Tag Archives: France

June 19, 2015 · 22:03

Divisiveness or Subterfuge?

If has not been that long in the face of danger, challenge or just plain confusion, yet what are we left with to believe? So let’s take a look at Suzanne Evans. She was born in Shrewsbury. Oh Sarcasm! ‘Shrew’s bury’, a woman of violent temper to be put in a grave. I just could not make this up, I am not that creative, oh wonders of fate! The fact that a shrew is also a mole like mammal hits the noisy triangle again in loud succession.

You see, this all started with the comment that we can read in many papers “Suzanne Evans sacked as Ukip spokesperson after labelling Nigel Farage a ‘very divisive character’”’ (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suzanne-evans-sacked-as-ukip-spokesperson-after-labelling-nigel-farage-a-very-divisive-character-10330417.html). in addition, the Guardian had this subtitle ‘Party’s most prominent female member incurred boss’s displeasure after giving interview saying he would not front EU exit campaign‘, now here is the issue.

How could she be this ‘naive’ as a spokesperson (the word ‘stupid’ seems slightly harsh)? Consider her career: Working at BBC from 1987 to 1999, which includes ‘Today’, BBC World service, BBC Radio 5 and local radio programmes. After that 10 years as a marketing consultant and later as a communications director. She joined the Conservative party in 2010 and switched to UKIP in 2013. So with 25 years of work as a journalist, PR executive and a politician, she goes on with the words as stated in the Independent “In an interview on BBC2’s Daily Politics show, Ms Evans, the party’s deputy chairwoman, said Mr Farage was a “very divisive character” in terms of the way he was perceived, although she added he was “not divisive as a person”“.

And that went over well? Oh Suzanne, you having a quarter of a century of presentation experience, you did not see this coming? So on a BBC2 show you get the limelight with this expression, what was going on?

So this is where we should wonder, in the first, who was divisive? And was Suzanne Evans trying to create hostility between people, or was she employing deceit to achieve change? Let’s face it, Nigel Farage should NOT have handed in his resignation. It might have seemed like a noble thing to do after losing his constituency, but he was the appeal to millions of voters (3 million voted for HIM), well over 95% were all about Nigel. Was it not XTC that was making plans for Nigel (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNhL4J_S00)?

So this 70’s song has the following lines:

We’re only making plans for Nigel
We only want what’s best for him
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel just needs that helping hand

Yet the reality is quite different.

His initial wrongful resignation gave way for the acts by MP Douglas Carswell, who is the only UKIP MP with a constituency, now we see the ‘presenting’ words from Suzanne Evans. It is not uncommon for a party to see the seconds in command to ruffle the feathers to get the limelight. In Australia we had Julia Gillard, who must have heard about that Julius Caesar play and thought, she could do that too. Yet, the opposite view of this can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqXq5n4-ta4. There is no clear point on what exactly happened. Yet, is an internal hostile takeover so unimaginable? Now consider the Gillard clip at 6:33 “Over dinner Bill Shorten organised the revolt”, isn’t he in charge of the Australian Labour party now? So as we have seen these acts before and we will see them again in the future, we must wonder what exactly was the endgame, Suzanne Evans had in mind, because someone with 25 years of experience does not go on the air on BBC 2 so unprepared, especially when you are the spokesperson. This was about something else entirely. Was it to clear the decks, to stir change? You see, if she had planned this and if the responses were monitored, could an aggressive outspoken Nigel Farage in the media have been the endgame of round one?

You see, no matter how fired she is getting now, if Douglas Carswell is trying to refocus the minds of the UKIP voters, than this was not a bad play to get momentum on change. That view is getting stronger when we see the BBC article ‘Douglas Carswell does not fit in with UKIP – ex-Nigel Farage aide‘ of June 11th (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33089917), where we see the quote “He said: “I think he sees UKIP as a way of being an independent, whereas actually the way of being an independent is to sit as an independent MP“. Now the funny part is, is that I saw that same thing coming on May 16th, so more than a month earlier in my blog ‘You be Kipping?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/16/you-be-kipping/). Interesting that I had this view 5 weeks earlier than the insiders who reported on this. Equally interesting is the quote by Raheem Kassam as he states “he was so embarrassed of some people working for the party during the election he had to lock them behind closed doors when showing journalists around UKIP headquarters“, which was a BBC quote from the Guardian. I think that those ‘embarrassments’ might be regarded as political newbies, utterly devoid of political correctness. In that atmosphere trained conservatives like Douglas Carswell and Suzanne Evans could steer themselves reasonably fast into positions of power and shortly thereafter takeover. They would have sit quietly a little longer if UKIP has secured more constituencies, but they came second in many places, which means that their power play would get delayed for 5 years. Now, if the EU gets truly exited, UKIP will get a lot stronger as they advocated change long before the Conservatives did. The Conservative party wanted to hang on in the European group because until recent, it should have been the best course of action. It is the irresponsible acts by Greece and those ‘partially dancing to their own needs’ is why the step to secede is now stronger than ever. If the IMF and creditors had been massively firm from the beginning, this play might never have happened. Yet the inactions and allowing Greece to add close to 100 billion more in debt and even today as there could be another possible increase in the Emergency Liquidity Assistance facility, yet the amount is unknown (10 minutes ago, Reuters reported that there will be an infusion, but the amount is unknown). So at present, with the dangers of what Greece could do to the other nations in Europe, the UK has a first responsibility, which is the UK plain and simple. The fact that Nigel Farage had been saying that all along is not a factor. Yes, in this I did agree with Nigel Farage, but I had in on speculative foresight, a government must make decisions on actual facts and given certainties. There lies the difference; so even as Nigel Farage is now in the camp others are joining, the initial reasoning to enter ‘camp exit-EU’ was not the same.

This is at the heart of the change Carswell and Evans might have been gunning for. If UKIP had made it, they would have waited as their power core would have grown, but now, the valid tactic that a change is best done immediately, not later on. The Gillard move shows this, other moves have shown this and future changes will do the same thing.

I will be the first to state that the tactic was a good one, but to do it so eager on BBC radio 2 was not the wisest of actions (unless Carswell takes over and she gets ‘rehired’), as such Suzanne Evans is now no longer part of UKIP, which beckons the question, what will Nigel Farage do next? His first act is to get a good consultant trainer, to start educating the troops that Raheem Kassam kept behind locked doors. The plain truth is that Suzanne Evans will need to redeem herself somewhere and she knows behind which doors ‘the skeletons’ (read: less politically correct speakers) are. In that regard UKIP needs to bolster defences so that the gain made where they are in second place in several constituencies is not list, moreover, they can grow in almost half a dozen to leading position, which means that those places are all a threat for the labour (and some conservative ones), as this is all about the next wave. It is my view that some wanted to take over, likely both Evans and Carswell dreaming of the New Conservative Independent Strategy (NCIS), would make for great TV on cable would it not? That danger will remain for a little time longer, Carswell has the benefit of being an MP. Nigel Farage needs to work 100% harder (read: twice as hard) to keep the voters of this last election riled, to keep them interested and on point as they could sway even more of their friends. UKIP could become the threat they were meant to be in May 2015. Greece was always a maker or breaker of events, yet to what extent also depends on France and Italy.

That is still underplayed by many speakers all over Europe, also to some extent ignored by analysts all over the field, because the events for UKIP failed to be stronger in parliament, those analysts are promoting (as I personally see it) a managed bad news approach, yet the bigger danger remains Marine Le Pen from National Front. that danger can be seen in ‘France’s Le Pen announces far-right bloc of anti-EU MEPs‘ (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33147247), the smaller Dutch player Geert Wilders now a lot more prominent will have the option to sway many Dutch voters in another direction too. That danger is not that big in the Netherlands, but it is not 0, so there is a danger and the Financial power players have cut themselves deeply by not acting against Greece a lot harder and a lot sooner, now we see, the consequences when the Status Quo is no longer tolerable: “Forming the group will give the MEPs more influence in the parliament. It will also mean that the new bloc’s members have access to millions of euros in extra funding as well as more staff and speaking time. To be valid, a group needs 25 MEPs from at least seven different nationalities“, so inaction will now have a massive reaction. If Nigel Farage gets to be a stronger speaker and collaborator for pro UK change, that shift will have massive consequences. So even as we read in that same article “UKIP has previously said it was “not interested in any deal” with Ms Le Pen or her party because of ‘prejudice and anti-Semitism in particular’ in the FN. UKIP leader Nigel Farage already heads another anti-immigration alliance in the European Parliament called the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group (EFDD)”, this does not mean that a minor coalition could not exist as it would propagate both views, visions and goals. As this evolves, the acts of Carswell and Evans now get a different light. They could have grown so much stronger if they had only waited it out. Now they will find out that they are in one case cut off completely (Suzanne Evans) and in the other case under non-stop scrutiny for now (Douglas Carswell).

So France will have a massive impact!

That last part is also at the core of the French financial consequences. You will have read on how it would not be an issue, how Michel Sapin had downplayed this on more than one occasion. In Bloomberg we see ‘French Bonds Infected as Greek Crisis Swells Euro-Region Spreads‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-16/french-bonds-infected-as-greek-crisis-swells-euro-region-spreads), which was given three days ago, long after I had made predictions of this nature (but not by how much). You see, the French debt is at 2.3 trillion Euro (interest around 64 billion per year), Italy is at 2.6 trillion (interest around 110 billion per year). You see as those presenters ‘hide’ behind debt in percentage per GDP, in an age of faltering revenues and no consumers, the entire GDP is a little virtual, even figmentive one could say, in the end, the debt per citizen is €36K for every French, and €43K for every Italian citizen. Again, this is not the right numbers to look at, what does matter is that these budgets need to come up with the annual interest and it needs to be within their budgets, which is not done correctly, so that debt number is only getting bigger, with now an additional push from the  Greek debt and Greek bonds. The UK might not have any part in the Greek bonds, when Greece falls, the Euro debts will need to be covered by the other players. It is the consequence of ONE currency! Which means that with the liquidity infusion, closer to half a trillion could be pushed over the field. Now France and Italy will not be the only one getting a jab to their coffers, but the large four (Germany, UK, France and Italy) will feel that pain, and it will hurt. That part had been downplayed for too long and soon it will be very likely that the callers come calling!

This is the power push both Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen get to enjoy as they get to say ‘I told you so!’, that will be felt over the next 7 years, which means that the coming elections all over the board will see changes. The consequences and fallout for Greece will directly affect the power that Podemos in Spain (their anti-Austerity party). If Syriza pushes Greece over the edge (which is now more and more likely), Podemos could lose a lot of their voters as they run for the hills towards any political party eager to prevent this from happening to Spain, that too will fuel both UK and France in the next elections. It is too soon to state whether the Euro will stop, but at the centre stage is the need for governments keeping their commitments, which is only a temporary promise, as the next government is always just one election away. Syriza made that abundantly clear above all other issues.

That is the power Nigel Farage can tap into, that is the power Marine Le Pen will very successfully tap into and Geert Wilders will keep afloat in that boat collecting that bonus, but he will unlikely gain the power he would like from the Dutch voters, in that regard he had made too many wild statements, a flaw UKIP must now guard itself from as soon as they possibly can. Because public opinion will remain the killer of UKIP power for some time to come.

 

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June 17, 2015 · 11:25

When a joke is too pathetic

This is the first thought that came to mind when I saw the ‘headline’ ‘IMF has ‘criminal responsibility’ for Greek crisis‘, which was in the Guardian Live part. So, is Alexis Tsipras just too stupid to be allowed as a politician? Let’s face it, after 6 months he achieved absolutely nothing, so is my question that far out of bounds? He created decline in diplomatic bonds by accusing everyone, except the ones really responsible, which were the Greeks themselves!

