Tag Archives: bloomberg

December 18, 2025 · 23:58

The wrong focus

Two messages passed me by today. The first one was given to us by CNBC (at https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/12/17/oracle-stock-blue-owl-michigan-data-center.html) with the headline ‘Oracle stock dips 5% as Blue Owl Capital pulls out of funding $10 billion data center’ and I wonder why the headline wasn’t ‘Blue Owl Capital pulls out of funding $10 billion data center’ with the optional added “the project remains “on schedule” but that Blue Owl was out of funding talks.” And as we see “Blue Owl had been in talks with Oracle about funding a 1-gigawatt facility for OpenAI in Saline Township, Michigan, according to the Financial Times.” And when we see “the plans fell through due to concerns about Oracle’s rising debt levels and extensive artificial intelligence spending, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter. This comes as some investors raise red flags about the funding behind the rush to build ever more data centers. The concern is that some hyperscalers are turning to private equity markets rather than funding the buildings themselves, and entering into lease agreements that could prove risky.” I am wondering why the focus is Oracle and not Blue Owl Capital. Even as others give us ‘Blue Owl Capital (OWL) Is Down 7.1% After Liquidity And BDC-Merger Lawsuits Surface – What’s Changed’ (at https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/diversified-financials/nyse-owl/blue-owl-capital/news/blue-owl-capital-owl-is-down-71-after-liquidity-and-bdc-merg/amp) with “Blue Owl Capital has faced multiple securities class action lawsuits alleging that it misled investors about liquidity pressures tied to redemptions and the planned merger of its business development companies, following weaker-than-expected third-quarter 2025 results and contentious merger terms for OBDC II shareholders.” As well as “Beyond the legal claims, the controversy has highlighted how liquidity constraints, redemption limits, and potential valuation “haircuts” inside key private credit vehicles can affect confidence in Blue Owl’s broader fee-based asset management model.” So the setting could be “Oracle dips because Capital Asset Management cannot get their settings right” it is a speculative statement, but it does hold water in light of what we are shown, so why CNBC focusses on Oracle and not on Blue Owl Capital is beyond me. Is it because kicking a true innovator is more sexy than a Capital Asset Management player? I feel slightly protective of real innovators and as far as I can tell Oracle has been a power for innovation for over 45 years (yes I am that old).

So when we see “Blue Owl Capital’s narrative projects $4.2 billion revenue and $5.1 billion earnings by 2028. This requires 17.5% yearly revenue growth and about a $5.0 billion earnings increase from $75.4 million today.” And there is the real culprit, players like Blue Owl need to make money and the entire setting for what they call ‘AI’ will not show revenue for over 2 years and that is what is hampering these players (as I personally see it).

So when we see “The person added that Blue Owl was also concerned that local politics in Michigan would cause construction delays. Oracle later responded to the FT report, saying the project was moving forward and that Blue Owl was not part of equity talks.” I reckon that Blue Owl will move out of at least one other project, as such some players need to step up and it goes without saying that these ‘money makers’ will see stretch marks in their projected revenue womb and it will be a nasty setting for those that are relying on profit per quarter and that was the setting I foresaw almost a year ago and a setting that will bare scrutiny because there are trillions invested and some makers of money will start to realise that as they aren’t making enough money for their shareholders, they will become nervous and as I see it, Google has the inside track now and those relying on OpenAI and Sam Altman will start to see their revenue falter, it is no longer a one player game and that is before we consider where Huawei is going in all this. 

The second article ‘Amazon Set to Waste $10 Billion on OpenAI’ (at https://247wallst.com/technology-3/2025/12/17/amazon-set-to-waste-10-billion-on-openai/) the question becomes. Is it really wasted? We see the first setting “OpenAI, which until recently has been the leading artificial intelligence (AI) company in the world, has raised money from a long list of investors. Some are venture capitalists who are simply writing checks to get returns. However, another list consists of money or strategic deals with Microsoft, Oracle, Softbank, Nvidia, and, soon, Disney.” This part raises a question “Some are venture capitalists who are simply writing checks to get returns” the question is part of a timeline. When they get the money is another part of this equation and time is  the factor that holds these money loving parties in check, or not as the timeline shifts towards 2028/2029. So as we consider “Bloomberg reports, “OpenAI is in initial discussions to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon.com Inc. and use its chips, a potential win for the online retailer’s effort to broaden its AI industry presence and compete with Nvidia Corp.” Amazon is a tiny player in the AI chip business. Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) dominates, with a market cap of $4.33 trillion, which makes it the most valuable company in the world. Put plainly, the Amazon deal is part of the dangerous “round tripping” that goes on in the industry. One company invests in another. The company that gets the investment uses the money to buy products or services from the investor.” I see something else. Whilst we get that $4.33 trillion is an important part, the larger setting is becoming “Amazon deal is part of the dangerous “round tripping” that goes on in the industry” this implies that “a company selling “an unused asset to another company, while at the same time agreeing to buy back the same or similar assets at about the same price.”” I see it as double dipping, so we have now (apparently ) arrived to the point where the double dipping is greedily seen on 10 billion, whist the invested setting is over 900 times larger. I personally see that as a new venue towards the bottom of the creamy barrel that everyone wants to dip their wallet in, the setting is spend and the money is gone (or at least locked into a set stage of non-revenue) and that is the second setting I see breaking the economic settings apart in 2026, because this will erupt into something a lot less nice long before we reach 2027 and that is close to 2 years ahead of incoming revenue. Do you still think I am boasting? This is not a boast. It is disappointment, because that setting was clear to me almost a year ago when I wrote ‘And the bubble said ‘Bang’’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/01/29/and-the-bubble-said-bang/) So I saw this coming a mile away and the others were in the dark? I am not that intelligent, I am pretty clever sop these high paid economists should have see this long before me, or were they hoping that THIS time they could outsmart others? Greed is a vicious circle and will only propagate further greed a game without winners and all who play it lose, or they sell others down the river to get their goods. So how did that end in 2008? The movie Inside Job has a few markers, but who ended the game with a full purse tended to be awfully little and they wasted trillions on that idea and now we get a setting more intense and with more money at play all whilst the previous setting is still hurting a lot of people. Now, the impact will be a lot more dangerous with too many people relying on the setting others give whilst not giving them the full story. How does that usually go over?

A stage that could sink America as I see it, but perhaps I am just a radical depressed individual. Have a great day you all. My Friday begins in less than 5 minutes.

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December 8, 2025 · 22:58

A Peter Sellers world

That is what hit me when I saw ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bubble’ (source: Bloomberg) which comes from Dr Strangelove where we get “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” it started a larger set of thoughts. 

