Tag Archives: Janet Yellen

May 19, 2025 · 23:34

My Bond is my word

That is the expression, but it came from a time when a word meant something. Far before the idiom of marketing and business practices. That word is a temporary setting towards to goal to do no harm to the shareholders and the business need of the few. In essence, the old “is an idiom that means a person’s promise or word is as good as a formal agreement. It suggests a commitment to honesty and reliability in one’s dealings, and is frequently used to signify that a person’s word is a reliable substitute for a written contract” it is said that a word is merely a mirror of the intent of the person speaking it. And when you look at bonds, we see “A bond is a form of debt security, essentially a loan made by an investor to a company or government for a set period of time in return for regular interest payments. When you invest in bonds, you are lending money and receive back your principal plus interest at a specified future date” Now here we get the problem. You see, as it stands “an investor to a government for a set period of time in return for regular interest payments” and now as it seems that government (America) can soon no longer make these “regular interest payments” and the investors are backing away. We saw last week

and we have seen a few of these settings and again today we see a continuance of these messages. The stage is not really as clear. As bonds are sold before maturity the investors are losing money and you know how they lose money. Yet the setting for that is when will we lose it all? And there is the crunch. Lose some now or a lot later and these happy wuzzes are weaseling out before it is too late. So as such we see

If you think that I feel sorry, you would be wrong. I saw this as early as 2018, but the people called me and idiot, a fool and a cowardly weasel. That’s fine, they are merely words. As we see the dumping of bonds these high and mighty wannabe’s will get the limelight shining on them and as they hide like the little cockroaches shouting “it’s more complex then I thought” and I giggle because all I needed was an abacus, this contraption (which preceded the computer and the slide ruler) was invented somewhere between 2700 and 2300 BC, so there was time to learn the essentials.

I don’t know how much the damage is at present, but with every sell off, the burden of America deepens, which as of April 30, 2025, there were $28.575 trillion in outstanding U.S. Treasury securities. So we do not know how much is sold of and I doubt America will divulge that information and as I stated in March 2023, when I speculated that the SVB had too many bonds in there possession and could not deal with a bank run, I asked whether the media would ever look into how many bonds they had and they never did (I wonder why), but a more large setting was seen in the movie The Big Short (2015), an American biographical comedy-drama where we see the implied setting of Janet Yellen in her role at the federal reserve. Now, this is a mere movie, but when movies get to close to reality, there is the chance that there might be correlation. And as the Federal Reserve kept close eyes on the SVB bank, my thoughts wondered whether there wasn’t anything more going on. It is merely one bank, but was it? This also set my mind in a certain direction. The media was no longer to be trusted and they are too often a spokes vessel for stakeholders with political and personal plans. This time around the gap is a lot larger, a lot more than merely one bank. So how many bonds are being sold off (read: dumped)? We don’t know and the investigating party (read: the media) is being told to stand down as I see it. There is no way they are all being sold but to which amount of the $28.575 trillion is being sold off, we just don’t know. In the end America will face a brunt of invoices due to be paid. Yet consider that a bond is a certainty of income through interest and now these investors are bailing. How much is being bailed on is unknown to me and to many others.

But the media isn’t asking the hard questions, isn’t that interesting? They are so busy to chase digital dollars for their own good, whilst at the same time pleasing the shareholders and stake holders  making the audience a distant fourth or even fifth party. So how do you feel about getting actually informed? 

Don’t ask me for the information because I have close to none. I can merely see the issues, but the actual facts are not visible to me and to many others. But there is an issue and the idea of weaponized bonds is decently new, it came after the settings that these foundations are based on and as the bottom line is now marketed for the needs of the investors, we might not know in time what needs to be done. Will it be done in time? I have no idea, the people in charge of the information have their own game to play and usually it is for the betterment of themselves, not the audience at large.

I reckon that the tariff war set a few cogs in motion. Did the current administration consider this when they named the Golf of America and cast Canada into hostile party by calling it the 51st state? Did they consider the impact of a possible annexation of Greenland? It pissed off Europe and the Commonwealth and now their actual enemies is seeing the optional setting of selling off a huge part of the bonds and as such America sinks under their own debts, no actual war required. Didn’t the Art of War teach us (approximately 500BC) that “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles” I wonder, how clever it was to set a chicken stage of tariffs when these people wrote this book over 2500 years ago, seems folly to me. The best the west has to offer in contemplation is On War by Carl von Clausewitz (1820), which is called a decidingly lesser work 2300 years later. Isn’t that the opposite of evolution? Both books on the philosophy of war, but called “a lesser setting”, so what is the stage and what is missing? Both miss out of the war setting of economies. There was a setting of economic in the application of logistics in WW2, but a rather slimline one. Now there is a need on the war on the economics of any enemy and when as deeply in debt as America is, they are quite literally fighting against the edge of an abyss and that abyss does not give way to anything, it is not the premise of an abyss. 

I have no idea what comes next, or what could be done next. This requires clear and reliable data and we do not have any, or aren’t given even the indication of clear data. That is the result of a media that is no longer to be trusted. So how bad is the news? It is dependent on the actual amount of bonds being sold off, because that is the hard setting of the decreased revenue that America faces in 2025 (and 2026). 