Let’s take a look at some of this, for this I am taking a larger step back, back in time. You see, after the Olympics of 2004, we should have seen an influx and a positive result for Greece, which it did, but only to the smallest extent. Compared to other nations that influx was not as strong as many expected it to be. When we look at the data the OECD (at http://www.oecd.org/) has, we see that the investment in Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) was up in the year before the Olympics (that makes sense), then collapsed, only to go up steeply in 2006 and 2007, after that it goes down a lot, far below the average, guess what, after it hit a low (-26%) in 2012, suddenly there was a spike in investments, to minus 9.5% in 2013 and plus 2.7 percent in 2014. Yet, investments by whom? If we look at investment on % of GFCF by government we see that they represent 23.3% in 2013 and 20.7% in 2012. All this whilst corporate invested 34.9% in 2012 and 38.3% in 2013, households are in the basement, so the picture does not make sense (to me), when we compare this next to let’s say, the Netherlands, the picture looks even more distorted. Greece spiked its general government investment as % of GFCF far beyond the Netherlands, especially in 2009 and 2013. Greece has nowhere near that funding. Now, we see that it is just ‘% of GFCF’, yet spiking’s of 7% difference makes a lot more sense for the Netherlands than for Greece (the Dutch have dikes, harbours and plenty of assets to worry about). The Greek spending under former PM George A. Papandreou as well as spending by former PM Antonis Samaras, or should I say spending whilst they were in charge? Spending on transport equipment, other buildings and cultivated assets went up consistently, especially since 2012, whilst investment for dwellings went down from 2011 to 8% in 2014. These investment parts cannot be denied to some extent, yet the spiking implies that it is done at a moment’s notice, on the whim of emotion, lacking long term insight and stability. You only need to compare Greece to nations like the Netherlands and Sweden to see that the ‘spikes’ reflect what I would call: lacking vision and insight.

The questions only increase when you consider that Greece’s net trade never comes close to -20, -25.2 is the best they were able to achieve from 2003 onwards, and this is in billions of dollars, so as we see a decade of minus 20 billion or worse, it was -64 billion in 2008, questions should be asked, especially from the Greeks. A nation in trade deficit for ever a decade adds up to questions on WHY they were allowed onto the bond market in 2014, no one clearly asked those questions. In that light I need to add a blog (at http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/05/11/how-the-greek-banks-secured-an-additional-hidden-e41-billion-bailout-from-european-taxpayers/), the article called ‘How the Greek Banks Secured an Additional, Hidden €41 billion Bailout from European taxpayers’, so how come that these matters are not on the front page? So as I see it, these massive indicators are shown that when it comes to ‘criminal responsibility’, Alexis Tsipras should also knock on the doors of previous PM’s and Greek political bigwigs (if they actually have any). For the simple reason that massive austerity would have been needed in 2006 onwards, how much was cut? How was this achieved? You see 2005 was already a clear indication that overhaul of property taxation, tax collection and tax evasion was a clear given, especially when you come up short by THAT much. Yet in over a decade no achievements were made and neither was anything truly done in the last 6 months.

In addition, we see the dangers of the title ‘Athens threatens to miss IMF payment‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/16/eurozone-greek-exit-athens-imf-grexit-tsipras), whatever the Eurozone braces for is an unknown to me, considering the large players downplayed the event. The quote ‘threatens to miss IMF payment‘ is also slightly misrepresented. As I see it. As I see it, Greece no longer has that much money at their disposal, I reckon the shift by using the IMF emergency funds was a clear given. There is also a ghostly silence when it comes to the bank run. No clear indication how strong that pull is, or are the banks perhaps already empty? That is not a speculation, it is the question, especially as political parties and banks are debating ‘Grexit’. The problems will only intensify when the bank runs are complete. Actually, I expect that escalations will occur a lot faster when people can no longer withdraw. There is presently no indication when it will happen, but as payments are missed, the dangers of banks no longer handing out cash (emphasis on ‘being able to’) after June 23rd is not out of the question, if the bank run continues, that date might be even before that date. It will be a new low in humanitarian economics, as retirees will no longer receive payments, how will they be able to pay, when the Greek government allowed in March for the dipping into pension funds. Depending on how many Greek bonds these pensions ended up with, when money is not coming, which is extremely realistic, the pension funds themselves will not be able to flood the monthly retirement pay out, which is due in less than 2 weeks, at that point, how will the population react?

I expect to stay away from Greece until that dust cloud settles as it will be a harsh reality for Greeks to watch tourists walk around whilst they can no longer afford to feed themselves. The escalation with refugees all over Greece (Kos being the most visible one) is not helping any. The fact that posters are appearing with texts like “I am an immigrant, I’m here to rape your children” is not helping any. You might think that they are separate issues, but they are not. You see, this fuel of hatred is hitting Greeks every day, the unrest is growing amongst both sides. The entire debt mess is hitting the Greeks, who now see that what is left would be lost to the refugees. We are all about humanitarian aid, but how many will give them your last sandwich? How many will give food to the refugees when it means that your children will not eat? You might think that this is an exaggeration, but after next week, that might not be the case. When the announcement of a default meeting is given, the banks will get overrun, people will take all their money out, they might already be starting that today, when THAT is gone, how exactly will groceries be paid for? All this, because the two players Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Vardoulakis have basically been sitting on their hands for 6 months. It is nice to see the headlines ‘No new reform proposals for Eurogroup‘ and ‘Varoufakis rules out ‘Grexit’, deal possible if Merkel takes part‘. Well, as we are seeing now, it is no longer up to Varoufakis and Tsipras. as they pushed away reforms, accused the IMF and as we see ‘Europe Struggles Toward Solution as Tsipras Rips Into Creditors‘, we have to wonder, the Greeks made these deals, a I see it, the acts of THIS administration is now killing their own options, burning the bridges behind them. At this point, as I see it. Greece can no longer state “Grexit not a possibility“, at this point, we have arrived at the stage that Greece gets notified that Greece will be ejected from the Euro, perhaps even the Eurozone. The latter part is not that likely, but in sight of the Greek acts, no longer an impossibility. Now, only 2 hours ago we see “US urges compromise after Greek PM attacks IMF” (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jun/16/greek-crisis-negotiations-deadlocked-as-time-runs-short-live-updates). Now we see “US Treasury secretary Jack Lew has telephoned Alexis Tsipras to urge him to reach a realistic compromise, urgently. In a statement, the Treasury revealed that Lew told Tsipras that the Greek people, and the global economy, would suffer if Athens can’t reach a deal with creditors”

My cold war view (I miss those old days) is: “Jack, buddy boy! Did you miss certain facts? Did you consider that this is exactly what Alexis Tsipras wants all along? He is a communist! This scenario will have a massive impact on America, he is meeting Putin on Friday. Perhaps they will walk through the Hermitage on Saturday, a family outing, special tour and as they turn around the corner he gets his new golden future, if he can push Greece over the edge, massively hurting the US (please do not deny that it will not hurt the US), than he will have a nice future, he might even get the Star of Lenin on May 1st 2016. Instead of meeting with European parties, he is having another meeting with Putin. This guy met with Putin more often than the bulk of the Europeans together”

This might look like my shallow view, but consider the past of Syriza, their foundations, is my view so far-fetched? He has done absolutely nothing to propel the debt situation in any positive way. Is all war not based on deception? (Source: Art of War). Look at all the photo’s the papers have, all posing moments and all presentations of the moment (which politicians tend to do), has Alexis Tsipras been anything but a petulant child? As he went on and on in the style of: ‘Just give me my cookie now!‘ (Reference to the 7.2 billion bailout). In 6 months no clear reforms, no clear mention in any direction that could have eased any kind of resolution. The icing on the cake would be if the US would now take on some of these debts too. It would be a total victory for Tsipras, he can tell the Greek population has been dealt with and he’ll be living next to the Kremlin for daily Caviar and Vodka, the new Russian superstar!

This is just my view, it is a view and there is no reliability on my view, but oddly enough, my view matches all the facts we see, so is it less or more likely? Consider yourself, when you are in deep water with your bank, would you not try to get a dialogue and understanding? Would you not plead ‘there is no money now, but as soon as some comes in, we start paying!’ of course, the bank cuts you off, but the bank realises that waiting is better than losing, especially when the client has sincere intentions. So pissing of your bank, accusing them of ‘criminal responsibilities’ and letting them pay for it all, how does that help?

When the fence between you and the tiger is gone, posturing seems pointless, even if it is the only thing left to you. So, are the Greek politicians in charge now the joke that is too pathetic?

From accusations to ‘trying to make up’ as Helena Smith of the Guardian reports, “Over in Athens the government’s spokesman has just released a statement attempting to douse tensions with EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker“. Is this part of the play, or have the members of Syriza lost direction and focus? This is the question for many, you see, accusations followed by carefully phrased corrections is about emotion, limelight and posturing, as I see it an almost empty gesture to keep a non-conversation going. In here, I mean non-conversation as a means to continue a dialogue that allows for non-actions to continue too. Will this go on for 30 hours until the upcoming near-fatal meeting to be? That will be a question to consider, because tomorrow might be the last chance before certain members meet separately to put Grexit to the vote. That last part is again just my view, but it is a distinct possibility, because the reality of Grexit has now been voiced, and the change from ‘if’ to ‘when’ Grexit commences needs a start date, Germany, France and Italy would want to keep control of that moment, just to make sure that they will not be terminally affected because of it, a consequence that is still an option!

As I see it, the game will change massively for France when Grexit happens, as such, France would want to champion that meeting for valid reasons of cost impact.

 

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June 8, 2015 · 20:30

More FIFA shit?

That was the very first thought I had when I found the article in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/07/russia-qatar-lose-world-cups-if-bribery-found-fifa). The article ‘Russia and Qatar may lose World Cups if evidence of bribery is found‘. Domenico Scala, the independent chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee decided to open his mouth. Which sounds rude, but that is what it adds up to. You see, in all this, as I see it, nearly EVERY MEMBER of FIFA seems to ignore, or sidestep the report by Michael J. Garcia. Is it not interesting that the report called for far trivialised by FIFA and now it has been silenced? Is it remotely possible that Michael J Garcia was the only uncorrupted voice?

It seems like a hard verdict and it seems crass to say so, but I have an issue with an interim manage with massive big business ties. Many of them none too pleased with either Russia or Qatar winning the ballot. With the quote “The new evidence, obtained by the BBC, appears to show how the 2008 payments from Fifa – ostensibly for a Diaspora Legacy Programme promised by South African World Cup organisers” we do take notice, especially as BBC had been on the case of Jack Warner for a long time, but how does this connect to Russia or Qatar?

The article then shows more with the quote “‘after talking with everybody … Whose votes went where? We’re all colleagues, you know. And then we found out that actually Morocco won by two votes,’ the Sunday Times reported Bhamjee as saying“, which seems to be another worry, as I see it, one of the next world cups should then be allotted to Morocco by default, which one is hard to say, 2026 perhaps?

But the article seems to go off to the side, you see the one small quote “had also alleged bribery during the 2018-22 race” is not enough. In a river of papers, documents and evidence the issue of Russia and Qatar are now set in 9 words.

So why is the Michael J. Garcia report held back, why is Michael J. Garcia not talking? It seems with Fat Cat Sepp and loads of others gone, Garcia might become untouchable, depending on that report, so why is that kept behind closed doors? That is part of the reason why I am not willing to give Domenico Scala any leeway or trust, especially with his biopharmaceutical links and his past in Nestle and Roche. These are global players with their claws all over the place. As I stated in my earlier blog regarding FIFA, ‘is it more likely than not’ that large corporations want Qatar to go because of the hundreds of millions in advertisement that are lost because of the Qatarian situation? Having the investigator who basically sleeps in the bed of these large corporations is not a mindset put at ease. The fact that Michael Garcia has vanished in a cloud of non-publications for almost 6 months does not help matter either. The fact that the press is not all over this is even more unsettling.

