Tag Archives: Leonardo

April 28, 2025 · 12:09

Is it reality?

That is the question I am faced with as I saw the article at CBC which I cannot continue as CBC screwed up its site giving us advertisements every inch of the article, as such Brodie Fenlon clean up your freaking site, and fire the idiot responsible for this. Yet the BBC came to the rescue and gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2v37z333lo) ‘Trump deep sea mining order violates law, China says’ in earnest, that article is three days old and I preferred the CBC article as it shows a little more clearly how desperate America has become for funds. I reckon that the interest on 36 trillion of debt is gnawing on the bones of America, more prevalent that gnawing has gone beyond the bones as it is starting on the bowels of America. The BBC article gives us “Donald Trump has signed a controversial executive order aimed at stepping up deep-sea mining within US and in international waters. The move to allow exploration outside its national waters has been met by condemnation from China which said it “violates” international law.” I tend to agree with China, but merely as it allows a setting where the desperate poor countries who cannot counter America and these nations are left with baubles. A setting they learned from the slave traders around 1768. You have to hand it to trump. He is giving the old scriptures a chance to prove themselves. The issue I partially have a problem with is “The administration estimates that deep-sea mining could boost the country’s GDP by $300bn (£225bn) over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs”, in the first there is no clear setting for the $300,000,000,000 revenue. If they ‘mine’ in a few wrong sports, the price if mining and the revenue of staff will cost them an easy $50,000,000,000 which implies a lost revenue base of 16%, the second part is that these jobs are mostly given to people they just evicted. Only the higher levels will get a nice dime, the rest will be done by Americans who didn’t want the job anyway and that breeds errors and often mistakes. A non-committed employee screws up the daily routine a lot more than you are happy with and that will be dozens of people. The part that I never gave the right attention is seen in ““The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,” he added in a statement released on Friday.” The he in that quote is Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, a US-based environmental group. The fact that Jeff merely got one quote implies that he has a whole lot more to say and I wonder if we will ever see that part of the equation. The larger setting is that America is now ready to start bullying its way through international waters. So what will they call those who want to intervene on their waters (or too close to it), will they suddenly be branded pirates? A larger setting that America has lost the plot and I warned for this a decade ago. Deal with your debt unless it deals with you and that seemingly seems to be happening now. It also opens a new setting. These little nations will now be ready to side with China, which is another headache for America. And that setting will give China (as a protector or these nations) an options to scuttle these miners. So $300 billion largely lost and American lives lost (at present no one cares about those). Now we get the added cost of these mining platforms and as such America gets into deeper waters.

So the end of the BBC article gives us “A recent paper published by the Natural History Museum and the National Oceanography Centre looked at the long term impacts of deep sea mining from a test carried out in the 1970s. It concluded that some sediment-dwelling creatures were able to recolonise the site and recover from the test, but larger animals appeared not to have returned.

The scientists concluded this could have been because there were no more nodules for them to live on. The polymetallic nodules where the minerals are found take millions of years to form and therefore cannot easily be replaced.” As such we have a (non proven) stage for the desperation of Americans. This was shown half a century ago. And the fact that America is willing to ignore “larger animals appeared not to have returned” as well as “polymetallic nodules where the minerals are found take millions of years to form and therefore cannot easily be replaced”. As I personally see it, to ignore these two facts implies that America doesn’t care (or cares less) about marine life and that it will act like a carrion eater in regards to the ocean floor and take now what needs millions of years to form whispers (to me) that America is decently beyond broke and it falls to President Trump to default the larger part of 36 trillion of debt. I’m pretty sure that I made mention of that chance in the past and as I am likely proven right yet again, the question becomes why didn’t economics signal clear levels of dangers? The news now, as the Times writer (and American economist) Irwin Stelzer gives us that the economy of America is in rather good shape. So is it really? Please give us the goods on how America is doing well? It might be that the America Economy is seemingly hanging tough, but they lost billions of revenue all over the field from retail to defense contracts. They might be in denial, bit as I see it only two years ago we would never have seen ‘Italian defence and aerospace giant Leonardo has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ a mere three months old. So how much did America lose here? I cannot set the valuer of that contract, but the quote “multiple areas of collaboration to include space industry, airframe MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul), localisation of electronic warfare systems and radars and assembly of helicopters, a focus on Combat Air and Cross-Domain Integration fields, industrialisation processes and human capital development, national supply chain in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the country’s role for Leonardo in the region as well as the global value chain.” (Source: www.leonardo.com) leaves me to believe that it is a serious amount of money, now add the new European slices and with the tariffs the loss of America is now on a threshold to fuel a larger recession than ever speculated on before, the larger players (read: Bloomberg) set this chance at the moment at 40%, as America scuttled their own retail houses (like Walmart) of cheaper goods, they need to continue without the goods, you might think it is nothing, yet 1% of the American population works there, now take out the thousands of shoppers (read: immigrants) and that 2025 revenue of US$680.99 billion will topple by at least 10%, 30% if they are not careful and what remains of that Net revenue of US$19.436 billion? You see, they either fire a whole lot of them or lose close to 40% of their business. These are personally considered numbers, so I might be wrong here to the amount of loss, but not the intention of loss and this is merely Walmart. There are several other chains facing this setting. So how good is that shape of the economy?

