Tag Archives: Mark Carney

June 10, 2016 · 23:19

Issues of weights and responses

We are forever weighted into a situation, we are always adjusted and often enough we are never one, but anywhere between 0.3 and 25.9. That is the consequence of market research. So when I saw the title ‘You’re wrong Michael Gove – experts are trusted far more than you‘, my initial worry was who these ‘experts’ are. The article (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/09/michael-gove-experts-academics-vote) has a few quotes that are funny to some, hilarious to others and all kinds of BS to another group. I reckon that none of them regard this to be reliable or trustworthy.

Why is that?

when you consider the quote “rarely in British politics has independent, impartial analysis been so necessary“, people might agree that it is a requirement, but whomever is behind those analyses are for the most all working for someone else’s agenda, which makes those claims equally pointless. Let’s illustrate this: “A separate Survation poll for British Future even found that 63% thought economists could be trusted“, the link is there, so let’s take a look.

The laughter should start at slide 2, where we see the question “which of the following best sums up your current voting intention?” the question might seem relevant and the percentages might look good, but the graph is a joke.

– What was the population of that survey?
That is a question that was never given, on none of these pages. It makes the entire paper look like an unreliable joke! A place like Ipsos MORI should know better! And perhaps they do, because they were named regarded another survey, this is done by I know not who. Is that not an interesting fact? I know that Ipsos MORI knows better, because some of them have been my students in the past (if they still work there).

– Were the results weighted and how?
None of these facts made it into that paper, making the results unreliable to the largest of degrees and in addition to that, the fact that the article does not give any clear indication on what is what gives additional reasons for worry.

The people at large are being duped by a media machine that seems to be more profitable to remain connected to the EU, as such, most media options will not give you any decent part of the facts and the truth. So, does this mean that Michael Gove is right?

I feel decently certain that is equally not the case. Most people, especially those connected to politics tend to take an approach towards ‘their’ goals! In that Michael Gove would be no exception. The media is a lot worse in this. It is my personal view that have kept people in the dark of events when it suited either them or their advertisers. How can that be reliable?

As for the ‘economists’, when this system falls apart, most of them will be without a job. As such, what will they preach you think? The older economists all know that no job equals retirements and many of them will soon thereafter no longer be riding the juicy gravy train. Once you have been on that one, we all would do whatever we can to remain part of it. In addition to that, when we look at the so called 63% part. The fact that the answers are Alan Sugar, CEO of a big company, Boss of a small business, a farmer, a fisherman and an economist are part of this is another matter. Was this for ‘light entertainment’, was it serious? If so, was the designer not entirely in a decent state of mind? It could be that these were the most significant groups, but that is speculation because the graph has so much missing information that the entire interpretation of it becomes matter of non-perspective. Just consider that these were the most significant groups, why is there no clarification on the graph? There is so much wrong here that it also makes me question the entire article by Anand Menon and Jonathan Portes. This might be an opinion article, but it is in the Guardian, the Guardian should have followed this up by the Guardian themselves. The fact that Anand is ‘labelled’ as ‘Anand Menon is a director of UK in a Changing Europe’ and Jonathan is labelled as ‘director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and former chief economist at the Cabinet Office’, so are they would be or wannabe politicians? The fact that they ‘rely’ on items from ‘Survation for British Future’ makes this all an issue, it should be an issue for all of you!

There is another quote that needs to be dealt with. The quote “the idea that academics are biased in their research because they get “EU money”. In our careers, we have conducted research funded – usually through competitive tender processes – by the EU, the UK government, companies and trade unions, and never been shy of telling any of them things that they didn’t want to hear. Our professional reputations depend on it” sounds nice, but we can agree that ‘academics’ with their papers regarding the economic viability of Iceland were accepted without question. The evidence was seen in the Oscar awarded documentary Inside Job (2010). It is one of the most visible pieces of evidence, but in no way the strongest one. Another piece of evidence is seen (at https://www.ifw-members.ifw-kiel.de/publications/the-financial-crisis-and-the-systemic-failure-of-academic-economics/KWP_1489_ColanderetalFinancial%20Crisis.pdf), with a clear abstract. Which in part is “The economics profession has failed in communicating the limitations, weaknesses, and even dangers of its preferred models to the public. This state of affairs makes clear the need for a major reorientation of focus in the research economists undertake, as well as for the establishment of an ethical code that would ask economists to understand and communicate the limitations and potential misuses of their models“. You see, a statistician, a politician and a barrister have something in common. They answer a very specific question. Their reaction to that specific question becomes their paper, which we saw in the Iceland situation. In case of the politician we have another element. You see, when the answer doesn’t suit them, they will change the question. That is where we are, we see answers, but the clear questions that leads to them is not in that presentation (or the numbers and weights).

It follows by a reversed psychology quote “if we were self-serving and intent only on personal enrichment, our interest would be very much in a leave vote. If auditors are those who “arrive after the battle and bayonet the wounded” it is professional economists and political scientists (not to mention lawyers) who would rake in the consultancy cash in the uncertain atmosphere of a vote to leave“, it is reverse psychology because the statement is quite the opposite of factual and Brexit could destabilise the Euro, after the UK, France is most likely to leave, which will push Germany out too. That is what they all fear, because when the Euro goes, the Dollar (the US currency) will take a massive dive, well over 30% of economists will be out of a job. There will be no funds for any in any of the so called ‘vulture’ industries. You see, what currency would the consultancy cash be in? There is a realistic danger that the US will lose well over 20% of its value, those who get out and move into their local currency would take no less damage, but after that, the only damage they would take are local based issues. The US with minus 19 trillion would have little option other than default on their loans. It would (speculatively speaking) drive debt from 19 trillion to 23 trillion almost overnight. The timeframe that this impact on is harder to calculate. You see, politically speaking Obama would want to stretch any event to the last day of his administration, so that the mess ends with the next administration, which is also speculation from my side. This would also impact the total US debt, which is speculated to be well over $60 trillion, but a clear reliable number is one I do not have at present.

All these factors will be impacted and Brexit will have a definite impact on all of it. Should you doubt that, do you think that the US president would have made the trip for some remembrance speech involving WW2? Brexit is the real nightmare Wall Street faces. If Brexit was a singular issue, it would not be that big a problem. Yet, that is the one part that is partially a given. You see, this is not a thought that just popped up. I wrote about this in May 2013 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/05/15/a-noun-of-non-profit/), in the article ‘A noun of non-profit‘, I voiced it as “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 is the danger Brexit poses. As governments and large corporations have been playing with safety margins, the three anchors will not be able to keep a clear stability. That will cause waves and the EU barge will start to shift all over the economic ocean, impacting all currencies linked to the Euro, the US dollar ending up being hit the hardest. It is a danger governments and economists fear, because their cushy lives will end. In that same frame academics are not equipped to deal with the aftermath. The abstract quote “the limitations and potential misuses of their models”, the question then becomes whether misuses of their models were intentionally allowed for. It is not an accusation, it is a question. I do not claim to have the answer, I am merely asking the clear questions a former chief economist at the Cabinet Office seems to be avoiding in his opinion piece and the Guardian is equally not asking questions on more than one level.

Are you starting to feel the breeze?

This is why I was initially on the Brexit side, I am still not convinced that Brexit is not the solution, but Mark Carney clearly pulled me away from the idea that Brexit is the only solution. It still might, but there will be consequences. You see I believe the UK debt to be manageable, to total debt that the EU is pushing the EU in is not a solution, other than that it takes pressure away from the American debt. Since when is Europe responsible for that? The US has not taken any responsibility for too many events from 2004 onwards. The EU is in another weak position, having one trading partner is one thing, when the US will have to deal separately with UK, Germany and France, these individual nations might get a much better national deal.

One part that remains a given is that there are no assurances. I believe the UK would stand up stronger after a few years and there will be hardship for that time, hardship for a lot of people, yet at present there is absolutely no evidence that the quality of life in the UK is improving, most models are speculative and after a year they end up showing to be inaccurate. That is also the side that requires additional addressing. Even though we should not act on our needs, it ends up what people do, economists and non-economists alike.

Which gives us the final quote “but if the public is better informed than it otherwise would be about one of the most important issues in this campaign, we’ll have done our job“, which is the one thing they did not do, basically they misinformed you, because the numbers without proper support of numbers are empty and pointless. You see, if the question was given to 2-3 thousand people it should not count towards the choice of 68 million people. Weighted, the chance of unbalanced clustering is too large to consider, meaning that these numbers should be regarded as highly unreliable. In my opinion, the article misinformed you, showing that everyone has an agenda. I can only personally state that I have no agenda and you would not be wrong to ignore that part. Believe me or choose to not believe me. I only hope that you will look at what is presented and question every part you see. Let’s take one more look to the initial evidence that the writers used. In the first (at https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-mori-business-and-brexit.pdf), the Ipsos MORI part. In the second (at http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-EU-referendum-and-public-trust_Survation-for-British-Future-2015.pdf). We can clearly see that the Ipsos MORI gives much better (being it incomplete) information. Slide 6 does show a nice part, Journalists and Politicians are at the bottom of trustworthiness. Yet without clear response numbers and weighting, this data is not reliable enough and the vote might take a different direction in the end. In my view, the power used here is to use the numbers to sway the undecided into the direction they want them to go, into the Bremain direction. Can I prove it? No!

But I am asking questions regarding this that those who should aren’t. I personally believe that makes my view more reliable, but I am biased here. Make sure you ask the right questions and it seems that there is nearly no one left to trust in this matter, isn’t that the saddest part of all in this?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as A noun of non-profit, Alan Sugar, Anand Menon, Bremain, Brexit, France, Germany, Inside Job, Ipsos Mori, Italy, Jonathan Portes, Mark Carney, Michael Gove, Survation, UK

June 3, 2016 · 23:09

The Wrong Question

Another day, another wave of news. To be more precise, more and more ‘news’ regarding the upcoming Brexit event. The vote that will impact Europe, the vote that will drive America nuts with fear and the question that is less and less about actual reasoning, especially as France is now moving towards a referendum too.

