Tag Archives: Australia

December 13, 2015 · 21:50

It really is Cricket

I just got hit by news from last Friday. It is not about Marine Le Pen, or about the Russian tour that could hit Turkey soon enough, or even anything like a video game. No, this is me trying to plug an idea that allows us to ‘use’ the BBC to save an industry for no other reason that our love of a game. You see nature tends to hit everywhere, it tends to hit the just and unjust alike, such is the premise of nature and when nature hits there will always be a victim.

So, here I am reaching out to all those who love Cricket to make a real difference.

For this we might need the consent and support of Yogita Limaye, who brought it to my attention. In all this I want to make certain the banks cannot move in and take away a legacy, for them to move in and ‘offer’ a deal that will change the game. No, I am here to plea with you to make a difference.

So what do I have in mind? For this you need to watch the small article (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35070666), you see floods have ended a proud event. The production of Cricket bats. Now, the industry can recover but it will take decades to do that. Yes, we can watch and wait and see how some other brands move forwards and up the price, some people will never be able to afford that. I might have had an English Willow bat once, but not all can afford it. So this article got to me. An industry given a massive body blow through nature, it happens!

The man is pleading whether there are options of a 0% loan from banks so that the industry can be revitalised. I am going one better (in light of many banks not being that trustworthy).

What if we had a brown gold scheme, one with a difference?

Would that help?

In my view I am appealing to all the cricket fans in the world. We are millions! So what if we see if we can keep Cricket alive in a place in the world where for them Cricket is more important that Soccer is to the UK or Rugby to Australia and New Zealand? What if we make our own investment?

Now, be aware that this is an investment with a danger, you could lose all your money, but the price you are about to lose is no more than the purchase of a Willow Sapling. A sapling gets placed and as the article showed you, it will take 30 years for it to mature. You reward would be a genuine Jammu and Kashmir bat (plus the cost of shipping). Perhaps an investment present for your son or grandson, something that made a difference. Is that such a far-fetched idea?

The banks will be out of bounds and we all will have done something for the spirit of Cricket, what a thought.

So, is this idea far-fetched? I do not believe this to be the case. By buying a sapling now, we support the game, we support a green earth and we support an industry. Yes, it is in India and there should be plenty of people in India doing this, but why leave it to others? To buy a sapling for no other reason than our love of the game. Knowing that we gave support to families who have been working on the Cricket legacy for generations, that is something worthy to settle a few coins for, isn’t it?

Now, how to proceed forward? Well that is easier said than done. You see, I am an honest person, but you do not know that and the world is full of people claiming to be of good spirit, so as I see it, why not let the person who alerted us to all this make that start. I reckon most cricket fans will have enough faith in Yogita Limaye if she sets this up and appeals through the BBC will only rally the lovers of Cricket even more.

Now at the end of 2015, we see one more act to show the greed driven industry that greed is not the way and that an industry can be saved without resorting to exploitation. The goal as I see it will be 30,000 saplings. It will not be the overnight drive to restoring bat production, but it will be the helping hand that should ensure long term security.

So how safe is this? Well this is harder to predict. You see nothing is without danger and nature can be a spiteful and whimsy mistress to say the least. So, if you are tight in the budget, you should not do anything, the question becomes how much is needed and donating a sapling might not be the drain on the pocket and will be a restoring factor in karma and the goodwill should be good for the soul.

In the end, this might be just the crazy idea of a blogger who has a passion for Cricket, but aren’t the crazy ones those who set the first movement that makes a real change? I do not have all the answers, just a small crazy thought to give support to those behind the game. You see, the world isn’t all about some risk reward concept. I do not see the issue of high risk and earnings. I see an option to support my game and if it all works out, someone will end up with a nice cricket bat (I expect to be dead in 30 years).

So in that regard, the investment option, when considering the Time Horizon makes it a bad choice (for me), because the time that I have my investment in there will outreach my time to remain alive and I can’t take my Cricket bat with me where I am going to go.

The element of Bankroll is when we consider the options of Risk Tolerance, when I look at this, I expect my loss to be 100%; does that make it charity? No, because I am doing this for one element of Cricket, plain and simple. I could argue that I am making a really bad investment if profit is my business and we know from Wall Street that this is not illegal, they are not making any money out of this and I can really love that idea. We are not looking at leveraged trading, as some industries rely on losses that could exceed the investment, I (and those joining me) are only investing on the purchase of a sapling. Depending on the setup, we will buy an expensive sapling (to allow for maintenance), but in the end, our investment is brown gold, the making of a bat. Now those who have one look at your bat and consider the thought ‘My dad sponsored the tree that got me this bat‘, how awesome would it be when that is really the case!

I have no kids to leave it to, I will not be around to see the bat be made, and I am merely offering a thought where an industry in Jammu and Kashmir will not be drowned out, were we aid it to survive past a flood.

What will you do? Perhaps the better question is, if your sport got hit to this extent, what would you be willing to do? That is the karma enhancing question behind all this, for the simple reason that governments can no longer afford to do certain things, some governments were never willing to do anything and the commercial world only moves to the waves of profit and ROI, options never good for any sport unless it profits from mainstream advertisements and even then they will only move when it truly benefits them.

 

 

 

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December 6, 2015 · 23:18

Let it (or them) die!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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October 5, 2015 · 11:25

How to cure economic sickness

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

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

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

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

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

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

That part reflects on the NHS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August 31, 2015 · 01:41

And so it begins!

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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July 27, 2015 · 09:57

Soliciting the gay vote

It started innocent enough. I was just going over my tweets, seeing what happens and then suddenly something odd happened. I saw this tweet go by: “Wow Plibersek is actually refusing to support binding the ALP in favour of marriage equality“, which seemed odd. So I took a look at the facts (you know, the arrangement of letters in an online newspaper), which got me these quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald “Bill Shorten has narrowly avoided a Left faction attempt to immediately bind Labor MPs to support same-sex marriage equality from the next election onwards but the affirmative policy will still become binding on Labor MPs within four years” and “But while the hybrid voluntary-compulsory formula is a win for Mr Shorten who publicly opposed a plan initially backed by Ms Plibersek to bind Labor MPs immediately, the prospect of mandatory policy by 2019 may also offer Mr Abbott the political cover he needs to deny his own Liberal and Nationals MPs a free vote in this Parliament“, which gives me the opposite. So be wary of some tweets on twitter, for me, with a giggle I say, there you go putting your faith in a tweet that comes from a person who openly heralds ice cream and gossip girl in his profile (which he’s allowed to do of course).

Yet, it is not about the tweet, it is about the information that it brought bare, the ugly truth of solicitation, especially when it is for votes. You see, I am all for the act (I am actually not against it, which is not the same), but in the end, whatever makes a person happy and as long as it does not hinder my way of life I say: live and let live!

Yes, life is often this simple, when an act, a choice of life or a preference is no real danger to other people, when it is no hindrance of your lifestyle, why object to it? Especially when part of the hetero sexual community states it is ‘so bad’ for healthy marriages and they screw up their own relationship all by their selves. The clear statistic of 40% divorce should be the indication that the hetero sexual seems clueless on what they are doing and how to do it right, but that might just be me.

So back to that same sex thing!