I wrote a few years ago that we need to see where all these bonds are, no serious journalist ever looked into that matter it was the time around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. I wondered how the could have happened and it was a much bigger thing. The acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS gave me pause to ponder, I figured that several banks had over swallowed on bonds which left them not dissolvent, but left their funds largely frozen as such I speculated that Credit Suisse and SVB had too many bonds and at that time the loss of value of these bonds were crippling them. At present no one really looked at this, even to debunk my train of thought and now we also see some are selling their debt of the US. The BBC touched on that on April 10th (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yrr0e7499o), so feel free to think I am crazy (always a decent stance to have) but there is ruffling in the economic oceans and the stage that the economic times are decently horrendous is not a bad thing.

I just thought of something, did America rename the Gulf of Mexico for mining purposes? Now a bad stance, if it not for the tiny fact that the Bermuda Triangle is there too, as such how many mining platforms will operate in that region and what remains a few weeks later is anyones guess. Just me having fun with the situation. 😛

Have a great day and feel free to enjoy a coffee, it leaves you with a warmer feeling than a US bond at present will.

Dopey and Grumpy, still dwarves

That is the setting and it is a strange setting, but it relates to ‘When it rains we call the kettle black’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/11/when-it-rains-we-call-the-kettle-black/) which I wrote two days ago. Yet I did not know there was more, and just now I come across ‘Saudi Arabia demanded defense firms set up in country by 2024. So far, most seem unmoved’ (at https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/saudi-arabia-demanded-defense-firms-set-up-in-country-by-2024-so-far-most-seem-unmoved/), to be honest, I had heard some stuff in that direction, but I was unaware of how deep it went, and now I see “as long as it is related to the government contracts, they will have to have their regional headquarters here”, with the added “analysts said that the biggest players appear confident they can find workarounds — including the use of local partnerships and subsidiaries, as they’ve done in other countries — to keep the market open” and there the stupid factor comes into play. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had enough of fake allies, fake commitments and now China is ready to make commitments and as the KSA is moving towards the 2030 mark of 50% in country defence and China is willing to play nice, the US is set to lose a whole lot of revenue. So there is your workaround, greedy and stupid working in cahoots like Grumpy and Dopey, both sides of a currency that has no meaning where they are, it is the sales prospects that counts and they are giving it all to China. You can only be the biggest player if you sell and there were markers for sale events and now there is a clear understanding in strategic papers no less that China is moving into sales column A. So when we think through what Breaking Defense gave us on December 8th, the US better realise that the age of pretending to do something and doing something else as a workaround is ending and it is ending really quickly. So when we see the larger players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Leonardo, Thales, and General Dynamics. What happens when the representative $27,000,000,000 goes to China? Twenty Seven Billion no longer to the US, the dollar will take another dive and more importantly, the design of their stealth planes required some Saudi Funds, when they go to the Chengdu J-20, the impact will be seen all over the US, EU and NATO. I made mention of these dangers as early as September 2021. The fact that some American Fat Cats were playing stupid with a customer paying billions is a little new, but there is no surpassing the union of stupid and ego, it makes for a nice package, one that China could be enjoying a lot more than they figured on. And there is a chance that the strategic union between Saudi Arabia and China will go that far. Not only will the US lose their Middle East stage, they will in that same action lose whatever benefits they had in Egypt as well. And just to remind you on a speculative side. If China buys in this deal 2 million barrels a day from the American stack, the US is in deep manure. It does make the grass grow in Texas, but that is pretty much all it does.

