Tag Archives: Covid

May 17, 2025 · 10:09

Death is nigh

Yup, a bit gloomy and perhaps a little too doom speaking, but the news is there and I for one saw this coming a mile away. I mentioned this in the article ‘Utter insanity’ on October 4th 2020 (https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/, aka World Animal Day), I mentioned in there the few articles where I also made mention of the US debt, one as early as 2020. So why now?

Well, Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-downgrades-us-aa1-rating-2025-05-16/) gives us that the credit rating of America has been downgraded. It went from AAA to AA1, this might not be a big thing, but it is, especially in current conditions. You see, Moody also gives us “Moody’s cites rising debt and interest costs” and with that one line the die is cast. Even if it is merely a rise of 0.1%, the implied setting of $36 trillion ($36,000,000,000,000) gives us an additional interest of $36,000,000,000 or $36 billion and the Americans cannot keep their budget as is. So how much larger will this debt become? You can all say that Saudi Arabia is now investing, the AI is coming. But the investment over years will not even pay for the interest increase and at present the top 10 least risky investments hold 10 countries and none of them is America. Makes you think doesn’t it? Then there is the second stage, the stage where some players might think that holding US Bonds might be a tat too risky for them and banker being the cowards that they are learned from the 2008 credit crises and they will be bailing at the first opportunity, especially as the UAE is a much safer and seemingly more rewarding venture at present. 

So is death really nigh?
That is a fair question and I am hesitant to answer either way because the reliability of the press is nowhere to be found (perhaps in a dozen places). So they cannot give us the goods and I saw this going as far back as 2011, as such we cannot see any press reasonably credible, especially when they quote market wannabe’s. And this is not on President Trump, although his actions did speed up the process. The World Travel & Tourism Council gave us “THE U.S. IS projected to lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending this year, falling to under $169 billion from $181 billion in 2024”then there are the losses in defense projects, the losses from allies regarding Canada and Greenland and that showed me that America is desperate, and it seems now that the hammer falls down on people realising that I have been right for over a decade, but bury your heads in the sand. All these presented ‘wins’ are a cloth covering the larger losses. The AFR gave us yesterday ‘China slams Trump’s new chip ban, reigniting trade tensions’ with “The US Commerce Department issued guidance this week that Huawei’s Ascend AI semiconductors are subject to export controls anywhere in the world on the basis that they were developed using American technology.” What a way to piss off your allies. We see this when we critically look at the statement “For Washington, restricting Beijing’s access to cutting-edge processors is a way to blunt China’s rise in artificial intelligence and military applications.” In the first, Huawei is using its own chips, making it doubtful that it is ‘cutting edge’ and in the second, you just tried to ‘beg’ Saudi Arabia for more money, do you think that they as well as the UAE will take that warning? Huawei already has a decent grip on that region with cutting edge development and Oracle is about to go there too. So is this the best way for the American administration to hedge their bets? Now that their credit rating dropped, I reckon the floodgates are no longer sealed, whatever they let through will cost America close to billions and there are people holding trillions in American debt, as such they are likely to get out while the going is good.

So what if I am wrong?
It is doubtful, but it is a fair question. Look at all the economy that America lost in this year and add the losses of next year too, because as I see it, tourism and all the connected spendings are close to gone until at least 2027. Then in 2029-2031 Saudi Arabia has its 2030 setting with all the new resorts (which was always going to happen) and as such you see, the strangling interest of 36 trillion on American and their dream settings. The fact that Tourism at present is “This significant shortfall represents a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak” as such their current setting is a lot less than 2019 before COVID, it is that bad and we might not care for the income of Disney, or Warner Brothers but this also impacts all the places around them as people cannot afford it all in these places. These places will share in those losses, as such I reckon that Florida will have a few massively bad years (compared to the present). Do your own researching and never accept anyones word as gospel (not even from me), know that data, know your area and see where the losses can be seen. 

I reckon that Oracle is doing fine and will be doing fine for some time to come, but they too have shed employees in 2024 and 2025. 

As I see it, when the masses get the insight of how bad America is doing, that coffin will basically bury itself. So have a great day and don’t let the recession hit you in the head, it is an expected two weeks away at present and there is the setting we all received there hours ago ‘Why France, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Finland, UK, Netherland, Belgium Issuing Travel Advisories to US, Making a Big Dent in American Tourism Revenue, The One Detail That Changes Everything’ as such the bulk of the EU is turning away from America on tourism, as you can see, I remained optimistic, it seems the news is pushing ahead of the settings we now see and when they catch on regarding bonds and America quality of life going down too, the panic will hit wall street and several other markets

So enjoy this Saturday.

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March 20, 2025 · 17:50

A letter from Hugh

Yup, it happened to me, Hugh Grant send me a letter (a modern message in Email).

You know, the man who was made famous through the movie “Four startups and a Bankruptcy”. And behold, this morning there was a letter in my mailbox, stating:

Dear Lawrence,

For over ten years in opposition the Labour Party promised to implement the Leveson reforms.  These reforms would raise standards in the media and protect the public from intrusions into grief, blatant falsehoods, and other abuses. 

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, talked a big game about ending corruption in politics and putting the public first.
Yet since his election as Prime Minister, Sir Keir has done nothing to keep his party’s promises and end the scandal of press abuse.

In his failure to act, he is protecting the status quo and putting newspaper owners ahead of the public.

We need to remind him: his Government is accountable to the British public, not newspaper owners.  And his Party’s promises – to ordinary people affected by press abuse, and the wider public – must be kept.

