Tag Archives: Banks

October 31, 2025 · 15:30

Another party on the rise

That’s what I see as I took notice of the BBC article ‘City trader sues UBS for $400m after rate-rigging conviction quashed’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6ngvenxj6o). There is even a third setting on this horizon. We are given “A former trader who had his conviction quashed for “rigging” interest rates following a 10-year legal battle is suing his former employer UBS. Tom Hayes launched a legal claim for malicious prosecution against the Swiss banking giant, claiming he was the bank’s “hand-picked scapegoat” in one of the biggest scandals of the 2008 financial crisis. In July, Mr Hayes had his conviction overturned by the UK Supreme Court after it was ruled unfair. He had been jailed in 2015 for manipulating interest rates used for loans between banks.”

Quashed as unfair? This calls into question a few issues. First there is the persecution. They either had the evidence, or they did not. Then the question becomes, how this evidence was obtained. I am not on the side of Tom Hayes, Im siding with the law, but all parties must do their due diligence. And on the other side The claim that he was a ‘hand picked scapegoat’ also requires proof (of some sort). Was he a convenient altar boy? Did he break any banking law? These are questions that come to mind. 

And the setting we are given is “The filing said Mr Hayes was taking legal action in a bid to “deter and punish UBS for its role in intentionally directing the destruction of an innocent man’s life for their own selfish reasons”. His lawyers claim the global banking giant misled US authorities with the aim of branding him the “evil mastermind” behind alleged Libor misconduct in an effort to protect its senior executives and minimise regulatory fines.”

As I see it, to be branded ‘evil mastermind’ requires evidence of access and the simple facts that ‘others’ had his ears, did they? As it goes and as it tends to go, if he was a true ‘evil mastermind’ there is a lack of evidence, more a setting of assumed handed evidence through interviews. Was that the case? Then we get a much more sinister part. We are given “The complaint, filed in Connecticut, also claims UBS “gained control over the investigation into its own alleged misconduct” and conducted a “fundamentally flawed” investigation in order to pin the blame on Hayes. It added that UBS “offered Hayes up on a silver platter” to be prosecuted in both the US and the UK, and that those prosecutions were “engineered by UBS’s intentional false and misleading disclosures”.” The setting can be held as evidence. As I see it, The accusation of a “fundamentally flawed” investigation” could be investigated and seen as evidence on the whole. As well as “those prosecutions were “engineered by UBS’s intentional false and misleading disclosures”” at the time it might have been invisible, but now with time and the logs stamped as permanent it might be easier and after that amount of time, these people would have left their positions and now the UBS is on the hook. They will cry all points of mercy and that they didn’t know. But as I see it, we have in the first “senior executives and minimise regulatory fines”, that one raises the need for the fine to be upheld and even raised to at least $800 million and that is just for starters. The second setting is that the prosecution allowed a “gained control over the investigation into its own alleged misconduct” and that is, as I personally see it, on the heads of the prosecution. 

I think that Tom Hayes has a decent chance to walk away with a decent bundle of cash if he can proof even one of these accusations. The prosecution is decently tempted to withhold any assistance, but I see that as a wrongful act. They made the mess, they need to clean it up and as I see it, it is merely the first setting. You see, this comes out after 10 years. How long until someone at a bank gets to be clever and gets DML involved? That person merely needs to ask “How can I increase profit without breaking the law. What hurdles will I face?” That could get several non senior executives a pauplan that outstrips whatever they had their senior executives. A setting that some will see as amicable. So what happened in 2012 will not come to our shores twice a week. Is the prosecution ready for that? How many people will it convict allegedly innocent and after they spend their 5 year (or more) in Hotel Sing Sing, how much will these people claim at that point? It will be a while new party to come and everyone is invited to that setting.

Don’t believe me, wait for the second part of this musical because it will be awesome. The big banks self monitoring and they get to hand over billions for short sighted actions. It will be a grand new world to come. So have a great day and enjoy the payment of fines if you are due any.

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October 9, 2024 · 01:07

When the credit card stops

That is the setting for the US of A. The BBC gives us ‘US debt would increase under Harris and soar under Trump – study’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce81g9593dro). We are given that there is basically no escape for America, I have articles going back to 2018 where I give sight of what is coming. Oh, and by the way at what point do you cancel someones credit card? We are given “Donald Trump’s campaign proposals would increase the US national debt by double the amount Kamala Harris’s would, according to a new analysis by a non-partisan group.” We are also given “Trump would add $7.5tn” now consider that the interest on this would be around 450 billion, just on the increase alone. Now consider that the total debt is 500% larger and now consider that the US economy needs to come up 2.25 Trillion EACH YEAR to deal with the interest alone and I saw that coming 5 years ago and the news media and these so called financial experts never saw this? I do not believe this. We were all told and presented a story. And they are about to lose whatever leeway they thought they could hang over us. The media was the tool some were able to use (with what I speculatively see) as stake holders to ‘bring’ the presentation. And the media seemingly was left in the dark, or were they?