You see, the title Cameron says Brexit would be ‘economic self-harm’ might be correct, it might be to the point and it could certainly be a truth in itself. My issue is that my Conservatives are no longer thinking things through. Perhaps there are issues that they cannot address and as such the Brexit wave will grow and grow. You see, the Guardian might be all up and proud with the illusion of informing the public, but in that regard they are falling short.

So the title ‘Today’s briefing: what we learned from Cameron’s TV grilling‘ is equally disturbing, but does it give us actual information that the people in the UK can use to form an opinion which party (Brexit or Bremain) is the right one?

I feel that the answer to that question is ‘No!’, in addition the Scottish equation is pushing the matter even further out of balance. You see, the ‘grilling’ of David Cameron gave us the following quotes: “I think if we’ve learnt anything over the last six years, if you don’t have a strong economy you can’t have the health service that you want, you can’t have the schools that you need, you can’t have the public services you want, and this would be an act of economic self-harm of the United Kingdom doing it to ourselves” and the closing remark that is equally disturbing is “I’ll tell you what it would be like, we would be outside the room. The European Union doesn’t stop existing just because we’ve left.”

The latter one is no longer a given. Now that Frexit is gaining traction, Brexit becomes almost a given requirement. I do not think that this is a fair path, but when we see that Brexit is avoided and Frexit becomes a reality, the tables will turn on the UK in the nastiest of ways, as France will drive Italy out of the EU as well. Unless there is a clear call to action for the players in the UK, the start of non-Brexit, could push a Yea-Frexit voice, for the mere reason that France has pushed into a corner and Italy could act after that walking away from it all. If any of these nations Germany, Italy, France or the UK walks away, the remaining three will fall out of synch with the abilities to continue. For the UK Frexit would be a disaster as it would have to arrange special deals regarding the Euro tunnel, whatever gets shipped through there would have a nasty surcharge, in that regard, the UK would have to increase its bonds with the Netherlands a lot more tightly than it currently is to prevent export items to hit top prices plus.

Even if all rules remain open in an EU without France (which would be likely), a Le Pen government in Frexit mode would have large impacts on shipping anywhere via France, that part is almost a given and time is still money too. You see all this link to the Wrong Question, partially we see this when we look at ‘UK should stop ‘sitting back’ in EU, says Jeroen Dijsselbloem‘, you see, Jeroen Dijsselbloem is one party that has been sitting back for too long in a much larger way. The parties might hide behind the TTIP as the reason, but that joke should have been scrapped long ago. Together with the TPP, the US is becoming a business usurper. They might call it ‘legal’, but it is still the US now trying to push what they laughingly regard as ‘rights’ into a framework on unaccountability, beyond what we already regard as acceptable. That is the mere consequence of a former superpower that is as I see it now bankrupt. The Financial Times (at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed4cfe7e-16a4-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e.html#axzz4AVKPmPMk) goes one step further. They state “TTIP also puts private profit above public interest, penalising polities that change policy preferences to the disadvantage of business. Indemnifying business against political risk through off-the-record investor-state dispute settlement arbitration is especially worrying. Secret negotiations and special court processes — more Guantánamo than Gray’s Inn — invite the expectation of abuse“, which is pretty much what the US has achieved with the Trans Pacific Partnership. A political system that is now all about the exploitation of those they should be protecting, the people, especially the non-wealthy ones in the US!

So here we are not really admiring the words of Jeroen Dijsselbloem, whilst we get the quote “He was speaking on the same day that the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, warned that Brexit posed “a downside risk” to the global economy“, the one person who is actually one of the larger problems in the entire Brexit situation. You see, the question that needed to be asked clearly and needed to be addressed is: ‘How can the EU be allowed to continue, whilst the political players are spending the funds of the next three generations that follow us?‘ That is the real question. Trillions are being spend without a clear plan, without clear sense making reason absent from the equation.

That is scaring the people towards Brexit and the two people addressing it are not outspoken on any of it. In here we now introduce the two silent players, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney. The unresolved issues of massive governmental overspending, is one of the reasons why being part of the EU will no longer matter, would be undesirable and would be a good thing to get rid of.

We can agree that Jeroen Dijsselbloem should get credit for “Dijsselbloem, a fiscal hawk, who has led the Euro group since 2013, sharply criticised the European commission for not championing the EU’s fiscal rules“, yet his office has not been championing changes in taxation law (or not loudly enough). That part is at the heart of it all, because overspending and failing laws of taxation makes the EU a broke and impoverished individual.

You see, part of the stupidity (as I see it) comes from “Juncker, sensitive to elections in Spain later this month and in France next year, has said fiscal rules should not be applied blindly“, yes they should! You see, whomever has lost the ability to properly budget should be removed from the game. This issue with keeping Francois Hollande in ‘his’ presidential seat is part of this mess. He is not hungry for winning, he is happy to just get by and whilst he fills his pockets (in legal ways of course), the French situation will not ever improve, which is why he is truly scare of Marine Le Pen and the rest is scared because Marine is willing to let it all collapse so she can build a real France for the French and that is scaring a lot of people, especially in the large financial sectors that run through Natixis, the IMF and Wall Street, two of them equally scared of what Brexit will bring. Yet in all this, just like with Greece, certain people are all about Status Quo and that has now angered the UK people, they have had enough and with the two British coin Big Wigs that issues are not addressed, giving additional fears to the referendum voters. All being pushed emotionally, whilst rational would have resolved it (unless controlling EU spending is not an option). We know that Mark Carney is an excellent orator, he has the ability to economically talk the crowd into getting 49 runs in one over, smashing the record of Steve Dublin, for a Canadian that would be a massive achievement and Mark better pull this off fast, because the Brexit group is still growing and when they grow a critical mass, there will be no longer an option to convert them to a reasonable solution (whether Brexit or Bremain) that would truly be about the solution that is best for the UK and the British people. That option will go out of the window.

So this is where we find ourselves. We are all staring at the Wrong Question and the actual question cannot be answered and the evidence of hardware is removed from our vision, whilst the presented software can no longer be seen as reliable. You see, the people are seeing more and more how the American agreements called the TTIP and the TPP are about American solutions to not be an acceptable option any longer. This plays out nicely for China and perhaps Russia, but overall the Americans with their arrogance and non-accountability did this to themselves, so how can our lives become acceptable and liveable? That remains an issue, yet for the UK, not to be part of many of these players might not be the special coat they are hoping we would buy.

So here we are looking at the Wrong Question and no decent answer in sight, that is the part not dealt with and it seems that this issue will not be dealt with any day soon. The mere consequence of a lame Duck in Washington and a ‘fearless’ group lacking vision in Europe, united in (again as I Personally see it) personal gain against all odds. This is exactly why UKIP remains in ascendance. The one part that requires regulation isn’t getting any, because unless the EU’s debt grows to the level where Japan and USA are, those two are in a tough spot at the end of the way to dusty death with no alternatives. In all this the final element is seen as Crete rescued hundreds of refugees coming to Greece via Libya only an hour ago. That is the first of several escalations that Europe will have to deal with (at http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/greece-rescues-hundreds-off-crete/news-story/987b32889f6327496a179d4ec95f2aa8), the issue here is not just that these Syrians came from Libya, the question becomes how they got to Libya in the first place. We know that Libya had Syrian refugees as early as 2014, but are those the ones crossing? More important, how can we verify that they were actually Syrians? With Crete entering the high tourist season, will these refugees have an impact on tourism? If so, that would be extremely unfortunate for Crete who is still recovering from years of lessened tourism, not as bad as some other places, but still in a recovering situation, will the almost 30% Dutch downturn turn even worse with the hundreds of refugees arriving on Crete?

There is no way to tell, but these new growing groups of arrivals gives additional ‘worry’ to those in favour of Brexit and their numbers are still growing, the implied pressure that the UK will feel over the next 60 days as people are trying to get into the UK will only grow fears, which drives an implied drive towards Brexit. Here I am cautiously stating ‘implied’, because we have no way of telling how many want to be on route past Greece towards Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Add to this the fact that the EU remains active in irresponsible spending, debts that the next 4 generations need to work off, and that part is another driving force for Brexit.

There is now too much noise all over the papers, too many facts are intertwined and nobody trusts any of the players involved on either side of the Brexit/Bremain equation. From my side, as stated before Mark Carney did a good job, a really good job to bring clarity to the House of Lords and as such to the British population, it swayed me back to a neutral stance away from a definite Brexit. Now Mark Carney (as well as George Osborne) need to focus on the question too many people are not asking, whilst everyone is staring at the wrong Question. ‘How do we stop the irresponsible spending by Mario Draghi et al?‘

That part is gaining momentum when we consider the Irish Times (at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/euro-zone-recovery-may-slow-down-says-mario-draghi-1.2670722), the issue ‘Euro zone recovery may slow down, says Mario Draghi‘ comes AFTER he has spent a sizeable slice of the planned 1.74 trillion euros. Now we see how the recovery is slowing down? So when we get the quote “Mr Draghi said his central bank was “willing, able and ready” to act again, should those measures leave inflation short of the target“, the people should worry as Mario Draghi has spent well in excess of the total GDP of most EU nations. This gives the clear danger that the debt will stay in place for another generation. So until someone muzzles that man and crazy glues his EU wallet shut, explain to me how anyone wants to remain in an EU where too many politicians are spending the coins of other people, with no clear repayment in sight? That whilst several larger nations (like France) is growing the national debt in excess of the allowed 3% and no one is getting fined, because no one has any of these levels of cash left.

So as we might remember Shakespeare’s quote, we should consider the newly revised edition: ‘this was the noblest Roman of them all, yet it no longer matters as they have become extinct!‘

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as Brexit, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Crete, David Cameron, Eu, François Hollande, Frexit, George Osborne, Governor of the Bank of England, Greece, IMF, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Le Pen, libya, Marine Le Pen, Mario Draghi, Mark Carney, Natixis, Nigel Farage, refugees, Steve Dublin, Syria, the Guardian, the Netherlands, TPP, TTIP, UKIP, USA, Wall Street

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.