And here is the link to write to your MP (at https://www.hackedoff.org/campaign-actions/britains-press-power-without-responsibility-demand-real-press-accountability-now?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Hugh follow-up&utm_medium=email&utm_id=38)

You will get to enter your UK Postcode and as I as a test enter a post code of Birmingham (as a test)  The system replies with 

Dear Shabana Mahmood,

Despite reaching over 70% of the public every month national newspapers are unregulated – allowing them to spread lies, disinformation, and to commit intrusions with impunity.

Every issue facing the country – from human trafficking to climate change to domestic violence – is affected by the ability of newspapers and their websites to cover them inaccurately and unethically.

The Government’s inaction on press regulation is holding Britain back from meeting these challenges – as well as leaving newspapers able to cause extraordinary damage to individuals’ lives through harassment and intrusion into grief.

You merely have to add your Name, Address and Email address details and the letter is ready. Easy, peasy, Chicken easy.

It will be a rough reminder for the Labour Party and his fellow minions to do something about the outstanding promise to set the Leveson papers in action. The media has become too much of a clear and present danger to the people, and many people in the UK have had enough. So this is a rather large remembrance page with the automation for the people to add their details and do something about it.

It gave me pause to think of hat the UK media is facing. It is already facing irrelevancy and a loss of readers on a global scale. No matter what our faith is, papers like New Arab, Arab News, Khaleej Times and several other newspapers are making string insides into the world population. And that is not all that is happening. In support we see that Dubai Media (the first recipient of my film script “How to assassinate a Politician”) is making rather larger visibility moves. Mostly in Bangladesh , Egypt and Indonesia, but it is a start). In this Al Saudiya (part of the SBA) is doing the same, but I am unaware how large their foot print is becoming. Mostly due to my lack of Arabic I cannot see the complete setting of the Saudi Broadcasting Authority. A Saudi TV group meant for 33 million is reaching out to a population of over half a billion (the Dubai Media group (UAE) as well). They are diminishing the channels that were until recently the targets of Reuters, AP News and the BBC. The people are through with these false prophets and are now giving these two a chance. After the track of the late eighties and 90’s that CNN had, they are given a green light by the people in many ways a similar setting.

Western people have had enough of the lies and innuendo that Western media gives us. As such the term sports-washing, meaning “Sportswashing is the use of sport to redirect public attention away from unethical conduct. The intended effect is to improve the reputation of the offending entity, by using the immense popularity of sport to ‘wash’ away poor publicity.” A term as I see it invented by the western media and nearly always used to describe Saudi involvement. But as I see it, the Western media should be using the same term (although not always involving sports) to strengthen their innuendo for digital dollars. They do, but to hide the actions of involved people like Sony (TPP policy 2016) and a few others. It was the first clear setting where I saw media ‘protecting’ big tech. I wrote (rather clumsily) about that in ‘Lessening the consumer?’ On April 27th 2016 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/27/lessening-the-consumer/) after that I saw the actions by Microsoft and others and the media was holding the hands over the heads of Big Tech (speculatively to score advertisement money) and that was how I started to keep my eyes of the media until now and see how the media today has less value than the average porn magazine, they might reflect on ‘Sex Sells’ but the value of their contribution has lost its value and then some. As media largely goes into the same direction, not giving us news, but referring to out as entertainment and as I see it, the ABC News Channel is the only news channel giving Australia actual news, the rest is flaccid entertainment. This is the same all over the western world hiding behind the term “A news and current affairs show”, where the emphasis is set to ‘current affairs show’ and the ‘insiders’ referring to that being the same. The world is waking up to the setting of being lulled asleep by the media and the Leveson papers was the first stage to getting the people awake. That was the first step for the media to wake up and that so far The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The result were 4 documents giving us over 2000 pages of wake up medicine for the media regulations. So far it hasn’t happened, for reference the Lord Of the Rings is a novel a mere 1077 pages, so there is that too, one is fiction , the other is a rude awakening of what the media is up to. The News of the world owned by Rupert Murdoch shut down in 2011 when the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty, and public citizens. Murdoch faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the US. He got out when he was no longer able to hide the actions of some. But not all is lost, the Arabian versions of the news are now shown all over the world mainly the three I mentioned in the beginning. And now we see the growth of Saudi and UAE media and they now have solid systems that can reach the whole western world too. Now we might not get all the shows the 1st gives us, but that is merely one step away from coming. The fires in California have settles the people in optionally leaving California and the UAE and Saudi stations could give them a new beginning, many to Canada, but with the promise of decent incomes Saudi Arabia and the UAE could collect on the cream of American Script writers. I saw this option opening up and (even though magnificently unsuccessful)  , I decided to attempt to sell my first script in the UAE (Dubai media). There is an inkling of faith that it was merely my lack of skills, and it was my first script, but I have three more on route. As such other (a lot more successful than me) could open the road to more scripts and that is what Hollywood fears, the drain of knowledge. They thought they were on top of the world with their setting, yet as Covid hit, followed by the strikes and the California fires, the Hollywood setting is to some degree now an empty shell and that leaves Canada, the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE open to wildly grown in all directions. The Guardian gives us “The entertainment industry is estimated to create $43bn in wages every year for the Californian economy and recent events have not only forced a pause in the short term but also raised concerns over long-term recovery.” These incomes have been impacted from 2020 onwards. We were given “Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released by mid-March 2020 were postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also being halted.” Then we got the strikes in 2023 which stopped it all again and the fires on January 7th 2025, the impact has roasted the core of Hollywood with burning down what was left. Consider the setting that the people in Hollywood were given $43 billion annually and that their incomes have been impeded with a near 80% lacking of a total of over $200 billion. The quality of life is setting the massive options for the other nations and as the Hollywood moguls are happy to pay the others as little as possible, they and up having no recourse for themselves. 