The problem is that we cannot see or prove any of this. But consider that I saw this coming for over 5 years and I do NOT have an economic degree. What makes you think that I am more clever than these financial wizard in the media (CNN, BBC, WSJ, the Guardian) and many more? Do you really think that they made a miscalculation? They isn’t nickel and dime stuff, this is about 35 trillion dollars. How much sneaky bookkeeping is involved to put such an amount under the tables? This would require the cooperation of media, banks and governments. So when your retirement falls away, who will you blame? The media? The Banks? The Governments? Seems ludicrous, almost some crazy conspiracy. But consider the facts. Consider the evidence and the avoidance of the media to address certain economic facts. That is not some cooky setting, the evidence is out there on the internet. Consider all the media and consider what the media never gave us. I can tell you more, but it is time to consider what I am telling you here and make your own mind up. 

Now consider that the EU had six trillion euros in taxable revenue in 2022. Now we see that America is optionally about to increase its debt more that the taxable income of 27 countries and it does not raise an issue? Now we know that plenty of EU countries have a GDP that equals an apple and an egg. But together they should amount to a fair amount considering that these countries have a total population of 449.2 million, which is a lot more than America (about 34%). Now consider that people pay taxation, companies pay taxation as well. But the tax breaks are mostly for companies. As such I look at the people. There is a baseline that extremely roughly applies and when that baseline is applied the numbers do not match up as I personally see it and I have seen this setting for over 5 years and the media ignores it all. 

Could I be wrong?
Yes definitely, but overall certain numbers create levels of equilibrium and I see that these numbers aren’t here at the moment. And the media seeing these debt levels fail them could also be seen as optional evidence. So how does it work? It seems clear that the media can no longer be trusted (in my opinion). So how to get the numbers? I cannot give you my sources, so you are a little on your own in that regard.

Have a great day.

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January 31, 2024 · 00:11

Forbes Foreboding Forecast

Yup, it happens. Sometimes the others are all on your train ride, but that does not make your prediction true. Yet to see this we need to take the whole image into consideration. For me I saw this come towards us like a freight train without any brakes when I wrote about it as early as September 2020. I wrote several times that these settings were a really bad setting and the outcome would not be a nice one. Then I warned that the US economy had nowhere to go, not when they insult and offend Saudi Arabia (and to some extent the UAE), as such China would gain billions in revenue. We saw last month (could have been 2 months ago), news that America was ‘worried’ about China making so much headway into the middle East. And now Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/01/29/the-us-dollar-is-finished-wall-street-legend-warns-trumps-and-bidens-china-nightmare-is-suddenly-coming-true/) gives us ‘The U.S. Dollar Is ‘Finished’—Wall Street Legend Warns Trump’s And Biden’s China Nightmare Is Suddenly Coming True’. Really? First off, this isn’t suddenly, I made mentions for almost 4 years that this stage was underway. The fact that the dollar is finished is not entirely wrong, but not to the degree we see predicted. Wall Street will take any stance to diminish that danger. People will end up with nothing, but the almighty dollar will sail on, even though the galleon it once had will be replaced by a simple sloop (as piracy goes). 

So whilst we get “The U.S. dollar is “finished as the world’s reserve currency,” analyst Richard X Bove told the New York Times just days after his retirement from a storied 54-year career as a Wall Street analyst.” I initially tend to agree. Yes the dollar as a reserve currency is pretty much a bye bye black sheep operation. It is the “Bove, who sees bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as winning in a post-dollar dominant world, predicted that China will overtake the U.S. economy” part I do not completely agree with. You see the Yuan is and will be an important part of the global economy, but China has its own skeletons to deal with. Evergrande is one and that $300,000,000,000 issue will hinder the Chinese economy to a massive degree. Not to mention the Chinese population that is hurt by that loss. I reckon that being related to Shawn Siu in China is a lot more dangerous than being a loudmouthed disrespectful American in that region, but that could merely be my take on that situation. You see, China needs both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to get the traction to push forward. Yes, they will push the dollar of its throne and Americans with their arrogance did this to themselves, but without the Middle East China has no real momentum. That was the larger station we needed to see. I tried to warn people, but to them I knew nothing. And true, I have no degrees in economy, but I have looked into numbers for decades and I have both a creative mind to see beyond the numbers and a critical mind to question any hypothesis I have. As such I saw what is now being published as ‘suddenly’. My timeline has three years of warnings of the dangers the US and its dollar were facing. I do not have the knowledge or insight to discuss or oppose the digital currency changes, but I can tell that the ego of ex-presidents with his opposition to the digital dollar will be the end of the American economy. The digital dollar would allow Wall Street to diminish the impact the slam the dollar is about to make. If that stops the damage will be enormous. I don’t think the US economy will have any cards to play. Especially now that the EU nations are vying for the same defence contracts that were once almost uniquely America alone. With France, the UK and Germany vying for whatever spending dollars they can, China might end up with a little less, but they still have a lot of billions coming their way, all billions lost to America now and the EU is trying to get a few as well, an indoor fight between the US and EU is not one they were ready for and overall the American evangelisers are now starting to be a lot more quiet. Money talks and the US has none left. Now that the Ukrainian Russian military debate is now three weeks away from two years. A short term prediction by the Kremlin is now a setting that they could actually lose. A stage not considered a year ago and that also brings a lot more problems to the EU nations as well as America. America that has been catering to Russian needs no less and that is important as the people are now a lot more eager to accept China as the new leader. This is not some Nixon fantasy, this is the case of Wall Street deciding on what is best for the world and that is not how it works. That only has any value in the delusional mind of some. So whilst we see what happens next, we see that the power players are vacating towards the UAE. Some will go to other destinations, but the mess that they are leaving behind (not all due to them) will leave the American population without anything left. So what do you think happens when the dollar collapses and 200,000,000 Americans see that their savings are gone. Do you really think they will will side with Trump and his multiple multi million lost lawsuits? Consider that no one has a clear view on how much he owns. Some state that he only has now less than 3 billion and he was dropped from the Forbes 400 list, he came up $300,000,000 short (a lot more with the lawsuits he lost). To give you some reference, Elon Musk is apparently 96 times wealthier. He has 9600% more wealth than Donald Trump and that is the person Americans pissed off, all whilst he has the foundations of a solution for the energy shortage they face. So how is ego holding up? When the UAE engages with that solution, America will come up short in funds and energy. So the ‘suddenly’ setting wasn’t there. This has been out in the open for up to 4 years. And that picture goes from bad to worse soon enough. 