So this is one day that I don’t go for the casual ‘have a great day’ but a much larger setting of make sure your families are safe, because when the dollars stay away there will be a price to pay.

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July 8, 2024 · 16:51

Two issues caught my attention.

The first issue is given to us by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx002795738o) The article starts with ‘‘I had to downgrade my life’ – US workers in debt to buy groceries’. In this I have a few speculations. You see Groceries are also set by ‘Permanent Price Adjustment’. This is what the producers of milk, bread and pretty much all items do. You see as they have costs and increased costs for whatever reasons. They pass on these cost to the shop, which in turn passes it onto you, the consumer. In the last 3 years things got to be more expensive and as such you feel that brunt. Per nation this varies. In Australia meat went up in total by 20% (over the last 3 years). Milk less so, but plenty of goods did go up and many have not seen an increase in income for years. So as we see “But after four years of rising prices, her support has worn thin – and every time she shops at the supermarket, she is reminded how things have changed for the worse. Ms Ellis works full-time as a nurse’s assistant and has a second part-time job” So in this case (as a republican minded person) I say that this is not on President Biden, not even on former president Trump. You see this is the consequence of having a $34,000,000,000,000 debt. As such businesses are taxed and as I see it, annually any administration will have to come up with $680,000,000,000 in interest alone. In 2023 the USA received (or allegedly received) $4,440,000,000,000. This implies that 15% of all taxed income goes towards interest on the outstanding debt and I have merely set that to 2%, Now consider that all costs that the government pays for is now down graded by 15% (more likely a higher percentage as the interest is also higher than 2%). Now consider that dairy, bread, meat and other options do not get incentives anymore (or at least a lot less). So there two items alone will be a lot more expensive. Then there is the operations of shops. It goes around again and again and that sets the price in many ways. There are more elements, but I am not privy to them. I warned on this several times over the last 8 years. There was going to be a problem and now people are seeing this happen and that is the beginning of draconian changes. So as Stacey Ellis and others see this happen, they go into ‘blame mode’ but they are blaming the wrong people. This is a failing of the entire administration and it started with former president George W. Bush in 2001. Former president Bill Clinton was the last president where green ink was gracing the US books of accounting. In 24 years all presidents have been pushing the debt forward. There was no exit strategy, just the wishful thinking that ‘tomorrow would be a better day’ and now after 24 years it is close to over. Not just in the USA, Europe is in a near similar place. That is what China had been hoping for so as they set the pressure even higher by getting the better deals, the west and others see the unfolding of economic disasters. And I am no economist! So there is the setting that plenty of others (real economics) should have known this and should have pushed for changes and taxing the rich was never an option. When government overreach with their Credit Card for 10%-20% more annually, at some point the card decline point is reached and that is where we are now. The USA, EU nations and others are getting their cards declined. Banks aren’t able to extent loans and whilst some are creative to pass credits via other nations. The banks are realising that the game is almost over. They might have a few options left but that will depend on how creative they can get. For this (also my speculative view) I point at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank. Three banks in 2023 with failures. Yet the media never looked at the abundant government loans they had in their books, it was my speculative view that their bonds were an overreach. So else did Janet Yellen keep a close view? At this point we were given ‘US prosecutors probing collapse of Silicon Valley Bank’ which was March 2023 and after that? Nothing as I can tell, as such spokespeople for the SEC, SVB and the Justice Department declined to comment. That was more than a year ago. So why isn’t the media doing their job? These are all elements of a nation that is running out of money and they are afraid to give out the real deal. I get it, it makes sense but it also means that life in the USA will be getting more and more expensive and when small farmers are breaking with the usual trend and start merely supplying their villages and their ‘friends’ the game changes even further. The big players cannot make claims they downgraded small farmers too often so that will have increased pressures to life in the city. And before you classify that this does not matter, be aware that 90% are small farms in the US. So when they hold back 10% of their farmed good for personal settings prices will be driven up even further. There is a setting where the old times could come back. I remember in the 60’s that I went to the potato farmer in a small shop in the street. That time could be back and it will implode most supermarkets. The stage is almost there that the supermarkets will be too expensive for potatoes, vegetables, fruit, dairy products and meat. When that happens the implosion that it sets off will be seen all over the US, especially in the metropolitan regions. Europe will not be far behind that. 

They are all intertwined so the first one to go will push the others over the edge. And when super markets go, where will you get your shopping? I reckon that California will hold out the longest, but in the end they too will have a problem. For the EU nations, France and Germany will hold out the longest. The UK will hold out, but how they will fare is anyones guess. I reckon that London will be the larger problem. The other cities are closer to rural regions, but for them I cannot say how it will evolve. 

So whilst the BBC gives us the partial goods. We need to see that the Stacey Ellis is but an element of a much larger problem and the media had the information for the longest of times. So why did they not inform you? Which stakeholders were part of the problem? All questions that too many are afraid to ask about. 

Have a great day (Second issue in next story).

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October 22, 2023 · 19:08

The thin ice

We all know the expression, no skating on thin ice. Yet when you think of it, when was the last time you saw thin ice? We all hear it, but when did you yourself, with your own eyes see a case of thin ice? We tend to think it is a danger avoided, but when no one sees that danger, is it a danger? Don’t get me wrong, I am not doubting that thin ice exists, before ice is thick enough to carry our weights it will be thin ice. A lot of thin ice seeing is assumption. We see ice and we see no one else skating on it, as such we take it for granted that THAT part is thin ice. Hold on to that thought because I am about to give light to two very different articles.

