not even with my University degrees). The fact that a Brother in Law banker hands that kind of donations out might not be too controversial when it is for charity, when it is to a political party one must question the reasoning (read: personal tactical benefits) here.

So there are all kinds of questions that come to mind regarding Andrea Leadsom and it is my personal believe that (Brexit or not), her questioning Governor Carney leaves a lot to be desired. This 2014 article reveals another part that is important to consider: “A US non-profit news organisation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has obtained records of more than 20,000 names. The Guardian has exclusively analysed the ICIJ’s data, and begins to reveal those who have had dealings with a discreet Jersey branch of Kleinwort Benson, a well-known London firm which specialises in ‘wealth management’“. When you consider that news and the ‘feigned’ emotions we saw regarding Mossack Fonseca, that part comes again into question. You see, the issue has been legislation, tax legislation, legislation of wealth management and this implies that some of the available data goes back to well before 2010. This clearly implies that Labor was very much in the know on these matters. It also clearly implies that both sides of the isle should have pushed tax reforms a lot sooner than is currently shown. I agree that people might see this as unreasonable, but let’s be clear, these loopholes are there, Andrea Leadsom broke no laws. We see another version of amoral versus immoral. In my view, in regards to her acts I could see her statement as immoral, mainly because the changes could end up giving her more loopholes to push non-taxable parts of herself across the British realm.

Am I wrong?

That is still the issue, because Brexit will cause a massive amount of concerns and in that regard to keep the UK interesting more tax breaks might be the consequence of the EU separation (speculative statement). I might be proven correct but it is too early day to tell what the actual taxation impact will be, that part will remain an unknown, especially as people realise that only 5 billion of the 220 billion to Greece entered the State coffers, the rest went to the banks, paying small parts of loans and massive parts of outstanding interest bills. That is the driving realisation that more and more people are going towards the Brexit road. Most believe that the recession we hear about will be short lived and the upbeat will grow stronger and stronger as the loans diminish. I agree to some degree, but I equally foresee that Mark Carney is correct, the recession that is likely to follow will change the timeline, perhaps by a lot. That is the part that is absent of an answer, absent of a final solution, most of us believe that not being part of paying for other UK only recessions is the quickest way to a surplus finance coffer.

This is how I feel to some degree, but the warnings that Mark Carney gives us are not to be ignored. Plainly stated, at present the difference between a coffer and a coffin is currently way too small for my comfort.

This is why I remain on the fence. I am not completely convinced either way, but Mark Carney was clear and concise in the House of Lords and that was the massive sway to get me from certainly Brexit to almost cautiously Bremain. Yet the biggest issues are not within the UK, Greece, the IMF and other parties are trying to keep the present engine running, in addition the US economy with minus 19 trillion is equally a concern as the debt grew with 1 trillion in a year, basically it gained the total UK debt in less than 20 months, as they are closely linked with the Euro, one will tumble the other, in that regard Brexit is still the way to go in my book. It does not diminish the risks that Mark Carney warned us for, it makes just makes them more acceptable in my book. Nowhere do I mention that Governor Carney was guilty of ‘dangerous intervention’, he is merely informing us. I think that pro Brexit Andrea Leadsom did something stupid, she might be pro Brexit like I was in the beginning, but her less than intelligent remark only pushes people away from Brexit as her statement can be dissected by people less intelligent than me in mere seconds.

So, I still remain on the fence because the reasons for Brexit are there, but less strong than they were, merely because the risk we run by Brexit. In my mind the question becomes, if there is no Brexit, can we truly make the rest of Europe more accountable for their budgets? That part is still the number one reason for me to consider Brexit. I am not pointing the finger at Greece here, but at the total debt Europe has, which is almost equaling the American debt. The question is, how much of this debt is instilled by Wall Street to keep the seesaw of economics in balance? To keep the machine running to satisfy the 35,000 greed driven executives on Wall Street? We seem to focus on the top 1% in America, which makes for the 3 million people living really really nice, but that is nothing compared to the top 1% of that top 1%, their wealth is beyond measure, consider that only 1% of that top list (the 1% of the 1%) are the 350 people that made the small solutions like Facebook, Oracle, Apple and Microsoft.

I will give you one guess to guess where the other 34,650 got their money from.

