Tag Archives: Financial Times

August 24, 2025 · 10:28

In other bad news

That is how it reads, is this the reality of things? That remains to be seen, but as I see it, there is a rolling effect. A news source gave me this morning that IndiGo is starting two new routes. One between Abu Dhabi and Visakhapatnam, the other one is between Abu Dhabi and Bhubaneswar. They represent populations up to 3.2 million people, and that is the direct surroundings of these places. It is important to see that, as that implies that the setting that I predicted that America will lose more and more tourists is starting in this kind of situation. You might give credence to the ‘mumblings’ that this will soon pass over, and perhaps it will. But the direct setting is that those that rely on their one vacation a year, they are choosing Abu Dhabi (and Dubai) over American destinations. So when you decide to trust ‘The US tourism slump that never happened’ (source: Financial Times), or perhaps ‘Desperate U.S. Hotels And Tourism Operators Continue ‘Come Back’ Deals For Canadians’ (source: The travel) you are looking in the wrong direction. Yes, in a few years travel to the USA will bounce back, it is the next three years that matter and in the meantime the UAE is gaining traction in many ways. And over the next three years it will develop into a main destination for the better part of the globe. In the meantime America will be bleeding losses on all sides. And when the bounce back ‘fails’ or more precisely is delayed. The losses for America will merely add up to a lot more. 

That is beside the larger setting. You see, Visakhapatnam was in 2020 a finalist in the Living and Inclusion category of the World Smart City Awards. As such travel is interesting both ways, it also has its own share of beaches and it is the 5th busiest port in India, as such commerce is likely to blossom between the two nations. As for Bhubaneswar, is a hub of sports and IT in the country. As such there is a larger interaction possible between the two places. All options that are now a moot setting for the EU and America. And the fact that IndiGo is a low cost airline, the tourists cluster that will have the UAE on their international dreamless will increase rather sharply. We might look at all the ‘wealth’ that travels. But for every wealthy traveller the UAE sees, there will be 50 non-wealthy tourists and this amounts to a lot of visitors. I reckon that IndiGo is merely the first to see that influx of tickets sold. I reckon that by late November everything Indian who dreamt of seeing a Formula 1 race with his or her own eyes will flock to the UAE and that is just for starters. As I see it tickets for Yas Island will be the hottest ticket of the year. With all the extras you get to enjoy, the need for hotels and especially low cost hotels will explode in no time flat. 

Just two settings that America is currently missing out on and for the next three years. Have you considered the impact that VISA’s and ‘integrity fee’ options that America thought to help to guide them through. And more bad news in this category (as stated by some for 2026) are discouraging more and more tourists to America and now they have a stellar place to go from March 2024 onwards. And now the setting becomes that more and more are discouraged to visit America as it is seen. The larger setting becomes that Saudi Arabia will from 2027 onwards the next competitors for all these tourists who need a place to go. I reckon that some will chose China as a destination, but the numbers on that remain speculative and is not supported by factual data at present.

Have a great holiday to come in 2025

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August 23, 2025 · 04:57

Lies of the present

That is what I saw hours ago, lies of the present. We all know that tourism in America is down. The strongest influencer in this is Canada and the impact is larger. There is Flight center with the $100M income wallet bash. But no, here is the Financial Times giving us this ‘presented truth’ 

So, when we see another source give us “The tourism industry in the United States is witnessing a notable downturn, with a 17% reduction in European visitors in March 2025 compared to the previous year. This decline is alarming, given the tourism sector’s contribution of approximately 2.5% to the U.S. GDP. The decrease isn’t limited to European visitors; the overall number of foreign tourists fell by 12%, marking a significant drop since the post-pandemic recovery period of 2021.” As such, we only see the little text the FT gives us with the headline ‘The US tourism slump that never happened’ and that is it. I didn’t read the article because I never paid and this is how the FT leaves us hanging. And in light of this ‘debatable’ presentation towards income, the Financial Times can be accused of nearly anything. The downside of throwing teasers to the public to gain fees. With the text “Leading travel industry players are expressing concern over declining interest in U.S. destinations among European travelers. Accor, a French hotel group with a significant presence in the United States, reported a 25% decrease in summer bookings from Europe. Similarly, Voyageurs du Monde noted a 20% drop in bookings since the onset of the current U.S. administration, reflecting a growing disinterest among European tourists.” As such, what slump never happened? So whilst we read “this shift signifies a broader sentiment of dissatisfaction with U.S. policies and highlights the need for a reassessment of strategies to attract European tourists. Industry leaders emphasize the importance of addressing international perceptions to rebuild confidence in the U.S. as a welcoming and diverse destination”, whilst other places (like Abu Dhabi) is showing themselves like a more willing host to tourists all over the world. What possessed the FT to give us this (unread by me) article? As I see it, you cannot play ‘upside’ boy using presented advertising without getting hurt. The Financial Times Is according to some “a renowned British daily newspaper and digital publication that provides in-depth coverage of business, economic, and financial news on a global scale” So what does that bring us “Despite fears of a sharp downturn amid foreign visitor boycotts, the sector has had a decent summer”? In a setting where we see places like NPR gives us ‘Far fewer Canadians are visiting the U.S. this year, new numbers show’ with the added text ““It’s tough, because we’ve developed this relationship with the cross-border economy,” Dame said. “And now here we are, the rug getting pulled out from underneath us.” New data confirms that far fewer Canadians are making trips south. Canadian residents made just 1.7 million return trips by motor vehicle back into their country from the U.S. in July, a nearly 37% drop from the same month in 2024, according to a report published this month by Statistics Canada.” So how exactly is this ‘the slump that never happened’? Then when we see ““It’s a decline that’s not stopping things from happening, but it is affecting the revenue that people are collecting,” she said. The U.S. saw 20.4 million visits from Canadians last year, making Canada the top source of international tourists to the United States, the U.S. Travel Association reported. The group said in February that those visits generated $20.5 billion in spending and supported 140,000 U.S. jobs.” I see that as a slump and it is happening all over the place (Florida is a ‘great’ example), my issue is that America can be delusional all it wants to be, but when the media is catering to certain aspects like catering to big corporations and big tech, they are hindering the truth from reaching us. A nice example is the Chinese mega corporation Evergrande, who crossed all three red lines, resulting in a liquidity crisis and its later insolvency. In summer of 2021, payments due on its debt, estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, resulted in the Evergrande liquidity crisis. So how many people were hit by that setting? How many people are investing now on bed and breakfast investments in America will be seeking a Chapter 11? (Apparently only the first 10 chapters are worth reading) We the people are depending on correct news and when we are given dubious articles by the people who used to inform us, what hopes do we have to evade any financial fallback? 