And now we get yet again the Leveson inquiry hitting the UK shores. The mess is now near complete and the media will have to surrender market shares to the Arabian nations and see where they end up being, because the events in Saudi Arabia (2030) and the UAE will likely have all the Arabian journalists and very little other ones, especially with vloggers all over the place and YouTube (and TikTok) having the new fields all to themselves and their creators. That is what I see happening al up to late 2027 and that is long before Hollywood becomes a shadow of itself.

That is the reality of exploitation at some point the people give up and seek richer grounds, Hollywood is now becoming largely without cohesion to itself, so where do you go then? You all have a productive day.

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September 30, 2024 · 11:48

Co inky dink

Yup, my previous article on comic films preceded a BBC article. Or perhaps better stated I saw the article after I wrote my article. As coincidences, go a nice one. The BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6er83ene6o) gives us ‘Hollywood’s big boom has gone bust’, I have some issues here. The first is seen with “the good times ground to a halt in May 2023, when Hollywood’s writers went on strike” I resent the implied status that this was up to the writers going on strike. And as we are given both “The actor and aerial cinematographer turned his hobby of flying drones into a profitable business in 2012 just as the streaming wars were taking off. For a decade, he was flying high above film sets, creating sleek aerial shots for movies and TV shows on Netflix, Amazon and Disney” and “But rather than roaring back, in the one year since the strikes ended, production has fizzled.” This story isn’t giving us the goods. You see there are a few elements. One is saturation of business. First there was Netflix, and not we have in addition Disney plus, Hulu, Paramount, YouTube TV, Sling, Fubo and Amazon prime. Several more to follow but these are the better ones. What was one is now eight and it doesn’t end there, there are all kinds of digital boxes who keep tabs on it all. The problem is that income levels are still the same as they were in December 2019, pretty much in synch with the first Covid setting. In 5 years most incomes are either the same or ridiculously close to that and in the meantime the cost of living has gone through the roof. Housing has been raised in many places by as much as 50%, that is hundreds of dollars a week. Food has risen by about 5% per year. There is the larger set that most people can at best afford 1 digital channel (if at all), as such all eight channels competed for the same customer at the same time. As such it isn’t merely that production fizzled, or that projects were cancelled. There is a dwindling population that cannot even afford one channel. And to relate that to the present, Disney projected it would spend between $8 billion-$9 billion on content for its premiere streaming service. Now see that investment all whilst less people could afford that TV channel. This isn’t merely America, this is a global problem. Hollywood has relied on the old Roman principle “Give the people bread and games” and now the people cannot afford the games and more and more of them are falling short for buying bread and this is happening all over the world. So whilst we get “Projects have been cancelled and production was cut across the city as jobs have dried up, with layoffs at many studios – most recently at Paramount. It had a second round of layoffs this week, as the storied movie company moves to cut 15% of its workforce ahead of a merger with the production company Skydance.” We see that there is a lull in the setting of projects and the attainment that people are in the mindset of “things will go better soon” but that is not the case. America and Europe wasted at least two years on their ego all whilst the ‘customers’ who had the cash have vacated to China. I saw this happen two years ago, which is why I created a script that could entertain the Muslim population. And I was right that SBA (Saudi Broadcasting Authority) and Dubai media are growing like crazy, all whilst the American players are merging and buying each other out. I saw the same happen in the IT in the early 90’s with a Dutch company called Infotheek. On the edge of bankruptcy, they bought the smaller players and take that revenue as your own. It didn’t work then, I doubt it will work now. And in that light America has a second problem. Many players will divert to Canada as it could be an option. Many actors and actresses are Canadian, so that works for some. Vancouver is a new powerhouse in this and the more the capture the smaller the American pie becomes. As such the article is right, Hollywood big boom has gone bust, as could be the case for Hollywood fairly soon. And there lies the problem, an over bubbled industry, A premise of channels that ned to invest billions, all whilst there is doubt that the revenue in 2026 could have diminished by 20% (at least), as such who gets the money? Then in the past 300% on investment was achievable, soon it will merely be between break even and perhaps 50%, so how many investors will leap the fence to optionally Arabic channels? I made it clear in 2020 that you cannot bite the hand that feeds you, but did the American defense industry listen? Nope and now the Chinese defense industry reports a growth of 25% year-on-year. That is money that is not going to America and now the streaming channels are optionally seeing a similar move towards Arabic nations and India. So how long until the boom turns into a gap that implodes implodes? 

All things that have been out in the open, but the BBC overlooked it. It is a good story and it gives some of the goods, but it overlooked the attached factors and these are a lot more disastrous. Well, that’s it for now. It is almost lunch time for me, have a great morning wherever you are.

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January 8, 2024 · 01:17

Is it me?

This is a question we must all ask ourselves. In this case, it might be me. You see, I have issues with the CBC article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-ontario-cities-aoda-1.7054848) where we see ‘Ontario cities need help — and cash — to meet 2025 accessibility deadline, advocates say’. There is (as I personally see it) a lot missing. The first thing I missed was ‘by 2025’, is that January 1st or December 31st? It is a serious question, the article does not bare that out (or was that bear that out)?

