Tag Archives: Eu

February 21, 2022 · 04:59

The presumption is mine

There is a setting that does not agree with me and I have seen this before. Yet before I do that there are two words we need to look at. The first one is speculation, it means ‘the activity of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain’, then there is presumption ‘the ground, reason, or evidence lending probability to a belief’. So one is a guess, the other is an educated guess. It is always stronger than a guess, but it is till lacking certain levels of evidence and that is important to know.

This all started as I was just unwinding of several (too many) hours playing Horizons 2: Forbidden West. I started that second play-through without completing the first. I did this with the first game. You see, Eloy needs power and skill and running after the main quest (something I erroneously did in the first game) will not do it. You need skill points and the game is large, really really large and when you start finding adversaries that are (on land) a lot bigger than you think you will be either running for your life or running for cover. Those who go meet the challenge head on are shredded. Yet I digress (or do I)?

The Guardian gives us (at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/20/credit-suisse-secrets-leak-unmasks-criminals-fraudsters-corrupt-politicians) where we see ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’. There Is one problem. You see I do not think that this is happening, the Guardian was a happy tool just to get the exclusive. So as we are given:

Massive leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank
Whistleblower leaked bank’s data to expose ‘immoral’ secrecy laws
Clients included human trafficker and billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder
Vatican-owned account used to spend €350m in allegedly fraudulent investment
Scandal-hit Credit Suisse rejects allegations it may be ‘rogue bank’

You see, my issue is that just like the ICIJ Pandora papers farce, this is an orchestration. I cannot say by who, we can point towards the NSA or a likeminded player (GCHQ), but the setting is larger. The US and EU are close to bankrupt, they play a nice tune, but the musical instrument has not been tuned for too long. A debt surpassing $30,000,000,000,000 and the EU is set to be in debt for about €10,973,338,444,376. They need to do something and going after some specific people is a first need. You cannot overhaul finances until certain ‘progressive entrepreneurs’ (aka white collar criminals) are dealt with ad the courts take too long, the problem is two fold. In the first the ICIJ was all about tantrums and BS, not much real useful info. We saw the accusations here and there with added ‘No actual laws were broken’ additions and it was a farce from beginning to end. Basic intelligence gathering acts were ignored, basic dashboarding was cast aside, and after 304 messages I know it was a wash. It was all about the power towards a ‘tax the rich’ flame which was happily drowned in whatever they used. Now we see the scolding of Credit Suisse and there are two parts here: 

  1. In the first they are accusations, so there will be a time gap, not a short one either. But it will be a message to ALL other banks that certain people have had enough.
  2. We see “billionaire who ordered girlfriend’s murder”, which might be fine, but which of the 2,755 billionaires was it? Well, the article gives us “his Lebanese pop star girlfriend”, so it might not be that hard. 

The issue is not the article perse, it is “A massive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn) held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions.”

Let me take you through the numbers. There is not one employee that has access to the 30,000 accounts, so it is the CEO, CTO, CFO, or something like that. Do you think that they are the whistleblower? Nope? Neither do I! Then there is the IT, but Credit Suisse is global, so it we get back to the CTO. One IT person does not have this kind of access without getting caught. This level of data has all kinds of security. It needs to have it. Then there is the inside part Who is the drug trafficker? Who is the corrupt? Who is the torturer? This is not set into an account, it requires data aggregation, something a way to large computer can do but leakers tend to now have that access, without getting caught. And the Swiss laws are strict, massively strict so there is doubt on the stage of “held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions” as well. The levels of security and insight cannot come from a leaker, just like with the Pandora papers. I stated that from the beginning. This was a state operator and the NSA is the most likely culprit. The USA is in too much debt, it needs to release pressures and they are out of options. So when the ICIJ strikes out, we get this. 

I have worked in data for decades and I have had less then 5 instances where I had national levels of data access, but I was monitored all the time (as one does), one protects the data it has. And I was able to do my job and aid the people involved. In an age of data being currency, do you think this is some leak? An £80bn leak no less? Then there is “leak reveals secret owners of £80bn held in Swiss bank”, a bullshit header if ever there was one. You see Swiss bank laws are strict, very strict and have been for a very long time but someone wants access and a leak would never reveal that. Such information can only come from state players, players with aggregated data on a very large level and there is every indication that the dat did not come from the bank but from other sources who transferred the funds from one to the other. The setting of ‘Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians’ debunked in mere minutes. It took me at least 4 times longer to type this all. And when we get one example where the article is so ‘huge’, we get “the leaked Credit Suisse data shows his accounts were left open until at least well into the last decade. At one point after he left Siemens, one account was worth 54m CHF (£24m). Seidel’s lawyer declined to say whether the accounts were his. He said his client had addressed all outstanding matters relating to his bribery offences and wished to move on with his life”, as well as “The lawyer did not respond to repeated invitations to explain the source of the 54m CHF. Siemens said it did not know about the money and that its review of its own cashflows shed no light on the account”, so all that space on what amounts to 0.03% of the entire amount. Just like the ICIJ, shortsighted and a waste of time. So we get repeated invitations to explain 0.03% of what is such a massive leak? Is anyone waking up yet? 

This is about something else, it always was and in this the Guardian is allowing themselves (yet again) to be the tool in all this. It is not rocket science and it took me minutes to debunk a setting that is intentionally being misrepresented by 5 writers, I did this all alone in less then an hour (including the writing), so what fairy tale will the newspapers (via a state actor) serve up next?

Charging in full frontal will get some state players shredded, so they decided on the Eloy solution, illuminate from the tall grass and stay out of sight, plenty of players eager to take that limelight.

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February 18, 2022 · 19:23

Unintentional?

