Tag Archives: Financial Times

April 6, 2017 · 11:37

Prospecting black gold

There has been news all over the world, some news is good, some less so and at times we cannot see whether news is good, bad or irrelevant. To see the dangers, or perhaps the opportunity of what is what we need to look back to 2014, and start that issue with a quote from the Marvel Movie: Age of Ultron. The quote originally from Tony Stark was: “As I always say, keep your friends rich, and your enemies rich, and then find out which is which“, it is a reference to the arms industry and the benefit of mutual escalation. Keep this in mind when you consider the article in the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/royal-mail-float-scandal-how-hedge-funds-cleaned-up-9303674.html), the title gives us the immediate threat with ‘Royal Mail float scandal: how hedge funds cleaned up‘, and “Speculators were allowed to buy £150m of shares despite Vince Cable’s pledge to favour long-term investors“, I omitted the claim that it was all due to the postman. That person usually rings twice, especially when Jessica Lange is around. Yet the heart of the matter, like in the movie, is not in the ‘boner’ or the ‘bonee’, it is the aftermath that matters. You see, the gem is seen in the local prosecutor and his ploy to get to the truth by going after one side, yet it is Cora’s Lawyer Katz who stops the evidence to get to the prosecutor, which nullifies whatever was attempted. So consider the part we see in the Independent: “around 20 per cent of the shares it had allocated to 16 preferred investors had gone to hedge funds and other short-term investors. This would equate to around £150m of Royal Mail shares – 13 per cent of the entire stock sold by the Government. The companies bought in at the float price of 330p a share. The shares shot up within seconds of trading, eventually peaking within weeks at more than 600p, allowing the hedge funds to bank vast profits at the taxpayers’ expense“, now consider also that this is a reflection of ‘£150m of Royal Mail shares‘. A system that has issues and allows for ‘deal sweeteners‘, now when you see this, and knowing that the bulk of hedge funds managers seem to get away with murder, consider the arrival of Aramco, better stated, the Financial Times headline ‘The $2tn Saudi Aramco question‘, which is now squarely an issue of titanic proportions (intentional pun towards the sinking dinghy). First things first, you see, this is not a fuel vendor like Shell, or a social media company like Facebook, this is the Privatised Saudi oil company that is larger than the sum of Shell, Facebook, Apple and Google. It is a 2 trillion dollar company, now consider the danger of the floating dangers of something like that, hedge funds managers can clean up and those who do will be set for a decadent life, for the rest of their lives. The dangers of something this big is pretty astounding and the fact that it could happen is not that small. You see, the dangers increases as we consider certain facts. NASDAQ gives us: “OPEC agreed in November last year to curb its output by about 1.2 million barrels per day between January and June“, that is because the stocks are a little higher than expected. This happens, oil will always fluctuate, now consider in the US alone there are 32 oil fired power plants. Production is down (for now) and the moment the first heatwave gets to the US, we see a massive spike in power requirements and 32 of those power makers require fossil fuel. In this I am only mentioning the USA, there has been power issues on a global scale, which is always going to be the case, but one of the largest providers towards the demand is going public and that is what speculators really like, because if the supply & demand need is not properly managed, we see an increase option towards fluctuation. Those speculators only need to get lucky once and the mess would be unrepairable.

The Financial Times gives us some of the goods with: “Privatising Aramco is the first step in rebalancing the economy. By disentangling the company, which accounts for more than two-thirds of government revenues, from the state, Prince Mohammed hopes to make Riyadh less oil-reliant, while providing capital for investment in new industries, ranging from technology, where it is pumping $45bn into the SoftBank Vision Fund, to mining. The privatisation of its national champion is crucial to this process” (at https://www.ft.com/content/7ed59bee-163b-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76), but the heart is seen in: “That is even without looking at the question of how much oil actually lies beneath the desert kingdom’s sands“, when we consider that the oil gains in the North sea is slowing down and this is a signal seen in several places, the fact that at some point (in past, present or future) that something similar will happen to the Aramco goods is a certain fact, it is the when that cannot be anticipated. In addition, going public means that you need to be commercial, when it is government no one really cares, but in the public sector the trend must forever be upwards, so when will we see a similar float in Aramco when the numbers are not as great? It has been an utter certainty that nearly all companies go through, some did it calculated knowing they would kill the numbers within a quarter, some hoping they would kill the numbers and some did it whilst they were desperate for a miracle. Yet floating they went. How much of a $2 trillion dollar company in stock value will tumble when that happens?

And these are the circumstances where the acts were valid and not criminal at all (see UK Mail), I am not making any Tesco assumptions here, because the damage in that case will be devastating to the London Stock Exchange. One firm representing close to 70% of its entire market, there would be no London Stock Exchange after such a disaster. Bloomberg gives us the second tier of risks and dangers with ‘Saudi Aramco Cuts Oil Pricing for Europe Where Russia Dominates‘ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-05/saudi-aramco-lowers-some-crude-pricing-for-asia-raises-for-u-s), a market that Russia already dominates. What would happen if let’s say 3 days after going public, Russia decides to slash their prices for a short time? How would the market react? Not just to Aramco having to follow, but the forecasted annual numbers then take a dive, at who’s expense? Consider that the European market is ‘ruled’ by Russia and Norway, together they make up for 50% of that market and the Saudi part is smaller than Norway and 80% of that 50% market is just Russia. So they can influence the market a fair bit. You see, Bloomberg gives us “There is a risk price wars may resume in Europe, raising the possibility the output cut agreement won’t be extended to the second half of this year“, meaning that in the second half Russia could flood the markets and the streets with black gold. That impact would be felt all over the stock market. There is one part that I am uncertain on. You see, it reads like a small and insignificant part. The quote: “Aramco will tweak the benchmark it uses in the region to make it easier for crude buyers to hedge their purchases” seems small, but consider that hedging is done by a few hundred buyers for up to 25,000 barrels. It seems like nothing, but with 179 buyers it is almost a week worth of crude oil, now the ‘stock is full‘ issue becomes a larger one, because this is a level of fluctuation on stock levels that would impact on the stock prices, the mere stock is full a few weeks ago had a $3 impact (or 4.6%), that becomes a little more than insignificant. Now, I could be wrong here as I am not in the oil, yet you see that this is a concern when it impacts a $2T invested interest by more than just hedge funds managers.

The last part comes from the Guardian. In Jan 2016 they stated “Saudi Aramco is likely to be worth well over $1tn (£685bn)“, this is important as we do not see 1.2 or 1.5 trillion, so this given number implies that in a year Saudi Aramco grow by more than 40%, the exact number cannot be determined. Other media stated that Aramco had grown to 2 trillion last year, but none have given enough evidence to state which number is the reliable one. That too impacts this new market, especially the initial dangers of floating a stock. Yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/05/theresa-may-lse-saudi-aramco-uk-london-stock-exchange-oil) we see: ‘May and LSE chief woo Saudi ministers for $2tn Aramco listing‘, here we see: “Xavier Rolet, has launched a charm offensive in Riyadh to woo Saudi ministers with the prospect of London hosting the upcoming flotation of Saudi state oil company Aramco, which is likely to be the largest of all time“, the word ‘flotation‘ is given and the danger is now out and about, in clear view of all. So as the UK government is trying to appease Khalid Al-Falih, energy minister of Saudi Arabia (and CEO of Aramco), as well as Yasir al-Rumayyan, the director of the Saudi public investment fund – a sovereign wealth fund, I have to wonder where the Rothschild’s are, because there is no way in heaven or hell that the Rothschild family would be absent of a 5% of a $2T company option and not be a player in something with the ROI of billions, especially after the losses they had with Kurdistan and Africa. They have skin in the game now, and they need a victory in this field, their ego demands it from themselves!

In all this the final part given in the Guardian must not be overlooked, because the quote “Downing Street announced on Monday it had drawn up plans with Riyadh to boost support for Saudi’s much-vaunted Vision 2030 strategic plan for diversifying the Saudi economy to decrease its over-reliance on oil, spearheaded by the deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who met May on Tuesday“, as this now offers the level of revenue to fund the ability to become the largest 5G player in the middle east, with options to diversify into Europe, the far East and America. It is perhaps the first time in history that a public company would shoot to a top position in mobile communication, ready to set the market and their values in a few ways on a global scale. For the simple reason that moving into technology and not go for the new tech that will determine the fate of the large mobile and telecom players between 2019 and 2027 seems extremely short-sighted.

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Tagged as 5G, Africa, Age of Ultron, Apple, Aramco, bloomberg, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, Downing Street, Facebook, Financial Times, google, Khalid Al-Falih, Kurdistan, London Stock Exchange, Mohammed bin Salman, NASDAQ, Norway, OPEC, Prince Mohammed, Riyadh, Rothschild, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shell, SoftBank Vision Fund, the Guardian, Theresa May, Tony Stark, Xavier Rolet, Yasir al-Rumayyan

April 3, 2017 · 12:49

Dangerous levels of extinction

Bloomberg reported Yesterday that Nicola ‘Sturgeon Sticks with Timing for Scottish Independence Referendum‘ (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-01/sturgeon-sticks-with-timing-for-scottish-independence-referendum), which is a little odd after the previous one not so long ago. As I stated in earlier blogs, I am not against Scottish independence, I think that at the earliest point, Scotland should seek independence. Yet at this point it is not a good idea. The situation has not changed for Scotland, at present their budget is already 11% short and that is with the inclusion of decreasing oil revenues. This means that within 10 years there will be additional problems for Scotland. And this is only the start of their troubles. You see RTE reported only 12 hours ago ‘Spain would not ‘initially’ block Scotland from joining the EU after Brexit‘, the catchword is ‘initially‘, we see the quote “any part of the United Kingdom that becomes a state and wants to join the EU will have to apply. And follow the steps that are stipulated“, this is the part that matters. Basically until Scotland is truly independent there is every chance that Spain would object, and that is just one of the 27 nations. After that when Scotland is independent, the initiation into the EU would start, which could take up another 5 years, perhaps even more. That is the part Scotland faces, so Scotland is facing the consequence of independence, growing a ‘national‘ debt and after that we see the issue that Scotland would be debt driven and getting into the EU, a triple banking issue (debt, interest and inflation levels), all levels that Scotland would need to overcome.

For example, try googling Scotland and economy and see what you get. What economic achievements did Scotland have gained in the last two years? The Financial Times gives us a part I actually do not agree with (at https://www.ft.com/content/7c6f8ca8-0807-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b) ‘The economic case for an independent Scotland rests on the EU‘, to that the Scottish response should be: ‘the dog’s bollocks they are!‘ In this Scotland needs to grow an economy, so far, as long as Nicola Sturgeon has been in power, not too much has been gained in that department. I am certain that there are options, I even mentioned one in April 2015, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/04/05/the-labour-manifesto/) where I write “I am still reasonably certain that Indian generic medication could grow all over Europe if they have a foothold in Scotland, which allows easy access to places all over Europe“, so which Scottish politician had actually made any headway into looking beyond the EU, its ECB with big debt credit cards? Because when the credit card stops, Scotland will be in levels of hardship they have not seen before for the longest of times. At that point, who will the Prime Minister be when that happens and where will that person lay the blame?

In the end that is a Scotland that has no chance to build any future at all. How is that a good idea?

So as we see that Scotland is focusing on the USA with the added quote from Bloomberg “She also noted her political differences with President Donald Trump, who owns golf resorts in Scotland. During the election campaign, the Scottish government stripped Trump of his role as business ambassador for the country“, which sounds nice, but how did she fare with Corporate America? Scotland might be open for business, but where is the interest in Scotland? How about the Far East? How could Scotland become a hub for places like Indonesia, India, Pakistan and China? With Beef as an export, why not benefit by creating a European Halal Trade centre in Scotland? With ferries leading to Norway and a growing Muslim population, there are options, it only requires the right politician to open certain doors. I am not saying this is a solution, I am merely showing that options are there, the right people only need to look into the right direction. Because, as I see it, relying on the USA and ECB grants will not work, not whilst Europe is in the state it currently is. With Italy set to grow no more than 0.9%, its position is weaker than France and its youth unemployment still stands at 38%, implying that Italy’s infrastructure will remain under harsh levels of duress for several more years. The quote “Italy’s chronically low growth, low inflation and gigantic public debt burden (133% of GDP) make a potentially deadly trio” gives us even more to worry about (source: the economist), with the UK having triggered Article 50, France elections still having the consequence of a Frexit signal and Italy under the duress it is in, the European Union will only have Germany to be the large positive impact player on its economy and that one is not faring too well either. So this is the moment Nicola Sturgeon want to enter the EU whilst going independent? It is not just a bad plan, with a non-closing budget she will be drowning Scotland into debt and this debt will grow and grow leaving Scotland with no options for any future at all.