Then the last sentence, which is actually quite the firecracker. You see the sentence “The Sunday Times says that it supplied the evidence to Fifa five years ago but that it had not acted on it“. Of course, the fact that it is directly linked to Rupert Murdoch does not help the case. But the issue that does play is whether this interaction is in Michael Garcia’s report does matter. You see, if Garcia has it, what were his findings? If he did not have it, the question becomes, who has been regulating the mailboxes of the FIFA members. At this point it is likely to be more than just a reference to people like Jack Warden, because whoever did that (if it was done) must have been a person who is very high up the ladder of FIFA.

The one thing that puts the people (especially the Soccer lovers) at ease is the one step that FIFA is not making, now we get a new one in ‘charge’ and we see more headlines with the mention ‘if evidence of bribery is found‘. So, is my lack of trust that hard to grasp? Overall is there any faith in FIFA at present? Not by me, I do not matter, but those who are truly passionate about soccer, those who felt the reality, which they have expected so long, it still hit them like a kick in the nuts!

They are the people Domenico Scala needs to connect to, especially if FIFA is to have any future, because the news now is just news, but son we will see day after day the issues of extradition that is being fought by those allegedly corrupt, who are in fear of future for their sphincter as they enter the US courts. Then the actual courts that will take more months and more news again and again on FIFA and corruption. If Domenico Scala wants the trust of the people, the true soccer fans, than as I see it, he has no choice but to publish the report, preferably with Michael J Garcia standing next to him vocal about every part of his report. It is not the view Hans-Joachim Eckert would like, but there are questions, questions that also include the ethics committee. So as we see the quote that BBC had on December 17th 2014 “Fifa president Sepp Blatter said: “I am surprised by Mr Garcia’s decision. The work of the ethics committee will nonetheless continue”“, in light of all the arrested and one person who resigned, how did the ethics committee continue, and did it actually continue at all?

Having someone on the ethics committee does not mean that there is an ethics committee, for that reality, one need not look any further than the UK and its view on ‘justice’ via Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. The amount of my peers that have loudly voiced their view on what the Lord Chancellor regards as legal aid, which by the way is what you usually hear when a truck drives starts shouting after a traffic jam of 18 hours, it is not healthy on the ears!

In all this, many articles and several decision only seem to fuel uncertainty, especially regarding trust of FIFA that is now getting louder. Uncertainty will lead to a more grim view on what will happen to FIFA. You see in the end, the power of soccer is Europe, which means that if enough uncertainty is voiced, someone in power will voice to secede FIFA and make UEFA the one power in Europe. FIFA might laugh now, but the large soccer nations include UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. If three of these, agree on that action, they can pull a host of other european nations across. Let’s not forget that 70% of the power of soccer is Europe, it is not America, Asia or Africa. So whatever is left for the world cup will diminish the ‘world cup’ into a trophy of a few nations that will soon thereafter see that all the funds of soccer remains in Europe, at that point large corporations will pull out and the 6 billion Euro dream that was will be a devaluated nightmare. That nightmare will continue with every court iteration the US goes through on corruption.

That view only polarises further when we consider the quote “He has threatened to release an “avalanche” of secrets about FIFA and its embattled president Sepp Blatter, who last week announced his intended resignation“, which was in the New York Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/sports/soccer/at-center-of-fifa-scandal-a-divisive-politician-in-jack-warner.html. This ‘threat’ is not entirely impossible as Jack Warner was previously a minister of national security and transportation. So we will soon see the ‘spook’ stories in the Telegraph I reckon.

In all this, the media will become the hyena that needs feeding, if Domenico Scala is to get any handle on this, releasing the full report of Michael Garcia would be a first step. It will not matter what that report states, you see, if it is useless, it will only reflect on Michael Garcia, if it was dynamite, it will hit resigned president Sepp Blatter, but it could also have repercussions for Justice Hans-Joachim Eckert, but that would depend on the report itself. If it does show that there were issues with both Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, well, as I stated before, let the chips fall where they may!

So as we will get more FIFA shot for a long time to come, which has a hidden treasure (if Swiss Law helps me out here).  You see, life in Switzerland is not cheap, even though he has millions, now all that money going to him will be mapped, anyone ‘helping’ him out will soon fall under the investigative scope of the US as well, due to possibility of being an accomplice. I am not stating that those people are that, but a criminal investigation is taking place. Now he is in a land where bank secrets will not help him as he is under scrutiny of extradition, in addition, Scotland Yard (who must feel humiliated as this all happened under their noses) are now looking at him 24/7 as well (a presumption on my side). Jack Warner is under a microscope whilst his sons are talking to the FBI, naming their father as a joined co-conspirator. The fun never ends, with every claim he does not pursue (the avalanche of secrets) his position becomes weaker, whatever he reveals implies his connection and it weakens him further as his former ‘friends’ will want to stay away from that toxic environment. He still gets hit, no matter what. I would think that as a former National Security minister, he would have planned his tactics a little better, but that could just be my wrongly skewed vision. Now this comes to blows with the press, I wonder what Brigadier General Alfonso will do. Now that his former colleague is accused, will the General start an investigation into the bank accounts of the agency? I am not stating that Jack Warner stole anything, but what if he used the accounts to syphon money in more than one direction, not just to receive, but to make payment. Now we have a ballgame that is more entertaining than soccer, because if that is so, than Trinidad could be touched by the FIFA scourge. If so, Jack Warner might stop fighting extradition, just to escape the wrath of Brigadier General Alfonso.

In all this, never forget the parts that matter here, there is no evidence that Jack Warner had nothing but the highest love for his Trinidad, his need for … ‘susceptibility to gifts’ does not diminish his national love or in his view his national pride, but how is it viewed by his peers and other around him? That question touches on the quote “The prime minister of this Caribbean republic walked out of a session of Parliament on Friday, angrily chastising a fellow politician and former ally, Jack Warner, who finds himself and his two sons at the center of soccer’s widespread corruption scandal” which the NY Times article started with. You see, overall corruption is not a new thing, it happens in many places, it is just a clear fact that when it gets out in the open, those persons are usually not liked anymore. The same danger he faces all over the field, which is why some of the aspects seem so funny to me. He might throw a few parties now in Switzerland, but soon he will face the reality of legal fees and cost of living, because whatever he wants to pay with will be under none stop scrutiny.

So, we will see plenty more FIFA ‘shit’, the question I have is how UEFA will act and react, because faith in FIFA could soon be at an all-time low, more important, what is Electronic Arts (EA Sports) not willing to pay for?

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June 8, 2015 · 00:31

A slave to greed

It is time to take a stance a little more vocal and a little more ‘anti’ certain voices. You see, the people are being led astray, misinformed and basically lied to. It is a clever lie that some people spin, where the involved players (like in Greece) focus on one part of the story and after that story is told, those who think they are getting informed, are told a fairy tale with no concrete connection to reality or to the factual complete truth. Those advocates work from the concept of ‘in the eye of the beholder’, which sounds nice, but when you pay your electricity bill, there is no eye of the beholder, there is just the invoice!

To get this party train started, let’s take a look at the definition. We are looking at Austerity!

According to the Investopedia it is: “DEFINITION of ‘Austerity’ a state of reduced spending and increased frugality in the financial sector. Austerity measures generally refer to the measures taken by governments to reduce expenditures in an attempt to shrink their growing budget deficits“.

Whilst dictionary.com tells us “strict economy”

Both apply here!

So when I am looking at an article in the Guardian by Heather Steward called ‘Austerity isn’t ‘good housekeeping’: it’s dogmatic, risky and unjust‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/07/austerity-isnt-good-housekeeping-dogmatic-risky-unjust), it is time to get a few things out of the way. To help me, there is a source I used for part of this, which is at http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/. You see, in the time 1997 – 2010 several things happened, even though around 2007 the total debt was at a record low, the increase in spending has changed that. The debt is getting out of control, plain and simple. Governments (both sides) tend to hide behind GDP percentages to validate their spending, yet, in the previous conservative government, it was at 40% of GDP, by the time Gordon Brown was done, it was at 45% of GDP, considering that the UK GDP is decently high, that 5% amounts to a lot. Yet, that figure does not tell you the whole picture.

The UK public sector debt went in the period 2008 – 2010 from around 36% to over 65%, which is massive, this current government has been adding to that, but they are trying to stem that tide, which is not done overnight. Now this is not me blaming Labour (which is always fun), Health care spending almost doubled in real terms between 1999 and 2010, which is a Grim Reaper reality. Some were massive bungles by labour, but the added reality is that the UK population is growing old, that is just a natural part and we have always known that. So there is no blame, but it is therefore of a much higher importance to get a handle on it and none of the choices are nice ones.

You see, the source gives a possible connection, but not the reality behind it. We see the mention whether Keynesian economics are to blame, with the quote “Keynesian economics calls for counter-cyclical spending and deficits. Thus, in a period of strong economic growth, Keynesian economics would advocate balancing the budget or even pursuing a budget surplus“, but that is the problem, the politicians, in the era 1997-2004, in such a ‘good’ climate did not adhere to that. The GDP debt is evidence of that. You see, to some extent, politicians are like children, give a 17 year old boy  a credit card with one million pound, stating that he must be careful, and that person will find a reason to get the PS4, the Xbox One and get personal biology lessons at the ‘Steam and Sun Health Club’. At which point that person is feeling that the good life is here, alas, at some point the invoice is due and whilst it is not getting paid, the interest is getting paid from the credit card, dwindling reserves even further, this is EXACTLY where Greece is at!

So now to the first article as mentioned in the beginning!

“the spending squeeze the Tories now hope to implement, starting in the current financial year, is intense, as the spreadsheet wizards at the Institute for Fiscal Studies made clear last week. Shortly before Osborne’s statement, Carl Emmerson, the IFS’s deputy director, warned that achieving the Tories’ planned cuts would be “anything but easy”” Here I agree, it will not be easy, it will be hard and it will be even harder on the people, the issue is however that £1.56 trillion comes with the added issue that at 1%, this bill gets an added 15.6 billion in interest, however, the interest is not 1%, it is higher, so we see that the annual cost of servicing (paying the interest) the public debt amounted to around £43bn (which is roughly 3% of GDP). In an age where some people get instant orgasms from reporting a 0.2% increase in GDP, they seem to forget that this amounts to the part that the UK is annually down 2.8% of GDP. If we act harshly (really harshly) it can be dealt with and even be reduced! Which is the real deal. That interest is benefitting banks and foreign investors. It boils down to ‘money for free’. So now we get the second quote “the belt-tightening is likely to be profoundly unfair. Osborne has repeatedly said his cuts plan will involve a £12bn reduction in the welfare bill. Since pensioners are protected, and out-of-work benefits are a relatively small part of the £250bn social security budget, much of the burden is likely to fall on low-wage workers and their children” I agree, it is very unfair, but when the economy was high, no one was shouting loudly to decrease spending as bad times are always around the corner, no one stopped Gordon Brown to give away the keys to the kingdom, which is what he pretty much did!

So, the term ‘pursuing a budget surplus’ sounds nice, but politicians will avoid bad news whenever they can, so cutting down on expenses will only be done when there is no other option, and preferably in the 11th hour, whilst there is no guarantee that there is a surplus at that point to work with!

“More austerity is risky at a time when recovery appears to be fragile against a background of the bubbling Eurozone crisis” this is a clear misrepresentation. You see, the statement is true, but there is no ‘fragile recovery’ at present, Greece is making sure of that by not doing its part. Which is exactly why the UK is contemplating getting out of the EU in the first place. The bulk of the Euro nations are all not balancing their books and getting out now might be the only way to preserve the little gain the UK can get. Now we get to another ‘failed’ view. It comes from Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. The statement is “A nation’s debts are mainly owed to someone else within the same society – for example the pension-holders whose funds are stacked full of gilts“. Is that so Mr Sen? Well, if you did your homework on this then please elaborate where the 1.5 trillion in UK debt is? I feel 99.324% certain that a massive amount is in other hands, not in the hands of pension holders, in addition, with the annual increase of needed funds over the next two decades, that amount is about to dwindle to record lows really fast, so where is all that debt?