Whilst playing a game (Horizon 2, Forbidden West) my mind was drawn into a setting I have not openly done before. In the intro part we are (optionally) drawn into the conflict of intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness. A thief preventing theft is the clue (not giving away anything. But consider that I consider Microsoft to have shown (several times) the application of intentional shortsightedness. This goes back from the Xbox One and after. For whatever reason they did this, they set up intentional shortsightedness on storage for the longest time (since 2011).  And I have scolded them for it, I could do so because their competitor (Sony) set up an option where it could be solved. They did this in the PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. Microsoft since the Xbox One avoided that and only now (2020) offered another option, I reckon because they could no longer avoid that. Now we see streaming and I warned about congestion, the setting in the UK is now “UK’s biggest network operator, might soon become its biggest 5G provider. EE currently has 5G live in the UK in 160 places and plans to cover the whole country by 2028.” So proper national 5G in the UK by 2028, implying congestion in a lot of rural places. Europe and the US are in no better state. There we see “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service”, yet 4G LTE and 5G are not the same, in no uncertain way! So we see an industry who is hiding behind  shortsightedness to leave one third in the dark and that applies to the UK, US and Europe. 1/3rd is not worthy to be properly connected and in that we see a problem, it will taint streaming systems (and it works for Sony in no small way too). But I am not here pleading for Sony, I am here pleading for gamers.

The game gives us the stage of unintentional shortsightedness, because can we predict what happens or what is needed in 1000 years? Of course not, but the clarity we could see in 2011 was addressed by one and not the other, that makes it intentional. They cannot hide behind ‘We did not see that coming’ because nearly all could see it coming a mile away. Some hid behind what would expected to come (trade agreements) and someone boasted his trumpet too soon and the brand suffered, the other one made a video of one person handing a disc to another person and made short of the situation, but they too hoped for change and it is seen in there terms of service, the media largely ignored it whoring for digital dollars, but they too are guilty. 

These are all stages of intentional shortsightedness. So when does it become unintentional shortsightedness? Because of the filtered business approach, the approach of common sense or the approach of what a board of directors stipulates? I honestly do not know. I am willing to go with common sense, but common sense and business sense are not aligned, or better stated they are more often not aligned than aligned. There is the stage of common sense versus service level agreements, there is the stage of common sense and dependancy of suppliers and there are a few other stages. Yet if the the UK is any indication, the delay to national 5G (real 5G) until 2028 sets a much larger premise. The ability to offer 5G solutions and 5G added abilities to a nation when it needs to rely on other means. It is (as I personally see it) as the 80’s setting that Dutch Luc Sala stated as the have’s versus the have not’s and it is coming to actual deployment in the next 5 years and not merely in the Netherlands, it will be seen on the global stage. A stage of technological discrimination, the problem is to see the difference between intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness, because even as a game brings it to the forefront, this stage has been deploying for close to 3 years and if you want to refresh your information (I stated it several times) at present only Saudi Arabia has a national deployed 5G network, and it is more than that it is merely 700% faster than the US, it is a nation that took serious steps to make its nation 5G and over the next 5 years it might get a lot more benefits in its wake than any other player. South Korea might have an advantage as well, but that will be seen over the next 2 years. A stage that we saw coming a mile away, so is it at that point intentional or unintentional shortsightedness? I will let you decide. But the lack of services that we will see pop up all over whilst some providers hide behind ‘It works fine under 4G LTE’ and whilst the media keeps n ignoring certain steps should inspire you to seek out the real information bringers and make sure that the media starts operating less under the appeasing structure and more supported by the common sense pillar. 

Just to recap the important setting “In theory, 5G is likely to reach speeds that are 20 times faster than 4G LTE. 4G LTE has a peak speed of 1GB per second; 5G could theoretically achieve speeds of 20GB per second. … But where you might get 10Mb per second from your 4G network today, 5G could possibly provide 100MB per second everyday speeds”, so it becomes the “Do you really need 20GB per second?” And you think you are swayed, but the part ignored is that banks and others can have 20 times the transactions, so when you are in a bidding war and you will (nearly) always be missing out on a bid, it becomes the option where those who have will get the goods, those who have not will miss out on the goods. Transactions that are 20 times faster, the seesaw in a truly unbalanced stage. Consider your business where the information is brought to you at 5% speed, how appealing is that to some?

All matters that were out in the open for 4-6 years, now slowly pressing on your business, on your home, on your gaming and on your stream speed. You really think I was kidding when I saw congestion as the next big evil coming to your front door? So when short sighted people give you (on June 4th 2018) ‘NBN chief blames online ‘gamers predominantly’ for fixed wireless congestion’ and whilst we see see “The fixed wireless component of the NBN covers approximately 600,000 Australian homes. 234,000 homes are currently connected.” The larger ignored setting is that “streaming 4K video can use as much as 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour”, a clear setting of intentional shortsightedness, as (Australian) Netflix users surpassed 11,000,000 the Q1 2019, as such we see a massive cluster of shortsightedness. The issue here is prediction when does prediction become intentional? I cannot tell and Covid changed the metrics by a lot, but the levels of congestion were clear, they were clear before covid (2018), there are cogs that are connected, but I can tell you right now, that those claiming to see the difference can not always tell (including me), but I saw a lot of the factors upfront and I blogged them at the time since before covid. As such I feel that I have proven that a lot of unintentional shortsightedness was indeed intentional shortsightedness. Yes, I agree that some cases can be made in a few directions, but not all and too many points were unattended by too many industrials, and not merely in one nation, but near global and in the upcoming 5G commercial wars it will give raise to several failings that we are bound to see in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps suddenly the issues I raised in the streaming wars are a little less innocent, especially from the view of some of the industrials as they gave them. Consider some ‘stream’ presentation and consider who in the end they are really for.

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February 7, 2022 · 15:21

Relaunching IP

It is a thought plenty of people have and I am no exception. I was contemplating things and then I realised in light of the news I covered in the last week that educating people is always better than telling them how it is. Some people are afraid that THEIR thoughts are all, but I am not the most intelligent person on the planet. I am more intelligent than mot and my IQ is around two point short from the setting that Alan Turing had, so I have that to sulk about. But the station to educate others, to teach them where to look and what to look for remains appealing. So there I was sitting and contemplating an old master called the Balance of Power. I had bought the game on the Atari ST and I loved it. The game was a little shallow, but it was new, it had never been done before and as such it kept my attention for a long time. 

