Tag Archives: Goldman Sachs

July 2, 2018 · 11:26

Round two

Yesterday was a day when I thought it was essential to speak out against the language used in the NY Times. It was part of a larger whole that will be shown to all over time (as I am missing three pieces of evidence). Yet the oil issue was in the centre of it all and so it remains. Now, I had done my homework (for the most), yet there was one element I overlooked and it is an important one. Reuters was awake and gave us (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec-saudi-trump/can-saudi-arabia-pump-much-more-oil-idUSKBN1JR1HI) the part I forgot about. “the kingdom, OPEC’s biggest member, can barely raise output by 1 million bpd to 11 million bpd and even that would be difficult, according to industry analysts who forecast a further oil price rally due to a lack of new supply“, yes we forgot about the engine that drives it all. It has been increasing production again and again, yet at some point; the system that drives the production of crude reaches its maximum and that is where the teller of barrels is now hitting a little issue. I like (yet optionally disagree) with Gary Ross, head of global oil analytics at S&P Global. With “While Saudi Arabia has the capacity in theory, it takes time and money to bring these barrels online, possibly up to 1 year“, we see a ‘stabilising’ comment, but based on what, knowledge of the parts that are driving the crude oil machine forward? Perhaps that is true, yet if that is the case the one year setting is off. Other elements require adjustment, but the one year (yes he did add ‘up to’) implies that engines and perhaps pipes require adjustment, meaning that the system is set to increase beyond the 100% marker might be more dangerous. Pressure can be a bitching issue and the mere fact that even in suburbia water mains still go out (mine went kablooie yesterday evening) implies that there is a setting where pressures do not align. Now with water it is a nuisance, so my evening of pasta went straight out of the window. With crude oil it is another matter entirely. There the blown gasket can optionally make a mess to the environment and more important, it could optionally force Saudi Arabia to turn the dial down to 60%-80% until that mess is fixed. When that happens they go into a freefall where one plugging evokes another part to burst emotionally, that is where the problem starts and that is an important side in all this.

It is not the only part; CNBC gave us (at https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/30/oil-deal-may-stir-the-pot-in-the-middle-east-and-test-saudi-capacity.html) a few other parts. Even as we might be able to ignore “Iran and Venezuela are both reeling economically, with Tehran feeling the bite of new sanctions“, especially as Iran has a set clientele. Yet the given part of “President Donald Trump surprised the world on Saturday by announcing a new side agreement with the Saudis to compensate for supply shortages from crisis-hit producers“. I found the setting of ‘compensate for supply shortages from crisis-hit producers‘. It is interesting for two reasons. The first is that the US had no application for Iranian oil in the first place and the second is that Venezuela had all kinds of issues; I personally believe that the low price of oil is reasons for some of it. Yet when we take a step back we get three pieces. The first in 2017 when we saw the Business Insider treat us to “Falling output at refineries means that Venezuela needs to import more gasoline, squeezing the national budget even further. Refineries are currently working at less than 30 percent of average 2016 levels. State-run oil company PDVSA is importing between 100 and 150 thousand barrels per day of gasoline”, so why are the refineries down to 30%? In addition, that is the refinery issue, the setting is not the petrochemical part it is merely the availability of crude oil that was the issue. The second was March 2018 where Reuters gave us “Indian imports of oil from Venezuela have fallen to their lowest levels in over half a decade, shipping and industry data showed, as a severe economic and political crisis hits crude output in the South American OPEC member“, so that is a production need, which beckons why India has decided to import less, are there suddenly 275 million cars less? No there are not, just try to blindly cross Saket Metro Station in New Delhi and you will get hit by two dozen cars within a minute, so that part is not happening. Forbes had its own version of the issue in 2017 and even as it sounds acceptable, I belief that there is a larger issue in play. You see We might look at the Financial Times and see ‘A Venezuelan oil embargo would wipe out Maduro & Co‘, yet the setting is larger than that. Consider Chili, Brazil and Argentine, all needing petrochemical products, the fact that refineries have issues is one thing, the fact that there is a shortage of crude oil and that cannot be met is equally an issue, so why is that?

I have no answers, mere speculations, yet whenever I searched for the Venezuelan reserves and beyond the Argentinian president Mauricio Macri advocating of ‘there would be ‘broad support’ across the region for a full oil embargo‘, I see no evidence of shortage (out in the open). All these actions on Venezuela, forcing them into even more hardship, how has that ever led to anything positive?

Yet the story is the crude, would an arm-twisting scenario to send 30% of the crude oil price into a fund that is only to be used for humanitarian and local support. Would that not work? It seems better than an embargo kicking things over. The additional news that China is importing less from that source is making things worse and no resolution will be coming forward making things better. The other party Iran is a given, yet they still export to a few nations.

Oil price dot come is giving numbers that clearly imply that over a year oil production has fallen by close to 50%, with the implied forecast that the International Energy Agency (IEA) states regarding the Venezuelan oil production which could drop to just 800,000 bpd or even lower next year. it seems that most actions against Venezuela is a little too harsh, now nobody is implying that they are saints, yet we can all agree that they are not Iran. In 2017 it was all about censorship (or anti hatred laws as the Venezuelan government puts it). Yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/venezuela-happening-170412114045595.html) gave us a more in depth part. So when I see some of the issues, with items like ‘Health assistance’, ‘Food shortages’ as well as ‘Hyperinflation’, where a deal could be made that 30% of the sale goes into 10% sprockets addressing these three settings, it could be an optional solution to negotiate. It seems to me that an embargo is often the least of all working solutions, even as it enables the US to get basement prices on a million barrels a day, apart from the setting that they have more immediate problems and removing Venezuela form the equation pushes the other pressures more. Even if it means that the Maduro administration would have to swallow its pride, there might be a path to a long term solution that they were part of, at present they have nothing to look forward to but an angry mob of people left with nothing. It should not allow the US to discuss the price of eggs, yet the Maduro government will realise that the price of fish came at a premium and it is not derived from merely sweat and tears.

This setting is important, because when we look back at the Saudi situation with its 10 million barrels a day, when the pressure goes wrong and the US suddenly loses access to two to four million barrels a day. when that happens and that danger is not unrealistic, do you really think that the American economy is ready for a 25% price hike? Do you think that there will be mere frowns? That danger is not merely a speculation. the danger was shown last week when we saw reports on “The shutdown of Syncrude’s oilsands facility last week could lead to a shortage of oil in North America, investment bank Goldman Sachs has warned“, the source was the Huffington Post (at https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/06/26/syncrude-outage-oil-shortage-north-america_a_23468490/), in addition we got “Syncrude’s facility has a capacity of 350,000 barrels of oil per day, but it shut down production on Friday after a transformer blew, the Globe and Mail reported. The company says production could be offline for all of July“, so there was the given part I left for last, merely a ‘transformer’ and without Optimus Oil rolling out the juice, no crude for a month. So do you really want to play a game of Russian Turbines with the Saudi oil setting and pushing the need from them to deep into the red zone of engineering safety? With that given, what are the dangers when the push goes south in a very realistic way when the downfall will be 90-150 days? Do you still think that finding some dialogue with Venezuela is not an optional much better solution? I would tell you the story of the silly politician and that person relying one basket for all his eggs (and his demoted belief that they were golden ones), your parents might have told you the story when you were young. So when Goldman Sachs gives us: “shrink stockpiles at the main U.S. storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, putting upward pressure on oil prices“, they are telling you no fibs, what they neglect to mention is that the danger is a lot more realistic then most predict and the impact could end up being an increase in price that is not pennies, but several dollars. to emphasize that, you merely need to consider May 2008 when the crude price went to $148 a barrel, twice the price it is now. You still ready to play that game of chicken with oil producing hardware, because in the end you will always lose that game. These devices adhere to the cold calculations of pressures and power and in the end the Wall Street motto of ‘120% of norm is merely our version of a Monday morning wakeup call‘ will backfire to all those who relied on affordable fuel.

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Tagged as Al Jazeera, Argentina, China, CNBC, Crude oil, Cushing, Financial Times, Forbes, Gary Ross, global oil analytics, Goldman Sachs, Huffington Post, IEA, International Energy Agency, Iran, Mauricio Macri, New Delhi, NY Times, oilsands facility, Oklahoma, OPEC, PDVSA, President Donald Trump, reuters, S&P Global, Saket Metro Station, Saudi Arabia, Syncrude, USA, Venezuela

June 23, 2018 · 11:33

They are still lying to us

There is a piece that the Guardian gave us less than 12 hours ago. The title ‘Greece ‘turning a page’ as Eurozone agrees deal to end financial crisis‘ should worry you. You are getting played! The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/eurozone-greece-financial-crisis-deal) is giving a dangerous situation as it is downplayed on nearly every level. Now, to set the stage, we need to understand that government budgets are complex. No one is denying it. Yet, what is complex about: “Eurozone member states reached an agreement on the final elements of a plan to make its massive debt pile more manageable, ending an eight-year bailout programme“, can you tell me that? You see in the heart of this is ‘its massive debt pile more manageable‘, we all see that. Yet do we understand it? €328 billion, the interest on that small sucker is well over €500 a second! The debt is around 180% of GDP, it was 178% last year. These are issues that matter, because it gives Greece no options. Then the Guardian gives us the bit that matters a lot more. You see, in part one we consider “The plan allows Greece to extend and defer repayments on part of its debt for another 10 years and gives Athens another €15bn (£13.2bn) in new credit. Tsakalotos said it marked “the end of the Greek crisis … I think Greece is turning a page.”“, so an option to get even MORE DEBT. When was that a good idea? Now consider that the interest on the current loan is €640 million a year, so how does raising the debt by 5% help? You see, we see the game played, because the next elections are 20 October 2019. This is the beginning of an election stunt and the Eurozone is happy to help only if the current government does what the Eurozone tells them to. How is that for an option?