Yet we could go with the definition of Sturgeon that she is honouring. I cannot state whether this is the same for both Prime Ministers and fish, yet the International Union for Conservation of Nature gave us: “According to the IUCN, over 85% of sturgeon species are classified as at ‘risk of extinction’“, which is a large group that Nicola Sturgeon seems to be happy to join, the sad part is that she would like the whole of Scotland to join her in this, which is really not a good idea, or fair on the population of Scotland.

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Tagged as bloomberg, Brexit, China, EC, ECB, EEC, Eu, Financial Times, Frexit, India, Indonesia, International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, Muslim, Nicola Sturgeon, Norway, Pakistan, President Donald Trump, Scotland, the economist, UK, United Kingdom, USA

April 2, 2017 · 17:42

Banking France

The last few days have seen a serious change in multiple directions in Countries all over the place (in that rugged area known as Europe). One part is not a surprise, the news that the ‘Pound jumps against euro‘, it is the second part ‘as Germany’s inflation data shocks markets‘ that is cause for concern. We should not be that surprised, because it had been known that Germany was facing a slowdown, which in light of so many events in Europe makes perfect sense. It is the by-line “as German inflation fell short of expectations to give a big setback for the European Central Bank (ECB) programme to support the Eurozone economy” which is the actual story. You see, last week I mentioned Mario Draghi and the dangers he represents, we now see the first chunk of worry that came from ‘Decoupling Draghi is hard to do‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2017/03/28/decoupling-draghi-is-hard-to-do/). The mention of Reuters and how big funds are having concerns is now more than a fact. The quote “This assessment had raised hopes the ECB could perhaps cut short the money-printing programme, which injects billions of euros into the economy each month. But the fall in German inflation will be seen as a sign that money-printing will not be reined in any time soon“, implying more and longer printing of money to do something that never worked the first time around and will in equal measure fail the second time too. It is a side that the papers are not touching, not by a mile, yet it is also the reality that we face in the upcoming reality of Frexit. This is seen in two parts.

The first are the big 4 powers in the EEC Economy. France, Germany, Italy and UK. With UK triggering article 50, the stability of the Euro is now gone. Whether we have Frexit or not, the reality is that the Euro has relied on the German economy for a decade and now that there is an issue, that whilst The French economy has been stagnating since at least 2015 (actually longer than that), now with the German economy taking a dive towards no-growth, the issue changes dramatically, because the Italian lack of growth had been an issue for some time. With the German setback, the dangers of printing money becomes a lot more visible and the acts of the ECB needs to be questioned by several governments, who are actually not doing that. In equal measure the media at large seems to steer clear from the entire ECB debacle, which is a worry on another level. All this is now part of another shadow that is covering the ECB. Reuters has given view to the following quote “The documents show repeated violations of the ECB’s own rules by its executive board, chaired by Mario Draghi, and come amid staff complaints of favouritism at one of Europe’s most powerful institutions” as well as “Staff representatives complained last year to the European Parliament, which oversees the ECB, that dissent was discouraged at the bank, potentially hobbling its ability to spot the next financial crisis” an issue that should be very much on the minds of every European government, as the ECB is costing them a fair amount of money. Another Jewel from Reuters is seen in the quote “Recent comments from the ECB were misinterpreted, according to a Reuters report citing ECB officials, after President Mario Draghi dropped some of the more dovish central bank language and did not replace its bank lending facility at its latest policy meeting on March 9” as well as “adding to the slightly hawkish feeling, ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny said a week later that the central bank would decide in the future if it would raise interest rates before ending its quantitative easing program, a comment that took market participants by surprise“. Whilst we can argue on the value of “The core inflation rate is currently running at 0.9%, not close enough to the ECB’s stated aim of ‘near to 2%’ to cause President Draghi to change anything, even rhetoric, at the next ECB meeting on April 27“, the reality is that we are facing a quarter of feigned misinformation due to what I would see a as an unacceptable level of ‘miscommunication‘ (read: misinterpretation). Especially when we consider that quote ‘comments from the ECB were misinterpreted‘, misinterpreted by whom? By the economic governmental powers, the banks, the traders? Is a major factor of the ECB not ‘clarity‘? Should clear communication not be seen as a way to thwart ‘misinterpretation‘?

The fact that the ECB is not just showing favour in the wrong places, but a level of non-clarity gives a second failing by the ECB, that whilst they are still printing billions of euro’s on a daily level. Not the place where you want to be anything less than crystal clear. It is that factor that is enabling Marine Le Pen and giving more and more concern towards Emmanuel Macron. There is a second sight to all this. You see, part of the entire election is set on what some agree ‘what is good for France’, yet who decides that? When we consider “The major candidates for the French presidential election Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon all present their economic programmes to the Medef employer’s federation today. All will be hoping the influential group will give them the “business-friendly” imprimatur” (source: Reuters), It is in that light that I refer to the Saxo Group, who has an interesting article (at https://www.tradingfloor.com/posts/europe-divided-the-front-nationals-absurd-economics-saxostrats-8577141), there are too many quotes to just pick from and in the end, my version might come across warped. What does matter is the question that follows:

‘If we agree that the New Franc is not immune to speculation, how come that a national currency is (as claimed) so susceptible to speculative attack?‘

There is no clear answer, yet it is an important one, one that Marine Le Pen needs to answer. In addition, the article implies that Medef needs the ECB and that there is a link, as such we get two parts, the first is that Marine Le Pen is getting discriminated out of two economic groups, making the French elections no longer fair. The second is that the ECB has been setting up links and connections giving them unelected national powers in nearly every European nation, how is that in any way acceptable, especially when it gives them the influence over elections?

So why is it an issue?

For me, not that much, yet when we consider the actions since Brexit intent, and now that Brexit has started, we suddenly see the same panic driven media mob with headlines like ‘Study: Frexit chaos would be ‘worse than collapse of Lehman Brothers’‘, where we see the label ‘doom-mongering‘ with the quote “the population at large is in favour of the single currency and that there is little to suggest any economic benefit to doing so“, this whilst we know that leaving the Euro is almost the singular reason that Front Nationale with Marine Le Pen is this popular. Then we get ‘Why ‘Frexit’ not Brexit should top bond investors’ fears‘, with the mild claim “‘A more pressing concern [than Brexit] is ‘Frexit’,’ he said. ‘Le Pen is polling well in the run-up to April’s presidential election and looks likely to win the first round. She has pledged to lead France out of the single currency“, which is given AFTER Article 50 was delivered to the processing parties. What remains unstated is that with 2 of the 4 large players remaining, the Euro cannot survive. They are mellowing it down with ‘the Front National is unlikely to win sufficient National Assembly seats to enact her policies and such a decision would probably be subject to a referendum’, yet as I see it, when the French realise that Macron in conjunction with Manuel Valls is gaining momentum, the French are angry (according to several sources), in addition Fillon is losing ground too fast. There is no doubt that it will be between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, even as at least three elements have decided to discriminate against Front National, her numbers are still stable. This should be a worrying factor to many as this implies that her vote will be carried by just the French voters, no tainting by Medef or pressure through foreign European leaders.

No matter who wins, there will be a powerful backlash. Even if Macron wins, France needs to realise that changes are essential to survive what comes after. Italy is up next and there the mood is also heavy. The Financial times was ‘timid’ with ‘Italy is falling out of love with Europe‘, it is however not that easy and it is getting harder in Italy on several fronts. Here is largely a blame game in session and the truth is that Europe, the ECB and others are not that guilty in the hardships that Italy faces. Its debt is far worse than Greece and the Italian banks have no way to deal with this problem. So there is a chance (not a very realistic one) that the next in power will start the Italeave signal. Even if that happens, the chance that France and Germany can keep the Euro afloat is much more realistic, but it comes with a two decade burden that any hardship or any recession (read: some kind of economic crash) would be disastrous to both the two nations and the Euro, a risk that the ECB, IMF and Wall Street are very willing to take as it gives them time to find other solutions to not get killed in the process.

So in the end, we are now 36 days away from learning whether the Euro will be dead or only near death, yet still dying.

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Tagged as Article 50, Brexit, ECB, ECC, EEC Economy, Emmanuel Macron, Ewald Nowotny, Financial Times, François Fillon, France, Frexit, Front Nationale, Germany, IMF, Italeave, Italy, Lehman brothers, Manuel Valls, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Medef, New Franc, reuters, Saxo Group, UK, Wall Street

March 17, 2017 · 17:27

The finality of French freedom

Even as the world is looking at the Dutch elections, we see initially that the biggest fear in the Netherlands is gone. Geert Wilders is still number 2, yet the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) did not lose as many seats as initially expected. This is good for the current Prime Minister, yet not as good for Geert Wilders as other parties had vowed not to work with him, no matter how many seats they got. Well, the initial numbers are out and now we see that the Netherlands will have some tough times. To get the next Cabinet to work they will need 4 parties, which becomes a small issue. The easiest alliance would be involving the CU (Christian Union), yet any medical ethical issue would cause concern on a few levels (the usual suspects like the pill, abortion, prolife issues). The second option is with the Green Left party (GroenLinks), which is predominantly youth driven, here the VVD will have some issues and there seems to be a level of unwillingness to work together. Now, the first option gives only one seat in majority, the second option gives a little more space to breath, but neither is a great match, both are decent matches. The Dutch labour party has been decimated. It went from 38 seats to 9 seats (Source: Volkskrant). They will need a serious amount of time to lick their wounds. No matter how this all fares. If Geert Wilders can keep his cool, he would keep a few options down the track. Here it is anyone’s guess what will happen next. I predicted that there would be no going around the PVV, yet I was proven wrong. Green Left grew a lot stronger and the VVD kept a few more seats than most predicted, so there is that too. Yet, with this situation, Nexit has basically become a non-issue, it is off the board for the Netherlands, so as that certainty becomes a reality we see that Mario Draghi wasted not even a second to give the French people his demands and ultimatum. In the Express (at http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/777170/Euro-irrevocable-ECB-draghi-Le-Pen-Frexit-vote-warning), we see the headline “‘The Euro is IRREVOCABLE’ Euro Bank chief fires warning at Le Pen over Frexit vote promise“, so if we would be a lot less diplomatic than we ought to be, we would state ‘Mr Looney Tunes has decided to be a slamming tactical in his claims‘. The two published facts given are “The ECB chief insisted the Front National leader was not a threat to the euro’s future, which he said was a measure of solidarity among members. His comments come after Ms Le Pen’s promise to call a vote over France’s membership of the monetary union if she wins the election in May“, You see, with smaller members pushing pressure Draghi had no chance at all, now, he has a few more options by trying to persuade the system players with “a measure of solidarity among members“, which I can counter with ‘perhaps spending the trillion you did not have was perhaps not the best idea?’ In that we can agree, we can disagree, but we all know that no matter the direction, it was a pretty dangerous step to take. It is the next two parts that are the cause of issues: “Market worries over the presidential race have increased as polls charted the rising popularity of the right-wing candidate, with France’s borrowing costs jumping, while the euro suffers sell-offs. In an apparent shot at the right-wing candidate, Mr Draghi today dismissed fears of the breakdown of the currency as ‘unrealistic’“.

Is that so? If that actually was the case, he would not have needed to reinforce it, didn’t he?

So the two parts are ‘with France’s borrowing costs jumping, while the euro suffers sell-offs‘ and ‘the breakdown of the currency as “unrealistic”‘, no, it is only unrealistic as only Brexit is coming and until now, we have seen levels of misrepresentation and downright corporate ‘blackmail’ to anyone not singing the false tune Mario Draghi is giving us. Last week there was some economic recovery, but the sharp sell-off that had been visible is still a factor, that whilst the Dutch Nexit was never a true reality, we all knew that. France is another matter, the French has not seen decent economic days, for at least two administrations, which is why France is a big deal, that whilst they represent one of four anchors keeping the Euro in place. With the British anchor removed, the stress on the three is intense, the Euro cannot continue with the remaining two anchors that is the desperate game Draghi is facing now. Weakness and non-decisions from 2012 onwards have caused this mess, and of course he is not done yet. As we see in Reuters, last Monday he stated “If non-high-tech companies adopt more innovative technology, that would provide a boost for European productivity“, speaking as the European Central Bank President last Monday, it that so? With what funds? Innovations requires money, such steps have a cost. To get into deeper debt without the true prospect of revenue and incomes is too dangerous a game to play for too many companies. Many who think in such short-sighted ways will not survive the next fiscal year. In all this, it all hangs on how the elections are going in France. Mario Draghi might be voicing ‘a measure of solidarity among members‘ but the people behind the French member have been in a bad place for too long. In this there is even more pressure growing from Italy. Bloomberg gives us ‘production declines after rising for three straight months‘ as well as ‘Unemployment unexpectedly rose to 11.9% in fourth quarter‘, more important, the production loss is the biggest one in 5 years and pretty much nullifies the last two months of growth. That whilst we see a growth in unemployment. It is in this light that France should consider its options. That is, in equal light should reflect on whom they need to support in an election that will have a massive impact on the course that France will take into the future seas of turmoil. Steering towards the new elected President. What is equally disturbing is that the French political lines are changing, to a much larger degree than ever before, for reasons that are actually slightly unsettling.