This is why I still remain a little towards Brexit, because governments on a global scale ignored the need for proper legislation. At present the US might promise a lot, but in the end he has become nothing more than a quack quack president and as such he will not get anything done. Isn’t it nice that he wants to act in the 11th hour whilst his own party will be very unlikely to support him? You see they are also up for re-election and they have options for another term, President Obama does not. Now consider the ‘evidence’ I gave at the beginning, basically this issue was ignored for 7 years. If you are considering that I am not being up front and honest with you, consider the fact that President Obama did not once mention the US tax havens that are in the US, to be more precise, the Rothschild Trusts all over America, their total treasures are stated to be in excess of 100 trillion, but no one can tell for sure, their fortune is too vast and always in motion. This is only one voice, mine, apparently there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 other views on this.

 

 

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February 22, 2016 · 19:44

Within the realm of privacy

We all have an inherent need for privacy, we want things to be at our leisure of contemplated sharing. Yet, what is privacy? On one side we want privacy, but the next moment ladies will share whether their carpet is a landing strip or a martini glass, I for one do not care. If they want to share certain parts that’s fine with me. I am not too much about sharing. On the other side, apart from a few MP3 files, there is nothing interesting on my mobile. I reckon that my mobile is one of the dullest ones around.

So when I initially heard about the FBI wanting to access the iPhone of Syed Farook, I shrugged my shoulders and went ‘whatever!’ meaning that I was not opposed and I did not care. It was the techdirt site that has an interesting fact from the court case.

“Footnote 7, on page 18 details four possible ways that Apple and the FBI had previously discussed accessing the content on the device without having to undermine the basic security system of the iPhone, and one of them only failed because Farook’s employers reset the password after the attacks, in an attempt to get into the device“, so the boss went into ‘auto-moronic’ mode and did not check? He acted without knowing? So when we see “The ‘owner’ of course, being the San Bernardino Health Department, who employed Farook and gave him the phone. Basically, what this is saying is that if the password hadn’t been reset, it would have been possible to try to connect the phone to a ‘trusted’ network, and force an automatic backup to iCloud — which (as has been previously noted) was available to the FBI. But by ‘changing’ the password, apparently that option went away“, should we consider that his boss was stupid, or that his boss was scared he had done something wrong and this was his/her way of covering the mess up? (at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160219/17463033656/footnote-reveals-that-san-bernardino-health-dept-reset-syed-farooks-password-which-is-why-were-now-this-mess.shtml).

For the record, that was clear speculation on my side!

What happened was that Apple, the firm that initially ‘screwed over’ its customer base with error 53. A few days ago, the Guardian reported ‘Apple ordered to decrypt iPhone of San Bernardino shooter for FBI‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/apple-ordered-to-hack-iphone-of-san-bernardino-shooter-for-fbi). In there we see the important quote: “In 2014, Apple began making iPhones with additional encryption software that they said they could not unlock, even if faced with a court order. Apple said this was done in the name of consumer privacy and cybersecurity, but the company has been locked in a public feud with the FBI since“. I understand that there is a need for privacy. My issue is why THIS level of privacy is needed. One could speculate that this is to keep the financial adviser’s customer base happy. I reckon that those people look for other means the moment their actions could be monitored, or investigated afterwards. Again, speculation from my side.

You see, I do not comprehend why law abiding citizens are so in fear, of what the government finds out. Most people can’t stop selfie themselves, their fashion and body parts to social media on a global scale. They tend to Facebook all details, especially when they are far away from home to ‘all’ their friends, so that the department of discreet entry and removal operations can empty their homestead in the meantime. With so much sharing, what privacy do you think you still have?

So back to the Granny Smith of automation, the next article (again the Guardian) gives us ‘FBI escalates war with Apple: ‘marketing’ bigger concern than terror‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/fbi-apple-san-bernardino-shooter-court-order-iphone), here we see the subtitle ‘Court filing from Department of Justice says Apple is more concerned with ‘its marketing strategy’ than helping FBI unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone‘, which is fair enough when we consider that a failed marketing equals an alleged death in those houses. The quote “Cook called for public debate and has been backed in his fight by some of tech’s biggest names, including Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai, WhatsApp and whistle-blower Edward Snowden“. I think that this is less about Americans and more about the 7 billion non-Americans that have this false fear of the CIA and the NSA. Yet in all this, the only true group to fear this is the 0.0001% of the population, I do not even register and in that regard most do not even register. Like the previous mass surveillance marketing ploy, simple fear mongering.

Now, let it be said that I have nothing against a person’s privacy and there is nothing wrong with wanting privacy, yet when we consider the 1.5 billion on Facebook, the 100 million on Instagram, the 307 million on Twitter and over 100 million users on Pinterest, we have well over 80% of the iPhone users on social media all sharing from mere events attended up to the grooming of the most private of parts, Which makes the shout for privacy a little too hilarious.

So how does this fit legally?