Arab News
The first was Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2395561/business-economy) where we see ‘Saudi banks’ residential loans surge in August as apartments gain prominence’. This article seems nice, but when you read it we are given two parts. The first one is “Mortgage lending to houses, apartments and lands rose to SR7.14 billion in August from SR5.43 billion in July” This is a 30% rise in a month and that is huge. Now there are other factors on play like trends. How was that last year versus this year and a few other things, but 30% matters. In addition we are given “The increase in apartment financing by Saudi banks compared to house financing is due to the increase in prices of houses and private villas compared to the prices of apartments, which has made villas and houses unaffordable to average-income individuals,” and this comes from Talat Zaki Hafiz, an economist and financial analyst. There is the added “Notably, financing of houses still dominates Saudi banks’ new residential mortgage landscape, constituting a 70 percent share in August. While apartments comprised 25 percent of the pie, land financing held the remaining 5 percent.” It seems that the Saudi banks have things well in hand. We can also infer that people are in a better state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in a better state and the people are setting their lives accordingly. Now, this is speculative, but if the economy was really bad real estate would not skyrocket by 30%, so something is going right there. 

The Guardian
The guardian gives us a very different story in the UK (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/21/mortgage-debts-and-bust-firms-put-uk-banks-profits-under-pressure) there we are given ‘Mortgage debts and bust firms put UK banks’ profits under pressure’. Now we can argue that the UK has twice the amount of people and that is true, yet as I personally see it, banking is banking. If a bank has a certain margin, having twice that margin implies that bank is twice as rich. Now, I get it, it is not that simple, but read me out.

We are given “Bosses watched in horror as a mini-banking crash led to the collapse of a string of US lenders including Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and later Switzerland’s largest lender, Credit Suisse.” Here we have a problem, what I speculated all along and I saw one part revealed in April was “SVB had few traditional banking uses for the cash that piled up, it instead invested $91 billion in Treasury bonds and U.S. government agency mortgage-backed securities between 2020 and 2021. This brought SVB’s investments to roughly half its total assets.” You see, this was stupid greed and I warned in advance of it, more than once actually and the Guardian does not mention treasury bonds once, there is a whole engine spinning news and misdirecting news all over the media. The speculative setting is that owners of US treasury bonds will auto renew or lose a lot of money, so what would you do if you were the idiot relying on a 2% payday of $91,000,000,000? That amounts to a $1.87 billion payday. I would do the same thing, but these banks used their clients money to hedge that bet and the US government was eager to cater to that level of greed. I reckon that this is why Janet Yellen kept a close eye on this. In addition, I wonder how deep Credit Suisse was involved. 

Yet the setting is housing and “By July, the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage went to war with NatWest over plans to close his accounts at its private bank, Coutts.” Really? One account has that much impact? You see ‘Coutts bank boss quits in row over Nigel Farage’s canceled account’ some might see this as a joke, but for Peter Flavel the boss in question it is not a joke. There is something wrong with banking and banks all over the west. Don’t ask me what, but all these events are part of a larger problem, a problem that involves stake holders blending the message for banks and as I personally see it, the Guardian has been catering to these stake holders. It is highly speculative but even as this truth is given “Speaking to broadcasters Thursday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it “wasn’t right for people to be deprived of basic services like banking because of their views.” I think it wasn’t the views (alone). I reckon that some views opposing the current need is a larger setting and people like Farage could be able to spot that in the documentation handed to them, moreover certain banks have been skating on the thin ice for too long and at some point someone will sink through the ice. That is the danger of the thin ice. For the longest time the thin ice was an urban myth at best, because we never aw cases. But the British banks are in a spot of bother and people like Nigel Farage would shine a big light on that problem, better to get rid of these people and when banks do that, when banks do that to politically A-listers, how much trouble are they really in. You see in March 12th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/12/i-honestly-dont-get-it/) I raised a few questions regarding bonds and the eager beavers in the media never looked at that part, not the Times, not the Guardian, not any respectable newspaper as I personally see it. So why not? What trouble is America trying to pass over thin ice? What are we not told and isn’t that the duty of banks to inform their customers? I reckon that Saudi Banks are doing a lot better because they do not cater to anything else but their goals and the goals of THEIR customers. I could be wrong, but considering that we are left in the dark for over 6 months, all whilst Saudi banks are doing 30% better in a month implies something. It implies that they are doing something right.

 Enjoy the last day of the weekend, Monday is soon here, here it will arrive in less than 300 minutes.