The question becomes why?

You see, French Senator Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne is now endorsing Emmanuel Macron, we knew that François Fillon is pretty much on his way out and François Hollande never had a chance; so is this an act to enforce any party that is not Front National? Consider that question, it is now no longer for some to support the net best candidate and the best winner. No, there are now signs that certain power players will unite in backing whomever is most likely to stop Marine Le Pen. Certain plays have become this dangerous, not for what she is, who she is and what she stands for. No, certain members seem to fear and not embrace economic change. The Status Quo is everything. In equal measure, Macron has won the endorsements of those abandoning Benoit Hamon. Some press have even resorted to headlines like: ‘Hamon plans radical departure from EU ‘blabla’‘, some parties are now extremely worried, especially as the Status Quo groups could lose their Billion Euro gravy train. This is almost a unique situation where we witness the change of approach towards the need of individual economic momentum, which now trumps the electing the need for the good of France (I am not stating or implying which politician represents that).

My evidence?

There are several pieces in the more respectable news carriers. In this case a first is the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/cbf9a59c-04a1-11e7-aa5b-6bb07f5c8e12), who gives us: “Fifteen years on, however, the anti-far right “republican front” to stop the FN appears to be crumbling“, which is only an indication. The chart that they present in that article gives a very nice indication of the splitting of votes. The strong push from Fillon and Hamon towards Macron is almost unheard of. The abstention group is however still large enough to make an impact, yet the shift from 24.5% to 60.5% is also a little more than amazing. Such landslide victories are so rare, that seeing it twice in a row is no longer a mere coincidence. In this Mario Draghi could actually end up being the contributor to the success of Marine Le Pen. As he proclaims the quotes I used earlier, the large group that currently represents the younger voter that currently seems to be set in Emmanuel Macron camp at present, could realise between now and voting day that the words of Mario Draghi are hollow at best and that his ‘proclamation’ will be replaced hours after the election by apologies and words of hardship whilst claims of better economic times cannot be fortified or made into any level of reality on any way shape or form.

In that light, is it not weird that an investment banker who has never been elected to political office, is at present not a projected frontrunner, is forecasted to carry an optional 60% for round two? That isn’t just unheard of, it is a statistical anomaly and in the political field, such landslide levels are a no-no to say the least, especially twice in a row. Someone is buttering the electoral sandwiches in new unheard ways. Now, France or not, we can agree that extreme vote options like Marine Le Pen tends to sway a decent amount of people to go towards ‘anyone but this one‘, yet the numbers at which this is happening at is just too weird. In this we see that both Bloomberg and Citigroup are playing their own little game, especially as the collapse of the Euro would be devastating to those involved. At https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/le-pen-win-would-wipe-out-25-from-french-bank-shares-citi-says, we see ‘Le Pen Win Would Wipe Out 25% From French Bank Shares, Citi Says‘, which is really intense and I wonder what evidence they can present, especially after these players got it so massively wrong after the Brexit vote. So the first quote “A victory for Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential elections would cripple the country’s banking stocks, says Citigroup Inc” is one that cannot be countered easily, yet when we see the graphics on that page, we also get: “The analysts predict declines of 30 percent and 34 percent for Credit Agricole SA and Natixis SA, respectively“, there it is, everyone’s favourite French government banker (Natixis) would lose 34% value, which would send anyone reeling, but in this case as the information as I presented them in my blog articles over the last two years, this drop would be impacting long term plans and Natixis does have a decent amount of fingers in all sorts of government pies. And the quote “Even though Le Pen’s policy plans threaten to shake up the country’s banking system, financial institutions including Credit Agricole, Societe Generale and Axa SA have avoided contact with her team“, which is also really weird, would you not try to talk to a candidate and even if they are all in the mindset that her approach is wrong, the veritable truth is actually in a direction on a path that is 180 degrees from shown. A dialogue trying to understand her path and showing the evidence to other directions and perhaps even alternative ways for both to get what they want.

Yet as we have seen, certain players are in the Segregation, Isolation and Assassination mode. Which is me stating that some shady solutions which are usually limited to HVT’s are now optionally tactics in which the larger corporations will engage to keep their status quo, this is nothing new, but it has never been this outspokenly clear before, there is that much at stake for them. Even if it is merely political assassination, Fillon is already crying those words and the setting towards the investment banker Emmanuel Macron is now clearly visible. I reckon that in this regard, the switch by French Senator Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne came slightly too soon, too soon as an increasing amount of voters are now wondering why the change, because such a shift would not have been needed until after the first round. As I personally see it, French Senator Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne used himself to create a momentum towards Emmanuel Macron, an act that will only create more momentum over time. This I see as the second piece of evidence that this time, the elections are about something a little more unsettling. I wonder if the French people see it in the same light.

In the Bloomberg article we see the included wrong vision too. As you see “losing the May 7 runoff against more business-friendly leaders such as Francois Fillon and Emmanuel Macron” gives us the ‘implied‘ fairness of two candidates, yet at present, two days after this, we see that Fillon got gutted, not surviving on his present 19.5% setting (3^rd place), he gets to be the chance for Macron to solidify the pole position.

Citi is currently doing to France what several UK players did to anyone supporting Brexit, the question becomes: ‘Will the French voter realise this in time?’

More important for Marine Le Pen will be whether this would realign those who are now predicted to go the Macron way. Time will tell and when we start seeing accusations in 2018, 2019 on how big business is influencing French votes, you better realise now that the warning signs have been all over the place and the non-intervention seems to be relying on the press and a select group of financial power players. By the way, it does not stop there, it goes on in several direction. Now, I do not feel inclined to prove them all wrong, it would make this merely a ‘he said-she said’ debate, what you should consider is the final part that Bloomberg gives us, “the analysts predict” is in the middle. You see, predictions require models, they require data and a few more little titbits that make up for the forecasting models. This model has to deal with two elements it cannot correct for as it has never happened before. First is the fact that President Hollande is currently the least favourite French president in modern history, and soon to be the only one term President in French modern history, so one of the data outliers is based on a premise that had never happened before, the second part is the ‘forecast’ that an politician, never elected in public office before becomes the person growing to over 60% in one round, as I see it, another prediction that is not a given. Are you getting the image? Whatever forecast we are introduced to will be a lot less accurate as several elements in play have never seen the light of day ever before. As such, there are serious questions in play on any prediction given in this election, no matter in which direction it goes.

I personally believe that Marine Le Pen is not the given loser (with 60% opposition), there are a few elements in play, but in equal measure I do not believe that Emmanuel Macron will be the given winner to the degree forecasted either. In the end, we will leave it to the French People to decide who will go to the Élysée Palace, not the banks, not the lenders and not any collection of ‘storage and media clowns’. All these proclaimers are for the most, all on the gravy train of globalisation (the Macron side), a term that has been filling the French with disgust for the longest time and the last 10 years have not been kind on any positive feeling of globalisation. Still, in the end the French will need to remain a little pragmatic, which does not mean surrendering to Globalisation, yet in equal measure there is uncertainty on how France will deal with Frexit, unlike the UK, they are directly tied to Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain, so there are a few more practical considerations for France. I believe it can be done, but it is up to the French to select the referendum to leave the EEC and the Euro. We can forecast all we like, but if there is one thing the Dutch election have taught us, is that these matters are not black and white and that the outcome is currently getting bounced on the waves of identity and economy, two elements that never worked well together.

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Tagged as Axa SA, Élysée Palace, Benoit Hamon, bloomberg, Citi, Credit Agricole SA, Dutch election, ECB chief, Emmanuel Macron, Fillon, Financial Times, François Fillon, François Hollande, France, French election 2017, French Senator Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Front National, Geert Wilders, Groen Links, Italy, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Natixis SA, Nexit, PVV, reuters, Société Générale, Volkskrant

March 13, 2017 · 14:25

The spotlight on ‘exploiters’

The Mobile World Congress finished on March 2^nd. These places are always a little weird. It is often about concepts and about desires, but for the most we see some new stuff and some that was released in the last few months. It is loaded with exhibitors, the list is 72 pages, so you better believe that there is close to no way to see it all. If you are in apps, smart cards, tags or smartphones, you are either there or you do not count. Now, that is not really a true given, if you are really small, or truly enormous you might want to give it a pass. Apple can because they have nothing to add (at present), but at that point they give ground to Google (Google Pixel) and Huawei (Mate9). It is a choice and as being in the place is plenty super expensive, so whatever you bring, better be an important game changer, because the large players can drown you out.

So as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/is-5g-the-future-robots-delivering-pizza-house-viewing-vr) gave us ‘Robots delivering pizza and house viewing by VR: is 5G really the future?‘ last Saturday, the question became, what is this really about?

“However, 5G, which is set to be rolled out in the UK next decade, also has its critics. They argue consumers don’t need the superfast speeds the upgrade from current 4G technology promises, and many in the industry believe that logistical issues mean that 5G may not be properly rolled out in the UK for decades“, this is an interesting statement, because I heard a similar thing when 3G was to be replaced by 4G. Some claimed it was not needed, mainly those having the 3G equipment and not the funds to go to 4G. So I saw this as a repetition of that. An opinion piece in the Computer World 2 years ago gave us ‘Tony Milbourn, vice president of strategy at u-blox‘ who questioned it, as did the Cambridge Wireless Network. We can question party one (as well as party two), yet we must admit that Cambridge Wireless is at least a techno savvy industry group. So dismissing them out of hand is not the wisest of choices.

To me, the 5G jump is essential. It is not just about speed. I see that 5G can be the cornerstone to fix some of the NHS UK issues. From there it can be an optional solution to a host of International Health Systems. 5G brings a lot more than just speed, it brings optional innovations that some are unwilling to consider (Larry Page can buy the solution for 15 million pounds up front price is post taxation).

As many sources in short minded ways hide behind “When the 5G wireless standard hits the mainstream, our home internet speeds have the potential to be so fast that we’ll be downloading 4K movies, games, software, and any other large form of content at a fraction of the time we’re used to“, the truth goes a hell of a lot further. 5G can be the cornerstone of non-repudiation, which has been a mobile flaw for the longest of times. In addition, the new connecting devices can change in many ways facilitate interlocked solutions as well as managing a host of non-considered options for systems already rolled out.

In addition, 5G could initially allow for a much better solution towards scaling the performance of short TCP connections on multicore systems. Which will also evolve the smartphone in several new directions. In addition, the Tablet would grow into a new level interactive system, I reckon that Google would need to evolve Android into something like Cyborg, which basically is Android plus, the plus is for the libraries and functionality that would slow down the average phone by way too much, but under 5G, the upgraded system would allow for authentication and new ways of privacy driven encryption that 4G cannot allow for, mainly because it is just too impractical.

The Guardian article also correctly identifies: “The mass connectivity it allows will also help expand the so-called internet of things (IoT), in which everyday appliances and devices wirelessly connect to the internet and each other. “IoT technology is being used in everything from smart homes to wearables,” says Ofcom. “5G should help the evolution of IoT“, which clearly shows that those against ‘advancing’ are either not in this field, or merely unaware of what they are missing (that is some of the critics, not all of them). The one prediction I do not completely agree with is “Analysts Gartner estimate that by 2020 there will be 20 billion IoT-connected devices“, if the 5G preparation goes correctly, there are opportunities to get that to 25 million devices easily, I reckon that 30 million is possible, but only if all elements work favourably to all and that is just not entirely realistic. The next part is one of caution, because blindly going for something is just not cricket. “The report by Lord Adonis, who heads the National Infrastructure Commission, found that the UK’s 4G network ranked only 54th in terms of coverage, behind countries such as Albania, Panama and Peru“, now we can argue that two of the places are merely two villages, a cafe and a cemetery is not entirely accurate. Yet, the idea comes across. Panama has over 50% of its population in the capital, so that is not a fair comparison, yet there are plenty of players (read: Scandinavian nations), who are doing plenty better, we know that it is a small population 3 times the size of panama, but stretched over a massive amount of miles, so things are not entirely great for the UK. Improvements are essential and perhaps considering 5G as the main drive to get to a much higher coverage rating might not be the worst idea.