The next statement is a view that I oppose “a report from the International Monetary Fund, rarely considered a hotbed of fiscal recklessness, warned about the risks of trying to tackle a country’s debt burden too quickly“, what is too quickly? You see 1.5 trillion is not going away overnight, it will take 2-3 decades to truly slim it down, so for the next generation, someone is walking away with £43bn a year, so we should get the debt down soon, preferably by a lot because the annual interest bill is around 7% of the received revenue in 2014, that whilst George Osborne spent 15% more than received, so to cut back on that increasing debt austerity seems to be the only answer.

Now we get the next issue “Paying them down rapidly distorts the economy too much to be worth the risk“, the risk to whom? To banks not getting ‘free’ money? Debt is a kicker, it always has been it has never been different. We will never be completely out of debt, but the debt at present is unacceptably high. You see a debt driven economy is based on the illusion of never ending growth. How did that work out in 2004 and 2008? In that light, how is it working out for Greece? They can no longer pay their bills. Whatever they get now in bail-out will be swallowed by debts and interests before Q3 ends. So, when I read “Debts should be “reduced organically through growth, or opportunistically when less distortionary sources of revenue are available”, the IMF’s researchers argue“, I am reading more misinformation. The theory sounds nice, but in the time when there was the option of surplus NOT ONE government created surplus. President Clinton was the only one who got a true surplus, after that due to circumstances the US could not foresee, the debt went completely out of control. In reflection on Austerity, Germany did tighten the buckle and got part of its debt down, which is why they are in a better position at present.

So this is the first article, Heather Stewart is not stating anything untrue, but the article is missing a lot and some of these points I very much disagree with (figure me, disagreeing with a Nobel prize winner, whilst I have no economy degree).

Now let’s have a go at the second Nobel Prize winner. In this case Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the John Bates Clark Medal. The article that in centre of this is ‘Greece’s creditors need a dose of reality – this is no time for European disunion‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/05/greeces-creditors-need-a-dose-of-reality-this-is-no-time-for-european-disunion). The first paragraph is the very notion of the beginning of my disagreement. “Athens has met its creditors’ demands more than halfway“. And we care….why? Why is Athens not meeting those demands 100% of the way? You see, Greece took the debt, it went back to the markets and sold 5 billion more in bonds (I still have not figured out the name of the idiot allowing for that act of stupidity). Greece vowed to make payments again and again, yet at present the already deferred TWO payments. Now, let me be frank. They were allowed to do that! The rules were there and they played by the rules, yet we all know that Greece is out of money, there are no more options. This will be the first time that a nation goes extinct through economic inaction! Even when Syriza won, instead of going after their predecessors, instead of sitting down and getting to the tax evaders, we see (at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4358352.ece) “The country’s financial crimes police, the SDOE, had begun shredding scores of documents linked to cases of corruption. What remained was stuffed in bin bags and discarded outside the bureau’s headquarters in Athens, in public view” the title ‘Greece shreds files on tax cheating by rich and powerful‘ Kostas Vaxevanis reported this on February 19th 2015. So, why was there no prosecution here? The entire debacle on tax evasion has been treated like a joke by 4 previous administrations, so as they cut their own jugulars, why allow for just a half way approach? So far this Greek administration has not done anything to give ample faith that there will be any level of resolution. Then we get “Greece has made clear its willingness to engage in continued economic overhaul, and has welcomed Europe’s help in implementing some of them“, is that so? So far there has been no overhaul at all, the public sector cuts were undone by rehiring. Greece needs to lower its cost by a massive amount. In all that time, which of the over 2000 of wealthy Greeks ended up in court for tax evasion (from Swiss bank accounts), perhaps one? Oh the Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis ended in the dock too, a massive miscarriage of Justice as I see it!

The one part I do agree with is the dangers of Greece exiting “I believe such views significantly underestimate the current and future risks involved“, this is true, but Greece can no longer be trusted to do what they stated to do and as such, some of the players prefer to get out, before the total debt grows with another 20% which is basically no more than a year away. There is not concrete evidence that the economy will truly pick up and those who have enabled this debt driven event are not held to account either (that small matter of a massive amount of Greek bonds on the market).

Then the last part “The ECB president Mario Draghi’s confidence trick, in the form of his declaration in 2012 that the monetary authorities would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro, has worked so far. But the knowledge that the euro is not a binding commitment among its members will make it far less likely to work the next time“, yes, how did it work? By spending a trillion or more one areas that are still not recuperating and will need at least a decade to regain the trillion that was spent in under a year? How is that anywhere near a workable solution?

In all this, whatever should work might have worked to a degree if politicians would control their budgets and that financial institutions would not be as greed driven as they are, which is why it all failed. When we see the quote “16 banks in five years to the end 2014 reveal £30bn increase in payouts, fines and legal bills on previous five-year period to end 2013” and this is linked to a total of well over £200bn. Lloyds alone got £117m in fines, how is this linked? Well, such losses means no taxation in the books as profits are gone, whilst many involved walked out with enough money (read: bonus) to pay their full mortgage in places like Golders Green.

Mr Stiglitz never lies or misinforms, but his view is incomplete. It is very dependent on the people involved doing the right and the correct thing. Politicians and bankers tend to be not those kind of people, Greece has shown it, Gordon Brown has spent it now the Conservatives need to repair the damage, Prime Minister Tsipras is ‘forced’ to play a high stakes game, whilst those involved are no longer willing to give leeway. In my view, that game should never have been played in the first place. By setting austerity, whilst going after the Greeks and their wealth benefitting from all this was perhaps one of the few acts that could have opened wallets all over the place, that act was never done, which is why many see that meeting half way is not really an option.

Austerity might seem unfair, and it is not fair on the payers at present, but someone opened a tap whilst the bulk of those knowing what was going on should have spoken out, and spoken out very loud. This was not done, so behold the consequence of that little caper.

There is one gem in his article at the end that is part of the entire Euro mess, which is fun as I have raised it a few times over the last few years. Not bad for a person devoid of an economics degree!

He states: “Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the euro. They thought they were looking beyond the short-term demands that usually preoccupy political leaders. Unfortunately, their understanding of economics fell short of their ambition; and the politics of the moment did not permit the creation of the institutional framework that might have enabled the euro to work as intended. Although the single currency was supposed to bring unprecedented prosperity, it is difficult to detect a significant positive effect for the Eurozone as a whole in the period before the crisis. In the period since, the adverse effects have been enormous”

This is true, the one part I have an issue with is ‘Europe’s leaders viewed themselves as visionaries when they created the Euro‘. I think Europe’s leaders had nothing to do with that part. I have always viewed this change as an essential; step by the US. Their benefit of trade with a single currency was titanic in proportions, in addition, the US would keep its option to float the currency as any economy tends to do in times of hardship, whilst the nations that are part of the euro are part of a collective, which removes the option of floating a currency. This was centre in the additional growth (or diminished fall) for the US, yet, even they did not bank on the credit swap meltdown, which did hurt them. The US is getting better, but their 18 trillion in debt is choking them, even with the option to float the dollar, the Euro in the massive debt it is, can only remove the debt by paying it, which is strangling France and Italy. The UK is dealing with it, and the Euro is hurting them, but not as much as being part of the Euro is. Which is just my view on it all.

As I stated in the beginning, the articles are incomplete, misstated, not by inaccuracies, but by incompleteness, which is why people have the skewed view they seem to have at present. In the austerity path, which is unfair to some, we need to add the legal premise and the legal definitions as well as legal obstructions to remove the option of overspending to the degree that was done, we need to make sure that the law will not allow for such overstretching ever again, when that is done, we will return to times when there is hardship, but when there are good times we will all feel it too, in my view, the push of the financial sector to remove the season of ‘financial winter’ resulted in the banks getting by and the rest suffering, this must never be allowed ever again!

 

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June 6, 2015 · 00:05

S&M or S&H?

That is the question that should be on the minds of people everywhere! You see Self-interest and Misinformation is every bit a tool of application in the Sade-Masochistic approach that politicians use, or if we use names it would be the dialogue between Alexis Tsipras and Jean-Claude Juncker where Tsipras voices: “You wash my back, I wash yours real hard!” So as we see in the Guardian the call for ‘Sanity and Humanity‘ we must ask the clear ‘why?’ part. You see, we are now getting ‘misinformed’ by laureates and by people in the industry of high economics. They most likely want their cushy job to continue. If Greece falters that is no longer an option, because the repercussions go a lot further than Greece, even the US is now getting involved because the fallout from Greece leaving is a lot more than the people are told.

First Premise: If my thoughts were wrong, then why not let Greece out of the Euro, let it float its Drachma and slowly get back on the horse? Because virtual or not, the fallout of half a trillion whilst Italy and France are so deep in debt is a massive problem!

The names calling for this are: Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, star French economist Thomas Piketty, former Italian PM Massimo D’Alema, and America’s Jamie Galbraith. The list has more names, but you’ll have to get to the Financial Times for that.

You see, the premise of Humanity is nice (and I am all for Humanity), but when the person involved REFUSES to take decent steps towards the solution, the sanity part is to just cut them lose, but as I stated in my first premise, that is not an option, the negative consequences are scaring too many ‘profiteers’ as I see them!

The first untruth by these writers (bleeding hearts seem to be the most apt title). We see the quote: “Six months on, we are dismayed that austerity is undermining Syriza’s key reforms, on which EU leaders should surely have been collaborating with the Greek government: most notably to overcome tax evasion and corruption“. I would call this a lie of the first order! Why am I calling it that loud?

The Greek government has done close to nothing to overcome tax evasion and corruption! Which politicians from former administrations have been arrested and are investigated for squandering government funds? We saw one case of tax evasion for 1.2 million, which is 0.000028436% of the debt, it does not even cover the smallest part of the interest bill.

The next statement is: “Austerity drastically reduces revenue from tax reform, and restricts the space for change to make public administration accountable and socially efficient” the second expression of laughter! Greece has next to nothing in revenue from taxation, let alone revenue from tax reforms, in addition public administration is not holding anyone accountable, the Greek public administration is a joke no one wants to touch (let alone the Greeks), so the claim made here is nothing more than an empty sentence.

Now we get to an interesting part: “It is wrong to ask Greece to commit itself to an old programme that has demonstrably failed, been rejected by Greek voters, and which large numbers of economists (including ourselves) believe was misguided from the start“. Well, if it was misguided, then the ‘friends’ you have in Goldman Sachs and other financial pool party’s should not have borrowed them the money to begin with! There is no doubt that Syriza has a bad deal, but they wanted the bad deal! They wanted to govern at the expense of everything and everyone! New Democracy under Antonis Samaras was actually trying to sort things out. In addition, the Greek voters do not get to reject this. They voted the people in that spend the money with zero foresight or consideration of the consequences, the Greek people now get to pay for it all. You see, someone spend over 400 billion, it went somewhere. That part is due and the loans made afterwards to get things ‘rolling’ was never realistic, but the top economists were all eager to get the kickbacks that they refer to as consultancy and commission! When a bank allows for events THIS STUPID to get out of proportions, in the end, I do not deny that Tsipras and Varoufakis are playing a clever game. They are willing to let the ‘other’ players collapse. It is a ‘pay our debt or else’ approach. It is not acceptable! And I reckon it should not be tolerated on this level.

What would be acceptable, if the entire debt is paid for by banks, monitored by oversight commissions to ensure that the people (their consumers) never get any additional charges! That banks would need to come up with the money from their own profits and dividends. That I would find acceptable, but guess what? The ‘friends’ of those who signed this letter will not accept that and they will reject that in a heartbeat, so here we see Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, et al all writing about humanity, when it should be about accountability!

Now we get the half-truth in all this “Clearly a revised, longer-term agreement with the creditor institutions is necessary: otherwise default is inevitable, imposing great risks on the economies of Europe and the world, and even for the European project that the Eurozone was supposed to strengthen“, is that so?