Could I be wrong?
It is a fair question and I ask myself that question pretty much every day. It is not indecisiveness, it is not doubt. It is about verifying the numbers again and again from whatever reliable source I can find. Verification is everything. Richard X Bove and I got to the same conclusions via different ways and as such I wonder why others were never on that page. Why was the media not all over this? They were so ready to protect Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, but this they didn’t see? Ask yourself that question and wonder what else they got wrong and more importantly why did they get that wrong. You might come to some conclusions that will scare you. Mainly because you all worked towards your retirement, but how many funds saw the golden future that the dollar bonds brought? When that falls flat your retirement will be gone and there is no coming back from that. I think that a few banks in America, as well as Credit Suisse Group AG (now part of UBS), isn’t it interesting that none of them were properly investigated by the media? They all gave the same story, but no one looked into how many dollar bonds these banks had. It might be nothing, but I doubt it. You see, Credit Suisse was handed a $54 billion lifeline. The fact that ANY bank needed THAT MUCH money was never properly investigated and it wasn’t just them. We see all the claims, but to need a 54 billion lifeline implies that that piece of rope is made from weaved platinum threads with diamonds. When did you ever need a lifeline like that?

And these places all matters, because that is to some extent the impact that the dollar pushed for, at least that is how I personally see it. There will be plenty of people stating that I am wrong, but after 4 years I have been proven correct too many times. Let them come up with verifiable data and clear sources to prove me wrong. I dare them.

Enjoy the day, my Wednesday just started.

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October 22, 2023 · 19:08

The thin ice

We all know the expression, no skating on thin ice. Yet when you think of it, when was the last time you saw thin ice? We all hear it, but when did you yourself, with your own eyes see a case of thin ice? We tend to think it is a danger avoided, but when no one sees that danger, is it a danger? Don’t get me wrong, I am not doubting that thin ice exists, before ice is thick enough to carry our weights it will be thin ice. A lot of thin ice seeing is assumption. We see ice and we see no one else skating on it, as such we take it for granted that THAT part is thin ice. Hold on to that thought because I am about to give light to two very different articles.

Arab News
The first was Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2395561/business-economy) where we see ‘Saudi banks’ residential loans surge in August as apartments gain prominence’. This article seems nice, but when you read it we are given two parts. The first one is “Mortgage lending to houses, apartments and lands rose to SR7.14 billion in August from SR5.43 billion in July” This is a 30% rise in a month and that is huge. Now there are other factors on play like trends. How was that last year versus this year and a few other things, but 30% matters. In addition we are given “The increase in apartment financing by Saudi banks compared to house financing is due to the increase in prices of houses and private villas compared to the prices of apartments, which has made villas and houses unaffordable to average-income individuals,” and this comes from Talat Zaki Hafiz, an economist and financial analyst. There is the added “Notably, financing of houses still dominates Saudi banks’ new residential mortgage landscape, constituting a 70 percent share in August. While apartments comprised 25 percent of the pie, land financing held the remaining 5 percent.” It seems that the Saudi banks have things well in hand. We can also infer that people are in a better state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in a better state and the people are setting their lives accordingly. Now, this is speculative, but if the economy was really bad real estate would not skyrocket by 30%, so something is going right there. 

The Guardian
The guardian gives us a very different story in the UK (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/21/mortgage-debts-and-bust-firms-put-uk-banks-profits-under-pressure) there we are given ‘Mortgage debts and bust firms put UK banks’ profits under pressure’. Now we can argue that the UK has twice the amount of people and that is true, yet as I personally see it, banking is banking. If a bank has a certain margin, having twice that margin implies that bank is twice as rich. Now, I get it, it is not that simple, but read me out.