In light of some responses we also need to look at “Professor William Webb, an academic and former Ofcom director, has been outspoken in warning that 5G could be a case of the “emperor and his supposed new clothes”. Webb is not convinced that the industry obsession with faster speeds is matched by consumer demand“. In this that the professor might talk a decent pitch, but the issue as stated before is not just about speed. 5G will allow for avenues that are currently under 4G not practical, which is partially about speed, but also partially about the options to connectivity currently not possible. Yet in the next part we see the exploitation part “mobile operators may be in danger of investing billions in 5G networks that they may struggle to recoup their costs from. Telecoms companies forked out £2.3bn in Ofcom’s auction of 4G spectrum just a few years ago in 2013“. So as we see the £2.3bn auction, we see that Orange (at https://www.orange.com/en/Press-Room/press-releases-2017/press-releases-2016/2015-full-year-results) gives us “Restated EBITDA was 12.426 billion euros in 2015, ahead of the 2015 target“, so basically in one year they got 12 billion Euros (approx. £10.778 billion in 2015). So I reckon that the 2.3 billion on all players was not that much of an issue to begin with and this is just ONE player and not even the biggest one, so as such (even as we understand that there are always more cost), Professor William Webb should reconsider his position before we put a massive spreadsheet showing just how much the mobile providers are driving you for. You will not be happy or impressed to realise what better a deal you could have gotten whilst they would still end up with a massive profit.

Now there is a lot more going on and this path will not be a smooth sailing one, yet when we realise that 5G will offer support and solutions in directions that some seem to be craving, the news (at https://www.digitalhealth.net/2017/03/nhs-england-working-with-us-internet-giants-to-promote-digital-tools/), give us more shallow parts. It seems that everyone wants to drive some digital solution, that is tool based and has heavy dangers when it comes to cyber security. That was clearly shown by the Financial Times on February 3^rd (at https://www.ft.com/content/b9abf11e-e945-11e6-967b-c88452263daf). So as there is too much fidgeting and some giving in to these criminals instead of hunting them down and injecting their children with Ebola (just to give clear indication that health care data is essential and should not be messed with, EVER). The fact is shown that cybercrimes is still too open a field, with many criminals not ending up getting prosecuted and/or incarcerated gives view to the essential need to change thinking and not like a collection of Emu’s run to what seems to be the next (easy) solution in postponing the essential changes the NHS and healthcare in general needs. The Financial Times has actually one additional gem. The quote “According to data from Intel Security, ransomware is growing at an alarming rate across all industries: total ransomware incidents grew by 128 per cent in the 12 months to September 2016“, gives a much needed light on the dangers that “NHS England is working with Google and Bing to increase the visibility of NHS content online and the forthcoming NHS app store” is bringing the people and the next release of ransomware. There is currently too much dangers and the 5G gives a first optional approach to non-repudiation as well as the option to block several similar dangers to health care data. I feel rather confident that Juliet Bauer, director of digital experience at NHS England could end up having to send out all kinds of statements on unauthorised accessed data. I hope to be wrong, yet the statements in the Financial Times, gives us that Jason Allaway, vice-president of UK & Ireland from cyber security firm RES. In that light, Juliet Bauer has every reason to become massively cautious. Any MP that is pushing for some Mobile app solution could find themselves into the limelight explaining how they could have pushed for such a change endangering the lives of many. It could also immediately spark a by election replacing that person pushing for cyber changes whilst the NHS and many health care trusts and providers are nowhere near ready at present. To give but the shortest of lists, you need to consider Healthcare.GOV, Pathology servers (blood tests), Radiological Patient data and images, Ultrasounds imaging systems, Magnetic resonance imaging data, images and reports and the list goes on (each category with a long list of providers). In all this there is still the GP, the specialist and the NHS staff to consider, so in the end, the digital paths some are taking are limited, inferior and no release of pressures to the NHS, so where is the benefit? I went over all that before I made certain designs. There needs to be a massive shift and the first time around the politicians had this utterly disgustingly dangerous idea that it was a great idea to put it in one place. I reckon that there is enough data to not ever consider that. The solution is on the other side of the spectrum, yet there needs to be a shift on the other side of the players too. There needs to be Common Cyber Sense and there needs to be accountability which non repudiation is a first step in, because there will be no more, my ‘device’ was on the fritz. Now there will be a clear digital path, which in health care is essential before considering the digital path in the more serious sides of healthcare.

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Tagged as 5G, Albania, Apple, Bing, Cambridge Wireless Network, cyber security firm RES, Financial Times, Gartner, google, Google Pixel, Healthcare, Healthcare.GOV, Huawei, internet of things, Jason Allaway, Juliet Bauer, Larry Page, Lord Adonis, Mobile World Congress, NHS, NHS UK, ofcom, Orange, Panama, Peru, Professor William Webb, the Guardian, Tony Milbourn, u-blox, www.digitalhealth.net

March 8, 2017 · 21:27

How the Franks make France

It is possibly one of the first times that the entire world is keeping their eyes on France and on its elections. The situation as seen in France has not happened since Charles de Gaulle. France in a state of massive changes, changes that are essential if it wants to have any options of shedding the massive debt it has and restructure the options of owning a stronger economy. The question becomes, who will be the enabler in that regard. The BBC shows us (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39038685) how 5 charts will explain the elections. The first shows the growth of Front National, the party of Marine Le Pen. The quote “Opinion polls currently suggest Marine Le Pen would be defeated in the second round by Emmanuel Macron. Without the backing of a traditional political party, the former economy minister, who has never held an elected office, is standing as a centrist candidate” is in the central place here. She might be front runner now, but there is the real issue that Marine Le Pen is seen as too much of an extremist. Even as part of her strength is seen in the second chart where we see how unemployment rates have sky rocketed under President Hollande and that level of dissatisfaction has been an enabling factor for Marine Le Pen. The 4^th chart is also a Le Pen indicator. As France has been hit multiple times, the people started to listen to the logic of Marine Le Pen and as such all drove straight towards the far right. That is the way of things. The 5^th one is less of a positive influence, but it is an influence none the less. As the amount of asylums are given increase, the rejection of the social path of France will increase and that too works for Marine Le Pen. In all this, the consequence is equally a positive part for Macron. Emmanuel Macron is making strong headway and to many French, the preferred choice. Yet, Emmanuel Macron has never held office, which counts against him, as an economist he does have an edge, but that would only work if his policies had resulted in jobs, which was not the case. The reality, or better stated, the stronger reality is that for those under 25, 1 out of 4 does not have a job and that is where Marine Le Pen is getting a growing traction. No matter how the French here on how important social issues are, the reality of no work translates to hunger and uncertainty. In addition, Hollande has data in play that shows that the high point of his economy was a year ago and decline is already showing, this translates to even more people moving from the left towards the centre and the right side of the isle, all moving towards Macron and Le Pen. With the UK showing a growing economy whilst Brexit is starting is also pushing the people to listen to Marine Le Pen and that is the reality that will continue, yet will it translate to enough votes? There is the uncertainty and I predicted that it was a reality France was facing. A reality I have claimed for over 2 years now and so far I have been proven correct. However, this does not take Emmanuel Macron out of the race. There the reality is that anyone feeling too uncertain regarding the more right wing Marine Le Pen that voter might hesitate and decide on Macron instead, a choice that is logical yet untested and unproven. It is the unproven part that the French also realise, so Marine Le Pen stays in the race. The one factor that matters is Benoit Hamon. Now, he might not be the front runner and he will not amount to serious opposition of large numbers, but the one part that still matters is whether he can get enough votes to make the 50% impossible for Marine Le Pen, that is now the game that plays, the others are not able to do anything serious to that extent. It is now starting to be merely a race between Macron and Le Pen, Hamon would enable the situation that a second round would be essential, which now takes us to May and that opens the field again, in that regard, Marine Le Pen needs to be really clever on how she plays the game. In addition, she needs to be clever on how to oppose or diffuse any situation that the anti Le Pen press is pushing onto her.

The NY Times (at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/opinion/france-braces-for-the-now-possible-impossible.html) is now stating ‘France Braces for the Now-Possible Impossible‘, which only shows that they are either two years late to the party, or they just did not care before. Sylvie Kauffmann talks a good article, but she misses when she states “This is a French campaign like no other. All the political patterns established since 1958, when the present Constitution was adopted, have come apart. The National Front has been a fixture of national politics for 40 years, but never before has its presidential candidate been a consistent front-runner. Today, none of Ms. Le Pen’s opponents doubt that she will get to the second round; in fact, they are not even fighting her. They are fighting among themselves to win second place on April 23, to have a chance to beat her in the runoff“, she is not stating anything incorrect or wrong, it is the one additional fact that is important. This is also the first time in modern history that a current president is not seeking re-election, which she does mention on the side. The scandals we saw and the consecutive “François Fillon, a conservative former prime minister who is now the Republican candidate, has stopped campaigning” is another part of the sliding numbers to go in other directions, yet, will they go towards Marine Le Pen. A smaller influence is the Dutch elections. The Farage-Le Pen-Wilders triangle is pretty famous. Yet in all this the US is now an influence, because with every claim that President Trump is making, the people are confronted with a connection to each of these three and a reason why not to make the same mistake the US has made, with ludicrous claim after ludicrous claim, the Republican win is now hurting the right side vote in both France and the Netherlands, but will the shift be enough? Those matters are not known and are even less predictable.

What is at this point a certainty is that in the end Marine Le Pen will be one of two parties that can be voted for, yet there is enough doubt to see that there will be a round in May, the matter will just be how will the people see this than and how far off is that 50%, because if the call is too close to that, the smallest fluctuation could change the game. Now with the 17% of Fillon in the air and the 15% of Hamon under discussion, there is the smallest chance that a slice of that will go towards Marine Le Pen actually that is certain, yet how much will go her way? If the split is even, there is now the largest chance that 23% will divide between Macron and Le Pen, setting Le Pen at 39%. I feel that Hamon will lose, but I very much doubt if he falls below 10% and that would be the best case scenario for Hamon, there is a chance that Hamon will get a few of the Fillon numbers, but I feel certain that he will lose traction within his own ranks. With 1 in 4 people under 25 not having a job, the alleged fake job that he gave his wife is not sitting well with a large part of the voters who were already looking at Le Pen and are now utterly unlikely to select anyone left of centre which works very nicely for Le Pen, but there is still a steady group that has no love for the right, so those votes will go somewhere else, or better stated these people will vote anyone but Le Pen, which could benefit Hamon to the smaller degree and Macron to a larger degree. so as those impacts are seen, there is now a serious chance that Le Pen would grow from 39% to 42%-46% and that is where the issue starts, she is now way too close to 50% and even as it is unlikely that she gets to that point passing 50%, it is not impossible and that is where the game changes by a lot, because if she gets there, she would potentially be in the strongest position to make a lot more radical changes. Like Trump, her examples would drive the Frexit start and that will be the start of the nightmare for both the US and Japan, the Euro collapsing will drive a market fear of unbridled proportions, one that cannot be countered by the players involved, which will have a disastrous effect on the global economy. CNBC has been giving voice to several dangers, which includes rate hikes (which is off the table the moment Frexit starts), Beijing is another factor, but if properly set would actually create stability and less uncertainty. It is the utterly unbelievable part that the Financial Tribune is giving us. They proclaimed that the global economy is expected to grow 3.5% in 2018, which sounds nice, but unrealistic. You see, the changes that are essential to growth are in the wrong corners as I personally see them. If Frexit starts than the contractions in Europe will start an escalating drop, making a global economy growth of 1.5%-2% decently unlikely. Frexit is the first cornerstone, the Brexit escalation that comes, or will drive the change is another part. These two will now push Italy and Germany in very different directions making the Euro no longer a feasible currency, especially as Mario Draghi was kind enough to spend a 13 figure number onto an economy that would not hike or set in motion to the degree that was essential. So as we see the quote “Its forecasts remained broadly unchanged from its November report, however, both the US and the eurozone saw minor downgrades“, we see it without the mention that this happened even as the UK economy went upwards. Market volatility is actually the smallest influence for now, but that will change before the end of the year. So as we see the dangers of a recession slam in either Q2 or Q3, we will see it with the realisation that the forecast given by the Financial tribune was not that realistic, just prophesising on sunny weather with a few small clouds whilst we see storms on Eastern and Southern shores, and there is no way to pierce the fog from the remaining directions, a dark fog that seems unable to have any sunshine. All that and two additional dangers remain unexplored. That is given not in who gets into power, but the danger that no matter who goes into power, the new players will be inexperienced in many ways; that too will stagnate any positive move from the economy. The only bright spot is that in Germany there are differences growing, especially as Alternativ fur Deutschland has started rounds of infighting, the final straw of anti-Europe will not be in any position to move into that direction, the question then becomes what will Italy do? Even as Merkel is facing a much stronger SPD, that election will not come until 4-5 months after France, which means that Frexit, if called for would also impact the German grounds of choice. In addition we see more waves of ‘Grexit’ news on the need for cutting Greece lose. Which is not an option in EEC laws, and I am surprised that the PRESS has not caught on yet (especially as they played that fake card twice already). All these elements are in play and they will together result in a global economic growth of less than 2%, especially if the European economy contracts a little too much and that is decently certain to happen.