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August 19, 2023 · 23:50

It started with television

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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July 12, 2023 · 02:13

One voice is still a voice

I made mention of this all over June. The production cuts that Saudi Arabia set out to do would have impact. Some called me stupid, most ignored the issue. Yet Bloomberg gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s Oil Production Cuts Are Quietly Starting to Bite’ (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-oil-production-cuts-105634851.html), as such you need to consider. Not merely that I was right. The larger setting is that this is only one week into the new amounts and it is starting to bite. So how will the setting of less oil be in a month time? And before you know it North America and Europe enter autumn with all the heat they require at that point. We are then given “Brent oil traded in London had been stuck around the $75-a-barrel mark for weeks. That shifted a little Friday, when the contracts rose to about $78, a level they have largely held at since.” A setting we get and understand, but as the supply landscape is redefined, that price cannot be held and I reckon that in a month time it will hit the $90 mark and after that it gets nasty in a hurry. And there is an additional quote that matters. We are given “In the latest move, at least two processors in Asia sought less from the Saudis for cargoes shipped next month, and another said it won’t take any cargoes after an unexpected price increase.” This sounds nice on paper, but when we have 15 processors al vying for the 1 million barrels out there, at least 5 will have no oil to process. It is simple math and at that point the item of sulphur content will not hold much water. And whilst people are shouting where is our oil, I see a group of people that forgot that Saudi Arabia is building a new refinery in China which will gobble up almost a million barrels a day and China who got the deal with a clause accepting that payments are in Yuan is slightly too happy and when Europe (America and Canada too) realise that the reduction in oil is permanent and that China is now in a stage with loads of oil to fuel their economy. That is the point when people realise that they are losing a lot more than they bargained for. If only the US hadn’t pissed of Elon Musk to the degree they had. Yet this is about oil and not about batteries. The simplest setting is that this ‘biting’ is happening after less than 2 weeks into the reductions. So what will be the case in 4 weeks? Is someone considering that Janet Yellen had a portfolio of begging prescriptions towards China? I have no idea where this will end, yet I remember the ‘carless Sundays’ in the Netherlands in 1973. We might have that soon enough and now all over Europe and optionally America too. In 1973 it was fun. I got to test my roller skates on the A27 (a Dutch highway) which extension past Hilversum was brand new and I got to test that tarmac and not a car in sight, good times. Yet now it will be different and I reckon that the economic image will change for a lot of nations. It will not be a simple ‘lets add some money we do not have’. Now several members of the EU will be waging some kind of personal war to get the oil they all need. And I gave fair warning around two years ago. And it was not rocket science, it was simply based on the old premise ‘do not bite the hand that feeds you’ and that is how the escalation wth the UK (and their CAAT) and the US with whatever premise they thought they had and now they all want oil that they are denied. It sucks to be them soon enough.

It might be quietly biting now, but in 4-8 weeks it will not be quiet and when Europe (as well as the US) enters winter that setting will not be a nice one.

Enjoy the almost middle of the week.

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July 8, 2023 · 19:05

The pot saw the black kettle

Yup, we all see that at times. We see the good, the bad and the opposite. And as such the media is all about giving us a partial story. Still this is not always on them, I get that. So when I saw Reuters giving us ‘Yellen criticises China’s ‘punitive’ actions against US companies, urges market reforms’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/yellen-urges-china-adopt-market-reforms-insists-us-not-decoupling-2023-07-07/) my very first thought was “Is she for real?” 

Thi is a setting that started years ago with the US riling up support AGAINST Huawei. We saw the dozen countries all going against Huawei. The larger station is not that they went up against Huawei, the bigger part is that NONE OF THEM ever gave us ANY evidence that Huawei was a security risk. This is not me being pro Huawei or being pro China. This is me being pro evidence and we were never given any evidence. One case (that was settled) in 2010 is all we got and all the stories were laced with ‘could/‘ and ‘might be’. Cisco was the same danger but no one spoke out, not even when Cisco had its set of security issues. These things happen. Yet the US is still operating its set of systems. There is GARLICK, LADYLOVE, MOONPENNY, JACKKNIFE, TIMBERLINE, STELLAR, IRONSAND and that list goes on for a while. Yet China is the big evil and no evidence is clearly presented. 

