Tag Archives: ECB

September 14, 2019 · 11:33

That one sentence

You have all faced it before, the moment where that one sentence stops you in your tracks. I am not talking about the sentence a partner states when they come with ‘If you get naked now, we can have sex‘, most people jump at that point. No, it is the ‘if you value your life‘ moment. It is not always a threat, and more important, it is not a sentence that is an imminent danger to you, that would be a reaction as well, but one of another kind. It is the sentence that makes you realise just how dangerous the stage is. I saw one today that came from Warsaw. It was an opinion piece, but the issue is not that it was an opinion; the issue is that this opinion is shared and it shows just how essential Brexit is to the UK. Besides the two failed stimulus events and a new one rolling off the bankrolls as we speak, a third, or perhaps more accurately stated a second mistake in a three part plan that goes nowhere. We now get that sentence ‘The Financial Times editors, heads of German business and many economists argued that Germany should start spending which it does not intend to do‘ this sentence is dangerous and idiotic, there is no relief in spending more, there is no relief, not merely because a government spends more, it is idiotic because Germany has a debt that surpasses 2,250,000,000,000 €, more important, their debt increases almost €2,000 a second. So every person in Germany has a €27,500 debt to deal with. A nation in that position is not in a good place and needs to reduce debt, but the deception and the brainless issue is that Europeans are all in a stage to take on more debt, whilst the ECB is playing with trillions in stimulus. That danger is too large and leaving the EU is the only option to get a handle on the debt every European faces.

The danger that these exploiters face is that the UK can pull it off, and when the first economic victory is scored. all those EU members will stand still and look at how they can pull it off, the people behind the scenes, the people handing us this contrived stories will then have to report to the large corporations and the custodians of the European corporatocracy that they have failed and they will no longer matter or be considered valued. That is the larger game and whilst the UK moves closer to proving that point, others keep on fear mongering as much as they can for as long as they can. Yet the dangers are becoming real and they are increasing in visibility. The Local in Germany (at https://www.thelocal.de/20190913/should-germany-give-into-pressure-and-boost-spending-to-revive-europe) gives us: ‘Should Germany boost spending to help revive Europe?‘, yet its economy is slowing and they are close to a €2.5 trillion debt. Still, for the economic value of Germany it does not seem much, but it is not a multi-billion valued debt, it is a thousand times worse and people do not seem to get that this debt pushes nations towards a corporatocracy where the banks and corporations are in charge and that danger is not understood anywhere, except perhaps the boardrooms of the Fortune 500 and they are extremely unwilling to explain it to you. As we see the stage of corporatocracy growing, we should also notice the lack of media looking into that matter. I would state it is because the media aligns with Shareholders, stake holders and advertisers and corporations are in charge of all three. So in a stage where we see: ‘a day after the European Central Bank warned it had reached the limit of its powers to avert recession‘, we get two things. The first is the stimulus that is coming, and second German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz gets the news: “Germany faced renewed pressure on Friday to boost public spending and help revive a sputtering European economy“, neither will solve anything and there is now the crux, because if the UK exits the EU and gives a real first sign of improvement (which will be year 2 or 3 after Brexit), we see a change, Germany will anger to a degree not seen before and the German population will demand Gexit, AfD (Alternativ fur Deutschland) is already pushing in that direction, but it is not powerful enough, the first UK signs will push it to such a level that Gexit would optionally happen overnight. That is the problem for the fear mongering lot and they are scared because Brexit is still on the road, and the second problem is that it will bring a better stage to the UK, which also means that Germany will get out as fast as possible. At that point the EU can no longer continue, with three trillion in debt it will collapse. I had actually expected for France to leave as a second country, yet with France electing an investment banker, that danger was temporarily averted. Now as Brexit is in a higher stage the Germans start looking at the ACTUAL issues and FACTUAL problems and benefits that the EU leaving stages bring, it is the one part no one had considered to the degree they needed to. Fear mongering remains a virtual issue and the real facts are not in line with the fears created and now that this void is becoming visible, a lot more people are realising that they were played and that will give the entire EU collapse a speed boost, but in all this, it is the UK that pushes what happens next, that is why we see UK Labour cold calling on every door with some hilarious moments (at https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9924096/homeowners-brexit-rant-terrorist-corbyn-democracy-labour-caller/). Yet they are merely stalling and buying time, at present Labour has no political power to their position, Jeremy Corbyn and his stupidity destroyed the Labour party, so he decided to openly support (read: hide behind) the remain groups. It is a valid strategy, yet the truth is also that more and more people are aware just how dangerous remaining has become and the British people have one full faith, they have full faith in Britannia and in that setting there is no EU, large corporations never understood that, it is not Wall Street, so they cannot comprehend.

So there we see it all and this all started with that one sentence: ‘Germany and others need to spend more‘ and when we see the debts rising and rising more and more people realise the one urging thought ‘Why on earth would we want to do that?‘

The smallest level of consideration would have been given if the second stimulus has shown levels of victory, it did not and now we have and a €3 trillion debt and no restored economy. The truth does not come from economy, it was Albert Einstein who gave us: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results every time“, it is the realisation of that truth that is now sinking in and spending more and more helps corporations, it helps banks, it does not help people, and that truth comes clear when it all collapses and all the pensions stop existing. That will be the next step and still the ECB will remain in denial, this entire matter is staged around organisations and gravy trains that have no bearing on our economic benefit or our economic long term stability. It serves them and the members of their teams, and more people are figuring that out.

As we are brought more and more revelations on how there will be a new recession, we see others come with news, fake news, bad presentations and so on. The Guardian in 2018 gave us: ‘We are due a recession in 2020 – and we will lack the tools to fight it‘, the recession is still coming, the tools are not there and more debt is coming in at the same time. This was always a formula for bad tidings. More important, it will hit Europe and the US both to a larger degree. It will not be a 2008 event, but it will be bad and as I see it, as Germany has the best economic position as their debt is merely 60% of GDP, they have the best chances to get through it all. The UK follows after that, yet they too will be hit and now we get the kicker, if Brexit has been completed, the drag, the huge drag that the UK would get because it had to tend to the 27 member states will no longer be there, so they can rise faster and sooner. That lesson, when we see that in reality will be the trigger for Germany, France and Italy to get out as fast as possible. It will end the EU, it will make a lot if issues messy yet it is only after that that a global economy can be grown in proper ways.

This was not a mystery, this was not a consideration and it was not a devil plan. It was merely that application of nature. Consider that any economy has high tides and low tides that is how it was, like the seas they have an influencer. For the sea the larger influence is the moon. There is nothing we can do anything about it, yet these tides are also regular, so for a larger part they are predictable. Now consider that tides fall away, on a planet with 24 time zones, we decided to place 4 of them in one group. Then we decided to nullify the tide (which was unnatural) and now we are all screaming that recession is our bane, it never was, economic cycles are as normal as the tides and we all face high and low, it is not something that corporations like and they designed a way around it. They failed, nature always finds a way and that is where they are now. They want to stall as much as they can and they are willing to sell 500 million people in the EU down the drain to keep their profits, and now as we all realise that these times have come and gone, and as we realise that debt helps them, it does not help us, people wake up and decide to find a way to end their struggle. It will be a long fight, but at present we could win it and end the EU cycle called corporatocracy, the nations, their monarchies and republics get to win. There will be a mess, it will not be pretty but it will get better.

So what one sentence woke you up today?

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Tagged as Brexit, Corporatocracy, ECB, Eu, France, German Finance Minister, Germany, Gexit, Italy, Jeremy Corbyn, labour party, Olaf Scholz, stimulus, the Guardian, the Sun, UK

September 13, 2019 · 14:18

Buying into USM Inc.

Forbes gave me the news that actually made me livid. I understand that it is done; I can to some degree even accept that it was done, but it angers me, it is beyond acceptable. It shows that we have aligned with a bully for far too long and if I had to try and be diplomatic (which I will not do) is that in this stage is that current President Donald Trump is the biggest piece of filthy shit in the history of mankind (with well over 5000 years of examples), his existence should be regarded on the same level as the essential extinction of the Neanderthal (and equally as long overdue).

Never before have we needed to be so ashamed of a nation (the United States) who through bullying and fear mongering set the stage of exploitation, gave rise to non-elected officials to exploit systems and demolish our way of life. For the first time in history the United States is the largest danger, larger than Russia in the cold war ever was.

Why?

The headline ‘Huawei CEO To Sell Entire 5G Technology Stack To American Companies In Shock Peace Offer To Trump‘ gives rise to a stage where the flaccid and useless technology sector in the Unites States have bullied others into handing over the IP they never worked for. Iteration and complacency got to score a victory like VHS replaced a superior Betamax through the application of mass marketing.

So when we get the quote: “In a shocking move, Zhengfei Ren, the CEO and founder of Huawei offered the ultimate olive branch to the Trump administration: Sell all of the Chinese telecommunications giant’s 5G technology to American companies. The surprising offer, which was reported earlier this week by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, would essentially allow the U.S. to finally get in the race for 5G supremacy which is now dominated by Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, Ericsson of Sweden and Nokia from Finland“.

Should actually be phrased as “American companies that have been unable and became too incompetent to innovate mobile opportunities saw fit via the bullying of the current tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. to bully innovators to hand over technology for mere cents on the dollar. Its approach and tactics that would give regard to consideration for Nazi Germany to be seen as a humanitarian organisation has created a state of uncertainty in all of us and has given view to the unacceptable acts from companies and their unwillingness to face up to their own stupidity, which has now forced Chinese to seek an unacceptable point of view, whilst at present the pharmaceutical industries in America are still willing to destroy what was once the cornerstone of innovation, that same tactic of iteration has shown to be the downfall of American Technology and as such America has become a nation that should no longer be regarded as the leader of the free world, but merely an existing vulture to strengthen and prolong exploitation“, I hope that I was clear here?

As such, I have no chance of my own IP, yet I can prolong the cloud of stupidity in America to hand over all my IP over to Huawei hoping that they will optionally reward me, America surely will not and when 400 million small business owners all show the Huawei sign their shopping window, I will feel satisfaction, even if it does not bring me any wealth in the end.