It is about the accountability of the media, ‘filtering’ information to give us the information that makes us jump as to what the ‘big dogs’ wants us to do. On June 19th 2012, I wrote ‘The accountability act – 2015’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2012/06/). It never came, and now 10 years later we need to start asking questions, where is the responsibility of the press? Where is the accountability of the media? And this is not just the Financial Times, it is the bulk of the media that is the question. Can we allow the media to play courtesan to big tech and big corporations for the need of digital dollars? Have we become that dim?

Questions that are not answered by anyone as the political players hide behind the ‘game that is played, as business as usual’ whilst they are all arranging the chessboard like a game of blindman chess, with only big business getting to see both chessboards and depriving us of the real deal. So how is that valid? Because when the setting is that we need to pay to see it all, and they deprive us of a fair view, is that not some form of discrimination? What happens when an audience of billions see that big corporations made themselves the royalty they were never supposed to be, that they replaced real royalty in places they could and as they lived through the settings of ‘live like presented’ and than change the presentation so that only ‘they’ could remain is not a way to live, not for the others. And this has been going on for decades, all presenting ‘partners’ having each others back. Often hiding behind ‘the people have a right to know’ but in the underline it is given in the way of ‘the people have a right to know what we want them to know’ and as such the filtering goes on and now that the economies of this world are in turmoil, the cracks start showing. You see World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers represented over 18,000 publications in 2011, and Wikipedia notes that in 2005 there were approximately 6,580 daily newspaper titles globally, with 1,450 in the U.S. alone. There is no real up to date number. But consider that there are 340 million people in America, there are 1450 newspapers, which means that there are 234.5K readers per newspaper (through pig latin analyses) but that is never true, as such they ALL want to get their advertisement money, that is the rule of newspapers, not the news, the advertisements. And as the media exploded in size, it stood to reason (their reason) that this income increased, it did not. So as more and more were deciding that chasing the digital dollar was the way to go, the intent and the credibility of the media decreased. As advertisement evolved and digital advertising was the next new thing, the media exploded into the field of exploiting digital advertising. And here the setting changed. As the media is now ‘depending’ on that setting, the news takes a turn for the bad of the land and can now be influenced by big business and as such we get the setting we see now all over the place. People like Murdoch live of this venture and it is their right, but the larger media, the media that is ‘depending’ on credibility, what about them? I am not saying that all media need to adhere to ‘old’ standards, but we now have an issue. When we are given ‘the slump that never happened’ all whilst we see others give us ‘US Tourism in Peril as Decline in Foreign Visitors, Soaring Visa Fees, and Stricter Travel Policies Drive Away International Travelers’, so did the slump never happen?

I’ll let you decide. Have a great day.

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December 8, 2024 · 22:46

The losing bet

That happens, we make bets. We all do in one way or another. Some merely hurt our pride and/or our ego. Some deals hurt others and there are other settings, too many to mention. But Reuters alerted me three hours ago on a deal that will have a lot of repercussions. The article ‘US clears export of advanced AI chips to UAE under Microsoft deal, Axios says’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/advanced-ai-chips-cleared-export-uae-under-microsoft-deal-axios-reports-2024-12-07/) is one that has a few more repercussions than you imagined it had. The global loser (Microsoft) has set up a setting where we see “The U.S. government has approved the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips to a Microsoft-operated facility in the United Arab Emirates as part of the company’s highly-scrutinised partnership with Emirati AI firm G42, Axios reported on Saturday, citing two people familiar with the deal.” Microsoft is as desperate as I think they are with this deal. They probably pushed the anti-China agenda and made mention of the $1.5 billion dollar investment deal. And as we are given “The deal, however, was scrutinised after U.S. lawmakers raised concerns G42 could transfer powerful U.S. AI technology to China. They asked for a U.S. assessment of G42’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, military and government before the Microsoft deal advances.” And we are also given “The approved export license requires Microsoft to prevent access to its facility in the UAE by personnel who are from nations under U.S. arms embargoes or who are on the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, the Axios report said.” In this I have a few issues.

In the first there is no AI, not yet anyway as such the investment is going the way like water under a bridge. Microsoft knows this as such they are betting big and they have the US government backing them. In the worst case it will be the US government putting up the $1.5 billion themselves and with the anti-China sentiment that is a likely result from this.