So now we get “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on Friday for market reforms in China and criticised its recent tough actions against U.S. companies and mineral export controls, while China’s premier called on her to “meet China halfway” and put bilateral relations back on track.” I t3end to say, either stop the anti-Huawei stages or present actual and FACTUAL evidence that Huawei is a national security issue. There is close to nothing else. And as for the ‘mineral export controls’, well there might be a reason China needs them, there is also the case that stopping Huawei without evidence comes at a price and it seems that the mineral export is part of that price. So whilst the world is seeking for gallium and germanium (the second one is not found in Germany) the US needs to realise that their stance as a bully comes at a price and now that these prices are set in the open, the US doesn’t get to say “meet China halfway”. It intentionally destroyed the Huawei 5G wave because Americans were too stupid to take the lead in 5G technology and counter what was out there. Even I have 5G IP that the US (and others) do not have. All because the fat cats were lazy in an age when China became a true innovator. As such, as we are told “a technology war with the United States and potentially causing more disruption to global supply chains” the setting is not incorrect but not complete. You see these two substances are decently rare and China has the largest load. The US cannot claim the amounts from Japan or the UK (Or France, or the EU) as such they are in a bind and this is what comes with the bully tactic we have seen these last 5 years. Gallum is a different story. I have no precise numbers, but China is not the largest exporter, it apparently is Brazil with the US in second place. But I reckon that the two together will set a larger station and yes it comes from China. So as we consider “Yellen met with Premier Li Qiang on Friday during a visit to Beijing aimed at repairing fractious U.S.-Chinese economic relations, but made clear in her public remarks that Washington and its Western allies will continue to hit back at what she called China’s “unfair economic practices.”” As unfair economic practices go, 11 years ago we were given “A 2012 White House-ordered security review found no evidence that Huawei spied for China and said instead that security vulnerabilities on its products posed a greater threat to its users. The details of the leaked review came a week after a US House Intelligence Committee report which warned against letting Huawei supply critical telecommunications infrastructure in the United States.” I reckon that with leaked their own stables are in order? In addition to that, the stage is escalating and now we see that as shortages of Gallum and Germanium imply that there is a danger to US National security, with their stockpiles having no reserves left. As such I have a two set mind. Janet Yellen as the champion for bullies should not talk about “market reforms”. On the other hand, I am not claiming that China is innocent. I want to see evidence that they are not and so far going back at least 5 years, the US and the EU NEVER presented this. This is the station we face and as I personally see it Janet Yellen is the new US version of Don Quichotte and China is the next windmill. And as I see it, the stage that STC and Saudi Arabia is embarking on, the shortage that the US faces in Germanium and Gallum implies that the lag that the US faces will close to exponentially increase during late 2024. This is a setting that was to some unexpected, but the Reuters article gives us a list of people and they are all monitoring the supply. This implies to me that the setting is not as good as some make it out to be and it sets a different stage for the UK and France. As the US shortages increase it will stage a takeover of these suppliers by the US a lot stronger and faster than anyone had foreseen. This is (as I personally reckon)  a station of close to exponential danger to these nations. It might be the reason why Janet Yellen was send and not some one form the US State department. Did no one consider that question? Why was Janet Yellen send? It is pure speculation on my side, but I reckon that Premier Li Qiang is having a great time. It might be the first time he is talking from a position of great strength, but I could be wrong here.

What a weird weekend this is, enjoy yours.

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May 12, 2023 · 00:17

Spend, spend, spend

Yes, that can be seen as spending three times over. We are of course referring to the debilitating debt the US has and now it is about to cost them a lot, in the larger stage this has had my attention for some time, but today three articles brought it to the top (yet again). The first one comes from the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/debt-ceiling-us-scrap-1.6836090) where we see ‘The U.S. debt limit is again stoking fears across the globe. Why not just scrap the thing?’ There are of course several answers to that part, but it is ““I don’t think there’s any reason to have it exist anymore,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who is the current president of the right-wing think-tank American Action Forum.” I think that Douglas has been sniffing the alternative Gatorade. You see, if there was no reason to have credit limits, I would take out a $50M loan with my IP as collateral and move to Dubai. Have a nice one floor apartment and live of the rest with $300K a month at my disposal until the day I die. The reality is that we all have credit limits and most of us have a credit limit that is in the basement. As such nations and governments have limits as well. It is the idea that Americans think they do not have one, but that is a false assumption. It might have had a delusional ring of truth when they were a super power and when they had all the innovations, but they first off shored the knowledge they had because the board of directors had more bonus options, but they are now either retired or mostly dead. Now India has that power, now Saudi Arabia is the innovative player and now China is about to become the one true superpower. All negative things for the US, but this is what they wanted and they shunned Saudi Arabia too often and now they lose them as an ally as well. The one player that really has all the cash is shunned. Well done America! In the mean time spending went on and it was catered to by people who have close to no ash in the first place. Now the Fortune 100 have less American companies and several of them have a spin on what they really own. The largest players who really have things are Google, IBM, Amazon and Adobe. The rest are wannabe collapsing entities. There is Netflix, but they will be in turmoil for at least a year and there is no way to tell how they are pulling through. Facebook is under the gun and they are about to lose another segment, in the meantime Meta is nowhere near ready. 