My second premise: Yes there will be risks, but the one I see is a more total collapse when the debt is shouldered by those already in too deep. That part is not mentioned and moreover that risk has been trivialised by several players all over the Eurozone field, including by the top of the IMF and a few top players in the US too.

And I reckon that the quote “Syriza is the only hope for legitimacy in Greece” can be discarded out of hand, they actually escalated it all, in all this, as I see it, New Democracy was the true hope for Greece.

Now we get a quote that is truly a worry “Consider, on the other hand, a rapid move to a positive programme for recovery in Greece (and in the EU as a whole), using the massive financial strength of the Eurozone to promote investment, rescuing young Europeans from mass unemployment with measures that would increase employment today and growth in the future“.

My third premise: First of all, this is not the first time that approach is used, Adolf Hitler used it in 1935; how did THAT turn out? Now, let’s not go all Nazi on this and consider the issues in Spain, Italy and France? Do you have solutions for them too? How would you like to voice this in reality? That is the problem, you see, jobs come from places that have income, that have product and that is selling, that allows for hiring and paying staff! This is the entire issue, there are no jobs, because people are not buying, because after the cost of living there is not enough money to spend.

It is not a math issue that requires a Nobel price, a mere abacus, or just common sense, paper and pen could have worked that out! In addition, the prediction I made in my article ‘An Olympic steeplechase‘ on May 26th 2015 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/26/an-olympic-steeplechase/), two days later Deutche Welle publishes this “‘We’ve been receiving reports of a decline in bookings, especially from Germany’, says the tourism manager to DW“. I saw the writing on THAT wall! In addition there is “Andreadis quotes the latest statistics from the German Society for Consumer Research (GfK): Bookings in Germany have declined by 2 percent based on annual figures“, two percent does not seem that much, but in an economy where the Greek GDP is making another step towards 0 and lower, 2% is a lot. The issues with refugees isn’t helping Greece either. The British media reported that Kos, a Greek tourist attractor has become a ‘disgusting hellhole’, which would push tourism down further. Influx from both Russia and Scandinavia is down too, but at present unknown by exactly how much. It basically means that tourism will not bring the bacon to the outstanding invoices for Greece, apart from collecting the taxation on it all that is.

The final misrepresentation is “Like the Marshall plan, let it be one of hope not despair“, it is a misrepresentation, because the Marshall plan did the right thing, whilst the people did their part, the governments were in better control, within the Euro at present not one government has been holding pace with the expenditure and keeping a proper budget, which gets trivialised by those administering it and the extra spending is overstretched again and again.

My fourth premise: So this is not about Mr Marshall and his amazing achievement, this is about the Greek government actually doing something. Pushing the invoice out 30 days is not a solution. In addition to that, nearly every person and toddler can see that the 7 billion that is supposed to be freed up will after paying the civil servants their 2.2 billion in outstanding parts will not even cover all the bills until the end of the year and whilst Greek taxation is not being addressed, another interest invoice of 22 billion will be due in under 10 months. Yes, 22 billion just for the interest payment!

So as we are misdirected by some people hiding behind the fact that IMF payments have been overdue before, the issue here is that Greece is now TWO payments behind, totaling a little over 1 billion, part one due in two weeks! So as the Greeks vow not to leave the Euro, the question will soon become, do they actually have a choice in this, because when payments are not forthcoming, there must be repercussions, the one part Greeks are really good at denying.

I must of course also mention that there is debt restructuring document, which is regarded as being ‘hopeful’. The view comes from Peter Spiegel of the Financial Times and the quote is “The restructuring plan is ambitious, offering ways to reduce the amount of debt held by all four of its public-sector creditors: the European Central Bank, which holds €27bn in Greek bonds purchased starting in 2010; the International Monetary Fund, which is owed about €20bn from bailout loans; individual Eurozone member states, which banded together to make €53bn bilateral loans to Athens as part of its first bailout; and the Eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, which picks up the EU’s €144bn in the current programme“.

The fifth premise: My issue on these document is that they are ALWAYS based on too positive an outlook, which is why they usually fail. In addition, Greece will at least need another 20 billion, that is if the 7.2 billion that they are trying to get their fingers on is already in the given picture, which is not a given at present.

The quote “to get back under 60 per cent of GDP” is just insanely unrealistic. You see, to do that you need to fix expenditure by a lot, the one part the Greeks utterly refused to do, in addition, they just rehired the people they had let go, so expenses are back up too!

As Peter Spiegel (@SpiegelPeter) states: “It also involves eliminating a chunk of Greece’s bailout debt“, which is fine by me as long as the BANKS pay for that part, if it comes from Goldman Sachs’s pocket so much the better! Let’s not forget that part of this entire mess was because Goldman Sachs helped Greece mask the actual debt it had (source: Der Spiegel) on February 8th 2010! How much forward momentum did Greece achieve since then (like lowering debt)? NONE!

I will say again that this is all unfair on the Greek people, but they did elect this lot into parliament, as they elected the previous bunches, how about knocking on those doors to get at least some of those funds back (which also lowers debt)?

 

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May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

This is the issue we have seen many times in the last months. The lie perpetrated by people (including journalists) to keep them in some fake shape of ethical non-prosecution. The clearest one was shown by the Guardian Yesterday (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/22/secret-bank-of-england-taskforce-investigates-financial-fallout-brexit), it is not the first one, it will not be the last one and until some individuals get out of their lazy chair, it will never improve. The quote “News of undercover project emerges after Bank staff accidentally email details to the Guardian including PR notes on how to deny its existence“. This is not even close to an accident, you do not ‘accidently‘ add journalists to confidential e-mails. This is almost like me going to Lucy Pinder (famous UK Presenter) stating: “Can you please stand there, now bend backwards a little and please keep your legs spread and without knickers, so I can ‘accidently’ land my penis into your vagina” (sorry about the graphical intensity Miss Pinder)! Either event does not happen accidently, only intentional or orchestrated as I see it! We will likely hear on ‘accidental’ typos, on how names were the same, but the cold reality is, is the mere fact that some people are trying to be some misguided whistle-blower yet the other group are doing that intentionally, some to warn ‘friends’, some to influence the market. And this event is nowhere near the only one. I wrote about Brexit yesterday in my article ‘Is it all Greek to you?‘ there are several issues in play. There is the link to Natixis, regarding their over half a Trillion Euro issue. Is that information not really handy to have? So in my view what is currently ‘regarded’ as an accident is possibly a simple case of either whistleblowing or corruption! The next quote is another one we need to take issue with “The revelation is likely to embarrass the bank governor, Mark Carney, who has overhauled the central bank’s operations and promised greater transparency over its decision-making“. The issue is, is that there is no issue. The Bank of England has a clear responsibility to investigate economic impacts, this means that both Brexit and Grexit are to be investigated. You see, if Brexit becomes a necessarily evil, those making the decisions would need to have all the facts, not just ask for the facts at that point. So, 30 seconds after the Guardian revelation, Natixis and all its links, Airbus, HSBC and a few other players will now be preparing their own kind of noose, threatening the UK government on the consequences of going forward on Brexit, the equations as per today will be pushed in other directions, including by the US, who would get into deep insolvent waters the moment Brexit becomes a fact. So, the accidental mailer is in my view an intentional traitor to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. That person is an even bigger traitor as this is not about where the freedom of choice for a sovereign nation lies, but the fact that it is no longer able to get the true facts ready for the people to freely make a choice on, so when the referendum does come, the people are likely to get misinformed because powerful players do not like it when their profitability is on the line. It is of course every little bit useful for the large industries who believe in keeping the status quo of exploitations high, dry and mighty. So even though Mark Carney will likely be under fire of questions as per Monday, we must also see that in this case our Canadian Marky Mark is totally innocent (in this case). He did what a responsible governor of the Bank of England did. He made sure the correct facts were collected (tried to do so without kicking a fuss), a task that is now less likely to be successful. So as we look at what happened, according to the Guardian article, we see “The email, from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on May 21st and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison“, so as I see it a mail from Sir Jonathan Cunliffe went to 4 senior executives. Now we suddenly see that Jeremy Harrison had it. Was he one of the 4 recipients? It seems unlikely as the text would have stated something slightly different. It is the formulation that gives way to the notion that it is likely (read: possible) that one of those executives forwarded the mail to Jeremy Harrison and he did give it to the Guardian. So we have two issues. Who gave it to Jeremy and was the release to the press more intentional than not? That question remains an issue. Is this orchestration or blatant treason. Let’s not forget that treason means: ‘The betrayal of someone’s trust or confidence‘, in this case the trust AND confidence of the British parliament. So the people are confronted with a spokesperson who likely spoke out, against the wishes of the ruling governor. So this event will have consequences from Monday onward. The markets will react and after that we will see more events into escalations as the British people will get to see over the week how the Greek fallout will hit the markets and the European economies as a whole. The non-actions, or any act regarded too small by the people will shift political allegiances fast, yet that effect is less likely to be felt in the UK and more likely to impact France at present. And these Brexit revelations are not the first ones. That Greek tragedy called insolvency is riddled with ‘leaked’ documents all over the place. In February 2015 we had ‘Leaked documents reveal what Greece had to say at the Euro group negotiations‘, in this view, I agree with blogger Raúl Ilargi Meijer who wrote less than a week ago “Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why” (at http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/the-imf-leaks-greece/), but that is not what orchestration is about, is it? So are the events from the Bank of England orchestration too? If so fine (well not entirely, but that would not be my call), if not then please fire Jeremy Harrison and give me his job. I have no proper degree for the function, but at least I will not be leaking any documents. These events go a lot further then just Greece of course. The Herald Scotland gives us ‘Civil servant who issued RBS leak email links with Better Together leader‘ (at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-civil-servant-who-issued-rbs-leak-email-links-with-better-together-leader.120666908) gives us “THE Treasury civil servant who issued an email leaking sensitive information about Royal Bank of Scotland’s plans to leave the country in the event of a yes vote had links to the head of Better Together campaign, it can be revealed“, so again the question regarded is, is this not corporate treason? Consider the quote “Now the civil servant who issued the communication can be identified as Robert Mackie, the son of Catherine MacLeod, who was a special adviser to Better Together leader Alistair Darling when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer“, was he preparing his own more comfortable future? Getting himself into the proper future setting with friends of Alistair Darling? These are questions to be asked, for sure. Of course, a valid question might be, why would the Royal Bank of Scotland, leave Scotland if it becomes independent? Is it about the lost power of image of its board members? I do not proclaim or imply to have the actual answers, but the truth is not likely to come out, which means we end up living an outspoken lie, does it not? My own little island Australia is not without its own negative merits here. The title ‘Leaked documents reveal problems within Air Warfare Destroyer program‘ should give cause for concern, because that is not a mere commercial/political issue, it is a military issue, where one might expect a little more bias into ‘disclosing’ classified information (me going out on a limb here). we see the information (at http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4232702.htm), where we get the quote “But documents obtained by Saturday AM reveal the alliance is now worried continued cost blowouts and delays are harming its shipbuilding reputation“, of course ‘cost blowout’ usually means that the leaders of those projects did not have a proper clue to begin with and the amount of 9 billion gives a lot more weight to my statement (the UK NHS IT program being a nice piece of 11 billion pounds in evidence), but that is not too unexpected. The quote “MARK THOMSON: With an alliance contract where you don’t have somebody clearly in charge, you can rapidly find yourself in a situation where things go wrong and people are looking at one another passing blame, not taking responsibility, and decisions aren’t made” is precisely to the point. Our own Marky Mark (not the one running the Bank of England) shows the major influence, a person that is clearly in charge. I would add that quality of communication tends to be a solid second one in these projects. You see, as these elements go back and forth the e-mail (read Memo) goes on and on. When someone is in charge we get that defining moment when they hear (or should hear). ‘Shut Up! This is what we have decided on!‘, yet military contractors (like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman) are very trained in encapsulating questions within answers, adding premises so that the water is murky, as this is all about their continues consultancy as those people are like lawyers, they bill by the hour per project (as I personally see it), so here again, we see the outspoken lie, now not by telling, but by omission through non-clarity. So as the article ended with “Last year problems with the AWD program prompted former defence minister David Johnston to warn he wouldn’t trust the government-owned Australian submarine corporation to build a canoe“, on one side it seems odd to bite the hand that feeds you, on the other hand the question becomes what evidence did he have access to? Was this a political move to shelter individuals or signal true issues? So now we get the news (less than 2 hours ago at http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/first-air-warfare-destroyer-launched-at-asc-osborne/story-fni6uo1m-1227366174513) ‘First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, Osborne‘, which should be a huge reason for parties as well as spoil a bottle of bubbly against the hull of that beauty. Yet, the article is not all good news. We see that in the quote “The occasion was overshadowed to a degree by Friday’s release of a Federal Government audit claiming the destroyers cost three times as much to build in South Australia as they would if they had been built overseas. It also found the total cost of the project had blown out to $9 billion“, so here are my questions in this:

  1. Could we ever rely on our defense by getting things build overseas?
  2. Who kept check on the expenses?
  3. If I go over the books and If I can cut more than 20% by invalidating time wasted on drawn out lines of ‘communications’ (I mean those long winded memos from these military contractors), will I get 10% of the 20% saved? (This should amount to 180 million) not bad for a few months’ work! You know, I had a dream where I ended up with 160 million and bought a nice house on Guernsey. I am willing to settle on 20 million less!