I didn’t use that article as Bloomberg uses a paywall. And it starts with yesterdays article in FXLeaders (at https://www.fxleaders.com/news/2025/12/07/oracles-ai-bubble-bursts-peak-glory-at-345-now-a-217-hangover/) where we see ‘Oracle’s AI Bubble Bursts: Peak Glory at $345, Now a $217 Hangover’ we are given “ORCL ended the week at $217.58, up 1.52 percent, but it still had a 37 percent hangover from its 52-week high of $345.72. This is a microcosm of growing concerns about debt loads, AI infrastructure spending, and whether the “infinite demand” narrative for AI compute can withstand real-world economics.” As well as “Oracle’s recent decline in stock value reflects broader market concerns regarding the high valuations of AI-related companies, as its forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio exceeds 33. The company projects revenues of $166 billion from cloud infrastructure and $20 billion. Investors adopted a “sell the news” mentality, raising questions about the sustainability of these forecasts. Oracle’s fundamentals remain solid. The company experienced  52% growth in cloud infrastructure and has $455 billion in remaining performance obligations (RPO), largely due to its partnership with OpenAI. Currently, the stock is trading at 13.9 times projected earnings for the end of this decade, leading some investors to view the decline as a potential buying opportunity.”

As I see it Oracle passed their burst bubble setting. And whilst we see ups and downs, I would unreservedly trust the Oracle stock to be a beacon of steadiness. It might not be sexy, but it is a trustworthy sign for those who need a decent return on investment.

Or as Peter sellers would say:
“As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. Yes! There will be growth in the spring!” (Source: Being there) it was a better time and weirdly enough the age of Peter Sellers applies to the days that 2025 brings. And from that setting we get to MyNews (at https://sc.mp/ihj4g) where we see ‘Why 2026 will be the year AI hype collides with reality’ an opinion piece that gives me “The reckoning ahead for the AI bubble promises to reprice expectations, force economic trade-offs and call out circular deals” but the stronger setting is given with “Speculative assumptions guiding trillions of US dollars in AI investments are colliding with real-world obstacles. Escalating costs, stratospheric stock valuations, tenuous collaborations and energy bottlenecks are compounding the inevitable challenges when new technologies struggle for profitability. Many are worried the bubble may be bursting. Morgan Stanley projects that the cumulative amount spent worldwide on data centers could exceed US$3 trillion by year-end 2028. China’s AI investment could hit 700 billion yuan (US$99 billion) this year, 48 per cent more than last year, according to Bank of America, with the government supplying US$56 billion.” There is a setting for both ‘AI investments are colliding with real-world obstacles’ and ‘worldwide on data centers could exceed US$3 trillion by year-end 2028’ the weird feeling I have that it will not get this far, this entire setting will implode before the end of 2027, investors will stop feeling lovingly towards the boom that is not coming and will start feeling pressured that the terms required that will grow erratic setting for the need for greed and that is the setting that comes along long before 2027 is reached. 

Then we get to AOL who gives us (at https://www.aol.com/finance/goldman-sachs-issues-warning-ai-103249744.html) where we are given ‘Goldman Sachs issues a warning to AI stock investors’ where we are given ““Our discussions with investors and recent equity performance reveal limited appetite for companies with potential AI-enabled revenues as investors grapple with whether AI is a threat or opportunity for many companies. While we expect the AI trade will eventually transition to Phase 3, investors will likely require evidence of a tangible impact on near-term earnings to embrace these stocks. Unlike Phase 2, there will likely be winners and losers within Phase 3,” Goldman Sachs US equity strategist Ryan Hammond wrote in a new note on Friday. Hammond thinks AI investment as a percentage of capital expenditures could be nearing a climax. In turn, that sets the stage for overly upbeat AI investors to be let down if earnings don’t come in strongly in future quarters.” As I see it, when we are given these settings everyone seems to get concerned, so when we get in addition “Salesforce (CRM) and Figma (FIG) got drilled on Thursday after their earnings reports didn’t wow. It’s clear that the hype on their earnings calls wasn’t enough to paper over soft areas of the earnings reports. Growing concern on the Street centers around the pace of AI demand by corporations, given what looks to be a slowing US economy.” As I stated this before, the need for greed overwhelmed everything. When the setting of NIP (Near Intelligent Parsing) is not clearly laid out and it is caught in the waves of board of directors and Investors believing that they have the AI solution everyone is looking for you gets a larger setting, consider that and consider what happens when OpenAI “fails to wow” the investors, or even a delay and it all comes to a large shutdown and that is even before we see 9 News giving us “A Sydney data centre that will host ChatGPT is being hailed as a win for Australia, but an expert warns the country lacks the energy supply needed to power it reliably” I gave a few months ago that there would be an energy problem on numerous levels and now we are seeing that whilst we are dealing with the the fallout of other settings. And less than an hour ago Deutsche Welle gives us ‘Google raises AI stakes as OpenAI struggles to stay on top’  with “Given those strengths, Adrian Cox sees “a very high probability” Google will have the leading model at least into next year — not OpenAI. OpenAI’s priority, he says, is identifying a business model capable of funding a user base that could soon approach a billion people per week.” This is not about OpenAI, I did that already, the larger frame is set in the perception of whatever the bubble is and I believe that there are two factors that the media doesn’t want or is avoiding to include. First there are the doom sayers trying to early burst confidence in favor of short gains and then there are people trying to short on whatever they can so that they can get another jolt of profit and they are all out trying to set social media on their side. 

So if this is the prologue of what is about to unfold we are in for a jolly good time, and as I see it, there is a chance that Christmas for some will be a disaster.

I wanted to include more of Peter sellers, like the Party or the Pink Panther but I am running out of juice. But there was one more thing and I got it from the Independent about an hour ago. It states ‘OpenAI rushes out new AI model in ‘code red’ response to fears about Google’ (at https://ca.news.yahoo.com/openai-rushes-ai-model-code-105822611.html) that was the snippet I was hoping for. With “The ChatGPT creator will unveil GPT-5.2 this week, The Verge reported, after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red” situation following the launch of Google Gemini 3 last month. Google’s latest AI model surpassed ChatGPT in several benchmark tests, including abstract and visual reasoning, as well as advanced knowledge across scientific disciplines.” But that comes in a setting, you see, I stated in ‘TBD CEO OpenAI’ two days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/12/06/tbd-ceo-openai/) “in a software release any of a hundred things can go wrong and they all need to go right at present.” And when things are rushed out things will go wrong. But there is a snag, for this to happen The Independent article had to be correct and as they are the only one giving us this, there is no real verification available. But when you are in a stage when bubbles go boom (or plop) all the available facts become important. And I massively wish that a Peter sellers setting would help me out. And perhaps in view of this, his classic phrase “It’s no matter. When you’ve seen one Stradivarius, you’ve seen them all.” Especially when looking at NIP software. But that is also the snag. I have seen excellent applications and I have seen lesser ones. I reckon that it amounts to who plays the violin, if it is a creative person that person will find new life in whatever that person. applies NIP to, if it is a salesperson it will be about maximizing greed and that setting tends to have limitations on several degrees. In addition we are given “The new model was originally scheduled to launch in late December, but will now be released as early as 9 December.” I understand the pressures that come with this but they better understand that early launch bring dangers and investors don’t really like to be spooked (they also don’t like them) What we see is open to interpretation and it is a valid thought that my views are also open to interpretation. 