That part was made clear to me when I considered “Ren added that the American licensees will be able to sell their 5G equipment based on Huawei’s intellectual property anywhere in the world, except in China“, I might be able to give Chinese and Middle Eastern commerce a larger boost, giving a larger appearance on how insignificant and trivial American technology has truly become.

I wonder how the EU will be seen in 15 years when the media would start considering to give the actual events the true and correct exposure of what was; when the people realise what a mess the world become due to stupidity and unacceptable support to Wall Street through the American government administrations, when we see on how the ECB with a third stimulus is poisoning wells that were supposed to be protective, all whilst the gravy trains just keep on driving. To be honest, I have never been so ashamed to give any level of credibility to American interests in the near past. The events from the last 6 months alone give rise to the change of venue away from the US, away from the EU and on the condition of a large muzzle on the head of the ECB.

Part of me finds the rage within me uplifting, I have not been this angry for well over half a decade. The article (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/09/12/huawei-ceo-to-sell-entire-5g-technology-stack-to-american-companies-in-shock-peace-offer-to-trump) is short and to the point, and I wonder how that idiot with a bad haircut will degrade news into some form of tweeting victory (the one using @realDonaldTrump); even as we see that Huawei clearly won the European war against the American trade bully, we need to realise that ALL our IP is now in danger. If America can resort to this against a tech giant like Huawei, what will it do to anyone that gets in its way of not being pronounced bankrupt? When idiots of that calibre remain in denial of their national debt of well over $22 trillion, with no chance of resolving that debt, when it ignores the never ending exploitation by ‘Big Pharma’ and when Wall Street is not held to account on their actions, we are no longer free, we are merely pawns in a corporatocracy and America is actively dragging Japan and the EU with itself so it can present and delusional consider itself as remaining afloat.

Holy cow, I am so angry today!

you see, I was always of the mind that in this world, in this technology the most innovative one would win, and that it would be a harsh lesson for America to learn that iterative companies could merely exist, but would remain inferior below the true innovators, the fact that we see that this is no longer the case and we remain ruled by foul mouthed bullies is a reality that overwhelmed me to the largest degree. Even now earlier this week when Brad Smith, top lawyer to Microsoft hands out that the Trump Huawei ban made no sense, we now see the truth of the matter. It was merely mind over matter, China initially did not mind, because America did not matter anymore, how wrong we all are! We are being played by the bully and everyone dances (especially the politicians).

It merely gives rise to the fact that we have no freedom, we have no rights, and the rights are only there where corporations accept us to have any. Be honest, how many of you signed up for that? That is the real danger of a corporatocracy, in that stage your right to exist and your rights as a person are linked to how profitable and applicable you are in its workforce. You are either a consumer and an asset, or a liability and a burden (or was that the other way round), at that point there are no equal rights, when you stop being part of the gains spreadsheet of corporations your value becomes nil and that realisation will be scary soon enough. It goes beyond mere age discrimination, race discrimination or religious discrimination, it becomes populist acceptance, the consumer, the user and accepting and paying individual is in the populist group, the rest is not, it is an accelerated and extreme version of those who have and those who have not, those who ‘have not’ would be removed from life, support and consideration.

If we take a step back then I would agree that I was not happy that China had won the 5G fight, I preferred it to be European players like Nokia, yet I accepted it as I clearly saw 4 years of pure innovation by Huawei. Apple with it proclaimed innovation was merely iterative and yes Samsung did have innovations, yet Huawei won and technology leaped forward, to see the events that followed, instigated by a loser named America was just disgusting.

If I had one wish to be granted, then it is that every fear mongering journalist, politician, technologist and reporter who pushed for the fear mongering of ‘Huawei spy risk‘ would be engraved on a monument that showed how these people are too unacceptable to be allowed to exist in this world. I prefer them to be hung, but their actions are not illustrated in any Criminal law act, so that would be an illegal action, and I still believe in the law (for now). However, just like we hung every German in Nuremburg who had the default defence of ‘Befehl ist befehl‘ , we get to engrave the fear mongering and misrepresenting facilitators named on a monument (preferably in the form of a flaccid penis) with the consideration texts on a brass cock ring stating: ‘Most stupid person on the planet‘. People who will hide behind ‘I was misinformed‘, ‘I was led to believe‘ and: ‘this is what they told me‘. People like that should not be allowed to carry titles like ‘Journalist’ they should never again be allowed to be part of news publications and never be given the consideration of credibility ever again.

That part is also seen in Forbes when we see: “U.S. companies would be allowed to modify as they see fit the software code used to run any of Huawei’s 5G equipment or even change it and use their own. That way, they will be able to avoid any fears that the Chinese company might be able to access these licensed American made 5G telecommunications gears to spy for the Chinese government“, it gives Huawei additional consideration, especially as the entire Chinese government spy part was NEVER proven, or clear evidence was ever presented to that effect.

Wow, I am still angry!

It bleeds my heart that we (mainly politicians) gave in to America in unproven ways again. Just like there were no WMD’s, there was no Chinese government espionage evidence. This level of injustice and the way some players got here makes me sick to my stomach and there is actually no chance that this feeling will improve over the next day. Too many people will soon realise that they have been pushed into a state where we were treated to the presentation of the United States Manure corporation (USM Inc.), all sold via corporations and too many players were eager to deal this stuff to the populations at large like they were golden covered chocolate truffles.

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Tagged as 5G, Big Pharma, China, Corporatocracy, ECB, Ericsson, Eu, Finland, Forbes, Germany, Huawei, IP, Japan, New York Times, Nokia, Nuremburg, Patents, President Donald Trump, stimulus, Sweden, Thomas Friedman, US, Wall Street, Zhengfei Ren, ZTE

September 5, 2019 · 14:50

The new politics

I still feel shivers lately when people like Jeremy Corbyn refer to the UK as a democracy. We could overly vocal voice that leaving democracy to an anti-Semite is slightly too uncomfortable. To illustrate this I refer to the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45030552), The quote: “In April 2019, the Sunday Times reported that Labour had received 863 complaints against party members, including councillors. The newspaper claimed leaked e-mails it had seen showed more than half of the cases remained unresolved while there had been no investigation in 28% of them. It said fewer than 30 people had been expelled while members investigated for posting online comments such as “Heil Hitler” and “Jews are the problem” had not been suspended. Labour disputed the reports while Jewish Voice for Labour, a newly constituted group supportive of Mr Corbyn, maintained the number of cases being investigated represented a tiny fraction of Labour’s 500,000 plus membership.” is central here. I would accept ‘the number of cases being investigated represented a tiny fraction of Labour’s 500,000 plus membership‘, yet in political places, this is too much headway and too much festering, as such there is a debilitating level of mistrust when these issues are not investigated, and with almost one third not being investigated, the issue is a rather large one. Then we get to BBC Panorama’s “Mr Corbyn’s communications chief Seumas Milne – had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints“, which in itself is a clear indication that the stage is much larger than we are led to believe. The BBC In August 2018 gave additional visibility not merely to his links with Terrorism, the quote: “critics have pointed out that a photograph from the event appears to show him standing opposite the graves of Atef Bseiso and Salah Khalaf, two senior PLO officers who were accused of links to the Munich attack and were assassinated“, we now have two options. Either Corbyn was played, or he is too sympathetic towards terrorists, in either case this is not some path to peace as the quote: “he had attended the event in Tunis as part of a wider event about the search for peace” was given. So either he got played (which I would accept to some degree), or he has too strong ties to extreme anti-Israel groups, either way the man should not be allowed in UK politics.

This is not merely about Jeremy Corbyn; this is a much larger setting. The setting is European. You see there is a shift going on and it is a very dangerous one. The UK is and should always be a Monarchy, as a monarchy the UK looks after ALL its citizens, rich, poor, well off and anyone not well off. This is opposing the European model which is overwhelmingly a Corporatocracy, more dangerously, it has in the last three years instilled a much stronger stage of corpocracy and these two are not the same. Let me explain.

A corpocracy is a corporate bureaucracy, characterized by ineffective management (EU Gravy train anyone?)

This is important, because this is a very dangerous stage, it affects democracy and more important deflates the long term chance that any democracy can be effectively applied. This is pushed by three parts; corporations, interest groups and what I call the Jackal gang.

I do not have to explain the corporations. The interest groups is another matter, here in one example we see in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/04/no-deal-brexit-food-shortages-brc), in the example we get Andrew Opie, the director of food and sustainability of the British Retail Consortium telling us: “Our assessment is based on discussion with our members, who move fresh food every day, and the likely disruption“, as well as “We modelled that with our members who have told us there will be disruption to fresh food“, these statements were casually accepted. Yet WHO checked and critically investigated ‘We modelled that with our members‘, modelling implies algorithms, modelling implies a state of data analytics, dash boarding and optionally clear reports. Who checked those? Andrew Opie? He has one goal, to keep markings for his members as high as possible and Brexit gets in that way. He is not alone; there are dozens if not hundreds who have been playing that game playing the fear monger card again and again in the last three years. How much famine was there in the UK in the 70’s and before? This is not about supply, this is about expedited margins and the media is not telling the people this, they are not investigating this to the degree they should. The people are merely pushed into fear towards remaining in the EU and that gravy train is too expensive for all of us. The EU has well over €3 trillion debt and there is no path that leads to any exit, not for generations and this benefits the banks, it benefits the people on the EU gravy train, it does not benefit small businesses, it does not benefit the people and there is no end in sight. Brexit was the first clear step to make things better for the British people and the people in the commonwealth in the long term, yet the US, corporations and the IMF will not entertain it, they have too much to lose.