How did I get to the solicitation part? That would be the clear issue. Consider that the Labour party has been screwing up their side, whilst in office between 2007 and 2013. Senator Nettle, a member of the Greens in New South Wales introduced the bill (at https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2007B00038). So there it stayed for a very long time as you can see. So whilst Heavy Kevvie and the Bushfire Blonde were fighting over who was top dog in the PM residence (Kevin Rudd vs Julia Gillard), we now see another wave of Labor members stating half- baked intentions, basically soliciting (as I see it) for the office of governing through ‘the Gay’ vote.

Even in opposition they will not come out for the bill and they need a compromise, if it is so important, why was the act not made law in 2008 or 2009? Now we see in the very beginning of the Sydney Morning Herald “Bill Shorten has narrowly avoided a Left faction attempt to immediately bind Labor MPs to support same-sex marriage equality from the next election onwards but the affirmative policy will still become binding on Labor MPs within four years“, so I can guarantee my British readers that our Labor party is in a bigger mess then the UK version! (I end this with a hefty nah nah nah nah nah)

Then we get the next quote “And Mr Shorten has pledged that a Shorten Labor government would move to make it law within its first 100 days“. ‘Move to make it’ is not the same as ‘making it law’, it is just the introduction for it and the fact that there is a left and another faction within labor, that means that enabling the act is not a guarantee. If the Australian Labor Party (ALP) does the same iteration of non-sensible overspending the moment they get into office, that act is not a guarantee at all (they will suddenly have other ‘priorities’). If you want to see that evidence, then check out the Marriage (Relationships Equality) Amendment Bill 2007 and how it stayed untouched throughout 2 terms of office, in addition, we can watch the news on May 21st 2013 when we saw (I mean read) ‘Kevin Rudd declares his support for same sex marriage‘ (at http://www.news.com.au/national/kevin-rudd-declares-his-support-for-same-sex-marriage/story-fncynjr2-1226647193111). It must have been an election year. Oh wait, yes, that is what it was! His support came 12 weeks before the elections, yes! Way to go Kevvie, trying to score votes, were you?

As I personally see it, if the gay community wants that act to become rule of law, than my advice to them is to get rid of Bill Shorten now and make a vote for either Tanya Plibersek or Penny Wong. It seems to me that they wanted to bind this achievement as mandatory, there is an additional need to change now, because the SMH quote “However, after that, a positive vote for the reform will become mandatory for all of ALP parliamentarians, meaning any MPs voting against it on religious or other grounds would face automatic expulsion, consistent with long-standing ALP rules“, so basically Bill Shorten does not want to get tied down now and hide behind the mandatory vote later on, how is THAT the definition of a leader?

Is it not interesting how these ‘long-standing ALP rules‘ were able to stop the Labor Party from enacting the Marriage (Relationships Equality) Amendment Bill 2007 during their last two terms?

In all this, it also seems to me that of all the political weights throwing themselves as so ‘equally’ minded, it was a Green, Kerry Nettle who introduced the bill, so I think that Labor is nowhere near out of the woods and even though it seems to me that both Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek are hard on board to get the act stronger and enacted sooner, the question must remain, why was Bill Shorten in any way opposed? Consider the quote from the Age “Bill Shorten has made a last-ditch appeal to his colleagues not to adopt a binding vote on same-sex marriage amid renewed speculation he could be defeated on the issue on the floor of the ALP national conference“, it seems to me that all Labor party leaders prefer to keep the ‘Gay vote’ at hand, but not at their sides, which is odd to say the least. In all this, we see both Penny and Tanya fight for the vote, but the skeptical soul in me does wonder whether this was for marriage equality or to dislodge Bill Shorten from his leadership seat? There is no given info whether that was ever the case, it is just my suspicious nature in all this.

No matter what happens next, if marriage equality does not come now, it will be the main event for debate towards who gets to be elected into office in 2017. To me that sounds like the wrong way to get an act into law, but that could just be me.

 

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July 22, 2015 · 21:22

Spelling fraud with a ‘T’

So, after we see the events in Tesco, which has taken its billions in toll from September 2014 onwards, we now learn that Japan has its own version of Tesco, which we read in ‘Toshiba boss quits over £780m accounting scandal‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/toshiba-boss-quits-hisao-tanaka-accounting-scandal).

Here it is not the meagre 263 million that Deloitte discovered would only be the tip of the Titanic sinker, in the case of Japan, it is three times the amount, which initially might beckon the question whether the fall out for Toshiba could be 9 times worse. Is it that simple?

The Guardian gives us the following “Tanaka and Sasaki knew about the profit overstatement and created a pressurised corporate culture that prompted business heads to manipulate figures to meet targets, the investigators found“, the other one is “Improper accounting at Toshiba included overstatements and booking profits early or pushing back the recording of losses or charges. Those actions often resulted in still higher targets being set for business divisions in the following period“.

These two are aimed at one side of a picture, but what some sales people will know is that this is already a disjointed part. Before I go into this, there is one more quote that needs to be mentioned. It is “Despite its shares losing almost a quarter of their value since the irregularities surfaced in April, it is still Japan’s 10th biggest company by market value. It was created by a merger in 1938 but its roots date back to 1875 and it was one of the companies that turned Japan into an industrial power“, so these irregularities have been part of something already for months, in addition, from an article one day earlier we get “The report said much of the improper accounting, stretching back to fiscal year 2008, was intentional and would have been difficult for auditors to detect“.

The last paragraph alone implies that like with Tesco, this system could not be done without massive ‘support’ from accountancy firms, moreover in all this, we have to wonder if anything will be achieved, especially as PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers) seems to have fallen off the view of journalists, and as we have seen no news from the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) since December 2014, we can ask in equal measure, whether the now sparkly news on Toshiba will go anywhere at all. Is it not interesting that PwC added 64 new partners three weeks ago, they get all the limelight as we read “Luke Sayers, chief executive of PwC Australia, congratulated the new partners on their appointment, praising their outstanding professional expertise“, whilst at the same time we get “IOOF has hired accounting giant PwC to review its regulatory breach reporting policy and procedures within the firm’s research division“, whilst in all this, PwC should still be regarded as the number one problem, as for a long time Tesco’s ‘issues of monetary matters‘ ended up getting overstated by well over a quarter of a billion, and so far it seems that either the SFO is nowhere, it is hushed or it seems to pussyfoot around PwC as the PwC marketing engine goes on like there was never a glitch in their seamless sky to begin with.

Now it is important that the entire PwC issue hits the UK, so a global company like PwC should not get hindered by one rotten basket, especially as they have dozens of baskets. Yet as one basket was regarded to have gone ‘rotten through’, the fact that there remains a system of silence, gives way to ask the question why PwC should be trusted at all and in that light, in the case of Toshiba, how intensely damaged the accounting business has become, you see Tesco and if we go by the words of Sheldon Ray of the Financial times we see “non-GAAP earnings per share that were more than 100 per cent higher than its GAAP numbers in the last quarter. Another reported 2 cents a share non-GAAP profit vs $1.41 per share loss under GAAP in one quarter” (at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f07720d4-c9b1-11e4-b2ef-00144feab7de.html#axzz3gWXJGSSF), so how deep goes all this? This grows in light when we consider ‘Richard Bove on Fannie Mae’s Accounting Irregularities‘ (at http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/07/fannie-mae-accounting/). Not a number one source, yet consider the quote “The result of their work is a conspiracy theory concerning the government takeover of Fannie Mae in which the public has been lied to concerning Fannie Mae’s financial condition in 2008 and in subsequent years“, this is linked to the work by Adam Spittler CPA, MS, and Mike Ciklin JD, MBA, MRE. Spittler is a Senior Associate at KPMG and Ciklin is an investor in a number of start-up digitally based companies, so we see that there is at least some Gravitas with these people, now add to that the information from the Washington Times (at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/11/fannie-mae-recklessness-risks-future-financial-cri/), where we see ‘Mortgage giant hired unqualified auditor with conflict of interest for critical position‘ and “Nearly seven years after it was bailed out from the housing market crash, mortgage giant Fannie Mae is still engaging in behaviour that could precipitate future financial crises and taxpayer losses, a government watchdog warns in a report to be released Wednesday“, which was an article from last March. Now, the fact that this is not ‘new’ news is not the issue, what is the issue is that there is an almost Global act of blatant disregard, leaving the people the feeling that accounting seems to be set to levels of intentional misrepresenting companies for the need of bonuses and the ‘Holy Dow’. The fact that the activity against such transgressions is seemingly kept of the table in these economic times will only grow stronger unrest.