A rollercoaster economy that is about to be started by the modern version of the Franks that make up the French population. In this the trend is as I see it no longer about some united fake region, it is about growing nationalism and national pride, because that will also grow an economy. We all forgot about that (me, myself and I included). You see, there might be open borders, there might be free travel, but as we forgot in which place we were we also forgot on what made that place great. The beers of Belgium, the cheeses and wines from France. Some might claim that this is not true, but it is and we lost sight of it. Because we only value that what requires effort, a reality we have always faced, we just forgot about it and the larger companies had a better time by offering us something mediocre and unhealthily cheap, something that fitted too many of us. I personally believe that this is most clearly seen in the gaming industry, which is why I recognised the flaw in myself early on.

The good thing about all this is that as national pride grows in all the nations, we will see a drastic improvement of appeal and quality, I believe that the smaller places will now have the option to grow and that will drive the economies. So as Carrefour and Auchan end up talking to a new group of suppliers, France will witness a shift in economy, not one that maximises the bonus of larger provider of goods, but enables deliveries from smaller players and they do not have the board sizes that some of the current players have, so it actually will end up driving the economy. It sounds crazy and weird, but I believe this path to be the first drive of growth.

That would benefit the economic numbers of France enormously and it will also push other nations into reinvestigating the options for growth. The Financial Times show part of this (at https://www.ft.com/content/6de52a3a-aca4-11e6-9cb3-bb8207902122), yet this growth is mainly due to other factors. John Ellis, retail & consumer partner at PwC, gives us an interesting point here: “Over the next few months, the way in which retailers deal with cost headwinds, particularly the impact of foreign exchange on product prices, will be crucial for consumers’ future spending patterns.”

He is correct in that way, however, I also believe that as people will seek more and more local solutions (read: deals) it will actually drive the local economies stronger in an upwards direction, and in that, I am predicting that the same will happen in France. The second part he is not giving us is that the individual currencies will allow national governments to float their currency ever so slightly to avoid massive negative impacts, something that was not an option under the Euro. So another tool will be handed to the French as they restore the imbalance that their economy has faced for well over a decade. I do not believe it will be the measure towards success, it merely avoids the chance of failure, which is also a driving force in any economy.

Now, feel free to completely disagree with me, which will always remain a valid view. Yet when we see the impact of positivity that segregation has and if Marine Le Pen cashes in on this, than we will see a second step in the European economy that will stop the Euro. As we end with that coin, did anyone tally how many European officials are no longer required? How much did they cost? A gravy train that was riding the slopes of Europe at the expense of taxpayers, whilst for the larger extent not having any positive national impact. We are talking of a group that exceeds 32500 people. So how much was that costing on a monthly basis? 751 MEP members were getting a monthly pre-tax salary of €8,484.05. That’s already 6.3 million a month, so how much for the other 31,750 employees? Let’s not forget that this is a monthly expense. So I reckon that the sweet reality is that there will be a positive impact on budgets. Now these costs are not going away immediately, but I think I am making a clear point that national costings will change.

France is about to start a wave of changes, or better stated, there is a real change that massive changes will commence, but in the end, we will have no certainties before the elections are over and until France makes a claim and voices the intent to exit the EEC, there is no certainty that there will be actual change, because the Euro could survive without the UK, but not if the economy contracts, in that case several options will go straight out the window for several European nations, especially those in the EEC. Mario Draghi has made sure of that. You see, when we accept Bloomberg view (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/draghi-s-caution-on-inflation-signals-ecb-stimulus-stays-for-now), where we see “The rate remains stuck below 1 percent, but what’s worse is that the trend has consistently pointed down in the euro’s 18-year history, suggesting structural weaknesses may be at play” a weakness I mentioned (in a different way) in several earlier blogs, is now getting more and more to the forefront. Bloomberg also gives us “the measure that excludes volatile components such as food and energy” gives us that in a dangerously low setting volatile products will still have an impact. The additional “After policy makers’ preferred gauge of future price developments approached levels of below but close to 2 percent at the end of last year — signalling the ECB’s goal was in sight — it’s now on the wane once more” gives more and more strength to my prediction of economic contractions, which now also gives a view that any prediction of a global economic growth of 3.5% in 2018 is getting less and less realistic. so as we see positive forecasts from several sources, we need to be careful on who we will believe, because like several nations stated in earlier years, the forecast of today will soon be shown to be overly optimistic one quarter later, which is after the ‘predictors’ got some of the players to unwisely spend what they should not have been spending. A game that has been played for too long, it is the national push that gives for change and more important, it gives for a push by people who can be held accountable and can at that point be incarcerated, which tends to make certain forecasters a lot more cautious and it will give us an actual realistic economy to work with. It might not be great and in the beginning it will also not be good, but it will be mending and growing, which is what the people want and need. In that we have to voice with certainty that we do not give a fuck on what large corporations want or desire to get them their bonuses, we have had way too much of that for too long.

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February 15, 2017 · 20:42

Pimping the United States

I initially expected the USA to do stupid things, but this has got to be the most stupid of them all. As the talks are now increasing regarding the acts of dismantling the Dodd-Frank Act, we see the greedy banks walking out into the open making claims he will break the moment the ears of the listeners are out of range. Marcus Stanley from the Americans for Financial Reform stated: “We had experience with Wall Street self-regulation prior to the financial crisis, and it did not work out well,” Stanley said. “When you let industry determine its own rules, it’s going to create more risks. The downside of those risks is going to be pushed to taxpayers and working families”, (at https://www.publicintegrity.org/2017/02/01/20645/trump-wall-street-and-banking-caucus-ready-rip-apart-dodd-frank). The problem is that like the journalists in the Leveson trial, these two groups who proclaimed that they could self-regulate, have never been able to do so, greed gets in the way every single time.

If there is an upside, then it will be that the next financial event will have one enormous difference, the moment the US people see that their quality of life returns to a 2009 state, there will be 170-205 million people unanimously agreeing that the President of the United States is to be assassinated, moreover, when that angry mob runs to Washington, the army will not intervene as they will have been hit just as hard as well as their family members. So at that point the Secret Service will need to protect an idiot, whilst they have less than 1% of the ammunition required to stop that angry mob. Good luck to them I say!

In addition, the bankers who are behind the next collapse will end up being the most wanted man by the American people in history. They will flee to whatever nation they can afford, whilst channeling their wealth to places where the US treasury cannot get at it, so Riyadh might end up being the place of choice for American wealth. American bankers who did not oppose the Travel ban of 7 Muslim nations will be totally dependent on the goodness of another Muslim nation to keep their ill-gotten gains safe, the Irony is just staggering!

But is my prediction over the top? Let’s take a look!

The financial times (at https://www.ft.com/content/dd4a6698-efe7-11e6-930f-061b01e23655) gives us “Loan growth remains robust,” said Marianne Lake, his counterpart at JPMorgan Chase, while presenting record annual net income of $24.7bn last month. Beyond the headlines, there are signs that certain segments have been squeezed. In products such as credit cards and personal loans, for example, analysts say activity has been damped by fear of censure by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau“, so as certain people see and feel the fear of prosecution through ‘fear of censure by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’ we see that this group of financial people have the inherent need for growth and the need for unadulterated bonuses. I will not be able to tell whether this is due to unreasonable revenue per deadline, or just the need to get to the revenue any way possible, unreasonable or not. That is what happened before and messing with Dodd-Frank makes that danger very realistic. In addition, with the US in 20 trillion debt, the next meltdown cannot be covered by the US and in addition, it is my firm believe that the IMF should not be allowed to intervene or hand any bail outs when this happens.

The second part of that is seen in: “In residential mortgages, too, banks and lobby groups complain about the new requirement to determine that the consumer has a “reasonable ability” to repay the loan, based on credit history, income, obligations, debt-to-income ratio, employment status and other information. That has caused a pile-up of paperwork“, The fact that banks are now ‘bitching‘ regarding ‘paperwork‘ to ‘reasonable assure the ability to repay the loan‘ gives rise to even more questions, especially as the need for these answers are needed on a global scale, the fact that we see complaints that seems to indicate that banks just want to hand out cash without clear setting of accountability. In that same article, when we read the part from Laurie Goodman “warranties they need to make to Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage buyer, and the high cost of servicing delinquent loans, among other factors. None of that was in Dodd-Frank“, so if that was not in Dodd-Frank, then why is it an issue?

This issue as you might expect it goes far beyond the Financial Times. There we read from Jonathan Westin the quote “Trump rolled out an executive order to cut Dodd-Frank, and to get rid of regulation that would protect against a financial crisis like the last time“, which gives the first clear indicator that I am stating could be the start for the first Presidential man hunt in American history. The fact that we see (at http://nypost.com/2017/02/12/battle-looms-as-trump-regime-looks-to-gut-dodd-frank/) “a 22,000-page document, could see the abolition of the ban on proprietary trading at Wall Street banks and on predatory lending” gives a clear indication that banks like Sleaze, Succumb & Snatch will be able to get back into business using Tele Marketing schemes to get people to sign up, they only have to be willing to grab those customers by the pony. Is that what America will amount to? I think that the world would be better of having Wall Street regulated by Mosseck Fonseca, who were only out to captivate the rich, because in both cases the IRS will lose out and they will lose out by a lot.

As far as I personally see it, there is a danger with some of this. One of them involve proprietary trading. The dangers is that with proprietary trading, desks were often considered internal hedge funds within the bank, performing in isolation away from client-flow traders. Yet, the danger comes when third party ‘assistants‘ runs between other ‘assistants‘. The first article gave us that with “It also would repeal Dodd-Frank’s Volcker Rule, which now prohibits banks with access to the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund from making certain risky investments“, where we see the part where Volcker also wanted to stop banks using privileged access to ‘cheap’ central bank financing offering PhD models to play the markets for personal gain. Now that model could change through the deployment of ‘disrupters‘ and ‘spark plugs‘ who will set their own circles getting people to stem the revolting tide or support waves of exploitation. Rings within rings, a chosen few to be the supporting role of the market players. It will unhinge the markets and the people at present would have no defence being in any market whilst they are around. It is like playing against the bank, who is the active gambler. Smaller players would have no chance at all, a market that would become less and less stable in a time where the US has absolutely no way of stemming the losses when they hit.

So like Adolf Hitler, Trump promised prosperity, but prosperity for whom? More important, at what expense? When the former German ruler did it, those people all got jobs, in the military industry. Trump has decided to open the financial industry sluices, yet that direction tends to only open the bowels for financial people which comprises less than 1% of the population there. In addition those profits do not make it to the US treasury, so what game is President Trump playing?

These changes have no ability to correct the economy and the 20 trillion debt is not taken care of, nor will it as things evolve the way they are now. In all this we face tough times and if the Trump administration succeeds in dropping the Dodd-Frank Act the dangers of the collapse of the Dollar is close to a certainty. The dollar going, just to set the need for greed to a previous stage unacceptable need, which will also topple the Euro to an untold low value. There is no way to stop it unless part of the Republican Party realises that undoing certain levels of protection will leave everyone in a dangerous place. This is not just me, there are several newspapers coming to the same conclusion, they just didn’t add the risk assessment of the assassination of President Trump yet (they’ll do that after the act). In that, is my prediction that off? There is a precedent. You see, the Scotsman in March 2009 reported ‘Abused in the streets, their homes under attack, will Edinburgh’s bankers ever be forgiven?‘, where we see “A group calling itself Bank Bosses Are Criminals claimed responsibility for the attack on Goodwin’s home and in a statement to the Edinburgh Evening News said: “This is just the beginning … We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless” Scotland has a population of 5.2 million. When things went south, well over 55,000 ended up being homeless. That is over 1% of the Scottish population, there was never no homeless people, but that number went through the roof when the 2008 crash landed on the front doors of nearly every bank. So is my prophecy out of bounds, or does it make sense that the next event in the US, could give rise to millions becoming homeless. Where will at that rage be aimed at? I can tell you that it will be a bad day to be a police officer in the New York financial district at that point, not to mention wherever that Trump tower is at. Look at it from the bright side, with every banker executed a new job openings and new housing becomes available. In the end, the aggregated statistics will balance themselves. That event when it happens will also start the selling off of American infrastructure and State assets. The Russian or Chinese could end up buying these services, just like it was done in Greece. In that case, I’m willing to buy the Pentagon Cray Mainframe for $29.95. I’ll pay $50 if they throw in a functional Bell UH-1Y Venom or a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey.

The things you can get when a financial system gets pimped, life has its upsides for all except the victims of such rash undertakings!