Wouldn’t it be great if someone picked up that idea and turned it into something serious? No longer a mere US versus Russia, but geopolitical field that included espionage. The US, EU, Middle East (Iran or Saudi Arabia), Russia, China and Japan? Consider that we have ‘quotes’ like “Problem analysis is the process of understanding real-world problems and user’s needs and proposing solutions to meet those needs. The goal of problem analysis is to gain a better understanding of the problem being solved before developing a solution”, and there is massive support to consider. There is J. J. A. Tacq who gave us Social Science Research From Problem to Analysis (1997), there is From Secrets to Policy by Mark Lowenthal which is now in its 8th edition. Foundational materials that makes us think and consider a much larger picture. There are economic works that could help creating understanding. Even if one book gets implemented in that game it becomes a whole new beast and to get the kitty turned into a behemoth that scares every tiger in Asia work needs to be done. But the game that was meant for a 640Kb Computer now gets 10,000 times the resources and has a setting of a massive data warehouse that could enable larger prototyping than ever considered before. I see some bloggers (journalists too) working the same equation again and again, all whilst they could create something much more explanatory and insightful for all readers. Some might not care and that is OK, yet the Balance of power had appeal to a fair amount of gamers and I believe even now in a new generational setting I believe that this appeal will still be there. And the benefit of streaming implies that you can try and you can see how the pawns fall down, the rooks optionally stand up and the political board shows a lot more than you ever considered. 

We seem to think that old is gone, but games and simulators were more advanced because they overcame memory obstacles, I reckon that some programs can still make us turn out heads, especially when some of these programs were created with the limitations that 1985 had and considering that my Abandonware gave the game 4.6 out of 5 gives another reason to consider what was out there. And let’s face it, what do you have to lose?

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February 7, 2022 · 08:10

The street we know

It is a different setting, we tend to relate to the streets we tend to know. Any technology is set upon a familiar setting. The benefit is that we know where we are and as such we get to where we think we want to go faster. The negative part is that this is a problem when it is true innovation, we cannot continue an iterative line if we want true innovation. 

So when I saw ‘Saudi Arabia announces $6.4 billion investments in future tech’ (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/saudi-arabia-announces-64-billion-investments-future-tech-2022-02-01/) I took notice last week but merely that, it was to be expected. So when I looked at it again this morning, I noticed “include a $2 billion joint venture between eWTP Arabia Capital, a fund backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Alibaba, and China’s J&T Express Group, minister Abdullah Alswaha said”, I had overlooked that initially. But it makes sense, as ties with China grow, the Chinese IT sector would come in. It spells bad news for the US, for Amazon in particular. The options that were there are shrinking, they are not gone, but China is now in position to take the cream from the barrel and become the new fat cats. My IP still has options, but it might not go the highway I had hoped for (we all have that), still I do have the innovation advantage and when others fail I can step in. 

There is another side, a side that Amazon had in hands, you see with Neom and Vision2030 Amazon had a larger option if there was a data centre in Saudi Arabia, not a simple online store, but a real data centre, they would need one for a few reasons and even as the media gives us “showing its continued business interests there despite a public dispute between Riyadh and the company’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos”, we can see the hindrance there, we can see that there are issues (I am ignoring the FTI Consulting issues here), but in a larger stake worth billions, the need to find solutions are clear for Amazon. They could walk away and leave it all to AliBaba and the J&T Express Group yet who profits then? Not Amazon, not the US and it is another spark that goes into the direction of China. It is a problem for the US for two reasons. The first one is simple revenue, the US desperately needs that. The second one might not be that clear. You see Saudi Arabia has at present a full fletched 5G network, so those there can do all kinds of prototyping to a much larger extend and see the impact of congestion in a complete 5G network. You see at present we see assumptions via 4G LTE and other settings, this implies that other issues will not be captured when things go wrong. And with all the transgressions we have seen in 2020 and 2021 these systems need proper adjustment. Saudi Arabia has the advantage and now it seems so does China (outside of China), another step not to the advantage of the west (as expressions go), so how many steps do we all need to fall behind before people take this disadvantaged setting seriously?

Even now, the aftermath of Davos will be in favour of both Saudi Arabia and China. Al Jazeera reported “Observers see the high-profile conference as a way for the kingdom to redeem itself in the eyes of US President Joe Biden and the wider international community”, yet my question becomes ‘Why?’ You see, the EU and the US have shown themselves to be unreliable, all setting concepts to presentation in stead of evidence. Now that China is showing themselves to be a much larger player and a willing player could spell a massive loss in revenue. 3 billion here, 6.4 billion there, and several more billions left, right and hither. How much longer until we face the direction that we are losing out? Now this would not be a problem when we have alternatives, but there aren’t that many are there? And consider that one side gives us ‘Deficit shrinks in the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency’ (around $500,000,000,000 less loss), it is a joke when you consider that the deficit is still $2,500,000,000,000,000. And less than a months later the people are given ‘Biden’s $1.7trn social policy will send deficit soaring’, it is another setting of managing bd news and on top of that they lose revenue option after revenue option. So how does that look? The US debt has now surpassed $30,000,000,000,000,000, you have that kind of money? I do not and none of the others have it and an additional problem for the US is that the EU wants to dig into the Saudi revenue pie as well, yet at present China has the upper hand. A setting we ignore because we are lulled to sleep, and that time is gone, when the US debt comes crashing down the EU will join a massive loss and no amount of promise will aid anyone at that point. All because certain players underestimated the impact of innovation and innovation like some are marketing it is not innovation, it is a presentation nothing more. We all tend to keep to the street we know but when that street is on fire, will you merely stop the fire or see what resources are available in the next street? 