In the second the setting that Microsoft is banking on is a loop setting with multiple exists. Yesterday the Financial Times informed us ‘OpenAI seeks to unlock investment by ditching ‘AGI’ clause with Microsoft’ (at https://www.ft.com/content/2c14b89c-f363-4c2a-9dfc-13023b6bce65) the events are piling up and as I see it Microsoft is on the edge if desperation. You see, it all hangs on the simplest setting that there is no AI (not yet at least). What we have is a setting with LLM’s and Deeper Machine Learning and it is clever and it is a ‘optional’ wholesome solution to a lot of paths. But it is no Artificial Intelligence. You see, as all the laws are part of ethics and ‘AI’ people look around and think that there is ‘awareness’ of solutions. There are not. It is all data managed, a somewhat clever solution to people seeking an aware-like solution in data and some kind of knowledge discovery mode. It all could be clever, but it is still no AI and at some point certain people will dig it out and I reckon the UAE will be ahead of it all. Microsoft and its Ferengi approach of ‘When you get their money you never give it back’ comes with nice loopholes. You think that Microsoft made the ‘investment’ now here is the cracker. There is nothing stopping Microsoft of putting it in a ‘bad bank’ approach and make it all tax deductible and then some. And when the “artificial general intelligence” (AGI) clause is dropped there will be all kinds of attention from all over the place and no one is looking at the details of whatever they consider AI and what Alan Turing clearly considered to be AI. When the people that matter start looking and digging the days of Microsoft will be numbered. Another bubble game created and now that they have ‘enticed’ the wrong kind of people they will want their pound of dollars. And as we are given “The Biden administration in October required the makers of the largest AI systems to share details about them with the U.S. government. G42 earlier this year said it was actively working with U.S. partners and the UAE’s government to comply with AI development and deployment standards, amid concerns about its ties to China.” And in that setting Microsoft decided to be the governmental bitch to say the least. And all these media moguls are so loosely playing along and what will happen when someone digs into this. They will play dumb and say “We didn’t comprehend the technology” and it wasn’t hard. I saw it months ago, if not nearly almost two years ago. And the media was stupid? No, the media goes the way of the digital dollar, the way of the emotional flame. So as the field opens, we see all kinds of turmoil with Microsoft claiming to be the ‘saviour’ all nice and kind (of a sort), but when you look at the setting, it is my personal speculated feeling that Microsoft wouldn’t have made this move unless they had very little moves left. And in this setting the one player is forgotten. China, how far along are their ‘designs’? And in all this what are their plans? We seem to be given the setting that it is all American, but as the media cannot be trusted what is the ACTUAL setting? I have no clue, but in a world this interactive, China cannot be far away. 

And if there are people who disagree, that is fair, but the actual setting is largely unknown. So when we get to the last paragraph which gives us “Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company, the UAE’s ruling family and U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42. The company’s chairman, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the UAE’s national security advisor and the brother of the UAE’s president.” Consider this small fact. Microsoft seems to be ‘investing’ all whilst the anti-China rhetoric is given. Do you think that anyone who is the National Security Advisor (of the UAE) hasn’t seen through a lot of this? So what was the plan from Microsoft? I am at a loss, but with the AI setting the way it actually is none of this makes sense. Do they really believe that Microsoft is any kind of solution in this setting? Simply look at the accusation that Microsoft has also been criticised for the perceived declining quality and reliability of its software. That is your partner in so-called AI? Just a thought to consider.

Well, you all have a lovely Sunday. My Monday is a mere 80 minutes away.

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September 28, 2024 · 22:22

How I fall short

That is the stage, that is the setting. I do not know everything (too boring anyways) and even as I see how things develop and are optionally staged. The fact that I do not know everything gets in the way of some things. Now, I know very little about oil. It is a commodity everyone needs, it is a commodity only some countries have and the two biggest players in that field are Aramco and ADNOC, oil is black and it is needed for the production of petroleum. That’s about all I know. The current price is about $68 dollars per barrel. So when I saw ‘Oil price drops, and BP and Shell shares slide, as Saudi Arabia ‘prepares to abandon $100 crude target’’ I didn’t think too much of it. The story comes from the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/26/european-reconstruction-bank-cuts-growth-forecasts-energy-ukraine-elon-musk-uk-investment-summit), there were more sources, but I am handing you this one. We get “Saudi Arabia is reportedly ready to abandon its unofficial price target of $100 a barrel for crude as it prepares to increase output” yet Oil&Gas journal gives us “Saudi Arabia is preparing to abandon its informal target of $100/bbl for crude oil as it plans to increase production, signalling the kingdom’s acceptance of a period of lower prices and intentions to take back market share, according to sources cited by the Financial Times”, now in my book the shortage of one commodity means prices go up. I do understand that any player will protect market share, as such I get the increase of product to protect your market share. That makes sense. And as such we see Saudi Arabia deciding an increase for about 1 million barrels per day as per December 2024. There are a few players on this field and I like the idea that the increase will make sure that Russia has less customers to get it from Russia is not happy. And as several media are giving us the goods, there is no other way for me than to agree with the setting. In overall there is still a larger concern I have. Oil is a commodity with a finite supply, so how much supply is there? I believe that the middle east has the bulk of it, but the finite session gives us the dangerous setting that at some point, the three countries with supply will be Russia, Iran and Venezuela. That is not a setting I want to wake up to, although at present it is highly unlikely that I will be around the morning we get that piece of news. In the meantime there is a larger issue at stake. How will Aramco increase its creation of oil with an additional 159,000,000 litres of that black fluid. You see everyone is looking at the end result and no one is looking at the how. What is required to that level of increase? I feel certain that it will require a lot more than one pump. It is the increase of 10% (near to that) and comes from 300 rigs. The simpleton in me sees this as an additional 30 rigs. It takes 18 months to five years to commission a rig, the construction timeline for an oil rig can vary significantly depending on several factors and that is if the oil comes from rigs. Saudi Arabia has one hundred oil and gas fields, so if it comes from there, other means are needed. The largest oil field is the Ghawar field. So how can you increase the production there? And is that the only place? We are so desperate for oil that the basic security is overlooked and there is at present Iran, Houthi forces and a few others who are very willing to hurt Saudi Arabia. So what more is needed, because when by November that increase is realised, some will take offence to this and that problem will possibly create all kinds of new problems. And we do not see enough information on that side of the equation.