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

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

May 16, 2016 · 20:38

No Man’s Brexit

Yes, I am not kidding, the day after the release of No Man’s Sky, we will see the UK referendum regarding the UK leaving the EU. The two correlate in a simple way. The game has 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets. That same number seems to be the number of opinions that the 743 million Europeans seem to have regarding Brexit, so we need to take heed what to believe.

Personally, I feel that Brexit might be the way to go, yet as stated previously, Mark Carney, aka Governor of the British Bank, aka Marky Mark of the British Coin seems to be swaying me towards ‘Bremain’. Let me explain this. For the most, the reasoning is given here (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/may/15/mark-carney-defends-brexit-intervention-eu-bank-england-video). The important quote is “identify the issues, come straight with the British people about them and then take steps to mitigate them“. That is one thing this governor seems to have been doing from the beginning, to state it bluntly, that is what he gets paid for (nothing Personal Mr Governor)!

In opposition a case could possibly be made regarding ‘transparency’, but let’s not try to cut the bacon with a piece of string.

The issue in this case is a quote in the Guardian on that same page as the video, which was “Earlier in the programme, energy minister Andrea Leadsom accused Carney of ‘dangerous intervention’“. Let’s take a step back. The Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the person, who according to the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-minister-andrea-leadsom-asked-whether-climate-change-was-real-when-she-started-the-job-a6710971.html) had to ask ‘whether climate change was real when she started the job‘ (which was on May 11^th 2015), that person is questioning Governor Carney on being straight with the British people? That’s a barrel of laughs on the worst of Monday mornings imaginable. Oh, I stand corrected, the 11^th of May 2015 was a Monday!

So from this quote, I am willing to state that Andrea, a politician was unaware or just didn’t watch An Inconvenient Truth, a 2006 documentary film about former United States Vice President Al Gore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming. I think that she failed on multiple levels, especially as she studied political sciences. This gets to be even more interesting when we see the quote “in the past she has written to the Prime Minister calling for cuts to wind farm subsidies, and has criticised the pre-coalition Labour government for signing up to an EU target that called for 15 per cent of the UK’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2015“,

That is the person accusing Governor Carney on ‘dangerous intervention’ activities!

Now, there is not enough information for me whether cuts to wind farm subsidies was right or wrong. Let’s not forget that the UK is over a trillion in debt and certain cuts need to be made. The other part is in this case (without more evidence) equally debatable. That does not change the fact that regardless of her past economic positions whether she is anywhere near qualified to comment on the actions of the Governor of the Bank of England.

In my not to humble opinion, I would state no! You see Mark Carney was quoted as: “Carney defended his impartiality, saying it was important that people do not ignore economic risks“, I reckon that leaving the EU could have a few consequences tax wise and the issues regarding her Guernsey-based brother-in-law, Peter de Putron. This is in light of the title ‘Top Tory has family link with offshore banker who gave party £800,000‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/08/andrea-leadsom-family-links-offshore-bank-donations-tories). You see, I am an Australian Liberal, meaning that I regard myself a British Conservative and let me tell you, I would contribute to my part, yet if I am really lucky, I could perhaps donate 0.05% of that amount at best. When I work day and night I expect to receive some form of income, not pay an additional 800K (an amount I will likely never have, not even with my University degrees). The fact that a Brother in Law banker hands that kind of donations out might not be too controversial when it is for charity, when it is to a political party one must question the reasoning (read: personal tactical benefits) here.

So there are all kinds of questions that come to mind regarding Andrea Leadsom and it is my personal believe that (Brexit or not), her questioning Governor Carney leaves a lot to be desired. This 2014 article reveals another part that is important to consider: “A US non-profit news organisation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has obtained records of more than 20,000 names. The Guardian has exclusively analysed the ICIJ’s data, and begins to reveal those who have had dealings with a discreet Jersey branch of Kleinwort Benson, a well-known London firm which specialises in ‘wealth management’“. When you consider that news and the ‘feigned’ emotions we saw regarding Mossack Fonseca, that part comes again into question. You see, the issue has been legislation, tax legislation, legislation of wealth management and this implies that some of the available data goes back to well before 2010. This clearly implies that Labor was very much in the know on these matters. It also clearly implies that both sides of the isle should have pushed tax reforms a lot sooner than is currently shown. I agree that people might see this as unreasonable, but let’s be clear, these loopholes are there, Andrea Leadsom broke no laws. We see another version of amoral versus immoral. In my view, in regards to her acts I could see her statement as immoral, mainly because the changes could end up giving her more loopholes to push non-taxable parts of herself across the British realm.

Am I wrong?

That is still the issue, because Brexit will cause a massive amount of concerns and in that regard to keep the UK interesting more tax breaks might be the consequence of the EU separation (speculative statement). I might be proven correct but it is too early day to tell what the actual taxation impact will be, that part will remain an unknown, especially as people realise that only 5 billion of the 220 billion to Greece entered the State coffers, the rest went to the banks, paying small parts of loans and massive parts of outstanding interest bills. That is the driving realisation that more and more people are going towards the Brexit road. Most believe that the recession we hear about will be short lived and the upbeat will grow stronger and stronger as the loans diminish. I agree to some degree, but I equally foresee that Mark Carney is correct, the recession that is likely to follow will change the timeline, perhaps by a lot. That is the part that is absent of an answer, absent of a final solution, most of us believe that not being part of paying for other UK only recessions is the quickest way to a surplus finance coffer.

This is how I feel to some degree, but the warnings that Mark Carney gives us are not to be ignored. Plainly stated, at present the difference between a coffer and a coffin is currently way too small for my comfort.

This is why I remain on the fence. I am not completely convinced either way, but Mark Carney was clear and concise in the House of Lords and that was the massive sway to get me from certainly Brexit to almost cautiously Bremain. Yet the biggest issues are not within the UK, Greece, the IMF and other parties are trying to keep the present engine running, in addition the US economy with minus 19 trillion is equally a concern as the debt grew with 1 trillion in a year, basically it gained the total UK debt in less than 20 months, as they are closely linked with the Euro, one will tumble the other, in that regard Brexit is still the way to go in my book. It does not diminish the risks that Mark Carney warned us for, it makes just makes them more acceptable in my book. Nowhere do I mention that Governor Carney was guilty of ‘dangerous intervention’, he is merely informing us. I think that pro Brexit Andrea Leadsom did something stupid, she might be pro Brexit like I was in the beginning, but her less than intelligent remark only pushes people away from Brexit as her statement can be dissected by people less intelligent than me in mere seconds.

So, I still remain on the fence because the reasons for Brexit are there, but less strong than they were, merely because the risk we run by Brexit. In my mind the question becomes, if there is no Brexit, can we truly make the rest of Europe more accountable for their budgets? That part is still the number one reason for me to consider Brexit. I am not pointing the finger at Greece here, but at the total debt Europe has, which is almost equaling the American debt. The question is, how much of this debt is instilled by Wall Street to keep the seesaw of economics in balance? To keep the machine running to satisfy the 35,000 greed driven executives on Wall Street? We seem to focus on the top 1% in America, which makes for the 3 million people living really really nice, but that is nothing compared to the top 1% of that top 1%, their wealth is beyond measure, consider that only 1% of that top list (the 1% of the 1%) are the 350 people that made the small solutions like Facebook, Oracle, Apple and Microsoft.

I will give you one guess to guess where the other 34,650 got their money from.

This is why I still remain a little towards Brexit, because governments on a global scale ignored the need for proper legislation. At present the US might promise a lot, but in the end he has become nothing more than a quack quack president and as such he will not get anything done. Isn’t it nice that he wants to act in the 11^th hour whilst his own party will be very unlikely to support him? You see they are also up for re-election and they have options for another term, President Obama does not. Now consider the ‘evidence’ I gave at the beginning, basically this issue was ignored for 7 years. If you are considering that I am not being up front and honest with you, consider the fact that President Obama did not once mention the US tax havens that are in the US, to be more precise, the Rothschild Trusts all over America, their total treasures are stated to be in excess of 100 trillion, but no one can tell for sure, their fortune is too vast and always in motion. This is only one voice, mine, apparently there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 other views on this.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as An Inconvenient Truth, Andrea Leadsom, Apple, Bremain, Brexit, Facebook, Governor of the British Bank, Greece, Mark Carney, Microsoft, Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Mossack Fonseca, Oracle, Peter de Putron, President Obama, Rothschild Trusts, the Guardian, the IMF, The Independent, UK, United States Vice President Al Gore, US tax havens, Wall Street

May 1, 2016 · 20:04

Homerun by UKIP

UKIP scored a home-run and we missed it. Some were watching the game and did not realise the play. Some were watching as the opposing party and hoped that no one else noticed. I did notice, but there was time to let things unfold. I saw what he stated (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buCUlPOsuNg) when he starts around 5:27. Those who watched might have wondered, might have looked and no one reacted. Those who needed to react did not, mainly because they did not comprehend what they just heard. So let’s look at that genie out of the bottle again. Remember, that this was stated in December 2015, we have seen many escalations since then, not in the least, the refugee issues.

3 billion a year in aid to Turkey without guarantees.
Visa free access by Oct 2016.
Fast track Turkey into EU (97% of that nation is in Asia).
A nation that prefers bombing Kurds than fight ISIS.
A nation that ignores ISIS travelling within its borders.
8% of Turks support ISIS (source: Pew Institute)
Accuses Turkey of Buying ISIS oil.
It is bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The clear path of blackmail is seen all over the place and the fact that the EU is giving in to blackmail gives us the question, who runs the EU? Is it merely big business holding onto politicians like a puppeteer to a puppet on a string? Is it America holding the collapse of the Dollar and the Euro over the heads of all, making the Bankers push the politicians the way that is most beneficial to greed? Whatever and whomever is holding the strings, we can see that the solution is actually decently easy, when you take America out of the equation.