So here we see the outspoken lies! Political, commercial and even military, lines of miscommunication drained through ‘leaked’ documents. Is it all orchestration? Is orchestration not the same as treason when we consider the allegiance those people were supposed to have (in opposition where ‘leaked’ documents are a tactical move)? It would be for a court to decide, yet we will soon learn that these matters will not make it into any court, and as the cost blowout of 9 billion is shown, this leaky path will pay handsomely into the hands of businesses like Raytheon and Natixis, and what do you know, there are links between these two as well! So is this last statement my outspoken lie? Or can we agree at least to some degree that these companies all talk to one another? So in the end are governments getting played and who is actually in charge? That would be a very valid question as the bill got pumped by 9 billion, where 10% of that 9 billion could have solved the Australian legal aid issue (as well as a few other issues), so will any investigation into that issue result in a new outspoken lie (read: carefully phrased political conclusion without further accountability by anyone)? Time will tell!

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May 22, 2015 · 10:26

Is it all Greek to you?

Greece keeps on tracking the news in several UK papers and newscasts. Greece is big news in a few regards, but I will not go into that too deep. What should be known in this premise is that I still believe that Greece for the larger extent is playing a game, the fact that Greece is playing this game is because (as I agree), the downfall of Greece could topple Italy and France to a serious extent, which will hurt the United Kingdom to more than a minor extent (it would have been massively worse if the UK had the Euro) and it will debunk the premise of a united Europe in several ways.

Now let’s take a look at the news:

BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32790726) ‘Greek debt deal within next week, says Varoufakis‘, stated on May 19th, this gives us the oral deadline of no later than May 29th.

I, the Lawlordtobe.com (that’s me) stated on May 6th in the article ‘What’s the matter?‘ “You see, there we see May 1st an IMF interest loan payment (now due May 6th) and May 12th we see the part that 760 million is due. The part that was unknown to me is also the part that is not loudly voiced to EEC nations, because this knowledge will influence the voters (as I personally see it). You see, the missing part that is not voiced in many sources is the small fact that two T-bill batches mature, the first one on May 8th and the second one on May 15th, each worth 1.4 billion“.

Now we know that the May 6th payment was done, but the May 12th payment could NOT be made, for this Greece used its own IMF emergency funds, this means that this is now due 30 days after May 12th. In addition, the amounts due in June is 1.5 billion initially towards the IMF, yet because the May payment was not made, that debt is raised by 50% and Now we see that 2.3 billion will be due before June 30th. In addition 5.2 billion in T-bills will mature, so how is that going to get paid for?

Alas, this is not all, even though payments are not due, the Greek debt ceiling has been raised (again) now giving to total debt ceiling at 80 billion, when we add the outstanding debt, this nation with 11 million people will be down almost half a trillion dollars! Now one fact that many are ignoring, this all amounts to an annual interest that is close to 22.5 billion a year, Greece cannot even raise 5% of that at present!

Let’s get back to the news!

The financial review gave us this news on May 19th (at http://www.afr.com/news/world/greece-wants-europes-bailout-fund-to-pay-maturing-bonds-20150518-gh4ljr), the headline ‘Greece wants Europe’s bailout fund to pay maturing bonds‘ gives you the rising nightmare that I was pushing towards for some time now! The quote “Greece has proposed to its international lenders that Europe’s bailout fund pay back maturing Greek government bonds held by the European Central Bank as a way to overcome a funding crunch, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Monday“. It feels a little like going to that nice place in Amsterdam (with all those red lights), then after you had your fun, you ask the girl if she would be so kind enough to ask Mr.  Eberhard van der Laan to front the bill (the current Mayor of Amsterdam). What do you think is going to happen next? Including May, through to August a total of 11 billion in Bonds will mature. So, how is this a good idea?

Syriza has, since it came to power, only made things worse for Greece. The Greek people might think that they are protected, yet as I see it, the only thing they achieved is to alienate its creditors, leaving them with no alternatives, for now let’s get back to the news!

Less than 20 minutes ago (whilst writing the draft), the Guardian got wind of a possible extension of 4 months (source: Helena Smith, the Guardian), which is likely today’s topic between Angela Merkel and Alexis Tsipras. Which now gives us more worry, because EVERY delay and every inaction from Syriza gives less and less chances for Greece. Yet from Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-eurozone-greece-schaeuble-idUSKBN0O61C220150521), we learn that there is no happy expectations at present. The quote “But Schäuble poured cold water on this idea, saying reports from the international institutions involved in negotiations with Athens suggested talks were progressing ‘very hesitantly’. ‘What I know from discussions with the three institutions does not back up the optimism arising from announcements from Athens,’ Schäuble said in an interview published on Thursday“, whether the latest news is more accurate is harder to see, because the ‘earlier’ news from the BBC amongst others see a game played where Varoufakis and Tsipras are in ‘managing bad news mode’ and overly optimistic, an approach already rejected by more than one participant and as I showed, the amounts due means that my prediction on May 6th (in the article What’s the matter? at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/05/06/whats-the-matter/), where I stated “Why do I feel that I am the only one seeing this, or at least the only one clearly voicing this, because the UK elections, when the voters learn that Greece is about to desire up to 30 billion before the end of the year, so that it can pay the outstanding bills“.

Now we see that Greece is hoping on an 11 billion bonds bailout, a bailout deal of 7.2 billion and an additional bailout is already a certainty, the amount at present is however not stated (possibly unknown to the involved players) and up to August we see the need for 6.7 billion in payments to the ECB. In addition there would be interest payments too. My prediction of the needed 30 billion has been surpassed, yet no one else made clear mention of these required funds, especially the UK papers, as this would have opened the floodgates towards UKIP. How informed was the British voter allowed to be?

Back to the news!

When we consider the extension, we also see first voices. Now let’s take a clear look at what the European public is being offered and the shear insanity of it.

  1. “experts are saying after four months of seemingly stalled negotiations the gap-stop solution makes eminent sense – not least because it gives the leftist-led government enough time to either hold a referendum or call fresh elections, polls that the governing Syriza party would almost certainly win hands down”.
    a. How will new elections solve anything?
    b. Is Syriza wins again, then how will progress ever be made?
    c. Setting up an election takes months, which means that in 4 months no achievement will be made, whilst the internal costs of new elections will be added to the debt.
  2. “Both scenarios would allow Tsipras to deal with militants in his party and move to the centre stage offering clarity to a political landscape blighted by Syriza’s two seemingly incompatible aims: to ensure Greece stays in the euro zone while at the same time eradicating austerity”.
    a. Is it possible that the militants Syriza were never the problem to begin with?
    b. Staying in the Eurozone and eradicating austerity is as I see it a mathematical (and statistical) impossibility. It is only possible if all debts are forgiven, which should never be an allowed option!
    c. Is it even possible to offer clarity to the current political landscape? The political landscape includes the people behind the banks and the bonds, which makes for very murky waters at best.
  3. “This scenario makes sense because it would provide sufficient time for Greece to hold a referendum or election both of which would ease Syriza’s position,” said Kevin Featherstone, who heads the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics, which basically reiterates the issues in point 1.

I cannot oppose Kevin Fatherstone academically as he is a professor and that title is not given out with boxes of Weetabix, but my logical insight in data opposes his view and a few others on intense levels. I have nothing against Greece and even less against the people of Greece, but why should we not hold politicians both present and past responsible and accountable for their acts? The current financial dilemma Greece faces should call for public scrutiny of what was done, which includes openly naming and shaming those who did this to the Greek people and in that regard, let’s all stop blaming ‘Ze Germans’!

But this view would not be complete without the two theatre plays that are also linked to this.

In one house we see Grexit, a Greek production with Director Tsipras and the supporting soundtrack by Varoufakis. You see, the emotional bytes from a Greek paramedic stating “We don’t have enough money to help people – we don’t have enough ambulances” is less than an appetizer, it is not even close to interesting, the issue is, how will the retired people of Greece buy water and bread? When the cash runs out, when people do not get paid and supermarkets cannot get paid, that will show the nightmare Greece is heading to in a very straight line, one that active non-posturing could have prevented in February 2015, Antonis Samaras was on that path, it was a painful path, no one will deny that, but the alternative we see now is about to get a lot harder and many times less humane! At http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32332221 we see the bills due, most of it was a known part, now add to that the public sector wages of 2.2 billion. There is only one part that could offend me. The quote “For some economists, potentially the best option would be for Greece to pursue a ‘managed default’” is the one I cannot find peace with, you see, managed default means that it is a staged setting of non-payments. Yet in those situations, the banks, the causers of grief will get paid, the retirees are very likely to end with nothing, or perhaps a mere two drachma on the Euro deal. Now, I could be COMPLETELY wrong here. I do not know how a managed default would pan out, but in my view, the ‘for Greece‘ is not the same as ‘for the Greek people‘, the second one should take precedence no matter what, but that might just be me.

In the other house we see the upcoming production of Brexit, a split Farage/Cameron production in different halls. The production is in turmoil, because duo ‘Fat Cat’ and ‘Bully’ are taking notice of this production and they do not like either play. The newspapers have been mentioning these issues. Latest noise comes from Paul Kahn, the Airbus UK chief “the company would reconsider its position in the country if Britain left the EU“. Why, is my question at that point? These industrial settings were a reality before the Euro and as such, they should remain a reality after Brexit. Several banks (like HSBC) and other firms made similar noise, many of them reliant on people who would lose fortunes when the Euro debts would strangle the nations as the larger players try to remains relatively safe from the Greek collapsing fallout. I question (to some extent) the actual issues that are at play when a Brexit would follow. In my view, the strict regulation of Greece and its debts would have diminished that risk. The fact that the Status Quo game was played so long after it was not feasible is at the heart of all this. A certain group of people now feel that they are in danger as they kept on sucking on ‘the tits of plenty’. These people went for the breasts of milk and honey in perpetuity, whilst ANY mother can tell you that this is not possible, a mother must rest, regain strength and resources. With the minimum of common sense any man can tell that a mother will need these parts too, yet the economy is not a mother, it needs no rest, it needs no nourishment, it will continue ‘ad infinitum’, or does it?