China did just that and now we see the fallout of political stupidity. Oh, and when Iran does not come across with promises that they made to some middle man, when the unfortunate adjustments come, the middle man will not care, he got his oil barrel bonus, he is just fine, but those who were behind it will get to say ‘Oops!’ Just as I expected them to do. At that point we will see another advantage to China, good going! And what happens in May/June when Iran has enough nuclear materials? What then?

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February 6, 2022 · 20:38

Time on my side

Yes, this is what it seems to be and there are no rolling stones going my way. I saw the news yesterday, but I was busy with a few other parts. So when I recall ‘Early Christmas for China’ on January 10th and ‘Just like the moon’ on September 20th 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/20/just-like-the-moon/), there were even a few more mentions before that and people called me nuts, I was talking like Mr. Serious Hit. And now we see the continuation in the Business Insider with ‘As Biden struggles to define his relationship with Saudi Arabia, China is stepping in to fill the gap’ (at https://www.businessinsider.com/china-saudi-strengthen-ties-biden-struggles-define-mbs-relationship-2022-1). A stage that was out in the open, a setting where China is now ready to set the caper to take billions from the EU and the US and direct it towards China. I stated it before and now we see the mention of “In recent months, China and Saudi Arabia have grown closer, establishing new fronts of cooperation in defence and trade.” A setting that could cost the two dumb parties (EU and US) hundreds of billions. So where do you think they will get the heating relief for? How does it look when the BAE has a good system but these tea grannies protesting on behalf of the CAAT are now the cause of prolonging the UK hardship for another decade, well done ladies! A perfect setting where you had no clue what you were talking about in the first place. 

So whilst we take consideration of “Saudi Arabia has long been China’s biggest trade partner in the Middle East — Saudi goods accounted for 17% of Chinese imports in 2021”, yet that is not really the real deal, it is when Saudi Arabia extends towards 25% of Chinese imports to include defence materials and optionally consultation you will see a much larger change. You see, The UAE will be invited for a special tour, Oman and Bahrain perhaps too and someone from Egypt. That is the moment when the EU and the US needs to fear the impact of reduced revenue as well as losing a political ground. You see these people were listening because the US was bringing them stuff, when that falls away the political ground changes. It is the application of money talks, bullshit walks. Political people will call it ‘A complex situation that is being monitored and looked at in conjunction with the state department and others to see what we can achieve’, but the people around that setting will have their own version of applied stupidity in politics. It was always simple. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to defend itself from future attacks from Iran and the politicians in Eu and US have done EVERYTHING to trivialise that and now another step (by China) is being made to approach Saudi Arabia. That implies that the ball is no longer on the US side, it is on the other side and is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia decides to lob it towards China the US will lose more than 3-5 years of decent revenue. They will have to sell to nations that do not have the cash, their credit cards are strapped as such larger discounts will be required. The UK is in no better setting, they will lose less, but they stand to lose a massive amount of cash that was meant for the British coffers that pays for all that can soon no longer be afforded. 

So whilst Chinese President Xi Jinping sings to the record of the Rolling Stones singing ‘Time is on my side’ in the halls of the Presidential Palace in Nanjing, the people who hear it will realise that the US is now in a stage where the debt surpassed $30,000,000,000,000 and the incoming revenue is decreasing. The EU might not be in such a setting yet, but both the EU and UK will see that life will become harder soon enough. All because alleged individuals decided to dance to the needs of Iran, well played, stupid, but well done. Perhaps you will get a Harrods Christmas hamper from China. 

Oh and the fact that I saw this months ago was not future prediction, it was the simple approach towards logic; there were always two alternatives and China got there faster and more convincingly.

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January 29, 2022 · 13:01

That one flaky promise

This story get you from Reuters. It was the article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-highlight-manufacturing-jobs-gdp-growth-pittsburgh-2022-01-28/) giving us ‘Biden visits Pittsburgh bridge collapse, vows more U.S. investment’, so how is this going to get done? We think it is a simple exercise, but in reality it is one of the hardest and it is seemingly going to infrastructure, which has close to zero return in investment. Making the exercise even harder.

So how did I get there?
In the first this is not specifically against President Biden. He inherited a debt from both the Democratic isle and the Republican isle, both sides are equally guilty and consider that the US last had a surplus in the Clinton Era (1993 to 2001) and 8 months later the World Trade Centre went down. At present the US has a debt that is now $29,800,000,000,000. It will hit $30 trillion in a weeks time. So how does one invest more when the debt is 30 trillion? It is a simple enough question and with the interests going up, the US will not be able to make interest payments in the next quarter. Yes, they will pull a rabbit out of a hat and some weird accounting principle will used to borrow $999,999,999 from 100 sources so that they can pass it without opposition, but that tends to be the final straw, the final nail in a coffin called economy. Consider that the UK only has a £2,000,000,000,000 debt and we saw only a few days ago that they are now staring at inflation giving them “£8.1bn last month – up from £2.7bn a year earlier” (source: BBC). It is a 300% increase due to inflation. So at what point does the US (Japan too) feel the brunt of $89.4Bn against the expected $29.8Bn (speculated interest numbers)? Now I cannot vouch what the actual numbers are, but if inflation hits the UK, it will hit the US as well, the nice part of setting debt to equal levels (EU, US, JPN) implies that debt interest will grow on near equal terms and the US is in it too deep. So how will the Biden administration invest more? There is no money left and infrastructure has been getting slammed for 2 decades now and as previous administrations did not do nearly enough, present and future administrations need to do more whilst there is no money left. 

