Tag Archives: Monaco

March 4, 2023 · 10:23

It was one keyword

Yes, that is at times the short and sweet of anything, but let that not be some alert to the easiness of any endeavour. You see, my opposition to the CBC article (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nordstrom-canada-1.6766073) is not that simple. The headline ‘Nordstrom closing down in Canada, shuttering all 13 stores’ sounds nice and it is a reality, but it is another line, one giving us “It was not Canadian enough”, that is the one that is plain wrong. You see, from all information we could go with the setting that the business mission was wrong all along, especially with any business painting the books in red since 2014 is another matter, one that matters, but the larger stage is not that (for Nordstrom it might be), malls are at present done for in its current setting. You see when Covid hit, it did a lot more. The timeline 2020-2023 changed people. People were forced to sit at home and mull things over. The short gratitude setting of going shopping in the weekend suddenly got hit by the cold light of day and it did not hold up. People started to think over what on earth they were doing and that becomes a whole lot more. 

You see, it started before June 6th 2022 when I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/06/presentation-and-awareness-creation/) ‘Presentation and Awareness creation’. This is based in simple settings. You see, all the marketeers are in some silly exercise of direct marketing. It is direct, simple and cheap and the ROI of it is seemingly immense. But any intelligent marketing boffin will tell you that the actual gems are found in engagement. Engagement is key to get traction with the people, especially the people who woke up after covid. I saw the setting in the Eaton Centre Mall (Toronto), yet I saw this application in places like Harrods too (Harrods has way to much traction at the moment, as such they need not worry), but there are well over 115,000 malls that need to wake up. They need to create traction and that was where my IP came in. It wasn’t hard, parts already existed, but for some reason Amazon and Google (the most likely winners in that race) decided not to wake up and that is where everyone decided to snooze a little longer. But there was a stage that was fast and vastly evolving and players like Omnichannel were already aware. They knew that the race was around the creation of engagement, they merely did not take it far enough. I did and suddenly had created a stage where bookshops and jewellers were a lot more important than ever before. OK, I am a guy so I created the stage for Victoria Secrets as well, they have well over 1,000 stores in the US alone and that is merely the beginning. There was a stage of intensified engagements from Alberta to Monaco and from Monaco to Zurich. An enlarging stage and the one keyword everyone forgot about was ‘Effort’, it is not part of direct marketing as such a lot of people forgot about it, but it matters and it matters a lot. Nordstrom is merely the beginning. Unless malls do not change their approach too many of them will become ghost buildings. The people are awake and these malls are largely done for. Seek any of my articles from June 6th 2022 involving ‘Eaton Centre Mall’ and you might catch on. It was all out in the open and marketing people forgot about the essential approach involving effort. 

What I never figured out is that I am not the super intelligent type, Google and Amazon should have been thee long before I did and they were not, now that they are all about chasing revenue, I wonder who gets there first, that player will have a much larger revenue stream for a long time to come and it is not an adjusted revenue stream, it is a new one with global implications. That is my view on the matter. How the keyword ‘effort’ changes everything.