The second part is a partial setting. So when was this all agreed upon? Pre or post Covid. It might be well known, but the article should have given us that in stead of trying to find it. You see, pre Covid issues will have delays all off them (at least 90% off them) will face delays because the world has never faced covid before and Canada had a trucker issue as well. 

So when we get to “The city’s latest report on its accessibility progress listed 56 out of 63 of its accessibility goals as complete as of the end of 2022” I might not be up to speed on a few matters (as I am a little distant from Canada, yet in this 56 out of 63 is a decent achievement. The problem is that we see no timeline. So what timeframe were these 56 achievements gotten by? If it is one year it is awesome, when it has taken 10 years not that much greatness. But the article does not bare that out, does it? 

Then we get “In September, the TTC acknowledged 13 out of its 70 subway stations won’t meet the standards outlined in the AODA by 2025” I personally say that those without nuance will always slam, and advocates are really good at slamming, especially when they can ignore nuance. The other way around they are all about nuance, so go figure. There is also the missing part on why the TTC that 13 of its subway stations are missing these outlines standards. A list would have been helpful.

AODA
Now we need to look at a side of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). I have nothing against it, I am all for such a setting even though it does not aid or help me. I recognise the stage it should protect. The fact is that I am a numbers man (data, not excel). So these 13 subway stations. What is missing and what size of ontarians are hurt because of it? It is a simple enough question. Now, this is not some kind of trivialisation. The numbers I am seeing are “The recent approximations show that there are estimated to be 382,700 deaf and 3,827,000 hard of hearing people in Canada (CAD, n.d., Malkowski, 2021). Out of these numbers, there are approximately 144,990 deaf and 1,449,000 hard of hearing Ontarians (Malkowski, 2021).” These are serious numbers. So how many blind? How many with mobility issues? More important what could be fixed? That 13 stations are missing out is one thing, how much they are missing out of is another and that too is not given to us. You see there are two kinds of people, the one whinges about everything, the other one tries to fix as much as possible and there is also a snag. Too much information is missing, the article does not bare out what could be fixed and how much more time is required? 

This is not an attack, but these are questions that should have been on the front of the mind of the chief editor of the CBC (I think that would be Brodie Fenlon), a mere simple setting we need to address. It is also a case that some subway stations have other constructions nearby which might have made issues more complex and Toronto is filled with construction tape and construction inhibitors all over the city. The final part is seen under a photograph. It is “The city of Toronto, along with other Ontario cities, needs more cash to help reach its accessibility goals faster” a simple setting that doesn’t get the attention it needs to have. So was it a budgeting issue, was it due to other factors? The more I look at the article, the more questions it raises and the first batch of questions goes straight to the CBC. Too much was missing here and the missing parts weren’t for a follow up. They should have placed it in this article.

This is how I see it and here I might be wrong. Too many people claiming to be journalists are blatantly dim on simple top-line graphics and numbers (or tables and charts) giving clarity where there clearly is none. So why was that?

Just a thought for Ontarians as they get through Sunday. Here it is Monday, so they could call me and ask what will happen tomorrow? A simply joke but it has me in stitches every time. In support of that, should I come to Toronto, I will be time travelling ;-).

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April 3, 2023 · 00:48

I’ll buy that for a Yuan

It is a little unlike I stated things earlier, yet Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/program/counting-the-cost/2023/4/1/can-russia-and-china-succeed-in-dethroning-the-dollar) gives us ‘Can Russia and China succeed in dethroning the dollar?’ I cannot agree, because personally I believe that any partnership there will be facing an united front to dethrone that idea. Yet I made notions to some degree that there would be coming a new world order, America is exiting the stage on the right and with the debts they have it is game over for them. If only they had taken my warning 25 years ago and overhauled their tax system. I personally hoped that the new world order would include the Commonwealth (I am commonwealthian after all). Here, in Al Jazeera we see more but not the names. In some sources I saw a list of countries. Yet I personally believe that this list is most likely to include China, Saudi Arabia, India and personally I would include the Commonwealth, not merely the UK. And the issue is that China could pull this off, the US and EU are too weak, they are all hot air and they aren’t getting the job dome, they are both too deep into debt and the EU is dragging half a dozen members along who are slowing them down, they all want a slice of the pie and aren’t contributing enough. 

Yet in my view, I never considered dousing the dollar (perhaps my folly), and with oil being the ignored requirement Saudi Arabia becomes a required ally for that new order. India with its consumer base of one point four billion cannot be ignored either, that and the case that they have the ability to fill IT infrastructure needs nearly everywhere. There might be one or two other players China needs, but they will feel that inviting the Commonwealth might do the trick, as Canada in the west and Australia in the east will settle issues the assassination triangle will be filled. You know, I wrote about it. Segregation, Isolation, Assassination. America segregated itself with silly settings of free speech (Karen’s anyone? Proud boys and that list goes on), now they are one step away from becoming irrelevant and obsolete, if only they had acted these last to years. We saw someone start an insurrection, claiming to take the nation back. This act is now 2 years old and still the people behind it all are walking the streets free with in the end a porn star ‘saving’ America. That time is now showing to be their downfall, inactions from too many sides is hurting them bad and all along China kept moving slowly step by step and now that China has infrastructure and defence deals their goals are almost met. The wet merely grinds towards a halt through inactivity. The news is all around us and the media is carefully ignoring a lot of it. The benefit of stake holders I speculate.