Yet, is my view correct, is it not me that is in error? Let’s face it, One in the US, one in Japan and one in UK does not a conspiracy make, it does not reflect on some non-existing criminal empire based on the quill, ink and parchment (as accounting used to go in the old days). What is an issue is how on a global scale governments seem to act or not act is matter for discussion, yet in all this external forces have been at work too, let’s face it that the US in 2008 was a place of desperation, even as it is now still on the ‘to-be-regarded-as-bankrupt’ even governments will make weird leaps when they are pushed into a corner. In my view, the fact that the bulk of global accounting is pretty much in the hands of half a dozen accounting firms remains cause for alarm and PwC is in the thick of many events. Including the 40 million property scandal surrounding Xu Jiayin last march.

Yet back we go to Japan, the land of yummy Sushi and as it seems shady bookkeeping. You see, there is no way to tell how deep Toshiba will get gutted, if Tesco is any form of indication, there will be a massive backlash, If 256 million leads to a well over 3 billion drop in value, what will it do to Toshiba? More important, with Japan so deep in debt, would it push Japan over the edge of bankruptcy? Let’s not forget that Japan hung over that Abyss a few times and the US seemed to have ‘intervened’ in favour of Japan in the past, in this case, that might not ever be an option again. For those who think that I overreact, think again. Tesco lost value factor 12. Now, we all agree that this is extremely unlikely to hit Toshiba to that degree, but what happens when stockholders walk out? Now consider that Toshiba is amongst the 10 largest Japanese companies with a global reach that equals IBM, that whilst Japan has a debt of $10 trillion, the fallout will hit Japan (again). To give view to the next part, I need to revisit a part I mentioned in the past. Let us take a look at the following example:

In week 10 a salesperson makes a sale, knowing it will not be a solution, during the next week that customer gets managed all over support and after a week, they escalate and communicate with the customer on solving it, a week after that the customer gets the apology that there is no solution, but that the customer will get a full refund, case closed.

Week 10 Sale made
Week 11  Support starts
Week 12 Escalation
Week 13 No resolution
Week 15 Refund

Now the part, the sale was made, in Week 13 no resolution, now we leave one quarter and go into the new quarter, the refund will not affect the sales person’s bonus, nor will the sales target be affected due to negative sale.

This is based on actual events, now think of the impact when this is not mere sales, but 1.2 billion in sales. Did this happen? I cannot state that all of the funds were done in that way, but consider the impact of increased sales and the people who enjoyed their bonuses from that (if that happens in Japan).

Consider the quote “blamed on management’s overzealous pursuit of profit“, which we get from the ABC article (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-21/toshiba-top-executives-quit-over-us12-billion-scandal/6637976). Now add to that the quote “underlings could not challenge powerful bosses who were intent on boosting profits at almost any cost“, so how was the profit boosted? You see, this is not just an auditing issue, when we look at these large companies and the way that sales are arranged and forecasted, consider the events involved. To name but a few

  1. Leads
  2. Contacts (the consequence of a lead)
  3. Forecasting (the consequence of contact and the push for sale)
  4. Sales registration (Scopus, Salesforce, SAP)
  5. Accounting
  6. Reporting

Six iterations of paper and electronic trails that had to handle 1.2 billion in virtual revenue to some extent. Even if the leads cycle was avoided (by going through existing customers), there are other divisions that needed to be aware of a large non existing sale. You see, twelve hundred million dollars makes for a massive amount of monitors, laptops and other items Toshiba makes. Even over time, flags should have been raised on several levels, so when I read “The report said much of the improper accounting, which stretched back to 2008, was intentional and would have been difficult for auditors to detect“, which implies that the intentional misdirection was done over 6 iterations, which means that the group involved was a bit larger than we read in the articles at present. More important, how well did the Auditors seek in this regard? Which now takes me back to the reference I made earlier regarding “PwC added 64 new partners“, so how good are these ‘senior’ players? Making someone a partner, so that they can be misdirected by a senior partner would be equally disturbing. The fact that Toshiba falls through just like Olympus did, in a place where these events are regarded as ‘shocking’ according to investigating lawyer Koichi Ueda does not make me any less nervous. How institutionalised is overstating revenues on a global scale? You see, this is happening a lot more than many realise and even though many are not found, it does not mean it is not happening next to your own place of business. Now we get back to the issue I raised regarding Fannie Mae. The fact that it is not unrealistic that the government looked the other way here is still a fact we must consider. More important, are the two parts not mentioned in any of this. The first is linked to the issue I reported on January 30th 2013 (yes over 2 years ago at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/01/30/time-for-another-collapse/) in my article ‘Time for another collapse‘, I questioned the way the Dow did not just recover, it did so whilst places all around us were remaining below par for a very long time after that. Now consider the following speculative theory:

What if places like Fannie Mae used the ‘leave one in’ approach. So there were mortgage packages and derivatives. So, we have four properties that are doing fine and we add one worthless one to the mix. The package deal as the salesperson states. So the buyer ends up with a ‘value’ and whilst one part is ‘given’ without value, that person has a good deal, now consider that this one place is no longer a lost place, it is no longer a write off. Over time the market would recover with less losses, so is this truly an action that is virtually impossible? Moreover, if such a thing truly happens, would it be fraud? How could an auditor ever find the event in the first place?

This now links back to Toshiba, not just in how you push up 1.2 billion, but how to get it passing the view of a ton of auditors. In the case of Tesco, I personally considered the involvement of PwC from the first moment the news came out, there it was a less murky place because as supermarket chain their product goes to Joe and Jolene Public. That is not the case with Toshiba. Not only are they global, but with a power plant division (including the one that makes you grow in the dark) as well as medical equipment (likely needed for previous mentioned division), Toshiba deals with consumers, corporations and governments, which on one side requires a lot more administration, but that administration would have the ability to go murky on an exponential level, which gives added value to the claim “difficult for auditors to detect” yet that gives option to two parts, is there a questionable level of administration, or are we confronted that the auditing partner in this case was a 28 year old recently promoted individual who now gets his/her first real large account?

Why these statements?