And this is not over, it is about to get worse. We see this in the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/0ff70e24-cef8-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f) even as it seemingly starts low key with “Christine Lagarde has called on European governments to co-operate more closely over fiscal policy to stimulate the stuttering Eurozone economy” which changes tune as we get: “aimed at rich economies like Germany and the Netherlands, she said governments who “have the capacity to use the fiscal space available to them” should spend on improving their infrastructure“, she did not mention some balance of infrastructure and reducing debt, no reducing debt is off the table. And as we get: “The central bank could “direct” its corporate asset purchases towards green bonds once the EU and other regulators have agreed on a common framework for green finance“, which is the foundation for another Stimulus, a plan that failed twice is now again being used to create more debt and pushing what seemingly was once a democracy into a corpocratic Corporatocracy, a stage where nations are no longer in charge, corporations are and we see that push more and more, the fact that freedom of choice in the UK is no longer honoured, as well as the fact that freedom of choice is now regarded as a natural disaster is a clear stage on that road.

Voicing it into a stage where it’s called ‘fiscal stimulus‘ creating the regard that the ECB needs to be to be ‘agile’ in facing economic trouble is merely a relabelled stage where Wall Street and its banks are deciding what Europeans and Brits are allowed to do and short sighted politicians are actually handing them the national keys to do just that. In the age of an aging population that is even more dangerous, for the mere reason that the debts cannot continue a stage of retirement, making the validity of aged people almost obsolete. Again this is all in the view of Corporatocracy; for them the bottom line is margins and profits, to get that 100% needs to be an enabler or a consumer, the rest has no value and we are pushing more and more in this direction.

The Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/lagarde-defends-european-central-bank-stimulus-at-hearing/2019/09/04/17abb148-cf10-11e9-a620-0a91656d7db6_story.html) gives us part of the Corporatocracy setting.

In the line “uncertainty over tariffs has sideswiped the 19-country Eurozone as businesses delay investments and new orders“, the fact that any delay has that much of an influence on American needy people is almost too unacceptable. This is more than just the ‘turmoil from the U.S.-China trade conflict‘. We can (speculatively) consider the line: “it could disrupt business dealings between the U.K. and the 27 remaining members“, which in light of “Britain is currently scheduled to leave the European Union. If that happens without a divorce agreement to smooth trade” is not about ‘smooth trade’ at all, this is about managed maximised margins, something Wall Street relies on very fucking heavily, so the entire stage where the new ECB ruler is not one of the other banks, but the previous sceptre wielder of the IMF is a much larger issue, it is also a case that the US is a lot more in charge of Europe that we think. Consider the amounts of debts and the fact that no one has that much money. A stage where two banks lend each other on paper $2 trillion, whilst neither has the funds. It is one situation that will lose control more and more and the important questions are not being asked. When we see Francois Villeroy de Galhau (Governor of the Bank of France), Klaas Knot (ECB policy maker) and Madis Muller (ECB policy maker) are a few of a growing group of people opposing stimulus (read: massively sceptical), whilst the one in favour (former IMF) is now President elect of the ECB. The one doesnot imply the other, yet the stage where we see “resumption of bond purchases now would be disproportionate to economic conditions” is merely one option, there might be more, but stimulus is what the US and a corpocratic Corporatocracy requires to keep the margins and the people get to pay that invoice. More importantly the lack of oversight and the lack of transparency gives sway for the ECB bank to do whatever it wants, whenever it thinks it needs to.

In what kind of a democracy did Europeans sign up for that?

Corporatocracy

I mentioned that in an earlier blog, it is a state where corporations decide on matters and that is what we see to the much larger extent at present. It is an age where social securities collapse, housing is close to redundant and the age of age discrimination is at an all-time high. All issues visible to a larger extent. I mentioned a few other parts earlier in this article and that is merely the beginning. I needed to make this mention because it is time to explain another phrase I threw your way.

The Jackal gang

This is a group of facilitators and exploiters. The Jackal gang is pretty much everywhere, the problem is that the intentional ones are not the same as the beneficiary players. Let me explain the difference. There are vultures, which are pure carrion eaters, they devour whatever is no longer living (or too close to death to see the difference), with vultures we see a group of people who drop down on companies pronounced dead, or basically no longer serving and they take the pickings. This is the foundation of Vulture funds as well, Argentina being an excellent example in the past and they are about to become a repetitive example soon again. The 2001 default is one stage where Vulture Funds swept in to get nice pickings. Let’s face it, the Argentinians decided to go this way (no one else was offering). Opposing the Vultures are the Jackals, they are like Vultures carrion eaters, yet there is another side, Jackals also take on the sick and the weakened, in a pack they can take down a larger opponent and because the opponent was not dead the pickings are a lot better. In this example the Gravy Train (a first class experience that is always on the road with all the amenities); the gravy train is a large behemoth, it has all kinds of connections. There are subsidised needs, there are research and grant needs and there are logistical needs as well as operational ones. In this stage we see the beneficiary ones; they are merely offering a service like a hotel, lunch services, dry cleaning and so on. They are merely services that a person needs to rely on, yet in another stage when it is a catering service that is ALWAYS called on, or a mother organisation that gets all the contracts, we see the Jackal group. These people are all linked in one way or another and that is how the Gravy train operates and there are large amounts of money involved. To get you a more apt example, we look at the ECB and its part in the Greek financial tragedy (definitely not written by Sophocles).

Here we need to consider that the Securities Market Programme threatens the ECB’s legitimacy as the potential fiscal role is an inappropriate activity for an independent central bank. Some actions are valid as well as appropriate. when we see “In the event of a wholesale creditor run based solely on self-fulfilling expectations, it is reasonable for a central bank to intervene and act as a lender of last resort to financial institutions that would otherwise be solvent” we see an appropriate act. Yet in case of “The failing of the institution is that it is not credible that it is willing to purchase enough of the debt to contain the run. Unfortunately, the ECB’s insistence on secrecy with respect to the programme is particularly damaging. It is widely believed that the average discount to face value paid for the Greek debt acquired (prior to August at least) was no more than 20%. The national central banks appear to have sought out the lucky counterparties. And, the ECB won’t say who they are or how much they paid” is a stage where there is no transparency, the gains are not disclosed, there is a failing on managing the debt and the matter goes from bad to worse (source: CEPR’s policy portal, Anne Sibert). The issue was also illuminated in ‘Buiter, Willem (2009), “Recapitalising the Banks through Enhanced Credit Support: Quasi-Fiscal Shenanigans in Frankfurt”, Maverecon, Financial Times, 28 June‘.

A matter that should have been dealt with to a much larger degree now as this goes all the way back to 2011, the fact that another stimulus is coming lacking transparency is a huge deal, it implies that trust in the ECB needs to be revoked and written off (read: discarded).

I grant you from the very beginning that the this is a very complex matter (and I am all out of Economic degrees as I never had one), yet I know data and a lot of it is not adding up, questions that should be on the front of everyone’s mind are seemingly not openly asked or the existence of the questions are denied. The entire issue of Brexit as it is playing out is less about democracy and too much about the politics of pleasing large corporations, there are too many questions and quotes are merely copied by the media and not questioned and that is a democratic failing of the largest degree. Jeremy Corbyn with: “Jeremy Corbyn became the first Opposition leader in history to block a general election on Wednesday night” (source: The Telegraph) might be the most visible example, but he is not alone, there are scores of MP’s playing the ‘remain’ card and as I personally see it they should all be investigated. Consider the direct description of treason: ‘the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to overthrow the government‘, is that definition and that is what we see here. It is the stage we see now and many sources in the media are all about ‘quoting’ and not about investigating, it is the failure that must be fixed. Well, perhaps the option is to award certain politicians with the William Joyce medal. I am offering the thought that Jeremy Corbyn is to be reviewed to see if he should get the first one, who is with me?

The new politics are not about claiming and presenting, but the need to show allegiance and give proper explanation on why exactly things were done. Would that not make political life a lot more transparent? The ECB could learn from that, so two herrings caught with one rod.

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September 3, 2019 · 11:05

Anacusis through silence

This is about an article I wrote on June 2nd 2018, the title ‘Cheese Pizza with Oregano‘. The story (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/06/02/cheese-pizza-with-oregano/) looks at the finance situation that the big 4 face. With Brexit 7 weeks away that premise is becoming a lot more important. You see the big 4 (including the UK) had a lot of debt, now the issues for the UK do not dwindle, yet the other three are in a less savoury position. As sources gave us then we see: “Spain will have refinancing requirements that exceed €300 billion per annum before 2022. In 2018, 41.2 billion euro, in 2019, 82.4, in 2020 83.9 and in 2021 58.5 billion euro, with 60.4 billion maturing in 2022“, the second part is not Spain, it is Italy where we see: “4 billion euro maturities in 2018, 161 billion in 2019, 164 billion in 2020 and 172.5 billion euro in 2021“. Bloomberg (at https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-29/conte-s-five-star-democrat-coalition-offers-italy-respite) gave us last week ‘Italy’s Unlikely Allies Offer a Brief Respite From Crisis‘, a brief respite is not a solution and there well over a quarter of a trillion Euro to refinance in Europe alone. Where is that coming from? You see Italy is merely one of three players that is in the deep waters, I have no numbers on Germany, yet Spain is in a similar place and whilst we thing that there is no issue, there is. Two nations represent an outstanding invoice totaling €250,000,000,000 due in three months and there is no real solution (as far as I can see it). Refinancing is fine by the banks; with the added interest these two nations will sign an addition burden of no less than €2,500,000,000 and optionally close to twice that amount. This implies that in the two nations every person adds between €24 and €50 to their debt (read: taxes) just to pay for the increased interest. You might not think this is a lot and over a year it seems little but EVERY person in Spain and Italy must pay it, no exceptions and it is merely to pay for the additional interest on the debt, not the debt itself and next year it will be about twice as much and with the outstanding debt still there (I am ignoring the debt of 2018), in 2019 people will have to pay between €75 and €150 each, young, old, it will not matter. So how large is the percentage of people that have to face this invoice and have no means to pay it? Those having to live below the current poverty line is clearly one of these groups and it is not a small group. We all are placed in denial of outstanding bills because the media seemingly ignores it. I gave warning to this in 2017, I reiterated it in 2018 and now the issue is on the doorstep, pushing it forward one more year will make it all come apart. It is the clear stage of deafness through silence. If we keep silent, it goes away. Well, there is some news for you. Anyone who ever faced a debt collector can tell you, it never goes away and that feeling of hardship can follow you up to a quarter of a century. And all this is negating the French situation. Germany is in a much better place, but when the recession hits it will deteriorate and in addition, Germany is seemingly tired of carrying the burden of irresponsible politicians. And when it comes to France, I personally wonder how much Credit Agricole gets to pocket this time around (perhaps you remember the Libor scandal). I agree that Credit Agricole was not alone in this, yet this time around Deutsche bank and Credit Suisse have additional problems and they are not in a position to get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar (or is that fingers in the cocky jar?)

the problem is that these people tend to not learn, in addition, the wealth tends to outrun the fine by a fair bit and that is where the problem lies, the issues of debt needed to have been negated harshly a lot sooner and these governments pushed it forward again and again and this now directly interacts with any additional stimulus, because Spain, Italy, France and Germany (Germany a lot less) will get to feel the pinch on both ends of the pliers, the Stimulus branch and the refinancing branch. The UK is not out of reach of it all, but as it is on the way out it cannot be held responsible for a lot of these upcoming cost and the remain group just does not realise how much money is added to the debt in that way. It was the biggest issue that mattered and it has arrived at the front door of the UK, The Brexit door avoids that issue that was part of the larger problem all along. And now 12 of the 27 nations are eager to say yes to whatever infusion they can manage also becomes a worry, as they now face a much larger share of that expense, so they are complaining as loud as possible.