As such the last week has given us all kinds of revelations via several media sources. But the larger news is that State secretary Pompeo gives us ‘Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia a result of “bad American policy”’ and the bad news merely stacks. Yes Saudi Arabia is not squandering the connections with the US, their words and they are right. The US themselves are squandering it to China by playing chicken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to appease their ego’s, and that is what is clearly in place and will shown over the next 13 months. You see, there will not be any 11th hour changes, if these regional HQ’s are not in place by December 2023 China will end up with a massive chunk of Saudi defence spending. China is happy with it, will the US be? I doubt it, but they catered to ego, so there you have it. It does not matter who Dopey and Grumpy are, in the end they were merely dwarves and as I see it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is willing to make a large change and it will cost the US, it will cost them so much. I wonder how they will spin this loss, because at present that is exactly what it will become. A loss to their ally list, a loss to their economy and a loss of income. All handed to China for the mere satisfaction of ego. Government handed partnerships to players like Microsoft, Sony, Samsung and a few other players for the cumulative sum of a mere 1% of that, did you think the Saudi Government wasn’t keeping tabs? Silly bunnies!

Oh darn, I am missing out

Now to be honest, there was never much of a chance to begin with, but who would not want 3.75% commission, especially as it is based on a number amounting to billions. And as I said in several articles, the US is about to lose out on these billions. And guess what, after all the name calling I was handed (some are blindly accepting US stories that it will blow over), the setting given to us by Asia Times is ‘Saudi Arabia has a plan to buy fewer US weapons’, a mere 5 hours ago. It is supported by “Kingdom has launched an inward-looking strategy to develop its own defence industries with the help of foreign partners” (at https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/saudi-arabia-has-a-plan-to-buy-fewer-us-weapons/) in all honesty, this was always going to happen, but that industrial move was initially going to be US settings, now there is every chance that China gets to do this and that would imply losses into the hundreds of billions. The article gives us “Saudi Arabia has signed several Memoranda of Understanding between GAMI, the Ministry of Investment and UK-based Cranfield University. GAMI also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Italian defence manufacturer Leonardo to create and develop investment opportunities in education and train specialised military industries”, yet I believe that this setting is one that China relishes, as such whatever the west is thinking, be careful what you do next. You se, Cranfield themselves give us “A number of Cranfield graduates also hold leading roles in Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC) including the Head and the Chief Design Engineer of the China Gas Turbine division”, Is this where it will go? No, there is no data supporting this, it is based on the stages that we have seen all over the news and if Saudi Arabia decides to get their hardware from the BAE, I would be happy (as a Commonwealthian), I would still be a little sour missing out on the 3.75%, but that was never a given in the first place. And all this is not really news, the internal defence growth was at least 2 years old and it makes sense for Saudi Arabia to have its own military manufacturing complex. So we aren’t seeing anything news, other than the Italian involvement here. So whilst some will stare at “Cranfield is ranked 45th in the world for Aero, Mech, Manufacturing by QS rankings.” It seems to me that Saudi Arabia is making headway in this stage and that means that the US is in deeper trouble than it realises. The UK could avoid some issues if they can get a handles on the CAAT Tea grannies.

You see, over the next decade all nations need whatever revenue they can get and the UK is not out of the race yet, the question becomes what can they offer over China and that is a hard nut to crack, China has all kinds of advantages after the UK and US dropped the ball, and they did so several times in a row, so they are catering to a client (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) that has had enough of the games that some governments have been playing (as well as catering to Iran at the same time).