And advice from me? Nope, I know next to nothing on that topic. I can merely see hurdles and optionally a personal belief that I see options, but that is not what the actual expert on the topic has. And the media? Solutions do not make their digital wallet fat, flames do that and in that view it is not a good idea to put flames close to oil, a mere personal view on the matter.

Have a great weekend.

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September 24, 2024 · 22:59

Two sides of technology

There are always two sides on any technology. The question is whether they are aligned or not. The first story is found at (at https://www.edgemiddleeast.com/ai/tsmc-and-samsung-consider-100-billion-uae-chip-projects) where the Edge Middle East gives us ‘TSMC and Samsung Consider $100 Billion UAE Chip Projects’, it all comes across as straight forward. We are given “Semiconductor giants TSMC and Samsung are in early talks to establish massive chip-making facilities in the UAE, potentially marking a significant expansion in global production.” It seems to me that this is a straight forward option, especially for the UAE. We are also given “develop potential chip projects in the United Arab Emirates, with investments that could exceed $100 billion. The discussions, which are still in the early stages, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday” and this article ends with “Should these plans move forward, they would mark a significant milestone in the UAE’s efforts to position itself as a global technology hub.” The second article was initially from the Financial Times (but they are behind a paywall), as such I I cannot give the link, but the headline reads ‘UAE president meets Joe Biden in push for more US AI technology’ where we are given “Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan seeks to formalise fledgling partnership between both countries” as well as “The United Arab Emirates’ leader met US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday to advance artificial intelligence co-operation as the Gulf nation tries to secure easier access to US-made technology” and “The UAE is one of the US’s most important allies in the Middle East, but relations have been strained at times in recent years. Talks for a formal security pact with Washington have stalled, and Abu Dhabi was infuriated by what it saw as a lukewarm US response to attacks on the UAE’s capital by Houthi rebels from Yemen in 2022.” This is a dangerous time for America. The trivialisation of the Houthi terrorists will cost America dearly, it has before and it will cost America more than they imagined. You see, as I personally see it. There is a bigger fish. The option that China will play nice with Taiwan when there is a larger part of the $100,000,000,000 could give China the edge they need. And in this setting China will have several bonus options that would fall away from American. That alone would entice China to play nice with Taiwan to a whole larger degree. Is it viable? I honestly cannot say as the media is massively anti-China. Ask Huawei is you doubt my view on this issue. 

How could this happen?
There are several options, but if I were a betting man China would offer Taiwan independence UNDER China. Would Taiwan accept this? I don’t know, but if China would enable a diplomatic solution via the United Arab Emirates it could happen. China is more interested in the collapse of America sooner and will hand an independence ‘option’ to Taiwan. And the setting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan gives China a larger option to manouver. It is my believe that the Biden administration is driven to not make my speculation happen and for that it needs a slice of the UAE AI business and America will offer whatever it has to to make their entrance a done deal. On the positive side if Microsoft gets involved there is every chance that their affinity to mediocrity will blow up in their faces and the American stance becomes a whole lot weaker. This is not ‘fear mongering’, this is merely the view I have on Microsoft and the blunders they have made in the recent past. The UAE embraces perfection, as such Amazon (AWS) or Google would be a much better fit. But this is not about bashing Microsoft (it is fun though). The AI investments that could be coming the way of the UAE, there is a larger field. We hear all about ‘AI’ and the developers (Amazon, Apple, Google, et al) but most forget that Huawei has its own system. The FusionMind AI platform. I don’t know how good it is. Whatever the media tells us, once Huawei gets to demonstrate their system. No matter what others think, if the UAE considers it good enough, the American race for revenues goes in the wrong direction (for America that is). Don’t ask me how good or how bad the Huawei system is, because I have never seen it, but I know about it and the media is doing its best to ignore Huawei, but I am not convinced that this is a good move to make. The IT people (like me) want to assist people with solutions that WORK. I do not think it is a good idea to ignore the Huawei system. And I believe that neither Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates are ignoring the Huawei technology side of it all. For me the larger setting isn’t merely what works, but it is the dim witted view of accusing Huawei whilst not offering ANY clear evidence. That is the larger stage and if Huawei, or the Chinese government can convince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to allow Huawei to present their case, American will have additional worries to deal with. I personally think that Google AI with Mandiant would be personally the better option. That is merely because I have have limited exposure to AWS and no exposure to Amazon security solutions. So my view is slightly biased. In all this, Google needs to convince the UAE that they have what the UAE needs. After that Saudi Arabia should be shown these solutions too (likely they have already seen them).

When we see these sides, one side is the technology, the other side is the software and when we optionally see these chip solutions the bigger winner becomes whomever sets the premise of their software to the hardware provided. I personally hope for Google (I am biased here), but the end game is nowhere near concluded at present. I reckon the Biden administration is hoping for a memorandum of intent, but that is something we might see on Wednesday. So keep looking.