So in this I leave you all with a presenting view not unlike Peter sellers would say “To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience” and 

As you I have never been in a movie (at least I don’t remember being in one) you are spared that dull experience. So have a great day and don’t forget to love the bubble (if you haven’t invested your wealth there).

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December 2, 2025 · 18:09

Aftermath

That is a setting I never really contemplated, but the Guardian did and they did a terrific job, they even had a reference to the 49’ers, which will make Jeremy Renner happy. The article ‘The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be’ by Eduardo Porter (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/01/ai-bubble-us-economy) hands us a few sides, a few I never considered as I was looking at the techno stuff, but here we see: “300,000 people flocked there from 1848 to 1855, from as far away as the Ottoman Empire. Prospectors massacred Indigenous people to take the gold from their lands in the Sierra Nevada mountains. And they boosted the economies of nearby states and faraway countries from whence they bought their supplies.” 

Which gives root to the expression 49’er and it continues giving us “Gold provided the motivation for California – a former Mexican territory then controlled by the US military – to become a state with laws of its own. And yet, few “49ers” as prospectors were known, struck it rich. It was the merchants selling prospectors food and shovels who made the money. One, a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss who sold denim overalls to the gold bugs passing through San Francisco, may be the most remembered figure of his day.” 

And then we get the first sliver “How else to explain Nvidia’s stock price, which more than doubled from April to November, based entirely on the expectation, nay hope, that AI will produce a super-intelligence that can do everything humans do but better. Nvidia – like Levi Strauss back in the day – is at least selling something: computer chips. The valuations of many of the other AI plays – like Open AI or Anthropic – are based largely on the dream.” 

But there is a missing cog, this technology needs dat storage and that is where I saw the failing of others and the failings of those overlooking data technologies. Oracle is intrinsically connected to that, Azure needs it, Snowflake prefers it and pretty much every data vendor is connecting to Oracle to get it all done in the background, and that is the sliver. Oracle is intrinsically connected to it all and it is the tamer of the data beast or better stated the data demon. As Oracle brings out tools and optionally data settings within their AI storage settings to handle validation and verification, all others will need to adhere better and deeper to the Oracle foundation to even survive. Pretty much all the sources that see the dangers of what some call AI and is clearly nothing better than a DML/LLM engine will see that these two elements are essential to get the LLM engine to do anything that matters and that is where the bonus of Oracle currently resides (as I presumptuously see it) To show this, I will take you back to 1984

User comments

See here, this is what chess computer’s looked like. You press the chess piece you want to move and you push the square where it lands. That is the foundation of the chess computer. In the ‘underground’ of that chessboard are (figuratively speaking) two chips. One had the knowledge of chess, the second chip (mainly memory) has every chess match known to mankind (basically all games all grandmasters have ever played), the program sees what moves are made and that setting is translated to a ‘position base’ and it will look at all the matches who it can foresee what moves are coming. This is great for the player, as it now needs to make an illogical move to throw over the thinking of the computer and make it their bitch. This was pretty much the fist stage of Machine Learning and as todays computers are more clever, there resolution is no way better, It can only set foundation of what it learned, that is the simplicity of knowing that AI doesn’t yet exist.

So back to the story “As I pointed out in my last column about AI, Gita Gopinath, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, calculated that a stock market crash equivalent to that which ended the dot-com boom would erase some $20tn in American household wealth and another $15tn abroad, enough to strangle consumer spending and induce a recession.” And I have no way of knowing that setting, but as I see it, like Levi Strauss and the makers of bubbles (like in image one) someone has to supply the soap water and more important the jeans to not put once ass out to frolic and in that second setting Oracle comes in and even as I see the ‘panic drivers, saying that Oracle is dangerous’, there is another setting. Whatever comes out of this, whatever survives, most only survives on Oracle solutions. And that is what is left unspoken. Should Oracle add the Validation and Verification tables, they will be the only one raking in the gold when True AI comes, because it is not merely the missing part I discussed earlier, someone needs to set the record straight on what is optionally to be trusted and that is where Oracle sets the mark.

Which leads to “AI could produce a similar landscape. A critical determinant is how much debt is at stake. It wouldn’t be such a problem if the bubble were financed largely from the cash pile of Alphabet and Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. They might lose their shirt, but who cares. The worrying bit is that it seems they are increasingly relying on borrowing, which means the prospect of a bursting bubble would again put the financial system at risk.” These systems are using the data as currency, as I see it, Oracle is putting its technology up for usage and that is a pretty safe way to do this. This is whyI have faith in Oracle, that is why I see Oracle as the one surviving the goldfish like a champion, because they are doing what Levi Strauss did. These data vendors are relying on data to clothe them, but if that data is not properly managed, they end up having nothing. Yes, Microsoft will survive, but at a level that is likely 2 trillion lower than it is now. And that is mainly because it wanted to be on top of things and they got (I think it was) 24% of OpenAI, but as that bursts, Sam Altman will have even less than I have now (and I am ridiculously poor) and that cargo train of debt will hit Microsoft square in the face, Oracle will get some damage, but not nearly as much and the world will need their data solutions. Why do you think everyone wants to connect to Oracle? It is the Rolls Royce of data collecting and data storage. And that is perhaps the only issue with that article, there is zero mention of Oracle.

So as we get “Big Tech has raised nearly $250bn in debt so far this year, according to Bloomberg, a record. Analysts at Morgan Stanley suggest that debt will be needed to fill a $1.5tn funding gap to ramp up spending on data centers and hardware. Problematically, it is getting hard to follow the money, as Nvidia, Open AI and others in the ecosystem buy into each other, clouding who, in the end, will be left holding the bag.” And there is one think wrong with this. Stargate is said to be $500bn, so there is a gap in all this and I reckon that the damage will be significantly worse, that is beside the small non mentioned fact that America at present has 5,427 data centers, how many of them and to what degree are they all set to ‘their version of AI’? So what is set in what some call Blue Owl solutions (like Meta) and what happens when those solutions ‘bubble out’ (collapse might be a better phrase) so when that happens, how much damage will that bring, because as I see it (not wearing glasses) the $1.5tn funding gap won’t even be close what is required. But that is just me speculating, so feel free to (I insist) that you get your own verifiable numbers. I reckon that between now and 2029 the return of a backlogged $4 trillion return on investment is required. So taking “a banks perspective”, an inaccurately amount of $292,500,000,000 in revenue needs to be shown for that bubble not to come and that is out of the question, but the setting that Eduardo Porter gives us, is what comes next and he gives it to us as “the Superhuman – can only come about by dropping LLMs – which are essentially massive correlation engines – and switching to something else called a world model architecture, where machines develop a “mental” model of the outside world.” It is a nice sentiment, but I do not completely agree with that. Correlation engines have their use and there is use in a DML/LLM setting, but identify it as such, not claim ‘AI does it’. Because it won’t and it can’t, but there are options in Oracle to upgrade the data you have and that is instrumental in surviving this bubble burst. And I have seen the folly in several places and that might set a better station down the road, because when true AI cones, it still needs data and if that data was managed, validated and verified in Oracle (preferably), half the war of that solution bringer is solved. 