I warned of parts of this well before 2019, well before covid and now that timeline is nearing completion. That all sounds nice, but am I correct? That would be a fair question, but consider that the larger deals out there involve China and Saudi Arabia, who of them has the US dollar? I am not saying this is essential, and as long as there is an alternative, these two might seek the alternative. And consider the two refineries that are commencing the build, where will the oil come from? Exactly, from Saudi Arabia and the peace process that China instigated will give them even more oil, we might shout loudly, but in the end, the US gave us the expression that was hanging around too many necks. Money talks and bullshit walks. And now others are telling the US to keep on walking.

I merely hope that this new order will exclude Russia (who is now presiding over the Security Council) and it will include the Commonwealth. Now consider that the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) has been around since 1945 and we are given “The Security Council’s five permanent members, below, have the power to veto any substantive resolution; this allows a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, but not to prevent or end debate.” Now consider that NO ONE seemingly had the idea to remove the veto right of any permanent member who instigates a war for the duration of that war? For some reason that never dawned on any of them and the 5 members (China, United Kingdom, Russia, France and the United States) merely accepted that setting? How is that working out for them now?

The United States is now massively boxed in and to a much larger degree it is all due to their own inactions. As such there is every chance that the mediocre 5G technologies will soon see a lot more of Huawei, because they have been fully rolled out in China and Saudi Arabia, who had until recently (I didn’t recheck the numbers) a 5G network that is 700% faster than the US, how is that adding up to your view of a technology first nation? To be behind Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Canada? Al Jazeera raised a point that most were happily willing to bury anywhere, but I believe it is slightly too late for that. 

Enjoy the day and for your consideration there is a Canadian 16 year old blasting a whole range of records and she set at least two new world records. According to CBC, she is nowhere near done yet.

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March 4, 2023 · 10:23

It was one keyword

Yes, that is at times the short and sweet of anything, but let that not be some alert to the easiness of any endeavour. You see, my opposition to the CBC article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nordstrom-canada-1.6766073) is not that simple. The headline ‘Nordstrom closing down in Canada, shuttering all 13 stores’ sounds nice and it is a reality, but it is another line, one giving us “It was not Canadian enough”, that is the one that is plain wrong. You see, from all information we could go with the setting that the business mission was wrong all along, especially with any business painting the books in red since 2014 is another matter, one that matters, but the larger stage is not that (for Nordstrom it might be), malls are at present done for in its current setting. You see when Covid hit, it did a lot more. The timeline 2020-2023 changed people. People were forced to sit at home and mull things over. The short gratitude setting of going shopping in the weekend suddenly got hit by the cold light of day and it did not hold up. People started to think over what on earth they were doing and that becomes a whole lot more. 

You see, it started before June 6th 2022 when I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/06/presentation-and-awareness-creation/) ‘Presentation and Awareness creation’. This is based in simple settings. You see, all the marketeers are in some silly exercise of direct marketing. It is direct, simple and cheap and the ROI of it is seemingly immense. But any intelligent marketing boffin will tell you that the actual gems are found in engagement. Engagement is key to get traction with the people, especially the people who woke up after covid. I saw the setting in the Eaton Centre Mall (Toronto), yet I saw this application in places like Harrods too (Harrods has way to much traction at the moment, as such they need not worry), but there are well over 115,000 malls that need to wake up. They need to create traction and that was where my IP came in. It wasn’t hard, parts already existed, but for some reason Amazon and Google (the most likely winners in that race) decided not to wake up and that is where everyone decided to snooze a little longer. But there was a stage that was fast and vastly evolving and players like Omnichannel were already aware. They knew that the race was around the creation of engagement, they merely did not take it far enough. I did and suddenly had created a stage where bookshops and jewellers were a lot more important than ever before. OK, I am a guy so I created the stage for Victoria Secrets as well, they have well over 1,000 stores in the US alone and that is merely the beginning. There was a stage of intensified engagements from Alberta to Monaco and from Monaco to Zurich. An enlarging stage and the one keyword everyone forgot about was ‘Effort’, it is not part of direct marketing as such a lot of people forgot about it, but it matters and it matters a lot. Nordstrom is merely the beginning. Unless malls do not change their approach too many of them will become ghost buildings. The people are awake and these malls are largely done for. Seek any of my articles from June 6th 2022 involving ‘Eaton Centre Mall’ and you might catch on. It was all out in the open and marketing people forgot about the essential approach involving effort. 

What I never figured out is that I am not the super intelligent type, Google and Amazon should have been thee long before I did and they were not, now that they are all about chasing revenue, I wonder who gets there first, that player will have a much larger revenue stream for a long time to come and it is not an adjusted revenue stream, it is a new one with global implications. That is my view on the matter. How the keyword ‘effort’ changes everything.