Even now as we see the Coup D’état message of: ‘Brussels would reluctantly agree Brexit extension if rebel MPs succeed in preventing no-deal‘, and other messages of delay, the delay is essential for Europe because they decided to remain in denial of Brexit, for three years these EU people got fat wages and remained possum, so now we see a larger issue. What use is the EU when it cannot contain any control over the irresponsible spending of the ECB? What use is the EU when the players have shown an inability to get a proper budget? The problem is actually a lot larger. You see the next part is speculative and I cannot prove it, but bare (or bear) with me. It connects to the IMF Data produced for the year 2018. Now we can agree that there is always an interaction. There is expected positive and actual positive. My issue is that EVERY nation in the EU gained (actually except Turkey). All are gaining, now we can agree that most might have had a positive impact, yet when we look back at the news we see: “The weaker end to the year weighed on the economy’s performance in 2017 overall, with growth revised down from 1.8% to 1.7%” (the Guardian), “Britain’s economy slowed to a virtual standstill in the first three months of 2018” (the Guardian), “It felt as though the sector was losing its lifeblood this month as Brexit worries continued to claw away at confidence, new orders and business margins” (the Independent) all these bad news linking Brexit, all whilst the IMF data shows that nominal GDP numbers for the UK went up by 7%.

IMPORTANT

Now there are two important parts here. The first is that the metrics are not the same, yet the premise of one side claiming that there are losses, the positive is down, yet the year before the IMF showed that the UK GDP went down by 0.011% the numbers make no sense, we are thrown between different metrics and those different metrics do not reflect the battering news again and again. The people are being handled with data that is not reliable and that part is obvious not reported on. Just like the news three years ago that the IMF reported that UK austerity was a really bad idea, something that they had to retract later on. The second danger is that the GDP is a lot more complex, yet the premise that the UK economy is so bad, so less good and growing so much less so than before the Brexit ‘threat’ is not seen in a -0.011% versus a plus 7%. Even I agree that 7% is way too positive, but these are the reported numbers and they do not add up, not compared to the media and all the anti-Brexit reporting.

This comes to blows when we see the issues in the other large three European players. In addition, the setting ignores the fact that the medium economies (Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden) had been doing a lot better. Their economies might be ‘too’ small, yet their good venture might reflect to Eastern Europe to a much larger degree. Merely agreeing with the big four is seemingly folly too.

Oh, and before I forget, we can now also consider the forceful removal of any politician in the European economic field if so desired. They can be fired without any legal repercussions at present. The EU enabled us to do that when they decided to label the no-deal Brexit as a major natural disaster. This works for the remain as well as the Brexit group as the ECB was the biggest flaw in all this. When the Coup D’état works in the UK, we can demand the immediate firing of Mario Draghi and his ECB associates (read: cronies). If the economy is seen as a natural disaster, those setting and prolonging the stage of a natural disaster are wielders of that natural disaster and as such should be pushed out of office without pay.

I wonder if they thought that through, I guess not. I hope I did not oversimplify matters here 😉

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September 2, 2019 · 11:23

Funny Money, Amusing Thickheads

There are two issues and they do not link, but they are supportive of one another. I made notice of this situation 5 months ago in my article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/04/27/then-the-hard/) called ‘Then the hard‘, in the article I give “Now we get to the part where the €2.5 trillion mark matters, as the ECB is trying to find new ways to convince others that the continued provision of stimulus to the economy matters“, as I see it the stimulus protects banks, makes them more powerful, it allows for political stupidity, yet the economy has not been saved (not in the two attempts), it has not been jump started, and it has not been a positive impact for its citizens, merely the industrial executives and the rich CEO’s (OK, that was a more biased view from yours truly, the writer).

As Bloomberg gave us on Saturday (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-31/more-ecb-officials-pile-into-stimulus-debate-as-economy-wilts) ‘More ECB Officials Pile Into Stimulus Debate as Economy Wilts‘, and when we see: “the ECB should keep all options on the table to reinvigorate inflation and growth, including a relaunch of quantitative easing“, it is at that point that the EU citizens are getting screwed (again), more debt (again) and no resolution because the ECB is about the gravy train and not about resolutions. Yes that same article gives opposing voices, yet I would not be surprised that (by a narrow margin) the stimulus people win. This is why Brexit was so important!

In the end the retirees get hammered for those debts, the ECB officials have too fat wallets to care. At this point the debts have surpassed €3,000,000,000,000 and it seems that the end is nowhere near, yet the stage of bankruptcy is there. Even at 0.1% (no debt interest is ever that low) implies that the interest is €3 billion a year. A payment that is way beyond the budgets of any of the EU nations, payment due every year whilst the bulk of them have overextended themselves with budgets that should have been shrunk by well over 5%, so pretty much all the EU nations are running an economic deficit whilst the Mario Draghi Posse is handing out more money, printed money, for a lack of a better term funny money.

What the ECB is not telling anyone that most stimulus options fall flat when the UK officially leaves the EU that is the despair there. Their options melt away when the UK is out and that is why everyone is suddenly in a panic, that is why we get these moronic acts and even UK Labour is all about remain now. And with that part we move to the second part of this.

Now we get to the Chief of Grief, the Duke of Fluke, the one and only real loser in history (as I personally see it) Jeremy Corbyn. When we see headlines like ‘No-deal Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn vows to ‘pull Britain back from the brink’‘, or ‘Final sovereignty on Brexit must rest with the people‘ we see the idiot he is. There was a referendum, there was a voice and Brexit won, the issues with the ECB shows us that we are a lot better outside then inside that mess. There is no brink of Brexit, there is an economic mess and we will enter a stage of recession, anyone telling you that it can be presented is lying to you, or they are wielding massive amounts of money, amounts that no one has. This has been shown by people more intelligent than me and by people with actual economic degrees; they all are on the ‘remain’ fence, merely because it butters their bread. It gets worse when we see that the Hysterical Remain groups that have become violent, abusive and out of control, more important, to a larger degree the media isn’t even covering it. How is that for balanced information?

I have heard one or two actual ‘remainers’ who made a really good case, yet in the end, they have no control over the ECB and the ECB is in Europe at present the great evil. What they claim is good for Europe is to a much larger extent merely good for big business. When we look at those companies leaving the UK, these are all companies hiding behind taxation options, or facilitating to really large players and to some degree that is fine, but the ECB forgot that the well over 150 million small business owners see nothing of any of that and more important, they will see the impact of the 3 trillion euro of debt that the ECB created, things are that much out of whack and I do not get why people accept the presented BS that people like Jeremy Corbyn have been presenting to the masses. I am aware and I also believe that Brexit had its own waves of BS presenters. I made up my own mind and for the most I was leaning towards Remain, Mark Carney (the Marky Mark of the British bank) and especially his speech to the House of Lords was the setting of that stage. Yet he too had one flaw (if you want to call it that), there was no controlling the ECB and they are out again making some lame excuse on the essential economic need for more stimulus, whilst we already know now that it will not save the economy and they are willing to wager another trillion euro and spend it up front.

These people are not held accountable in any way and I say: ‘Enough is enough!‘ The UK is better off by itself steering the economic waters as it had done for centuries. Oh, I almost forgot the second part on sovereignty, sovereignty does not rest with the people, it rests in Buckingham Palace with HRH Queen Elisabeth II. There was a referendum and the Brexit group with a little over 51% won. And to those people still in doubt, you only have yourself to blame with the mess you are creating. There were 46 million votes, representing a 72% group, so 28% did not even bother to vote! Those 13 million votes were invalid straight of the bat, with only 25,000 invalid or blank votes we see no real impact, it they were all remain voted it would not have mattered. When you consider all this and you see the hooligan masses being remain people, we see two parts, the first is that they are moronic (worthy of UK Labour), yet the larger issue is that a lot are in anger because they are not getting properly informed. Stories like: ‘UK government officials told the food industry that supplies of liquid egg could run out in a no-deal Brexit‘, yet the operative word is ‘could‘ we just do not know, and not knowing is adamant in a lot of this, yet the people have faced two years of fear mongering, all large consortiums that see a danger to their margins, not the margins of the shop, the margins to executives and their bonuses, and the people are eating the fear hook, line and sinker. There will be actual issues, but the foundation of all this is that this has never happened before and the EU and the ECB did this to themselves. We all forget how this started, this all started when Greece in 2009 had misrepresented itself and we saw issue after issue, debt after debt and the politicians that caused it merely walked away. Then we were told stories on how Greece might be evicted from the EU, the news was all over that yet the truth was that we were misled (or is that made Miss Led?) The Guardian (in 2015) gave us: “As Athens will be unable to satisfy its financial obligations after a default, many hardliners expect Greece to leave the Eurozone, and printing as much neo-drachma as necessary. Some see this as the only solution to the Greek crisis: it would allow Greece to devalue its new currency, supposedly making the country competitive and resulting in economic growth and the ability to repay its debt“, in addition we get: “while only article 50 of the EU treaty regulates how a state can leave the union. And a mechanism for leaving only the Eurozone or for expulsion even has not been provided for at all“, basically the stupidity of the EU was that they stated that every member will always be up front and do what must be done, which was deceptive in its own rights. So a group that is merely inclusive and under stringent rules can they leave, yet in addition other sources gave us that NO MEMBER can be expelled. This is called a Corporatocracy, not a democracy. Corporations decide on what happens and that is what we basically see at present. The problem here is that any Corporatocracy will limit its actions towards enablers and consumers; the rest is pretty much screwed. In a monarchy all citizens matter and the people do not seem to be able to grasp that, the UK (and the Netherlands, as well as Sweden, Belgium and so on are monarchies within a Corporatocracy and that is a very different setting, that stage can only be made profitable where debts are soaring and the banks not the government decide where you can be at, a situation we see all over Europe. this is not new, I did not invent it, other voices going back to 2014 say pretty much the same thing, I merely have a lot more data available at present. The media relies on advertisement money from any Corporatocracy, so you cannot expect them to actually inform you, it is a double edged blade and both sides are pointed at YOUR guts, it is that detrimental a situation.