We are given “Bosses watched in horror as a mini-banking crash led to the collapse of a string of US lenders including Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and later Switzerland’s largest lender, Credit Suisse.” Here we have a problem, what I speculated all along and I saw one part revealed in April was “SVB had few traditional banking uses for the cash that piled up, it instead invested $91 billion in Treasury bonds and U.S. government agency mortgage-backed securities between 2020 and 2021. This brought SVB’s investments to roughly half its total assets.” You see, this was stupid greed and I warned in advance of it, more than once actually and the Guardian does not mention treasury bonds once, there is a whole engine spinning news and misdirecting news all over the media. The speculative setting is that owners of US treasury bonds will auto renew or lose a lot of money, so what would you do if you were the idiot relying on a 2% payday of $91,000,000,000? That amounts to a $1.87 billion payday. I would do the same thing, but these banks used their clients money to hedge that bet and the US government was eager to cater to that level of greed. I reckon that this is why Janet Yellen kept a close eye on this. In addition, I wonder how deep Credit Suisse was involved. 

Yet the setting is housing and “By July, the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage went to war with NatWest over plans to close his accounts at its private bank, Coutts.” Really? One account has that much impact? You see ‘Coutts bank boss quits in row over Nigel Farage’s canceled account’ some might see this as a joke, but for Peter Flavel the boss in question it is not a joke. There is something wrong with banking and banks all over the west. Don’t ask me what, but all these events are part of a larger problem, a problem that involves stake holders blending the message for banks and as I personally see it, the Guardian has been catering to these stake holders. It is highly speculative but even as this truth is given “Speaking to broadcasters Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it “wasn’t right for people to be deprived of basic services like banking because of their views.” I think it wasn’t the views (alone). I reckon that some views opposing the current need is a larger setting and people like Farage could be able to spot that in the documentation handed to them, moreover certain banks have been skating on the thin ice for too long and at some point someone will sink through the ice. That is the danger of the thin ice. For the longest time the thin ice was an urban myth at best, because we never aw cases. But the British banks are in a spot of bother and people like Nigel Farage would shine a big light on that problem, better to get rid of these people and when banks do that, when banks do that to politically A-listers, how much trouble are they really in. You see in March 12th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/12/i-honestly-dont-get-it/) I raised a few questions regarding bonds and the eager beavers in the media never looked at that part, not the Times, not the Guardian, not any respectable newspaper as I personally see it. So why not? What trouble is America trying to pass over thin ice? What are we not told and isn’t that the duty of banks to inform their customers? I reckon that Saudi Banks are doing a lot better because they do not cater to anything else but their goals and the goals of THEIR customers. I could be wrong, but considering that we are left in the dark for over 6 months, all whilst Saudi banks are doing 30% better in a month implies something. It implies that they are doing something right.

 Enjoy the last day of the weekend, Monday is soon here, here it will arrive in less than 300 minutes.

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May 5, 2023 · 22:14

A state of banking

Yes, the banking issues remain and they are seemingly getting worse. This is seen in the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65467019) where we are given ‘Credit Suisse: Asia investors sue Switzerland over bank collapse’, which reads funny, but that is the effect of lawsuits. Yet that article and the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65370751) named ‘£55bn withdrawn from Credit Suisse before rescue’ gave me reason to pause. This was not some setting of chance. Can you grasp how much £55,000,000,000 is? That is not some account, some people. That is the works of a few titans and someone gave THEM the heads up. So when we are given “The Swiss banking giant said 61.2bn Swiss francs left the bank in the first three months of the year” there I an issue, this is not merely a bank run. Then this many multimillionaires are running for the hills, someone set the watchtower on fire and stated, run for your life. Yes, it is highly speculative, but 55 billion pounds? That is serious cash in any economy. So when we consider the first article and we see “Already a Credit Suisse client for several years, he bought around $500,000 worth of bonds in January despite the bank having been hit by a series of scandals and compliance problems over the past few years” as well as “The type of bonds he bought from Credit Suisse are known as AT1 bonds, or contingent convertibles. They normally carry high yields for investors but are considered among the riskiest bonds that banks issue”, so in January this person decided to take a high risk setting, and in that time, or at least over the next 6 weeks when a staggering amount of billions pulled out, that person sat still? I know there is a sucker born every minute, but this comes across as the emperor of all suckers. Then we get the mother of all issues “Central to their claim is who was given priority when the bank failed. The terms of the bonds, seen by the BBC, show that bondholders are, if possible, supposed to be compensated first, after which come shareholders. But in practice, shareholders were allowed to exchange their Credit Suisse shares for UBS shares, albeit at a vastly reduced value.” There we see two parts. The first is ‘if possible’ which is a dangerous subjective term, the second is the stage of when they were alerted? How reachable were they?

Then the second article gives on tiny sliver. It is “Credit Suisse had been loss-making and had faced a string of problems in recent years, including money laundering charges.” As such, at what moment in delusional time is buying bonds in a loss making company a good idea? That is beside all the legal issues (including money laundering). In which situation (when it is not a government) are you investing in bonds in something that is losing money? Those in March (if they had done their homework) would have seen dozens of billions of pounds leaving that ‘sinking’ vessel. Only those with a peculiar sense of delusion are setting their up their portfolio in such a place. And when we see the end of the article giving us “The deal, when it was announced, valued Credit Suisse at $3.15bn (£2.6bn), whereas on the Friday before the settlement was reached it had been valued at about $8bn.” A place that is a mere 32% of its value in a week and 55 billion went the way of water whilst the bank went the way of the dodo. When a bank is a mere 8 billion and 55 billion left its shores? Even if half leaves the shores, I would be running like Forest Gump and no chocolates would be required. So I ask you are these investors that banked on governments saving their coin (and hide)? Is that what governments do now, all whilst they fail to hold banks to account?