It is almost Wednesday here and Vancouver is following in 18 hours. So anything is possible. Have a great day.

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August 12, 2024 · 15:21

What’s in an advertisement?

I have been called many things (not all of them nice) but I do not care, I call it as I see it. This time it is Google that hits the spotlight, you see it is not all Microsoft that I cater against (often I do though). This time it is Cyber News (at https://cybernews.com/news/meta-google-youtube-instagram-advertising/) that gives us the news. This came from the Financial Times and the headline gives us ‘Meta and Google had secret ad deal to target teens on YouTube’, I am not judging this, but Google has stated on a few instances that they would not target kids. Still we get here “Google Ads help page itself says that the “unknown” category refers to people whose age, gender, parental status, or household income are supposedly unidentified. In theory, this could allow ad buyers to reach a wider audience” but we are also given “according to FT, Google could use app downloads and online activity to determine “with a high degree of confidence” that the “unknown” group actually mostly consisted of younger users” Now, lets take a different look and for this I use the Apple population (not people eating Granny Smiths) So lets go by the simple set of an iPad and around 128.5 million units of tablets were shipped worldwide in 2023. A little over 40% in the USA. The younger population uses their iPad for over 4 hours a day to do gaming. I took a small measurement in two hours I was fed around 2 dozen advertisements. Now consider that we have 80 million gamers on the iPad, as such 4 hours represent 40 advertisements per user and that represents 3.2 billion advertisements EVERY DAY, you think that Google, Apple or Meta walk away from that? And when we add the mobile gamers on Android and iPhone it becomes a much larger and more interesting number. 

On one side it works out well for one of my IP issues if we consider the larger premise. You see some are all about hijacking revenues from others, I took it into a different direction. When these three players lose a little over 20% of that advertisement industry. How strapped for cash will they end up being? Don’t trivialise this (many so called captains of industry will), when you need your revenue and you get to face a decline of 20% panic is ensured to come to the table. Like the advertisement bitches who cried fowl when Google wanted to do away with cookies. The setting I had was enable Amazon to a much larger degree, optionally enabling Kingdom Holding (Riyadh). A simple setting that many forgot about, because they all wants us to look to the horizon to the land of honey and AI, but that is at least a decade away, as such I saw another shore. 

But back to the story. So the response from Google was ““We prohibit ads being personalised to people under 18, period,” Google said in a statement to the publication. “We’ll also be taking additional action to reinforce with sales representatives that they must not help advertisers or agencies run campaigns attempting to work around our policies.”” And it could have worked if Google set through the cookie stage, but they did not. Now the setting is different, advertisement gaming is developing and we get a dozen versions of the same game and they all run on advertisements. And the game becomes worse for some ad streamers now also include advertisements. As such they are one step removed from the old setting that Electronic Arts tried to include in their sport games, the billboards in a game all showing the advertisements that EA could sell. In the long run it could have given them a revenue boost. Now the game sets a different premise. You see you can fight of getting more revenue, or you can make sure the others cannot get any, that was the premise that I went for and Saudi Arabia does not have to cater to Americans, more importantly they could deny America well over 20% of that revenue. Consider that the big three techs have to report a drop of 20%, how does that work out? In addition to that loss you could capture a part of that revenue. You see the USA is all about monopolising issues, all whilst no one looked to the shores behind them to see what they lost and that was the place where revenue was all over the floor.

The setting is given, but when we consider that they either confess on targeting minors, or take the losses. And my solution doesn’t target at all, putting this solution largely in the clear.

Still, the EA premise had me thinking, not a similar approach, but a very different approach. One that give a much higher premise of engagement. Like the cheaper Netflix, set the console with a gaming portal and that portal has a niche for advertisers one that pays the viewer in credits, which could go towards a lower fee, or game coins to get free updates (enhancements) for in game shopping, any game on the platform. That was a side no one (seriously) looked at. Games are set to a developer, not to a portal and when they want to be there they will have to agree. Consider any console with 50,000,000-200,000,000 gamers, do you really think a game designer wants to be cut off? Consider that the Xbox Game Pass has only 18 million users. And the numbers I stated were conservative, this solution would be next to the PSX2 (over 155,000,000) and the Nintendo Switch (144,00,000) that is what was at stake and Google shot themselves in the foot (my speculation) as they dropped the Google Stadia, as such the Amazon Luna and the Tencent console are all that remains. And when we see those numbers, a larger base exists for advertisers, but in my view a more limited one. Still, there is (to some degree) an option whilst removing a massive chunk (I think around 20%) away from Apple, Google and Meta. It was an evolution to the system as I set it up and the advertisement funds are merely the icing on the cake. 

The added ‘protection’ that is given could sway plenty of parents to go this way, not my initial interest, especially when phase one 50 million is reached. The system will fuel itself towards users like the CBM64 did in the mid 80’s. Still the others need to rethink their system, because for now they think it is all OK, but when the setting changes it will already be too late. Look at the Cookie stage, only when they finally switched it off in part, the advertisers starting to cry like little bitches. Three days ago we were given “This latest twist in the Privacy Sandbox saga is a wake-up call for the entire digital advertising ecosystem, according to Upwave’s George London.” Wake up call? This setting was known for a couple of years, as such these people had plenty of time to revisit the sands of opportunity, but they thought that it wouldn’t get to that, and the money would keep going in. Now the premise will likely become that they lose out on a population that gets into the millions, no free ride for cookies (cookie monster ate them all) as such they will have to put the prices down by a lot, because targeting is soon to be a real issue, for this the Google and Meta setting comes into play. Either regulators demand a larger scrutiny (expected turn) or the advertisement world will lose 4.3 billion advertisements on iPad alone, now consider how many game on their mobiles? That is a reported 79% of an expected 18,250,000,000 billion in 2025. Set that to revenue numbers. Yes what one party tells is not what some do, or they tell them where not to look for certain restrictive papers. Oh, and my simplistic number stage gives me around 2.8 billion advertisement options are optionally soon lost or diminished. Yes, my 50 million consoles were hilariously conservative. 