So as Greece made a few issues clear in the wrong way, people like Nigel Farage went with the notion of ‘Better Out than in‘, I agree with him, yet I remained on the fence for the longest of times. It was the second ECB stimulus who would put us so much deeper in debt that got me across. The first stimulus was fine, it was an option and even as it did not work out, it gave Europe time, yet the second one the best we could hope for was time and that is where the problem started and now as stimulus 3 is on the table the setting is too unacceptable, the UK needs to get out and fast, deal or not.

Let’s not make a fairy tale, this will not be a nice time and things will get worse for a little while, anyone telling you different is lying to you. The issue is that with the ropes cut the EU cannot force debts on the UK to the degree it is doing now, more important the UK gets to make a few other choices and it will down the road (3-4 years) turn the economy in something stronger. It will result in an actual better quality of life over time, but it will not be immediate. This is why the ties and economic options with players like Huawei (5G), nations like Saudi Arabia (all kinds of goods) and a few other players become important (optionally India with generic medication). Anyone with the misguided notion that Human Rights are the optimal route better stay at home. If Human Rights were an actual power there would be no age discrimination, there would be actual better (and more) housing and there would be a better social security. All missing and mostly because in a Corporatocracy, corporations are largely tax exempt, exactly what we see today. In that stage we now see the rumblings, even as players like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and others are all making noises on leaving, they do so at the risk of losing 69 million consumers. Facebook is truly global, so is Google to the largest extent, yet for Apple we get Huawei, ASUS and HP, Amazon leaving would give the people a slimmer HMV and optionally small businesses come back (my preferred solution), and even as corporations are shouting, screaming, streaming and threatening, they all realise that you cannot walk away from 69 million consumers. Not when they need to share the smaller EU pool with 3-4 competitors at every corner. That is the part we all forgot, consumer power is actually power and we listened to the likes of Jeremy Corbyn for far too long. To be honest, I never thought that it would be possible to be more dim than Nick Clegg (LIBDEMS), yet I was wrong, Jeremy Corbyn pulled it off nicely. I am not stating that Boris Johnson is without flaws (his barber being the obvious one). I am stating that the UK has been in a dangerous position for far too long and as long as the ECB does the way it does it, the danger stays, getting away from that danger is an immediate need at present.

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August 31, 2019 · 11:06

When in doubt

It started 5 days ago when I wrote ‘Bitches on parade‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/08/26/bitches-on-parade/). The premise from my point of view is that you cannot heckle a country based on a lack of evidence (read: CEO Jamie Dimon), so whilst he pulled out of the Saudi Conference, he was eager and willing to take a chunk of a $2,000,000,000,000 pie at the drop of a hat (any hat). The man has no principles when it comes to money, which is fine. Yet now the entire event is exploding in several directions as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/29/political-uncertainty-puts-london-listing-in-doubt-for-saudi-aramco) informs us that “state oil company may rule out the London Stock Exchange amid Britain’s rising political uncertainty“, in one word brilliant! Two years of whining and lack of decision is not about to hit the British MP field in a massive way. It gets to be even better when we consider the impact for the EU as a larger field, the current favourite according to insiders will be the Japan’s Tokyo stock exchange. If that happens, I get to smile whilst a whole range of bonuses will not arrive with Wall Street, the ECB or London (I am least happy about London missing out). There is a price, there is a cost to doing business and it seems that this week Saudi Arabia is making the tally to that event.

And now we see that the field changes. With quote: “Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, reignited plans for the float earlier this summer after announcing that officials were working to list the company within the next two years. Aramco announced earlier this month, in its first investor call, that it is ready for the listing whenever its shareholders agreed market conditions were “optimal”” It is here that we need to see the profit, the sudden option for Tokyo, who was not in the race at all also implies the added risk that Tokyo says ‘yes’ (read: Hai!) too eager giving the Saudi Aramco executives a much larger bonus than they expected, making the wave on the market gives rise that there will be two waves and these executives get to enjoy the windfall of both waves. I reckon that Lürssen Yachts (optionally Damen Yachts and CRN) will get to look forward to at least 5 additional commissions for yachts over 90 meters before the end of the year.

There is a much larger issue; it is not merely who gets what, and where we buy in. Bloomberg gave us on Thursday: “It’s been a good week for those seeking to pare bets on a market that brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive, given weakening fundamentals. MSCI on Tuesday wrapped up the second phase of including Saudi shares in its developing nations index, prompting billions of dollars in inflows from passive funds. Some active managers took advantage of the increased liquidity to reduce their holdings“, there is no way for me to comment on the issue as stocks are not my trade EVER! Yet consider the quote ‘brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive‘, yet they too are rallying to get their fingers on Aramco. Business is hard and I am fine with the directness that the market needs to be. Yet Aramco is different, everyone wants in and as such Saudi Arabia gets to elect the offerings and as such some players are about to enter the new field, they are optionally becoming the next Ricky Fuld, who was the only person not offered a deal in 2008 whilst the others got one. I am not sure on how to see that, The Wall Street Journal gives us ‘Branded a Villain, Lehman’s Dick Fuld Chases Redemption‘, these people walked away with massive amounts whilst almost one in two households got foreclosed in the end, that is a massive amount of anger to deal with and I personally believe that the Saudi’s will do business with everyone, just a certain group of people will have to be willing to cut their margins by a fair bit. Certain actions have impact and will have a considerable impact of the option to do business, Saudi Arabia could afford to wait, of those people had only decided to wait factual evidence, that would have been nice, not?

I believe that their hypocrisy on Jamal Khashoggi now has a price (to some degree); in addition the economic turmoil gives Saudi Arabia the option to select the host, who will gain a lot. I never considered Japan before today on this, but the choice makes sense.

We could go with the option: ‘When in doubt select the ally that seems more sincere‘ or we can go with ‘Be careful who you wake up with presented and insincere morals‘ I reckon that Wall Street and Especially the ECB need to learn from the second option. No matter how things unfold, pretty much everyone will be keeping 100% attention on the Tokyo exchange, something that has not happened in a long time and Aramco made it happen. And all whilst this is going on, the UK is still in all kinds of childish banter, especially by opposition parties. So when we get the Jeremy Corbyn quote “avoiding a No Deal Brexit” my (absolutely less than diplomatic) response would be “If you weren’t such a stupid dick, you could have done something 2 years ago, but you all played the ‘it will blow over’ tactic ignoring the democracy when they majority decided to Brexit!“, and now the mess is becoming even larger as London lost the option for hosting the Aramco deal. We even see Dutch issues with: “Dutch Foreign Minister Stephen Blok said on Thursday that “serious talks” on Brexit had taken place in Brussels this week, but warned the two sides “are not there yet” on a deal“, there was never going to be a deal, all delays were set to try and overthrow Brexit, now you see that there will be a much larger impact and there will be trade deals in the end no company will walk away from the option to tap into a 69 million consumer base.

That was a clear setting from the very beginning, anyone ignoring that part is delusional. Let’s not forget that the need to exceed shareholder expectations also automatically imply that the EU customer base representing half a billion people also means that 13.5% of them will not ever be shunned, someone else will walk in and take over.

For some, the entire Aramco was icing on the cake and now that this falls away and falls away from Europe also means that the EU will have several grim numbers to report in January 2020, plenty of people are already scared whit less and ready to retire as soon as the October 2019 numbers are released.

When in doubt, never trust Status Quo to actually remain. It is the deadliest of traps and it just sprung.

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August 29, 2019 · 14:33

Dimensionality

There is growing unrest and growing movement. People are changing and relocating. It is all about Brexit. We see the news; we see the blips and the funny quotes. This week the funny moment was a Scottish girl who would not accept the outcome of the Brexit referendum, because this was a democracy. OK, we all have moments and that was a golden one, no doubt about it. I am pro Brexit, not because it is a great idea, but because the ECB did not leave us an option. The irresponsible spending by Mario Draghi with his stimulus got the EU €3,000,000,000,000 in additional debt with no hope of resolving it within several decades. Now with another recession on the horizon, the EU member states will learn the hard way what a recession does when there are no checks, balances or reserves available so this time around it will strong to the largest degree.