So I need a different hobby, slapping Microsoft and AI evangelists is nice, almost a public service but I need a new idea for gaming IP, because that makes me happy and I like feeling happy. So whilst some think that “Nvidia, Open AI and others in the ecosystem buy into each other” is the hard core evil stuff (and it might be) there is a setting it reminds me of, it was in the 90’s and these ‘consultants’ were all into the need of funny money in the form of assignments, the issue was that when they had to show results they immediately took another job and took their ‘knowhow’ to greener shores and all the time this happened the shores were all becoming less and less green. This has the flair of that setting and to some degree the feel. 

I might be wrong on that last part, but that is what I feel on this, especially as the big players are buying into each others solution and handing each other pieces of paper that in the end has as much value as a roll off toilet paper.

It might not be eloquently phrased, but there is a time for that and this is not it, as speculated shit is about to hit the walls and if you are lucky it happens after Christmas (that is almost certain) but in the end, the invoice is due and that is where the CFO’s will show that as they embraced the Blue Owl solution, their company is saved. I would depend on and side with whatever Oracle has, it is not based on facts, it is a feeling and that feeling is strong at present. And in support I see (9 minutes ago) ‘Ooredoo Qatar announces strategic partnership with Oracle to deploy Oracle Alloy sovereign cloud and AI platform’, they didn’t go towards Microsoft, AWS of a few other settings, they trust Oracle and that is what plenty of others need to do.

Have a great day, I am now 8 hours from midweek, not a bad deal for me today and as the sun is shining brightly, I might hide in a winterly Hogsmeade whilst playing Hogwarts Legacy. Gaming is not a bad hobby to have in this case. Because the bubble is out of my control and I am happy to watch it all explode a day later (of whenever that is), most of the garnish news has been drowned out by real news at that point.

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August 15, 2025 · 18:08

Walking back needs

I was in a rush to find another topic to look at and no sooner was it said when my brain told me to look behind me and no sooner was it done when I noticed a Bloomberg article 

This sounds odd (and correct) as the Houston Business Journal gives us a little less than 18 hour ago ‘Texans face potential electricity price surge as power demand skyrockets’, it is odd as I noticed that term was a setting a mere 2-3 years ago. I gave the setting towards an IP idea I had. It was clear that this setting would be needed in Dubai, London and a few other places. I gave the Texan setting of Austin as a reference. As such I gave the idea that a few people should talk to Elon Musk as he is sitting on a trillion dollar idea and it would be needed all over the world. So, as some ‘now’ see that there is a larger problem, which I illustrated in ‘Is it a public service’ on November 16th 2024 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/16/is-it-a-public-service/) where I clearly stated that the energy is mission for a lot of this. We get the setting three months later in Bloomberg and now we get the Houston Business Journal giving us “With new data center developments, population growth and the electrification of oil fields, power demand growth is tightening the electricity market. Here’s what experts predict for the coming years.” As well as “With a rise in data center developments, population growth, and the electrification of oilfields, power demand growth is tightening the electricity market.” The latter part is a little hilarious. A setting that could be construed as the headline for the new comedy capers. What makes it a lot harder is the need Bloomberg gave us (and me months before that) that as I see it, corporate America has to foot that bill as the Data Centre needs will be required to get filled from day one, and as I see it the people of Texas need to pay ZERO. I do like the idea that corporate America will decrease the cost of living for Americans, especially when they are ‘required’ to remain carbon zero and 30 nuclear reactors are not the way to go. And this is given a lot more urgency as Americans are faced with the needs to make more electricity and the timelines to not align, especially in light of the news by Houston Business Journal given less than 24 hours ago. The other setting is that nuclear reactors require time and experience to build. As I see it, the Need for at least 3 GEN3+ reactors require at least 5 years and that is setting the reactors close to Houston and Austin. The third one should be right next to the data centre that Texas is handed. Oh, and these reactors need to be started within the next 3 months. So, when were these plans approved that fast? If not, there is little reason for a data centre when the electricity is apparently missing. 

The fact that the American people (the HBJ too) were apparently missing this information whilst I using a simple slide ruler (classic model shown below)

Got there in mere seconds almost a year ago, and I was courteous enough to write about it. So there is that to consider. Funny enough America has the solution employing the solutions by Elon Musk. I advice then to act, before the UAE (and Saudi Arabia) asks for all the batteries that Elon has in stock. That is one idea, there are more ideas and they are out there. Yet the settings are now given by the HBJ and will set Texas on a stampede for solutions I reckon no later than coming Monday. 

So when it does come, I would advice some people to walk back the needs of energy requirements and see where that leads them. The funny part is that this was a given BEFORE the Stargate project was on everyones retinas. Even as I gave my setting BEFORE Stargate, the setting becomes on why this wasn’t clearly given as project Stargate was drawn up? As we see the answers, more questions are shown on our eyes and this is the mere start of this. At present there are two operational nuclear power plants: Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant and the South Texas Project. Each plant has two reactors, and together they provide about 10% of the state’s electricity. So when we see this, we might understand the crazy presentation on AI and the setting of available energy. So when I gave my feelings on the three reactors, we see a much larger need, but is that a given? I know that I can be wrong, even if I am proven right months later. Causality does not mean proven effect, that requires a whole different setting of statistics and proof leading to this. 

So feel free to doubt me, but there are the stories and there are the newscasts and the data that nuclear reactors require time is pretty much a given. So feel free to doubt it all, I don’t mind. Just consider the setting that the Data centers require energy and who do you want that energy to get? Your fridge and microwave or an AI data center whilst we know that AI isn’t real. I leave it up to you.

Have a great day and feel free to look around you. The data is all around us all.

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April 28, 2025 · 12:09

Is it reality?

That is the question I am faced with as I saw the article at CBC which I cannot continue as CBC screwed up its site giving us advertisements every inch of the article, as such Brodie Fenlon clean up your freaking site, and fire the idiot responsible for this. Yet the BBC came to the rescue and gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2v37z333lo) ‘Trump deep sea mining order violates law, China says’ in earnest, that article is three days old and I preferred the CBC article as it shows a little more clearly how desperate America has become for funds. I reckon that the interest on 36 trillion of debt is gnawing on the bones of America, more prevalent that gnawing has gone beyond the bones as it is starting on the bowels of America. The BBC article gives us “Donald Trump has signed a controversial executive order aimed at stepping up deep-sea mining within US and in international waters. The move to allow exploration outside its national waters has been met by condemnation from China which said it “violates” international law.” I tend to agree with China, but merely as it allows a setting where the desperate poor countries who cannot counter America and these nations are left with baubles. A setting they learned from the slave traders around 1768. You have to hand it to trump. He is giving the old scriptures a chance to prove themselves. The issue I partially have a problem with is “The administration estimates that deep-sea mining could boost the country’s GDP by $300bn (£225bn) over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs”, in the first there is no clear setting for the $300,000,000,000 revenue. If they ‘mine’ in a few wrong sports, the price if mining and the revenue of staff will cost them an easy $50,000,000,000 which implies a lost revenue base of 16%, the second part is that these jobs are mostly given to people they just evicted. Only the higher levels will get a nice dime, the rest will be done by Americans who didn’t want the job anyway and that breeds errors and often mistakes. A non-committed employee screws up the daily routine a lot more than you are happy with and that will be dozens of people. The part that I never gave the right attention is seen in ““The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,” he added in a statement released on Friday.” The he in that quote is Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, a US-based environmental group. The fact that Jeff merely got one quote implies that he has a whole lot more to say and I wonder if we will ever see that part of the equation. The larger setting is that America is now ready to start bullying its way through international waters. So what will they call those who want to intervene on their waters (or too close to it), will they suddenly be branded pirates? A larger setting that America has lost the plot and I warned for this a decade ago. Deal with your debt unless it deals with you and that seemingly seems to be happening now. It also opens a new setting. These little nations will now be ready to side with China, which is another headache for America. And that setting will give China (as a protector or these nations) an options to scuttle these miners. So $300 billion largely lost and American lives lost (at present no one cares about those). Now we get the added cost of these mining platforms and as such America gets into deeper waters. 