What’s in an ad? Nothing a gamer wanted to see anyway, as well as a few other clusters of pushed to watch advertisement people. So how will Meta continue at minus 20%? Apple will do fine and Google will have its android, but when that newly reinvented shore comes, Google will also have to make due. As such,  they can bite the bullet or set up a fee for Youtube, which will make TikTok happy to no extent 

They say all is fair in love and war, did you ever consider that the people have a voice too, that they are pushed towards apps with no avoidance? What happens if you cater to those people? Google should know, they grew their search in a very similar way.

Have a lovely time and see you perhaps in a place without advertisements every couple of minutes.

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December 3, 2023 · 18:07

What makes a lobbyist?

That is a serious question, because at times I have no clue what a lobbyist is. That is the question that the CBC leaves me with. There was even more power behind the article at the Financial Times, but their paywall prevents me from mentioning them. So here we are relying on the CBC. They did nothing really wrong and the article ‘At COP28 climate summit, there’s concern oil and gas lobbyists have too much influence’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/climate-dubai-cop28-lobbyists-canada-1.7042376) is a good read. Yet the question that follows be from the beginning which we see with “With tens of thousands in Dubai for the climate talks, environmentalists and policy experts are expressing concern over the growing presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at the meetings”. So, from the start we get the connection to a lobbyist. Which according to the dictionary means “a person who takes part in an organised attempt to influence legislators.” Yet I believe it is more then that. Another version is “a special interest group that hires a lobbying organisation to influence an elected official on a particular policy” which seems to apply better. And with COP28 (any COP actually) the need for lobbyists is clear. Yet if it was ONLY fossil fuels there would not be that much attendance. You might think that “An analysis from a coalition of advocacy groups found representatives of the fossil fuel industry have been in attendance a total of 7,200 times at the annual United Nations climate talks over the past two decades” would be enough. But how many ‘representatives’ would have been in attendance 7200 times? Lets just say that it might be a career, but I think that any lobbyist would be washed out after 100 visits, let alone 7200. So, there is a part missing and when we think COP there is EPA, there is EEA, there is also WWF, Earthjuice and a lot more and at this event they all are rushing to see if their needs are being met. The last part is given by the CBC and concerns Canada. So consider “Saskatchewan is also hosting a pavilion, at a cost of $765,000, where it will hold panels by industry leaders”, now consider that to break ‘even’ they need to see around $10 million (stand, flights, hotels and so forth). So you tell me what Saskatchewan is doing there? I honestly do not know, but they are there (hopefully) for a reason. 

The fun part is that the COP28 has a green zone and a blue zone, the blue zone is only for UNFCCC. A part that the CBC did not give us (the Financial Times had that in their article). So there are two strains of lobbyists, so who goes where? All parts that were missed be many media. Another part is that a player like Bentley systems (not the car) as well as Monash University are also there, they both have their own lobbyists, but neither gave us those goods. In a semantical mood I would state that there was an event (23 AD) where less than 0.1% was a virgin (the only virgins there were the Vestal Virgins representing Vesta, the rest were men, wives, whores and slaves and the event was at Circus Maximus on the order of Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus. The entire setting mattered and it matters for COP28 events too. Without the entire enchilada we get a mere slice of what is going on and in that setting we see a misrepresenting of lobbyists as well as the COP28 event. You see, the people in the green zone do not get access to the blue zone (as far as I can tell) and the blue zone is where it is all at. So as such many articles do not give us the whole story (the Financial Times was more complete). All settings that matter, all settings that were (intentional or not) missed and that is where we are at. 

So what was the missions of these lobbyists and what policies were they supporting (or not) for governments? All questions that mattered, but we aren’t told that, were we?

Enjoy Sunday, I still have 8 hours to go, Vancouver is still on Saturday, lucky bastards.

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August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

To get the entire mess I will start with a television episode.

The line was “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment behind your nightmare scenario” it was linking a conversation between President Bartlett and Dr. Takahashi. The episode was ‘A good Day’ season 6 episode 17. Yes, this part is fiction and some of the mentioned elements were too, but not all and that is the striking part. This episode aired in March 2005. You think that would be the end of it, but you would be wrong. Lets take a look at reality.

The Financial Times gave us ‘Saudi Arabia cuts holdings of US Treasuries to 6-year low’ on august 17th (at https://www.ft.com/content/2925952d-1e20-4748-8fa4-05b3605fc46a). There we are given “Saudi Arabia sold down its holdings of US Treasuries in June to the lowest in more than six years, as the kingdom directs more funds to foreign equity and domestic investments. The kingdom held $108.1bn of Treasury securities in June, down $3.2bn from May and below the $119.7bn it held at the end of last year, according to data from the US Treasury department.” This is merely part one, the second part is seen with ‘China likely to cut more US debt holdings’ (at https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/16/WS64dce79ba31035260b81c880.html) this is not the end, this is merely the beginning of what was described in the West Wing as the nightmare scenario. You would think that the EU and Japan would come to the aid of the US, but you would be wrong. Mario Draghi overspend trillions in the past and now the EU credit card is stretched to the max. Japan had in March 2023, a Japanese public debt is estimated to be approximately 9.2 trillion US Dollars, or 263% of GDP. Japan has no place to go and that is the beginning of systems collapsing. The US is in its endgame towards becoming an economic third world nation. 