You see in all this, on a global scale, the law has failed. It fails because the rewards are just too good to pass up for those playing that game, the chance to get away with it and the option to keep at least a decent part of these earnings safe makes the option to do this again and again almost a certainty. The law has no bite and the corporations involved are too powerful to get smitten down, so this avenue will continue for a long time to come. In addition to this we ask what else is affected and why is there a tendency from the press to not keep these matters a lot more visible? Consider how much the Guardian and others reported in 2014, if you now Google ‘PwC Fraud SFO Tesco‘ we get nothing after December 22nd, what a Christmas present that is! What is funny that one other part showed up, which is Keith McCarthy, now director at PwC London, who was Chief Investigator with the UK Serious Fraud Office before that, so would it be mere speculation that the best way to avoid prison is to hire the police officer so you know where they will be looking? #JustAsking

I am only asking!

Anyway, with a wish for a better lifestyle, I will consider helping Toshiba to retrench their IP and Patents for a mere 0.4% of the value, now if I could only persuade my Law Professor to help me out, 0.3% for her and 0.1% for me, I should end up with enough to buy http://www.cooperbrouard.com/St-Peter-Port/Ridge-House-property/3835453 and retire in a relaxing way!

I agree that I could do better, but then I was never a greedy person, which is a failing the Toshiba executive clearly lacked.

 

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July 19, 2015 · 12:17

A political minefield

If there is one place where politics have bungled the ball on near titanic proportions, than it would be healthcare. The UK with the NHS issues, Australia with Medicare, the Netherlands with Gezondsheidszorg and the less we say about Obamacare, the better it is for all of us. They all made massive errors which changed the game for any nation that needs to take care of healthcare.

The UK has had its own issues for some time, yet now we see a new event coming up. Let’s take a look at ‘Cancer diagnosis ‘within four weeks’ under new care plan‘ (at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33574233). First off, it is a good article by Nick Triggle, he looks at it from a decent viewpoint, but is there an issue?

The first part is “The five-year plan will cost £400m a year but experts say earlier treatment will result in similar savings. They say the plan could help an extra 30,000 patients survive for 10 years“, so basically there is no additional cost, which sounds good, let’s face it, in the increasing pull of funds, breaking even over the next 5 years does sound awesome, the people get to live up to another decade, which is just a bonus.

My initial issue is with the quote “Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK and chairman of NHS England’s task force, said the changes could help create a “world class” service over the coming years“, the term ‘world class‘ seems a little out of bounds and that also sets the tone, let me go on so that it will all make sense.

The second quote is “We have an opportunity to save many thousands of lives from cancer“, which in light of all this does not make sense, especially when we see “But Mr Kumar believes another 30,000 people a year could end up surviving that long once the changes have been put in place – a third of them simply through diagnosing the disease earlier”

I admit that I am splitting hairs, because giving them an additional 10 years is not saving a life, it is prolonging it. Apart from that, is there an objection? You see, healthcare is about keeping people healthy (and saving lives whenever possible) so there is no real objection is there? Giving a person up to 10 years more is a noble goal, especially when 130,000 people die each year, letting them enjoy life a little longer is not wrong at all. So why am I looking at this article?

For that we need to look at the steps. These 7 steps is what brought the light in

  • The creation of a four-week target for diagnosis from GP referral. Currently patients are meant to see a specialist within two weeks of a GP referral but can then face weeks of waiting for tests, meaning a growing number of patients do not get their treatment started within 62 days as they should
  • An 80% increase in the number of tests being carried out, including increasing the ability of GPs to order tests directly – for many they have to go through a hospital specialist
  • Replacing more than 100 radiotherapy machines – half of England’s stock – with new, better models
  • Recruiting extra staff in areas such as specialist nurses and radiologists, with the latter needing to nearly double in number
  • Cancer patients to get online access to all their test results and a specialist nurse or other key worker to co-ordinate their care
  • A call for action on smoking and obesity – four in 10 cancers could be prevented through lifestyle improvements
  • All cancer survivors to be given a recovery package so they get the support they need to recover from their treatment and stay cancer-free

The first premise is shown in dots 3 and 4. Replacing 100 radio therapy machines with newer ones and recruiting extra staff (especially radiologists). The fact that the article implies that there are 200 radiotherapy machines is equally disturbing. You see, 280,000 diagnosed people implies 4 people a day and that is if every machine is properly managed, monitored and staffed. The issue is not complete and facts are missing.

For this we take a look at breast cancer. The site Jezebel had an interesting article linking to all this. ‘Can You Be Diagnosed With Breast Cancer In Just One Day?‘ (at http://jezebel.com/5865123/can-you-be-diagnosed-with-breast-cancer-in-just-one-day), where we read “I wrote to Dr. Karla Kerlikowske, professor of medicine and epidemiology/biostatistics at USCF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. She explained: Mammograms can identify a site likely to be cancer, but it requires taking a sample of breast tissue and looking at it under a microscope to know a person has breast cancer. Rarely, less than 1% of the time a radiologist can look at a mammogram and based on the mammogram know a woman has breast cancer, even then it requires a tissue diagnosis for confirmation“. This seems to be a universal truth. In (as I see it) nearly all forms of cancer, confirmation is needed), which is part of the entire issue.

This does not change one essential truth “simply through diagnosing the disease earlier“, that is again a universal truth, so even for that mere fact this project should go on. The issue is not with the idea, or the plan or what we read, but by what we are not reading here.

Part 5 is the first real kicker, giving online to test results is a dangerous step, often cancer will hit the elderly, who do not comprehend the need for proper approach to common cyber sense and as such too many medical details will ends up in the open air, a place where medical details should not be allowed. Now, issue number 2 is one that can be handled, there is no reason why not to do this, yet we must acknowledge that specialists are there for a reason, as such, we can accept that GP’s could call for the test yet, here is also the danger that a GP will act under the ‘better be safe than sorry premise‘ which will now give the situation that 80% more tests are being made, yet it will also include the stronger increase of false alarm results, even under an issue of the best intentions. A mere consequence of people doing the best possible for the patient, an anticipated side effect of ‘world class cancer care‘. I do not object to these parts (or fight the approach here), but it calls into question the given budget already from this point on. So what is expected to be £400m a year, could end up being £520m a year. In addition to issue 4 where we see the need for specialist nurses and radiologists, there will also be the need for additional technicians and re-schooling of technicians and upgrading other peripheral devices. It is possible that these parts had been added to the cart of costs, yet the fact that they are not mentioned, the fact that some parts might not have been looked at yet makes the anticipated £400m a year incorrect and dangerous. The Labour party made a 12 billion IT fiasco, let’s not add to that, shall we?

You see, the cancer confirmation part is not always possible on the spot. So when we accept that ‘Most incisional and excisional biopsies are performed by surgeons‘, we see that additional costs and additional resources will be required. This means that there will be additional pressure on surgeons, was that factored in? You see, there is already a massive backlog. The Guardian reported on July 4th 2014 in the article ‘NHS patients waiting longer for routine operations under coalition‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/04/nhs-patients-waiting-longer-for-routine-operations-under-coalition), that delays had been reported of up to 215 days.

So the entire ‘speed need’ in cancer diagnoses is going to take another matter of growth entirely.

So as I give you these facts and the thoughts around this, you might get a first idea what was wrong with the article by Nick Triggle. I am an ample Medici, but I never studied medicine and it took me roughly 17 seconds to get my question marks up, so why did Nick Triggle not voice these concerns?