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February 20, 2023 · 01:43

The wrong wake up call

Yup that happens, but the way it was done was rather surprising. You see, I wrote about this situation and I did it reflecting on my own experiences. I reckon one of the clearest moments was August 2021 when I wrote ‘As credibility moves to the arctic’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/26/as-credibility-moves-to-the-arctic/) and the most recent was ‘The part we seem to forget’ where I wrote “The media is the bitch of shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers”. This is a stage I have mentioned since 2012, so I have been aware of this stage for 10 years. When it upsets the advertisers it is trivialised (Sony, 2012) and they are not alone. When it is a larger issues the media gets to meet with stakeholders who provide a narrative and that is how it is set, there is more with shareholders, but that is for another day. And now the BBC gives us ‘BFM journalist Rachid M’Barki suspended in scandal linked to disinformation firm’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64677232) where we see “he admits to bypassing BFM’s editorial checks”, yes admitting to incompetence is the way to go, but here it is not enough. I reckon he stepped on the toes of the wrong stakeholder and he is hung out to dry. So when we are given “an investigation by Le Monde newspaper in conjunction with the campaigning organisation Forbidden Stories has revealed more details. According to the investigation, M’Barki ran reports on a variety of subjects – luxury yachts in Monaco, a Sudanese opposition leader, allegations of corruption in Qatar – that had all one thing in common: they were planted by an Israel-based outfit specialising in ‘news for hire’.” We have hundreds of news sources starting at Reuters, but these three gave enough to set the stage to an Israeli firm? I have questions and a lot of them. It is possible that a whole range over a time would give an optional narrative, yet the larger problem with the media is not merely copying one another, it is that there is no vetting of information and I am not talking about editorial checks. The need for news-by-wire is setting a stage where proper vetting of information is surpassed (as I personally see it). And this time around a man named Rachid M’Barki gets the joker served in a not so nice way, he is hung out to dry. Now it is simple to say that something is not possible. I say some things are too highly unlikely and there is a second stage, this is coming to the forefront all whilst these connected stakeholders are massively shy of the limelight. Their value is not being seen. This is why some people have lunch meetings with stakeholders and often in a neutral place. Please do not take my word for this, seek out your own evidence. I woke up when I saw Australian news ignore events surrounding Sony in 2012, a mere week before the PS4 was launched and they ALL ignored it, Sony advertisement money was too powerful, too incentive for words, as such the fact that 30 million gamers were exposed to changes was ignored by pretty much all of them. From that moment on I started to track certain events and the media did not disappoint, they dropped the ball time after time and I started to see patterns (as I would call them)  digital patterns all about the money and infused by below quality reporting as I saw it. I made several mentions from 2012, but the load started to become heavy from 2019 onwards. And now the BBC gives us another wake up call, but it is one they might not want to make, because we are given the guilt of Rachid M’Barki butt that also opens up the an of worms that we get to see with most of the media and that includes BBC, the Guardian, NY Times and a few other players. As I personally see it, all media has its own stakeholders and we are denied the news, we are merely handed filtered information. Information filtered to the needs of share holders, stake holders and advertisers. That is how I personally see it.

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July 24, 2022 · 13:03

Choices and power

It is something that has been bugging me all day and part of last night. It was set in motion by a story I am working on and it reflected on my IP. You see I had hoped that Amazon or Google had bought my IP, it benefits them the most (amazon more than Google). But in this day and age there are two new players in town Netflix and Tencent. They are not on anyones radar before 2023 (second half) but that does not mean I need to ignore two potential players for my IP. Consider that my IP will allow a minimum of 50 million consoles (or subscriptions). Consider the following list

Playstation 4 – 117 million
Nintendo Switch – 107 million
Playstation 5 – 20 million
Google Stadia – 3 million
Amazon Luna – Unknown

I have no real reliable information on how the Amazon Luna is doing and Microsoft is not a consideration. Now we get Tencent and Netflix and one of them gets an option to surpass the others and end up behind Nintendo and Sony in the number three spot, the setting is a sale that is the starting setting and will get them well above 50 million subscriptions, optionally around 75 million, and that mind you is merely the beginning. They could temporarily be the number one but Sony is hardcore focussed on this market and they do have the goods. So am I empowered to set one in a fighting position and become one of the top 3 game solutions? Or is the power derived from the additional choices that entered the field? 

More important Tencent and China get the option to run and rule one more field, it would be empowering to Tencent. Yet Netflix has reasons too and they have the setting to optionally alter their subscription approach two new players added to the ones I was willing to sell to (Amazon and Google). There is the option of Elon Musk and he is considered by me as a wild card. He is not in these fields but he has the Midas touch and when he sees options he seemingly grabs them. The odd satisfaction of all the Elon Musk haters entering a new market and becoming a top three player is oddly satisfying. So I went from two consideration now to 6 considerations and I feel decently well, because that is merely one side to the first IP bundle and the other two are still available, the second is ruled by the 5G solution and that will take off in 2-3 years when 5G is fully deployed, all ahead of the largest boom I am ever to likely see in my lifetime. 