I will let you decide, enjoy the weekend.

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March 30, 2023 · 22:38

Welcome to the OC bitch!

Yes, this sounds strong and it was part of a script. The series threw that phrase out for weeks as the OC was gaining traction. It drove Misha Barton to success and that is pretty much all I know about the series. We take some facts to the bank, we count on it, we depend on it. But then I got to thinking. OC also stands for Organised Crime and at present can you tell the difference whether  it is Organised Crime or a bank? That is not a joke, it is a serious question. Al Jazeera gives us (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/29/french-prosecutors-raid-five-banks-in-massive-tax-fraud-case) ‘French prosecutors raid five banks in massive tax fraud case’. There we are given “banks, including Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and HSBC, faced a compensation request of more than $1bn” we also get “an earlier report in Le Monde newspaper, said Tuesday’s searches had also targeted Exane, which is part of BNP Paribas, and Natixis, the investment bank arm of French banking group BPCE” in the late 80’s someone told me “To be a thief, you need to be good and agile, if you lack these skills you could always become a banker” well we have been seeing that a lot since 2008 onwards. And now we see “it was impossible to put an exact figure on the scale of the fraud but said the banks together faced an overall compensation request of more than $1bn, including fines and late interest payments” this had been going on (as far as they could tell) since 2014. So what is the difference between Organised Crime and bankers? Is it a mere case of legislation? So after we are given the sleep creating news (by the media) regarding United States of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse. We see more cases regarding Fraud? So when will someone wake up and realise that banks are either properly regulated or they are allowed to collapse and the shareholders lose their funds. So when we see advertisement from HSBC how climate change ignores borders, can the next advertisement please state “Climate change, not unlike our alleged involvement in fraud is happily ignoring all border issues” 

Perhaps it is more on point than the so called ‘awareness’ vibes they are spreading now. And when I look at half a dozen advertisements from HSBC I can apply the same strokes to the text and the advertisement becomes a lot different, it becomes a clear path of opportunity seeking. Now, I cannot tell how involved HSBC is, but the raids seem to imply issues. You see the banking system has been skating on the edge of legality for so long (for the need of profit) and when we think back to the billboard days when we got all the anti-Brexit announcements, I saw that there was no mention of Bank fraud, as such, is this hypocrisy or is it like adultery. Everyone expects you to lie about that? Think about that for a second. It is the ‘expects you to lie’ part. In 2018 UNSW gave us ‘Heavy penalties are on the table for banks caught lying and taking fees for no service’, I would add to that that anyone lying is barred from banking services forever. There needs to come a time when these issues need to be dealt with. And the fact that a raid on five banks was done, implies (not proven) that there is a massively large problem out there. So why do we allow these bankers to continue? 

It is a serious question. Uber is short on people, there is seemingly a shortage in supermarkets, let the disgraced bankers fill those holes. Just a thought.

Meanwhile German Deutsche Welle gave us (at https://www.dw.com/en/paris-banks-raided-in-100-billion-tax-fraud-probe/a-65151312) ‘Paris banks raided in €100 billion tax fraud probe’. This seems to be the larger stage (and several media had nothing on this). So when we consider “the investigations are linked to legally dubious “cum cum” practices in which banks create overly complex legal structures as a way to allow wealthy clients to skip out on tax liabilities for dividends. Authorities say Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, BNP Paribas subsidiary Exane, Natixis and the British banking behemoth HSBC are suspected of aggravated tax fraud laundering. Moreover, BNP and Exane are suspected of aggravated tax fraud” can you honestly answer whether there is a difference between Organised Crime and Bankers. We could argue that most bankers have some form of Filofax and are therefor Very Organised Crime. Yet that is seemingly the largest difference at present. Yet this text also gives us another side and that is important. It is seen with “complex legal structures as a way to allow wealthy clients to skip out on tax liabilities for dividends”. That raises the question whether the law was ACTUALLY broken. The Al Jazeera article and two others did not clearly give me this, so there are issues which reflect back on the old premise I made 25 years ago “The tax systems are in dire need of a complete overhaul” This view was mainly on the US and EU, but the setting still applies. And when we see terms like tax fraud and tax fraud laundering and the stage is ‘suspected’ the question becomes “Were laws broken?” You see if that is not the case, these bankers were merely clever sneaky bastards (aka: administrators) and there is no law stopping them (just like there is no laws on Karen’s and idiots). They are all allowed to stay, visit our surroundings and do their business and they are allowed to be as creative they can be within the law and the law is the issue. We might think they are hiding behind the setting of ‘overly complex legal structures’, but that isn’t illegal and we need to recognise that. We need to recognise that the laws and specifically tax laws have been blatantly ignored by all who should have ben overhauling them. That is the heart of the matter and that is under debate as I personally see it. Yet for over 3 decades politicians avoided that subject and now that governments are all running out of funds they are desperate to keep the nose away from their necks and that time is runing out faster and faster. That is merely how I see it.

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March 22, 2023 · 22:39

What was this about?