It is at present 3 billion a year. Yet the one part everyone forgot is that the financial aid to Turkey would increase to 60 billion the moment they become part of the EU. That truth is actually easy to see when we look at point 8. When the EU becomes the border of Syria, Iraq and Iran, as stated. The moment any ISIS, via Turkey, makes one successful hit on Russia, you better believe that after the initial stupidity of Turkey (shooting down a Russian Jet for allegedly being over their airspace for 10 seconds), Russia will not play nice, Turkey would become a direct target, with the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, it is not just Adm. Aleksandr Vitko who is spoiling for a fight with the Turks. When the Turks become part of the EU, the massive lack of Turkish intelligence will soon there after force Europe into a war they have no way of winning.
When we see Canadian Global Research (at http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-oil-trade-with-turkey-documentary-reveals-secret-oil-deals-between-turkey-the-islamic-state/5522560), we see confirmation on statement 2 by Nigel Farage. More important, that is yesterday’s news (quite literally), meaning that certain power players have had this in their hands for MONTHS! The EU has decided to ignore those little titbits, giving additional power to my speculation on how the EU is becoming a mere puppet to greed and the Dollar. The initial source (Russian Today), gives us in addition the quote ““Crossing the Syrian-Turkish border was also very easy. It was like crossing the street,” ISIS member from Saudi Arabia, Muhammed Ahmed Muhammed told RT“. Now this could be Russian propaganda, but the timing fits, when we consider the Turkish actions. So this is a place, where you want to give 78 million threats to European security free passage? Yet when we see news in Al Arabiya that Turkey destroyed 900 ISIS members, we see that the numbers cannot be verified independently, so it is their word against verifiable facts. You should feel free to make that call. In addition we see the quote “Turkey has deported more than 3,300 foreigners suspected of links to militants groups, particularly ISIS militants“, so how were they deported? With weapons and ammunition? When we see the final quote “Turkey, long accused of turning a blind eye to the extremists crossing into Syria, has now taken a larger role in the fight against ISIS, opening a key air base in southern Turkey to the US-led coalition fighting the extremists and reinforcing its border to prevent infiltrations“, which is decently close to where the Russian Jet was shot down, so are the Americans there to keep the Russian of Turkish backs? Even when we consider the implications of ISIS and their threat to Turkey, we see another side (at http://heavy.com/news/2016/04/watch-new-isis-mass-execution-video-is-directed-at-turkey/) WARNING, THIS VIDEO SHOWS EXECUTIONS IN GRAPHICAL DETAIL! It is an ISIS video, even as we consider the fact that the Turkish subtitles, there is no emphases on the fact that the ‘Nazi like rap’ is in German, it mentions how ‘they’ are on route to Europe, there is a likelihood that the video is equally a message towards the sympathisers that might be in Germany, but that is pure speculation on my side. The article raises the following issue in the quote “It is also widely believed that beyond the Islamic State’s appeal to some in Turkey, the Turkish government is playing a “double game” with ISIS. Outwardly opposing the group, while possibly striking oil deals with its leaders“, Farage was raising the issue spot on. How can anyone in the EU consider any alliance with a government that is basically nothing more than a Benedict Arnold with a stronger dislike for Croissants!

Here we pause for a moment. You see, the issue has already been made, several power players must have been very aware of Turkey. There is no way that the intelligence community at large was in the dark on this. Journalists (especially Russian ones) tend not to be that good, which brings additional pressure why the people at large was kept in the dark. Not just those in the UK, but in equal measure the French German and Dutch populations at large have not been made clearly aware of these dangers and the pressures Turkey has been bringing to the table for some time now. I kept Italy out of that list because of additional religious indications.

You see, the one part that is harder to prove, but has a given on April 8^th we got “He told AFP that Turkey still has to fulfil 72 conditions on its side to gain visa-free travel to Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone“, this came from Marc Pierini, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. So how far are these 72 conditions? You see, Turkey has so far not shown anything real when it comes with verifiable actions against ISIS, so when I see “Turkey is slated to receive benefits including visa-free travel for its citizens to Europe, promised ‘at the latest’ by June 2016“, whilst a large amount of the 72 conditions are not met, how come that the papers at large are not keeping a keen eye on those 72 conditions and a list of the ones that are met and the ones that are not met, whilst Spain with its own legislation will not make issues any easier as it is within their penal code as it is illegal to forcibly deport and transfer people from EU territory. So will we see something according to the air of ‘Yes, we did not do all the tasks but fuck it! Make us a Eurozone member anyway!‘, because that is the straw that will break the EU’s back. The people at large in many nations will not continue to be in an open border situation under those conditions. So hello Brexit and Goodbye Schengen! I wonder how things will change when the borders fall shut. America had been playing a dangerous game with Greece, but Turkey is one game that will not be tolerated by the European Community at large.

In all this, we have now seen that Nigel Farage has shown in multiple ways why Brexit is the way to go. The brilliant statement by Mark Carney in the House of Lords will not stand as a shield strong enough to counter that, meaning that my conservatives will need to take a massive detour on several fields if they want to hold the centre of parliament regarding Brexit and even then it remains a challenge whether the next administration will remain Conservative. If the quality of life for Britons goes up it would be possible, but it cannot be stated as a given, because too many issues are currently surfacing, many of them directly linked to America and the IMF. In addition to all this, there has been a rising amount of warnings about ISIS hotspots in Turkey, targeting American tourists. This news and the fact on where the events are taking place, implies that either ISIS has a run of the land in Turkey, giving ample evidence to Nigel Farage claim 5, or there is a growing issue with sympathisers and even though there is no clear evidence on the percentage, we should emphasize that even 1% would give ISIS the run of the land in Turkey, at 8% they could be running Turkey soon enough, giving additional reasons to not let Turkey anywhere an EU membership for a long time to come.

Yet in all this, I have to add my side to this. The side that looked at other remaining factors. Factors like the news one week ago where we see in an IMF report “Turkey’s economic growth continues to show resilience despite several shocks. Growth remains based on domestic demand, in turn, supported by accommodative monetary and fiscal policies“, resilience? This place has the GDP of Costa Rica that is nothing to be proud of. In addition, the report (at http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2016/pr16182.htm) shows “To this end, the government has announced an ambitious program of reforms aiming to increase potential growth and reduce external imbalances in the medium term“, with what currency? There are billions pushed into Turkey each year because they could not get their space (read: their nation and their head space) in order. When we look at the stated forecasts by the IMF, we see that Net Exports are set at -0.9% this year, yet after that, Turkey makes a miraculous forecast of suddenly increasing their net export by 0.6% (in 2017), whilst there is no data of any kind that could explain such a massive increase. Now consider a realistic growth and the net exports go towards to -0.6%, which would be awesome for Turkey, it gives other nations the impression that their goods will be bought as Turkey imports more than it exports, but with the sliding exports there will be no cash left to pay for the imports, making this document a larger danger than many realise, it shows how Turkey could become the next Greece (read: not that big a chance, but not impossible). With unemployment going from 10.8 this year to a forecasted 10.5, we see a document that is forecasted at the margins, making things a little more positive than they actually are and we will see the sudden management of bad news in about 6 months. But that is already too late, the influx of Schengen Turks would have commenced, and under those conditions the United Kingdom at large would hope that Brexit becomes a reality, there will be a massive change and suddenly we have to give in, because America could not clean up its act during the last two administrations. It had to do something really stupid thing, like sending a lame duck president to do some scaremongering. In that regard, Ted Cruz is right, even if he is not elected president, the US needs the UK. It needs it for several reasons, economy being a larger one. I like the quote in USA Today last week: ““Instead of standing with our allies President Obama routinely hurls insults at them,” Cruz wrote. He said Obama’s comment was “nothing less than a slap in the face of British self-determination”“, which is at the heart of the matter. It is entirely likely that his analysts have already deserted him whilst trying to get the best after administration job in the commercial industry. In addition to that, we see a lacking side of the press when we try to learn which of the conditions have yet to be met by Turkey. Considering that, according to Turkish officials the Visa Free commitment towards Turkey is now only a month away. Is that not weird too?

Too many Britons are realising that they are being presented a joke, a message with no reality or national future behind it. The EU has taken too much and not reigned in those who should have been dealt with from 2008 onwards. That is at the core of the matter and it will boost the numbers of Nigel Farage, which should have been prevented by my party a long time ago. I wonder why they decided to leave it in the middle, unattended for this long.

5 Comments

Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as Al Arabiya, Aleksandr Vitko, America, Benedict Arnold, Brexit, Canadian Global Research, Costa Rica, Dutch, Eu, Germany, Greece, House of lords, IMF, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Marc Pierini, Mark Carney, Muhammed Ahmed Muhammed, Nigel Farage, Republicans, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Schengen, Syria, Ted Cruz, Turkey, UK, UKIP, United Kingdom, USA, USA today