The quote by Dr Maureen Baker, of the Royal College of GPs, who welcomed the plans was “The system is already overloaded and we must ensure that there is sufficient imaging and specialist capacity to cope with the increased number of referrals before promises are made to patients that cannot be delivered“. Yet her quote is equally incomplete. I would have expected the quote to be “The system is already overloaded and radiology is only one step in determining the path for a cancer patient. We must ensure that there is growth in several ways in several divisions of hospitals to cope with the increased number of referrals before promises are made to patients that cannot be delivered“, which would have been more correct and as lacking as the quote seems to be from my point of view, I personally would acknowledge that the BBC article could have been used to emphasize on how much work the NHS needs and how much more needs to be done.

None of that can be seen in the article.

It seems to be that the response from Lynda Thomas, chief executive at Macmillan Cancer Support is more on point. Even though it is ambitious, she states “This report has to be more than a set of recommendations on paper. It has to inspire action and lead to meaningful improvements for the lives of people with cancer“. I think that she is playing the game carefully as she wants to get whatever she can for people with cancer, yet the though in my mind is (based on the BBC article) that I would have phrased “This report has to be more than just a set of incomplete recommendations on paper“. That will lead to questions and that will lead to proper dimensioning of a massive problem. I agree that this needs to be done, but without the fact that the pressure for surgeons is already beyond believe (not just in the UK), not addressing this part will lead to another fiasco for NHS, which is what we need to avoid at all costs.

So we are facing a political minefield, one that Labour did not survive, I hope that the conservatives and especially the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP takes more than just a few additional looks at it. And even though he might dread sitting down with a collection of ‘funny and entertaining people’ (like hospital administrators), he will do so and get a proper scope of what will be impacted, because spending another 2 billion only to learn that the term ‘similar savings‘ will never be an option is one he must be willing to accept having to deal with.

There is nothing against spending it on treatment and diagnoses of cancer patients, I just want to make certain that they do not end up becoming the group who ends up with the short straw, a draw they never got a choice in voted for.

 

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July 16, 2015 · 23:10

You keep what you kill

The business section of the Guardian had an interesting article yesterday. It comes from David Pegg and it is about targeting customers. In the article we see a prominent picture of Robert Redford (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/15/sky-broadband-customers-targeted-allegedly-pirating-robert-redford-film). So what is at play here?

Here we see ‘US firm TCYK, apparently named after film The Company You Keep, made Sky hand over details of customers accused of downloading movie‘, which comes with the opening quote “Dozens of UK broadband customers have received letters from a US firm accusing them of pirating a little-known Robert Redford film and inviting them to pay a financial settlement on pain of further legal action“. You see TCYK got a court order against Sky Broadband, which must now hand over customer details of those TCYK accuses of using torrent sites to download and distribute the films.

These people now get the offer of paying a hefty fine or end up in a legal battle.

So, how does that work in Australia? Well, here we depend on the Copyright Act 1968, where we see in section 36(1) “Subject to this Act, the copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is infringed by a person who, not being the owner of the copyright, and without the licence of the owner of the copyright, does in Australia, or authorizes the doing in Australia of, any act comprised in the copyright“, which means you made the movie, you are licensed to handle the movie, or you own the copyright, if you are none of these three, you become the infringer.

Now we get to the nitty gritty of the act (sections 43A and 43B) when we consider ‘temporary reproductions‘, which starts of nicely in section 43A(1) with “The copyright in a work, or an adaptation of a work, is not infringed by making a temporary reproduction of the work or adaptation as part of the technical process of making or receiving a communication“, with the crown part ‘temporary reproduction of the work or adaptation as part of the technical process’, which takes Sky Broadband out of the loop in all this, because Sky just sends packages from point A to Point B and as such, they do not keep any parts of that they communicate, they only keep the logs of what is communicated.

In subsection 2 of section 43A we see “Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to the making of a temporary reproduction of a work, or an adaptation of a work, as part of the technical process of making a communication if the making of the communication is an infringement of copyright“, which might put Sky in the hotspot, yet Sky is at this point an innocent disseminator of information (you know that anti-censoring part people all love), so Sky must prove that by handing over the records. This now counters the (what I would regard as fake indignation) from Michael Coyle, a solicitor advocate at Lawdit Solicitors, who stated regarding the act of Sky Broadband “They should be fighting tooth and nail not to have this information released”, to which I would state “Yes, because we should always protect the people engaging in illegal acts!” more important is the part that comes next “TCYK says that it hired a “forensic computer analyst” to identify IP addresses of computers that were making the film available online” so it seems that those watching the movie are not high on the list, it is about the distributors, those who made the movie available online. So there are two parts. The first part ‘temporary reproductions’, is a part we are still looking at, yet ‘distribution’, which we will also look at.

As Sky is protecting itself by showing themselves to be innocent disseminators, we need to see the logs, part of that is to give evidence that you (or they) are working on a temporary reproduction.

Temporary what?

OK, let’s take YouTube, when you watch a movie, a trailer, a TV Show, you are looking at a temporary reproduction. The movie is streamed into the memory of your computer and once the link is severed at ANY GIVEN MOMENT, the movie cannot be watched and it cannot be re-watched’ it must be pushed into the memory of your computer again. This is different from Torrent systems where a file, temporary or not is actually saved to your computer. This is the confusing part, whether it is a temporary file (what the people refer to as temporary) is actually ‘just a file’ that file remains on your computer, just like many other ‘temporary’ files.

I know, it is still confusing! Let me elaborate, when windows or a windows application needs to handle data, it created a file that changes all the time, we refer to them as temporary files. The UNIX reference is much better, they are called ‘scratch files’. So if you download a PDF, it will create a file, and that file will capture all the packages and add them together. That is done until the file is complete, when the download is completed the file gets written becoming the permanent file. This is the normal way for operating systems to work. The issue is that something is written (read: saved) onto your local destination, when this is done, it is by sheer definition no longer a temporary file. this is the part that is taken care of in Section 43A, now as long as there is no way to make the ‘temporary file’ work via an application of any kind, you can also rely on section 43B of the act where we see in subsection 1 “Subject to subsection (2), the copyright in a work is not infringed by the making of a temporary reproduction of the work if the reproduction is incidentally made as a necessary part of a technical process of using a copy of the work“. This now shows my explanation of temporary reproduction, where we refer to ‘incidentally made as a necessary part of a technical process‘, which could make that part a no go area, was it not for the first part where we saw ‘Subject to subsection (2)’, which is now the issue as this does not apply as per section 43B (2)(a) relying on both (i) which states “if the reproduction is made from an infringing copy of the work“, and the irritating use of the ‘or’ statement for (ii) “a copy of the work where the copy is made in another country and would be an infringing copy of the work if the person who made the copy had done so in Australia“, which takes care of any ‘border’ issues.

So, here we are with an infringed work, so what about the words of Michael Coyle?