So the end of the BBC article gives us “A recent paper published by the Natural History Museum and the National Oceanography Centre looked at the long term impacts of deep sea mining from a test carried out in the 1970s. It concluded that some sediment-dwelling creatures were able to recolonise the site and recover from the test, but larger animals appeared not to have returned.

The scientists concluded this could have been because there were no more nodules for them to live on. The polymetallic nodules where the minerals are found take millions of years to form and therefore cannot easily be replaced.” As such we have a (non proven) stage for the desperation of Americans. This was shown half a century ago. And the fact that America is willing to ignore “larger animals appeared not to have returned” as well as “polymetallic nodules where the minerals are found take millions of years to form and therefore cannot easily be replaced”. As I personally see it, to ignore these two facts implies that America doesn’t care (or cares less) about marine life and that it will act like a carrion eater in regards to the ocean floor and take now what needs millions of years to form whispers (to me) that America is decently beyond broke and it falls to President Trump to default the larger part of 36 trillion of debt. I’m pretty sure that I made mention of that chance in the past and as I am likely proven right yet again, the question becomes why didn’t economics signal clear levels of dangers? The news now, as the Times writer (and American economist) Irwin Stelzer gives us that the economy of America is in rather good shape. So is it really? Please give us the goods on how America is doing well? It might be that the America Economy is seemingly hanging tough, but they lost billions of revenue all over the field from retail to defense contracts. They might be in denial, bit as I see it only two years ago we would never have seen ‘Italian defence and aerospace giant Leonardo has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ a mere three months old. So how much did America lose here? I cannot set the valuer of that contract, but the quote “multiple areas of collaboration to include space industry, airframe MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul), localisation of electronic warfare systems and radars and assembly of helicopters, a focus on Combat Air and Cross-Domain Integration fields, industrialisation processes and human capital development, national supply chain in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the country’s role for Leonardo in the region as well as the global value chain.” (Source: www.leonardo.com) leaves me to believe that it is a serious amount of money, now add the new European slices and with the tariffs the loss of America is now on a threshold to fuel a larger recession than ever speculated on before, the larger players (read: Bloomberg) set this chance at the moment at 40%, as America scuttled their own retail houses (like Walmart) of cheaper goods, they need to continue without the goods, you might think it is nothing, yet 1% of the American population works there, now take out the thousands of shoppers (read: immigrants) and that 2025 revenue of US$680.99 billion will topple by at least 10%, 30% if they are not careful and what remains of that Net revenue of US$19.436 billion? You see, they either fire a whole lot of them or lose close to 40% of their business. These are personally considered numbers, so I might be wrong here to the amount of loss, but not the intention of loss and this is merely Walmart. There are several other chains facing this setting. So how good is that shape of the economy? 

I wrote a few years ago that we need to see where all these bonds are, no serious journalist ever looked into that matter it was the time around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. I wondered how the could have happened and it was a much bigger thing. The acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS gave me pause to ponder, I figured that several banks had over swallowed on bonds which left them not dissolvent, but left their funds largely frozen as such I speculated that Credit Suisse and SVB had too many bonds and at that time the loss of value of these bonds were crippling them. At present no one really looked at this, even to debunk my train of thought and now we also see some are selling their debt of the US. The BBC touched on that on April 10th (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yrr0e7499o), so feel free to think I am crazy (always a decent stance to have) but there is ruffling in the economic oceans and the stage that the economic times are decently horrendous is not a bad thing. 

I just thought of something, did America rename the Gulf of Mexico for mining purposes? Now a bad stance, if it not for the tiny fact that the Bermuda Triangle is there too, as such how many mining platforms will operate in that region and what remains a few weeks later is anyones guess. Just me having fun with the situation. 😛

Have a great day and feel free to enjoy a coffee, it leaves you with a warmer feeling than a US bond at present will. 

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November 19, 2024 · 22:36

The Christmas sphere

Yup, we all go there, there is no holding us. Still it is not a setting that I would have guessed that the Republicans would enter (perhaps a small oversight on my part). It started on the October 9th 2024 when I wrote ‘Personal Perception’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/10/09/personal-perception/). Today, one of the coolest dudes I know from Uni (Thanks Yoshi) brought this to my attention (at https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/18/24300033/doj-google-monopoly-remedies-search-chrome-android-ai) where the Verge are giving us: ‘US lawyers will reportedly try to force Google to sell Chrome and unbundle Android’. Let me give you a small education. It happens in sports and n business. In uncertain times you keep your strongest players strong (example the Toronto Maple Leafs) and your businesses in pretty much the same order. As such there is an upside to all this (sort of). For Huawei Christmas comes early, as such, I personally believe It is up to Ren Zhengfei to get Merrick Garland (Attorney General of the United States) the hamper of all hampers this Christmas. (See below)

Fair is fair I think. With this sentiment the DoJ will hand mobile supremacy to Huawei and SymphonyOS on pretty much a global level. We are given (in the Verge) “Bloomberg reports that DOJ lawyers will try to break up Google’s search monopoly by targeting Chrome, Android, and AI Overviews.” And the supporting text “The Department of Justice is planning to ask for Google’s antitrust trial judge to force the company to sell off its Chrome browser after the judge ruled the company has maintained an illegal search monopoly, reports Bloomberg.”. It comes down to “Don’t underestimate the woke opponent population to destroy your their own army for you” It is the one reason Sun Tsu forgot to teach his generals among him (the silly bunny). 