To be honest I had some sights on Netflix, but Tencent is new, until recently and until some patents came past my desk I was in the dark on the setting of Tencent, but here they are a contender for streaming information and with 50 million plus, they are looking at up to half a billion a month, not something anyone can afford to sneer at, not in these times. But the larger settings are still out of the equation, the Augmented reality solutions I came up with (see previous articles), there we have a stage where marketing could rule a new part of well over 100,000 malls on a global scale and from there I can only speculate where this goes. A stage that could benefit places like Monaco, Riyadh and Dubai in all kinds of ways. But I get ahead of myself. Is all this power through choices, or choices that come from power? You see they are not the same coin, they aren’t even the same currency. The implied word ‘choice’ has several sides and they aren’t restricted to coins, they are also part of technology and enablement. All different settings for the same word and only the shallow will see them as one and the same. Power is more restrictive but also more out there and eagerly seen by everyone for all the wrong reasons, it is an enabler but only to some degree and it reflects on the chosen partner in this on how they want to continue with the offered choice and they pretty much see power as a monetary enabler, which is their choice, but it is the second tier and the third tier that will enable them to a much larger degree. That is the long game and that is where I have been focussing on, the long game, only the greedy reflect on the next quarter and their bonus.

But that is merely my (limited) point of view.

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May 25, 2022 · 22:04

Dangerous ally

That happens, we have enemies, impartial parties, friends and allies. This is how it has been for the longest of times. Yet what happens when an ally becomes a danger? That is what the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/national-security-us-fox-news-threat-report-1.6459660) gives us with: ‘Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic ‘backsliding’ worsens: security experts’. In this article we are given ““The United States is and will remain our closest ally, but it could also become a source of threat and instability,” says a newly published report written by a task force of former national security advisers, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) directors, ex-deputy ministers, former ambassadors and academics. Members of the group have advised both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper.” That at least is one side. Yet the stage we see here is a little larger than we think it is. You see, we are given “There are growing transnational ties between right-wing extremists here and in the U.S., the movement of funds, the movement of people, the movement of ideas, the encouragement, the support by media, such as Fox News and other conservative media,” I believe that they are missing a few bolts in that equation. As I personally see it, the media is a lot more guilty from my point of view. At present the media is desperate for digital dollars and we see this on a global level. The best way to get this is to get clicks, as such more and more flammable materials are published, just to get clicks. No matter what the consequences are. In this I give you the guardian who gave us (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/22/rightwing-us-pundit-candace-owens-compares-australian-government-to-the-taliban-calling-it-a-tyrannical-police-state-) last October. There we are given “Rightwing US pundit Candace Owens compares Australian government to the Taliban, calling it a ‘tyrannical police state’” In that article we are given “Outspoken conservative political commentator Candace Owens has suggested the US military invade Australia in order to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime” while drawing comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and the Taliban.” As such, lets relabel Candace Owens as ‘Black Putin’, with her telling the people “When do we deploy troops to Australia? When do we invade Australia and free an oppressed people who are suffering under a totalitarian regime? When do we spend trillions of dollars to spread democracy in Australia?” Wasn’t that the setting Vladimir Putin used to go into the Ukraine? How is that going?

A Commonwealth nation that has shown it has Freedom of speech, freedom of religion (a lot more than the US has), it has democratic elections and so far after decades, I have yet to see a police state in action in Australia. So which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of a police state? Which media asked this Black Putin for evidence of oppression in Australia and what evidence is there of a totalitarian regime? She is ‘tolerated’ by the media as she flames stuff, she brings in the digital dollars. That is how I personally see it.