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January 27, 2017 · 14:23

On the bridge of slavery

We have seen several steps coming, it has been in the air for a long time, yet, this is the first time where we see a clear step where we are clearly shown that the people no longer have a voice, we are no more than a collection of items in a long reign of collateral damage to MP’s and greed driven entities. The guardian gives us “MPs to push for further measures to increase parliamentary scrutiny of the Brexit process” (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/25/theresa-may-agrees-to-publish-brexit-white-paper). This is the show of a group of toddlers who do not want their gravy train to end and they will give any excuse with assistance from the media to prolong their train and maximise their earnings. We see this in “which MPs now want to see before they are asked to pass legislation to trigger article 50“, there was a referendum and the people wanted to get out. Now we see MP’s scurrying to delay and to even stop that what the people wanted.

And the evidence is actually getting stronger on an international level. My issues is that the only one taking this to visibility is Richard Desmond’s the Daily Express and if I have no trust in the publishing ramblings of Rupert Murdoch, I am very much in favour of giving none to Richard Desmond either. Yet, seeking through the article for any name that gives any solid ground for other sources and I got it in Reuters. You see, we now have an almost Mexican standoff, meaning that we can ask President Trump to get into action. The issue is that Mario Draghi gives the quote “Any country leaving euro zone must settle bill first: ECB’s Draghi“, which makes me wonder whether this court jester of idiocy is making the statement as he has been racking up trillions of Euro’s in debt by instigating through flooding the market with funds, that in actuality has had no impact on the economy whatsoever. There is no one to clip the wings of this irresponsible person, those people are all too happy to get the juicy support that their future needs. That is how I see it and lets support that with the following parts that Reuters had in the form of a piece by Francesco Canepa (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecb-eurozone-idUSKBN1542KL).

When we look at the debts, we see the quote “As these payments are not generally settled, weaker economies including Italy, Spain and Greece have accumulated huge liabilities towards Target 2 while Germany stands out as the biggest creditor with net claims of 754.1 billion euros“, so as Mario Draghi keeps on going like a spending jester with a credit card that isn’t his in the first place, we would see that these nations do have debts yet local parliaments never agreed on the spending spree to this extent. So when we get the quote “In a rare admission about the strength of feeling building up against Brussels the Italian pen-pusher Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), said countries leaving the euro will face huge financial consequences“, we also need to take into mind who got the debt there. So when we see the threat from Mario Draghi, we should consider my article of June 30^th 2014. A little over 2.5 years ago. (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/06/30/exit-strategies-anyone/), here I wrote “So, the dangers of additional debts from Europe would cripple the UK as well. This is as I see it part of the reason why the UKIP got such a huge success“, now we see that not only was it true, we now see Jester Draghi use it to keep France and Italy under his yoke, he is hereby hoping that the soft UK MP’s will give in, keeping the European Barge named ‘Irresponsible Spending‘ afloat. So, not only was I right, there is an additional issue that I initially proclaimed that the American Economy would drown the European one. I still believe that this is true, yet there is in equal measure now the chance that the ECB could with their irresponsible acts collapse the American one. Because when we see that three nations are shouting stronger and stronger that they want out is also a clear signal that the ECB has been, as I feared for a long time, stacking up debts to make the exit no longer possible. So in that, there is now an added need that Mario Draghi is to be halted spending ANY money at all. If he is forcing a ‘stay in until all debts are paid‘ he is also stating that he should not be allowed to spend any money that has not gone in, basically the ECB would have to go into a trillion plus euro debt and see it as an investment, which with the view of the three largest players wanting out, that step is a bad investment. So will Mario Draghi pull out, or will he hope on non-acting MP’s in several nations who are too fearful of change? Safe money is on the second one, but that in equal measure indicates that those hit by such extremes will seek more and more extreme political sides and soon thereafter, UKIP would be seen as the liberal view which holds the balanced centre of politics. How scary is that?

And we aren’t even close to the centre of blackmail. The view two weeks ago was “Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) will suspend further investment in France if National Front leader Marine Le Pen becomes president in this year’s elections“, which is fun as the scores of Financial advisors in London are looking for new eager shores that they can exploit. Even when we see the news, we see more and more ‘relabeling’ of what is, into what speculators want it to look like. When we see the title ‘Eurozone: Towards a stabilization of growth – Natixis‘, we see something positive, yet the quote “Jesus Castillo, Research Analyst at Natixis, notes that the Eurozone composite PMI remained almost stable on January 2017 at 54.3 and from the manufacturing sector side, it seems that once again Germany has driven the Eurozone expansion“, which seems nice, but from my point of view with the quotes “it means -0.1 point compared to December. The manufacturing PMI rose to 55.1 from 54.9 whereas the services sector survey has registered a small decrease by -0.1 point to 53.1” as well as “From the manufacturing sector side, it seems that once again Germany has driven the Eurozone expansion. The manufacturing index increased by 0.9 point from 55.6 to 56.5 whereas it declined in France (from 53.5 to 53.4) in January“, which means that in the Eurozone, only one nation is getting anywhere and the other 18 aren’t pulling their weight and not getting things done. Harsh, but true. It is in this collection of false relabeling scores, where we see ICG blackmail France, scores of banks blackmail the UK (question: should I use the word ‘blackmail’ or is ‘Psychic Assault’ a better word?), because that is basically what it is and the fact that these players are not named and shamed is an issue for me.

In this 10 days ago, we had the fact that the ECB is also making its choice of ignoring other voices “The European Central Bank will hold to its course at its first meeting of 2017 Thursday, analysts said, resisting clamour to tighten monetary policy from critics pointing to increasing inflation. Since December’s meeting of the ECB’s Governing Council, when it extended mass bond-buying from March to December 2017, price increases in the 19-nation single currency area have picked up. The increase to 1.1 percent from 0.6 average inflation across the Eurozone in December still leaves the indicator well short of the ECB’s target of just below 2.0“, meaning that the ECB is playing an increasing dangerous game whilst loading this debt onto a group of nations with already maximised credit cards. The fact that only Germany got any decent result is also an indication that the ECB is setting a premise that increases the overall European debt by 2 billion a day and nothing to show for it. We can accept and we need to take into consideration that some of these events are long term actions, yet in equal measure it didn’t work the first time, so the second time making it lasts longer is equally a bad idea, which is why he earned the Jester hat.

This reflects back to the EC, because as we see more and more push against Brexit, which some parties are hoping that it will in equal measure diminish the dangers of Frexit. Even as the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38753808) gives us that ‘Brexit: Article 50 legislation to be published‘, we see in equal measure “But it is expected to face amendments from MPs and peers, while others have said they will oppose it outright“, giving the people a new fear, the fear that the freedom they had on the referendum was fake, a virtual war where the will of the people was never real. We can accept that the “Supreme Court on Tuesday, when judges ruled that Parliament must give permission to start the Brexit process“, which is acceptable, yet in equal measure we now face that in all this, as the EC began this path was never properly set, the lawmakers deceived and betrayed the people of the sovereign nation of the United Kingdom. Even as we know that article 50 is merely the informing part that the UK is leaving the EU, the Supreme Court stopped this from ‘just’ happening, and in that I have no issue, the Commonwealth has always been directed by law (as stated earlier). It does become an issue to me when I see “face amendments from MPs and peers“, the question becomes, what amendments? The people want out and this group of people is growing fast, all over Europe. The bickering, blackmail and phony posturing by those not even properly paying their share of taxation has been a blight in the eyes of the tax paying people. So as we look at John McFarlane and his spearfishing, or is that spearheading a fishing campaign? Anyway, the AFR is reporting on John trying to keep the banks where they are. I am still decently certain that as Frexit is becoming more and more a certainty, those not remaining in London, or those vastly relocating staff, will within 24 months see a sway where they have to explain to the shareholders a massive loss, due to relocations, loss of staff and loss of opportunity and revenue, due to a loss of staff, whilst in equal measure needing to show massive expenditure in France and Germany whilst the revenue never got close to the change. More important, the anger of people with every delay on Article 50 is also prompting other nations to truly spearhead a move out of the EC. So as we consider (at http://www.afr.com/news/world/europe/stay-put-for-brexit-deal-banks-urged-20170122-gtwblk) the quote “Bankers have moved from talking about a “transitional” period, instead labelling it an “implementation” or “stability” period, mirroring the language and rhetoric being used by the British government“, this whilst no one is asking how come that London was the financial centre for Europe before the Euro existed, before we got this open borders stuff. The British centre of commerce was well established, so in all this, why would it have been lost in the first place and for those moving consider that a one market place might see best, but we have shown again and again that it only profits the large corporations and there is too much showing that the next 10 years will not be in hands of large corporations, it will be the smaller ones that will actually start economies and set changes. Those people still see London as the centre of their universe (whether reasonable or not). In that article there is one part that remains cause for concern You see there is truth in “Jes Staley, the chief executive of Barclays, said he did not think that Britain or the EU would use Brexit as an excuse to roll back the global financial framework that has been implemented since the financial crisis“, yet we know better and what Jes is stating is not true. The truth is that, as Reuters gave us in September 2016 (at http://www.reuters.com/article/us-basel-banks-eu-idUSKCN11W1PA), that the banks are very much in favour of rolling it back to some degree. As we see “The European Union may opt out of new global rules aimed at preventing another financial crash because officials are worried they put European banks at a disadvantage at a time when they are losing market share to U.S. rivals“, even at that point, a mere 4 months after Mossack Fonseca, more and more shifts were seen. There is more than one indication that after Mossack Fonseca got out into the open, many had to vacate places and move and interestingly enough, according to Andrew Penney, Rothschild & Co, the U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world”, this is also how we learn that private wealth is doing just fine, it merely got as new letterhead from either (or both) an accountancy firm and a law firm.

How do these elements connect? What does wealth management have to do with slavery?

These are important questions and you need to ask them! You see, the freedom of choice, to leave the EU has been undermined for some time now. I understand that it was a close call, yet the Bremainers lost, and just like American Democrats, they are very sore losers, because they aren’t getting their way. In addition, those who have no vote and also require the Bremainers to win are large corporations who require every part of an inch of margin to keep their profits as high as possible, because their bonuses depend on it. That part is no longer an option as these people need to be held tax accountable, as well as these corporations require them to pay their fair share of taxation. With the EU behind us, UK laws can finally be adapted for this to happen. We see all the flim-flam presentations, bullying and blackmail on how they walk away. Yet we can clearly see that the UK was merely the first one. And some margin from 68 million consumers is better than losing 68 million consumers, which is what the UK is steering towards. The untold part is that all these noisemakers do realise that losing the UK and its customer population is really bad, so having some profit will always be better. So when we see the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/26/brexit-bill-mps-will-get-five-days-to-debate-article-50-plans), with Labour MP’s stating “to guarantee the protection of workers’ rights and securing “full tariff- and impediment-free access” to the EU’s single market“, gets the response ‘who are they kidding?‘, workers’ rights is one and that has existed in the UK long before the EC, in addition and the crunch is ‘tariff-free access‘, which is just to appease large corporations and that has been the problem these last 8 years to begin with. So who is Labour copulating to? (Oops: I meant facilitating for). In addition UK Labour wants as an amendment “to oblige the government to keep all existing EU tax avoidance and evasion measures“, which seems nice, but that could have been avoided if proper legislation had been pushed to come down hard on tax evaders. Yet Labour in all their terms did absolutely nothing to get that decently sorted, so screaming for it now seems a little redundant in my humble opinion.

As we watch from that bridge, we see twists and turns, whilst from the distance we see how financial institutes are enabled more and more, our freedoms fall away. The Financial times being the voice of Bankers on how the ECB is making its predictions. “The European Central Bank has stepped up its warning that it will be difficult for the UK to hang on to its valuable euro-clearing business after Brexit, calling for EU institutions to seek more, not less, oversight of the trade in London once Britain leaves the bloc“, (at https://www.ft.com/content/51a68c6e-e094-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a), which sounds nice and threatening, yet, do the people realise that when Brexit becomes a fact, Frexit will be around the corner and that also means the end of the ECB soon thereafter. So as we see the issues brought by Benoît Coeuré, we see in addition “we’ll have to know what are the new foundations, and whether this is good enough to ensure financial stability in the Eurozone,” he said. “Is that possible? I don’t know . . . It sounds challenging,” he said, adding that the issue “is not for the ECB to judge alone. The [European] Commission will have a say, governments will have a say.”“, this is fair enough, when the UK steps out, another European EC nation could end up clearing Euro derivatives, that is to say, where is that infrastructure in place? The article brings however an interesting side. With “Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, indicated that financial services could be one of a number of areas where the UK would like to retain “elements of current single market arrangements.” But that idea of special sector-by-sector deals encountered an immediate pushback from other EU leaders, who are wary of British attempts to cherry-pick advantages of EU membership“, this view is not incorrect, yet in equal measure, what cherries would the Amsterdam, German and French markets like to pick? The point I am trying to make is not the issue by itself, which is fair enough, the issue is surrounding the people behind the curtains. People like Mario Draghi, Benoît Coeuré and the other four. When push comes to shove, I feel that they for the most have their own needs in mind, the public at large should have seen by now that the ECB has been pushing their own game, the rising debt is only one of the games played. The other one is actually shown in an interview with Romano Prodi (at http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/politics/2017-01-16/intervista-prodi-132036.php?uuid=AEIWmr), there Prodi states: “The euro area’s economy is however recovering, although, according to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, the main risks come from the field of politics” on one side we see that the ‘recovery‘ is misplaced as shown earlier is at less than one percent and Germany is the only one achieving it in the end, that is not recovery. What Mario Draghi calls ‘the main risks come from the field of politics‘ sounds nice, but in the end, most politicians have an economic knowledge that is a mere joke (slightly less than my non-economic education), they get their advice from economic people most of them connected to banks, and they don’t want Brexit to happen. In addition, as shown earlier, the banks are starting to push back against Basel because of the US advantages, meaning that the banks are becoming larger risks again. Does anyone remember how these bankers ended up in prison in 2008? They did not! Their quality of life only increased to the larger degree whilst the rest of us saw a diminished quality of life that even today has not restored itself. So the view from the bridge is not that great, it shows on how we lost too much and in all this Bremaining could spell even more disaster before the end of the year. That last one is not a given, but we always knew that there would be hard times. Now we only need to worry on when that crash does happen, on how the ECB will blame everyone except for themselves and their utter reckless spending of trillions. The bridge of slavery has no view, yet unlike the Hussaini Hanging Bridge you do not get to die if you are ‘lucky’, you get to live through the agony of cleaning up the mess others made and they end up being protected and not held accountable.