Well, for this we need to look at Part V remedies and offenses, specifically ‘Division 2AA Limitation on remedies available against carriage service providers‘, which now puts poor poor old Sky Broadband in the limelight! It is a bit of a puzzle, but in short it amounts to “A carriage service provider must satisfy the relevant conditions set out in Subdivision D before the limitations on remedies apply” (a bit paraphrased), this is set in section 116AH, where we see that the carriage service must provide the following two elements for ALL category transgressions

  1. “The carriage service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the accounts of repeat infringers“
  2. “If there is a relevant industry code in force—the carriage service provider must comply with the relevant provisions of that code relating to accommodating and not interfering with standard technical measures used to protect and identify copyright material“

This is only the first of several elements that address the part that the Guardian stated “TCYK says that it hired a “forensic computer analyst” to identify IP addresses of computers that were making the film available online“, that part is also needed for Sky Broadband to prove that limitations ‘a’ and ‘b’ were adhered to. For this we need to take a look to a case (mentioned below) where we see at [697] “The question whether a person has supplied the means with which copyright has been infringed raises its own difficult issues. The primary judge concluded that the BitTorrent system was the means by which the appellants’ copyright was infringed. But I cannot see why the means with which the primary infringers committed acts of infringement must be so narrowly defined. The primary infringers used computers which were no less essential to their infringing activities than was the BitTorrent system. The same is true of the internet connections with which they made the appellants’ films available online”

More important, at [505] we see “It follows that customers, by entry into the CRA, consented to iiNet disclosing and using information, including personal information as defined, for the purpose of iiNet administering and managing the services provided pursuant to the CRA. Part of that administration and management includes compliance with the CRA. In circumstances where iiNet has received evidence of breaches of its CRA (for example, cl 4.2(a) and (e)) the customer has necessarily consented to iiNet using information it possesses, including personal information, to determine whether to take action under cl 14.2 of the CRA“, which all comes from the case Roadshow Films Pty Limited v iiNet Limited [2011] FCAFC 23, which means that Sky Broadband is going through the motions iiNet in Australia went through 4 years ago. This is important, because the customer relationship agreement is a legal scope that the customer agrees to, which allows for disclosure and more important, now looking at the ‘limitation on remedy’ or bluntly put ‘the massive amount of money TCYK will demand of Sky Broadband if they cannot satisfy conditions’ is where we see actions from Sky Broadband to disclose information.

In addition we need to see the satisfied part “Any transmission of copyright material in carrying out this activity must be initiated by or at the direction of a person other than the carriage service provider“, that part is given by the logs as the viewer did the ‘click here to watch full movie‘, basically that means that the user initiated the act. In addition, there is “The carriage service provider must not make substantive modifications to copyright material transmitted. This does not apply to modifications made as part of a technical process“, showing that whatever solution was used, Sky broadband passed through the information as part of what it is supposed to do as an ISP.

In the end, this will be a messy battle and there is one part that holds less water. It is the statement “Nicolas Chartier, the president of Voltage Pictures, told the Hollywood Reporter this year that he had issued 20,000 lawsuits against individuals accused of pirating the Hurt Locker in order to “make a statement”. “The day after we announced 20,000 lawsuits, the internet downloads of Hurt Locker went down about 40%”“, I am not sure if that will be the end this time, Hollywood has been clasping down in several ways. We see the 10 movies that make a billion, but the hundreds of others that aren’t slicing the cake are not in there, as such Hollywood is now lashing out all over Terra ‘non US’ and we see that it will hit Australia too, even more direct when the TPP becomes fact, at that point having a computer with logs pointing to it with irrefutable evidence might literally cost you your house. There is one side in the TPP that remains undiscussed, especially, as I personally see it behind the closed doors of the TPP negotiations. In all this America relies on fair use, in all this they are eager to criminalise that what is not criminal within the US, it makes for another case.

If we accept the following “Some historians prefer ‘slave’ because the term is familiar and shorter and it accurately reflects the inhumanity of slavery, with ‘person’ implying a degree of autonomy that slavery did not allow for“.

Now we convert that sentence into “Some politicians prefer ‘user’ because the term is familiar and shorter and it accurately reflects the chargeability of usage, with ‘US consumer’ implying a degree of freedom that users are not allowed to have” This is as I see it exactly the core and the broken foundation of the TPP, there is no fair use and there is no accountability on the other side, by all means the TPP ignores the constitutions of more than one nation. This was raised by Alan Morrison in The Atlantic on June 23rd 2015 (at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/tpp-isds-constitution/396389/). The quote in question is “It is January 2017. The mayor of San Francisco signs a bill that will raise the minimum wage of all workers from $8 to $16 an hour effective July 1st. His lawyers assure him that neither federal nor California minimum wage laws forbid that and that it is fine under the U.S. Constitution. Then, a month later, a Vietnamese company that owns 15 restaurants in San Francisco files a lawsuit saying that the pay increase violates the “investor protection” provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement recently approved by Congress“, this is a situation that could be a reality.

You see, this relates to the case at hand in more than one way. In my view, TCYK has every right to protect its side, the movie it made and the revenue coming from that, so I am not against prosecuting copyright infringement at all. Yet, in all this the shift that TPP will allow for is a situation where ‘investor protection’ will bring a case which will be heard by three private arbitrators; the United States government is the sole defendant in that given scenario. More important, it will be a case brought by “investor-based expectations”, I think we can clearly see the link when we consider “Village Roadshow’s revenue and profits are below expectations, which was down 1.9% to $469.5 million for the six months to December. Net profit was lower by 26.2% to $13.34 million“, so in this case Village Roadshow blamed the weather, yet Village roadshow has blamed piracy on many occasions, so the moment we see a court case based on ‘investor-based expectations’, we should all become weary of this becoming an option the regain revenue from a mismanaged product (which is far-fetched but not out of the question).

So why these jumps?

  1. It might be a movie piracy case in the UK, but the result will hit Australia sooner rather than later and vice versa.
  2. Infringement is a growing ‘market’ and as such, especially in dire times, the industry at large wants to recoup parts of their losses due to infringement, yet will it truly hunt down the real perpetrators?
  3. Too many people rely on their ignorance and ‘they did not know’. This defence is now slowly but surely coming to an end, it is more and more an accepted rule that if you did not buy the article, or pay for it, how come you watched it?
  4. The TPP will change EVERYTHING! This closed door agreement is all about ‘indulging’ big business whilst big business is not playing the game fairly to begin with. In its core it can be seen as a discriminatory violation of ‘fair use’ and ‘constitutional values’.

In all this I jumped at Village Roadshow more than once. Personally I think that Graham Burke has been playing a lose rant game too often, whilst trying not to step on the toes of Telstra and Optus, but that might just be me! In addition, I have additional issues with Federal Attorney-General George Brandis regarding past events. This all links to an article last April in the Sydney Morning Herald (at http://www.smh.com.au/business/village-roadshow-wants-to-work-with-isps-instead-of-suing-movie-pirates-20150416-1mj8cd.html), where we see the quotes “The document centres on a “three strikes” system. An illegal downloader will get three warning notices before a Telco will help copyright holders identify them for potential legal action“, which sounds fine, yet in that part, if at any time the IP address was hijacked, there will not be any evidence absolving the accused person, so the one in court could be the victim in all this. In my view, this is a warped solution to the court case Village Roadshow lost against iiNet, meaning that other avenues need to be taken, which now reflects back to the UK case of Sky Broadband, which could hit Australian legislation. The next quote is “Federal Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull set a 120-day deadline last December for internet service providers and entertainment companies to create a binding code“, which is indeed central but not in the way reported on. You see, Telstra and Optus are all about bandwidth, the more you use, the better the invoice from their point of view. This is part of the move we see all over the internet in the last article I wrote regarding the short-sightedness of Graham Burke, in the article ‘The real issue is here!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/06/17/the-real-issue-here/), which also reflected on the article ‘FACT on Piracy?‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/01/03/fact-on-piracy/) from January 3rd 2014. These articles connect through ISP’s like Telstra and Optus who have been rescaling their bandwidth plans. The consequence of losing out on 4 billion a year. Now Telstra offers 50GB for $75 a month, smaller plans no longer exist, they have been pushing for new broadband boundaries so that their revenue is less impacted, so the impact of $40 and $80 a month is now decreased to an optional loss of $20 and $40 a month. It was (as I personally saw it) always about time and retrenching. It has been forever about big business! By the way, it is not just Telstra, others like iiNet have done the same thing, offering a new margin, reset to the width that has never been offered before. It is about rescaling the broadband plans, which results in resetting expectations and preparing for new data usage adherence.