So whilst we see the setting of a tragedy in Pittsburgh, it is in no way the proper setting of a fairy tale, because that is what I personally believe that the Biden administration is trying to sell. I would be delighted to be wrong, I truly do. Yet in the light of debt and interest all whilst US taxation got the US $3.46 trillion (actual 2019) and $3.71 trillion (estimated 2020), now consider that in 2021 the deficit will grow by $3,000,000,000,000 all whilst the additional interest payments will grow too. So the setting of a $6,800,000,000,000 budget that is close to 50% short of what is collected, so how exactly will these so called US investments be done? How can you invest in something you have no cash for?

Is the image too blurry or are you starting to see the greater picture? And now we see the dangers that the US is close to no options left but to take control of US set USPTO patents and IP’s. The US can only continue by setting US based IP to government leverage. So does it now make sense that I prefer my IP to remain in the Commonwealth? The EU an optional second choice? The smaller IP owners will soon feel the dangerous breath of a ‘social’ minded government to ‘share’ their IP with all Americans, all whilst their government will spend money they never had. I am on the ‘screw that idea’ mindset and prefer my IP to remain solidly within the Commonwealth. Thank you very much. 

So when that prediction come to term and when the brain-drain in the US does happen (still speculatively) what will the US have left to pay for the bills they have. 

And if you wonder if Wall Street pays for that, consider that they will have a 96 hour window to get the hell out of there with whatever portable wealth they have, and my guess is that they have been setting up nesting eggs in every zero tax place that they can call home next. The Wall Street Journal reported on this on December 10th 2021. There we see “thousands of millionaires have relocated to the city and the wider United Arab Emirates, drawn by zero income tax and relatively relaxed pandemic restrictions. The city’s bars, restaurants and hotels are packed, real-estate prices have surged, workers are returning to offices”, it is the first wave of what I think will be a growing wave all over the zero tax places. Let’s be clear, this is my speculative view, because people are increasingly eating oranges does mean they stop eating apples, but if a certain group gets loaded on one fruit there is a decent speculation that other fruits will not or at least less eaten. There is a wave and it is starting almost exactly around the time I predicted it to happen to some degree in 2014. There were doubts, but we were heading in this way and now we are almost there. And those economists who called me raving mad? Weird, I have not seen them around for some time. I wonder why? 

Just in case, do not just believe me, do not trust me (trust no one) and do your own math, consider common sense and wonder where your retirement fund will be when you are American in 2024 (most likely it stopped existing). Do your own math and do not accept answers from economists “This is too big too fail”, or “We expect it to stay around the same as it is now”, party lines that ignore inflation debt payments that cannot be met and an annual deficit of trillions. That is the reality your funds face. So when we see ‘Biden visits Pittsburgh bridge collapse, vows more U.S. investment’ I wonder where he is getting those numbers from, because the balance of the books do not support that promise, it seemingly stopped supporting that promise 5-10 years ago.

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January 25, 2022 · 23:36

Not just America

This train of thought started when the BBC gave us ‘Inflation surge sends UK interest payments higher’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60117150). In the past, to be a little more specific with ‘Utter insanity’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/) on October 4th 2021, with ‘How stupid are we?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/17/how-stupid-are-we/) on September 17th 2021 and even before that going back to 2015 and 2016 I made it clear that debts have interest. The US (now at 28 trillion), Japan (well over 14 trillion) and the EU with several at €5,000,000,000,000 as well as the UK with well over £2,000,000,000,000 now sees (via the BBC) the quote “The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said interest on government debt hit £8.1bn last month – up from £2.7bn a year earlier.” Is anyone even surprised? It was always going to be worse, but I admit that was before Covid took centre stage, as these elements unfolded, debts all over the planet is soaring and the interest is due. And if you think the UK is in a bad setting, consider that France and Germany have a similar setting, but with a larger debt. Germany has options, yet I am not sure how many France has and as I am taking notice of it the article more thoughts come to mind. You see, I wrote with some degree of speculation “The US laughed and sniggered when Wall Street offered vulture solutions to Argentina in 1998, now the vultures are ready and set to rip the US carcass apart. Is it a fair view? That is not in question, yet the stage is now that it is becoming a likely view the only people treated fair are the hard workers who just tried to get by.” And this view is not taking into consideration what the US will do to regard their registered patents and IP to be part of the debt leverage. It made me consider where to put my IP. In all this Canada was the safest bet, more important, Amazon could set the market upheave with securing up to $15 billion in IP, IP that is still unsecured. And as I notice a few articles in the BBC, there is ever chance that one of the IP settings could well over double. Another IP (a concept IP setting) could well exceed that if the IP for the printable displays takes hold. You see, power needs are exceeding massively what is available and the idea that we could optionally reduce power requirements to one device by well over 60%, the idea of doing that to up to 100,000,000 devices will count, the optional military setting (as their is a notion that this solution is speculatively EMP proof, would exceed the expectations by a lot more, by more than even I could imagine. But I will accept that DARPA is a much better source then I ever would be. 

So as debts and power needs rise to way above the acceptable norm, there could be a partial union between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (or whomever runs Amazon). And in this Reuters news from December 18th telling us ‘U.S. to face increasing power reliability issues over next 10 years’ merely fuels my IP value. There is optionally a larger stage that has everything to do with people moving from California to Texas and I wrote about it in the past. It doesn’t just set the environment with not enough power, it also sets the available power in the wrong place, giving places like Texas a few more headaches. In this the solution that Elon Musk has will be essential and needed almost immediately. 