The next pack of non-truths is given by PM Alexis Tsipras with “The prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, told a meeting of MPs: “Greece is once again becoming a normal country, regaining its political and financial independence.”” I hope you understand that financial independence will not happen until 2045. The debt is that severe. The banks are not willing to be soft any longer, when the access to the markets are given it will merely take one screw up, one act of short sighted stupidity and people all over Europe will rally to demand the barring of Greece from the markets for decades. So when we are presented within: “The plan allows Greece to extend and defer repayments on part of its debt for another 10 years and gives Athens another €15bn (£13.2bn) in new credit“, you see this is what the beginning of slave labour looks like, a debt that cannot be repaid, a setting where €15 billion is merely a smoke screen and the coming years when you think your life is getting better, the truth is merely that your options are taken away. That is how you enter into slave labour. And the Eurozone will be nice and humane about it, they will not call it slave labour, they will call it new zero hour contracts and with the definition “Any individual on a zero hours contract who is a ‘worker’ will be entitled to at least the National Minimum Wage, paid annual leave, rest breaks and protection from discrimination” and the Greeks will realise too late that this government AFTER its election will set the stage where because of the high debts the National Minimum Wage would optionally have to be lowered by 20%, until the debts are better dealt with. So there you are sitting on a terrace having your last pita gyros with an Ouzo realising that you can no longer afford to do that, your income got cut by 20%. The opposing party reacted to the credit buffer with ‘Kostis Hatzidakis said it reflected the lack of faith international creditors had in Athens’ ability to successfully return to capital markets.‘ And in this Kostis is right, the international markets have zero faith in their return, they rely on a small thing called mathematics and the clarity there is that the scales are not in the favour of the Greeks. The financial market is hailing the success, especially those making money of every trade, and until the money is gone, some parties on Wall Street will love the Greek, give parties in their honour. The parties behind this were shown in the NY Times last week (at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/business/economy/greece-europe-bailout.html). Here we see “To play it safe, Greece won’t start selling bonds until well after it exits the bailout. Instead, the government, which is being advised by Paris-based Rothschild & Company, will pick a moment in the next two years when market conditions seem favourable. A cash buffer of up to €18 billion, funded by creditors, may help Greece secure the liquidity it needs in the meantime“, so now the credit makes a lot more sense, does it not? A credit to pay the bills until there is one more fish to cook for Wall Street ending the existence of Greece. Well, actually the Greek elected officials will do that all by themselves. Because it will be there choice (through whispers) that benefits could be gained through 10 year bonds giving 10 more years of relief. Yet those billions come at a cost, a 2% cost which goes to the traders, they will cash in millions at the expense of a few parties costing them mere thousands, after which they switch off their phones, walk away and it is no longer their problem. For them it was merely good business, the direct application of a mere fool and his money getting parted.

Yet, this is not the only part. In what I would regard to be a direct outright lie, we see the actions from Pierre Moscovici as we are treated to: “Greece had received €275bn in financial support from its international creditors over the past eight years and twice came perilously close to being kicked out of the Eurozone group, the EU commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, said, adding: “There have been enormous sacrifices. But at last Greece will be capable of moving on its own two feet.”“. This is what I personally see an outright lie! Let me explain why I think that this is as bad as such. The documentation gave us (I already published it before). It is a paper from 2009 from the ECB and I gave light to it in my article on July 1^st 2015, yes, almost 3 years ago. The article was ‘Dress rehearsal (part 1)‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/07/01/dress-rehearsal-part-1/), the original paper is there at the end. It is called ‘Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU some reflections‘, a paper written by Phoebus Athanassiou. Here we see “The idea that the treaties should explicitly provide for a possibility of expulsion was discussed in the 2001-2003 Intergovernmental Conference responsible for drafting the ill-fated Constitutional Treaty, but was abandoned“, on page 32 it gives the premise that greed driven politicians did not consider that expulsion should be an option. In addition, the EU observer gives us in 2011 ““Neither exit nor expulsion from the euro area is possible, according to the Lisbon treaty under which participation in the euro area is irrevocable,” he added, referring to the European Union’s rule-book.” and there is May 2012, where we get “The Mechanics of Eurozone Withdrawal, It has frequently been stated that the EU Treaties contain no legal framework for a withdrawal from the Eurozone. This is true and, indeed, the Treaties make it clear that the process of monetary union was intended to be “irreversible” and “irrevocable”“. The last we got from Locke Lord LLP, a Texas Lawfirm. So I now need to revert to my original Dutch Diplomatic self stating: ‘Moscovici, you stupid fuck! There is 9 years of documentation from people better educated than me stating that kicking out of the Eurozone was not an option in any way. So get a fucking grip on your stupidity and amend it or resign your post, your choice!‘ (Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest, I feel a little better now).

The final straw for my ego is found in the Guardian quote “But it means the left-led government in Athens will have to stick to austerity measures and reforms, including high budget surpluses, for more than 40 years. Adherence will be monitored quarterly“, when we consider that my setting was without the ‘discount’, the proven setting that the debt will be a 3G debt, it will push hardship on three generations. A setting I was able to prove with an abacus is now finally recognised by those less fortunate as they were not able to get basic calculus done. I am happy for me being correct, but not for the hardship that the next generation of Greeks face, they never had any choice in the matter, merely have to clean up after grandpa’s bad political choices, to them it is massively unfair.

The final part if given with: “At almost 180% of GDP, Greece is burdened with the highest debt load in Europe. The €320bn debt mountain is widely recognised as the single biggest obstacle to economic recovery. The International Monetary Fund had resolutely refused to sign up to the country’s latest bailout unless Eurozone creditors agreed to a restructuring that would ultimately make the debt sustainable“, most will not recognise the miswording that is used here. With ‘widely recognised as the single biggest obstacle to economic recovery‘, which is actually ‘Greece has no options to recover from a debt that high, not ever‘. Which leads to ‘International Monetary Fund had resolutely refused to sign up to the country’s latest bailout‘ and ‘make the debt sustainable‘, which needs to be read as: ‘the IMF cannot allow the support of a debt that cannot be paid off, lower it!‘, yet when is the setting for sustainable made? Making it longer by setting the €328 billion in three stages of 26 years each? Who will sign up for that? How many forward pushing bond programs will it require and we understand that among the banks (read: financial institutions), they are willing to do that as long as it is set in 25% profit stages, giving light to the fact that the additional pressure beyond the debt is the Greek population paying an additional €78 billion in sustainable bonus. If you’re Greek, would you want your child to inherit a €75 billion invoice at birth? That was what I predicted three years ago and I have been proven correctly and I have been conservative, when you consider the cost of the bonds, the interest paid to the people buying the bonds as well as the impact of devaluation of a nation that cannot fund its infrastructure. It is a mess and when you consider Forbes on 28th Jan 2017, where we see: “The IMF projects Greek debt will reach 170 percent of GDP by 2020 and 164 percent of GDP by 2022 but will rise thereafter, reaching around 275 percent of GDP by 2060” (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/01/28/amazingly-yes-the-imf-is-still-saying-that-the-greek-debt-problem-is-not-yet-solved), we see that they were off last year by close to 10%, so the prospect for Greece is even worse than the IMF predicted (I admit a slight overbearing assumption at present).

To illustrate that, I will revert to a source that I cannot vouch for, yet they give (at https://www.thenation.com/article/goldmans-greek-gambit/) “As a result, about 2 percent of Greece’s debt magically disappeared from its national accounts. Christoforos Sardelis, then head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, later described the deal to Bloomberg Business as “a very sexy story between two sinners.” For its services, Goldman received a whopping 600 million euros ($793 million), according to Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over from Sardelis in 2005“, a fee closing that surpassed half a billion euros.

So in the end, the news, the papers the quotes, it will be up to you to decide how Greece is given a fair go, yet they themselves have mostly only themselves to blame. You see, in all this, how many Greek politicians went to prison? How many got their assets taken from them? Or are we all agreeing that there was no legal option? Now wonder if the legal options exist at present, if not. Then this is the bed of hardship that the Greeks made for Greece.

So, are the Greeks still being lied to? If that is so who exactly is presenting their version of the ‘facts’ to the Greeks?

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Tagged as Alexis Tsipras, Bloomberg Business, Christoforos Sardelis, ECB, Eurozone, Forbes, Goldman Sachs, Greece, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Kostis Hatzidakis, Lisbon Treaty, Locke Lord LLP, National Minimum Wage, NY Times, Phoebus Athanassiou, Pierre Moscovici, Public Debt Management Agency, Rothschild & Company, Sardelis, Spyros Papanicolaou, the Guardian, the Nation, Tsakalotos, Wall Street, Withdrawal and expulsion from the EU and EMU some reflections

January 23, 2017 · 14:25

As the costs come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 19, 2017 · 14:24

Up for grabs

Have you ever considered a deal that is almost too sweet to consider. Have you ever walked straight into a room seeing that one special item thinking that the price is off, too good to be true. Yet, you look again, as inconspicuous as possible and as you do the maths in your head three times over, you start to realise that you are there, others are there but they either missed the deal, or they were looking at something else. That is where I find myself this morning. Not unlike a day in 2001, as I walked into a small obscure bookshop where I noticed the original 7 hardcover books of Tolkien’s the Lord of the rings with his autograph, the price? £39, I felt like a thief when I paid the man, he sold it with a blank expression in his eyes. I walked out shaking like a leaf and I remained in denial for at least two more days. This is how I feel now when I look at Handelsblatt Global (at https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/goldman-sachs-weighs-deep-london-cuts-amid-brexit-concerns-685516), where I see ‘Goldman Sachs Weighs Deep London Cuts amid Brexit Concerns‘, could they actually be this stupid? Could I get my fingers on Goldman Sachs for almost literally an apple and an egg? That is a Dutch expression for selling or purchasing something for anything massively below expected price. Like buying the Ducati 1299 Panigale for only £99.95. It’s a world gone mad, and in this case Goldman Sachs will end up doing their own devaluation. Consider the facts. They move away from the central Hub London, which has been there for a lot longer than the Euro, they are now moving to Germany where there is a civil law system and the KWG (Kreditwesengesetz) is Iron Law. Whilst at the same time, its two nephews German Solvability Directive (SolvV) and German Mindestanforderungen an das Risikomanagement (MaRisk) can rock the foundations of the Goldman Sachs board in Germany in ways they have never comprehended (or so it seems). That is the move they are ‘advertising’? That article, with a picture of Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, like he is looking out of a window wondering where the hell his retirement is at. At that same move, we see the quote “Personnel in Goldman’s trading business who develop new products as opposed to advising customers would move to the bank’s headquarters in New York, the sources said“, so those making new products will move away from the area of the people buying it, so they either fly back and forth (impacting contribution) or work remotely alienating their customer base. So is this a serious considered move?

If so, than Goldman Sachs needs to realise fast that once their UK base is deflated to the size they claim, and when the Frexit vote passes, Italy and Germany will not have any options to keep it all afloat. More important, with logistical options diminished and having pissed off France and England, they would have to face conditions to move to France and they end up not getting a foothold into the UK to the degree they once had, because the competitors of Goldman Sachs, like Morgan Stanley would have gobbled up a few of the London links Goldman Sachs lost, in addition, CITIC who took a few body blows will be hungry for whatever Goldman Sachs left in the air as they moved to the mainland, lowering the value of Goldman Sachs overall. In that atmosphere Lloyd Blankfein needs to realise that the move is more than just a bad idea. Perhaps he does know, perhaps this is another shot over the bough to the UK telling them to play nice or else. This from a firm who in a 639-page report was accused of misleading investors and setting out to depress the US mortgage market, ensuring that it would win high stakes bets that the market would fall. That firm is playing footsie and chicken with the UK? Well, that is one that they will not just lose, it will be the act that any person with an apple and egg (preferably boiled hard) could walk into the board of directors offering that as payment for the firm. I wonder who in that board of directors will take the offer first. For the Macquarie group the move would be very nice, that group could grow a lot. They might resort to taking the small fish that Goldman Sachs left alone, but those 800 firms might not have stellar results, but they have remained stable for at least half a decade and even as we agree that stable is not sexy, it does make for a very nice secure foundation to grow on, good luck getting such results from Poland, France or Spain. and as France and Spain are founded on the local markets for language reasoning, the Frexit groups will see Goldman Sachs as a remnant of dire pasts, is that regard there is (a speculation by me) the chance that Goldman Sachs would, through the move facilitate the customers they had to port away as those clients are no longer represented through London, which still has a sizeable value to the clients they had whilst in London.