Yet, that is not what this is about. We see part of the issue (at https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/26/nearly-100-companies-move-to-netherlands-ahead-of-brexit-dutch-agency) where “Nearly 100 companies have relocated from Britain to the Netherlands or set up offices there to be within the European Union due to the United Kingdom’s planned departure from the bloc, a Dutch government agency said on Monday” It is a move that might seem nice, but there is a hidden trap in all this. These players are shifting to a nation (whichever nation), and whilst they think that setting up shop in the EU with its 513 million people was a good idea, that number still includes the UK and after the switch they are vying with other competitors for 444 million customers, whilst they left the 69 million people they already had. Germany has 82 million, France, Spain and Italy have less than the UK as population, implying that they are a smaller pond to fish in. The issue is not that they are all part of one EU, they are well over 20 member states, all with their own little local laws and that is what these people forgot. They walked away from 69 million UK consumers and now others can grow in their place.

This is not always the case, but yes, to the largest extent, these 100 companies have moved house leaving opportunity to others. Would you remain a customer of (example) Lloyds insurance when you have to connect to the Netherlands for your insurance? When the ‘main office’ gets involved all little quirks come out. We saw it in the past and we will see it in the future. A large block of people will vacate and seek local representation that is how people work. And it all sounds nice to have the new office in Amsterdam, but that market is pretty saturated and even if it was not, The Dutch have their own language, things will take a beating and those vacating British shores will face impact and reduced clientele, as well as diminished exposure and opportunity.

Feel free to remain in denial, just remember, you yourself are your own best example. For the bulk a lot will seem the same, you get your Netflix, you get your amazon and you get from Google what you need. These are true global players. Your services will alter, your goods will be localised and your financial needs will be locally catered. That was the path everyone ignored, it was the path that would always impact. Listening to European politicians was never a good idea and these players will face that certainty soon enough.

When we look at the quote: “The businesses are in finance, information technology, media, advertising, life sciences and health, the NFIA said” you think you have a good deal, but do you? Finance? Banks are local, mortgage tends to remain local and a whole host of options was always available globally, that never changed and those trying to skim more lucrative deals will soon learn that others will vie for the 69 million Brits needing services and they will adhere to local markets. IT, that will not change, it is an import market and moving out of the UK was never going to be a larger issue, yet losing a 13.5% market to other players is never a good idea. Those who relocated against those who opened another office for the time being are going to see things very differently soon enough and once these 100 companies see that the shift out of the EU will start to pay off much better in years 3 and 4 for the UK. At that point the momentum in the plus will start stronger and that results in better investments and stronger needs for these 69 million consumers. The problem is that once out of the UK these players will find it much harder to get deals done as there is no local representation. It will be a lot more expensive to get and retain British customers. The lessons learned the hard way 35 years earlier will rear its ugly head once more.

More important, the additional Stimulus cannot be pushed onto the UK so the other member states will have to pays for that, taking the UK out of the decision stream allowed for that change and now a large chunk of that €3,000,000,000,000 is now all on the other players (mostly Germany, France and Italy) and they will not like that one bit.

Yes, I acknowledge that there are some situations that have an optional advantage, but the larger extend falls away as those people are truly global and moving out of the UK merely implies that 13.5% of the total EU customer base is now not on their income path, it needs to be an alternative path with jumps, kicks, levels and springs. It lowers their revenue margin giving them additional worry down the road to please their shareholders and that is beside the point that they lost out on 13.5% of the entire EU market.

Now that the Queen has accepted the plan to suspend parliament, we see outrage, at this point a lot of 11^th hour plans for people to make some Bremain move are no longer an option, now the panic sets in and those who have not made a clear investigation on the opportunity that Brexit offers will run and jump the ship, only to learn that they forgot they needed swimming lessons to make it to another shore. So as we consider UK’s largest Joke (Jeremy Corbyn) with “Suspending Parliament is not acceptable, it is not on. What the prime minister is doing is a smash and grab on our democracy to force through a no deal“, to him the message is simple and rather clear: “You had three years to find a solution as the people had elected to Brexit. The childish games, long winded speeches and inconsiderate choices will now cost you dearly” , my personal response is even more apt when we consider the Sun with “Jeremy Corbyn ‘plots coalition of chaos’ as he softens terms for Remainer pact to block No Deal Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn is leading pro-Remain talks with opposition parties to block a No Deal Brexit” only two days ago. As I personally see it, it was a childish attempt to stop Brexit from happening. The math is actually simple. The got nowhere in three years, that means that they are incapable of getting anything done, or they merely wanted to stare Brexit to death, neither option was acceptable and it is time for everyone to accept the stupidity of UK Labour. In all this the EU has acted like a petulant child for the longest time and now that Brexit, optional no-deal Brexit becomes a fact the larger players will have figured out that 69 million consumers are important. The people who vacated the UK whilst nothing was a given have given up their jobs to others, others who will now feel the caress of having some decent money. It is not a great place, but a better place and as the economy takes off as unemployment levels drops with a larger skip, the math of deficit also changes to the favour of the UK coffers. there are more impacts, not all positive, but to a larger extent the UK will have a stronger position in year two and it only reinforces the options for years three and four, making larger waves in decimating debts whilst the EU will get a truckload of additional debts soon thereafter.

It was always about dimensionality and those who could see past the simple top line that he media was hiding behind. The status for the UK will not change overnight, but it will change for the better soon enough and once those running rats (a ships reference) figure that out that they changed a passenger liner for a sinking barge, at that point will we see an interesting demonstration in entertainment and long winded speech wankers (for lack of a better term).

In my view, there is one small additional truth, Jeremy Corbyn might become the Caretaker PM, but merely a ‘Catetaker Pro Mortuarium’, a cemetery where he left the cadavers of his own short sighted stupidity and good luck to him weeding out those graves, it will be a full time task. I wonder how many large corporations are willing to stand behind Jeremy Corbyn whilst we know that those players are only in it to extent the status quo of their required greed. Who could ever support that stage when they can clearly see all the players and what they really care for?

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Tagged as Brexit, ECB, Euronews, France, Germany, Italy, Jeremy Corbyn, Mario Draghi, Netherlands, NFIA, No Deal Brexit, Suspending Parliament, UK, UK Labour

June 24, 2019 · 11:37

Falling off the wagon

It all started with a success story, it then ‘evolved’ into the age of complacency as it was lying in a lazy floating chair in a swimming pool. America was lazy, complacent and greed driven.

Huawei overtook Ericsson in 2012 as the largest telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world, then casually overtook Apple in 2018 as the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world, still behind Samsung Electronics, and rose to the 72nd rank on the Fortune Global 500 list. In December 2018, Huawei reported that its annual revenue had risen to US$108.5 billion in 2018 (a 21% increase over 2017).It is at this point that America was a mere 3^rd position, Huawei is presently servicing 47 of the 50 largest telecom operators on the planet, for the first time in history America no longer really matters as a technology provider. Sources like the Economist, the Guardian, Fortune and TechRadar all give the same news. It is at this point that the USPTO has to give the goods (read: the bad message) that Asia has surpassed America with registered patents by a lot, and the US has to deal with more and more bad news as they get strangled by a debt that surpasses $22,000,000,000,000. 22 trillion and no end in sight to turn it around, now that 5G is off to the races more bad news is given as the American and Nokia 5G solutions are decently inferior to the ones that China (Huawei has). The American overreaction is astounding and it comes with additional levels of humour. When we see an article by cyber security expert Zak Doffman in Forbes ‘Huawei ‘Slams FedEx Vendetta’ After Courier Refuses To Deliver P30 Phone To U.S.‘ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/23/huawei-slams-fedex-vendetta-after-courier-refuses-to-deliver-p30-phone-to-u-s) where we see: “Parcel returned by FedEx due to U.S. Government with Huawei and China Government—return to sender“, the humour is here as we also saw a month ago: ‘Drug traffickers’ favourite way to move fentanyl is FedEx and USPS‘, so Fedex can stop a Chinese mobile phones, yet is incapable of stopping drug traffickers. It has become that bad and for the life of me, the idea that that stupidity has grown to this degree at the moment has made me realise that pretty much my only option left is to offer my IP at 10% value to China as America clearly can no longer be trusted to stop the stupidity in its own ranks.

And it gets to be worse. Now we see: ‘The U.S. blacklists five Chinese supercomputer firms, including AMD joint venture THATIC‘ (at https://www.pcworld.com/article/3404464/the-us-blacklists-five-chinese-supercomputer-firms-including-amd-joint-venture-thatic.html). So as we are now introduced to ‘U.S. firms will be forbidden to do business with the companies‘ we are shown more than stupidity. I have been an avid fan of the segregation, isolation, and assassination triangle in tactics, but this is pretty much the first time in history that a nation is doing it to itself, implying that American bankruptcy is so close to the collapse that they need whatever they can to delay the collapse of their economy. I can never trust any government in that position to be honest about any trade it holds. Handing my IP over to China is perhaps the only option to get any decent amount of funds out of them, and I have to pay the rent at some point.

Do I care about these Chinese companies? Not really! Apart from my trusty Huawei mobile, I do not know any of them and there is no real reason to know or care about them, but the actions of America to the degree that they are doing it, like they are the biggest whoring bully on the block also implies that they can do it to anyone else and as I see it, there are plenty of UK (BT), Swedish (Ericsson), Finnish (Nokia) and other firms they can do this to when things do not go their way. They will come up with some kind of National security scheme like Finland is next to Russia or something like that. It is nice to advocate open and fair trade when you are the only one dealing (IBM, Microsoft) but that is no longer the case and Microsoft has become too self-indulgent as they screw up market after market just to push their Azure solution. America can no longer be trusted, that is the short and sweet of it, they know it and Americans know it too, but they are too desperate and there is no stopping a desperate bully who is about to no longer matter.

And the world is not ready for a bully like that. Japan is too deep into its own problems, Europe is desperate to avoid whatever recession comes next and the others have no independent voice. In all this India is as isolated as it gets and that takes 12.5% of the global population out of the equation. As the risk of a 2020 recession in Europe is nearing an almost certainty there is panic, there is panic on Wall Street because the 2020 recession will hit the US squarely in the chest during the elections, ending whatever small edge the Republicans have and it changes everything for them. The 2020 recession will be worse than ever because the ECB squandered their reserves on incentives and stimulus as there are no reserves left. The ECB, IMF and Wall Street all knew that this could come and the 5G hype was all about avoiding it so that the new economy could restart what was lost, but their lag against Chinese Technology vendors (read: mainly Huawei) is so large that it will help the Chinese economy, but the others will only get a fraction of the IP they do not own and that fallback (or non optional fallover) is a lot larger than some are willing to admit to.