Yet there is more tom come. We also get (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/death-entire-financial-monetary-social-180841464.html) ‘‘It’s The Death Of The Entire Financial, Monetary And Social System’: This Market Expert Warns The U.S. Dollar Is Quickly Losing Its Reserve Status.’ I do not know Jing Pan and I do not know whether she is correct, but she gives us one part that struck a nerve. She gives us “In March, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank grabbed major headlines. After the bank sold its Treasury bond portfolio, it incurred a substantial loss, causing depositors to question its liquidity and leading to a bank run. Amid this market upheaval, Silvergate Bank, First Republic Bank and Signature Bank failed as well. “This banking crisis is not over,” she said. “Maybe they’ve been able to paper over it, and so everybody is calm, and you have consumer confidence going up and all of this other kind of garbage. But it’s built on a house of lies.”” It struck a nerve because I got there through different means. You see when the SVB issues was playing out, we suddenly get a news article with Janet Yellen who is keeping tabs on the situation. Janet Yellen, United States Secretary of the Treasury. Not some governor from California, not someone from the banking industry. No, it was El Jefe from the treasury herself. It was overkill. I had issues and I wrote about them earlier (not sure when). I wondered why the SVB was in that setting and why Yellen personally took notice. I wondered who was holding the US bonds. Because banks had some of the bonds, but no one had a list of how much and no one had a clue (or remained silent) on how much the SVB was holding. 

As such I had an issue, things weren’t adding up. And now the two largest finders of the planet are shedding the US debt. As I see it the US has painted themselves in a corner and things will go ugly soon enough.

This is where the next article comes in. The article (at https://tickernews.co/u-s-credit-card-debt-levels-just-surpassed-1-trillion/), which is not the only source gives us ‘U.S. credit card debt levels just surpassed $1-trillion’, as such 300 million people have a collective debt of over on thousand billion. This amounts to the degree that every American has a debt well over $3,000. So how will this unfold when the dollar drops? Now, I am generalising but the larger stage is now set. Bonds are going nowhere and in 2022 long-dated U.S. notes lost 39.2% in value. So how safe are those bonds now? We know about the inflation and that it is rising, but CNN reports that ‘US banks sitting on unrealised losses of $620 billion’. This came to us in March, as such the SVB issues are rising, are they not? So where are those bonds? Who is reaping the losses on that one and the nightmare scenario that a television series gave to us in 2005 is about to become a very real issue in 2023 and 2024. 

We might have thought 20 years ago that bonds were the safest place to be, but only 20 years later and this is no longer a reality and moreover the allies of the USA are shedding them, or cashing in to reduce the damage from them. This leaves America in a very vulnerable position. As I personally see it, they painted themselves in a corner and the windows on the two adjacent walls are soon out of reach to anyone in that corner. To add to this, the paint is red and massively toxic (as I see it), so no release unless someone can find a little over 20 trillion to help the US, the usual suspects are out of cash and I reckon Russia will not offer help either. Consumers have a total accumulated debt that surpasses a trillion and the bad news keeps on stacking up. All because politicians were playing the ‘screw it’ card. Now that the ledgers are up for grabs the US is sitting in the worst spot it has been in in well over a century and corporate and business America is looking for any way out of the US at present. 

When you see that image and you add the failures of Microsoft a different image comes to mind and it is not a pretty one. So why Microsoft? Because it is part of the Dow Jones Index. It might only be for 4.9% but when that goes south the DJI will see a much larger problem. You see it is not merely Microsoft, it becomes an issue for Goldman Sachs as well and when the dollar collapses. What do you think that places like UnitedHealth Group, Johnson & Johnson, VISA, American Express and Walmart will be left with? When over 150 million will have no money left the consumers pushing the aforementioned companies up will also fade pushing rates and results down. All things that could have been seen will over 2-3 years ago. And there is no blaming the Russian-Ukrainian war, this would have happened no matter what. Optionally it happened sooner, but not much sooner. 

Even if ‘A good day’ was the start, the settings have been in place for years. I believe the media merely looked the other way, because the other view was sexy and optionally offered more digital dollars, another funny money business. 

So am I wrong?
That is the question. I could be and relating articles like I am is to some degree folly, but it was all I had at the time. And if there is an economic person (I am not one) giving us a clear answer why I am wrong, I would accept that, but there are too many issues in the field and there are too many issues out in the open. I wonder if anyone could counter them all. But I will keep my eyes open to see if someone goes that way.

Anyway, have a great day and I am about to start the final day of the weekend.

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August 12, 2023 · 22:39

How on earth?

This was my first thought that went through my mind. It came from the BBC and I was reading this in a decent degree of unknowing. The title ‘China property giant Country Garden warns of up to $7.6bn loss’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66470170) where we see “Country Garden, which is one of China’s biggest property developers, has warned that it could see a loss of up to $7.6bn (£6bn) for the first six months of the year” and I am quite frankly at a loss. You see, a developer gets (read: buys) a piece of land, he places a building on it and sells this place(s) and in the end there is a profit, it might not always be a great profit, but a profit nonetheless. So when I see a loss of $7.6bn, the math in my head goes that at $250K it sets the stage for 30,400 houses and if a place costs 1.5 million we see the bungling of 5,065 places. Now it is not that simple. I get that, but the idea that someone set a stage where 30,400 houses are sold for $0 is equally laughable, implying that the problem is a lot larger than we can see. We saw it in the UK with Carillion, we saw a few examples and they all wanted ALL the profit and as such they did it all, all the elements of construction and all elements of the service. That never works, the moment a short cut is made, people start filling to holes and creating more holes in the process. 