That was the second thought I had, not the first. To be honest, I was swept up by emotional phrasing that was done rather well, but the whole mess changed when I had some time to think it through. It started about 2 days ago when I saw ‘My bank did not stop £6,500 payment to holiday scammers despite my pleas’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/mar/20/bank-did-not-stop-payment-holiday-scammers). The initial thought was what screwed up thing did the banks do this time, it was accelerated by the small issue of £6,500, which for a lot of people is regarded as loads of cash, especially when you arrange your budget in pints, which in some places outside of London will bank you 1,625 pints. For some people that is a drinking option dragging you on for well over a year, 18 months and that is a lot. So why the beer reference?

Money is a direct number, but how to compare it? There is a discussion whether an annual event can be compared to  normal monthly budget. Personally I do not believe it is valid or even acceptable. If we did that we might never have a vacation ever again at present. But back to the article. We are given “Graham says that for more than six hours after she had authorised a €7,155 (£6,500) payment to a Bank of America account in the US, the money continued to sit in her First Direct bank account. When she received an email an hour after making the payment warning her that the villa’s listing on Vrbo had been removed for security reasons, she immediately phoned First Direct back to halt the transfer”, now there are issues here, but that gets to legal to consider, but VRBO removed the villa AFTER payment was processed, there will be legal issues for VRBO. The second part is that this is a US setting, with seemingly no representation in the UK, that is the actual issue for me. Then we get “At this stage, she says, the people purporting to own the villa said they might be able to do Graham a deal if she was prepared to move outside Vrbo’s email system, and to email directly.” Taking VRBO out of the loop sets VRBO free, why do you want to be out of ANY loop? And that is where the victim gives us “They have been about as useless as they could be”. The woman who is referred to as Sarah Graham is wrong. 

In the first the bank correctly performed a payment setting. At the time of the payment it was ‘agreed’ on by both parties. In the second, the move outside of the VRBO loop got VRBO off the hook because they were unaware of what was going on. 

Now a small education for the stupid people out there. Scammers are pretty much everywhere, where ever there is a quick deal, a cheap deal (£800 cheaper) there is an exponential growth of a scam in place. There is a travel agency in almost every corner of any street in the UK and EU. There is a reason for that. Looking at a hotel in Crete I see one for 113€ a night, that is including the flight a lot less than £6,500 for a month.

There is a growing issue with people thinking that they can get the cheap deal and when you do not know the party on the other side, there is an increasing chance of losing your money. With local travel agencies (in the UK) they tend to have ATOL protection. 

This means that the scheme provides protection for travellers who book a holiday, which includes a flight. If an ATOL licensed travel company collapses, it ensures that your money is protected and you can get home. And now we get to the real part, the article does not once mention travel agency or ATOL. As such the question towards writer Miles Brignall becomes. Did you do anything more than exploit the victim? If you wanted to alert the people you would have mentioned travel agencies, ATOL licences and the issue with foreign organisations, even though I will admit that all facts taken aside, VRBO is in the clear, the scammers made sure that they were out of the loop so that they could collect, and in this the banks have no blame either. A service was performed and the bank performed it. 

This was about a person trying to get the golden deal for a lot less whilst she knew none of the parties. How does that usually go over on the internet?

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January 27, 2023 · 21:31

Banking on it

This is the case as I read it a few hours before, it also strengthens my case against banking apps. You see, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64240140) gives us ‘Mobile phone fraud: ‘They stole £22,500 using my banking app’’ and we get “A pickpocket took Jacopo de Simone’s mobile phone and used his banking apps to steal £22,500”. In this case I have a few questions. You see, when I have my phone on me it is ALWAYS locked. A locked phone can still accept phone calls. So as I see “He said his bank investigated but found him liable for the losses so he is still fighting to get the money back.” To be honest, I cannot completely disagree, I also agree with “banks need to do more to tackle it, according to charity the Fraud Advisory Panel” which becomes the issue. I always though on a separate app that is NOT next to the app for certain bank activities and that app needs to receive a code within 30 minutes. And when the app receives three (my magic number) wrong codes the app is blocked from that person until he goes to one of his bank’s branches where they can unlock and reset the app. Everyone is always nagging about simplicity of usage, well if you are willing to surrender £22,500 for that convenience  you are welcome to proceed, but somehow I feel certain that it is not worth that much money. So when I see “Criminals are stealing mobiles not for the device but to try to access finance apps to steal thousands of pounds, the Fraud Advisory Panel said” I feel a little happy as I keep zero financial apps on my mobile. I never ever trusted those and the Optus and Telstra issues we had in the last year merely strengthens my resolve on that issue. As such, when I see “Mr de Simone fell victim to the crime while walking around London Bridge in May 2022 when his phone was pickpocketed” the question comes back “How the hell did they unlock his phone?” Then there is “Use different pin numbers for unlocking your phone and opening banking apps” as well as “Don’t store passwords or pin numbers on your phone” in this case I never put pin numbers there and I do keep some passwords, but they are encrypted and my skill of half a dozen languages helped here and if these people can decipher those codes, good luck. The password for my discontinued UTS password is all yours. But there is another setting, like Google allowing for encrypted notes, encrypted via a number. I am a little surprised that they did not cover that after a decade (well, they dropped the ball on a few other matters too, one of those costed them 50 million subscribers). So there is always space to improve things. But when I look at the case of Jacopo de Simone I at present will side with the bank. Parts do not make sense, but the issue of improving security on banking apps remain, more needs to be done and a separate app makes sense. It reminds me of a solution 30 years ago that the insurance agent Aegon had. They called it Aegon LAR. The app contacted the server that agent X needed contact and within 60 seconds the server contacted the agent. As such all the security was on the server side and triggering a hack would not work from a remote location, it contacted the router on a specified number and there were security protocols in place, so you had to be there, you needed the codes and any deviation would stop activities. Simple and  decently safe. How come we let all that slide for simplicity and ease of use? 