You keep what you kill fits perfectly, it comes from the Riddick movies, which is basically the credo of a survivor, in this day and I agree, in this economy it is about lasting the longest and as such, they keep what they kill, which are the copyright infringers and their technologies. I do not oppose it, as I feel that owners of copyright are entitled to protect their assets. Yet, when we read Graham Burke we see “He said Australian film producers were trying to educate the public rather than sue them“, which might seem true enough, but behind that, I suspect, is the fear that if the Australian Copyright Act 1968 adds the ‘Fair Use’ principle, his education boat will sink on the spot, moreover, whatever US pressure we get from the TPP, gets drowned by Fair Use, because if it is good enough for Americans, it should be good enough for non-Americans too.

Last in all this is Matthew Deaner, executive director of Screen Producers Australia, who made a fair statement in the SMH article “They’re trying to say, ‘this is the right way to go about this stuff, this has a consequence to us’,” Mr Deaner said“, which we can get behind, yet the colourful rants by both Graham Burke and Sony executives on the utter non-realistic loss of billions is a consequence as well. By not properly and realistically setting the view, whilst, as I personally saw it, Sony executives were hiding behind excuses regarding missed targets that were never realistic to begin, which soured the milk of reality and reasonability.

Will this affect Australia?

Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd [2012] HCA 16 was settled in the High Court of Australia, yet the essential changes to copyright, the impact of the Trans Pacific Partnership (once signed) will also impact the future. The lack of a ‘fair use’ clause is as I see it an essential first step to protect those not engaged in active copyright infringement as well as allowing for innocuous acts not to be struck down in favour of big business in a draconian way. In all this, US corporations have relied on unfair advantages, whilst overcharging people all over the non-US in a massive way is just beyond belief.

Even now, example, ‘Ex Machina’ is in the US $17, in the UK $20 (both Amazon), which is already a 20% offset, a title which cannot be bought in Australia. The US has segmented commerce to maximise profits, whilst not giving fair options to consumers. The fact that they still enforce multiple region codes to limit fair consumer rights is also not addressed. This is in part what drives piracy. If Mr Burke is so about educating, how about Mr Burke educating the other side of the equation? With video games where price difference can go up to 100% in difference between the US and Australia, a consumer grievance that Federal Attorney-General George Brandis never bothered to properly address. When we consider the issue of price fixing we see “Price fixing occurs when competitors agree on pricing rather than competing against each other. In relation to price fixing, the Competition and Consumer Act refers to the ‘fixing, controlling or maintaining’ of prices“, in this we see a loaded gun of different proportions. You see, Agreements between related companies are also exempt from price fixing, yet, when this difference is set at 100%, whilst the firms place technological restrictions (region codes) on products, as well as denying fair competition, largely pushed by American corporations, where is the fairness in any trade agreement?

If a trade agreement is about removing trade barrier, in that regard, the region codes should be regarded as detrimental to trade, but the TPP is not about equality, it is about giving the power to big business and limiting the rights of consumers, which is why partially because of created limitations movies and videogames are not equally and honestly made available. So as we look at what some can buy more expensive and others cannot buy at all, Mr Burke should in part refrain from stating that ‘one leg is education’ the other is regarding ‘products being available at the same time as other countries’, it would make him instantly paraplegic. Unfairness is what drives infringement. This was shown in the 80’s in Europe in a very direct way as games, movies and music were so unbalanced that a $450 ferry ride to London (from Rotterdam) could pay itself back during one VHS shopping spree (not to mention the price difference in games).

That same principle applies here, so if this is truly about stopping infringement than the first step would have been consumer equality. Yet this is about the US maximising its profits, counteracting whatever ‘free’ trade is supposed to do, so copyright infringement is not going away any day soon, it will soon create new situations, all because those involved seem to be about abolishing what constitutes a fair user, which is why the TPP should never come into effect.

You keep what you kill

The question is, who gets killed in the end, because as more true illumination is given, the bigger the question mark we see on what propels infringement. If there is one real upside to all this, it will be evolution, it will not take long for someone to change the premise of the game and design a new peer to peer cloud solution that resets the legal playing field.

Strife has always been the number one innovator in both war and technology, that part has not and will not change.

 

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June 13, 2015 · 11:51

If at first you don’t succeed!

That was the first thought I had when I saw the article ‘Academics attack George Osborne budget surplus proposal‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/12/academics-attack-george-osborne-budget-surplus-proposal) and the title reflects on them as well as on me. You see, as stated more than once before, I have no economics degree, but I have insight in data, I am not a bookkeeper, but I know how to keep my own register (I’ll let you boil down that conundrum by yourself).

So as I have a go at 77 of the best known academic economists, I present the first quote, which is: “George Osborne’s plan to enshrine permanent budget surpluses in law is a political gimmick that ignores “basic economics”, a group of academic economists has warned“, here we see the first failing of these economists. You see, the first rule of a basic economy is plain and simple:

Do not spend more than you earn!

That has been a massive need for over 20 years! Some ‘academics’ convincing that the budget could be X (whatever the amount is, now they tell us that X = Y (part of our costs) + Z (the interest and minimal payback on a massive loan that allows us to do more). At some point, one politician was stupid enough (or forced) to do this, but then the next one did it too and so on. Now we have a game, because of a group of flagellationists, we are all whipped into a place we never wanted to be, which is deep in debt!

Were those economists wrong?

They were not IF (a very loud if) the politicians would have diminished the debt, which is now 1.5 trillion pounds. You remember the first formula (X=Y+Z), now let’s take a look. You see, the numbers have been shifted again and again. Some now state that the interest is £42.9 billion per annum (2013 numbers), So now we get X = Y + (42.9 + 30), which is the annual interest and the paying down the debt at 2%, let’s not forget that at this pace it will still take 50 years, that is, if we get a budget that is actually set!

There are other complications that will make ‘Z’ higher, or ‘X’ a lot lower, when we consider maturing bonds and all other methods of ‘borrowing’ funds. You will see that the only winner is the bank. Whomever gets paid 42.9 billion is getting that as a guarantee without ever working for it. You the readers in the UK are doing all the work for that bank. The economists are not trying to tell you that. They come with ‘it is a very complex situation’ or my favourite ‘it would take too long to explain it all’. Yet, in their own words, ‘basic economics’ is actually really simple.

Do not spend money you do not have!

Now we get the quote “the chancellor was turning a blind eye to the complexities of a 21st-century economy that demanded governments remain flexible and responsive to changing global events“, which I see as a half-truth! You see, economics are quite complex, but they are only complex because economists and their friends in the financial sector MADE it complex! They get all this money for free from governments all over the world. They do not want to change that ever!

For the sake of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and our sanity, George Osborne is making that change. If previous Labour (especially Gordon Brown MP) had not spend the massive amounts they had, the UK would be in a much better position, but that is not the case. The economic view of ‘flexible and responsive’ is a valid point, but previous events turned ‘flexible and responsive’ into non-accountable overspending of funds that were not available. It will take a generation to clean up. The issues in Greece got so hairy that the President of the United States put his foot down, 2 days later the IMF walks away. An economy so deep in debt, an economy only representing 2% of the economy of the EEC could be able to topple it all. That is what many do not want to address!