April 24, 2016 · 17:50

Ignoranus Totalicus

We can see the title as a pig Latin version of being a ‘complete dumbass’, which stands opposite of the Latin phrase to be all knowing as ‘sciens omnia’, yet who is this ignoranus? That is very much the debate. For this we need to take a look at a few sources. Let’s start the game at the Guardian. The first one (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/22/barack-obama-brexit-uk-back-of-queue-for-trade-talks) is ‘Barack Obama: Brexit would put UK ‘back of the queue’ for trade talks‘. You see, after the quality voice Mark Carney gave at the House of Lords, one would initially expect that a president (even a lame duck one), would bring his ‘A’ game to the table. That part in question is indeed in doubt when we see the following parts: “And on that matter, for example, I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done”. You see, the statement might sound correct, but it is not. You see America is not (read: no longer) about ‘trade agreements’ it is about non-accountable agreements of exploitation. The fact that this same president nags about taxes and tax havens, is the same person that allows for massive tax havens on American soil, not addressing those and in that same light takes an 180 turn on taxation in the meeting in the Hague as I mentioned in my earlier blog is part of the issue. These actions are matters of great concern. I wonder why we even bother listening to a president who will be out of the office in a mere 6 months. If this was such a big deal both nominations for president would not merely make a statement. The next part gives more than one issue “Obama argued that it was much more efficient for the US to negotiate with the EU as a bloc, rather than attempt to take on “piecemeal trade agreements”, and suggested that Brexit would send a signal of division to the world“, it is indeed more efficient, but moreover, it makes for easier exploitation. Exploitation is at the heart of this matter and the bulk of the politicians tend to have the spinal cord of a paperback, not one hardcover amongst them. The final part is seen when we get “This is a decision for the people of the United Kingdom to make. I’m not coming here to fix any votes. I’m not casting a vote myself. I am offering my opinion, and in democracies, everybody should want more information, not less, and you shouldn’t be afraid to hear an argument being made”, which is fine in one part, but consider the cost of a president appearing in person when a TV message could do the same if it was merely to ‘offer an opinion’. America is afraid, it has never been this bankrupt before, this deep in debt and the toppling of the Euro will crash the Dollar, that could push no less than one third in a state of poverty. Wall Street and the financial connections are making their toll and the exiting president is doing whatever he can to keep the American nightmare alive, it does not matter who comes next for the mere reason that Brexit comes when he is still in charge. If Brexit comes into effect he will see the Dow Jones drop to a level not seen before, because Brexit is a guarantee that France will demand a Frexit referendum. This would guarantee the end of the Euro and as such the dollar cannot continue on the level it is. My voice is on par with justice minister, Dominic Raab. As he states ““You can’t say on the one hand that the US-UK special relationship is as strong as ever and always will be, and in the next breath say take my advice or you go to the back of the queue,” he said. “I don’t think the British people will be blackmailed by anyone, let alone a lame duck US president on his way out”“, he gives a truth that matters. This was not a simple visit where it is about an opinion. This is about the US being in such deep debt that Brexit could start the collapse of the US economy and its currency. This whilst still under this president. This president needs to get results before the end of his presidency, if that does not happen, than the 44^th President of the United States Barack Obama will be the president who ended the American dream and started the American nightmare.

The next article, also in the Guardian gives us the quotes from Hillary Clinton, and as such she illuminates the issues that Britons have had with their situation. The quote “transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU“, we do not object to that view, we all object to the non-accountability that large corporations (not just American ones) have, most of them American. President Obama signed his own political ‘death warrant’ when he made the administration to do a 180 about face in 2013. The quote The quote “Senior officials in Washington have made it known they will not stand for rule changes that narrowly target the activities of some of the nation’s fastest growing multinationals“, which I reiterated in ‘Delusional‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/07/delusional/), can we agree that places, most of them valued at multiple billions, don’t really need tax breaks? That misjudgement of such Titanic proportions is now the millstone around this president’s neck. Yet this is not the only part, it is about timing, which started when the issues in Greece escalated. That started the path we are on now. As the people at large became more aware on the one-sidedness of the EEC and the way their savings are now dwindling down is how the people started to side with more right extreme parties. There are more relevant quotes from President Obama in this article too, but they do not require comment, if you do not grasp the casual way that America ignored issues that hurt the bulk of the entire planet, than you are either too young, or you are unable to grasp the danger you are in.

Yet this is not the end. The independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/barack-obama-on-the-eu-referendum-i-wont-tell-you-how-to-vote-but-heres-how-i-want-you-to-vote-a6997436.html), we see another side. We see a likeminded article, the issues that I have been writing for some time. The quote on Boris Johnson matters. We get to read: “Johnson did indeed make the point that the US would never accept the kind of external authority that he thinks the British should continue to accept. But his clowning in his first paragraph obliterated that important debate and undermined his own authority“, which is a truth, yet the issue that matters is that on the other side Mark Carney as Governor of the Bank of England gave a response in the House of Lords that was so strong that it swayed me from Brexit to Bremain. I remain on the fence, as neutral as possible so that the people have at least one source that they can trust to be trying to remain neutral. I regard myself a conservative, yet this goes beyond mere politics. This vote, whether Brexit or Bremain will influence the life of the voters as well as their children. If you are 18 and still a virgin, worry not, this referendum will set the tone for the next 15 years at least, so any children you create in the next 10 years will likely see the consequence of this outcome.

In the final part of part 1 there is the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-plunges-into-heated-debate-over-britains-future-in-the-eu/2016/04/22/43657cba-0867-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html), for the most it was all said before, yet the Post had one gem that does matter: “Even though Obama has been outspoken in his support for Britain staying in the European Union, analysts urged him to tread lightly on his visit. “This is an emotionally charged discussion, and it really does not respond to calm, rational logic” said Heather Conley, a senior European analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington”, she is setting the correct tone here but is missing a key element. As I stated in the past and in this piece, where I am not going anywhere near ‘calm rational logic‘, I am going towards the exploitation drive that corporate America has shown as well as the flaccid response of the last two administrations in that regard. What Greece started, the American response to greed from the financial industry did not help any and this American president is too clear a reminder of that fact.

So now to answer the question ‘Who is the Ignoranus Totalicus?’ It is you and me (more you than me in all honesty). You see, many people are not getting properly informed about the consequences of either Bremain or Brexit. They flock together with the person they ‘trust’, with the politicians that gets them those 15 seconds in the limelight. This referendum is too important for that, which is why there is turmoil, not just in the Conservative party, but in nearly all parties except UKIP. If you want to be the ignoranus, than be happy in that. For those who are worried (and you all should be), you need to get the proper information, get the real points, not just the one the press gives and go to the voting booth clear of mind and sound of choice, so that the choice you made reflects the future you seek for you and your family if you have one (or going to have one).

This is the one part that everyone seems to agree on, either side, the impact will be long and lasting, if you at least got that far, then you are on the right track and in this case it is perfectly fine to be selfish and consider only what is best for you and your family, because that is the one that matters.

2 Comments

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, Boris Johnson, Bremain, Brexit, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dominic Raab, EEC, European Union, Frexit, Governor of the Bank of England, Greece, Heather Conley, House of lords, lawlordtobe.com, Mark Carney, the Guardian, UKIP, United Kingdom, Wall Street, Washington Post

April 13, 2016 · 20:53

How pointless can a politician be?

That is the first part in the consideration that we see when we see the latest hype for journalists to ignore the reality of the events as they play. This presented reality was given to us today (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/13/mossack-fonseca-raided-offices-investigators-panama), when we consider the article. The title is only part of the deception we are confronted with. ‘Mossack Fonseca raided as investigators meet in Paris to launch tax probe‘, the first level of entertainment. The next is the quote “under the command of prosecutor Javier Caravallo, who specialises in organised crime and money laundering“, really? What education does this man have? The legality of off shore banking has been made so complex that the bulk of the Harvard professors cannot make head or tails of it. So, this Javier Caravallo, a mere prosecutor can figure it out? Who are the journalists kidding here? Mind you, this is not me trying to bring insult to a prosecutor, and I have no knowledge of Javier Caravallo, or have any issues with this man. Yet, if we can agree that Marky Mark of the British Bank (aka Mark Carney), former Governor of the bank of Canada and current Governor of the Bank of England cannot get his head around the off shore cash ‘storage’ issues, can we all agree that Javier Caravallo is out of his depth (and not by a little)?

We then get the quote “The raid comes after the leak of Mossack Fonseca’s huge database provoked international concern about the offshore industry“, which is a truth, yet there are issues, there are massive questions and they need addressing, yet in that similar way the issue is that the US is involved in this as well (personal observation). The fact that Florida is a growing tax haven and that states such as Delaware, Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming, in particular, are competing with each other to provide foreigners with the secrecy they crave, which is a quote I got from CBS (at http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/04/06/us-is-emerging-as-a-tax-haven-alongside-switzerland-caymans/), this all is also linked to a Bloomberg article I discussed a few days ago in the article titled ‘Delusional‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/04/07/delusional/). It seems that this loud sabre rattling is more about empowering the Rothschild Empire than it is about Mossack Fonseca. The fact that the Guardian remains silent on that part 50 shades of gold, gives me the impression that this is about chastising towards hypocrisy and not about the news at all, this is not even about decent reporting of the news. Which, in my personal mind, gives me the impression that the editorial levels Katharine Viner has gone to regarding certain players is about to hit a new all-time low (but that could just be me).

Yet we are not done here, because this form of comedy is about to get new players. Australian Commissioner Chris Jordan, who in the Guardian article is introduced as a person with a “global mindset for tackling tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance”. That might be true, it might not. For now we cannot tell because there are elements the press is anxiously avoiding, meaning that the politicians could be aiming to do the same thing.

You see, linked to this is an article from July 2013 (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/14/us-tax-avoidance-google-amazon), where we see “senior officials in Washington have made it known they will not stand for rule changes that narrowly target the activities of some of the nation’s fastest growing multinationals“, 2013? Fastest growing multinationals? I personally think that these are senior ‘spokespeople’ that are in the pockets of large corporations, is that such a stretch? Consider the way that the US tax havens have been avoided by the press at large (apart from Bloomberg and a few CBS articles), consider that all these actions against Mossack Fonseca came from criminal activities, whilst so far not one clear piece of evidence is given that laws have been broken. (a 0.2% infringement does not constitute crime), in addition consider that the largest transgressor of financial ‘morality’ flushed 15 trillion (estimated loss from 2008) into the sewers and we learned this week that one of the principle parties in that event got a mere fine of 5 billion (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/11/goldman-sachs-2008-financial-crisis-mortagage-backed-securities), meaning that the 8 year hardship the American people and Europe at large is paid off with a mere one year of bonuses, which is a true source of hilarity, because it truly gives vision, in my personal view that the US Department of Justice is no longer anything else than a joke.

The final quote is the kicker “The deal, however, includes no criminal sanctions or penalties and is likely to stir additional criticism about the Justice Department’s inability to hold bank executives personally responsible for the financial crisis“, I believe it to be even worse. If any fact ever emerges that the US in any form or size was, as speculated by some cyber specialists, to be behind the Panama Caper, than the transgressions that will massively rule in favour of the Rothschild enterprise will leave the mark that the US government could end up being the most corrupt one in the history of this world, how interesting that the press at large is steering clear of that little titbit.