Now the short sighted American bias against Huawei and China is hitting new heights as they try to isolate China, yet in the end they are isolating themselves as Europe is seeking another option, they are seeing the value of Chinese IP and they want alternatives, especially if it could delay or even turnover their own impending recession, in that scenario America will lose more and more because their own technology is flawed, untested and lacks innovation. It will hit Europe, whilst benefitting the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have signed up with China, America lost more than just weapon deals there.

What Cisco achieved with UTS in Sydney a decade ago is now happening in Qatar, Qatar University College of Engineering now has a similar deal with Huawei, implying that Qatar might be the first place where Huawei trained 5G engineers and innovators are born pushing 5G innovation. For Qatar this is more than good news, there is a first stage where Al Jazeera could become technologically more advanced than CNN, another blow to American pride and Al Jazeera is eager to really get there. They have miles to go, yet with 5G fully deployed they can do it in less than half the time we expect. All elements that push America back further and further. When I stated that this was a stupid move by America in 2018, I actually had no idea that they would lose to this degree, but at present they are and their decisions are making things worse not better.

As we see the first Huawei Authorised Information and Network Academy (HAINA) programme launched in Qatar, we also recognise that this will enable Saudi Arabia and the UAE more and more, so there might be a diplomatic stance ending the unfriendly border issues between the three and they will profit stronger and stronger.

There is absolute truth in the statement: “Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, said developing the technology capabilities of Qatar’s youth will have a significant impact on the smart evolution of society and country, contributing to the growth of Qatari economy. “Initiatives such as this one between Qatar University and Huawei demonstrate the power that cooperative action can have in shaping the future of a nation,” he remarked“, it still requires the foundation and the nurturing of how to grow innovation, yet I have seen again and again that the hungry will find alternatives to make food and Qatar is clearly famished at present.

And there is one more nightmare to face. You see if China gets any IP hands on anything that could replace x86 technologies, the US is truly done for. At present they will laugh, scream and make all the claims that an ego driven nation could make, but then there is the history. We have 1975 when Federico Faggin and 11 employees created the Z80, there was a small team led by Chuck Peddle who came up with the 6502, it hit Intel and Motorola hard, a chip at less than 15% of the cost of an Intel or a Motorola processor. It would fuel an industry that would sell well over 15 million computers in an age where computers were not popular. We recognise that America was the driver in all this, it drove RISC to be the factor for the creation of Summit, still the fastest Supercomputer in the world, yet now that China surpasses America in patents, they have the core to create a new age of computer technology. We see that from 2017 onwards the Huawei Mobile Phone is the personal server to have; the fact that it is a mobile is beside the point. My IP was a security pass on personal mobile servers and that is the foundation of the next decade. It is not the personal computer or desktop, there is still the laptop and Chromebooks (and likeminded devices) have the option to be the next power drivers, but Huawei has the hand with 4 aces, they have the foundation of mobile personal servers and it scares America. My idea for what would have been (optionally) the Google Tome was founded on that idea as I created a solution to stop the NHS collapsing. Now that most elements are with Huawei and Chinese operators, America actually matters less. Even as Microsoft is still screaming Azure (whenever they can), we see that there are other options that could do similar and could surpass Microsoft within 4 years, that realisation is scaring America to death. They have no options when that happens. Complacency got them there and the next generation of these so called ‘captains of industry‘ are holding a hand with a two and a seven and they are playing Texas hold’em. A proverbial Snake eyes for the craps dealer in the house, which is the setting and the stage they can no longer escape. It is where they are at and their overreaction merely shows their levels of desperation.

In 2021 we will see that not only will they have lost 5G to a crippling degree, the other players will fare even worse. If China gets a decent deal with Japan, America will have segregated itself, they isolated themselves as Europe and the Commonwealth will seek whatever keeps them afloat and at that point with the debt closer to $25 trillion, they will end up cutting their own wrists with all the uber wealthy Americans seeking sunny shores in their mega yachts. Suddenly places like the Riviera, Dubai, the Virgin Islands and Italy will be swamped with Americans who will be quiet as mice as they wait for America to reinvent itself in the span of 2-3 decades, and America needs to get lucky to do it that fast. As the world is set to the currency of IP and patents, it might take a whole lot longer than that.

When I decided to get my Master in IP in 2010 I knew that there was a change in the winds, it was the clearest in IT, but I saw how it would impact to a much larger degree, I saw the shift to mobile patents in 2012, and now I see the other shifts too. I feel certain of my view, I cannot tell how politicians will react because that too impacts the changing tides, but overall they seem to align to the need of greed too often as such, my predictions are more likely than not coming true. It’s a sad world, if only American firm had not been so lazy relying on iterative technology for a decade, things would be very different indeed.

To complete the change China really only needs three more innovative steps in 5G communication to make it certainty and turn these steps into nail to service the coffin that is America, with the Middle East in play, there is every chance that they will pull it off, the rest of us (the non-Americans) will need to decide on how that future serves us best, because that too is a choice we face, and we have to make it ourselves.

And if you were in doubt until now, the Wall Street Journal reported only hours ago: “U.S. President Donald Trump is looking to require next-generation 5G cellular equipment used in the United States to be designed and manufactured outside China, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.” So consider this quote really clearly: the entire China matter has been going on for weeks, yet yesterday we see that equipment is to be ‘designed and manufactured outside China’, a discriminatory tactic that shows that there was no clear tactic in play, and clearly the Americans are not up to scrap at present. What else was not anticipated on?

Someone fell of the wagon and others were unable to see the dangers clearly, The US still does not recognise that it has a real problem; the first stage of solving the problem is at present not met. Do you really need more convincing?

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Tagged as 5G, 6502 processor, Al Jazeera, America, China, Chuck Peddle, Dubai, ECB, Ericsson, Europe, Federico Faggin, FedEx, Finland, Forbes, Fortune, google, HAINA, Huawei, Huawei Authorised Information and Network Academy, IBM, IMF, Intellectual Property, Microsoft, Middle East, Nokia, Qatar, Qatar University College of Engineering, recession, RISC, Samsung Electronics, stimulus, Summit Supercomputer, Sweden, TechRadar, the Guardian, UAE, USA, USPTO, UTS, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, Z80, Zak Doffman

May 27, 2019 · 12:11

Yay or Nay

There is no escaping the EU elections, the issues are large and the anger in Europe is equally sizeable. In France Marine Le Pen has the lead with a little comfort, but not much. Still Macron got initially defeated (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/europe-election-results-france-marine-le-pen-macron-national-front-rally-latest-a8931361.html).

So even as National Rally is ahead by a fair bit with 24%, it is only 1.5% ahead which is comfortable but by no means a done deal at present. With “even slightly down on what the National Front won in 2014 – meaning the party has made little progress on previous years against an unpopular president” we see that Marine Le Pen is not set in stone, she will need powerful allies in the EU to get anything done and as we learn that “the Danish People’s Party and AfD have stood still or fallen back” it implies that she is already two allies down, and as we also see that at present the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (led by Nigel Farage) only has 54 seats (7.2%), and in all this her Dutch allies fall short by a lot, there the reversion to the old parties is remarkable, it is there that we see that the Forum for Democracy (Thierry Baudet) is seen as the joke it needs to be seen as. Although having 11% and the Dutch PVV (4.1%) shows that Geert Wilders is pretty much done for. Dutch Labour took 18%, with the classical parties VVD (15%) and CDA (12.3%) together they are taking a little over 45%, when they get the Greens on board, the majority is a fact and the other two are out of consideration. The independent also shines light on something I noticed earlier in Australia. It seems that the Greens and their choices are having an impact on Global scales. The Green parties have made remarkable strides in the Netherlands (Groen Links), the Greens in the UK and in France (Europe Eologie-Les Verts) are now a European force to be reckoned with, a shift I actually never expected. As we see that in several places their growth is almost everywhere (where it matters that is) is a 10% growth, it requires us to look into it, these are the voices of the people and even as I am a Brexiteer, I will not ignore the Green view when it grows that fast. I have always given support and specifics on why I am a Brexiteer and I understand that plenty of people have another view, so when we see such a shift it is important to examine the optional why. I refuse to give in to some ‘voting fraud’ BS story. Yes, there will be voting fraud, but the optional 322 fraudulent votes do not add up in a place where 675 million people are eligible to vote. Only a complete fool will set weight to 0.000477% to invalidate any election (I guess that there is a chance that Dutch Thierry Baudet will do just that soon enough).

I am actually willing to speculate that for every Brexiteer there is a person who thought that Brexit was too extreme and pushed towards Greens, other opposed UKIP and went LibDem (a wisdom that is definitely debatable), which is my personal sense of humour that is kicking in. I made notice on this in the last election. I wrote about that in ‘On the purple side‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/05/26/on-the-purple-side/) in May 2017. When I dug into the numbers that the Guardian had, I noticed that “a lot of UKIP and Labour are too uncomfortable with the conservative view“, The numbers showed that the shift when Tories were number one, that the growth went to either Ukip or LibDems and they were almost always mutually exclusive, Where LibDems ‘ruled’ there was a diminished Ukip and vice versa, which was an interesting side to see. I believe that this trend has continued, which is why the LibDems surpassed Labor, Greens and Tories, for a lot Brexit was too extreme and they went LibDem instead. How this will work out in the next national election remains to be seen. In this case it will depend on what the Brexit party actually achieves and so far the EU elections do not give them too much to work with. Nigel might have Marine Le Pen in his corner, but with the Dutch, Danes and Germans absent in this, they lack the seats to get anything concrete done, which would have been essential if the Brexit party would be growing a national impact. On the plus side Jeremy Corbyn got kicked out of London, so there is still another reason to party and when we are confronted with that result we see a reason to have a milestone party, even if that milestone has a LibDem flag firmly planted on it.