Well first there is the part that the DoJ is now relying on. It is the All Writs Act of 1789, which states “The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law“, which sounds rather nice,

Yet the fact that the DoJ needs to rely on an act that has, according to several press sources, only been used thrice is a little too novel.

When we consider that the ‘self-destruct’ was enable by Farook’s boss (making the device useless to thieves), only leaves the DoJ without options. What is interesting is when the last cloud backup has happened, had it happened at all? Too many question that are all in the realm of speculation and none of it gives way to legislation. The question becomes should it be? I am not opposing the FBI, CIA or NSA. Yet these alphabet groups do know that they are fishing in murky waters. You cannot expect a corporation to set a product meant for 1,000 million to have options for the internally build exemption of 5,000-7,000 users. The math just does not add up!

I was talking about the legality, so let’s continue there.

In McCabe v British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd,’ and the appeal, British American Tobacco Australia Services Ltd v Cowell (Representing the Estate of McCabe (deceased)), exposed some of the difficulties that plaintiffs who sue large corporations may face in litigation involving access to documentation. The Victorian Court of Appeal reversed the first instance decision which had struck out the defence of a tobacco company (‘BAT’). The basis for the first instance decision was that BAT had systematically destroyed documents that might have been relevant to the plaintiff’s case. It important to state WHO destroyed documents. You see, in case of Farook it was the boss who ‘destroyed’ the options for information retrieval. The important issue is that INTENT becomes near impossible to prove. In addition that case gives us: “The High Court declined the opportunity to clarify the law in this important area by refusing leave to appeal. The effect of this case, absent statutory reform, is that corporations may destroy potential evidence provided that their actions do not constitute an attempt to pervert the course of justice or a contempt of court. These are notoriously difficult to establish” (source: Playing for keeps? Tobacco litigation, document retention, corporate culture and legal ethics by Matthew Harvey and Suzanne Lemire. The reason for going towards this case is that the entire approach to mobile architecture and auto-backup could instigate updates where the mirror is encrypted extern from Apple. Which means that any phone would have an XML set-up and data object, but the object would be irretrievable. The ‘responsibility’ for proper password maintenance would be kept with the ‘client’ or end user. Taking Apple out of the equation leaving the DoJ with the apple pie made from the famous Granny Smith (AKA Janet Abigail Doe).

This takes the entire cyber conversation towards Spoliated Evidence, where we see “a party is faced with the fact that certain key evidence has been destroyed, altered, or simply lost“, destroyed implies intent, but proving that is next to impossible (which got us the tobacco case. Altered is basically what the DoJ faces as the boss decided to reset the password, again malicious intent becomes next to impossible to prove, whilst lost is not in play in this case but could clearly complicate the issue if that was the case, as the DoJ would have no implied evidence at all.

This entire endeavour goes even further south when we consider Federal Insurance Co. v. Allister, 622 So. 2d 1348, 1351 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), where the Fourth District decided to set forth five factors to consider before imposing sanctions for spoliation of evidence. They were:

  • whether there is prejudice;
  • whether the prejudice can be cured;
  • the practical importance of the evidence;
  • the good faith or bad faith surrounding the loss of evidence;
  • Possible abuse if the evidence is not excluded.

As bad faith is now linked to the degree of wilfulness, we get back to intent. If mere ‘negligent loss’ does not cut the cake and the cake cannot be devoured without the essential evidence, the entire issue goes nowhere really fast. Basically, it boils down to the boss of Farook having one set of glasses on with the limiting mindset of cost if his mobile was ‘abused in usage’, leaving Apple in the clear shrugging their shoulders going ‘not my problem now’, whilst in all this we are left with no evidence linking to intent or malice. That small scope that was available will in all expectations to be diminished further. It basically solves all of Apple’s problems.

In the need for privacy we have gone from exceptionally rare to just hilariously ridiculous. The Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/20/apple-fbi-iphone-explainer-san-bernardino) shows in equal measure another side. Which comes from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon. Here we read “Some are calling for the United States to weaken Americans’ cybersecurity by undermining strong encryption with backdoors for the government,” he wrote on Medium on Friday afternoon. “But security experts have shown again and again that weakening encryption will make it easier for foreign hackers, criminals and spies to break into Americans’ bank accounts, health records and phones, without preventing terrorists from ‘going dark’“, as such correctly implying that the medication will end up being a lot worse than the disease they face. In addition to that, should Farook have relied on another path, for example receive orders and message a ‘guild’ within a Facebook RPG game, the wasted time on the iPhone becomes nothing more than an iconic episode of the Comedy Capers. With these games receiving billions of messages a day, parsing though 1 of a dozen games would take years. The fact that none of this required any encrypted android or IOS system, just a mere desktop like millions of students use makes for the case against the Alphabet teams. When looking at Extremetech, we see a quote that is important in all this, the quote: “how terrorist organization uses social media to spread its message and radicalize curious readers. GWU’s research found that while ISIS uses a wide range of services, including Facebook, Google Plus, Kik, WhatsApp, and Tumblr, Twitter is the social media site of choice. Twitter already patrols and bans the accounts of ISIS supporters“, it casually forgets the 3-4 dozen accounts that do not raise any flags, the accounts that ACTUALLY bring details of the attacks to the transgressors.