So what kind of comedy are we seeing unfold?

A slapstick? A piece of presentation where bankers throw pies of money at each other, whilst charging the crowd for every pie, the receiver of the pie pays nothing, the taxpayer pays for the event whilst the cash stuck to the suits of bankers who will charge the government for cleaning the cash and cleaning the suits. A free for all where only the banker ended up smiling and the people paid whilst not getting any entertainment value at all (and a cleaning bill added to their tax papers)

A Farce? The improbable situation where we all look to the left where no crime was committed, we get the quote to ponder ‘A wonderful thing about true wealth is that it just destroys any kind of justice or equality‘, which is shown as the ‘criminals’ involved only pay 0.015% of the damages, the rest is paid for by those watching the damage outside the theatre.

A Satire, where we see presenters mock Mossack Fonseca, whilst they all laughingly carry the bags of ‘evidence’ into Rothschild Trust North America LLC and stating after the delivery that the carried laughter was not guilty of being un-American.

Last there is the Parody, which is exactly like the previous event, but it now just claims that the money shelves in Nevada are just so much prettier than the ones in Panama.

We ignore the Revue, as most politicians can’t sing and in addition, we prefer those who can sing not to do so!

So there are the moments of comedy, the question becomes, which version are we attending here? In this we need to look at Chris Jordan. You see, there is an additional part in this, which we see when we contemplate that this will be chaired by Mark Konza who is the head of the international tax department at the Australian tax office. You see, there is another side in all this. The side I mentioned earlier is also the biggest problem. You see, the Americans are being kept out of all this. This is in part of being confronted with a lame duck inhabitant of a not so circular white building. The quote to mind is “It occurred on the eve of a meeting in Paris of senior officials from the world’s tax authorities, who are intent on analysing the documents as part of new global strategy to crack down on offenders“, which sounds nice, but it is just an empty statement. That view can be fortified when you realise that after the President of the United States wasting the time of any officials in the Hague, we get the fact that after those events (as stated in the Guardian), that “opposition from the US forced the watering down of proposals“, which is what will happen again, but now in another way. You see, in the final moment of presidency, that person tends to be useless (not by choice), as the new president is about to be elected and can undo whatever this president leaves behind. Instead of setting the meetings until AFTER the elections, we see Saber rattling and empty actions. America is part of the problem here and until a strong legislation is placed, the only thing that this tax overhaul will do is play into the hands of Rothschild Wealth management.

Is that where we are heading to?

You see, no matter how we feel about it, we are presented a mere play where the bankers behind the screens are laughing out loud, and they aren’t even hiding that sentiment anymore. As trillions go into trusts and shelters we see no improvements, we see no changes. Until several fundamental changes are set into laws, all actions that happen beforehand are merely wastes of time. It only propagates the false image of the politician, the emptiness of sincerity of the bankers and the injustice of governments supporting these actions. That is the issue at hand and the press publications on a near global scale are ignoring this.

When you read the paper tomorrow, wonder where the US is and why the papers and politicians remain silent on all that.

Finally there is one additional point to make. It was initially mentioned by the Independent last Friday (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/panama-papers-banks-must-declare-links-to-mossack-fonseca-by-next-week-a6972971.html) where we see “Banks must declare links to Mossack Fonseca by next week“, is that not interesting? You see they are not the only players. As stated, there is Rothschild Trust North America LLC and one of the larger players namely Natixis Global Asset Management. Are those mentions not equally important? You see, if this becomes a game of discrimination, what laws can be enforced? Common law has been very clear on that over the decades. It is even a bigger issues in France where we see: “Some French politicians have intervened, demanding that the French government permits US citizens in France the right to hold a bank account that is accorded to every other resident in the country. The national ombudsman, the Défenseur des droits, has also been asked to investigate cases of discrimination by French banks” an issue that played one year ago, which makes me wonder what additional infusion Natixis Global Asset Management received over the last year. In all that, will the tax commission be a comedy, or a mere circus with Chris Jordan and Mark Konza as ringmasters, because at this point, the Americans will stay in the shadows as much as possible.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as bloomberg, CBS, Chris Jordan, Défenseur des droits, Delaware, Florida, Governor of the Bank of Canada, Governor of the Bank of England, Javier Caravallo, Katharine Viner, Mark Carney, Mark Konza, Mossack Fonseca, Natixis Global Asset Management, Nevada, President of the United States, Rothschild, Rothschild Trust North America LLC, South Dakota, the Guardian, US Department of Justice, Wyoming

October 23, 2015 · 20:42

The moment UKIP was waiting for

There is no given what will happen next. For one, I feel that a solution can still be found for the Conservatives as they are looking at the pressures currently on the desk of George Osborne. The subtitle gives us the issue at hand. ‘Fresh pressure on George Osborne to halt controversial measure that will leave 3.2 million families worse off by average of £1,300 a year‘, there are two elements. As the leftish media is shouting how the rich are making the people worse of, we must consider that truth to be utterly bogus. Who in his right mind would think that the Conservatives would play fast and loose with seventy one seats for a mere £320 million a month is out of his/her head. Yes it hits 3.2 million people, but why? You see, the total bill of £3.8 billion is the issue.

You see the quote “The tax credits system is hopelessly complex and needs reform but we should be backing those who get up and go to work for low wages instead of living on welfare. The national living wage and changes to income tax thresholds will not offset enough of their loss and they will struggle to earn more money. They need our support and should be rewarded by a welfare system that is fair and helps them move forward in life“. The non-emotional part is that these are working families and they cannot make ends meet. This is the British version of Wal-Mart! Too many tax breaks have gone to corporations, where the savings of billions went straight into the pockets of less than a hundred board members. As the gravy train ends, they now move to fatter shores leaving the rest to fend for themselves. This was ALWAYS going to happen, and we must acknowledge that both sides of the isle have enabled this option. Both sides (mainly labour) have spent massive amounts in an irresponsible way and the UK credit card is now maxed, meaning that tax cuts are pretty much a thing of the past. You see, both the opposition as well as the current administration are trying to appease their congregation, but it is no longer allowed to cost anything. This is one of the reasons that George Osborne was not giving in to tax breaks last year, and he was right not to do so. This does not solve the problem and it is going to be a puzzle whether a solution can be found. The bad news is that if the Conservatives stand on principle, they will massively cut their own plan and in addition their chances on any re-election go straight out of the window. So what to do?

That part is not the focal point, what is the issue is the statement “71 Tory MPs in marginal seats could be vulnerable“, you see, if you go back to the bible of elections (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/07/live-uk-election-results-in-full), you can see that the marginal seats only for the smaller extent go towards Labour. The options for UKIP are not that great, but the issue are now a decent amount of seats that were for the Liberal Democrats, these seats will go somewhere and my money is that many of them could now move towards UKIP too, now we have ourselves an old fashioned horse race. Because this is the momentum Nigel Farage has been hoping for. Should we be worried? Well, that depends on any solutions the Conservatives can offer. The quote at the end “While some Tories are expected to voice serious concerns about the policy on Tuesday, few if any are expected to rebel on what is a Labour motion. Instead Osborne is likely to come under sustained pressure behind the scenes to act in his autumn statement next month” (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/17/tory-mps-at-risk-tax-credits), gives the reality. At present, whatever happens at whatever election follows at some point, the governing body better realise that stretching credit cards is no longer an option.

This is only one view, even within the party there is a growing concern of the loss of tax breaks, especially as it hits the lowest incomes. I myself understand this. I agree that something must be done and overall the lowest incomes should be protected to some extent, yet the tax breaks were never much of a solution. It was a stopgap at best. I came up with a solution, which was in three parts. I got the idea using a simple abacus (MS Excel). I designed the solution on March 16th this year in my article ‘In fear of the future‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/03/16/in-fear-of-the-future/), so far I have not found any credible opposition from the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats (whatever survived the last election), or even UKIP for that matter. I see all these claims left, right and centre, whilst they are all full of the ideology of their own voices. Even Mark Carney has seemingly been unable to oppose my logic in this matter. You see, the solution is so very simple. I raise the basic level with 1% and the higher rate with 2%. In all this the lowest group would not get hit and the basic group would pay annually a maximum extra of £318 (only if they earn the maximum basic income). The higher rate gets to deal with an additional 2%, so they get the full £318 and in addition 2% of the higher rate, which could end up being a maximum of £836 (if you are on an income between £42,386 and £150,000). These two groups represent 96.2% of all taxpayers and the added income to the coffers would be a nominal addition of £2.9 billion. I found a solution in a mere 5 minutes whilst politicians and marketeers still cannot figure out. And the wealthiest group? Well they also pay the 1% and 2% extra, this group of 300,000 is paying already all kinds of extras. In addition I would be willing to remove a tax break or two from them and in all this, the pensioners and lowest incomes were left alone, was that so hard?

The manoeuvring we see by McDonnell and Corbyn as we read “Does anybody dispute the arithmetic which demonstrates that a 2% GDP deficit will eventually result in a perfectly manageable public debt ratio of 40% GDP, just so long as nominal national income can be persuaded to grow at around 5% annually, as it generally did before Mr Osborne was in charge?” is part of the issue no one wants to address. You see, the debt is hanging around the neck of the UK. Even at 1%, the debt amounts to an £18 billion invoice. The coffers are getting annually drained and without a clear strategy there will be no social justice and there will be no NHS. Is it that hard for people to grasp that the life we all had before 2003 is gone and as far as I can tell, it is gone forever. EVERY presentation we have seen by every party has not amounted to any increase in the quality of life. Managing bad news is at the core, a game that the conservatives have not been playing. So as we read at http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/ “Fixing the roof while the sun is shining – Osborne’s new spending rule” you better that believe foul weather is coming to the Commonwealth. The Euro is in upheaval and that is not going to end soon. Most people are currently forgetting about the Greek situation. The harsh austerity adoptions are being made, but the streets of Greece are not in a good way. The dangers of the Greeks cutting their fingers by alienating the tourists (especially the German ones) is still a risk that cold set Greece back an additional 10-20 years. The fact that places like the Acropolis are hiking the entry prices by 400% is not a good sign either. We could debate whether the Greeks had an alternative. Yet scaring away tourists that are spending hundreds of euros by making museums no longer an affordable choice will in addition to diminished numbers scare away the American and the rich Asian tourists. In addition, the Financial Times is stating an economic recovery for Germany, but I am not convinced. http://www.dw.com/ stated that Germany has trimmed the full year growth outlook, which is a given, yet the part no one is thinking of at present is that the view for 2016 is not that strong, investors are worried and in all this Brexit and Frexit remain a reality. All this impacts the UK economy as well and as such ‘fixing’ the roof now is essential. In all this there is a second danger to the conservatives. You see, there is still a chunk of these 71 marginal seats that could have gone to Labour, yet, with the infighting, the non-clarity of views and the bad statements (as well as those lacking on common sense), even though it sounds good, most people can see through them. This is exactly what costed Ed Miliband his seat and those people will at all times select UKIP before the conservatives, which is not good for my party, but that does mean that people will be making plans for Nigel.