As Google gets slammed left, right and in front of them by self centred greedy minded people We need to come to an understanding that Merrick Garland gave China the best Christmas present ever. In the first they took a slippery situation in 2019 to take resources and create Harmony OS and now it is its own solution away from Android and at present is available in 77 language for all 64-bit ARM, x86-64, RISC-V, LinxiISA systems. It is about the solution for smart systems and now as Google is about to be hobbled by its own justice system, the one global solution for nearly all parties. It is the one system that Apple feared, and it was partially secure knowing that Google could counter whatever Huawei could bring. That advantage is about to be gone. Ren Zhengfei had nothing to do but to await the American woke powers to be to become this stupid. And in the end the only America basically cut its own wrists right before the price fight. And that is merely part of it. You see our protection was “Finally, they will reportedly push for “a ban on the type of exclusive contracts that were at the center of the case against Google.”” You see it was not for Google, it was for the consumer who relied on stability and protection from the dangers in the mobile worlds, the scammers. I reckon that by 2026 the world needs to become aware of the scammer danger and by 2026 they get more easy access to mobile users all over the world. Google was our protection and I reckon that 2026 will become the year of Huawei (2025 might be a little too soon). And that also reverberates all over the Middle East. A more clear example is given by “In total, we estimate Google’s products support between 4.3 and 10.5 SAR billion a year in economic activity. Over the last five years, the economic activity driven by Google Search and Ads has grown by 189% in nominal terms” (source: anonymous, the mouse we all adore). With this as well as “Google launched a cloud region in Saudi Arabia in November 2023, located in Dammam. The company had been in discussions with Saudi oil firm Aramco about a data center joint venture since early 2018, and plans for a GCP region in Saudi were officially announced in late 2020” If Huawei gets to show pockets of inconsistency (something the DoJ is about to deliver) Google will have a much harder time and with that part out in the open Huawei will get almost easy access to the United Arab Emirates as well. Yup, that was what the DoJ accomplished, all for the good of Huawei. Suck to be radical and woke, doesn’t it?

In addition Bloomberg gave us “Google’s regulatory affairs VP, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said that the DOJ “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,”” gives me the sentiment that Lee-Anne Mulholland underestimated the ego of any woke mind to fumble a technology war. In other news, today I made a desperate attempt to something else and it brought me to the Canadian Consulate (in Sydny, a joke the Canadians will get). It was the most awesome experience ever. Never ever was I so happy to go to any Consulate, I actually left that place with the Christmas cheer in my heart. It took hours to make that feeling fade. 

So don’t think that I am all business (OK, I am all business at present). 

What does one have to do with the other? Nothing really, I just wanted to give you that Christmas cheer can be found in the most uncommon corners of the Universe (In this case in Australia).

So when you consider that the DoJ is pushing a radical agenda you need to consider why and more precise who does it profit. Because it is not the consumer and it is not Google. So consider that these actions are not seen in 2000 with Microsoft and with “the Circuit Court did not overturn Jackson’s findings of fact, and held that traditional antitrust analysis was not equipped to consider software-related practices like browser tie-ins”, now the setting changes. With this they enable Huawei to grab supremacy in all kinds of legal ways and it seemingly will hurt Google. So at that point what do you think will happen to Merrick Garland and his minions?  In those years Microsoft could play the games they did and now They are faced with Huawei and Tencent Holdings Ltd. And in this Pony Ma (Tencent) and Ren Zhengfei (Huawei) are about to get access to 1.8 billion consumers in a move that Google was unable to get. How is that for competitive laws? 

I reckon that the dust will settle around 2028 and the American ago will have to lick its wounds from that. Stupidity is about to end technological supremacy. I reckon they would have called me crazy around 2000. We only have to wait for the political ego to crush their own marbles. What a day.

Have a great day.

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October 29, 2024 · 15:28

Laughing Out Loud

Yup this happens too and in this case it was an article that Bloomberg showed its paying customers. I am not one of them. As such I am attaching the image that made me laugh.

I saw it about 8-10 hours ago and it had me rolling with laughter. So what gives? First the setting of ‘Consider Re-entering’ as I see it Barclays and other banks are strapped for capital and bleeding a client dry (service fees and commissions) is a tell tale story towards any bank trying to make a living. There is no consideration, there is merely the trap they put themselves in 10 years ago. As for the “capitalise on the kingdom’s growing need to access capital markets” is even more hilarious. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has options to consider HSBC, JP Morgan, Bank of America and the 5 largest banks in China. All stronger and more able than Barclays. There is also Credit Agricole and the Citigroup. All in the top 12, Barclays stands at 18. So there is the first part. In addition I can hand you Rothschild & Co. The one bank no one mentions. It’s value was around €18.1 billion a year ago, as such I reckon it is pushing well over €20 billion at present. Barclays has nowhere near that capital or those connections. I reckon that Rothschild can access around 20% more clients than Barclays can (a casual speculation by little old me). 

So why this action?
Well it started in 2012 when we were given “Barclays is fined for manipulating the benchmark Libor interest rate in 2012, after revelations stretching back to 2005” It’s CEO C. S. Venkatakrishnan didn’t forget about that, did he? Then we get 2014 when Reuters gave us ‘Barclays sued by Saudi developer for $10 billion’, so how did that end? We got “A Saudi real estate company has sued Barclays for $10 billion (6.24 billion pounds), claiming the bank ceased pursuing lease payments due from the Saudi government on military complexes in the kingdom in order to obtain a lucrative banking license there” when we were given (source: Reuters) “The company, Jadawel International, a unit of London-based MBI International Holdings Inc., claims Barclays “hatched a fraudulent scheme” to secure the rare Saudi banking license, selling out Jadawel in the process, according to the lawsuit filed in New York state Supreme Court on Tuesday” One says potato and the other claims tomato. In the end as far as I can tell Barclays won the dismissal. It doesn’t make them innocent, but the claimant could not prove guilt (as far as I can tell). And last but not least only this year we were given that Barclay was one of the players in getting Andrea Orcel “derivatives linked to Commerzbank for the Italian lender in the weeks before Berlin sold a stake earlier this month, sources familiar with the matter said. Barclays and Bank of America subsequently helped Orcel to effectively expand UniCredit’s holding in Commerzbank to the current level of about 21 per cent, they said asking not to be named discussing the private information” now, this last bit does not seem to be illegal, but the stakes against Barclay (all over Europe) are increasingly high and now they hope that Saudi Arabia gives them a chunk of business before they are forced to hand over their bank to any of the upper 15 banks. I say good luck to them. Yes there is all kinds of banking issues I am not familiar with, but governments need to work with banks that are cleaner then clean and as such I am entertaining howls of deriving laughter if Barclay thinks they are that. The LIBOR scandal took care of that. 

And lets be clear Barclay didn’t (as far as I know) hand the statement “Mistakes were made in the past and we have sanitised our structures and people to meet the challenge that a customer the size of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia brings”, nope, none of that. We were given “Barclay plc is considering re-entering Saudi Arabia as it looks to capitalise on the kingdom’s growing need to access capital markets”. I actually wonder if they would be allowed in the country at present. There are seemingly better viable candidates and that is before you consider Rothschild as a contender. 

I get it. I also tried to access Saudi Arabia as a partner (read: future owner) of my IP. I merely wanted 50 million, a Canadian passport and 2% of the revenue for 20 years. With my believe (a presented believe) that the idea would give them 6 billion annual and their investment to that would be 50 million (for happy old me). And this is about as decent as it gets. A mere 0.8% risk and that is at the time of the presentation. A mere trivial amount and I feel certain that this would have worked. There was one condition Microsoft was not allowed near it. Amazon would be OK, but Microsoft is a no go.