So now we get news that is viewed as bully tactics from industrials and exploiters towards the UK, with the clear message ‘stay in the EEC or else!’ Now we have the issue at play, because Greece is the first of three elements that imply that staying in the EEC is no longer feasible. I personally believe that David Cameron is trying to push the referendum forward, not to get out of the EEC, but to stay in the EEC, because if National Front (France) does get the votes, they will move away on principle and then the British population will follow ‘en mass’! Which will only drive the power of Nigel Farage. This paragraph is again speculation, but I believe it to be the true path we all face.

Now for the final part of the speculation, again, it is like a virtual path in data, to get anything tangible is not an option. I do not move in the circles that these players move, so I have nothing but my instinctual view on data. You see, I mentioned them before. Yet, one piece I did find. It is at http://cib.natixis.com/DocReader/index.aspx?d=6159546E36436C53616F365A3346735064757A5239413D3D. (attached below)

Here we see what I predicted all along. It is nice to see confirmation on such a high level and they foresaw it before I did (but not by much). Their paper is dated 26th May 2014, almost exactly a year ago. The quote that gives it is “It is therefore unlikely that we will see the GUE/NGL group – which brings together leftist tendencies from socialism to radical anti-capitalism – form a block with representatives from the PVV, the UKIP or the National Front. At the right, the ‘soft’ Euro sceptics in the ECR find it difficult to agree with the ‘hard’ in the EFD, as the parties they represent are often opponents on the national political arenas (e.g. Tories vs. UKIP or PdL vs. Lega Nord)“.

This is exactly what almost happened and the danger has not gone away, it is actually increasing. Yet, if the UK referendum falls before the French elections, the chance of separation is much smaller. Which means that with the UK referendum no longer an issue, if National Front does win, Natixis will have time to rescale their assets. That is at the heart of the linked matter. Natixis has well over HALF A TRILLION Euro in assets. One French firm, 15 members of that board (including 4 women) yield a bat that is more formidable then David Cameron can bring to the table and these people stay OUT of the limelight. Headed by François Perol, together with the members Daniel Karyotis, Thierry Cahn, Alain Condaminas, Laurence Debroux, Alain Denizot, Michel Grass, Catherine Halberstadt, Anne Lalou, Bernard Oppetit, Stéphanie Paix, Henri Proglio, Philippe Sueur, Nicolas de Tavernost and Pierre Valentin represent the unspoken brilliance of the assets economy! They achieved without the economic power of the United States, what Alan Greenspan couldn’t achieve with the powers of the US Federal reserve behind him. Consider that in the game of Roulette the bank always wins, in this game the bank lost and Natixis bested both the odds and the bank, they just did not advertise it. Now we see that the worry of Natixis never left and the play is still moving towards what Natixis regards to be a radical anti-capitalistic unity. I for one am not opposed to capitalism, but they too must be held to a level of accountability, an aspect that they denied existence of and as such the situation has escalated to the point where we are at now.

So, if this is all Greek to you, then you are not alone. I am not an economist and I am also in doubt on the correctness of my view, yet my data expertise pushes me to these elements and so far my predictions have panned out correctly. Which means that Greece is at the centre of many events and driving additional other events. Nigel Farage has grown UKIP and as the economy deteriorates that power growth is only getting stronger, but for the next 55 months it is not an issue, the French Milestone of National Front is only 22 months away and that is a worry for Natixis, 22 months is not enough to resettle well over half a trillion euros, especially when none of the moveable markets would remain stable.

So behind Greece and its debt is a tsunami of economic turmoil, the Greek people might not realise that Greece is small compared to some other issues, but those other issues will not allow the Greeks to be the reason for the other domino stones to fall. As I see it Alexis Tsipras was nowhere near ready to play the game he played on the level it needed to be played at!

Is it still all Greek to you?

Natixis_20150522

 

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May 17, 2015 · 23:41

The politics of dancing

Yes, as the best party is continuing to govern the nation through a path of cautious progress, we see articles on how the parties can get back on their feet, what they need to do and what went wrong. It seems to me that those people were not out in flock ‘protecting’ their party so to speak. For a few players there is some good news. It seems to me that there is massive infighting in both Labour and UKIP, so as such, as they waste time, effort and resources on who is the Alpha, the top dog. The additional issue is how those players are going about influencing the base of their own party. It is time to see the works of Machiavelli to be executed in its most basic form. You see, we look at what others write (including me), we look at what others predict. Sometimes it helps us to clear our mind, but we must all realise that whatever we read is often coloured. That includes what you read regarding what I write, just so you know.

So as we read the Guardian, take a look at the following paragraph: “A quickie contest was assumed to favour Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, because they start with the widest name recognition. A longer contest is thought to be of greater help to the younger, less established contenders. The more important point about a long contest is that it gives a greater opportunity to assess the candidates. Chuka Umunna came out of the stalls as the bookie’s favourite only to pull out of the race before the first hurdle“, there are two parts here. It is a little surprising that the former minister of health is short listed to be the new boss of Labour. Like in soccer, is it not the midfielder that is at the helm of it all? It seems to me that the same ruling applies to politics. From that point of view, it seems to me that the true favourite for labour is Yvette Cooper, yet in all this it was Chuka Umunna who got painted ‘favourite’. The Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, was regarded as ‘the one failing at the first hurdle’, one part that we should not forget any day soon! Not the fact that he allegedly ‘failed’ but who was behind that hurdle pushing the button. Yes, I do mean the press! But back to the Labour race!

There is a second article in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2015/may/17/labour-must-come-up-with-a-better-offer-for-voters), which is connected to all this. The title gives the point, but not all the elements ‘how Labour must work out why Britain stopped listening‘ is perhaps not entirely true, from my conservative view it is more ‘when will labour give us something worth listening to?’ The promises Labour gave before the election were never realistic. I pointed them out in earlier blogs, no reason to repeat them here. People know that 1 trillion debt is a problem, it needs to be dealt with and the NHS had a 12 billion pound bad ticket. All due to labour! All issues the conservatives are working on fixing. This is not about blaming Labour (not here), these are all issues that need fixing and the public at large do not see a solution under labour. Ed Miliband talked a nice talk, but none of it was going to come true, it was not feasible. So here we have the issue, the issue of Britain not listening. Labour needs to be real and to get real. There is no extra spending and reduce deficit, not in this economy. The issues linked to this is about to get worse when we take the Eurozone in consideration. When we see the headline ‘Eurozone recovery accelerates as France and Italy return to growth‘, which was in the Guardian last Wednesday, we are being told a story which is repeated by the press. How the large Euro nations are doing a 0.3% growth. Who are they kidding? You see, growth in economy only works if you do not spend it, so when we are confronted with ‘The public deficit, will remain at around 4.4 percent of gross domestic product, up from 4.2 percent last year‘, which came from the French finance minister Michel Sapin. So they grew 0.3% whilst spending an additional 0.2%, this is not progress. By the way, this is 1.4 percent more than the Euro rules allowed for, so that beast is still to be tamed. The Italian deficit might only be at 2.6%, meaning that they are spending more than they are receiving, but with the Italian debt being at 2.25 trillion euro’s the only thing they are feeding are the bankers. So, the UK is in a spin to get back up and the two parts to get back up is to get out of debt and either leave the EEC, which is the Nigel Farage solution, or to change the rules so that the deficit rules are changed to make all governments budget neutral or better. The conservatives are hoping to ‘educate’ the European Community. The latter one would be good, but it remains doubtful whether that would ever work. Which is why the Farage solution is getting stronger and that is how Nigel got his 4 million votes.

I pressed on this more than once in the past. If the Labour party want to get itself out of the ropes it needs to realise that the massive debts are only serving a community of less than 5,000 people. Now, those people will go into the rhetoric on how it is only a small fee, but 1% on bonds and 1.02% on 12 trillion is still 144 billion, gives those ‘bankers’ 28 million each for not doing anything (just a very lose calculation mind you). In addition, the last batch of Greek bonds gave the traders 50 million to divide amongst them. So, as you see, the debt is a millstone making a few people rich, just be leaving the status quo, this is why the debt needs to go down. The politicians giving that ‘let’s make your life easy now’ are selling you a stale crumpet, one that you will pay for year after year. Not having the crumpet now is the only safe move.

Everyone knows it and most people accept that the debt is a really bad thing. The part Labour is just not getting (and their fumbling 12 billion of NHS IT did not help any either).

So, will Labour change? Well that is up to them, but in my view, they need to show a united front, the quicker they do this, the quicker they can restore faith to the party. The longer the infighting and power seeking last, the less faith the voters will have. There is no 5 year time! Whatever they want to start, they will have to start doing this within the next 8 weeks. I reckon that personally the best idea they can have it to get the new leader and Miliband together, as public as possible. The reasoning? Simple, Ed Miliband has 5 years of experience, ignoring that is just really really silly. The fact that Ed Miliband did not win is beside the point. This is about getting the new person ready!

So, the politics of dancing is as simple as the Re-Flex made it out to be in 1983

We’re under pressure – yes the Labour party is!
Yes we’re counting on you – only if you make sense!
Like what you say – and it better be real!
Is what you do – and do what you say you do!
It’s in the papers – yup, clobbered by the press any way you go.
It’s on your TV news – filtered by the news and the ’emotional’ presenter
Oh, the application!
Is just a point of view – and it is that view of the voter you need to get voted!
Getting on the ballot is as easy as eating pancakes, to get elected you need to be real.

 

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May 9, 2015 · 14:07

The after election party

I have had a few words in the past in several ways. I for one thought the UKIP would become a much larger player, this did not happen, but is that fact totally true?

You see, when we look at the very nice full election map the Guardian made available (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/07/live-uk-election-results-in-full), we are shown an interesting option, not when we look at the winner, but when we select ‘vote share UKIP‘. Now we see the view I had, which is to be honest a minority view. The purple map show one true dark spot (the one area they got), but we also see a fair bit of purple all over Britain. Hartlepool, Haywood & Middleton, Rotherham, Boston & Skegness, East of London and North-West of Birmingham. All areas that have clear UKIP representation, and even though not a winner, the European events as they are unfurling could make these new powerbases. But that is not for the immediate at present. The Conservatives could diffuse the situation and see how the minds of these areas can change, because Nigel Farage is down, but he is in no way out at present. You see, in all these areas UKIP came second and in some cases only by a small minority that this loss became fact. This means that in those areas trouble will brew for whomever held that constituency.

There is another side for the Guardian, that map they produced (which would not work during the elections for me), is still an amazing source of information, so I hope that they will release it as an app for mobile tablets as the information will be useful to many people who keep an eye out on British politics.

So how wrong was I? That is the question I ask myself. I felt comfortable with my predictions and the map (as well as the numbers) show that UKIP could have been much more powerful, but why that did not happen is less easily answered. You see, as we focus on Nigel Farage, we need to consider how well and how well supported Jane Collins was for Rotherham. The same question counts for John Bickley in Heywood & Middleton as well as Philip Broughton in Hartlepool. Three politicians who got close to make Nigel cry out loudly. UKIP seems very happy with the amount of votes they got, so as the Liberal Democrats move into the basement office space, UKIP is on the way up. This is not me poking fun of the Liberal Democrats, I tend not to kick a man when he is down. If that person is a militant extremist, I might shoot that person in the head, but this is politics, not a warzone (even though the difference in a week before elections is really hard to tell).

You see, when you look at the vote share map, but now, when we look a Liberal Democrats, an odd situation occurs. I am not talking about the massive losses they led, but wherever the Liberal Democrats have a decent footholds, UKIP tends to have near zero influence. This is exactly what I mean when I said ‘the Conservatives could diffuse the situation’. It is almost like the Liberal Democrats are a conservative buffer, keeping UKIP even further from any chance of being a contender. Perhaps there is the difference, but also the danger. If we accept that those moving away from the Conservative, or not entirely ready to be conservatives are Liberal Democrats (or UKIP), then it stands to reason that the Liberal Democrats could be the new power base for UKIP if they can get their acts right. If too many of the LD goes towards UKIP, the initial prediction I made would be exceeded by a lot, which also means that the Conservatives will have to start wooing the LD in a few ways from day 2.