It never made sense to me and I do not need a banking app for a few reasons and my distrust of security levels on a few levels makes me avoid ALL banking apps. It is just how I am wired, nothing personal, it is the application of Common Cyber Sense.

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October 1, 2020 · 04:30

Gaming on a serious level

Yup, one sees a game, the other sees an application and the third sees a solution, that is how it is, how it, for the most has always been. I got introduced to Palantir in 1998 or 1999, I got access and took a look at it. At the time I was working for other parties and I noticed that Palantir government had a setup the was nice, it was not what we now call IBM Miner, but it had potential. So when I got introduced to the news giving me ‘Secret and unprofitable Palantir goes public’ I took notice. You see, I started to wonder what was happening, the quote “Seventeen years after it was born with the help of the CIA seed money, data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies is finally going public in the biggest Wall Street tech offering since last year’s debut of Slack and Uber”, it gets to be a little worse when we consider “Never profitable and dogged by ethical objections for assisting in the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown, Palantir has forged ahead with a direct listing of its stock, which is set to begin trading on Wednesday”. You see the setting is not great for Palantir and as I see it, over 17 years they made their own bed, this is seen with “The company has just 125 customers in 150 countries”. Now, I can claim that I am not the brightest person (even though I passed the Mensa requirements), but the stage of 125 customers in 150 countries is not manageable. Even as they ‘hide’ behind “Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe”, you see, the software has a foundation and a base. Even as one foundation part is to hunt terrorists, the base is to analyse data. I can hunt terrorists with IBM Statistics, IBM Miner and Mapping software, it might not be fast, but it will get me there (well, mostly anyway), so in the setting we see with Palantir, we see a larger failing, especially over 17 years. They had well over a decade to extent the bae and create an additional foundation, optionally getting another 125 customers, yet that was not what they did, is it? So when we see “Palantir paints a dark picture of faltering government agencies and institutions in danger of collapse and ripe for rescue by a “central operating system” forged under Thiel’s auspices”, I merely see an excuse. You see Palantir has no need or reason to rely on a station with ‘faltering government agencies’, by extending the base and creating another foundation they would not need to rely on the side and add an optional third foundation called reporting. The need for washboarding and sliceable presentations have been a larger requirement for close to a decade, these options are required in the intelligence world as well, leaving it up to others means the the slippery slope of business intelligence becomes smaller and less pronounced, a place that relies on long term vision has been lacking that a lot, has it not?

Even as Scott Galloway from New York University gives us “They’re massively unprofitable and they’ve never been able to figure it out”, the obvious question becomes, were they unfocussed, uncaring or just lazy? The vendor the relies on government jobs can’t rely on them for more than 2 years, if the program is not showing forward movement, there is no long term justification and when we see “Palantir has accumulated $3.8bn in losses, raised about $3bn and listed $200m in outstanding debt as of July 31”, we see the faltering position that Palantir is in. It cannot rely on the customer base it has, because well over a third has extended its credit card too much, as such they need to adapt to a form of Business Intelligence gathering, data mining, slicing and washboarding and set a new stage in long term reporting. As I see it, Banks and financial institutions will have extended Business intelligence needs and additional needs as well. If you think that financial fraud is big now, wait until banks automate under 5G, it will be a tidal wave 5-10 times the one the banks face now and they will need to have additional ways to find the transgressors, relying on the police will be a monumental waste of time, which is not the flaw of the police, it is the consequence of the times and their needs. I state financial institutions, because it is not merely the banks, it is the credit crunch seekers that will need to find the people with outlandish debts and as the laws will adjust because the banks will no longer accept that the wife gets the house so that they can live in luxury of what they could not afford, the game ends soon enough, the credit drive will force change and there would be a market for Palantir if they adjust. They need to adjust faster the they are ready for, but the current agenda does not allow sleeping at the helm. As I personally see it (on small and debatable data), Peter Thiel took too long and even as we are being told “winning a modest contract early in the COVID-19 pandemic for helping the White House gather data on the coronavirus’s impact”, I wonder how the data collection part was achieved, in light of all the places where no data gathering correctly existed, the stage of the gathered data becomes debatable. 