So in the report (see below) we are also given “Yet Canadians and their governments rarely take national security seriously. Taking shelter under the American umbrella has worked well for us. This has made us complacent and paved the way for our neglect of national security.” This is true and as the US falters the pressure on Canada increases. I did make mention of something similar to this, but not to this degree and it was a while back. Yet the danger station remains, when the US collapses (which is still possible) the people will try to find a safe haven, and Canada will top their list. Consider the idea that Canada suddenly needs to deal with 5-15 million Americans trying the collapse in their own country, Canada is not ready, more important. Canadian National security is nowhere near ready for that nightmare scenario. In addition, as I personally see it, the Putin’s of America (black or not) will gladly throw oil on that fire to get more digital dollars out of all of it. 

And the Ukraine adds to that setting with “Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, with its deliberate targeting of civilians and underlying threat of nuclear war, has jolted even the most sanguine of western democracies into thinking anew about security. Ahead lies a period of escalating tensions with no clear end in sight” as such the Commonwealth needs to take steps, serious steps towards keeping its territories safe, any way they can. Canada has of course the largest problem. It has 8890km of border with the US and there is no way that this can ever be kept safe or untrodden, so other means will be needed to keep Canada safe. What they are, your guess is as good as mine. But this will come to blows there is no doubt in my mind. Even now we see more and more stories and articles about the decline of the US, but they are trivialised, even the ones from the Pentagon. The power players are all in the believe that it will not happen, but they have their millions safely in a zero tax haven like Dubai, Bahama’s, Monaco or Cayman Islands. When things go south fast they take personal leave get to where they need to be and resign their posts with loads of cash safely tucked away. When that escalated the people will start running and those without cash will try to get anywhere they can and that group is a lot larger than you think. Last year all these people who got into Bitcoin, because it was such a safe bet, what they bought at 87K is now a mere 41K, they lost over 50% and when it goes from bad to worse the US will become close to unliveable. And that is what Canada needs to fear, almost more than any lone wolf terrorist. In all this, with all the things we see 2022 is the first year where several players need to consider that America has become a dangerous ally. It is not the military that Canada needs to fear, it is a senseless 329,000,000 people all trying to find some safe haven and the group that is in poverty and the elderly pushed into poverty is large and growing larger by the day. When we consider “The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019.” We think it is not that serious, but the last two years destroyed savings due to the cost of living under Covid and Bitcoins value for millions of people. There is no way that they US has accurate data at present and that is not on them, but I reckon (speculated estimation) that it is closer to 13.5% at present. As such there is a chance that as per tomorrow 4.4 million Americans will seek shelter any place they can and a sizeable chunk of those 4.4 million will no longer believe that the US can offer that. Even now with unemployment numbers at a global all time low, too many will consider the ‘get out now’ routine. Because if the US has worker issues, than Canada might have them too. Not the worst thought to have, but when millions have that thought at the same time, Canada will face a larger problem and that is before the actual national security problems stir their ugly head. I believe that the Commonwealth nations need to unite and we need to do this now, not tomorrow. Things might get pretty hairy soon enough and not being ready just doesn’t slice the cake, not in this day and age.

natsec_report_gspia_may2022Download

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February 16, 2022 · 14:29

Gift for militant wench

OK, not my finest hour in diplomacy, but it was the only way to give the path to people thinking ‘another Amazon story’. I woke up this morning with a new IP, an IP based on Google technology, but they do not create software, so their loss. And this is freeware only for Sony and Amazon products, just another way for me to say to Microsoft “Screw you!” So in my sleep I was racing through the street, there were paths, obstacles and my mind was making sense of it all (which took a few seconds) and I was seeing the brilliance of that Nintendo kart game that can take place in your home. A good idea, but I gave it steroids and turned it into something serious. You see, there are the F1 people, who love the F1, want to race on their tracks, want to be an F1 driver and this is not for them, There are good products and they are happy there. No, this is for the people who want to race in the real world. So consider a setting where the game has 10 circuits. They can give their address, or one they wished to live and the system will design a racetrack from 2500 metres up to 5500 metres (for now) based on real Google Map data. So you get a game that will soon have thousands of tracks, and the nice part is that there is racing (just the street) and challenge where the system adds obstacles, ramps (looking like it was fake and inserted) to give that goofy feeling for when you go all out. As far as I can tell, it has NEVER been done before and there Amazon gets the inside track, because as you race what is, the system with Machine learning and deeper machine learning will try to make you a map you requested based on the area, or location you gave and adds the track for you personally to your account. A setting where a game can grown into a massive behemoth of racing fun. A setting where you can race where you always desired to race, your hometown (wherever that is), Tokyo streets, Monte Carlo (every racer wants to be there one day), London, Berlin, Amsterdam and the list just grows. I am actually amazed no one in Google was that alert, but there you have it. So I say (still lacking diplomacy) “Militant wench, have at it”, we could include boat racing, but I reckon that a place like Rotterdam will give Amazon all kinds of problems. 