Saudi Arabia was always intent on growing its own defence solutions and I believe about 3-4 years ago mention of 50% by 2030 was stated and they are on track to do that. I believe that GAMI (General Authority for Military Industries) is roaring to get things going. And it seems that they are very serious to get it going, so it is up to the UK to find solutions that help them and not China. Personally I believe that the UK will have to sweeten the deal by a lot, but that is personal speculation. I do still believe that China has the inside track here, but that too is speculation on other sources, sources I never was able to vet.

And there is a second path here, I do believe that the longer term planning for Saudi Arabia implies that Egypt is a growing connection here, so if China wins that path, they could optionally have the advantage with Egypt and its $2,000,000,000 for 2022/2023. A setting that should cause concern in Washington. You see, if China takes over the $ 1.3 billion annually support from the US, the factional setting for the Middle East will change pretty dramatically. Even as the US is seemingly out with the Saudi Government, it is merely that seemingly. The US has a massive disadvantage especially when they were all huffy and puffy on Saudi Arabia, reality bites and that presentable stage will have to be stopped at the earliest convenience (not for me, I am happy if the BAE takes over), yet these stages (also the one the CAAT forced) are all stages that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took notice of and China will be happy to show that with every presentation they bring. So China might have the lead, but the UK is still in the race and that is good for the UK. The Asia Times is not bringing too much news, yet the fact that it is on the front of the media is always an optional sign that more will be coming soon enough.

Time will tell, and I reckon it is sooner rather than later.

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Filed under Finance, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as Asia Times, BAE, CAAT, China, Cranfield, GAMI, General Authority for Military Industries, Iran, Italy, Leonardo, Saudi Arabia, UK, US

December 12, 2019 · 13:49

Creation of the non-Humanitarian

It is a simple thing, according to many religions there are gods, in some cases they refer to the same being, yet there are two groups, the agnosts, they believe that there is something larger than all of us in the universe, but they are not sure about the name, the shape and where he or she is at. Then there are atheists, they categorically deny the existence of a stronger power and they have their reasoning in this. This happens and we shrug on people who are one or the other and we go on with our lives.

Now what happens when these two groups enter humanitarian sides?

There are then two groups, those who believe that there are humanitarian values to be found in some way but they have no idea what shape it takes and they will evolve into homo sapiens, the people that believe in self and ‘self’ alone. Weirdly enough these groups are created by human rights organisations. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/11/bae-systems-accused-of-being-party-to-alleged-war-crimes) give a visible rise to all this. Companies like the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) are creating these two new waves.

Apart from the denial of the reality of what is happening, we see that they are groups that are just flaky, the fact that they attack one arms dealer and then go in denial of what is actually happening is just too weird. How can we believe in some humanitarian approach of being in denial, whilst we know that an alternative is available next door? It is a one sided approach to being in denial, others can buy weapons wherever they like, except from us. What these people don’t understand is the fact that dealing with a nation like Saudi Arabia would open doors for talks, would open doors for optional resolutions. When we look at the War in Yemen we see two things:

At almost every turn we see the Saudi Coalition painted as a negative force
At almost every turn the actions of Hezbollah and Iran in the Yemen region was not reported on and ignored.

These two points do not make good bedfellows, they have polarised views and to up all that I placed an image (that came from the Guardian article at https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jun/20/uk-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-for-use-in-yemen-declared-unlawful) with the view of the CAAT that I saw mattered, the view of two suspected teachers and two grandmothers, none of them with a proper global view, all just out there to stop UK Economy and having no idea why they are there in the first place.

It seems like a harsh view, yet the problem that everyone ignored is that the weapons that Houthis fired came from Iran, forces came from Hezbollah and both are Iranian fueled, they get there weapons most likely from Russian sources (partial speculation).