You might think that this is all untrue and that Goldman Sachs will continue in London in a diminished capacity. Well, consider that one of the largest greed driven entities is downsizing by 50%, do you think that this is merely a corporate downsize? the 50% moving away had its jobs to do, by doing it somewhere else, it is not doing in an additional location, it is doing it in another place, with a different set of admin laws and goals. If you had an accountant, and he is sacking 50% of its staff, do you think you get the same level of service, or is it possible that whomever remains in London needs to look at twice the amount of clients? And if we accept that, how much care will you receive at the same amount of annual contribution? With its posturing Goldman Sachs forgot the cardinal rule, it needs clients and clients in the UK remain, clients remain but their perception on begotten service will diminish and they will seek the firm giving them the service that they expect to receive, the time they expect to receive and GS will be only half its size with other offices in different time zones. So yes, there will be a consequence for Goldman Sachs. The offer that seems too good to be true. So as CITIC, Morgan Stanley start their campaigns, their visibility with advertisement like: ‘the firm that has been in London for the longest of times remains, and we will give the same amount of attention and resources, dedicated to you, your business and what you need‘. That firm could start up softening the Goldman Sachs clients and the moment the announcement of the move comes they just need to invite those clients to a nice breakfast meeting with a deal ready to be considered for signing. You see, the moment the move is announced and the moment Frexit will seriously start, the investors will realise that the UK market was a lot more important and when XNYS:GS hits (-4.62%), I’ll just walk in holding an Apple and an Egg seeing who in the board of directors will take the deal.

As HSBC and UBS are closing ranks with Goldman Sachs, you have to consider that I am wrong!

That is only fair. Let’s face it, I have no economic degree. Yet, when Brexit came, when it became something serious, these people were all ignoring it, they were all claiming that it would never go this far. I was proven correct and now the Financial Gravy Train is changing gears as it’s not as profitable as some expected it to remain, those people are trying to restore their Status Quo and their amount of gravy per pay check. Yet, the unfounded move, the emotional outcry of these people making no less than 50 times the average income, those people are trying to force open a dialogue and a new place of exploitation. The quote: “UBS chairman Axel Weber said that about 1000 of the Swiss bank’s 5,000 employees in London could be affected by Brexit, while HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said his bank will relocate staff responsible for generating around a fifth of its UK-based trading revenue to Paris” is actually a lot more funny than even he realised (at http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/goldman-sachs-hsbc-ubs-all-warn-of-moving-jobs-from-london-on-brexit-20170118-gtu8cj). You see, Frexit is still growing and it is slowly becoming a realistic prospect. So when the Wall Street Journal stated 15 hours ago “A “Frexit” would likely unleash chaos across the currency union and undermine the broader EU in a way Britain’s departure wouldn’t“, we now see that those 20% revenue generating people from UBS will be on the shores of a Civil Law country whilst the confusion is only increasing. As for the other part of me being correct, we’ll have to make this small sidestep. On May 15^th 2013 (yes 3.5 years ago), I forecasted in ‘A noun of non-profit‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/15/a-noun-of-non-profit) “Consider a large (really large) barge, that barge was kept in place by 4 strong anchors. UK, France, Germany and Italy. Yes, we to do know that most are in shabby state, yet, overall these nations are large, stable and democratic (that matters). They keep the Barge EU afloat in a stable place on the whimsy stormy sea called economy. If the UK walks away, then we have a new situation. None of the other nations have the size and strength of the anchor required and the EU now becomes a less stable place where the barge shifts. This will have consequences, but at present, the actual damage cannot be easily foreseen“, I made the prediction of loss of stability, in addition, a quote not from me “Movements in sovereign spreads affect CDS spreads and bond yields of Italian banks, and are transmitted rapidly to firm lending rates“, this was predicted by Edda Zoli at the IMF. Do some of you remember the issues in Italy on losing the credit rating it had is now a clear marker to consider. Even as the parameters for the Italian downturn are not matching completely the elements in play include the ones I and Zoli stated, meaning that Italy will get a few more negative bumps to deal with (not major ones though).

You still think I am that wrong? I have been involved with data cleaning for decades, I have seen the ‘weighting games‘ some played and now that the party is over, they are running for the high ground, whilst making boasts of clearing away from the market like horse traders. This is all fine, yet the players that are not as big can now shore up their levels of stability growing their overall value by a massive amount, because that is where the UK now is, its economic forecast is growing and the rash statements are doing the opposite as the competitive peers of Goldman Sachs are almost volunteering their free time to help Goldman Sachs pack up and leave the UK so that they can move in on the Goldman Sachs share, because there is no way that Goldman Sachs will not lose a fair chunk of it.

So as Frexit grows (I never expected it to be this strong at present, just a really serious factor), we now see that Marine Le Pen is now leading the polls for the first time after taking advantage of Fillon’s declining popularity among France’s working class voters. I think that this is not the only part, the increased forecast of the UK is doing equal reinforcement of the end of the Euro and perhaps even the end of the European Economic Community. Not because that was the goal, but the fact that all these small nations were too deep in debt and Italy, the third anchor is in massive problems, that large barge cannot remain afloat with only the German anchor in place. My view of 2013 is now showing to be the correct one.

Is it a done deal? No it is not. Someone with actual power in Goldman Sachs could realise that these boast fests are counterproductive and that the boasts only achieved that some doors can no longer be opened by Goldman Sachs. They would have to call, make a proper appointment and they would have to sweeten whatever deal they are hoping for, impacting their dividend in the process. Goldman Sachs played a hand that held a few Trump cards (pun intended) and without those the next few hands will need to be played extra careful and cautious. You see, they lost a little more because those playing now might not have considered 2012 Amsterdam. There we see: “De bank verloor in de nasleep van de crisis veel klanten door negatieve berichtgeving over de rol van Goldman Sachs in de kredietcrisis van 2008. De bank wil deze klanten nu terugwinnen. Het nieuwe kantoor moet vooral de dienstverlening naar klanten toe verbeteren” meaning “translated: The bank lost in the aftermath of the crises many customers through negative messaging on the role of Goldman Sachs in the Credit Crises of 2008. The bank wants to regain these customers. The new office will have to increase the service levels to clients“. This part has two sides, not only regarding clients they will lose in London, in addition, the Dutch clients had a benefit in time zones regarding London, and they will not have that with Germany. So there is more than one fish on the Barbie (read: BBQ) and the impact will be felt and smelled. You see, Amsterdam was never an option for Goldman Sachs, yet as more important reasons GS frowned at the capping of bonuses in 2013 as mentioned by minister Dijsselbloem at that time. Which is rather funny as Germany in this 2017 election year is actually moving in hard on to cap executive pay. This we got from Handelsblatt Global Edition just a week ago, so the move could potentially come with a few nasty sides for those working through the move.

OK, I will admit that Goldman Sachs might not be up for grabs, but it should be clear that if they do move, they will be receiving a few body blows and those come at a price for many at Goldman Sachs. The question however is not, if that is the hard part, the hard part comes when the winner is announced in merely 16 weeks, at that point we will see how realistic Frexit has become. You see, it is not just Marine Le Pen and Front National, Independent Emmanuel Macron, former economy minister will also hold the referendum and together they represent a lot more than a mere majority of the French population, the fact that this reverberates with the populous is an issue for too many as he is not proclaimed left or right, he places himself in the middle making the Fremainers a minority with less and less people in it. Making the move of Goldman Sachs to Germany lacking wisdom as France and the UK will have to unite in whatever trade deals they can have meaning that the UK forecast will grow faster and faster, whilst the French forecast will be less and less dire. The only one who gets to look at that label will be Goldman Sachs.

What a difference a boast makes! Could be a nice future Goldman Sachs slogan, if they survive the ordeal!

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Tagged as Australian Financial Review, Brexit, CITIC, Dijsselbloem, Ducati 1299 Panigale, Edda Zoli, Emmanuel Macron, Frexit, Front National, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, IMF, Italy, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Kreditwesengesetz, KWG, Lloyd Blankfein, Macquarie group, Marine Le Pen, Mindestanforderungen an das Risikomanagement, Morgan Stanley, Stuart Gulliver, UK, USB, Wall Street Journal

September 11, 2016 · 13:27

In This War!

We look at the news that is now taking on a she said, she said path, whilst he said is ignored towards what another he is stating. This is not a battle of sexes (which is a nice change). No this is almost like the US Senate versus Congress (also known as the fruits and nuts department of US politics), this is British politics in the Brexit phase that is now following. People dragging their feet, people going over simple narrow-minded seeding of statements whilst throwing the custard pies in as many faces as possible. It is like watching toddlers getting off the rocking chair. In all this there are also corporate players who have been hiding behind others whilst spreading unsolicited memo’s leaving them in the open to read with a ‘top secret‘ stamp on it. It almost feels like the GCHQ soap that we saw in Cheltenham 1991 (could be 1989 or 1990).

Anyway, when we hold people to account for their statements we will get these ‘miscommunication’ issues which will waste everybody’s time and it will not get anything done. That first part is seen in the Guardian in an opinion piece by Toby Helm (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/10/brexit-camp-abandons-350-million-pound-nhs-pledge). My issue started with “dropped their pre-referendum pledge of a £350m-a-week spending bonanza for the NHS“. Let’s be clear here! Nigel Farage has stated on several occasions that the 10 billion pounds (34 million a day), should not go towards the EU, it should be spend in the UK on people for the UK. In addition, he stated on Good Morning Britain that he could not guarantee that it (£350 million a week) would go to the NHS. That was months ago! Even earlier (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkr_Qjey8s8), we see Nigel Farage talking about the debate that is required around NHS. I believe he is right, in all this the debate he opened is one that the Tories and Labour aren’t stating they are slinging mud. In that part we see that Nigel was promising to put 3 billion (out of the 10 billion) towards the NHS. It was an intent to do!

He literally said ‘we could put 3 billion pounds‘ (around 5:55 into the story). Means it was not a given, just an option! In this Nigel Farage was right. Labour and Conservatives had ideas which meant borrowing more money. Also, let me remind the readers that it was Labour who stuffed up the NHS IT program costing the tax payers 11 billion pounds. It was a complete failure and large loss, one of the largest the NHS ever faced.

Now of course we can sling mud all over and as a Conservative I guarantee you that you will lose at that point. The NHS is on the verge of collapse and neither side has done anything to truly take care of business. UKIP sees it as a disgrace and so it should be, because it has been known for over 15 years that the UK is largely an aging population, meaning the pressures on the NHS will only increase, that while it is being drained. In this we also need to take a look at the TTIP and the dangers it poses. We can try to have faith in the marketing joke the EU is when we see the focal point that is useless (at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/january/tradoc_153010.4.7%20Pharmaceuticals.pdf). This is especially seen when we see the elements around protecting Intellectual Property:

– Companies to profit from their research and remain amongst the most competitive in the world- Patients to benefit from new medicines.
We won’t negotiate anything in TTIP which would:

– Upset this delicate balance, or
– Increase costs for EU countries

The TTIP is about profit, especially for American Pharmaceutical companies!