A simple idea boosted to a real challenge, and should you wonder why Microsoft cannot come up with it. Well that is simple, they can buy creativity, they merely lack the ability to create something. For that they have Mojang, Bethesda and Blizzard. Those who buy are limited to their knowledge of Excel (or so they say).

Enjoy this midweek! The weekend will be 68 hours away for some. 

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February 1, 2022 · 19:41

The opportunity for 2022

I was just watching a video (Monte Carlo Walking Tour), I was watching it because there is at present no plans or chances to visit the place, so I might as well watch a walking tour so that I get to see what the place looks like and to be honest, walking tours give a better impression of a place than most TV or movie alternatives. So as I was watching I suddenly realised that Monaco has a huge opportunity and no one is taking notice of it. High buildings with a naked wall, a bare piece of stone that looks nice, but could do so much more. What happens when Monaco installs QR codes in several places to invite augmented reality to the thousands of people filming and photographing Monaco? A QR code on a crane or a wall that shows on the phone an augmented F1 car in the street, a special yacht in mid air or simple an area name on your screen. Monaco has so many options and even more tourists. Thy have annually over 365,000 tourists, that is well over 1,000 a day in a place no larger than Hyde Park. In this walking tour I saw 5 cranes, all empty metal husks, a QR code, even two QR codes would not hinder, and it can go so much further. The same could be said for Nice, St. Tropez, Cannes, and that is before you look at the big places. I see an abundant of construction fences, all bland, all non engaging, all whilst technology can offer so much more for the people there. So why is it not implemented? Just saw Crane number 6. That is close to 2 dozen places people try to avoid with their eyes all whilst it could be an eye catcher is very different ways. In a place where pleasing the eye is on the mind of thousands, I see no augmented reality. Why not?

And let’s not forget augmented reality can be used for information, tourist attraction, local advertisements of events and several other options, from air to water, Monaco has it all, well all except augmented reality.

And Monaco might be on the mind at present, but there are close to a dozen large cities who are not using that opportunity either. London had 19,000,000 tourists in 2019 and the list goes on for some time. A decent innovative impression creator ignored. Why? By people who do not understand it, or by people thinking it is a waste of time? As Monaco showed me 6 unused cranes and a dozen other locations, how many locations were overlooked in London? What could Cannes offer? Why is Amsterdam not leading that march and why do I see an utter lack of augmented reality in Los Angeles/Hollywood? All places that thrive on tourism and NEARLY EVERY tourist relies on their phone. So, what gives?

It is only January, some of these places could deliver an augmented summer, and 2022 needs a good start after all that….. achoo!