71 seats and any of them feeling a push towards Brexit, which will be a worry for David Cameron on more than one front. Am I right, am I wrong?

It is not about me being right or wrong, it is about the shifting political landscape, one that has been pushed by a massive debt that is not being dealt with. A massive debt that gives power to large corporations, which get the options of leaving wages low and pushing a non-liveable life towards the people currently in financial pain. In all this, the 30,000 refugees will have a minimal impact on a health system that is already beyond breaking. These little parts all add up to more and more hardship. The Conservatives are trying to find a working solution that will not break the bank, yet that path is less and less feasible, which all works for Nigel Farage. In that light, UKIP should also see the dangers that loom. Now we all know that when it comes to respectability, we tend to consider the crack dealer to have a better value than most journalists. Their approach has been questionable to say the least. Yet, when the Independent (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/44-of-ukip-voters-could-imagine-backing-a-military-coup-poll-shows-a6698056.html) starts getting its fingers on data that makes the following quote a reality: “As many as 44 per cent of Ukip voters could imagine supporting a military coup in Britain“, UKIP better starts realising that these extreme expressions that they are only digging their own holes. Or as Raphael Behr form the Guardian states: “Nigel Farage is the gift that keeps on giving“. I would never oppose honest outspoken opinions, yet when we see links to ‘coups’ in the land of Windsor, you better rethink your strategy. In all this his attempt to give rise to emotional stated people will only hurt him more (the Lord Brittan case). So, yes, he is the nonstop giving gift. Yet, he is not down and out, because the European situation is far from settled. He basically has an ally in Marine Le Pen, a situation that remains watching, and remains a growing power in France, especially is the less economically strong north of France. That part people forget. France has impact here because the French have had it and like Farage, Marine Le Pen is all for dumping the Euro, and if need be the EEC too. Which implies that if Frexit becomes a reality Brexit better be ready for implementation. David Cameron will not have the option to vie for time. At that point it all falls apart. No matter who comes first (Brexit or Frexit) that pain will be felt all over Europe and when one goes, the other one better follows.

So is this the moment UKIP was waiting for? I reckon it is to some degree (if Nigel is able to not drop the ball), but the field is wide open and several options remain. If the Conservatives want to continue, they will have to find a way to deal with the £3.8 billion question that is the centre of the field. In similar light a look needs to be taken regarding the budget. George Osborne is quite right to set into law the responsibility of a government to keep the books balanced. The minus trillion plus will take decades to manage and there is no given that it will be gone any day soon, with deficits growing another path is needed. One that I have been in favour of (for all governments) for a long time. So soon we will see the truth. Is Jeremy truly about a new kind of politics, or is he just another Labour speaker with a clever slogan?

We will get insight into that truth soon enough.

You see, as I stated, the field remains open, but as we see al he bickering and speeches, which of them is actually worried about the diminishing situation for merry old England? Who spoke out? That part is the issue, as the Liberal Democrats have Farron, who seems to be stuck next to the Blackburn Rovers. You could say that one is a founding member of soccer, the other cries about the ‘theft’ of school meals. Perhaps Mr Farron could consider where the money needs to come from, we all know that the treasury coffers are empty and Farron has yet to show a responsible bone in his body regarding the need of proper budgeting. Tim Farron seems to be all about “The flagship Lib Dem policy is supposed to save families more than £400 a year per child and provide a healthy lunch to every five-, six- and seven-year-old“, which is a good cause, I truly agree that it is, but who pays the baker and the butcher? Not one party has a clear answer here, not even the Conservatives, which it is exactly why it could end up getting scrapped. In that same light Jeremy Corbyn is all about getting elected, which means he has to spend money and promise all kinds of deals down the track. Basically it will be about spending money he does not have, not now, and after the elections it will not be in the treasury coffers. His view regarding ‘ending austerity’ is principally Mr Corbyn’s objective. This sounds nice as a slogan, but where will he get the money to govern, in that regard they have always made the same basic mistake. Spend now and let the next one clean up that mess. An option the UK can no longer afford. The three of them have set a dangerous precedent. In all this UKIP could get a massive slice of the cake, if they do not drop the ball or screw with the gains they got. Any momentum lost will be a massive drain towards the elections. This could end up being the moment UKIP was waiting for, the question remains, who will they trust? Only the right team will make it and infighting will drop their political victory chances to 0% overnight, a danger that remains realistic, which is what the conservatives and Labour are both hoping for, because them 71 marginal Tory seats are indeed the currency desired, yet the marginal Labour seats are not mentioned here, which to the best of my calculations are an additional 12 that UKIP could grab there, it will include the more tropical sights of Caerphilly after Charges against the three Caerphilly council bosses were ‘dropped’. The population there could find themselves at odds and if they turn from labour, UKIP becomes the new option. In that case brilliant work by senior labour people might not be enough to save Caerphilly for Labour, yet they could stem the tide for a few additional places. You see, Delyn might get hit too. Not because of David Hanson, he did a good job, but his choice for Yvette Cooper could now raise the question: ‘what else will he get wrong?’ Not a fair situation, but a consequence of choice. Unless Jeremy Corbyn makes a massive blunder, that choice could cost him and with every labour goof that comes from now until election time will affect his chances. Here Nigel Williams will remain a contender. His correct view “We didn’t quite get there but the vote for UKIP in Delyn increased by over 800%” is the issue. If Williams remains the level headed than Williams remains just that a dangerous contender. David Hanson will face an actual fight next election, which means that Nigel Farage needs to get his A-Game out. Labour and my Conservatives will push for infighting as much as possible (all things are fair in politics and desire), but that view could backfire too (not the desire view though). The numbers have shifted and the UK has moved in the direction Nigel Farage desired it to be. He just didn’t plan for this shift to happen, which gives us a small window of opportunity against UKIP.

I wonder who’ll take it.

Leave a comment

Filed under Media, Politics

Tagged as Conservatives, Corbyn, David Cameron, David Hanson, Ed Miliband, George Osborne, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Lord Brittan, Marine Le Pen, Mark Carney, McDonnell, Nigel Farage, Nigel Williams, UKIP, Yvette Cooper

July 4, 2015 · 23:13

Ruled by cowards

That was my first thought this morning, the Guardian is full of news, on how Greece “needs up to €60bn (£42bn) of extra funds over the next three years and large-scale debt relief to create “a breathing space” and stabilise the economy“. Really? In all this, no move will be made until after the referendum, but the fact that Greece goes a way they do not like, a 60 billion Euro carrot is thrown into the mix. So as we see that the IMF now reveals a deep split with Europe as it warned that Greece’s debts were “unsustainable”, which we already knew, we see absolutely nothing on the accountability of Greece, its choice of politicians and it taken political policies in the last decade.

Consider the rules at creditcard.com ‘Preteens should learn that borrowing money costs money, and that when you borrow, you make a promise to repay‘, now there are two main reasons why things go wrong, the first is because things change, a person loses his job, a town falls into recession, these are usually temporary issues, and a delay tends to solve matters. Yet when the child has a compulsive buying disorder, that person will have all the toys and all the goodies and no usable credit card. Last there is the group of people who are both in denial and rationalising, this applies to Greece and pretty much the political BULK of the EEC.

They are in denial that they overspent and they are rationalising why it was spent in the first place. Greece being the front runner, because Greece is now in the hot water tub. More important, several players are now stepping on the plate stating things like unsustainable and debt relief, which was a given for a long time, yet NO ONE is holding Greece accountable (at present), for the things they did. It will be pushed towards ‘it was the previous people’ and these people are not to blame. We can allow for both to be truths, yet the current administration has done NOTHING to make serious changes, changes to prevent this from happening from now on. This makes them equally guilty. So as the Guardian published yesterday ‘IMF says Greece needs extra €60bn in funds and debt relief‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/02/imf-greece-needs-extra-50bn-euros) and now follows it up with ‘IMF says no third bailout without debt relief‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/02/greek-debt-crisis-athens-creditors-referendum-yes-no-live) yesterday, it seems to me that the people behind the screens are slowly releasing information in an urge to keep the status quo going, the fact that this will hit everyone down the track is not their concern, like former Greek politicians, they will leave it for the next person to solve.

What a tangled web we weave!

Now, we see additional hilarious statements as Yanis Varoufakis starts spinning its tail. With messages like “Europe has taken a “Political decision to shut the banks down” as a way to force Greece to accept a non-viable decision” on Bloomberg. Let’s not forget that the ECB had to give Greece 3.3 billion in emergency cash, making the total of cash through the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) €68.3bn (£50.3bn) (source: BBC), so this means, that whilst people can only get 60 euro’s a day, and as some source stated “Greek banks down to €500m in cash reserves as economy crashes“, we see that 11 million people could take out 660 million euro’s leaving absolutely no money left in the banks (or ATM’s for that matter), so, how about stating that the banks were closed because Greece had no money left? As a professor of Economy, I would hope that Yanis Varoufakis can use an abacus and calculate the dire situation for himself. Giving us the issue that as a politician he is spinning half-truths as I see it (I do accept that as a politician he had very little options to work with).