This is why I contacted Kingdom Holdings and Tencent Technology as well. They can drive the innovation I brought. As such I feel a stronger contender than Barclay ever could be (Yes, I am blowing my own horn).

So as I see it, re-entering a market when the others have seemingly had enough of you isn’t re-entering. It is running for the hills to avoid being taken over. But I am not a banking person, so what do I know.

Have a fun day.

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July 12, 2023 · 02:13

One voice is still a voice

I made mention of this all over June. The production cuts that Saudi Arabia set out to do would have impact. Some called me stupid, most ignored the issue. Yet Bloomberg gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s Oil Production Cuts Are Quietly Starting to Bite’ (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-oil-production-cuts-105634851.html), as such you need to consider. Not merely that I was right. The larger setting is that this is only one week into the new amounts and it is starting to bite. So how will the setting of less oil be in a month time? And before you know it North America and Europe enter autumn with all the heat they require at that point. We are then given “Brent oil traded in London had been stuck around the $75-a-barrel mark for weeks. That shifted a little Friday, when the contracts rose to about $78, a level they have largely held at since.” A setting we get and understand, but as the supply landscape is redefined, that price cannot be held and I reckon that in a month time it will hit the $90 mark and after that it gets nasty in a hurry. And there is an additional quote that matters. We are given “In the latest move, at least two processors in Asia sought less from the Saudis for cargoes shipped next month, and another said it won’t take any cargoes after an unexpected price increase.” This sounds nice on paper, but when we have 15 processors al vying for the 1 million barrels out there, at least 5 will have no oil to process. It is simple math and at that point the item of sulphur content will not hold much water. And whilst people are shouting where is our oil, I see a group of people that forgot that Saudi Arabia is building a new refinery in China which will gobble up almost a million barrels a day and China who got the deal with a clause accepting that payments are in Yuan is slightly too happy and when Europe (America and Canada too) realise that the reduction in oil is permanent and that China is now in a stage with loads of oil to fuel their economy. That is the point when people realise that they are losing a lot more than they bargained for. If only the US hadn’t pissed of Elon Musk to the degree they had. Yet this is about oil and not about batteries. The simplest setting is that this ‘biting’ is happening after less than 2 weeks into the reductions. So what will be the case in 4 weeks? Is someone considering that Janet Yellen had a portfolio of begging prescriptions towards China? I have no idea where this will end, yet I remember the ‘carless Sundays’ in the Netherlands in 1973. We might have that soon enough and now all over Europe and optionally America too. In 1973 it was fun. I got to test my roller skates on the A27 (a Dutch highway) which extension past Hilversum was brand new and I got to test that tarmac and not a car in sight, good times. Yet now it will be different and I reckon that the economic image will change for a lot of nations. It will not be a simple ‘lets add some money we do not have’. Now several members of the EU will be waging some kind of personal war to get the oil they all need. And I gave fair warning around two years ago. And it was not rocket science, it was simply based on the old premise ‘do not bite the hand that feeds you’ and that is how the escalation wth the UK (and their CAAT) and the US with whatever premise they thought they had and now they all want oil that they are denied. It sucks to be them soon enough.

It might be quietly biting now, but in 4-8 weeks it will not be quiet and when Europe (as well as the US) enters winter that setting will not be a nice one.

Enjoy the almost middle of the week.

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April 11, 2023 · 13:01

It’s a point of view

This happens all the time, we all have a point of view and others have their point of view and they do not completely align. There is no right versus wrong issue, or there could be, but there is every chance that some views are based on three points. Consider a rectangle or a square, they both have points A,B,C and D, but we only see three of them, and with three you can tell whether it is a square or a rectangle, you merely miss one point and base your view on the other three points. It does not matter which point is missing, you get a decent view, but someone who sees A,B and D will draw slightly different conclusions than someone who has B,C and D. Neither is wrong, but they do not complete align because the events that surround these 4 points are different. This is how I see it and as such I took great interest in the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/opec-s-gamble-can-the-global-economy-cope-with-higher-oil-prices-20230410-p5cz7f) where we see ‘OPEC’s gamble: can the global economy cope with higher oil prices?’, so whatever you see next, whatever difference I have, I am not dismissing THEIR view. I like their view, I might not completely agree, but they will have another point plotted towards their view. 

And we start with “the risks for the Saudis and the global economy are high if they push it too far. “We have high inflation, economies potentially going into recession, and this is a situation where you need lower oil prices for a short period of time for the economy to recover,” says Adi Imsirovic at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), who once ran oil trading at Russia’s Gazprom.” It is not the first part of the story but it matters. You see, the UK, EU and US are in the metropolitan areas a mobile workforce. Adi Imsirovic can cry for chap oil all he likes, but the setting of ‘lower oil prices’ all you like, but people have been playing that tune for too long and NO ONE is looking at Brent oil on this. You all became a import commodity economy and that comes at a price, especially when you piss off the exporters. In the UK take a look at the laughable CAAT, they were all crying and not to mention Just stop oil group. Now you see the impact of higher oil prices and the players did this to themselves. You cannot push around an ally (Saudi Arabia) and then demand cheap oil, a commodity supplier who can close their own supply valve. 

This also impacts “Abdulaziz also managed to confound those speculators who had bet on falling oil prices after the recent banking crisis sparked new fears about the global economy.” In a stage I warned for for well over two years, the term “confound those speculators who had bet on falling oil prices” is a joke (and a bd one at that). You see, this danger was out there for some time and betting? That is what you do in Las Vegas where the odds are wild and when the US and EU (UK too) decided to make the odds wilder by insulting their proclaimed ally the writing of higher oil prices and less oil was on the wall. And all this was BEFORE China saw its path clear to give the bird to the USA (that gesture with the finger). As such Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman did exactly what was required for the good of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it might not reflect on the needs of the cheap oil deliverers, but they could go cry at the fountain of Brent oil but the media does not report on that, Brent Crude (operating on behalf of ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell) might be ‘too big’ for the media. Yet I have not seen anything regarding Darren Woods and Wael Sawan regarding dropping oil prices. Why is that? We see all the fingers towards Saud Arabia, yet Shell beat profit expectations towards $40 billion and ExxonMobile  beat it with $56 billion. And both broke expectations above 150%, as such I have issues with the entire OPEC setting. And when it comes to ‘lower oil prices’ who bet on this on Brent Crude lowering them? I am willing to set whatever I have at present ($0.70) that the amount of gamblers will add up to ZERO. Which makes me $25.2 (not enough for my new apartment). 