We cannot tell what Vince Cable will do next, but today he gets to party, he has earned it and he should. It has been a while since any political leader went out on a high note, just ask Theresa May, and as I see it the win for the LibDem will be the hardest challenge for whomever succeeds Vince, keeping the votes will be a large task, even as Jeremy and Theresa are on the way out (Jeremy Corbyn is in denial of that part for now by his intent to be monitoring workplace humour), their infighting implies that either party will not be out for LibDem blood, but that might not be for as long as the LibDems hope for.

In the meantime just to appease Jeremy Corbyn: ‘How many managers does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they are not qualified‘, monitor that Mr Corbyn!

In recognition

So if I am such a Brexit fan, why am I not angry at the defeat? I believe in democracy, if Bremain would have initially won, I could have lived with it, because we are all for the most democracies (except Turkey at present). The issue was that the Bremain groups were complacent, ignoring the danger, and when they lost the fear mongering began. I will revisit certain articles form then and highlight the big business connections whenever possible. The EU facilitates to big business, only the delusional highlight laws and proclaim that the butcher and grocer at the corner benefits. It all benefits the Tesco’s and large providers, it makes the multi-millionaires and billionaires richer, the rest still end up with a diminished quality of life and for them the EU has had a close to zero impact, but they all share in three trillion in debt that the ECB hands over and the chosen (not elected) individuals walk away with enough coin to live in luxury for the rest of their life. That was the biggest issue and so far no serious attempt has been made to cull that problem. Earlier this month when the Irish Examiner (at https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/ourview/pay-for-meps-time-to-halt-the-gravy-train-922371.html) to the small fact of “outgoing Cork MEP Brian Crowley — whose health condition has prevented him from attending the parliament since the last election, in 2014 — will be entitled to severance payments of more than €350,000 and a €1.4m pension package“, so basically the man has not done his job (for 5 years) and gets a £1,541,000 package? Most people have to take a medical to proof that they are good enough to work in a bar at £7.90 an hour, as such, when you are in denial regarding the gravy train, think again. It is one of the larger supporting reasons to be on the Brexit side. A group of people who basically cost a lot and in the end do not bring that much to the table. And it is not merely their income; it is all the extra facilitation and expenses that are the much larger problem, an issue that the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/mep-expenses-eu-court-ruling) gave some visibility to. So when we see: “Details of MEPs’ €4,416-a-month expenses to remain secret“, whilst the larger issue is seen when we consider that besides that part, there is also: “Members of the European parliament are paid €8,611.31 (£7,705) a month in gross salary, plus pension. On leaving the parliament they receive a golden parachute, a transition allowance worth up to €206,664, depending on length of service“, which makes partial sense to some degree, yet a ‘transition allowance?‘ We usually get fired or we’re on a contract with a known end date, for a European MEP that is optionally the next election. And it is not one, it is a setting of 751 members and to some degree their staff will also be offered some expenses (which is fair enough).

So when you consider where your money went (besides the unacceptable 3 trillion in debt from the ECB, there you have it and the entire EU gets to pay for all that, so how useful is the EU for non-huge corporations in the end? I accept that there is a positive part in the EU, but it is one that comes at too high a price and that should have been central, but it is ignored to a much larger extent and now that the election are over and the new wave of keep the EU intact continues, yet even as we all bitch on expenses and nothing is done, I feel that Brexit was the only option, I wonder if it will ever actually happen and if we are on the final nose length to enable Brexit what false promises will we see from Brussels and what will actually be done about it all.

I am not optimistic at present, and I have every reason not to be optimistic any day soon.

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Tagged as AfD, Bremain, Brexit Party, Brian Crowley, CDA, Cork, Danish People Party, ECB, Eu, EU elections, Europe Eologie-Les Verts, Forum for Democracy, France, Geert Wilders, Irish examiner, Jeremy Corbyn, LibDems, Liberal Democrats, Marine Le Pen, Netherlands, Nigel Farage, PVV, Theresa May, Thierry Baudet, UK, Vince Cable, VVD

May 24, 2019 · 12:09

When the media decides not to tell us

This has been a subject that has been a focal point for me for a while now. The first instance When I got a clear indication was in 2012 when the media on a global scale decided not to inform the people on actions that Sony had taken. The gaming stage for 35 million consumers was changed almost overnight, yet the media trivialised it to the largest degree. It was then that I decided to keep tapping the pulse to see what else was going on.

You will have heard about the issues in Yemen and that the Arabian coalition led by Saudi Arabia is part of this. That you know, but for the longest time, the involvement of Iran and the terrorist organisation Hezbollah was downplayed to a much larger degree, and no one seems to be looking at that part.

In the last 24 hours we were shown to a much larger degree on the dangers that the civil population of Saudi Arabia presently faces (around that airport mind you).

Reuters

Reuters gave us 9 hours ago: ‘Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Saudi’s Najran airport by drone‘. the article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-drone/yemens-houthis-say-they-attacked-saudis-najran-airport-by-drone-idUSKCN1ST1HJ) gives us both: “Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement on Thursday launched a drone attack on a Patriot missile battery in the airport of the Saudi city of Najran near the Yemeni border” and “The group claimed responsibility for last week’s armed drone strikes on oil assets in Saudi Arabia and on Sunday said they would attack 300 vital military targets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen“, so far nothing really new, other than this is the third attack in a week. When we consider “Najran regional airport is used by thousands of civilians daily” we see a stage where another part is now making entry, but about that more shortly.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera gives us ‘Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack Saudi’s Najran airport – again‘ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/yemen-houthi-rebels-attack-saudi-najran-airport-190523140308211.html), where we are treated to: “The group’s Al Masirah TV reported the drone attack on Thursday came as the Houthis said they would step up their offensive against Saudi targets“, as well as “An explosive-laden drone sent by the terrorist Houthi militia to target Najran airport – which is used by thousands of civilians daily – was intercepted and destroyed by the Saudi air force“. This news is mostly on par, we see the small addition by Colonel Turki al-Maliki that there would be a response but did not elaborate on any details.

I think that we can agree that Reuters and Al Jazeera are regarded as sources of integrity. it is news that so far has always been regarded as trustworthy.

So why is it that this news did not make it to the BBC, yet we were given headlines like ‘PSG boss Al-Khelaifi charged with athletics corruption‘ and ‘Egypt releases students held after exams protests‘. I am not stating that those headlines should not have been there, it is regarded as news, but the attack on civilians by Houthi forces was kept out of the news and that is a little weird, especially as the news on a global level had been slamming Saudi Arabia again and again. The guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post, none of them had it. Yet the Washington Post was eager to report: “In addition to suffering the reputational problems of delivering deadly weapons to governments that clearly misuse them, U.S. defense firms should exercise extreme caution that they are not opening themselves, their officers, and their employees to criminal and civil liability by exporting weapons pursuant to potentially invalid licenses“, it seems interesting that Democrat Robert Menendez was willing to sidestep drone strikes on civil targets at the drop of a hat. In addition, that article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-may-sidestep-congress-on-saudi-arms-deal-drawing-fresh-warnings-from-republicans-and-democrats/2019/05/23/ca4af24e-7d96-11e9-8ede-f4abf521ef17_story.html) also gives us “anxious to protect their authority to have a say on the executive branch’s ability to export lethal weaponry to foreign actors“, the operative ‘foreign actors‘, instead of ‘foreign government‘, this was written by an intelligent person, I accept that and that this is to set the consumer and voting state is also accepted, yet when a newspaper relies on ‘Democracy dies in darkness‘ and it is only giving you part of the information, is that not an equal attack on democracy? when readers are misinformed by only partially informing them, is that not (in the eyes of some people) the larger crime in all this?

The large papers have almost all omitted that part at the moment, and they are not alone, Deutsche Welle, NOS, Swedish news sources, they are all missing out on the Houthi attack, as well as the fact that in most cases the involvement of Iran remains unmentioned in many of the cases. When sources on TV and online are happy to quote President Trump stating: “I’m an extremely stable genius. OK?” (From my point of view absolutely nothing in that sentence was true), and we are not given the attacks on civilians from one side, we need to take a deeper look at the media and why they are given rights when they do it to march all over democracy.

So when we accept that any democracy gives us: “In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue” and we see that we are not given the actual facts of ‘each issue‘, can we consider to agree that what was once a democracy optionally no longer is one?

The media has been about facilitation towards the big companies for too long, it is time to hold the media owners to account, it is the setting where we see that a democracy has turned into an oligarchy, it is the easiest to achieve in a republic setting, as corporations have a lot more power, in a monarchy that is a lot harder to achieve, but the power players in any Oligarchy achieve that by controlling the media and that is what is seemingly happening on a very large scale. It is time that we shine large lights on that part of the equation before the people to the largest degree no longer have any say in the matter. The EU is the best example (they have no hold or any say on the matters pushed for by the ECB), and it is there that we see the failing of democracy and some players are better out than in.

Even as the ECB is only now (after months of assurances that the Euro was looking up) giving the media “European Central Bank policymakers are concerned that economic growth in the euro zone is even weaker than feared“, as well as the Washington Post that gives us (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-3-trillion-bond-beast-runs-the-show-in-europe/2019/05/23/db45efa6-7d35-11e9-b1f3-b233fe5811ef_story.html), when we see the headline that I have spoken about for almost 2 years ‘A $3 Trillion Bond Beast Runs the Show in Europe‘, giving the ECB ruling on EU matters, the EU called a democracy now run by non-elected officials not accountable for their actions, whilst they pushed for that debt. That should be regarded that the EU has moved from so called Democracy into Oligarchy and the media stays silent, they need the ECB to feed them for circulation.

The media decided to sway the story, they decided not to tell us and people wonder why Brexit is the only remaining way out? I as a Brexiteer prefer a stage so that people can be held to account, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP) can be held to account, and Mario Draghi President of the ECB cannot. The world is in a dangerous stage and the few that have hold on the media stay out of the spotlight for all the reasons that they consider to be right, do you agree?

I certainly don’t, not with this much evidence out in the open.

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