You see in all this, my massive issue is not the status this parliament is in, they were handed a really bad hand. It is the utter inaction that propelled this situation into the limelight. So why bash Tsipras and Varoufakis? That is the question I ask myself, because I must look at reasoning in all matters!

I have no hatred or ill feelings towards Greece, I always loved Crete! I have nothing against these politicians as persons (never met them), but their actions call into the light certain elements we must inspect and investigate, even within ourselves, because if we do not do that, we become players in the blame game and there has been way too much of that on many sides of the monopoly table.

Now we look at news with more ‘fearing’ upcoming events of utter negativity ‘Greek economy close to collapse as food and medicine run short‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/greece-economy-collapse-close-food-medicine-shortage). First the subtitle “Alexis Tsipras urges people to vote no in Sunday’s referendum as capital controls bite and vital tourism industry sees tens of thousands cancel holidays in Greece“, how interesting as politicians and spokespeople were all about on how tourism was great and how the numbers would continue.

For example ‘The record boom in Greek tourism with more to come, says Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura‘ (at http://www.neomagazine.com/2015/04/greece-has-never-been-sexier-the-record-boom-in-greek-tourism-with-more-to-come-says-tourism-minister-elena-kountoura/), where we see “All entities that deal with tourism including our ministry and the people of Greece have come together and joined hands so that 2015 will be an even better year. The feedback so far is very positive and we feel very optimistic“. Which is an April 2015 article, in my article of April 22^nd, we see the Ekathimerini quotes, where the quote a drop of 50% came from, which I thought was overly pessimistic, it had foundations as Global Travel reported a predicted drop of 40% from the Russian shores. Now we see that Ekathimerini might be getting closer to the mark than we thought. Tourism is an important factor, because it is the first and direct influx of funds to the small business owners all over Greece, with a stated 50,000 tourist’s now changing destination, it becomes a very dangerous time for the Greek economy, when the tourists stay away Greek gets a new level of nightmares to deal with.

Then we see the quote “Greece’s economy is on the brink of collapse after the capital controls imposed ahead of Sunday’s referendum left the country with shortages of food and drugs” as well as “The survival of the Syriza coalition, formed just over five months ago to repudiate five years of austerity programmes, was in doubt as Greece started to suffer shortages of basic provisions, including the sale of vital drugs in pharmacies nationwide” You see, the second one is the problem, it hides another matter, the fact that a generic ‘commercial’ side can no longer survive in the Greek environment. I knew it was going to be bad, but this is showing another matter all entirely, a side many papers left in the shadow of the events. You see, if capital controls brought basic shortages to the surface, what else are the people (not just the Greeks) unaware of?

Consider the quote “Greek islands, where thousands of holidaymakers headed this week, have also been hit, with popular Cycladic destinations such as Mykonos and Santorini reporting shortages of basic foodstuffs. More than half of Greece’s food supplies – and the vast majority of pharmaceuticals – are imported, but with bank transfers now banned, companies are unable to pay suppliers“, and contemplate what capital controls allows for limiting the requirement of food and medication, unless it is done on credit, or done under a condition when currency has dwindled to zero. Of course the situation is not that simple, yet when imposed capital controls (as reported) stops food and medication from reaching the people. If it is a governmental ploy to push for a vote (not entirely impossible) than we can truly state that the game is changing for the Greeks and the power players behind the mirror.

This is given added weight when we consider “The ECB will meet on Monday to decide whether to step up its help to Greece under its emergency liquidity assistance scheme. The head of Greece’s banking association, Louka Katseli, told reporters: “Liquidity is assured until Monday, thereafter it will depend on the ECB decision.”“, so is this part of the fact, or is it another level? You see, if the Emergency liquidity opens the influx of medication and food, we have a nation truly out of cash. This is not a story that makes me happy, it is a sad continuation for a nation of people who have ended up with the short end of the stick for too long and in addition their latest government has done almost nothing to quell the issues that truly needed attention. So as we are now a day away from the referendum, we seem to bulk up question after question, most of them all relate to the referendum and more important, what will the consequence be on Monday?

Monday will be a milestone for the Europeans, not just the Greeks. You see, no matter what, the French and the Italians will be all about securing their borders, securing their financial status, because when we see Mark Carney all over the news with “He said the risk to the banking system in the UK has increased but added that the central bank was ready to take whatever action is required to protect Britain“, yet he also warned that Britain’s exposure to the rest of the Eurozone remained ‘considerable’” (at http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3146443/Greece-deadlock-risks-UK-financial-stability-warns-Mark-Carney-adds-BoE-ready-action-protect-Britain.html). It is the part that is ignored by many people and a many reporters. You see, no matter what, France and Italy will be all about setting their projected and their presented status.

Yet, it is the French RFI that gives me “Elsewhere in Athens, in a backstreet with graffiti-painted walls not far from Omonia Square, is the Alexander the Great restaurant. Its terrace is full. But not full enough to keep the business running. “We have only 10 tables, down from 30, because the overheads were too high,” says Sodia Blacho, a lawyer who helps her father run the eatery in her spare time. “We are a family business. All our family members help around without being paid. We used to have 10 staff members but now we have only three left. We have to borrow individually some money to invest in the business and to keep it going.”“, this shows a different side. We all know that many restaurants are depending on tourism, but beyond that people have to eat, when places like this falter, is it a combination of issues? Not just the tourists, but what happens when business models fall under the changing conditions of an economy to this extent? I feel certain that there are more places, other places that have a similar issue to deal with. The interesting wisdom that people ignore as they bash a word called austerity, words of wisdom come from Dimitri Sotiropoulos, a senior research fellow with the Eliamep think tank, where we hear “Any type of austerity measures you can think of will be necessary in the next two years for Greece to stand again on its own feet and hopefully this will happen within the Eurozone. If it is going to be No, the prospects of Greece remaining in the Eurozone are very bleak”, the heart of Austerity ignored is a nation (actually pretty much all EEC nations) keeping a proper handle on its budget, when Greece falls, France and Italy become the next players that need to realise that the jig is up, no matter how committed and how up to date their payments are, when Greece falls 11 million people will start looking for any answer, anywhere in Europe to keep them alive and no one will be able to blame them. The news is only overshadowed by an article published today in the Economist (at http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21656720-legal-reforms-may-help-chip-away-mountain-non-performing), where we see the quotes “the government last week introduced an emergency decree aimed at unblocking a backlog of bad loans. The hope is that this would allow banks to lend to more deserving companies instead and so boost the economy, which after three years of recession grew by 0.3% in the first quarter“, “This has become especially problematic as the financial crisis has caused the number of companies in distress to soar: annual corporate insolvencies rose from around 6,000 in 2007 to more than 14,000 a year in 2013 and 2014. The result is a mass of impaired loans—€325 billion ($360 billion) as of December“, as well as “Italy’s justice ministry has appointed a commission to come up with plans for a comprehensive overhaul“. This is all emphasised by the subtitle ‘Legal reforms may help chip away at the mountain of non-performing loans‘, nice to see an article to phrase what I have been telling for almost a year. Italy might have options as it is making changes now, not in a year from now when it is possibly too late, with almost 30,000 companies going bankrupt in the last 2 years, this year will be a cruncher for Italy, especially with a contracting economy. All this changes with Greece, with 2.6 trillion in debt, Italy is another player altogether, even though the Italian outlook is nowhere near deadly at present, the Greek situation will push Italy (France too) towards the Abyss, now Europe has two direct options, the first is the four nations banding together (UK, Italy, France and Germany), yet the UK referendum is not sitting well with the other three players and France remains an item too. If President Hollande, President Sergio Mattarella and German Chancellor Angela Merkel set up a triad of economy between Italy, Germany and France, there is an option for limited growth, in that vision the UK becomes a pariah as the referendum talks have been voiced, in all that Hollande has time, but once Marine Le Pen gains too much traction with National Front, his options are over. In all this, those players will drop Greece like a bad habit, because Alexis Tsipras overplayed a really bad hand and he played it badly too. No matter how ‘clever’ some see the acts, those with all the coin behind the mirror will not hesitate to take a bruise regarding Greece if it means keeping the total 5 trillion debt issue from both Italy and France safe, when that goes it all stops for everyone.

No matter how it all goes next, the one change that will fill the minds of the policymakers will be legislation and prosecution, the view on how it filed in Greece is something these two nations cannot live with, through all this the French and British referendums will sound and it will have an impact on all changes that insiders and outsiders would want. When these evolutions remain absent, its population will see to what extent they are ruled by cowards, for the mere simplicity of fact that at present no one will get out of this without skin in the game, Greece was not cause of it, it just brought it to the surface a hell of a lot faster.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics

Tagged as Alexander the Great restaurant, Alexis Tsipras, Athens, Bank of England, capital controls, creditcard.com, debt relief, ECB, EEC, Ekathimerini, ELA, Elena Kountoura, Emergency Liquidity Assistance, France, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek islands, Greek politicians, IMF, Italy, Marine Le Pen, Mark Carney, National Front, Omonia Square, President Hollande, President Sergio Mattarella, RFI, the Guardian, Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura, Yanis Varoufakis

May 23, 2015 · 20:45

The outspoken lie

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

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

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

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as ABC, ABC News, adelaidenow.com.au, Airbus, Alistair Darling, Australia, Better Together, Brexit, Catherine MacLeod, Chancellor of the Exchequer, First Air Warfare Destroyer launched at ASC, France, Grexit, heraldscotland.com, HSBC, Is it all Greek to you?, Jeremy Harrison, Lucy Pinder, Mark Carney, Natixis, Northrop-Grumman, Osborne, Raúl Ilargi Meijer, Raytheon, RBS, Robert Mackie, Royal Bank of Scotland, Saturday AM, Sir Jonathan Cunliffe, the Commonwealth, the Guardian, The Herald Scotland, United Kingdom

Tag Archives: Mark Carney

Recent Posts

Archives