This gets us to a linked quote in the article ‘Greece running out of time to avoid default, leaders concede‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/12/greece-running-out-of-time-to-avoid-default-leaders-concede), where we see: “Greece has less than a week to strike a deal with its Eurozone creditors to avoid defaulting on its massive debts and perhaps being kicked out of the single currency area, with German leaders and top European Union officials now conceding that default is the likeliest outcome“, so as you might recall that Greece claimed that a solution was ‘almost’ there, I will show you the ‘flexible and responsive’ side to the word ‘almost’.

You see, “I have had sex with Laura Vandervoort almost every night!” Monday almost, Tuesday almost, Wednesday almost. You get the idea, ‘almost’ here is like ‘as soon as possible’, at times it means ‘Never!’ (it would be so much fun to get a mail from Laura stating that she will be here ‘as soon as possible’, I am not beyond irony and it will make me chuckle for weeks!

Why this example? Well, I have been telling the readers for months that Greece has been screwing us around, you see how the words just fall into place? The economy does not! This is the clear evidence that the law must change. While all the players getting nice incomes were saying ‘tomorrow’ ad infinitum, George Osborne is saying ‘Now!’

The fact that this is essential is also seen through the acts of President Obama. Tax evasion was high on the G-meetings (G-7, G-20, take your pick), yet, when Australia introduced the Google Tax, we see the us Treasury making waves to stop it ‘US Treasury pressures Tony Abbott to drop ‘Google tax’ ‘ (at http://www.afr.com/news/policy/tax/us-treasury-pressures-tony-abbott-to-drop-google-tax-20150428-1mu2sg). They stated it as: “Mr Stack said it was critical that Group of 20 countries like Australia that were participating in global tax negotiations did not pass laws on their own that would contradict international agreements“. In my words, my response would be: “Mr Stack, you and your administration are a joke! You have not acted for over three administrations in reigning in corporate greed, your American corporations were cause of a financial meltdown 11 years ago, a meltdown we are all still feeling. In addition, you have not set ANY solid ground in countering tax evasion, other than the windy speeches we have expected to see, all speech, no action! It is time for the American administration to put their actions where their mouths have been for too long!” Not too diplomatic, but the message is coming across I reckon. The commonwealth can no longer adhere to the irresponsible acts of a nation that is 18 trillion in debt!

So as I see it the quote “they argued Osborne was guilty of adopting a gimmick designed to outmanoeuvre his opponents“. You see, this is not a gimmick, this is a direct need where the banks are no longer in control, the Commonwealth is a monarchy, that is there to give a future to the people and to keep them in a place where they have a future. For now Greece basically no longer has a future. It has spent it all, unless the US treasury comes up with 50 billion (quoting Jean-Claude Juncker), it only has time to find a solution that will not end the existence of Greece.

This is the massive difference that the people keep on forgetting. The UK is a monarchy, with a sovereign ruler who has accepted (or: was given) the responsibility to keep the nation thriving and its people moving towards a happy place that has a future, America is a republic, where the elected official is depending on large contributions, especially from the wealthy. It has given in to big business again and again for the last 20 years. As we see the USA, a nation more and more drowning in civil unrest, we should consider how they got there. The got there by lacking in laws that held big business and government to account of spending. Here we now see “George Osborne’s plan to enshrine permanent budget surpluses in law“, this is an essential first step to get us all back on a decent track where we are not in debt!

Getting back to the formula. The last step we were at was: X = Y + (42.9 + 30), you see, the people all over the place have been ‘deceived’ to some extent. Deceived is hard to use, because the word ‘misrepresented’ is a much better word. X is what the UK receives. With large corporations ducking their fiscal responsibility, the value of X goes down, with unemployment issues and zero hour issues, the people get less money and as such they pay less taxation, so X goes down even further. Now we get the set costs. (Y), more and more elderly, means more costs and they do not pay taxation. So the elderly drive down X a small bit and drive up Y a large portion. I do not hold that against them! They worked, they made Britain (and Australia) great! They did their share, so they get to sit down to enjoy the tea and biscuits (an additional fine venison steak would be good too). These are all elements that the economy is confronted with and as these economists have been to enabling to big business, we see that we must put a stop to what is happening. We have no other choice, or better stated we have less and less options. These economists are all polarised into one direction, one direction that has not worked for over a decade. We get misrepresented by ‘managed bad news’ and other forms of information we can no longer rely on.

Consider that I have been on top of the Greek case for some time now, so when we see (at http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu/countries/greece_en.htm) the fact that the forecast of Greece is 0.5% in 2015 and 2.9% in 2016, I wonder how they got to it all and if such misrepresentation should not be a cause for liability? Is it based upon raw data that we can trust? You see as these economists all rely on the ‘formula’ and all concede that it is a good model and a real predictor, my gut has been a lot more accurate and these economists had to adjust their numbers downwards time and time again. The last part for Greece is seen in the Financial Times, it reflects on what I stated earlier (at http://www.ft.com/fastft/343532/eurozone-financial-fragmentation-hits-5-year-low)!

“Initiatives such as the European Stability Mechanism, a permanent rescue fund designed to limit financial chaos that might arise from an event such as a Grexit, as well as the €1.1tn quantitative easing programme, have helped insulate the rest of the Eurozone from Greece“, to ‘limit financial chaos’, is that not weird? Many players downplayed the impact of Grexit (especially France). So this ‘rescue fund’, how much is in it? You see, that will become a debt too and where does it go? France, Italy? They are in deep financial waters. So how much more will be needed to stop France and Italy to go over the edge?

Simple economics is to lower debt, now to throw money from other sources at the interest of debt, which solves nothing! George Osborne was right before, he is right now. The fact that the Economy players, the IMF and America do not like it when others are out of debt, that does not mean that we should adhere. I showed how USA adheres to big business (including banks), it is time to be self-reliant! So as rating agencies set the outlook bar to negative, we should start to wonder, who do they serve? You see, if the ratings are about the ‘now’, so the outlook is moved from Negative from Stable for an event that is not happening until 2017. Guess what, the UK was always stable, and when these ratings are shown to be ‘flawed’, then what?

To be honest, S&P has an interesting paper on this (at http://www.standardandpoors.com/aboutcreditratings/RatingsManual_PrintGuide.html). Here we see the quote “Credit ratings are opinions about credit risk published by a rating agency” and “Standard & Poor’s ratings opinions are based on analysis by experienced professionals who evaluate and interpret information received from issuers and other available sources“. Now we get the final part. The first quote is clear. It makes it known that this is a matter of opinion. The second quote is how they get it. Now tell me, how many of these ‘77 economists’, who were thumping George Osborne on all this, are involved in setting economic predictions? Are they linked to people who do set the ratings? I am not certain of the first premise, but I am decently certain of the second premise!

So are these economists, who claim that it is about ‘governments remain flexible and responsive’, is that it, or is the game getting rigged because the few are willing to sell the larger proportion of a population down the drain for the interest of self?

Consider the information given and work for a place of common sense. You will soon realise that the path of George Osborne is the right one, moreover, when in your life, has debt ever been a good thing and how is the debt working for Greece?

 

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May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

  1. Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
  2. Who kept check on the expenses?
  3. If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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