But this is not about him, it is about Amazon and Amazon has as per today an optional solution for issues in the UK, issues in a few places in the EU and that is all before someone realises that Neom (Saudi Arabia) requires a very different approach to marketing and retail visibility. I based part of my IP on that shift in 2019 and now that it is closing in, someone will realise that whatever is set there could influence and strengthen it position in Egypt and Israel as well. This relates to the previous part because the US has done almost nothing in that regard other than alienate Saudi Arabia, the EU is in a similar position as they cater too much towards Iran and Saudi Arabia can together with Huawei set the 5G base to include Egypt which brings close to 100,000,000 subscriptions and they all want to do marketing. And in all this I have been right again and again and now that the UK is realising that an interest increase from “£8.1bn last month – up from £2.7bn a year earlier”, the need for commerce is overtaking all other considerations and Amazon has the inside track on several options. At that point do you think the US will be about fair play? They will take what they can and they will leverage IP as required to not fall over, because if the UK is facing this, then so are Japan and the US to some degree and none of them has the stamina to wage a long fight with debts drowning them, especially when the interest is too much too handle. In all this Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have the option to be saviours (at a price), especially when the short sighted governments should have seen this coming a mile away. Why? I saw this point as early as 2015, thus I was aware of the danger 7 years before the BBC informs its audience and this is not merely ‘speculation’, this was always going to happen, only through covid there is a chance that the UK will beat the US and Japan to that point of drowning. And when that happens it will the the one marker where all retirement funds will dry up faster than oasis in the Sahara. Feel free to doubt me, but I leave it up to you to await the bad news from your retirement funds. Some studies were made that in the US 40% will run out of retirement funds due to all kinds of risks and governments running out of cash is a big one, that is why (for them) patents and IP are so important, they are the leverage some companies prefer not to give them. They might prefer to call it ‘Leveraging Federal Resources’ but in the end that is where it is heading and it will not merely be the US, it will be a lot more places who play that game, so in the end, those who own their IP are in an exulted place of negotiating. Hence the benefit that Amazon and Musk will end up having and should either be a larger part of Neom, their value will merely go up, because it is not (merely) about  Neom, it is the strategic place it has for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. From there a whole range of options open up and the first one there gets to serve all the others. 

It is not about the US, it is not merely the US. You need to see that before it is too late to act, it might still be too late to act, but there is an option to reap some rewards in that mess and that is all up to you, I placed my IP in a strategic place, outside of government reach. It was a good as I would be able to steer it, now it is up to others and I might still miss out, but I gave it one hell of a try. 

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December 28, 2021 · 04:42

Card or Con? Friend or Foe?

Forbes got my attention, just as I was reconsidering part of something that happened a few months ago. It was the article https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/20/i-need-medication/ titled ‘I need medication!’ It reverberated in me as I took notice of Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/27/is-it-time-to-disrupt-your-call-center/)there I got served the quote that matters, it was “I recently received a letter from a major credit card issuer. To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification. The problem? I had not applied for a new credit card. The letter was valid, but the application was fraudulent. The letter instructed me to send the required information for verification or call a toll-free number, with no option to text or chat. I opted to call the toll-free number. This was truly a call center, not a contact center.” The setting where we have “Monday morning, I navigated the maze again and got into the hold queue where I was informed my hold time was one minute. Success! Two hours and twenty minutes later I hung up. I looked up the credit card fraud phone number for the provider and called them. Within moments, I was connected to an agent. Yes, she would be able to help me. Before I could speak, I was transferred to — you guessed it — the same number I had called previously.” Here we get a setting, a setting that takes hours, in that time all kinds of fraud could have been commenced. Of course there is all kinds of chances that Forbes was adding the spice of drama, but I think it is simpler than that, there is a failing in Fintech as a whole. It seems that it is about revenue and for the most they will not care about the people, no matter what claim they make. If there was a true customer service then there would be checks and balances, there would be more than “To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification.” I believe that this is not an American issue, it is a European, a British, and Australian, a Canadian and several other nations. A massive failing in Fintech and the policy makers and lawmakers are falling behind, no matter what the excuse, they are falling behind. 

We see some laces giving us numbers (they call it statistics).

  • In 2018, $24.26 Billion was lost due to payment card fraud worldwide
  • Identity theft makes up 14.8 percent of reported fraud
  • 69 percent of fraud starts with a consumer being contacted by telephone or email, such as overdue loans or prize scams

Those were the numbers, now we see: 

  • Instances of identity theft by credit card fraud increased by 44.6% from 271,927 in 2019 to 393,207 in 2020
  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.
  • From 2019 to 2020, the number of identity theft reports went up by 113% and the number of reports of identity theft by credit cards increased by 44.6%.

This shows (to some degree) that the larger stage is Fintech and a much better system is required, a much larger check needs to be in place. The fact that a consumer got “they needed some additional information and verification” could be seen as evidence. Overall systems are designed as ‘customer friendly’ all whilst it is (as I personally see it) a system for automated credit allocation not allowing a person to take time to reconsider, a straight push for credit and spending sprees. What happens if credit cards are treated like the acquisition of a pet? To set the stage of a ‘cooling off period?’ Is it that weird to let the person going for the credit reconsider for 24 hours? 

In this day and age there is a larger concern, it is not merely that we see the passing of 5,419,538 people, a large amount of them might be facing all kinds of fraud and hardship and that passes on  to the next of kin who are already devastated. 

However, it is not all Fintech. Forbes also gives us “I received a phone call from another card issuer’s fraud department. Their question was simple: Did I apply for one of their cards? When I responded no, they immediately flagged it as fraud and advised me to check my credit reports for other suspicious activity. Their systems analysed the same data available to the first bank and flagged it as possible fraud.” So some are better than others, the question becomes, how can the system be improved? That is the real conundrum and the customer service part is essential in all this. Whether we look at a Friend of Foe solution, whether we have a connected bank or not. I reckon that there is a solution to implement blockchains that allow for a much more secure station, a setting that is not propagated. What if the block chain is in two parts? A part that only the consumer has, one part that the bank has, one can check the other, yet a new bank will not have that part, only the current bank has it, a setting that could limit the damage we see with 

  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.