Places like EFPIA are not lying to you, they are just misrepresenting the needs. Because a strong TTIP is not what they state ‘How a Strong Pharmaceutical Chapter in TTIP will Benefit the EU‘, it gives massive powers to the Pharmaceutical industries, whilst stopping generic medication from getting in. And here is the crux for the NHS, to get part of their budgets to meet up with reality, there will be a massive need for generic medication. For over 2 years I have pleaded to get stronger ties with India that has a growing market of generic medical solutions. A partial solution can be found here! Now, it will not solve all, there are still patented medicinal solutions we need and they will be bought, yet the fact that pharmaceutical industries want another 20 years of exclusivity is just not proper, not realistic and not acceptable. The US should have cleaned house in that market decades ago, but they were only focused on flaccid politicians requiring Viagra. Now that the game is up they all want a little more (read: twice as much). This is not how patents are supposed to work, they never were!

Consider the following two quotes: “The EU and India are taking steps to end a trade row sparked by an EU ban of 700 Indian pharmaceutical products after New Delhi cancelled talks on a free trade accord earlier this month“, which was in August 2015 by the way! As well as “Modi personally argued that the long-stalled talks on a free trade accord should be revived, India’s turnaround puzzled the 28-nation bloc, which insisted the ban was a minor, technical issue unconnected to trade“, it was all about the product, not about trade, the issue that the EU licking the heels of Washington gives us “the delays risk leaving India isolated. While Modi is trying to double India’s global exports to $900 billion in five years, Europe’s top negotiator now spends more time on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Washington“, you see, this 900 billion market is stopping an almost 2 trillion market of US pharmacy. Even if it is not all UK, what would you rather see? The NHS spending 90 million, or 2 billion on the same amount of medication? Let’s not forget it is down for over 13 billion at present. The NHS needs this generic solution and at present having strong ties with India makes a lot more sense than the ties with the US that are bringing the UK down, all because they would not clean their own stables!

This is and remains the foundation of Brexit, so when we see the Guardian quote “Anna Soubry, the pro-Remain Tory MP and former minister for small business, said it was outrageous that the Leave campaigners had “peddled that lie” during the campaign and were now quietly abandoning it“, we need to tell Anna Soubry that she needs to stop whining like a politician and start giving out papers that clearly define on how the NHS can be stopped to collapse, because as a fellow Tory she does know that from the moment the Tories came to power in 2010, too little has been done to revive the No Holy Sanctum, so actions are required. The fact that the previous administration from 1997 onwards also made its shares of mistakes as well as waste an additional 10 billion, means that massive effort needs to go into the NHS, having to listen to a whining Anna Soubry (in this matter) is a waste of everybody’s time. I am actually not happy to phrase it this way, because Anna has had quite the political career. Not into the limelight for too much, but I always saw her as upcoming House of Lords material, mainly because she has been outspoken on more than one occasion, at times this is how we hope our Lords would be. I never minds whether a person was right or wrong, just that they would be an evolving wisdom. Those vague stating politicians (as too many are) would never be Lords material, Anna still is in my eyes. This does not mean I will agree on her, or on my party. Things need to get done and too many aren’t getting it done.

In addition, we see all these financial doomsayers who are now resetting the view of Brexit in less negative ways. It is not as bad as they thought it was. This is their view on managed bad news. Another piece of the puzzle, where too many people were trying to demand that the Status Quo remain. When spending has not had the incentive of growth and managed bad news was used to dim the impact, now we see the opposite where their doom is not happening and now they are revising the numbers upwards (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/09/city-banks-revise-brexit-doom-and-gloom-forecasts). Here we see the ‘bitches’ of Wall Street: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse revising their numbers as the trade deficit is now falling for the UK and that gap is now optionally turning into the momentum of a better economy. So, is my view too extreme when we see the quote “Morgan Stanley initially forecast the economy going negative by 0.4% in the third quarter of 2016, but this week changed that to expectations of 0.3% growth“. This makes me state ‘How stupid or non-comprehending is your staff?‘ I would like to add personally to James P. Gorman: “You now have 7 quarters of data showing that managed bad news is never a real solution and that the Status Quo of finance is a mere illusion. So will you in the near future clean house and start being a visionary instead of remaining a facilitator?”

I know, diplomacy has never been my forte, yet as Apple is likely to lose up to a 2% market share over the coming tax year, he needs to wake up and kick the right people into gear before he has to do a negative 2 trillion dollar speech, and perhaps I might just have oversimplified the problem for both you and him!

These are only parts of the solution, but we need to tackle them one at a time. Because the intricate mess both sides of the isle is trying to make them will not solve anything. I will go one step further, I am almost driven to get one additional degree in Medicine, move to the UK and work at the NHS trying to resolve the problems! You see, one of my lifelong idols is Lord Baden-Powell. I was never a boy scout (in more than one way), but I have always taken one of his quotes to heart “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it!” It is the master of all thoughts, because it does not make you solve things, it is not my burden, just leaving it a little better, a little cleaner is all we all need to do. The simplicity is that if all 68 million Britons do just that, we could all turn the UK into the paradise it once was and can be again in almost no time at all.

The simplicity of any solution is the one step you actively take! Because when it is done you take the next step! This is what happens when we are not stopped for too long by too many managers trying to figure out WHAT to do, just to start doing it. That is the brilliance of Brexit. That step has been taken, now we take the next step and the one after it. So many politicians have been too worried about looking good that they forgot about actually doing anything good. I reckon that the inactions towards the NHS and housing are ample pieces of evidence to show that I am right, and the Mud Ladle of Blame goes to both sides of the isle.

In all this the one massive reason for me to remain towards the Brexit side is the one no one seems to discuss, or perhaps the press is being told not to dig too deep into that side. You see, one of my major issues has been and still is Mario Draghi. Bloomberg gets close with the quote “About three months ago, the Draghi-led European Central Bank started buying corporate bonds in the region for the first time. The results have been dramatic and, at times, alarming” (at https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-09-07/companies-are-getting-paid-to-be-rated-junk-in-europe). You see, the simple clarity is that you cannot use a credit card spending over a trillion thinking it will have no impact of your credit score. The quote “Investors are now literally paying European companies to borrow. Sanofi, a French drug maker, just became the first nonfinancial private company to issue debt that yields less than zero” as well as “Bonds of some investment-grade European companies now carry negative yields” are just two examples of the mess and the nightmare that will soon hit too many places. Then there is “Less clear is how investors are justifying purchases of junk-rated bonds that promise nothing and come with big risks“, which is what we saw on Cyprus and in Greece. No one is held accountable and those screaming for more money have no idea and no option to pay it back. It was never a solution! So Draghi spending a trillion plus leaving the credit card to be added to the workload of his successor is not ever a solution. Moreover, the EU nations have to come up with paying it back somehow, so leaving this collection of spenders seems much better than to play possum and ignore that credit card, because that debt comes with interest and there is not one government in the EU who doesn’t have their own national credit card maxed out, which means that our children will have to work of this debt. That is not a world I ever accepted to be in!

Now consider the last quote “Does this mean risky debt in Europe getting less risky? No. Fundamentals are, in fact, deteriorating, according to the Bank of America strategists, with investors recovering less from defaulted debt than they have in the past“, which is partially the problem and the issue I have with the USA. Wall Street is setting up a scenario that is reminiscent of the old Pyramid schemes, with the difference that they quickly want to cash in one more time and breaking free from whatever remains. It is wrong on many levels, so as there is one more round of bonds and stimulus, the previous instigators cash in and get out with as much as possible, knowing that they will survive in the next two decades whilst the ones not getting out drown and lose all. This is why the Draghi method is so dangerous and we need to get away from it Brexit was part one, although Frexit (part two) is not a guarantee, the fact that Sarkozy is now ready to set a referendum if elected should be ample warning for the US (read: Wall Street) that the status quo route is no longer acceptable and too many nations are willing to let it all fall back to nationalism if pushed, should be more than enough for Wall Street to find a ‘live with the loses solution‘. Something we all know will never happen!

So in this war there is the immediate need to stop misinformation and above all get something done, in this case fix the NHS, it should be the only issue on the agenda of both isles for the rest of the year, that whilst Brexit moves forward. It is a tall order to deliver no matter how you slice it, but whomever does will have the support of the people for a long time to come, because that aging population will still hold the majority for well over a decade.

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May 28, 2016 · 17:48

The Repetitive Misrepresentation

This was the first though in my mind, when I was confronted with ‘Leaving EU ‘could cause catastrophic worker shortages’‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/27/leaving-eu-could-cause-catastrophic-worker-shortages). As I see it, the first issue I would like to address is ‘Which Think-tank?‘ That issue is seen not just there. We see this overwhelming reports of what I regard to be blatant misrepresentation in many places. I personally just tend to read the Online Guardian first because in many regards they are really good.

My issue is with Social Market Foundation think-tank. You see, how on earth did they get to that number? What constitutes their evidence for the quote “the 1.6 million EU workers in the UK“, perhaps it is the 1.5 million illegal immigrants and out of millions perhaps 100,000 actual issues? You see, we do not get the actual facts, because other data (incorrect data) is thrown in-between. It gets even worse when the Guardian starts quoting Pricewaterhouse Coopers with “According to analysis, by accountancy firm PwC, 950,000 jobs could be lost as a result of leaving the EU“.

It gets even worse when Seema Malhotra stops being quiet. Now, let’s be clear, I have no issue with politicians who talk, even if they are in the opposition. I would just prefer them to be distinct, correct and precise. The quote “Seema Malhotra, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, highlighted the 240,000 EU workers in the UK public sector and argued Brexit could be “catastrophic” for the NHS and other public services“, is an issue on many levels, most of them equally disastrous to say the least.

Almost lastly there is Sir Richard Leese, who treats us to: “pulling out of the EU would be a “hammer blow for the public sector” and cause “chronic staff shortages, damaging the services that British people depend on” Really? Which public sectors? Which services?

Now lastly we have Adam Hawkins, director at Adecco. He co-authored the Social Market Foundation report and gives us: “Under a scenario where free movement of labour no longer applies and EU workers were subjected to the same visa requirements that are currently in place for non-EEA workers, 88% of EU workers currently working in the UK would fail to qualify”. To Adam I would prefer to quote: “73.6% Of All Statistics Are Made Up“, which we get from (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/736-of-all-statistics-are-made-up-2010-2), an article by Mark Suster. I personally thought it was only 32.544%, but I know I could have been wrong in this instance. In the article we get “the quote most attributed to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Benjamin Disraeli, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” The quote is meant to highlight the deceiving but persuasive power of numbers“, which is at the core of the matter, which is of course beside the fact that 10+ years at SPSS showed me a thing or two regarding papers that have been broomed under the closest rug as soon as possible. The quote in the Business Insider gives you “I got the analyst who wrote one of the reports on the phone and asked how he got his projections. He must have been about 24. He said, literally, I sh*t you not, “well, my report was due and I didn’t have much time. My boss told me to look at the growth rate average over the past 3 years an increase it by 2% because mobile penetration is increasing.” There you go. As scientific as that“, this was at the core of the issue I had with PwC earlier. The final Gem the Business Insider offered was “They took the data from the analysts. So did the super bright consultants at McKinsey, Bain and BCG. We all took that data as the basis for our reports. Then the data got amplified. The bankers and consultants weren’t paid to do too much primary research. So they took 3 reports, read them, put them into their own spreadsheet, made fancier graphs, had professional PowerPoint departments make killer pages and then at the bottom of the graph they typed, “Research Company Data and Consulting Company Analysis” (fill in brand names) or some derivative. But you couldn’t just publish exactly what Gartner Group had said so these reports ended up slightly amplified in message. Even more so with journalists. I’m not picking on them. They were as hoodwinked as everybody was. They got the data feed either from the research company or from the investment bank“. This all from an article in The Business Insider from February 18^th 2010! (Yes, more than 6 years ago).