So off to article two, this is Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us-debt-standoff-overshadows-g7-finance-leaders-meeting-2023-05-11/) giving us ‘US debt standoff overshadows G7 finance leaders’ meeting’, which could be true. You see, Japan is in deep waters, optionally too deep, but that requires financial knowledge I do not have, what I think is the case, is that they are too deep in debt and when the US goes, so does Japan. The 7 nations are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Italy and France are already in deep waters, in part of the overspending my Mario Draghi, in part of a slowing economy. The UK has its own set of troubles which basically leaves Canada and they cannot hold the fort by themselves but that is the group that is in some kind of meeting and the conversation to raise the debt ceiling is a farce, they all know that the US is fighting of shadows of their former selves all alone, all because no one was willing to do something about overspending and they are decades too late in overhauling their tax systems. All these small issues line up to a setting where there is soon an America defaulting on ALL their loans, bonds collapse and that also pushes Japan over the edge. The Reuters article also gives us “U.S.-China tensions also cloud the outlook for the global economy that is already under pressure from signs of weakness in the world’s second-largest economy China.” This is a stage that I find debatable, from my point of view (optionally not a correct one), the Chinese economy is already surpassing America and now that they have the stage for the Middle East with larger venues into Saudi Arabia, they surpass America. The fact that Saudi Oil can now be bought with Yuan is the one push America never needed and never really could handle. With Saudi Arabia about to launch their own version (in English) of Al Jazeera will mean that advertisers have an alternative to Fox and CNN and when that channel branches out to Indonesia, Egypt, Bangladesh and India, the numbers will vastly surpass 500,000,000 viewers. In this I didn’t even consider Pakistan at present. As such where do you think Advertiser will go? America pushed the wrong buttons for years and now their birds are roosting in other nests. The third is also Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/yellen-warns-us-default-would-threaten-global-economy-undermine-us-leadership-2023-05-11/) giving us ‘Yellen warns US default would threaten global economy, undermine its leadership’ where we see “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday urged Congress to raise the $31.4 trillion federal debt limit and avert an unprecedented default that would trigger a global economic downturn and risk undermining U.S. global economic leadership” in this I personally believe that the US hasn’t been a real economic leader for some time. It started just before the age of Trump as the US learned that they could no longer afford the things they were doing and now these accounts are all coming up empty all at the same time. So at the end we are given “Yellen said Republican brinkmanship on the issue amounted to a “crisis of our own making” and that just the threat of a default could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. government’s credit rating, as occurred during a debt ceiling fight in 2011.” I personally feel that this is totally bogus, the issue was overspending and both sides of the isle were doing that and both sides were doing that. In addition they alienated the one player who was loaded, the rich relative was made a pariah and that didn’t sit well with that relative. This is why I approached them with my IP. I feel better when someone with the cash pays for my IP than the fakers who have a maximised credit card, implying I would be without cash for too long whilst they walk away with my multi billion dollar IP. I will not allow Microsoft anywhere near it, as such I would have no issues selling it to Tencent Technologies (with a few attached clauses mind you). And I have reason. A clear solution that could have given Google and/or Amazon billions was shunned by them giving me the excuse to go wherever I needed to go to get my golden retirement. And they connect. You see, they are all about contracting economies, all whilst innovation will go where there was no one and in my case in several cases there was no one, only in one case there was someone (Gucci), but they are only on one side of one IP I had and I had several other venues connected to it, optionally to android phones as well. And you see that same issue here. We see ‘raise the debt ceiling’ whilst 4 presidents did not stop overspending, it was not an issue and now as they lose tens of billions in industries that are all headed for China, they are all up in arms with “Yellen wants G7 debate on restricting investment to China”, just like the Huawei issue and we never were EVER given any evidence regarding Huawei. That is the effect of a bully who lost whatever innovation they had to players who were truly innovative and now they are running out of time, they are running out of fairway and they have nothing left. Two elemental parts were ignored for too long the first was overhauling their tax system, the second was overspending and in 2011 the point of no return was reached, both Democrats and Republicans worked together in making that happen and China merely waited for it to collapse and that is now about to happen. Will there be another raise? I cannot tell, but this is not enough, after this one another one will come and that is how this game is being played, almost like bluffing in Omaha poker, the issue is that bluffing is too dangerous and can often fall flat, for someone to think that they can bluff for this long is a new level of delusion. 

No matter what, we are about to find out how much longer the US can play that game and they returns to the stage of tax the rich, another delusional setting, which by the way works out well for Monaco, the Bahamas and Dubai to name but three where the retiring rich could go to actually enjoy their cash. 

Enjoy your day unless you have a PacWest Bank account, at that point you are decently screwed at present.

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April 8, 2023 · 00:07

It has holes

There are a number of issues with banks, the latest one is the one I left alone initially. It was the Credit Suisse – UBS issue. 

The initial issue are the holes, like a Swiss cheese, it has holes. In the cheese it is accepted as it is part of the process. But with banks? How many holes can we allow for? Now, the ice is thin here. I am not an economist and I am no banking person, So what do I know? Well, I know infrastructures going back to my Intelligence days, I have seen companies getting gobbled up and in some cases for all the wrong reasons, you see those parts were on paper pleasing, but the reality of it was that reality bites and that is when you feel like a Japanese guy gobbling up a live fish. That is seemingly OK, until the fish eaten is a piranha and it starts eating you from the inside out.

So lets get back to the first article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65177258) where we see ‘Credit Suisse investors angrily confront bank as chairman says sorry’. There we see Ulrich Korner in some stage of apathy. He reminded me of a Dutch political comic in one of their newspapers (a long time ago) where we see “When we get to item 4, it would be best if at least one of the board members start crying”. It felt like a farce, a joke for the stockholders who are about to lose a lot more than they bargained for. The text the BBC gives us is “The loss-making bank had already been struggling for a number of years after a series of scandals, compliance problems and bad financial bets. Mr Lehmann told investors at the Annual General Meeting that management had a plan to turn things around but had been “thwarted” by fears prompted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US.” I personally feel like this is misdirection. I personally believe that the US bond issues are stretched on several fronts and as I wrote in previous articles, how did Credit Suisse stock up on the Basel III front? What was the safety gap? It is my personally belief that there was close to none (or at least a lot too little), and now Credit Suisse will be removed and their banks will hoist the UBS logo soon enough, especially with the scandals and bad bets that were made. 