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February 1, 2023 · 14:02

Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers (IMF)

Yup, that is the slogan and to get there we need to take a little trip down memory lane before we get to the article that jogged my memories. You see, it all started on October 10th 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/10/economic-management-through-newscasts/) where I gave the readers “The same day I get the news on a diplomatic escalation in the Netherlands, sky News UK comes with an entirely different matter. Two elements seemed to be in play. The IMF suddenly lifted the economic growth for the UK by 1.4% for 2013 and for 1.9% for 2014. Those are numbers that are beyond remarkable. Sky News showed Olivier Blanchard the Chief economist of the IMF to make this statement. It was interesting that the IMF calls on Christine Lagarde to give the bad news and Olivier gets to give the good news. There was a shimmer of hope for realism as Ed Conway, economic Editor at Sky News was happy to not reject the notion that the IMF have been lousy forecasters in the past to say the least”, as well as “‘Suddenly’ there was good news, a week before the debt ceiling needs to be raided, whilst the US is still in shutdown mode. Let us not forget that Greece, who also suddenly had ‘good’ news last week is still beyond broke, in addition France and Italy are still not in good shape. The biggest issue is that the UK forecast, which was +0.6%, which was a pretty good achievement to +1.4%. That boils down to a miscalculation of almost $18 Billion! That is a massive miscalculation. There is no indication that such errors were made. Consider that the IMF had high criticism towards the tactics by Chancellor George Osborne, UK’s faithful exchequer.” Are you clued in at present. There is now an indicator that the IMF is nothing more than a political presentation tool to hand out lollies for others to look away as credit limits are increased. It is one of the reasons I went towards Brexit. After the speech by Marky Mark of the British bank (aka Mark Carney, a Canadian no less), I saw the dangers of staying in the EU. Mario Draghi was using a Credit card for trillions after the first trillion was a miss. Now, that happens, solutions are selected hoping it will set the outcome to another stage. There is no fault there, but then he does it again for another 2 trillion. Wasn’t it Albert Einstein that stated that only a lunatic will do the same thing twice hoping for a different outcome? And it wasn’t just me, others had reservations too. There was no outcry when Mario Draghi was shown to be a member of an exclusive bank group. So how much did his friends end up with catering to that debt. Consider that bank bonds have a registration fee and commission. So how much commission did these two dozen people get over three trillion? I can tell you that is would be up to 2%, implying that two dozen people ended up with $600,000,000, not a bad run. So why should the UK pay for that?

Now that we are all caught up (to some extent) it is time to look at the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64452995) giving us ‘UK expected to be only major economy to shrink in 2023 – IMF’. Now I am not stating that this is not the case, it could be. Yet when we look to 2013 and later, the IMF has played the wrong spades in this game. So when I see words like ‘expected’ and ‘only major economy’ after it took the IMF and Creepy LaStrange (I think that was her name) a year to admit that they made an error of well over $18,000,000,000 I have issues with anything they claim. And when I see “The IMF said the economy will contract by 0.6% in 2023, rather than grow slightly as previously predicted” without clarity I have issues. The numbers could be true, but with the Russian clambake in the Ukraine, the Covid issues (especially in China), the labour shortages and a few other elements that influences the issues, we merely see  “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the UK outperformed many forecasts last year. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the figures showed the UK “lagging behind our peers”” and charts and numbers how bad the UK is doing, but the problem is that the IMF (or Insecure Masturbation Fraternisers) have been too much like a political tool. They proclaim that Russia is getting a positive boost this year but we do not see that it might be mainly woodworkers to create the  126,650 coffins for lost troops, so their economy is up, but who pays that bill? And in the stage of presentation my issue is that these people are all about ‘forcing’ the UK back into the EU so that their GDP can be added to their credit limit. The EU is running out of credit card space, it has been for a year and the UK revenue is essential to turn that about and people need to wake up to the unaccountable overspending the EU is doing. At present the EU debt is well over €12 trillion  with several nations having too much debt. We all know about Greece with over 193% of GDP, Italy surpassed 150% of GDP and Portugal surpassed 125%, Spain is almost at 120%, and France is at almost 115%. The credit limits have been reached and it does not bode well, so all hands on deck forcing the UK back into the EU, but the truth is that once the hardship is passed (which will take some time), the UK will become the power player and the EU will be reduced to a third world nation. So basically at present (a personal view) the German debt of 80% of GDP is the only economy keeping the EU standing. That is not enough and I spoke about that in the past (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/17/the-finality-of-french-freedom/) in ‘The finality of French freedom’ on the 7th of March 2017 where I wrote “Which is why France is a big deal, that whilst they represent one of four anchors keeping the Euro in place. With the British anchor removed, the stress on the three is intense, the Euro cannot continue with the remaining two anchors that is the desperate game Draghi is facing now. Weakness and non-decisions from 2012 onwards have caused this mess, and of course he is not done yet. As we see in Reuters, last Monday he stated “If non-high-tech companies adopt more innovative technology, that would provide a boost for European productivity“, speaking as the European Central Bank President last Monday, it that so? With what funds? Innovations requires money, such steps have a cost” here I compared the economy with a floating platform kept in place by 4 anchors. It used to be the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Now that the UK is gone, the platform is now in trouble as only the German anchor has any strength left. The economic sea is in turmoil and I already saw this in 2017. Then we got Covid and that stupid bear named Russia and now the economy is a problem, especially for the EU and when that breaks up, the US (Japan also) have no way to go but down and that is what they all fear, they can prolong this if they can bully the UK, but we have seen enough bullies. We all have had enough and that is why I chose Brexit. I could not predict Covid or Russia, but a next economic disaster is alway just past the horizon, there is always a next fire to put out and now the IMF wants to make matters look worse. As I see it, they need a whole range of better and more descriptive numbers. As it stands, at present I do not trust the IMF. Yes the UK could face another recession, but it will be nowhere as bad as the one the EU faces. In the end the UK is part of a Commonwealth and we all (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) need to united to face the headwinds of the coming storm, we owe it to each other with the acts of irresponsibility we do not owe the EU and we do not owe the US. The US has had over a quarter of a century to overhaul their tax laws. I made mention on this as early as in the age of President George H. W. Bush (1998) now 25 years ago. I say enough is enough and the IMF better give us a lot more and a lot clearer numbers than what we see in the BBC article. That is my personal point of view on the matter.