 

 

 

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February 20, 2016 · 12:25

Omphalos and its syndrome

This syndrome comes from the references of Delphi and the ‘navel of the world’, which is what Delphi was regarded as. Nowadays, we see Omphalos syndrome as the misguided belief that a place of geopolitical power and currency is the most important place in the world.

I believe that to be no longer correct, I believe that it has been ‘converted’ into something slightly more generic. I believe that it should be seen as ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

 

A is for Apple

‘Apple apologises over Error 53 and issues fix for bricked iPhones’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/error-53-apple-issues-fix-bricked-iphones) shows the first example. The entire error53 mess is a direct example. It goes on to the core that we now see “Apple has released a fix for users affected by “Error 53”, a software issue that rendered useless iPhones that had had their home buttons replaced by third parties“, The initial response “At the time Apple said that Error 53 was a security feature to protect customers” reads like a joke. The mere alternative that was open was that any non-Apple certified method meant the wiping of data would have been enough. It took me 5 minutes to come up with that solution. A mere auto wipe of all data. No we have to read quotes like “Apple has apologised for Error 53 and said customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement for their phone should contact AppleCare about reimbursement” as well as “Solving Error 53 does not re-enable Touch ID, as a third-party replacement of the home button could potentially allow unauthorised access to a locked phone by modifying the fingerprint sensor“. It would have been the simplest of solutions to go through the re-enabling system again. All these simple solutions, all because apple wanted to enforce the repairs of their phones to what they consider to be THEIR allowed service repair shops. An application of greed, to maximise profits, not the openness of what was once the Apple OS X through a Unix open source system, but the mere stranglehold of a greed driven corporation. It was brought to light by several articles in the Guardian and an initial customer service based solution comes “after widespread publicity and the Californian tech giant being served with a class action lawsuit over in the US and attention from a competition watchdog in Australia“, I wonder how many IOS people will start considering Android now.

 

E is for Eisai

This event is taking us back a fair bit, around 2000 Eisai came with its Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil). The fact that profits grow by 100% might not be the biggest thing on the planet. Yes when the LA Times (at http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/22/health/la-he-aricept-fda-20120323) reported “FDA officials should not have allowed it, the authors said, because the clinical studies Eisai offered in support of its application did not meet standards the agency itself had laid out“, in addition we see “it failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval“, in all this a clear investigation did not take place. It is still allowed, mainly because it is FDA approved. We see in other sources the claims like “Further, the higher dose was not superior on either of the pre-specified secondary outcome measures, which, as the FDA medical reviewer pointed out, argues that the cognitive difference was not meaningful“, which we get from the FDA Center for Drug Evauation and Research. Application number 022568: medical review. Aricept 23 mg tablets. (at www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/nda/2010/022568Orig1s000MedR.pdf), when we consider the source http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Cheap-Alzheimers-drug-may-help-keep-people-out-of-care-homes.aspx, where we get the quote “a year’s worth of donepezil costs around £21 a year, compared with a year’s worth of care home costs – estimated to be between £30,732 and £34,424 a year. If the results of the study were replicated at a population level, this could save the NHS a considerable sum of money“.

This is where we see another version of Omphalos syndrome, “the misguided believe that my version of cost cutting is the best in the world“, at this point, we should investigate the players and consider whether a case for criminal endangerment exists. The fact that sources have shown ‘evidence’ as per 2007 gives rise to a failed system, not just the NHS, but the leeway for pharmaceuticals as, from the given reports failed to yield the improvements that the FDA had set as a condition of approval, making the question why on earth was it approved at all and why are certain diseases used for marketing a cash cow, more important why is the NHS not loudly and outspoken dealing with this? Especially as www.NHS.UK is involved in promoting articles in favour of Aricept (donepezil).