There we have the initial goods, now we need to take a step back.

You see, in my article ‘Is the truth out there?‘ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/03/21/is-the-truth-out-there/), I respond to the initial CBI report, where I saw a decent amount of gaps. Gaps that require the raw data to confirm or deny. Yet, as we all know, that is a part we do not get access to. Still, there was enough ammunition to counter certain statements, which I did. So when we get the little blue snippet on the left by the Guardian in so called ‘support’ we see that one part is the juicy bone that is a figment of illusionary support, yes it was not a helpful snippet at all.

The next part is the article as a whole by Rowena Mason. As she surfs from emotional statement to emotional statement, we see an article that is pretty much devoid from quality data, as such the quotes become nothing more than hollow phrases, no matter how distinguished the people are (or in this case, the one person Sir Richard Leese is). In this case in view of his deeds he should be offered another view, yet in opposition as a former Math teacher he should know better. His statement might not be wrong (might being the operative word), without clear data and clear supporting evidence the statement is like most hollow. This part intersects with the voiced quote Seema Malhotra made (the one person who was better off remaining silent). So why am I stating this?

Where is my justification?

Let me show that part right now. You see, in her quote she linked 240,000 EU workers and the NHS. A blatant misrepresentation to say the least. When we look back to the article I wrote titled ‘The News shows its limit of English‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/22/the-news-shows-its-limit-of-english/), almost a year ago. I looked at a similar statement. In there, based on CLEAR immigration documentation as stated in Appendix I and J (both documents are in my article at the end). Documents on the GOV.UK site. We see that “Pay requirements which the Secretary of State intends to apply to applications for indefinite leave to remain from Tier 2 (General) and Tier 2 (Sportspersons) migrants made on or after 6 April 2016” has clear parameters and as such, no NHS worker (Nurse or Doctor) would be at risk. We acknowledge that the NHS is more than that and in that case we see that section 245HF of that document shows that the bulk of tier 2 workers are all covered in that case. So we see the intentional creation of chaos, whilst there is none at all. It is of course very possible that the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury might be non-competent, and as such the question becomes whether she should have accepted her present position or would have been better of working in a hair salon (OK, that’s me just being generically mean).

All this feeds back to the article of Rowena. The collection of emotional responses in perhaps ‘feigned support’ of the Bremain team has only shown that the stated support elements are non-issues, or too generic to have any actual value. In addition, as we consider the immigration documentation, especially in light of appendix J, which has over 125 pages of definitions of these jobs, with on page 4 an essential element: “In all cases, the pay must be compliant with National Minimum Wage regulations“, which should not be an element at all. So when we consider the massive list of options and people that have options to get work permits, can we agree that the statement by Adam Hawkins, director at Adecco, with his “88% of EU workers currently working in the UK would fail to qualify” has been blown out of the water with clarity and conviction?

All elements that have been clearly known from before June 2015, all that information easily available. This leaves us with an article that has lost most of its value by trying to appeal to mere emotion and give false paths to the people who are uninformed. Where is the value in that?

I have been in the Brexit field for a long time, my sway to the neutral field was not easy, it was not done by misinformation. It was done by clear information through Mark Carney, governor of the bank of England. I have not landed in the Bremain field however, he did achieve that I am not as convinced of Brexit as I was. The remaining elements are not within the UK, they are with the elements outside of the UK, mainly the irresponsible spending of the other treasurers as well as the action of ECB Chief Mario Draghi, actions that I personally (as a non-economist) regard to be short-sighted. That part is equally important, you see what I consider to be a bad idea might not be a bad idea in the eyes of an established economist. I do not believe that I have all the knowledge, all the values and insights, I always question mine. You should question yours if you will ever make an informed decision regarding Brexit.

This gets us to the last part in all this.

The article that involves Marky Mark of the British coin. The article ‘Mark Carney denies Brexit bias and Goldman Sachs influence in heated exchanges with MPs‘ (at http://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/newswire/mark-carney-denies-brexit-bias-goldman-influence-heated-exchanges-mps/), his response was ‘Wow’ and so is mine. I went over the Lords statement and there was nothing out of place here. I might even commend him on remaining slightly conservative in the risk as he mentioned them. The quote in this article is ““Can I just give you the opportunity to refute any suggestion that Goldman Sachs may have put pressure on you?” Baker asked during the testimony, which lasted more than two hours and was dominated by Brexit“. Here we see Steve Baker, co-chairman of the Conservatives for Britain group. A man with a personal agenda, which is not the most reliable accusing voice in all this. From what I have seen and read over the last year, I have a lot more faith in the information that the Governor of the Bank of England brings us, than the opposing voice of Steve Baker. In this I stand with BT Group Plc Chairman Michael Rake who stated in a Bloomberg article (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-26/-no-doubt-leaving-eu-would-hurt-u-k-economy-bt-chairman-says) “it was “deeply depressing” that a Conservative lawmaker, Steve Baker, asked Bank of England Governor Mark Carney this week in Parliament whether his former employer, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., had put pressure on him to warn of the risks of leaving the EU. “Trying to undermine reputable individuals, reputable institutions, that are simply trying to get the facts about the economy across to the British people in a critical referendum, a critical moment in time, is disappointing””. I personally believe to be worse, in this Steve Baker moved from being a possible political player on the conservative field into a place where he can be ridiculed and soon to be regarded as a mere memory in the political arena. I have opposed the view of Mark Carney more than once, but always as a question, always in regards to choices, never as any indication that the former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the current Governor of the Bank of England was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs. His statement and the cautiousness of the statement in the House of Lords is clear indication that he is not in the Goldman Sachs pocket.

Repetitive misrepresentation by too many players is muddying the water of those trying to make an informed decision and as such the voters are likely to get less and less information over the next three weeks. In this regard the press isn’t helping too much either.

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Tagged as Adam Hawkins, Adecco, Bain, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, BCG, Brexit, BT Group, Business Insider, CBI., ECB, Gartner Group, Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, House of lords, Mario Draghi, Mark Carney, Mark Suster, McKinsey, Michael Rake, NHS, non-EEA workers, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PwC, Rowena Mason, Seema Malhotra, Sir Richard Leese, Social Market Foundation report, SPSS, Steve Baker, the Guardian

February 4, 2016 · 23:21

Intimidating the Euro

There have been several issues in the past, some we seem to embrace as ‘dangerous’ towards the survival of the Euro, some less so. There has been a detectable increase (including from myself) into the events as they are occurring. Yet, any nation, has forever had moments of bad news, so why are we so eager to predict the downfall of a united coin?

You see, we all agree that there will be good times and times that are less so, yet in all this a level head should prevail. This means that there is balance. Nations tend to float their coin when things are poor and as decent times return, that floatation option dissipates. As nations were balanced, these waves still happen, but they were less extreme. Which meant that there were currency cycles, which is not a mystery!

So when the Euro came, a stronger more balanced currency became the global player, with a few ‘visionaries’ claiming that this is the haven of all currency. In that regard, let’s take a look at Rasul Shams (at http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/26228/1/dp050321.pdf), a discussion paper from 2005. Here we see “One of the basic statement of a full developed theory of world money is that the world economy exhibits a specific structure, which is changing through time and that the world money adjusts to these specific characteristics of the world economy and underlies therefore itself large-scale changes in the long run. To understand the development of the world money and any long-range modification in its manifestation through time one has therefore first to study the dynamic stability of the world economy” (page 6). On Page 14 we get “Kenen (2002) and McKinnon (2002), both looking on the use of Euro in trading, bond issues, bank liabilities and official reserves, appreciate the strong role of Euro as an international currency but do not believe, it could be in a position to displace the central role of the Dollar. McKinnon refers to the reinforced Dollar standard by the ongoing price stability in the United States as the main reasons why the Dollar supremacy will continue“. In addition we see “Hartmann and Issing 2002; Huismann, Meesters and Oort 2000; Beckmann, Born and Kösters 2002), looking at the evolving international role of the Euro come to the conclusion that the Euro has indeed a great potential to expand further its international role but that this will be a long run process, not to be realised in the near future“. Now we get the first issue.

You see, certain players behind the screens must have made certain events happen to flow the Euro against the dollar as the 2004 crash became a reality. Now consider that the initial European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was introduced somewhere before 1980 to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve monetary stability in Europe. In that system the currencies were still floated to the minimalistic degree, depending on the local economy. So when the Euro became the coin, that game changed. Suddenly nations lost their personal flotilla device. Now for the larger economies like France, Germany and the United Kingdom it was not that much of an issue. There was a degree of control. The UK had even more options as they remained to keep a sterling position. The other players were however in a less favourable position. They now had other issues to deal with. As those nations all got an interesting credit card, we saw a growing problem. Greece and Ireland being the larger problems, but in no way the most deadly of them. That part must be reserved to Italy and France. The EEC has a total ‘national’ debt of well over 12.5 trillion. With 50% of that debt belonging to Germany, France and Italy. Germany was until recently safe, because their economy was decent and their unemployment rate was below 5%, this is now changing through several parts. The Germans have many sides to their economy, yet when we read that the Deutsche Bank posted a €6.8 billion loss in 2015, thanks to a €12 billion write-down linked to litigation charges and restructuring costs, and it set aside more to cover any potential litigation (at Read more: http://www.afr.com/markets/deutsche-banks-troubles-unmask-bigger-risks-20160203-gmken9), we see new dark clouds. Apart from the DB shares going down to 10% of what they were before the financial crises, we must wonder what other effects are in place. Here is part of the problem. We can state on one side that one hiccup like that should not be a worry, but the economy in Germany is having a slow start. In addition as other nations are showing a slowing need for Deutsche Grundlichkeit, they are looking for alternative providers, cheaper providers, which is a given. Now add the VW scandal, which pushes down Covestro. All parts of multi Billion Euro sided Bayer. Now for a history lesson (at http://www.press.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-MaterialScience-to-be-called-Covestro), which gives us “Bayer intends to float Covestro on the stock market by mid-2016 at the latest. The plan for Bayer Material Science to become a separate company was announced in September 2014” on one side, the timing is great for the board of directors who get to write off the losses from taxation and still get that 8 figure bonus. For the German government that is bad news on top of bad news. So as Germany was not a problem for the Euro, it is now a worry that is growing, growing by the day.