It is not a perfect setting (yet) but when we consider the part I wrote about in the earlier blog. “To make sense, I need to take you back to the 80’s. There was a fab in those days, radio’s had a sort of enhanced METAdata part, so when a song was playing, you saw the band and the title in your display. It is almost like someone took that idea and put it on steroids, I cannot think of another explanation, what is more, I have no idea what my brain was working out. It is like someone figured out to hide more than a FoF (Friend or Foe) message in the radios broadcasting, with some cypher that gave the relevant information to any visor it faced. Yup, quite the ride and it went on for some time in my dream, the arrows had numbers, but the numbers made no sense to me, but to the co-pilot they made a lot of sense. They were following along the path of a canal with several branches, and the arrows were pointing along the canals they were on, several (not all) pointing in some sort of flight guidance setting.” So what happens when block chain meta data points at the actual person, not the applicant. There might be a station where we see that the 48% increase dwindles down by a lot, optionally arresting a lot of fraudulent players in the process. This is not a given, it is a mere thought, but I am trying to consider a new approach, one that a lot of players are not making, I am not saying that they weren’t doing anything, because I cannot answer that question, yet as I see it a lot of issues are ignored due to ‘customer friendly’ issues, whilst it tends to benefit fraudulent behaviour a lot more. 

And it is essential, because in 5G this station will get a hell of a lot higher and the Law, Big Tech and Fintech are not ready, none of them seem to be. However, that is merely my take on the issue.

Enjoy the day.

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December 26, 2021 · 01:47

Can covid glow in the dark?

Yes, an odd question, but an essential one. You see there are a few larger settings out there. In the first a complete collection on all sources on COVID is not really there, and what is there is not that reliable anymore. We think that the global increase of 748K a day is reliable, but it is not. You see, India with its 1.3 billion are registering an increase of +7,189 cases. It is about 50% of the Netherlands with its 25 million population, it does not add up and perhaps there are delays in reporting, but the setting is too much like political players staging numbers and in this day and age, it is too dangerous to play that game. If they disagree, then they better stop yapping like bloody chihuahua’s wanting vaccines. You cannot be fair and open, you get zilch. That is how I see it and that was the introduction, let’s go to the main event.

The news given to us by NBC a mere 16 hours ago shows that there are indications that China is now facilitating to Saudi Arabia on getting ballistic missiles. Personally I think it is high time, the political player downplaying on Iran and their actions were beyond stupid and now there is every indication that Iran is playing another game, we will see over the next week, but I will not be surprised to see more tantrums coming from Tehran and I think it becomes increasingly important that Saudi Arabia is ready. The article (at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-building-ballistic-missiles-china-iran-rcna9893) gives us “The assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies is that the kingdom, which is long thought to have acquired missiles from Beijing, is now manufacturing its own, according to a source familiar with the matter and a U.S. official.” Which is both BS and instrumental nonsense. You see the Kingdom has always been against this step, but was forced into this direction as American and European politicians are flaccid like marshmallow dildo’s and it shows. Iran is playing them six ways from Sundays, others are playing the ‘lets not arm Saudi Arabis card’ and now we see the beginning of hundreds of billions forsaken by the US, the UK and the EU all these funds will go straight to the treasury coffers of Beijing. 

I personally feel that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs to do what is best for its Saudi’s and its land, Iran does not fit into that stage and as Iran feels that its options are falling away, they will become the screaming Chihuahua making claims of false and unfair business all whilst they all catered to stupidity and with them the politicians hoping to fill their pockets in some way. Iran itself reported ‘Iran Selling More Oil In 2021 But Middlemen Reap The Profit’, in this I wonder if we will ever see a list of these middlemen, or will it be a nondescript setting where suddenly a lost more business men and its politicians will have a lovely stage of support funds? 

No matter how you slice it Saudi Arabia was sold the short stick and China is now allegedly standing up and offering alternatives. Consider all that and the US sales of billions falling away. The US might play the coy game, but there is a larger stage of danger for them. We are given through all kinds of channels that the blocking of the $650M of arms sales failed, but what happened to the other billions? Lost? Nowhere? Well China clearly has a plan that goes way beyond missiles and Saudi Arabia recognises it needs to be ready as the western politicians just aren’t up to the task. In this I have no idea how it will play out, but the stage I wrote about a year ago is now coming into play (alas without my bonus). 

And as I see it it is not about the missiles, it will be about the billions of revenue losses. Some sources gave a number that goes beyond half a trillion dollars. Not sure it was ever going to be that much, but if the US, UK and EU miss out on that much, their goose will be cooked and any economical setting they hope for goes out of the window until 2025 and that gives China the leverage that it needed all along, even with the setbacks they had, the change of stage implies that US or Russian partnerships with larger players is no longer THEIR benefit, once China will have proven itself, it will surpass both in the arms field. I do need to tell General Wei Fenghe, Minister of National Defense that I think he needs to send a Christmas hamper to the tea grannies of the CAAT at Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, London, N4 3JU, United Kingdom. They were the first to make it happen, they do deserve their cup of tea for depriving the UK billions in revenue, do they not?

And there is a larger upside for the General. You see with the Huawei solutions deployed all over Saudi Arabia, and the Neom City cluster coming online there is a new stage, Saudi Arabia can evolve its network into Egypt, it also opens doors for Chinese defence operations ready for sale and deployment all over Africa as well. It is a stage others neglected, but Saudi Arabia is about to become a telecom powerhouse, and soon thereafter a defence structure as well and when the first stupid Iranian thinks that someone will praise him by firing a missile into Israel hell will unleash and Iran will not have any options, even Turkey will set up a giant out of office notice at that point. Iran will be isolated and at the mercy of everyone and with the Chinese solutions in Saudi Arabia, they have no navy, no airforce and no missile solution, whatever they send will be stopped and the response in five fold or more will end Iran, they will feel proud with all their nuclear accelerators and they can slap their glow in the dark chests when it goes south, because it will go wrong. Iran was so busy getting ahead of themselves that they forgot on checks balances and infrastructure. A recipe for disaster on day one and now with the US, UK and EU lacking funds, a lot of funds. It will be Russia and China who will sit at the table with Saudi Arabia and find a solution, in this they have no further need for the marshmallow dildo’s we trusted (aka politicians and stakeholders). 