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July 25, 2022 · 21:39

Let’s dance

That is the setting. Several papers gave it, but I am going to stick to the Guardian for a specific reason. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/08/elon-musk-twitter-deal-legal-consequences) gives us ‘Musk’s withdrawal from Twitter deal sets stage for long court battle’ to be honest, I am not convinced. In my mind Elon Musk needs to win and he SHOULD win. The premise is seen with ““For nearly two months, Mr Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform’,” Musk’s team stated in the letter. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.” The data in question centers on the number of spam accounts on the app, which Twitter has claimed make up about 5% of more than 200m users but Musk believes is higher.” There is the setting. You see, I personally believed it was close to 20%, a friend of mine has data showing it to be well over 40%, he stated close to 50%. This is not speculation. HE HAS DATA! That should be seen as evidence. The trolls in the EU, Russia and China, the click farms progressing the needs of wannabe’s, politicians and fake information spreaders from the Trump elections, the Covid misinformation settings, the Ukraine war. These are not done by one or two farms, this is done by thousands of players all wanting to grab a piece of the revenue pie. Twitter states that it is a mere 10 million people. I disagree, the elements I mentioned makes it well over triple of what Twitter claims. As such they are intentionally setting a fraudulent price to a product that is overpriced and the media knew this, they have had the largest part of that evidence under their own fingers. FoxNews gives us “NBC News Senior Reporter Brian Collins discovered Vladimir Bondarenko and posted about him that, “He’s a blogger from Kiev who really hates the Ukrainian government. He also doesn’t exist, according to Facebook. He’s an invention of a Russian troll farm targeting Ukraine. His face was made by AI.”” Do you really think that such a ploy is used for one account? Russian troll farms have been all over this and they have been over a few other things too. That friend of mine has data going back years. 

And it gets to be worse. You see there are trolls and click farms and the media has done very little to dig into the amount of either version, they have gone out of their way to avoid clear investigation. Even as some research it and some of it remains debatable. One source gives us ‘19.42% of active Twitter accounts are fake or spam: Analysis’ My issue here is that I do not know the source, hence I do not trust the source (whether valid or not). Consider the Twitter claim. 5% at the most, that implies that a mere 10 million are fake. Now consider the elements I mentioned earlier, there is no way that this matches up. Now consider that Twitter deletes a million fake accounts a day and this has been going on for a while. Now consider that we can not find any clear information on how many NEW Twitter accounts were created in 2021 and 2020 (or 2019 and 2018). That is important information, especially if well over 60,000,000 accounts were deleted in 2022. I believe that this shift is large enough for Elon Musk to start the case, when he gets the data from places like Trollrensics he might have enough to bust the Twitter deal. The setting is and always was that Twitter claims that at most 5% of the accounts are fake, I believe it too be a lot higher. I never speculated the numbers that Trollrensics have, but it is my speculation versus THEIR data, as such they win.

I believe that it will prove the case for Elon Musk.

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July 18, 2022 · 20:47

For those not seeing the oil field

There is a larger field, a larger oil field if you wish. And the people aren’t getting it. I get it, it isn’t an easy equation and it is not really your fault, because the media is guilty as hell in all this, but lets start at the beginning (well, some kind of beginning). One such headline is ‘Oil trumps human rights as Biden forced to compromise in Middle East’, it is one way to look at it, but it is the wrong way. My headline would have been ‘Greed is eternal at the expense of everything else’. The point here is that we get to see a few sides that the media is not giving us. It starts with the oil and that part is a lot more important than you think it is.  So lets take a look at the three nations and the barrels per day they pump.

United States11,184,870
Russia10,111,830
Saudi Arabia (OPEC)9,313,145

So America pumps out a lot of oil, now it makes perfect sense that they will not deal with Russia, but it is at present still an unequal information package.

You see the United States exported about 8.63 million barrels per day (b/d) and imported about 8.47 million b/d of petroleum. And now you think it does not make sense. So lets just say that the US is selling oil at $50 a barrel and buys it at $35 a barrel, so they get 8 million (rounded) times $15, is $120 million of profit a day and that amounts to $43.8 billion a year. Profit they basically got for free. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not willing to give away $43.8 billion after the way the US treated the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There is just so much any person will take and I reckon the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken enough of the treatment handed to them. So the US instead of catering to self sells 73% of all the oil they pump, so why should the KSA after the way they were treated cater to that situation? Even an alternative that the us keeps 50% of their sales, they hand the KSA 50% it might be seen as a compromise. The US could stop selling 2,500,000 barrels a day and cater to its own needs, but the profit of some are not easily swayed. They are seemingly willing to let the US population freeze to death (or boil to death). And these numbers are out there, the media has had them for the longest time. All these BS articles on going crude oil free whilst the US is selling 73% of whatever they drill. Seems a little hypocritical, doesn’t it? 

That 73% does cater to 176 countries and 4 U.S. territories, no one denies that, but the profit goes somewhere and not all of it to the US coffers owned by the US treasuries. Someone is getting rich and the media is happy for you to be in the dark about it. Ask yourself “How many media outlets have given view of the amount sold? Why is the US short on oil whilst the oil harvested goes somewhere else?” I get it, there is a need for profit, no one denies that, but we see all these articles that imply and suggest that the Saudi’s are the bad paty whilst the US is trying to get cheap oil so that they can sell it at a profit. And believe me, when we change the prices of the earlier given $50 and $35 into the real numbers the equation changes really quick and the numbers become exceedingly large. 