In all this I must now add that the national debt of Germany which represents one third of 50% now becomes an issue.

In addition, the hardship from France as it remains in a state of emergency. In addition, as too many people focus on the fact that the French Economy is moving ahead at 1.1%, which is a good achievement. Yet the unemployment rate is slowly creeping to 11%, in addition, the youth unemployment rate in France increased to 25.90, which means that the French hardship is still escalating. So as we see an economy growth of 1.1%, it is countered by ‘French unemployment rises by highest rate since 2013’ (at http://www.france24.com/en/20151126-french-unemployment-rises-highest-rate-2013), which will impact the French budget. In that regard so far (3 months later) no clear solutions have been presented by the current French government. In addition, the extremist and refugee issues are pressing more and more on the French morale, less and less acceptance is seen there. The French political landscape is still under attack, as the issues deepen, more and more people are starting to listen to Marine Le Pen, who is now seeking alliances with Italy’s Lega Nord, which also includes Geert Wilders from the Dutch PVV and Heinz-Christian Strache from the Austrian Freedom Party. These factors are important, for the simple reason that until 2 years ago Lega Nord was not even a blip on the radar of anyone who mattered in politics. That is no longer the case, more important, the stronger and the more united these right wing parties become, the bigger the collapse of the Euro. I would never have considered these parties to be anything bust extreme in chance. The inability of France’s François Hollande to get the economy to any degree on track is central here. The 1.1% melts away to -3% when we see the cost for France rise and rise. The plan for 500,000 vocational training schemes might sound nice, but that is not any guarantee to growth of economy, just an absolute guaranty to cost well over a billion, with more costs down the track. Italy is in a place not much better, even as both nations have products people want, the bulk of people are not buying the amount both governments need to see bought.

Now we see these elements as the UK has given the Brexit referendum to take place on June 23rd, which means that we are about to get flooded by propaganda from all sides, including newspapers on staying in, or moving out. The Guardian was quickly on board on how the environment would suffer (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe), whilst happily ignoring that a homeless person due to no job and no home has a worry with drowning in the rain and freezing solid in a park in winter. All these dangers because no one was willing to muzzle Greece, or bankers for that matter. So as we now see how Goldman Sachs is stating that Brexit could cost pound a 20% drop in value, should we remember those at Goldman Sachs that they are one of the responsible parties that got this entire economic mess started?

Now we get back to the continuation of the Euro issue as I saw it in the beginning. As we see how political parties are influencing events, the political element not seen is how political players have been spending others people money, without fear of persecution, prosecution or accountability. The mere inability of the European nations to keep a proper budget and to keep debts in check is a massive reason why right winged parties are now growing beyond anything. No one seems to be properly measuring data. As national data is inflated (read: weighted) we see optimistic news all over the place, whilst 90% of data and results should have been adjusted from the very beginning. So, we have one currency and all nations are floating the currency by inflating ‘predictions’ of their part of the economy, by the time that falls over, we see waves of managed bad news, yet the currency was from that point onwards never in a proper state, it has not been in that place for a long long time.

Now, France will face the next hurdle. There are too many predictions on how the UK will not go Brexit, but in all this the people are seeing their lifestyle dwindle away and as we see more managed bad news, the British people might have had enough. A strong example here comes from the BBC in December 2015 “Economic growth in 2015 was originally predicted to be 2-2.5%. But in large part because of the decision of the Government to take those bailout talks to the wire that has turned into a 2-2.5% contraction – a deep and painful recession. Now the experts are predicting once again that the economy will return to growth in 2016, unless something else gets in the way“, so as we read this, we see that ‘the experts’ were off by 5%, which is massive, which follows ‘predicted growth’ in 2016. Yet we all know that Greece has had too many problems and when the retirements funds stop because they invested in Greece, where will retirees get their ‘support’ from? They are entitled to that support, but Greece has no more money, debts it cannot pay and it let those who got Greece in that bad a state off the hook. All EEC nations left those Greeks off the hook. So now, as we see that money is running out, which will in the near future could mean that the IMF has to bail out Greece again. If that happens before June 23^rd, how do you expect the British referendum voters to react?

One thing is certain, if Brexit happens, François Hollande will get the nightmare situation he dreads, because the Euro without the United Kingdom will not survive through Germany, Italy and France together. In that light it will push Frexit straight to the top, with at some point in 2017 President Marine Le Pen, signing a government act to secede from the Euro and not entirely unlikely secede from the EEC altogether. That last statement is massively speculative, but not impossible. It is nationalism that are driving the French to her and the Italians to Matteo Salvini, there is still the dangers that Nigel Farage will get on the ‘I told you so horse‘, which had a 1:1,000,000 chance to win. Now my £10 will turn into a nice retirement funds for a nice place on Guernsey (if someone honours that deal). A wave started by the mere political short-sightedness of not having a legal door to expel bad nations and their economic acts. An oversight that will result in additional trillions of write-offs and hardship for the European population at large.

A view I stated in 2013, there is now a decent chance that I will be proven right 3 years later, a mere data analyst without an economic degree.

Yet, can I be wrong? Of course I could be, but you should ask yourself: ‘Where is MY benefit?’ I am not asking you to state this in some rage of selfishness. I am asking you to look at your life, your family and all the parts you lost in the last 10 years. All the things you worked for and what you have been left with. Now, many people have not lost what they had, but their financial progress seems to have minimised, largely due to outside influences, some of them due to really bad internal governing. So how does a Brit feels when the hardship he faces comes from the bad acts not just from the UK, but in addition to the acts from Spain, Greece, Portugal and other nations? In addition, we see that those governments do not seem to be held accountable, neither are the decision makers held accountable by other governments. Now, the average Brit accepts that his government makes mistakes, just like the average Frenchman, or Italians for that matter. But neither wants to pay for the cock-ups of another government, especially as no one is held accountable, so that part leaves us with Brexit and the chance of it becoming a reality. Yet when we see the quote in the Independent “David Cameron has urged mainstream Conservative MPs not to be bullied by party activists into campaigning to leave the European Union as he took on his Tory critics with a fierce defence of his reform blueprint“, we have to consider that the risk is a lot larger than David Cameron is comfortable with, which works for Nigel Farage. The accusations that others are now accusing the UKIP MEPs, who allegedly have been intimidating other members of the European Parliament.

So, now, after a year, the UKIP members that were never seen as anything serious are now ‘intimidating’ others? So now we see the picture caption ‘Green MEP Molly Scott Cato admonished Farage and Ukip MEPs‘, yet in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe) we see “It will work with green groups to persuade people that leaving the EU could set back the UK’s nature protection and prevention of pollution many years“, so the battlelines of Brexit are being drawn and the question becomes, where is the truth and why are certain bad elements not being held accountable, that is the real reason why Brexit and Frexit are a reality. As no one addresses that because of the ‘friends’ these proclaimers of ‘other’ reasons have, they are driving constituents straight into the arms of Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini. Nigel enabled Marine (to a small extent), the fear of Brexit pushes Marine to a large extent and all those elements are now making Matteo Salvini a threat to the Italian way of life. The question whether that is for good or bad is too early to tell, but the impact will be massive in all three nations. So whatever comes next will be speculative to a larger extent which is, until June 25^th, as that date could be the start of a massive upheaval all over Europe, which could hit as far as Japan and the United States of America.

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Tagged as Australian Financial Review, Austrian Freedom Party, Bayer, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayer Material Science, Beckmann, Born, Brexit, Covestro, David Cameron, Deutsche Bank, François Hollande, France, Frexit, Geert Wilders, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Greece, Guernsey, Heinz-Christian Strache, Huismann, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kösters, Lega Nord, Leverkusen, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, McKinnon, Meesters, Molly Scott Cato, Nigel Farage, Oort, PVV, Rasul Shams, Spain, the Guardian, United Kingdom, USA, VW

July 28, 2015 · 09:52

Feeding hungry wolves

You might think that this is another attempt to quell the hunger of paparazzi, which is always a dilemma we people face (famous people more often). They want their pound of flesh and they will have it. So when I stumbles upon ‘Greece crisis: Yanis Varoufakis admits ‘contingency plan’ for euro exit‘ this morning, I knew that a roasting would be in order. The article (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/27/greece-crisis-yanis-varoufakis-admits-contingency-plan-for-euro-exit). So when I read “The plan was denounced by Greek opposition parties, which in recent weeks have called for Varoufakis to be put on trial for treason” I knew I was onto something, in addition there is “the scheme was “reminiscent of a bad thriller.” The main opposition New Democracy party demanded that the government “come up with convincing answers for the Greek people … so that light can be shed on this dark narrative.”“. Now you know me, I consider Yanis Varoufakis to be a bit of a rock star (not a good one) and he played the limelight wrong, but in this case I am on HIS side.

How stupid can the Greeks get?

It was the job of Yanis Varoufakis to protect the financial future of Greece, because of the mistakes by the Greeks themselves, they are in a boatload of hurt and they will be in that position for three generations, that is, as long as they keep austerity. This is not something that was started by Yanis Varoufakis or Alexis Tsipras for that matter, they mismanaged an inherited bad situation. So in light of those accusing him of treason, I call them ‘the worst bloody idiots in the history of Greece!’ They get to live with that title for both this version of Greece as well as dethroning the idiots of ancient Greece because these people have just truly outdone themselves!

And as for these people who are shouting treason, why do we not hear that in regard of the following names? Yiannos Papantoniou and Nikos Christodoulakis former ministers of Finance as well as Konstantinos Simitis and Kostas Karamanlis both former prime ministers. Did they all conveniently forget that the found mismanaged budgets which they hid from the people of Greece and Goldman Sachs was eager to help them for the money it brought them? Yes, you all forgot about them didn’t you?

Now in addition we need to mention Christoforos Sardelis, former head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, when we learn from the Business Insider “the loan was so confusing that even the Greece government had trouble understanding it and thought it was much cheaper than it actually was” (at http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-secret-goldman-sachs-greece-deal-thats-described-as-a-very-sexy-story-between-two-sinners-2012-3), so Greece, let’s call it Monkey Mountain for now, gave the keys of what they no longer owned to the ‘Top Banana’ in all this (Christoforos Sardelis), to do something none of them understood, how is that not trialed in a Greek court? So after shaking hands smiles and autographs, Greece was due payment of 600 million euros ($793 million) more than the 2.8 billion euros it borrowed.

That comes down to almost 20%! I’ve had a 50% better rate on my Credit Card!

So, when I see the accusation towards Yanis Varoufakis, which was in my view the wrong man, at least he did what he did for ideological reasons (as far as I can tell), his focus was Greece! I never stated anything to the contrary in any of my articles!

In this path, there are still a few issues that are an issue, yet, let’s not forget that this was a plan conceived in the 11^th hour as the dangers were very considerable that Greece could be cast out of the Euro (even though that was technically a legal impossibility). ““We were planning to create, surreptitiously, reserve accounts attached to every tax file number, without telling anyone, just to have this system in a function under wraps,” he says, adding that he had appointed a childhood friend to help him carry out the plan. “We were ready to get the green light from the PM when the banks closed”“, I understand the logic attached to this, but in that way, it also meant that the tax dodgers would have had an escape plan, in addition, the Greek 2047 Swiss Accounts (roughly) could walk away scot free, which is not entirely on the up an up here. Yet in the bulk of it all it was the millions of Greeks Yanis tried to protect (I hope), so explain to my how this was treason? The added fact that we see ‘We were ready to get the green light from the PM’ implies that it was based on government structure, so again, how is this treason?