If anyone asks me on whether it was a good idea for Saudi Arabia to have these missiles, I will say that it is the wrong question, it was a clear case that Saudi Arabia was forced into this area as the west was unable to deal with Iran and that is where the real issue is. No one deals with Iran and now a stage exists where Saudi Arabia and Israel can deal with them. It will not be a nice way, but it is the only remaining way.

So here we see the question whether Covid can glow in the dark, the answer does not matter, our inactions with Iran for the longest of time will have made this an upcoming reality that will most likely happen and it will be bad for everyone around. Inactions tend to have negative results, it nearly always does and we did it all to ourselves. 

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December 17, 2021 · 22:24

The media as enforcer

It is a thought, it is my thought and I wonder if there is enough that I am correct? You see, most people are crying foul, blaming rich people. Making noises on the need to tax the rich and the media is helping out. That is the operative part, the media is helping out. To show you just how far they go, let’s take a little trip.

Search by Google
When you search for ‘Charles P. Rettig’ you see two results. One by LGBTQ Nation, one by Mondaq. Consider the following parts
1. Charles P. Rettig is the Commissioner of the IRS.
2. Taxes are on the plate of responsibility of the IRS.
3. The media has nothing to report on the IRS? They are merely all flaming the tax the rich part?

Looking at the media
The BBC gives us another flame article on how ‘How billionaires pay less tax than you’, yet no one is looking at the simple fact that people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires are doing what they are allowed to do, and it is not “special strategies to avoid paying income tax, say experts”, it is “Merely paying what Tax laws and tax codes are telling people how much to pay”. A setting that comes from the office of Charles P. Rettig, the people who were there before him like John Koskinen, Daniel Werfel, Steven T. Miller, Douglas Shulman, Linda Stiff, and Mark Everson a collection of people that were there for almost 20 years when nothing was done to overhaul taxes, and the media is not reporting on it, is it not news or is it part of the filtered information that some people do not want you to have. Yes, I am focussing here on the US, yet the mess in the EU is not better, it is actually worse as they got well over 20 nations to do NOTHING!

I am not stating that Elon Bezos and Jeff Musk are innocent (or was that the other way round?), I am stating. I am saying that they use tax laws as they are ALLOWED to be used, in black letter setting (meaning: literal interpretation) all whilst the media is shouting about the spirit of the law, the spirit of the law is not in writing, in writing we find “A tax code is a federal government document, usually numbering thousands of pages, that details the rules individuals and businesses must follow in remitting a percentage of their incomes to the federal or state government”, yes, and then the politicians added tax codes, exclusions, tax write-offs and that results in people like the ones we see mentioned as well as the Koch Family ($113,000,000,000), the Walton family ($220,000,000,000) and the Mars family (not the planet) with $127,000,000,000 we do not see these names do we? Just like Charles P. Rettig we see very little on them, we see houses bought and sold and two weeks ago we see ‘Influential Koch network rocked by an alleged affair scandal, donor departures and a discrimination lawsuit’ and I only see the CNBC mention, the other papers seemingly left it alone, why is that?

So whilst we see all flames we do not see anyone (including media) invoking the need to overhaul tax laws, no one seems interested in the essential step that is required. 

More important, no one in media is taking that step either, why is that? You still think that they are free to speak their journalistic minds, or does the hierarchy of Shareholders, stake holders, advertisers starts making sense. To realise that you the reader are a mere 4th place in any media source, how does that feel?

It is not a setting where the rich pay less, it is a setting that non-overhauled tax laws benefits the rich more and this is not semantics, consider that CNBC gave you “So if you want to find a way to lower your taxes like the rich do, it could be a good idea to meet with a financial advisor or CPA”, for a really rich person a CPA ($119,000 annual) is nothing, and they KNOW what tax laws are there to aid and which ones are not. And it was simple, it has been for decades and no one seems to focus on that part, they merely advertise the scream ‘Tax the Rich’ which is funny, because it goes nowhere and gets people nothing and when you realise that the taxation laws were the problem for decades, when will you see that the politicians and their IRS commissioners were part of the problem and never any part of the solution the USA desperately needs. So whilst the news is all about ‘Biden signs legislation raising US debt limit, averts potential default’, now consider your own situation. How much upgrades can you get on your credit card until is gets blocked, banned and retracted? How many upgrades can you get until you show more income? That is the stage; that is also why tax laws need overhaul. It is not names like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, it is the stage that the USA has according to some sources 614 billionaires. You still think that there is no gain in overhauling tax laws? Oh, and when we look at those with a value that tops $100,000,000 you get to a number of people that is slightly surpasses 5000. When you consider all this, do you think it makes sense that the media has zero interest in people like Charles P. Rettig? Consider that he should be in the targeting view of EVERY American media outlet, but he is not, why is that you think?

I am starting to believe that the media is nothing more than an enforcer that uses the old premise of panem et circenses, a stage introduced by the poet Juvenal. Decimus Junius Juvenalis (his original name) was around in the age of Nero and Galba and a whole lot of other emperors, including the year when they had 4 of them (it is a hazardous job). A stage we see now exploited by media, politicians and rich people. Making us all watch where they want us to look, not where we need to look and the US (EU too) is running out of time. When the US defaults, what do you think will happen to the Yen and the Euro? So when you get angry at Jeff Bezos, wonder why the media is so focussed on giving him the limelight and they are actively avoiding the limelight on a whole group of 614 equally filthy rich as Jeff Ross (sorry the other comedian) Jeff Bezos and we do not see their names, not ANYWHERE, why is that? Consider that for a moment before you start shouting ‘Tax the rich’. Let’s be clear I have nothing against taxing rich people, but that is what tax laws are for, to tax all 5000 of them, not the three overly mentioned in media and there is the rub, that is where the media needs to ask people like Charles P. Rettig and the tax laws makers behind him very serious questions, but the media is not doing that. Why is that?

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