So why should the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hand over profit that they are entitled to? Did you honestly think that Aramco was some non profit organisation? If it is it will be non profit for Saudi Arabia and its citizens, not for the US and their citizens, or the 176 countries that they could cater to. And the media does not really give you that, do they? So when the Guardian gives us “Brent crude hit a 14-year high of $139.13 a barrel in March, fuelling global inflation and a worldwide cost of living crisis. In the US, inflation is at 9.1% and accelerating, which is likely to translate into lost seats for the Democratic party in November’s midterm elections.” What happens when they sell 2.5 million barrels a day less and let that go to the US shortage? The equation changes by a lot does it not? 29% less sales will be felt all over the US and by Brent in particular, so why exactly does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia need to play ball with the US, especially when China is exceedingly courting Saudi Arabia for all kind of goods and when I see the revenue setting of 375 billion + 530 billion that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is spending on improving Saudi Arabia, there is every setting where the US has overplayed its hand and China is now in a premium position to get their revenue balls rolling. A setting I warned about before Covid before 2019, there were courters in the field and when that overpriced US plane wasn’t going there, China could sell the Chengdu J-20 at a nice price to Saudi Arabia (I admit I was trying to get my foot in the door and make a play for a simple 3.75% commission), and when you consider that this bill might go up to 15 billion, my 3.75% makes for a nice half a billion (we all have overly big dreams), and merely to play the courier? You have got to be kidding, I am so ready for that part! 

But this was about oil and the US played the wrong hand several times over (like shaking hands with air) and now Saudi Arabia and especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud might feel that the US played them for a fool and the problems start when the US could not afford problems. A stage where we see that Brent Crude is not so innocent and the media should have been on top of this, but I will let you people decide how that should be seen.

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July 14, 2022 · 19:28

Realisation

This happens, at times we realise something AFTER the fact and for some reason not before. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62158936) ‘Netflix and Microsoft team up for cheaper plan with adverts’, apart from the setting that they decided to trust Microsoft on this, the setting of movies or TV series with advertisements is called TV, The Dutch have channels one, two and three. The Brits have the same but they call it BBC One, Two and oh, four is ITV. And so every nation has its own version of TV, so why would we want Netflix when we can get the others for free? It comes with “It lost 200,000 subscribers between January and March, compared to the 2.5 million analysts had been expecting the firm to add in the period. Netflix also now expects to lose a further two million subscribers between April and June.” And this is a surprise? How? The covid era ended, people are expected to be back in the offices and do actual work. And those who decided to quit their jobs to be at home for whatever reason will soon be in a space where they CANNOT afford Netflix. Instead of offering an 8 hour segment (when they aren’t working) for less, and as such create 3-6 timezones to capture the bandwidth pressures, they decided to compete with local TV stations at a price, whilst local TV is free. I reckon (and that I merely my view) that the people will stop subscription TV, especially as some favourite series are spread over several providers. And these people will return to Channel 7, Channel 9, ITV, RTL+, Sjuan, TMC, TFX and the list goes on for a while. I reckon that they will not be too happy with Netflix and they will demand local based sanctions against Netflix. In addition, some will demand that the bandwidth usage of Netflix users will be capped or even surcharged to avoid congestion on several levels. It is not whether it happens, it will soon be on WHEN it happens. Especially when the Amazon and Google group could stick it to Microsoft, they will be enthusiastically motivated to do just that. 

Do I care?
Not really, I sometimes get a month subscription to load up on missed things and I have to as we all have budgets. I reckon that the UK is facing a much harder time. When they get to decide on two of the items (Food, Rent and heating) Netflix will be the first to go, and after that cheaper internet deals. The cost of living bites everywhere and Netflix should have seen this coming. I think they did not, because in all my dealings with Americans, they always avoided any discussion on market saturation, it was always the fault of the bad salesperson. This time around there is no escaping it, and I saw this setting in 2020 when I was clear about saturation, and they were all in the stage of ‘We never heard that’ but the stage was clear and Covid ended as such the good times were gone and now Netflix with their desperate act decided to rely on Microsoft. Whether these two are in bed because of the Netflix game streaming is unknown to me, but it would not surprise me. And that too will backfire on them when Tencent comes out to play. Tencent could muscle in on both Amazon Luna and Google Stadia as well if these two did not adjust their way of thinking. 

These players are all realising that there is one population and they can no longer afford EVERYTHING. These people have to make choices, some of them hard and depending on what TV brings instead of Netflix comes with $10 a month savings, for a lot of people it will be a simple choice. It is this realisation that governs the global population. If EU inflation is up by 8.6% (last month), how long until people have to select what food they can afford? This is not out of consideration at present, the UK seems to be going back to the daily fish and chips. In the Netherlands some vegetables went up between 29% and 34%, that is HUGE! It is in this setting that Netflix makes a move the way they did and at some point people will realise that they get the same by watching TV, which does not cost them $10 a month, and that was the only reason keeping them on Netflix. Realisation is a dangerous and ugly thing. Yes, we can continue to watch Netflix, but how long until those prices go up? Which will drive a lot of people towards their normal local TV stations again, some already did. 

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