So when we read the Tweet Yanis gave “So, I was going to ‘hijack’ Greek citizens’ tax numbers? Impressed by my defamers’ imagination”, I would tend to agree, because a step like that is impossible without both the tax system and every bank involved to open the doors to their system. It is not imagination, in my view it is basically a technical impossibility, because that many transfers would light the European financial system up like a Christmas tree, Yanis would literally have no place to run or too, or to hide for that matter.

There is one part I disagree with. The quote “Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party is not only divided but bears little resemblance to the one he was catapulted into office with in January”. You see, Japan only had itself to blame, Tsipras is partially accountable, yet the debt, the massive result from a decade of mismanaged debt and a mismanaged tax system that spans decades, that part was inherited, they can look at previous national rulers, spokespersons and economic managers for that.

So, let’s remove the title ‘Monkey Mountain’ (now that the Top Banana has gone to sunny, luxurious Italy) and focus on Greece! You see Greece will be in a bad place for a very long time to come, it refuses to go after those who truly pushed Greece into generations of bad times. As the Greek population will have to settle for hunger and poverty, other players like Christoforos Sardelis, who is as far as I can tell at present, living in decent luxury in Italy where he works for Banca IMI, the investment banking unit of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo. The Greeks are looking in all the wrong places. Hiding the debt was not done by one person, it took several officials, the swap was really stupid but not illegal (Goldman Sachs does not do illegal things, it is very clever in making other people do stupid things). The issue is not yesterday, it is today and tomorrow. Greece needs to wake up and reform a system that cannot deal with the elements of today’s economy, the fact that Greece needs 86 billion just to make it to 2017 is clear evidence of that, the fact that it takes three generations to get the debt into focus is evidence of that and it will only work if debt relief is granted. Greece is no longer able to survive in the current climate, a fact that has been known for a long time and it had to be acted upon a long time before yesterday, but it was not. In all this the Greeks are now blaming the one person who (even though wrongly) tried to get a better deal for the Greeks, who tried any option to at least try to avoid that retirees would have ended up with 1 drachma to the Euro, because that would have been the result from ejection from the Euro (if the EEC could have pulled that off legally). So yes, I have hammered on Yanis Varoufakis (and Alexis Tsipras) in my previous blogs. In this case, there is an utter failure in my view to see where he acted wrongly.

There is one additional consideration to make. There is every chance that the plan started by Yanis Varoufakis needs to stay on hand, it might need almost immediate evolution and preparation should not seize. You see Greece is and remains the tinderbox for events that have been playing for a lot longer than anyone cares to ‘remember’. We might bash on certain Greeks (names I mentioned here), but Greece was not alone. Italy had done a similar thing. Now as both France and Italy represent 5 trillion in debt and the UK close to 1.8 trillion, the current status is that both France and the UK are still in a place where they could voluntarily leave the Euro. France is the initial ‘problem’ because what has been ignored for 2 years, what I feared would come is now almost a reality. At present Marine Le Pen is sitting on close to 40% of the prospective votes for the 2017 presidency, if she wins the Mayoral election of Calais (which is presently almost a certainty) and if she can achieve any decent improvement for Calais, the reality of her making a landslide victory in 2017 would become a mere matter of fact, in that light in 2017, the Socialist Party of François Hollande will face its biggest defeat in French history, they will be ten times worse off than the UK Labour Party currently is, so good luck with that. This is important, because Marine Le Pen could entice French National pride and walk out of the Euro, which would spark a similar thing in the UK at that point. Now we see the part that impacts Greece, when those two walk, Italy will have no option left the Euro will crumble and this plan, this approach by Yanis Varoufakis, this alternative plan would be the only option left for Greece and they would not have any time to implement it. So as ideas go, his alternative was not the worst for the people of Greece and there is a reasonable chance that when the Euro fails, this plan will safe that lives of millions of Greeks. So whomever shouted ‘treason’ against Yanis Varoufakis better be aware that this person himself could end up being roasted when my predictions come to pass.

The wolves are hungry, they want their pound of flesh and those in the game will sell out anyone that no longer seems to be a player in the international economy game.

I cannot and will not support that view!

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July 13, 2015 · 23:16

Wackadoo for a game

The E3 is done, the 2015 San Diego Comic Con is on and I am missing out on all of it this year. Whether it is addiction, compulsion or enslavement. It might be the last one, yet my feelings for Elite: Dangerous are no less than the same feeling I had when I had when the original on the Commodore 64 was released in 1985. There was one shop who had it on the first day, which meant a 4 hour train ride, two hours there, and two hours nail biting trip back. Yes, it was one hell of a day, but the result was exceeding expectations, the game would be my number one game to play for a very very long time, all because a friend showed it to me on his BBC Micro B one year earlier (1984).

Enslavement is what I have in common with Greece on several levels. Like Greece, I did this to myself, whether my DNA made me desire this videogame more than sex or whether it is just the animation of pretty pictures that move because of my interaction does not matter, it was all me! Now it is so simple to blame David Braben (like calling him ‘Jerry’), but it is me, only me and I very much realize that.

It seems that the press and many others (like Greek Politicians) cannot see that. So I feel miffed when I see ‘The euro ‘family’ has shown it is capable of real cruelty‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/13/euro-family-angela-merkel-greek-bailout) by Suzanne Moore. In January 30^th 2013, I wrote ‘Time for another collapse‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/01/30/time-for-another-collapse/). In there I stated “Greece is fighting just about everything from no longer payable debts and unemployment figures to phantoms of their past“, in February 2013 in ‘The Italian menace?‘ I wrote “Politicians are also to blame. For that I would like to mention papers like “Investing in Greece: an Olympic opportunity”. It came from Costas Bakouris in 2001. The thoughts were all fair enough. However, how much came to happen? How much money did come in?” This list goes on and on, I reported on it well over two years ago, no one truly dug into these matters and everyone seems to live by the credo: ‘if Goldman Sachs can hide it and the press does not report on it, it does not exist‘.

Now, the Greek people will get a harsh dose of the consequences of not holding its politicians to account.

Than 22^nd January 2014 ‘Cooking the Books?‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/01/22/cooking-the-books/), where the quote by Business Week “Europe’s having a bond rally and the PIGS are playing host. Portugal, Ireland, Spain—and even Greece, where Europe’s debt crisis began—are heading back to the bond markets and enjoying their lowest borrowing costs in years, as investors appear reassured that the region’s sickest economies are on the mend” is centre in all this, the part ‘investors appear reassured that the region’s sickest economies are on the mend‘ is the delusion to outrank all other delusions. In all this there is a link of power players promoting one another through unnamed sources. Greece should have known better! And in all this, as I stated before, these power players will sell Greece down the river in a heartbeat, because the fallout of Italy and France would be massively worse (10 times worse). All what we see now is the direct consequence of inaction, inaction for 3 Greek administrations and especially these last 6 months when the Greeks gave faith to what I regard to be a rock star (Varoufakis) and a paper tiger (Tsipras), all this, a mere consequence of inaction.

Was all this inevitable? Yes, personally I believe so, even though I believe that Antonis Samaras was on the right path, yet overall, that path was just prolonging a bad situation that had no long term future path.

In all this the Press is equally to blame, in conjunction with economic forecasters, power players and political whatever you want to call them. They were all about demonising ‘austerity’, it was all about how bad austerity is. The plain, bland and bitter truth is that austerity is nothing more than keeping a proper budget, yet several of the previous parties are ALL ABOUT SPENDING! Which is delusional! Just like I cannot speed up the release of Elite: Dangerous or No Man’s Sky, they cannot write away debts, there will be a consequence.

So when I read “Alexis Tsipras has fought tooth and nail for something resembling the debt restructuring that even the International Monetary Fund acknowledges is needed. The incompetence of a succession of Greek governments and tax evasion within Greece is not in doubt. But the creditors of the euro family knew this as they upped their loans, and must now delude themselves that everything they have done has been for the best” which is nicely written Miss Moore, but the following parts remain an issue “something resembling the debt restructuring” is not even close to a reality unless you keep your spending in order, which has not been done for decades.

It is her last paragraph that bothers me the most “The euro family has been exposed as a loan sharking conglomerate that cares nothing for democracy. This family is abusive. This “bailout”, which will be sold as being a cruel-to-be-kind deal is nothing of the sort. It is simply being cruel to be cruel“, in all this governments are to blame, in all this the press took a back seat to ignore what needed to be done, keep a proper budget, in all this close to ALL EEC nations failed. You see debt, even governmental one needs to be paid back, that part has been ignored for too long. The EEC now has an accumulated debt that is closing in on the size of the US debt. It almost looks like a plan by the banks in global charge to equalise all debts making them in charge of everything. Is that such a large leap? You see the debt only seems to go down in Malta, Czech Republic and Belgium. Belgium is essential because its debt is already too large, but at least they are making a positive change, only them and no one seems bothered about this. As per today they are all bothered with the upcoming consequences, now as Greece has seemingly pulled the bunny out of the hat, we will see changes of another nature, because Marine Le Pen will not let the momentum she can gain from this unanswered issue and as France is down 2.6 trillion, she will now emphasize on the benefit of moving away from the EEC, which heralds future for France, the French product and the all-round future of France. Is she right? I cannot tell as there are a few too many unknown factors here, but beyond Suzanne Moore there is more to see.

For that we need to look at gung-ho go-getter Helena Smith of the Guardian, who writes “It will take years – decades perhaps – for Greeks to get over this crisis. Catastrophe may have been averted, but it comes at the expense of conscious national failure: an overriding recognition that the state formed after the fall of military rule provided 40 years of peace and stability, but has ended in extraordinary ignominy. The promise of unending progress did not occur. Of all the truths that Greeks must now confront, that will be the hardest“, personally she writes well, but the truth is (as I see it), that the Greek issue will take generations, likely 3 of them to get it all under true control, in all this the deadly issue was not changing when it was possible. A hard-line change in 2005 would have made all the difference, now we get the added pain of a decade of spills whilst the economy is down further and more people are unemployed, all factors changing the game.

Helena writes “In return for a third bailout – this time staggered over three years and amounting to €53bn – Greeks essentially have been told to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And that is the good scenario. The alternative – Grexit – would have bypassed purgatory but taken crisis train passengers straight to hell“, even that is not completely on par. Yes Helena is correct, but what she (validly) abstains from, is the part that is depicted by ‘the valley of the shadow of death‘ is a road of reformation of administrative law, criminal law, taxation law and taxation regulation. In addition there will be pension reformation and consumer taxation. If any of these matters are not initially resolved in 18 months, with this I mean proper reformation design from day 1 (tomorrow), not a collection of empty meetings with governmental paid lunches and dinners.