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Tagged as Andrew Penney, Article 50, Barclays, Benoît Coeuré, Brexit, ECB, Financial Times, Front National, Hussaini Hanging Bridge, ICG, Intermediate Capital Group, Italy 24, Jes Staley, Jesus Castillo, John McFarlane, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Mossack Fonseca, National Front, Natixis, President Trump, reuters, Richard Desmond, Romano Prodi, Rothschild & Co, the Guardian, Theresa May, UK, UK Labour, UKIP, uropean Central Bank

January 23, 2017 · 14:25

As the costs come

There is an issue that we see floating at Pressnet. Actually it’s an issue that started last week. I got the news from Retail Week (at https://www.retail-week.com/companies/bhs/bhs-admin-costs-spiral-as-mps-demand-answers/7017777.article), yet it came from several directions, so there is ample visibility. Yet, what is going on? This is an important part and even as there is great benefit to anyone’s soul to blame PwC for this, yet is that fair? The question becomes, is it in the books? When we look at the previous audits, was the quote “BHS administration costs have come in at £1.3m more than expected as MPs question a £35m ‘floating charge’ paid by Arcadia” a fair question? In all this, are these floating costs in the books? I actually do not know, yet I equally question why certain parties aren’t openly asking these questions at the PwC desk. Is that not equally odd?

The two quotes that matter are “If it was such a completely standard move, as Duff & Phelps claim, one wonders why it was reversed by the co-administrators as one of their first acts upon being appointed, and why the PPF seems to take a rather different view.” and “Meanwhile, Field questioned the transference of a “floating charge”, put in place at BHS by Green’s Arcadia Group. Duff & Phelps transferred the charge to Linklaters last October“, this now gives us the parts:

If we accept the bankruptcy announcements of April 2016, how come that this is done in October 2016?
If we accept that a floating charge is ‘a liability to a creditor which relates to the company’s assets as a whole‘, than the part that this is a credit to the Arcadia group should be in the books, and should have been in there for some time I gather, so why are there no questions asked at the address of PwC, in addition, why are MP’s not asking certain questions from Linklaters? Now, we should accept that Linklaters cannot divulge too much (read: any) information, yet when this was all set up could be seen as mere administration and that needs to be logged, which means that either Arcadia or BHS could release that information, if they choose not to do that, the question that follows should be a lot more serious and we need to wonder what else is in play.
When we look at the quote “If it was such a completely standard move, as Duff & Phelps claim, one wonders why it was reversed by the co-administrators as one of their first acts upon being appointed, and why the PPF seems to take a rather different view“. In that I look at another issue, the quote found in Professional Pensions gives us “A spokesman for FRP Advisory declined to comment, adding all that needs to be said is covered in creditor reports“, yet if it is there, should it not also be in the accountancy audit? That is an assumption from my side, and I could be wrong, yet the amount of £35m moved via Linklater in April 2016, if none of the audits has this on paper, questions should be asked, if it is there, questions should still be asked, yet it seems that questions are asked in such a late stage. In all this, City A.M. gives us: “Tension has been building between the PPF and Duff & Phelps throughout the administrative process. In November, the PPF voted against Duff & Phelps’ request to increase its fee. Malcolm Weir, head of restructuring at the PPF, said BHS pension scheme members deserved “value for money”“, which sounds fair enough, yet in all this, even if Arcadia hasn’t received the funds at present, the fact that we see “The £35m was never paid to Arcadia. It was always held in an account to our order. Our legal advisers have confirmed that the floating charge is valid. However, I understand that the liquidators and their legal advisers have made comments concerning its validity, but, I nor my legal advisers, have received any evidence to support their view.” In that regard, we now see that legal advisors are on opposite sides and both sides claim their version of validity, as legal advisors would. This is not in question at present, what is interesting is that the media at large have not included PwC in any of this, as they have been seen as the auditor of BHS. Oh, and there was a reason for me mentioning: “if none of the audits has this on paper, questions should be asked”, be aware that I have no experience on corporate taxation. However, would it not make sense that a £35m invoice would impact next year’s taxation significantly and as such, should it not be mentioned?

In this let me take you back to the previous article, where I discussed the Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/4c3965f2-3c4e-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a). Here we see “The Financial Reporting Council said its investigation related to PwC’s audit of BHS accounts in the year before the retailer was sold by Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, in a deal that wrote off £215m of debts“, which is fair enough. In addition we see “At a committee session in May, PwC partner Steve Denison was asked by MPs to explain why the firm was prepared to sign off BHS as a “going concern” just days before its sale for £1“, which is fine too, yet where in all this is the £35m transfer to Linklater for the Arcadia group? If Duff & Phelps took control in April, would the accountant not have been aware of the thirty-five million, as such should PwC have been aware? (Read: not implied, yet questioned).

Let’s not forget that the Financial Times article was from June 27^th, which means that the £35m should have been on many minds at that time, yet for the longest time there was little to no mention. I would think that if a firm is sold for the price of a mere Tesco Sliced Wholemeal Batch Loaf, would a question not be ‘What else needs to be paid for?‘ at that point the entire £35m transfer should be on the top of everyone’s mind, especially as there was a decadent pension gap issue many times that size? Perhaps it is just me, but that would be on my ‘media’ mind. Not just the actual newspapers, a few other publications (like TV and morning shows) would have had a field day with the mention that pensions will remain short, but the bosses will get squared for that thirty-five million. Emotions would be running high that day, let me guarantee you that emotions will run high on that topic!

In that regard, some MP’s are starting to ask additional questions as we see a fees increase £500,000 for Duff & Phelps’s. I wonder how many additional man years of work have been spent that warrants a £500K increase. The week gave the quote: “When they were appointed last April, initially at the behest of Green and then approved by the BHS board, the company estimated its costs would be around £3.5m“, now I imagine that an insolvency comes with all kinds of complications, but how much work, how many months of full day activities warrants £3.5M? I do not know, I am merely asking, especially as the pensions have been for the most unpaid for years now. The site this is money gives additional connections in the shape of Goldman Sachs, where among the top earners at the investment bank’s London office will be the former co-chief Mike Sherwood, who faced questioning from MPs last year over the bank’s role in the BHS scandal. He landed a $21 million pay and bonus package last year, worth £15 million at the time (at http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-4120336/Now-bankers-bonus-Brexit-Goldman-staff-BHS-probe-donate-pension-fund-says-MP.html).

Now a lot of this news is between 1-2 weeks old and a few items are merely days old. Yet in all this we see a massive drain to less than a dozen people, where including Arcadia a syphoning through invoicing has surpassed £50M if we include the Arcadia bound payment, yet all is not well as several sources give large payments in their report, yet the exact part of what represents BHS is not given, but implied to be a large part. As such Mike Sherwood might have ended up with 21 million dollars, yet what part is though or because of BHS is not given, in his position, with his amount of accounts, the BHS part could be less than 1%, and as there is no clarity, the Week who gives us in addition “Huge payments to bankers who worked on the BHS deal could prove particularly controversial“, only if the bulk of these payments were regarding BHS, but that is not a given, I would add, it is exceptionally unlikely. By the way, those people did not really bother reporting that when Greece got back onto the markets In April 2014. In my article ‘Are we getting played?‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/05/18/are-we-getting-played/), where we saw the disastrous act of Greece getting back on the bonds field selling 5 billion in bonds. Yet the media at large was very very eager not to mention that the few bankers connected to this ended up with a total bonus of $50 million for what amounts to 3 days of work. So on one side they refuse to give the info, now we see incorrect (or at least incomplete info), with a reference of 21 million, the package of Mike Sherwood.

Yet there is more, the part I find hilarious is “Frank Field MP, chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee which quizzed the Goldman bankers on the deal, said: ‘This gives them an ideal opportunity to donate something to the pension funds, to make partial amends for the failure to give effective advice“, you see in that, he didn’t make any such reference to PwC. Pricewaterhouse Coopers, has been seen on the minds of a few as we see (in the Telegraph of all places) “select committees have also said that they have welcomed the Financial Reporting Council’s investigation into why PwC audited BHS’s accounts as a going concern when it was evident the high street chain was dependent on support from Arcadia Group, Sir Philip’s empire which includes Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge and Burton” in that the red flags of pension deficits we see a £571m pension deficit and kindly audited by PwC, so who else are they auditing in the Empire that is (or was) part of Philip Green?

Yet in all this, at present there is, just like with Tesco very little noise regarding the Financial Reporting Council and PwC, it seems like the press walks away when these two are mentioned in one sentence. After June 2016 there is abysmal little to see, which after Tesco and BHS that should be a little weird. Even when we look at the BHS elements now, overall the Auditor is left unseen in more serious ways, other than that Tesco is now hiring PwC again for other services, which after the shortfall and the DeLoitte results is a little bit weird to say the least.

You see, last year Aditya Chakrabortty in an opinion piece wrote: “Cameron warned of “the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations”. He was right. It’s just that it’s been led by those at the top – the ones at the boardroom tables, their expensive helpers – and their mates and supporters in politics using taxpayer money to wave them on” is not a wrong view, it comes three years after I made pretty much the same claim, so we can see that some players are a little late to the party. What is linked that when it comes to the matters as happened with BHS, crime literally does pay. It does for the auditor, the business men who own the place and sell it for £1 as well as the politicians who threaten with a £1,000,000,000 fine which will never happen (that pesky thing called the law gets in the way). You see, for many of us and for the victims it is a crime, yet from a legislation point of view that is not certain and it seems that no crime took place, because the people are not in jail, not in the dock and not in court. They are refurbishing their £10 million estates, whilst the working victims cannot make ends meet and where the auditor gets rehired by those they seemingly wronged for even more high priced consultancy.

As the costs are handed to the corporations in the shape of invoices, we see that crime seems to pay and it does so at a lower tax bracket than normal incomes. It can be stopped, you could be on the other side of the equation. You only have to be willing to do the one thing others did not anticipate and you have to be willing to be utterly ruthless. Basically you have to become a businessman like Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green and hire and firm like Pricewaterhouse Coopers to advice on your endeavour and audit it.

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Tagged as Aditya Chakrabortty, Arcadia, BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Duff & Phelps, Financial Reporting Council, Financial Times, Goldman Sachs, Greece, Linklater, Malcolm Weir, Mike Sherwood, Miss Selfridge, PPF, PwC, Retail Week, Sir Philip Green, Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green, Steve Denison, Tesco, the Guardian, the Week, This is Money, Topshop

December 31, 2016 · 14:41

This last day

This last day should be a day of reflection, a day of consideration. I feel none of these things as I am observing the mistakes that Marine Le Pen is now making. I get why she would get the referendum vamped up and get stronger waves towards Frexit, yet her call to leave NATO makes a lot less sense. For one, NATO still does mean the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, France is part of that North Atlantic, she has a duty of care there (a lot less so for the EC, the EEC or the Euro for that matter). She does make a point when we look at the expansion into Eastern Europe. Let’s face it, when we look into the original line, there was Germany which goes a lot to the south, then basically it is Italy. Getting into Eastern Europe makes a lot less sense. Let’s not forget, the Americans at present no longer have the means to play this game. A fact Lockheed needs to take into consideration, even if the price of the F-35 is given without an engine ($133 million, without engine), making it basically the most expensive paperweight in history. In addition, it came with a truckload of issues in 2014, whilst the 2015 report states “the majority of the fixes and for capability deficiencies being discovered are being deferred to later blocks rather than being resolved“, with new items of concern added. I found the additional quote form the 2015 report “inherent design problems that are only becoming more obvious and difficult to fix” most amusing, so if Marine Le Pen has in mind to not go anywhere near a Lockheed design, that would make sense. Now I do not want to brag, but with all my flying hours in the Microsoft Flight Simulator (2004), I might actually beat that latest flawed Lockheed F-35 with my experience in a Mikoyan MiG-35 (OK, I am bragging a little as I have never flown ANY jet in my life). What is the issue is that the politicians have not kept a good accord on the military abilities of the armed forces, not the people mind you, but the equipment they get stuck with. As such we see a 1.5 trillion dollar project showing more holes than an IKEA Pasta insert (named ‘Stabil’, which is hilarious as it is also means stable in Swedish). A project $160 billion over budget and 7 years behind schedule, and these were the numbers in 2014. A defence project that was too big to kill and that is what the NATO partners have to content with?