Now that Nick Clegg has resigned (not sure if that was a good idea), we need to consider two parts.

The first part is that the data seems to imply that the Liberal Democrats had a two sided battle, one not moving to either Conservatives or UKIP (remember that UKIP had a massive addition of votes, but not victories), second to move the party forward. In this I actually like the headline the Telegraph offered (who would have thunk that!), which read ‘History will judge Nick Clegg more kindly than the voters have‘, I think I can second that to some degree. In my view Nick Clegg was not a true leader as I saw it, more of a follower of the Conservatives for as far as it benefitted the Liberal Democrats. It is not much of a standpoint, but it is a valid one. The pilot fish does not traverse the oceans on his own power and as long as the conservative and Liberal Democrat path are in the same direction it is not a biggie.

Yet, I must state that I never saw Nick Clegg as a leader, but was he a decent leader of the Liberal Democrats? That part remains, because who can take over? The four names that usually follow are Danny Alexander, David Laws, Lord Ashdown and Tim Farron. We can leave Lord Ashdown aside, he is the man who gave serious life to the Liberal Democrats, a youthful youngling, born slightly before 1950, originally from New Delhi. Former diplomat, intelligence officer and long-time MP for Yeovil, in the county of Somerset. My initial thought? I do not think he will return as the leader of the LD, but he will be there, as a man behind the curtains, the party orchestrator holding the strings and pulling those (read: advising) that will lead the Liberal Democrats back to strength.

Danny Alexander has a new ghost to fight, as former MP to Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, he faces other demons (one named SNP), no matter how LD minded he is, the link that would be drawn between the LD and the SNP are too dangerous to allow them to be voiced too often. There is also every chance that the SNP will woe this capable politician down the road, that is not a given, just a possibility. David Laws is another matter, so I will skip him for a moment, which leaves us with Tim Farron. My vote would go towards him for one wrong reason, which is the fact that David Laws and Lords Ashdown are both Yovillians. David pretty much took over from his lordship leaving us with a student mentor relationship, whether true or false, this is how it looks ant that can be deadly in politics. There is no doubt that David Laws will remain the power player in the LD, but I fear not that of leader. There are other members that could rise to the occasion, people like Gerald Vernon-Jackson that could rise to it all if the right push and mentor for higher office comes around, but for now my focus remains Tim Farron. The fact that in the past he was able to sway Tories to vote his way only gives weight to his ‘fighting’ spirit. Will my view pan out to be the correct one? I dare not say, but I do know that the Liberal Democrats have less than a week to make a decision, because the members of a party without a leader tend to go shopping as soon as possible for the ‘leader’ that will represent their issues the best and there is absolutely no chance that they are all considering the Conservative party.

For now, the UK remains conservative and I hope that they will get the deficit and the total debt down, because the reality that Greece is about to bring to the table is not a nice one and the UK better be prepared for what follows, because the Guardian had one article that smouldered sarcasm called ‘nine reasons to be cheerful’, in it there is mention on how Farage lost his constituency, which is unfortunate for Nigel, but the one that does truly matter is the one quoting “Someone at the Treasury gets to write a hilarious ‘I’m afraid there is no money’ note to themselves this morning“, yes, that is true, but let’s not forget that this is mostly due to the failings of Labour, which got the Conservatives re-elected. The nation and nations at large are facing the consequences of previous governments overspending by so much that European Austerity is here to stay for at least two administrations that are to come, this one not included. So, when you consider the ‘no money left‘ issue, then also realise that above all that Greece will need an additional 30 billion (perhaps even more), an amount of which the UK gets to pay a share, the economy has been misrepresented on a European level and the economists at the Guardian have no clue as to why the predictions are so far off. Here we see the exact same as the wrongful ‘hung parliament‘ prediction, the people are no longer believing the unrealistic promises that came from Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, with the added part that they were almost on the side of Nigel Farage, but found him a little too extreme and above all, the press is no longer trusted with the ‘predictions’ they make, especially economic ones.

So as I feel that UKIP is down but not out, there is a real danger that many places will consider UKIP to be the choice next time, many did, but not enough to sway electorates, the fact that they got in second in too many places is downplayed for now and will become an issue down the road, because the upcoming decade of Austerity is not a nice one. The Greek issue should have been slammed down hard, but those relying to survive on Status Quo are too powerful for now, that is until the next European general elections that will impact the UK, which will be France in 2017. They will very much consider the EU referendum and the tantrums of Greece are not helping. On the other hand extremism has an advantage, the fact that the not so ‘clued in’ father of Marine Le Pen (Jean-Marie Le Pen) is sinking her advantage by opening his mouth is good for the National Front opposition, but it is in no way a guarantee that National Front will not sweep the nation. Should they do so than Europe will face a Euro without France, at which point the UK will not be left with any options but to enforce ‘Brexit’ any way possible. So the tactical choice of holding the referendum AFTER the French elections makes perfect sense, but that reality is now completely depending on the actions and success of National Front, which means that there is no half way option left.

Again, I could just be totally wrong!

 

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May 7, 2015 · 20:38

The money kept rolling in

This is the thought I am having right now, the song from Evita, sung by Antonio ‘the desperado’ Banderas. It is happening now, hidden off the tracks and hidden in a mere 5 words in an article of 869 words. The words ‘the ECB raised the ceiling’ is heart here, just as Greece is about to forfeit, they get 2 billion. The ceiling raised and the rest gets to pay for the unacceptable behaviour of Syriza (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/greek-debt-default-avoided-after-200m-payment-to-imf).

So as we see messages on deadlocks, why do we allow for this status quo to go on?

So consider the events for next week where when we consider “The International Monetary Fund confirmed it had received the repayment, allowing the debt-stricken country’s rescue package to remain in place until next week when another €750m is due to the Washington-based organisation“, so 2 billion frees up because a mere 10% of the new added debt ceiling has been received. How is this even conceivable? This does offer the thought that the new debt ceiling will cover the next 750M debt payment too?

Will we see theatrics as they make payment as Greece states how they were able to manage the payment? I wonder how that goes over with voting Britain today as they too will feel the additional payments towards Greece. It might be a mere 200 euro’s for every Greek, but it is not the first payment and this comes whilst Greece still has to mature 2.8 billion in T-bills. Where will that money come from?

An additional quote to consider is “many issues remained unresolved between Greece and its lenders, and agreement at next Monday’s meeting of Eurozone finance ministers was now not possible“, this came from Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. It is all food for thought, just as you think that people grow brains, we get confronted with Syriza. Is it too offensive to phrase it that way? If you think so, then consider that no clear headway has been made since Alexis Tsipras was elected, they want concessions but are unwilling to make any steps in the ‘right’ direction. In addition, we see the quote “The Greek government had hoped to reach a deal that would have released €7.2bn in vital bailout funds, in exchange for economic reforms“, yet as clearly shown, the Greeks have not made one step into a clear direction of reforms, this all comes to blows soon enough when the money is released and we see additional non-steps of reform and a game of massive delays and referendums. So why are we enabling this game to continue?

There is also the other side of this, there is a disingenuous voice (as I see it) from Jeroen Dijsselbloem who said: “Since the last Euro group quite a bit of progress has been made“. If that is so, then there were true reform reports to feed the hungry Journalists, none of that happened! This all reeks again of a scenario of managed bad news, with a not so unlikely view that Greece will not give in and they still end up with 7.2 billion, another quester of payments until the true bailout of 30 billion will hit the EEC at large, but that will be AFTER the UK elections, the one behemoth in all this that is fed up with non-accountability and the dangers of UKIP is just too frightening to both the EEC and the ECB.

As Greek is now swayed by second World War hero Manolis Glezos, who is very much on the referendum horse, we see the quote “the government being coerced into an agreement that “exceeded the limits” of its own anti-austerity mandate“, which is fair enough, but then you do not get the 7.2 billion in funds and you are not entitled to the 2 billion debt ceiling raise, all elements of concession, whilst Greece is far too willing to let it all collapse.

In all this one view I have is most clear of all, when this collapses, whatever concession made since January 1st will fall to banks, banks alone and their bonus payments and their liquidity. It must not be allowed to charge its customers or any third party for their own failings! Guess what, this will never happen because the political branches need certain fat cats to provide their comfortable after-political life and we all know that bankers at large tend to be sore losers at best.

Now we get to the title, because what you read was a mere introduction.

These are to parts of the song. Even though the song is an implied artistic view, but is that the whole truth of it? It seems that more and more that the Greek officials listened to the song and thought it to be a good idea.

When the money keeps rolling in, you don’t ask how (We know, it was borrowed)
Think of all the people guaranteed a good time now (an imaginary situation as the money is now due)
Eva’s called the hungry to her, open up the doors
Never been a fund like the foundation Eva Peron (here it is Greece and the previous PM’s squandering)

And the money kept rolling out in all directions (when was a clear keeping of books requested)
To the poor, to the weak, to the destitute of all complexions (and made public to the Greek population?)
Now cynics claim a little of the cash has gone astray (which is exactly what was the point)
But that’s not the point my friends (that is the ‘excuse’ Goldman Sachs gave us)
When the money keeps rolling out you don’t keep books (again a Goldman Sachs proverb regarding the accuracy)
You can tell you’ve done well by the happy grateful looks (how happy are the Greeks now?)
Accountants only slow things down, figures get in the way (no, they are the reality of outstanding debt)
Never been a lady loved as much as Eva Peron (in this case Lady Fortuna)

All this now gets me to an old Myth, I forgot the details, but it was about Tyche (me thinks).

Tyche meets a kind beggar and she gives him the option of wealth, offering the beggar as many coins as he can carry, but with one rule, if any coin falls to the ground, all coins will turn to dust. The beggar asks for more and more and more, then Tyche states: ‘Be careful beggar, you are now a wealthy man, consider what you have’. He asks for more and he gets 3 more coins and one falls to the ground, the gold turns to dust and Tyche vanishes. The beggar looks at his empty lap contemplating greed.

This is how I see Greece at present, it wanted more and more, now it can no longer continue, yet in this case it is getting assistance in misrepresentation. That view is supported when we suddenly see a downgrade of economic growth from 2.5% to 0.5% and to keep themselves in the game (the supporters) a forecast for 2016 from 3.6% to 2.9%. I have an issue here as any forecast for Greece over 1% is nothing less than a small miracle. More important, if Greece cannot properly revive its tourism and to be honest, one of its biggest flocks were the Germans, we can safely say that they will not feel to welcome in Greece, so thanks Tsipras for screwing up that part of your economy too. (Was that too direct?)

Here we have the issues, Greece is getting ‘support’ from people who have their OWN agenda’s, none of those are beneficial to Greece and in all this the current ‘rulers’ will not clean up their act or make correct headway. I understand their part (the Greek side), I truly do, but the Greek people would have been served best under Antonis Samaras and with every concession Syriza makes, it shows how the Samaras solution had been the best all along. In addition Germans would have felt reasonably safe to go on vacation there and in addition there would be additional Germans considering a little retirement home. Most of that went out of the window when Syriza jumped on the WW2 horse.

Now time is a dangerous factor, whatever happens today will happen on the down-low, because any ammunition for UKIP will be the stuff of nightmares for both the EEC and the ECB! So we will see less outspoken news on Greece as it will change a hung parliament to an anti-EEC parliament. Which, by the way is still beneficial for the ECB as they can do whatever they like in regards to handing out unaccountable billions when they can use a Labour-Green coalition to waste even more resources, then what?

This is the nightmare I cannot predict, because the next wave will be detrimental to the health of Greece, Italy, the UK and France. This will come to blow next year because the push for National Front will be overwhelming, at this point the UK would have lost its options as parliament would have softly agreed on bills that will hinder the growth of the UK, a dangerous scenario I would never sign up for.

I hope the voting masses of the UK can agree on this dangerous part!

 

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