So in all this, when we see people with such blinded agenda’s and no idea on the hard that they are instilling, how can we remain Humanitarian when we see such stupidity? I get it that there are people that are against the arms trade, yet at that point they are against ALL arms trade, that is fine, I get it some people hate weapons, so I am OK with that sentiment, yet the reality of Yemen is a lot more and to blatantly believe in #StopArmingSaudi without knowing what Iran and Hezbollah are up to is just stupid, it is like saying to the boy in the street, you should not defend yourself whilst he is being attacked by two bullies. I personally believe it to be a shortsighted view of pacifism. And I do not oppose Pacifism, The movie Mel Gibson ‘Hacksaw Ridge‘ shows us a real pacifist, he did not stay at home, he went to war as a medic and he did so without brandishing a weapon because of his views. A role beautifully played by Andrew Garfield. Now the world is no longer that simple, no longer that Black and White, Yet I wonder how those two teachers and those two grandmothers survive giving aid in Sanaa, even as they stopped BAE Systems, even as the achieved #StopArmingSaudi, when we see that Houthi forces are given new rockets and guns by Iran, whilst they are restocked by Hezbollah, will they survive with their narrow views? As we see that Houthi rebels are attacking aid workers, killing plenty in the process, none of those troops were supported by BAE Systems were they?

How can we live in such ways with a limited mind?

So whilst we read “BAE Systems is cited in the complaint because the British arms giant is the principal supplier of Eurofighter Tornado and Typhoon jet aircraft to the Royal Saudi Air Force, which has conducted a string of deadly strikes Yemen, as is the UK arm of Raytheon, which manufactures Paveway IV guided missiles used in the conflict“, the question becomes are these Humanitarians meely humanitarians or are they opposing Saudi Arabia, are the anti-Muslim? And when we see “It also references Airbus companies in Spain and Germany, France’s Dassault and Thales, Italian group Leonardo, the Italian arm of Germany’s Rheinmetall and units of European missile manufacturer MBDA in France and Britain. Dassault supplies fighter aircraft to the UAE” I get a chill wondering whether these people are merely there to give Iran a free pass to prolong the suffering in Yemen, because that is what they are achieving. So whilst we get emotional over “A child injured in a deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike in 2018“, all whilst we ignore the dozens of images that we see regarding the atrocities committed by Houthi forces all over Yemen, and that is not even the larger number of casualties committed by Houthi forces as they stopped humanitarian aid to civilian victims, that number goes towards 50.000 alone and will double by years end, in all this we seem to think that #StopArmingSaudi was the answer, all whilst the parties are ignoring the part that Iran plays in all this, any Humanitarian that is this short sighted is not a Humanitarian, they are merely part of the problem, that is the realisation that they need to make. I know they put on blinders and go with: ‘But what if we stop one, then the next, then the next‘ it is the ‘What If’ group of people that are the danger, this mess is a lot more complex than anything we know and there might be cause to interfere, but why not by having an international naval fleet who sinks ANY ship sailing towards Yemen carrying weapons? That too would have stopped the suffering to go on this long years ago. But that was not done, was it?

The reality of the matter is that BAE Systems was not a bad organisation, the Saudi Government was not evil, and the mess we see in Yemen is caused through an uprising supported by Iran whilst the legitimate government asked Saudi Arabia, their neighbour to intervene, Iran is not even on that entire landmass, and Hezbollah is 4 countries away and a terrorist organisation. Is it not interesting how all those elements were overlooked by Humanitarian organisations?

There are even more factors visible, but I believe that they will muddy the view, the important factors are out there now, including the idea that places like CAAT are a reason to stop having any humanitarian views at all, what we do not realise is the mere fact is that the Humanitarian ideals are supposed to be: “having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people. of or relating to ethical or theological humanitarianism“, what we see here is merely driving Corporatocratic ideals. Of course the people at CAAT will deny that this is so, yet their actions are very much driving corporatocratic ideals, just not in the UK. And when we see the one quote in the article when we read “arms made by 10 companies “contributed to the capacity” of the Saudi-led coalition in the conflict“, a stage where there is complete denial of the Iranian side of the matter, denial of the Hezbollah side of the matter, a stage that prolongs the armed conflict, we see the aside that opposes Humanitarian needs, we see a different side and the people all remain in denial, mainly because those two grandmothers looked so cute, two nana’s trying to #StopArmingSaudi.

It is nice to know that Iran and Hezbollah did not get mentioned in that ordeal, you cannot have a one sided humanitarian approach, that is perhaps the strongest side of all and the 50,000 cadavers in Yemen are proof of that.