It will take long working weeks (50 hours plus) to make this happen in 18 months and that draft will be decent enough to truly change the tides. If any of these changes are not done by then (so even if they get all but one done), than the Greeks will only have hell to look forward to, the Purgatory station will not be an option at that point. Changes that if Syriza had seriously started talking and started on changing them, the last week would never have happened. In all this there is one other advice the Greeks need to take home, no matter how proud they are, their survival will now depend on changing their family structure.

Let me explain, as time is now too short for those who have an option, the Greeks have one option left to survive (if at all). Consider a family with grandparents, parents and children. We call them iteration 1, 2 and 3. They need to sit down and see where the lowest debt is. If at all possible, make to all debts the minimum payments then, take every coin they have left and place that on the lowest debt. Do not hide behind pride and time and just pay them all. Get rid of them one by one as fast as possible. Banks will all state that this will not work, but they need these people all enslaved. Create safety by removing the first debt, then the second and so on. As the debts fall away, so does the interest, Greeks need to make momentum and the banks are ALL about longevity. They will twist, spin and make all kinds of brazen projections, but Greece will be in a bad place well beyond 2020. So the Greek people, if possible need to move away from all debt, after that, whomever has shed the debt, they can move forward, they can acquire and grow.

In all this, it will be another Greece, one that has a retirement system which can no longer work in the previous path, there will be a Consumer tax setting that will up the cost of living and the health care system in Greece will remain a matter of nightmares, possible it can only be accessed through the purgatory station the Greeks hopefully avoided, but in all this, taxation laws will have to change at first light, it will also mean that the very wealthy Greeks will move to another place, not unlike Gerard Depardieu. There is no telling where they will end if they want to avoid taxation of that what they avoided for so long and it is equally wrong to speculate how much taxation is due, I lack the pure data on that. What is cause to all is the dire need for the Greeks (and many EEC politicians) to stop spending money they did not have and money they were unlikely to receive. all this is centre to the fall of Greece and it is not over yet because even though Greece when over the edge, France and Italy are right there with Greece (which is why they were so opposed to Grexit) and with these two we face a 5 trillion Euro tumble, 10 times the debt of Greece.

So are we wackadoo for a video game, are we going wackadoo for the game of economics or are we just wackadoo for a totalitarian enabling of banks through debt?

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July 3, 2015 · 00:31

Let’s dance (part 2)

I promised to get back to the game of Finance, to some it is called 50 shades of Greece, to some it is called the work of Atë, yet I see it as the result of a cloud of Stupidity, Inactions and Desolation. Without massive changes Greece will end up without any future left.

This is not some prediction, because the nation is bankrupt, or in default or even in a bad place. You see, whatever ‘promise’ that comes from any of the banks, power players or politicians, throwing money at something that is inert and unproductive is just waisted money. The Juncker speech of three days ago (at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-5274_en.htm), gives us all those politically correct words, with the quote “And a deal could also have ensured that we, the Commission, could go ahead with a package for a ‘new start for jobs and growth’ package of 35 billion euro to help the Greek economy get back on track“, so that sounds nice, but that is not even close to the factual issue as I see it. If we include the overdue payments (yes, plural), we see that before the end of the year, Greece faces 2 payments of the ECB at 6.7 billion Euro. The IMF has coming 4 times 300 million Euro, plus 2 sets of 600 million Euro and 2 sets of 500 million Euro, in addition, there is the 1.5 billion Euro overdue and the 750 million Euro shifted payment, which Greece paid for using the IMF emergency funds. You all forgot about that last one did you not? Which makes for 5.65 billion, so these two players are due 12.35 billion Euro before the end of the year alone. In addition there are 10 treasury bills maturing with a total of 15.1 billion, the last one is an issue, you see if Greece is very very very lucky, those owners would be ‘willing’ to roll them over, if not, the max damage will be 27.5 billion in before the end of 2015. That is just expenses with NOTHING paid for and the interest due on the loans has not been taken into account either. The important part is, is the fact that over 50% of that debt is an unknown, because who exactly owns these Greek bonds? To whom is payment due? These are the events that Greece already has and I have mentioned them before, so why mention them again. Well, these facts are important to consider, because what Juncker calls ‘new start for jobs and growth’ is nice, but what will the politicians use is for? This fund covers 80% of the outstanding payments and ZERO towards reducing debt.

So how will the Greek economy get back on track? That is the killer question, because there is no given path. Greece has very little to export, it has relied on services for too long and there is no real resolution there. I personally will not trust rock star Varoufakis (a valid feeling as he has not propelled Greece forward in 6 months). A man of all smiles and no substance. His blog (at http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/01/why-we-recommend-a-no-in-the-referendum-in-6-short-bullet-points/) gives us 6 short bullet points, yet as a professor of economy from the University of Athens, he gives us plenty of disturbing afterthoughts.

1a. refused to reduce our un-payable public debt
1b. insisted that it should be repaid ‘parametrically’ by the weakest members of our society, their children and their grandchildren.

My view?

1a. Why? Even though previous elected officials spend it, you still get to pay for it. You accepted the responsibility of office, which include a maximised credit card.
1b. Nope! It just needed to be paid in some way, again, as a result from previous elected officials.

So point one, being 2 points can be seen as a failure because Syriza did not do the following:

Immediately start the investigation on prosecution of previous officials (which might be a farce trial, but it would have given the proper presentation that Greece is truly making a change, his smiley smiley rock star presentation missed the mark by a lot, with the added danger that Jean-Claude Juncker might not have any sense of rhythm or blues, making the act a double miss.
Instigate a serious overhaul of the Greek tax system, mainly taxability and tax collection. Even if it was still underway today, if started in February it would have given a clear signal to those holding onto 7 billion plus, that this elected Greek government was a Greek government that wanted to create a true future for the Greek people. The stress of the last week would never have happened.
Instigate prosecution of tax evaders, not just a sham trial of a man named Leonidas Bobolas (which is actually a cool name to have), that 1.9 million euro bill did not last long did it? How about placing Kostas Vaxevanis in the limelight and giving the clear message that tax evasion is now a thing of the past. Greece could have started to annex these back taxes, many nations would be on the side of Greece here (France and Italy most enthusiastically), in addition, giving the tax evaders an option to pay back tax +20% within a week, or back tax +150% when accounts needed to get frozen, misreporting would come at an additional 200% of misreported outstanding taxation. At this point Syriza would become the most popular band ever. In a group of 11 million, these 2045 people do not add statistically to number of Greeks and after the culling of outstanding taxation the debt might be a smidge lower, showing again that Syriza wanted a better Greece.

NONE of these actions had been taken by Greece in any visible way. So, Ο καθηγητής Βαρουφάκης missed the boat in point one already.

I am skipping point two!

The Euro group had previously (November 2012) conceded that the debt ought to be restructured but is refusing to commit to a debt restructure.

My view? It could have been a fair point if Greece would have shown any economic evolution as mentioned in the three points (by me earlier), restructuring is pointless if the machine is not getting the overhaul it requires. I have stated before and now that in all this previous administrations have been key in the failure of the Greek economy. Not just because the Greek economy collapsed, but what was done to repair it all? What concrete actions were made between 2010 and 2015 to restart the economy? This is a much harder question to pose, because it intersects on what could have done and what should have done. Which is directly coupled to Junckers 35 billion Euro carrot, you see, dumping money somewhere, but how and where will the economy be revived? You see, no money and no plan is destitution, a plan and no money is a future, money without a plan is a spending spree and a plan with money is a solution. It is actually THAT simple. Greece has had enough spending sprees, it is in a state of destitution, so it needs to get a future and move towards a solution. This is a simple path, but 3 Greek administrations have not pulled that one off, so they are in the state they are in.

I am not proclaiming to have the solution, yet no one else have any either. With the Greying European community retirement villages are an option. How many does Greece have? Consider that the nations with a retired population over 16% is Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria. All nations where the life style has been good. Now add to this the people who will start their retirement in the next 5 years. Thousands of people in relatively expensive cold places, they can in some cases sub-rent their property and retire in warm, sunny Greece. The food is good, the people nice and they move from a life with 4 months of summer to a life of 7 months of summer and the removal of cold winters (compared to their home turf that is). It is not a solution, but it is a start. Greece needs to become innovative and change the game all together. It is extremely likely that these solutions have been looked at, yet, how deep. Too many people look at solutions to fill their pockets, how many looked at it with the intent to fill the treasury coffers? Greece has a second option, is to use the church. Instead of making a short sale of places that came for sale, how about ‘nationalising’ them as tourist accommodation, managed through the church? Move hotels from foreign investors to local hands! Just an idea to start growing the foundation of taxable income.

In all this, the ideas by me should be regarded as laughable. Yet, how many options have been inspected? You see the problem does not go away by throwing a few billion at it, buying all the fish leaves you with a double debt, learning how to fish and get the pond to yourself will leave you with a future. Greece has limited products to work with, so it either adds products or it adds services, services is a first, products is often longer term, unless it is the service that becomes the product.

In all this I still have to address one part I talked about earlier. I stated “they have left, what should be regarded as criminal activities open to reactivation“, there is some of it (at http://www.globalresearch.ca/goldman-sachs-doesnt-have-clean-hands-in-greece-crisis/5459498), more in the annals of history. the article gives us: “According to investigative reports that appeared in Der Spiegel, the New York Times, BBC, and Bloomberg News from 2010 through 2012, Blankfein, now Goldman Sachs CEO, Cohn, now President and COO, and Loudiadis, a Managing Director, all played a role in structuring complex derivative deals with Greece which accomplished two things: they allowed Greece to hide the true extent of its debt and they ended up almost doubling the amount of debt Greece owed under the dubious derivative deals“, no matter where all this is going, consider the Greek bonds. I massively objected in the past against Greece being allowed anywhere near the bond market in April 2014. Consider the total value of Greek bonds out there, are they covered? Consider that Greece is completely bust, the fact that from multiple sources that Greek cannot repay its debt (amongst them the Finance Minister of Greece). Consider that Yanis Varoufakis stated on March 10th 2015 “Varoufakis Says Greece Was Never Going To Repay Its Debts” (source Forbes). So how come that at THAT point certain steps were not made to use the reserve funds Greece had at that time to settle the bonds. When you consider my opposition to bonds in April 2014 comes into view with the consideration ‘The terms on which a government can sell bonds depend on how creditworthy the market considers it to be‘, so as some power players had (as I see it) inflated the Greek credit rating, the question becomes, is the Greek bond market a continuation of the ‘Greekman Sachs’ protocols as played to hide debt, as such, should there be a more serious level of criminal investigation? Moreover, who are the involved parties and why are other parties not truly digging here?

In the end, let’s be clear, there is absolutely no indication that any laws have been broken regarding the bonds, is that not the interesting part? The one part that could have limited the issues now playing (like adjusting laws) is the one action 10 years of government had not adjusted. That seems to have worked out very well for Addy Loudiadis, Chief Executive and Director, Rothesay Life Limited and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs and a few others (Addy was just the most visible one), in all this we see that Greece needs changes, the law most likely first.

So can the Greeks dance? Unless their parliament wakes up, it is only one of many skills a Greek will need to add to his/her skill set to get by after the ATM’s stop working.

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