So why these topics? The world is changing, it is changing faster than ever before and the minders of the store have been so selfish in regards to their own personal needs (read: visibility of self via ego) and achievements that the duty they had was pushed under the rug. This is how I personally see the F-35 project.

The financial sector in the UK alone these financial boys (girls also) had the bulk of the £44bn in bonuses this year, so did your quality of life increase any (the topic jump will make sense in a few moments)? Now, even as wealth increased, it did not do so to that extent. It is not that fair to just have a go at the financial sector, apart from the fact that they ended up with bonuses of 1900% more than the amount all the others got, so balance is not that much in play. That view is shown stronger as we look at Forbes this week (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/12/28/greece-the-game-is-on-again/#2585dbd946e5), the quotes that matter here are “Euclid Tsakalotos, the normally mild-mannered Finance Minister, accused the IMF writers of “economizing on the truth”. He pointed out that the main reason why so few Greeks pay income taxes is that their incomes have crashed, and that nearly half of Greek pensioners are living below the poverty line” and “The IMF’s case is that pension cost as a proportion of GDP is now unsustainable, and further, that the creditors are not going to agree to debt relief while pension cost remains so high. It is probably right on both counts. But once again, what really matters is the psychological framing“, in that regard I will be on the side of the Greeks, but not on the side of Greece. You see when their previous governments got loans and misrepresented their value, they had zero consideration on what pensions were in regards to the loans that they were getting under false pretense, in that regard, did any of those politicians go to jail? Did they refund 90% of their incomes? I am certain that the answer to both is ‘No!’, in addition those elected officials are sitting pretty and nowhere near the poverty line. Yet in all this the hardship is not over, in addition, the facts (as I personally see them) requires a little more digging, especially when I read “Attica Bank, the country’s fifth-largest lender, was poised to install a new management team he thought was capable of turning round the struggling lender” which were the thoughts of Yannis Stournaras, the governor of the central bank of Greece, which was followed by “While he was in the air, the government in Athens reversed the decision to award the job to Mr Pantalakis. It was his introduction to a web of allegedly related events, ranging from a raid on his wife’s business to an unsuccessful bid for TV rights backed by Attica loans“, this gives the implied issues on Yannis Stournaras, which gives more cause concern when we see “A confidential report on Attica carried out this year by the European Central Bank, the Eurozone’s top bank supervisor, and seen by the Financial Times, cited “severe findings” of poor governance and inadequate controls on lending. With some 70 per cent of its loans rated as non-performing, Mr Stournaras and others believed Attica urgently needed a professional banker at the helm. Government sources denied any intervention in the process to select Attica’s CEO” (at https://www.ft.com/content/aab0aaba-c6db-11e6-8f29-9445cac8966f). The implications are on a few levels especially in the light of ‘government sources denied‘, there is a mess on a few levels and the idea that personal needs were adamant in decisions is not without probable cause. The levels that are in question cannot be set because too much information is missing, but there are issues, make no mistake about that.

These issues connect, not directly but in the view of national voters, governments have made absolute shambles of their nations giving power to those with key wealth management options, in that need those who need to be at the helm are politicised and set to markers that are off the table and outside of the scope of visibility to scrutinise, whilst the presentations are showing markers that do not fit the person best suited for the job, in that Greece is not the only place with such issues. In the UK Mark Carney is facing similar issues, yet in the opposite direction. The best person for the job is the one the elected government seems to have an issue with. The independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bank-of-england-mark-carney-theresa-may-attack-monetary-policy-tory-conference-speech-a7380016.html) gives us “Mr Carney argued that the monetary policy pursued by the Bank in recent years has had a positive impact that is “without parallel”, despite the Prime Minister using her speech to claim it had led to “bad side effects”“, in addition we see “Since quantitative easing was first introduced in the economy in 2009 … there’s been 2.6 million jobs created, GDP is up 16 per cent, per capita income is up 9 per cent and this is following a trauma in the economy“, we might see this as good news, but the good news is in the UK not dripping down to the other people just yet. In addition, the dangers will change if sharp budgets are not maintained. Getting the debt down is an absolute first, it will have additional benefits down the road, yet the initial benefit is that money could go to other destinations than paying for the interest of the debt, the interest of a debt amount that is currently in excess of 1.6 trillion. This was not the first attack, Michael Gove had a go at England’s Marky Mark in October. It is always nice when a person is called arrogant, especially when that person has proven to be amongst the very best in his field on the planet. I myself had had some issues in the past with Mark Carney, yet not against the man, but the economic issues that the UK faced because of actions (read objectives) pushed for by politicians, however his speech in the House of Lords showed him to be the expert he is and he nearly got me away from the Brexit team. Yet Mark Carney himself states it very well when he said: “Politicians have done a very good job of setting up the system. Where it can be difficult, sometimes, is if there are political comments on our policies as opposed to political comments on our objectives“, in this we see the issue that is part of the problem. as the politicians set up the objectives, they are then confronted with the policies from technocrats and those two groups do not see eye to eye, so friction goes back and forth, the Lockheed F-35 lightning is an excellent example here, in addition that part got an extra iteration as the military requirements were added by yet another group (read: the military). In all this the political objective is hampering the essential need against ‘it needs to be done by date X for no more than amount Y‘, which gives us the political joke that the NHS IT project was. A present from the Labour government which boiled down to a £11.2 billion wrapper around an empty box. Two projects set through objectives that ended up being off the wall and the back and forth friction that resulted in something unmanageable and non-functional. I reckon the political side of both events needs a new level of scrutiny, one that we have not considered before. In that regard having people like Mark Carney around is essential for the wheels of a state to remain functional, because if there is one clear thing, it is that America lost that oversight some time ago, before this Democratic Administration, the previous republican one lost sight of the needs and the accountability of the intelligence network and data processing side no later than 2006, we can all agree that the 2007-2012 total budget of $435 billion was money massively spent in all the wrong ways. This was shown in a Foreign office document that was quoted in an article stating “Army officials, though, said Palantir wasn’t up to the job. Now, a 57-page report by the Pentagon’s acquisitions arm basically says the Army was wrong to dismiss the Palantir system. The study instead gives Palantir high marks on most of the Army’s 20 key requirements for the intelligence system, including the ability to analyse large amounts of information, including critical data about terrorist networks and the locations of explosive devices, and synchronize it in a way that helps troops on the ground combat their enemies more effectively“, so there too billions were spent when millions could have sufficed. When the EGO of an individual with the power to decide is on the line, the results could be disastrous. In my personal view, if we accept the wrongful spending of 25 billion, how many extra troops could have been saved by adding fire support groups to those in IRAQ in those years? How many of the 4486 fatalities could have been prevented?

Politicians, advisors and ego are a really dangerous combination in many ways, even as we look at what is coming now, we need to be mindful of the changes that some are pushing for. Even if we are in favour of dropping the EC altogether, pushing NATO boundaries might not be the best solution. France might be privy to one of the better intelligence machines, that machine is also dependent on the intelligence it is fed from allies, an essential element that will fall away when NATO does, Marine Le Pen should be very mindful of that.

Yet this year and more important 2017 will go beyond Frexit. There is still a large debate on the Netherlands making any move away from the European Community, the numbers require people to be realistic on what will happen, yet those numbers are nowhere near the numbers Brexit had, so it is still unlikely that this will happen at present, no matter how certain Frexit will be. Italy might not have any manoeuvring space, it requires a massive infuse of funds, when we see the Reuters quote “An Italian government official told Reuters on Tuesday that €20bn earmarked for the rescue of the Italian banking system should suffice“, we need to wonder in how much trouble Italy is. This question is raised as we see Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena will issue €15 billion of debt next year (source: RTE). So we see another iteration where “The Treasury may have to put up around €6.6 billion to salvage the lender, including €2 billion to compensate around 40,000 retail bond holders“, so, how exactly is it acceptable that people ‘invest’ with a risk, yet when that risk comes calling, they still get compensated? How did any of us ever sign up for that?

Anyone who mentions that it is for the good of all is of their rocker plain and simple. Here too we see connection between France and Italy, mainly that the Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM) thought it was a good idea to list Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena as a major purchase right next to Ubisoft. I reckon a little less ‘lack of nationalism’ and putting all of that cash in addition to the other amount into Ubisoft might have been a decently better idea. I feel certain that next year when we see the ‘Top Ten Holdings’ in the Natixis report will not make mention of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, which could just be me though.

So in this last day we see that we have quite the collection of choices to deal with, some good and many bad ones. Yet no matter what is happening, no matter what will fall, there is a decent indication that unless changes are made 2017 will not be a good year. I might be too negative to see some level of collapse in Q2 (no later than Q3) in the next year, yet the proper setting and if the key players are willing to forego ego and focus on cooperation, they would be setting the stage for a lucrative 2018, that is beside the initial technological presentations of the new age of G5. G5 will be the pushing power in IP, especially Trade Marks, yet that path is also loaded with new growth opportunities for IT and developers as they start setting the tone of what 5G could personalise, it will be the first firm push to switch providers to SaaS. That is almost without question, the degree to it happening is very much depending on actual cooperation. In that the Telco providers need to realise as per immediate that thinking SaaS whilst selling Paas and charging IaaS, which sounds nice on bonus day. Yet the boomerang effect is that clients will walk away a lot faster and they will also automatically entice 10 personal connection to not seek the services of the telecom provider being that stupid. Infrastructure as a Service is almost a thing of the past. It seems weird, because there should be space for it, yet in our new outfits we see that infrastructure is a long term commitment and with annual mobile purchase the people have learned to be as flexible as possible, so the limited mobiles that some sell (32Gb instead of 64Gb editions) is why people are realising to walk away from those offering limitations instead of solutions. It is at times harder with Platform as a Service. You see, PaaS might sound nice when we see Apple and SAP connecting, yet the bulk of the revenue will be the smaller fish in the pond, the small players will be 80% of the revenue, one can argue the actual taxable cake of government will be largely depending on those players and for them IaaS is a laughable solution when they are trying to get as much as possible in the first few years and those smaller players want as much flexibility as possible taking to some extent PaaS from the table. SaaS will be solution of choice and those now adhering to that need will fall short in 2018 and they are unlikely to be part of anything in 2019. In that we see the government need of objectives that cater to what the SME’s need. A mere application of supply and requirement. You might think that this is not connected to the previous parts, but it is. When we see the NHS, Banks and government, their needs to address their audience, they need to consider that no matter the infrastructure or platform for communications, they all need to see that their clientele is no longer rigid, no longer bound to certain paths for the simple reason that the infrastructure of places like the NHS can no longer deal with. It is by definition a mobile customer base that needs addressing, this means, or at least implies that the SaaS solutions require a wider setup, other paths of non-repudiation and a very different approach to data, its quality, its controls and the application of the results in any report or estimation towards costings and profit. It is a path of contribution, which is set as revenue minus costing.

For the better part an entirely new path in a setting that has for too long been about a rigid collection of data, which when compared to a setting in a flexible framework no longer holds a candle and will come with the implied death of data quality. in these places there will be a growing need for a data team that has the sole purpose of managing the quality of data, this path is one that IT has never worked on to the degree it had, because in the past systems were set in concrete and after the correct data pass had been made, the data usually would not require ‘resetting’ it in another framework, a change that will be almost evident in the systems we will see start in the next 4 years. There, for some the problem becomes that they have never contemplated the changes, which now also means that once they go into the deep of it all, the time required and the resources required will be a lot more draining than ever before. It is in that path that we see the danger of politicians and technocrats in the required path of objectives and policies. As there is plenty of evidence that so far this track record is not that great, we will see a squandering of funds and a dangerous curve of unprotected data whilst no one will be actually held accountable for the transgressions against those consumers aka victims.

So on this last day there is no way that any solution will be found, just take in the information and next week wonder what on earth is about to hit you, there is some speculation in this, yet I believe that the ‘objective callers’ (read: politicians) will rely on the word ‘glitch’ a lot more than ever before, it might just become the most popular word for 2017.

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