Yet that same day, the Irish times (at https://www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/2023/04/05/ubs-chair-says-credit-suisse-integration-will-take-up-to-four-years/) shows us ‘UBS chair says Credit Suisse integration will take up to four years’ that is for banking in these volatile times a massive risk to take and it is not taken lightly, as such I believe that people like Janet Yellen would have been on the phone with a few people. When the American bonds go, the US economy will go and I reckon they will take the Japanese and EU economy into the abyss with them. It is a personal view and I have nothing to prove it with, but the weak response from the media implies that these sources got told to play it cool or face consequences. It is a speculation, but when we take the view I had in the past on Shareholders and stake holders, I belief that I am decently correct and it is a personal view after all.

The Irish Times also gives us “Even with downside protection in the form of government support, there’s a “huge amount of risk in integrating these businesses,” Mr Kelleher, who is from Cork, said in prepared remarks for the bank’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.” The setting is that UBS is getting the bank for three billion Swiss francs. One source tells us “How much a company is worth is typically represented by its market capitalisation, or the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. Credit Suisse Group net worth as of April 06, 2023 is $2.76B.” When we see other sources we get “Total assets CHF 531 billion and Total equity CHF 45 billion” this was last year and they have a little over 50,000 staff. I reckon that the bosses there are working on their resume and I would suggest the word ‘scandal’ is written correctly, because involvement in sandal does not go over well in the financial sector. And when you see these numbers, it is all sold for 3 billion? And we see no serious questions from any media. 

So what is left of the assets? What are the bond numbers and total value per nation of bonds acquired. There is no insight of that. Just like the meltdown of 2008 no one is to blame and the US is fixing the carper so that it can hide more dirty laundry. So how long until the people realise that their economy is largely based on an empty egg shell? 

The Irish Times also gives us “Shareholders will receive one UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares held” this implies a mere 4.44% of value return for the shareholders, yes their value goes up butt this level of saturation is an issue and I reckon that more banks will follow at some point. Banks will become bad investment for the tax write off and the shareholders will lose out. Don’t get me wrong, I have no real sympathy for them, this is the outcome of shares and stocks. Sometimes you lose. But we need to look back to 2012. In the Netherlands we saw ‘SNS Reaal mulls bad bank for property operations’ (source: Reuters), it was their too big to fail operation and the people were not happy, it was a setting of real estate that was just beyond believe and now we get a similar setting but now it is not real estate, it is banks that are the bad investments and how many of them are holding bonds? The fact that the media never properly investigated this implies that I am a lot closer to the truth than even I am happy about. 

And the last part is giving us ““I understand that not all stakeholders of UBS and Credit Suisse are pleased with this approach,” Mr Kelleher said. “However, all parties, and in particular the Swiss authorities, considered this solution the best of all available options.” – Bloomberg” yes that sounds good, but I have a list (and that is just the Credit Suisse naughty list).

US tax fraud conspiracy, 2014, 2023
Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, 2015
Mozambique secret loans scandal, 2017
US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation, 2018
Climate controversy, 2018
Espionage scandal, 2019 (debatable issue)
Greensill Capital, 2021
Archegos Capital, 2021
Forex manipulations conviction, 2021
Drug money laundering scandal, 2022
Suisse secrets leak, 2022 (debatable issue, I still believe it was an NSA activity)
Russian oligarch loans documents destruction after invasion of Ukraine, 2022
Social media rumours, 2022 (debatable)

So 10 issues and 3 debatable issues, but the debatable issues do leave a mess at the front door of Credit Suisse. In all this Credit Suisse is walking around without clean hands, and the hands must always be clean. So does that warrant a CHF 550 billion downgrade? I honestly d not know and there is debate on some of these sources. I get that there will be differences in sources, but this much? This does not make sense, but it makes a lot more sense when we consider where the priority of Janet Yellen is and it is not the bank, it is the USA. Taking her away from the issues and letting it all be phrased by Bloomberg is not acceptable, not in the least. As Baby Herman states “This all smells like yesterday’s diapers”

As I personally see it, this bank issue has holes like we see in Swiss Cheese. 

Have a great day!

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January 28, 2023 · 20:51

Some hypocrisy

I saw the news earlier this week and I kinda shrugged it off. In the end it was about “Djokovic’s father was photographed with the Putin supporters after his son’s quarter-final win over Russia’s Andrey Rublev.” I cannot judge this part as I did not see how it all happened. This is important for a few reasons. And the idea that his father has to watch it on TV is a bit of an issue for me.