Then there is the larger financial impact. How does a company like Country Garden has any setting that allows for that kind of a loss in the first 6 months? Even as the article gives us “The expected loss compares to a $265m profit for the same time last year. The firm also said it has set up a special task force, headed by its chairman Yang Huiyan, to find ways to turn the business around”, I reckon it might be close to ‘too late’, which is seen with “rating agency Moody’s downgraded the company’s rating, citing “heightened liquidity and refinancing risks”” and don’t expect me to give explanations. I have none. I have a few speculation, the first we saw in the beginning. But there was also the 2021 event when 15 buildings were demolished all in one go (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om6b0_ffyFQ), I cannot tell you the reason, I merely saw the YouTube on USA Today, and we get that one building needs to go at times (still sloppy), but 15 buildings? Now consider those costs and I am certain that those building in total would not have surpassed $2 billion. So now consider that one developer has well over 300% of those losses. Something does not add up and I cannot tell you what it is. In the first I do not have an economics degree, I have engineering, IT and Law degrees and I am still grasping for nothing at this time. The speculation I made earlier makes the most sense of stupidity. Yet it was speculation, so I could be wrong. As such, in an age in China where there are no jobs, there is a housing shortage and there are a few more issues. The 15 building demolition raises questions, the loss by Country Garden gives even more question marks. The Financial Times gives us “Nine months later, it is dangerously short of cash. The company expects to have lost Rmb45bn-Rmb55bn in the first half of the year and is confronting what it calls “the biggest difficulties” in its history.” (At https://www.ft.com/content/c266f377-33dc-4cf6-89a1-b62998896027) and it is not the first time. Evergrande in 2021 has a massive default and it seems to me that all these firms ‘doing it all’ are imploding. Is it a mere setting of idle time? Me and idle time go way back, all the way to the early 90’s and it is not the first time that idle time is overlooked or seen as a linear event, which it is not. It does not explain these billions of loss, it really does not but to see this in China implies that there is a lot more going on than we are able to see and that is never a good thing.

Enjoy the weekend.

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June 17, 2023 · 19:51

And Canada is the first to do so

Well, that might be the case. It is CBC that gives us (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/fox-news-crtc-ban-canada-1.6875894) ’LGBTQ rights group argues Fox News shouldn’t air in Canada’, to be honest, not the worst step to take. It is the funny response by Fox Channel “Fox’s argument that the application to remove its news network from Canadian cable TV packages is “moot” in the wake of prime-time host Tucker Carlson’s ousting in late April.” Are you effing kidding me? Egale Canada wrote an open letter to the regulator in early April, asking it to consult the public on the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programming authorised for distribution in Canada. And when there is a larger stage with a lot more channels than there are space for, the BS that Fox News gives us should have no place in any Democratic nation. That news was reenforced when we were given (see below)

Even as ABC gives us that “A longtime producer for Tucker Carlson is out of a job after being deemed responsible for the onscreen message this week that referred to President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator.”” It should not matter. These levels of unacceptable airing of thoughts gives rise to the thought that whatever Fox airs is no longer acceptable for human digestion. The idea to openly call any clear Democratic person as a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ is beyond humour, at least what the average man calls acceptable.

There will be a need soon to sanitise the airwaves of those airing the need of populist voices, the fact that Canada dropped nine channels implies that Canada and other nations are depreciating the value of media people (I am avoiding the term journalists). A massive change is required and the ousting of Fox Channel might give rise to these people bettering themselves instead of copying the wrong people. In addition, their way of pushing Republican voices is not out of law, but the way this is done. The Financial Times (at https://www.ft.com/content/78826749-892b-42b6-9053-ef613016ae93) gave us in April ‘Fox News and the marketing of lies’, there we see “Donald Trump and his conservative backers have done more than anyone to popularise the term “fake news”, rebuffing criticism of him by opponents and “mainstream” media as deliberate falsehood.” In addition the fact that Fox settled the Dominion case for well over a billion does not help. There is a massive flaw at Fox and its board of directors hiding behind ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘entertainment’ is not the way to go and as such I reckon that Egale Canada might have a case. I enjoyed Fox News years ago, but they set a tone that I found beyond offensive and the departure of people like Bill O’Reilly is setting a different tone. The Financial Times also gave us “It is regrettable that the settlement spared Fox News executives and presenters, and the Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch, from testifying in weeks of hearings that would have shone more light on to the affair.” It shines the light on just how wrong Fox News has become. I would also add to the argue that someone naming its channel ‘News’ has no business reporting it as entertainment, some issues are just too serious at present. I would add to that that there is no visible vetting of that news channel and whilst that might be acceptable in the US, I think that a larger case for the Commonwealth nations could be made to scrap them. And face it, if this is about a republican side, they can stick that to the US and keep it there (and there alone).

I reckon that the moment a second nation adds to Canada and Egale Canada panic gets a grip on its board of directors and Rupert Murdoch. No matter how that evolves, the first pebble is cast and even as the outcome is not certain, there is a larger stage where the people should consider how long they are willing to openly deceive themselves. We don’t mind getting lied to at times, but 24:7 by a news channel? Who is willing to sign up for that? 

As such I feel that not only does have Egale Canada a case, they might end up setting a larger wave among nations that have had enough of this kind of ‘presentation’ of fake news. 

Enjoy the weekend.

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