So when we get to “Now the question is if OPEC’s surprise cut will raise prices too quickly for the health of a fragile global economy, especially as central bankers continue their quest to tame inflation” no one is looking at the one element EVERYONE is ignoring. Inflation is also tamed buy banks having their donkeys on a row and with Credit Suisse and a few American banks we can say that this is not the case. So when we consider last week revelation by the BBC ‘Swiss probe into UBS takeover of Credit Suisse’ as well as the news only 2 hours ago that there is something brewing with the Viva Energy deal at $1.15 billion, I reckon that inflation issues are a lot larger than merely through oil and it is time that banks are properly looked at, because they are the so called power players in any inflation deal and no one is stopping certain players. Why is that? And when you consider the larger station, no one is acknowledging that commodities are at the power of the supplier and pissing off one of the biggest suppliers whist you shun two others for whatever decent reason (Iran and Russia), you need to reconsider the stupidity of any action against the third player who basically has had enough and now that China sees a larger playing field, they will take that option, especially if they can do it for a few Yuan more. That too is missing from the equation. That gives us a new discussion or consideration. So here is the new setting, it is not whether we were looking at a square or a rectangle, but we were looking at three points of an octagon/polygon. We were seeing the points correctly, but the stage was not properly marked and that makes neither wrong, it makes us both incomplete and consider that I am a mere blogger without a economics degree and the other player is the Australian Financial Review (and many other newspapers), who has the better excuse for not seeing the whole field? Consider that for a moment and consider the people pointing fingers at Saudi Arabia, why are they pointing there and not in other directions as well. In all this I believe that they have the proper reasons, can the same be said for Brent Crude? I will let you decide.

Enjoy the day.

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April 8, 2023 · 00:07

It has holes

There are a number of issues with banks, the latest one is the one I left alone initially. It was the Credit Suisse – UBS issue. 

The initial issue are the holes, like a Swiss cheese, it has holes. In the cheese it is accepted as it is part of the process. But with banks? How many holes can we allow for? Now, the ice is thin here. I am not an economist and I am no banking person, So what do I know? Well, I know infrastructures going back to my Intelligence days, I have seen companies getting gobbled up and in some cases for all the wrong reasons, you see those parts were on paper pleasing, but the reality of it was that reality bites and that is when you feel like a Japanese guy gobbling up a live fish. That is seemingly OK, until the fish eaten is a piranha and it starts eating you from the inside out.

So lets get back to the first article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65177258) where we see ‘Credit Suisse investors angrily confront bank as chairman says sorry’. There we see Ulrich Korner in some stage of apathy. He reminded me of a Dutch political comic in one of their newspapers (a long time ago) where we see “When we get to item 4, it would be best if at least one of the board members start crying”. It felt like a farce, a joke for the stockholders who are about to lose a lot more than they bargained for. The text the BBC gives us is “The loss-making bank had already been struggling for a number of years after a series of scandals, compliance problems and bad financial bets. Mr Lehmann told investors at the Annual General Meeting that management had a plan to turn things around but had been “thwarted” by fears prompted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US.” I personally feel like this is misdirection. I personally believe that the US bond issues are stretched on several fronts and as I wrote in previous articles, how did Credit Suisse stock up on the Basel III front? What was the safety gap? It is my personally belief that there was close to none (or at least a lot too little), and now Credit Suisse will be removed and their banks will hoist the UBS logo soon enough, especially with the scandals and bad bets that were made. 

Yet that same day, the Irish times (at https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/2023/04/05/ubs-chair-says-credit-suisse-integration-will-take-up-to-four-years/) shows us ‘UBS chair says Credit Suisse integration will take up to four years’ that is for banking in these volatile times a massive risk to take and it is not taken lightly, as such I believe that people like Janet Yellen would have been on the phone with a few people. When the American bonds go, the US economy will go and I reckon they will take the Japanese and EU economy into the abyss with them. It is a personal view and I have nothing to prove it with, but the weak response from the media implies that these sources got told to play it cool or face consequences. It is a speculation, but when we take the view I had in the past on Shareholders and stake holders, I belief that I am decently correct and it is a personal view after all.

The Irish Times also gives us “Even with downside protection in the form of government support, there’s a “huge amount of risk in integrating these businesses,” Mr Kelleher, who is from Cork, said in prepared remarks for the bank’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.” The setting is that UBS is getting the bank for three billion Swiss francs. One source tells us “How much a company is worth is typically represented by its market capitalisation, or the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. Credit Suisse Group net worth as of April 06, 2023 is $2.76B.” When we see other sources we get “Total assets CHF 531 billion and Total equity CHF 45 billion” this was last year and they have a little over 50,000 staff. I reckon that the bosses there are working on their resume and I would suggest the word ‘scandal’ is written correctly, because involvement in sandal does not go over well in the financial sector. And when you see these numbers, it is all sold for 3 billion? And we see no serious questions from any media. 

So what is left of the assets? What are the bond numbers and total value per nation of bonds acquired. There is no insight of that. Just like the meltdown of 2008 no one is to blame and the US is fixing the carper so that it can hide more dirty laundry. So how long until the people realise that their economy is largely based on an empty egg shell? 

The Irish Times also gives us “Shareholders will receive one UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares held” this implies a mere 4.44% of value return for the shareholders, yes their value goes up butt this level of saturation is an issue and I reckon that more banks will follow at some point. Banks will become bad investment for the tax write off and the shareholders will lose out. Don’t get me wrong, I have no real sympathy for them, this is the outcome of shares and stocks. Sometimes you lose. But we need to look back to 2012. In the Netherlands we saw ‘SNS Reaal mulls bad bank for property operations’ (source: Reuters), it was their too big to fail operation and the people were not happy, it was a setting of real estate that was just beyond believe and now we get a similar setting but now it is not real estate, it is banks that are the bad investments and how many of them are holding bonds? The fact that the media never properly investigated this implies that I am a lot closer to the truth than even I am happy about. 

And the last part is giving us ““I understand that not all stakeholders of UBS and Credit Suisse are pleased with this approach,” Mr Kelleher said. “However, all parties, and in particular the Swiss authorities, considered this solution the best of all available options.” – Bloomberg” yes that sounds good, but I have a list (and that is just the Credit Suisse naughty list).

US tax fraud conspiracy, 2014, 2023
Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, 2015
Mozambique secret loans scandal, 2017
US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation, 2018
Climate controversy, 2018
Espionage scandal, 2019 (debatable issue)
Greensill Capital, 2021
Archegos Capital, 2021
Forex manipulations conviction, 2021
Drug money laundering scandal, 2022
Suisse secrets leak, 2022 (debatable issue, I still believe it was an NSA activity)
Russian oligarch loans documents destruction after invasion of Ukraine, 2022
Social media rumours, 2022 (debatable)

So 10 issues and 3 debatable issues, but the debatable issues do leave a mess at the front door of Credit Suisse. In all this Credit Suisse is walking around without clean hands, and the hands must always be clean. So does that warrant a CHF 550 billion downgrade? I honestly d not know and there is debate on some of these sources. I get that there will be differences in sources, but this much? This does not make sense, but it makes a lot more sense when we consider where the priority of Janet Yellen is and it is not the bank, it is the USA. Taking her away from the issues and letting it all be phrased by Bloomberg is not acceptable, not in the least. As Baby Herman states “This all smells like yesterday’s diapers”

As I personally see it, this bank issue has holes like we see in Swiss Cheese. 

Have a great day!

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