You see to get that part of the equation, you need to learn something. Yesterday I was given ‘Why are so many Western companies still doing business in Russia?’ by the Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (at https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-are-so-many-western-companies-still-doing-business-in-russia/) here we see “The study identified 1,404 companies headquartered in EU and G7 countries with a total of 2,405 subsidiaries in Russia before its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Only 120 of these companies, or 8.5% of the total, had ‘exited’ at least one of their subsidiaries by the end of November.” So where is your outrage now? Why is the media not hounding these players? Actually, why is the media not hounding these players? You have a go at some father whilst we see that the bulk is selling their wares in Russia, what a bunch of cowards you are. So 90% is still filling their pockets and I actually do not care what they are selling, they are supporting the Russians and their war efforts, so here is my message for Ukraine’s Australian ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko who stated that “Tennis Australia should ban Srdjan Djokovic for “such a disgrace’’”. I have nothing against Vasyl and he has genuine beef with the Russians, so I get it. But I am PERSONALLY holding him responsible for investigating the media and why they are not all over these thousands of businesses who are still selling to Russia. I get that we are given “The researchers acknowledge that there are many sound reasons why companies might fail to withdraw. ‘A Western firm operating in a sector excluded from official sanctions may decide that it is inappropriate to abandon its Russian customers, who may have played no part in the decision to invade Ukraine or in the prosecution of the armed conflict,’ they wrote.” But is that enough? What do you think Vasyl Myroshnychenko? Is it enough? In this US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly called on the US business sector to strengthen the resilience of its supply chains by ‘friend-shoring’, or redirecting investment to allies. In the context of the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, she urged US businesses to pay greater heed to geopolitical realities. Which is also massively fair. Yet in light of the outburst that Vasyl Myroshnychenko gave us, I reckon he is now equally responsible to hand out outrage of these businesses still doing businesses with Russia and he needs to expose them all, because when over 1,000 businesses are still selling to the Russians, they are sure to miss out on the pressures that would force the Russian army to fall back. What do you say? Do you think I have a case here? I believe I do, but I am but one voice (so is Janet Yellen) should more be done? I will let you decide on that and decide what you should do to make is harder on Russia, even if it is for the simple reason to give Paddington bear time to eat his marmalade sandwich.

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December 14, 2021 · 00:50

When is limelight a void?

I stumbled upon an article be Al Dia Politics. A source I do not know, but I saw something that reflects on my findings. The article (at https://aldianews.com/articles/politics/what-happened-revelations-pandora-papers-latam/68469) gives us ‘What happened to the revelations of the Pandora Papers in LATAM?’ My first feeling is ‘What Revelations?’ You see, the ICIJ and everyone parroting them is a group of emotional flamers, flamers never bring revelations, they merely say they do and then spin that shit, they always do. So when I see “After the results of an investigation last October revealed tax havens for the world’s most powerful, after-effects have been null and void.”

As I see it there are two reasons

  1. There was never a summary of who was involved, it is merely a beacon to flame things as many flames as possible, especially by these essay writers (aka journalists). 
  2. Were there any crimes committed?

These two give an inkling that there was nothing to act on. The stage is that zero tax havens are legal, the UAE, Monaco, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Andorra, Bahrain and a few others are nations that have zero tax, it is their approach to make things run and attract investment dollars. They have a legal right to do this, it is the other nations that have not cleaned up their tax laws (including the US and several other nations). 

Why does this matter?
The US has a little over 24 hours before it hits its debt limit as per Janet Yellen’s statement. So I reckon it will take a day before the media will flame leagues of tax the rich articles claiming that they are merely reporting. It is also almost a month away since I made the claim 25 years ago that tax systems needed to be overhauled. So there are two reasons to watch this from the sidelines. A stage that I will enjoy because no matter how bad my situation is, I was right all along and when I checked certain counters, it seems that other documentation will hit here too, the counter is around 75% of where it needs to be. 

Then (back to the story) we see something that might be a revelation “It is important to remember that the names revealed by the investigation have been involved in the diversion of capital and the concealment of fortunes, which translates to tax evasion. Among those involved were Sebastián Piñera, president of Chile, and Guillermo Lasso, his counterpart from Ecuador, and their respective governments investigated them seeking to find evidence to remove them from office.” There is a chance that the Pandora papers were an CIA and NSA operation to secure funds for the US whilst changing the political lands they were facing. This matters because no government has ever done this to this degree. It could show that the US is truly desperate without pissing off their friends (like the Koch family), it also means that there will be no overhaul of tax laws making matters worse for them and perhaps two other players.

There is a larger political stage, but I am not the best source for that, especially in Latin America. But it also draws a few other settings, the fact that the ICIJ would make no attempts to find the source, this reeked and the ICIJ should have known better, because there is now the need for a list of 600 essay writers that catered to the US governmental needs, people never considered that part did they? And it helps the US to get flames rolling on their ‘tax the rich’ groups, especially when the need is escalating way beyond dire. And I am not one to be nice, especially to certain groups that think that they are above anything, so there will be a need for these 600 names soon enough and then? How much credibility will these newspapers and media outlets have when that comes to light?

We see all these articles on house meetings and investigations, but we see nothing on results and reporting of that nature. OK, the Guardian did have a piece where we saw in October regarding former Prime Minister Tony Blair “While there was nothing illegal about the transaction, and there is no evidence the Blairs proactively sought to avoid stamp duty”. A hole page of wasted space, mentions of ‘could’ and no substance. And in all these months no dashboard (something I would have started in the first hour), the limelight on void issues, no illegality and merely stomping and pretending. So, yet in a trove with 12,000,000+ documents, the CIA/NSA will have something for you, but is it stuff you care about? 

At this point I care about that list of 600 essay writers and the amount of money they cost whilst not bringing anything real to the media. I have actually met troll-hunters who got more real work done in one day that these 600 essay writers in months. Ponder that for a second. 

When the media is setting up the limelights to waste it on a void, you know that they are catering to a powerful population and we get no real information because that would make some people really nervous at present. So I am guessing that there will be a new wave of ‘tax the rich’ this month, all whilst the Us (EU too) have not overhauled any of the tax laws that required overhauling. What say you?

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