 

I is for Insight Enterprises

This is a side that rests with Omphalos, yet in all this it is in equal measure a situation we must accept. Insight Enterprises did nothing wrong, it made a choice, it’s governing body stated ‘this is the best path, this is the golden solution’, we must accept that any governing body, being it corporate or governmental will be ‘smitten’ with Omphalos Syndrome. So as Microsoft changed the partner program in 2014, Insight Enterprises saw the filling of its corporate coffers trickle down to zero. (at http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/300079674/insight-enterprises-absorbs-another-hit-after-microsoft-partner-program-changes.htm). We can debate the mess Insight Enterprises received, the near simple answer is that Microsoft had to change programs, any large corporations will do that. Any program they offer and device tends to be ‘fluidic’ over time. Yet when we see the quote “The changes also affected Microsoft’s Licensing Solution Providers, like Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, which are the only partners Microsoft allows to sell licensing agreements to large corporations“, which is now showing another side. Does this make Microsoft narcissistically selfish or just plain sociopathic? You see all narcissists are selfish, but not all selfish corporations are narcissistically in nature (which is proven as greed we put the greedy in front of a mirrors), yet in all this, is this a sociopathic side in Microsoft? Well, that is a debate for another day as the entire Omphalos topic would soon get too murky.

 

O is for Omphalos

As shown in the last example, we tend to see Omphalos in a bad light. Which is not all correct either. On the other side we can take Bill Gates and his Omphalosian approach to IT. This got us DOS and later Windows. On the far side of the scale of limiting, there is the view of the truly visionary, but that view needs a start. Here the Omphalos syndrome works in another way. As I see it, we can accuse Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison on that list. Yet, we only did that AFTER they became successful, the not so successful are usually never heard of again.

In this world today, the foundation of ‘the most important place in the world’ is less and less applicable, it becomes a world of solutions, an amalgamation of aggregated values (the European Economic Community being a nice example). Yet the foundation of how to go about it was done in a very Omphalosian way. Especially when we consider the past blogs on how only self-proclaimed departures were the option. Which is exactly where Brexit is now. As Brexit gains momentum we see that the Omphalosian solution was the most dangerous here, it took one of the smallest nations (Greece) to push their non-accountability for the entire EEC to be in turmoil, with now a decent chance of collapsing the EEC as well as the Euro as a coin. Even as the United Kingdom is not on the Euro, France is and a Brexit will soon push for an additional Frexit. In that regard, the Financial Times quoted Florian Philippot who stated “the idea of challenging greater EU integration had become “taboo” in Europe. “The more we talk about it, the more people will vote against it,” he said” (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58f9cc98-ce51-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77.html#axzz40fDAW3BL). This is yet another side of Omphalos, actually two sides. The foundation of Omphalos is based on one view, if that view does not evolve or alters as time goes by, that view becomes less and less actual. The view becomes an act of obstruction at best and debilitating at worst.

In the second part, we have forever seen the Omphalos syndrome in its power core on the scope of government (read: Communistic), in that view we forgot that it is corporations with their view on the ‘only’ solution that is now impacting the lives of people in several (read: many) nations. In that same view we see that the old approach to currency is no longer the same. Most values are too dependent on independent views of static organisations and their push for changed industrialisations. How come that the value of a coin is now directly impacted by places like Dow Jones index, Nasdaq, Standards and Poor, the IMF, the ECB and so on? Governments allowed themselves to be directly be valued from what is perceived to be an ‘independent’ side. This is the other part that drives Brexit and other plans to no longer be part of anything. There is a near global consensus that these sources can no longer be trusted. That their view is to some extent ‘Greed Incarnate’.

As I see it, there is no true independence anymore. When we read that Eagle Capital Management Invests $293000 and that J. W. Burns & Company Has $533000 invested in in SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA). When the index itself is invested on, the expectations of improved value must be met, where does that leave us?

 

U is for You!

Even when we see the old and the new versions of the Omphalos syndrome, we need to realise that what once seen as short-sighted and limited is now not so limiting. It remains (as I personally see it) as short-sighted as it ever was (only in the rarest of occasions is it visionary), but now, the impact is no longer limited to one government, now its short-sighted impact is nearly global. It hits parties in many nations and it does not stop there. You see in a governmental approach it is ‘set’ to be what is best for its citizens and in case of the EEC it is what a group of nations see. Now consider the application from corporations that impacts governments on a global scale, offices of standards that impact the dangers to lives on a global scale as it does not enforce its own given values. How can we be aligned to a limiting view that could cost us our lives and our choice of living?

So as you consider ‘the misguided believe that its choice of management and achievement of profit are the most important in the world’ also strongly consider what it will cost you, not now, but down the track.

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