The article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/30/palantir-goes-public-in-biggest-wall-street-tech-offering-of-2020) as a lot more debatable parts, in all they are tracks that could have been highlighted by adding a few commercial data gatherers to the fold from day one. There is the other need for a setting of adjustment and weighing of origin data, all whilst all the data is scrutinised. I reckon that this would set a stage where the findings of Sarah Brayne would be considered in house and not after certain stages went live (or perhaps they were merely ignored). She found “the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Gotham, found the software could lead to a proliferation of unregulated personal data collected by police from commercial and law enforcement database”, I will add to this, the setting that the software was designed to people employing trade craft, they would be outliers on the entire board, a setting that rates questions on people who seek cheap solutions because of budget, seek evasion because of divorce and outstanding bills, the acts are similar but not terrorist in nature.

OK, I admit, I do not know the exact setting in LA (other that Lucifer is their consultant), but the setting of outlier data came to mind in the first 10 seconds, and the finding of Sarah Brayne and ‘proliferation of unregulated personal data’ supports that, apart from the fact that unregulated data tends to be debatable and optionally in part or completely incorrect, data mining gives us the option to clean if the sources are known, unregulated personal data takes the out of the equation because the origin of the data (the person adding and manipulating data) is unknown and as such the data becomes unreliable. 

That is a lesson that banks would have told them quickly, if not them, then players like Equifax, because Palantir will end up in their fairway, the odds would not be even for Palantir. Yet Palantir needs to grow if they are to exist in a stage after tomorrow, to the there is no doubt, the US, UK and most EU nations cannot continue on the intelligence data foundations that they currently are. So as we see that, how many customers could Palantir lose? Growth is as I see it the only path that remains, banks are the most visible needling of more intelligence gathering, but they are not alone and Palantir needs to gird their loins.

 

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May 6, 2020 · 18:47

New World Order

You might not realise it and some hope that most don’t, yet there is a shift this week, there is a new global ruler on the planet. Some will deny it, they will sugarcoat it and some will use carefully phrased denial, they will not give any answers, but the world changes this week. It was always going to happen and I saw this event coming towards us with certainty no later than 6 years ago, it was like watching a bull shark trying to break free, cut the line that hooked him, yet this wire was too strong, there was no evading the obvious, the new ruler is here to stay. The new superpowers are Russia, China and the Bank. This week as the US borrows another $3,000,000,000,000 dollars the stage is set, the interest will now spiral and the US can no longer pay its debts, it is even worse, the annual income will not cover the interest on the outstanding debt. Even t 1%, the US will have to hand over $25,000,000,000 in interest, and there the setting is stage, or better yet the stage is set. The BBC reported that “The government has also extended the annual 15 April deadline for tax payments adding to the cash crunch” it is the final downfall acts through a consumer based economy and we will all feel that crunch as the US governing table will now mandatory include a representative of the banks, not some ‘political commission’, no a stage where the banks set the stage of what is allowed to be done. It is a new stage and even as we think who that is, my speculated view is that it is a representative that both the Rothchilds and Wall Street approve of, there is no need to wonder on which side of the political isle they fall, they will be above that and both Democratic and Republican parties will have to adhere to this. Are you scared? You should be! This is no longer a stage where the citizens are heard, it becomes a stage for consumers and enablers only. So the rights of the elderly and unemployed will fall away, they will have to make room for enablers and users. Their rights will be sullied more and more. It is not something that will happen overnight, it is something that will happen over the next 3 years. Political decisions, hard budgets and economic stages will be set. The fat of the body remains, the unessential parts will be cast aside to whither and die. This was the stage I foresaw in 2013, now it is no longer avoidable. Even as we see “Last week the chair of America’s central bank, Jerome Powell, said that he would have liked to see the US government’s books be in better shape before the pandemic”, in my view he is saying “You need a miracle to keep us out of the decision stream”, and he would have been right. As I see it, this is the direct impact of irresponsible politicians acting and spending a credit card that does not impact them and leaving the next group to fend for itself, that has been the stage for well over a decade and now the bill is due, no 5G economy to save them, no IP innovators to up the value of the US, the game is pretty much over and after the US falls, the EU will follow quite soon. The banks played the long game and they won, I wonder how much mercy and humanity their spreadsheets show, because for a lot of us it will become a much harder world. We either show value or we are done for, this is what sitting on the sidelines brought you all. The direct impact of “It will work out”, it will not and now we will face a much harsher situation and as the media plays towards its shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers, the people will finally realise that they have been played. The bank bill is ALWAYS due, there is no escaping it. I wonder if there is truth in the matter of an independent California, because they represent the largest group of enablers and consumers, No matter how we see it, the US has no stage to pay for the interest on $25,000,000,000,000. Their economy will not allow for that, so what will drain first, their pension plans, or will they pay out of the unemployment funds? The banks will get their pound of flesh and they do not care how the US brings the numbers, as long as they bring them, when this new bill comes aross, the numbers are reached and the needs of the banks can no longer be ignored. Aneconomy by comission driven people, the almost ultimate nightmare towards an economy you do not want to consider.

A new world order that crept under a cloud of inactions by those who should have acted and the people are alas out of options, they voted the inactionable collective in and now we can merely watch on the sidelines how it all unfolds before our eyes. You thought the Coronavirus shut down was bad? It will get a lot worse, now consider that not only supermarket aisles are empty, add to that the services will at some point fall away, see where a lot of us are then. 

We all let it happen, we only have ourselves to blame.

 

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