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January 18, 2022 · 11:06

Overlooked IP

Yes, we all look at ideas that make us rich, we all do. I am no exception. I have my IP, a few in 5G, a few in consoles, in movies, in TV series, in NextGen printable hardware and at least one in books. So until they are all sold I am content. This is the stage where I saw another piece of IP waiting to come to fruition. I see it, yet it is not my forte, in this Google has a massive opportunity and so far no one saw the setting on their retina’s, or on their displays. As I see it Google Maps could be extended and it could extent YouTube creators. Yet I see no start of this, as such I decided to make it public domain and let you all fight over it, or fight over it with Google. You see during lockdown I mentioned that there are all these city walks, yet no one considered to link them to Google maps and to combine them, so that someone looking at the map could click on the YouTube video giving us a real view (more than street view). So when we look at the Map of Toronto (Johny Strides), London (Mostly Walking), Monaco (Tourist Channel), yet also in the other direction. There is for example POPTravel giving us Stockholm, Munich, Heraklion and London. All stages many want to see, but no one made the connection to link these sources to Google maps (or any other map for that matter). I wonder why, if information is selectable, sliceable, dice able and optionally can be set into a funnel, why did no one consider that the funnel can be reversed and that sliced and diced information can be aggregated, so I am a little surprised that this service was not added, making more people look at the information that w could see (via
Youtube). I know that some maps show images, but the city walks are a great source of impression. I wonder if no one else made that leap and it could spur YouTube members into optional additional creativity.

Where is the walking route?

Just a thought I had at 10:34 (after a cup of coffee, who is demanding credit for the thought), A stage we all face, we all have and whilst we all make statements like this, until the thought is set to paper and set to the public it basically does not exist. It is one of the oldest rules. If it is not written down it does not exist. I think it comes from the age of Caesar Augustus (63BC-14AD), so it is not a new rule and many should know this part, or they should have been made aware of this.

Good hunting and good fortune to you all (or is that Google hunting for good fortune?) 

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December 30, 2021 · 22:34

Lest we forget

This is not some Marilyn Mason album (which was really good), this is not some WW1 reference. This is in part an accusation of the media, in this specific case the Canadian media. I stumbled upon this by mere coincidence. In the age of lockdowns I tend to watch a lot more walk video’s, the more extreme (location) the more I want to see it. I have seen a fair bit of them and there are several really good ones, so in the age of lockdown I have seen the streets of San Francisco (I had to go there), Monaco, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and several others. So this evening I saw (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuRPszR0-8) a Canadian style Christmas market in Monaco and it looked awesome. So why did the Canadian media not put this out as a human interest story? There was an ice rink, a sled hill (no real snow), stalls on Quebec, Ontario, generic Canadian and it was awesome to see in quality. I reckon that when your nation gets a cultural boost in a place like Monaco a single page on CBC or even Global One is not overly weird, but I did not see any of that. 

I reckon that if the subject was Australia, the UK or the Netherlands their media would go all out on it (an assumption on my side). So why are the human stories neglected when it is not the brassiere of some celebrity the story goes to the ‘horse no show’ category? You think I am kidding, but seek events that are international that impact your nation, who gives it any kind of visibility? And lets face it, Monaco is not any place, it is the place where the richest of the rich live (help me out here Jeff ;-)) it is subtropical and the temperature is around 23.4 degrees Celsius warmer than it is in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec or Ottawa, so the idea of watching people in a winter stall in summer outfit will work well on anyone. So why are these events missed? This might be the one I noticed, but I feel certain that it is nowhere near the only one.

So you take a look at that video (especially if your Canadian) and consider why it was missed, a Christmas stall is a Christmas stall and it will always pique the interest of someone, especially if it involves a group of people eating Poutine right next to a Louis Vuitton shop, don’t you agree?

And let’s face it, seeing the locals there having a go at Canadian Bacon will be worth the watch too, but that is merely my sense of giggles turning a frown upside down.

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December 14, 2021 · 00:50

When is limelight a void?

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

As I see it there are two reasons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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October 29, 2021 · 23:38

The blank stage

There is a stage, it remains blank. It is not a real stage, it is a stage in our minds. We all have one, there is no exclusion. Yet there is also a stage that we fill with assumptions, with presumptions and with unspoken accusations. We all do it, I do, and you do too. This all started during the night. I dreamt a new story, a dark one, for my doing a really dark one. It is set around the corrupt, a smitten hard burning love at first sight and the rage that follows. My mind is currently naming it ‘Wrath’, it is not merely the wrath of a person, it becomes an escalation when the people had enough, when they are pushed into a corner too hard, not unlike the main character and their response will be ‘interesting’. I need to do a little more research, but the law cases I saw in Australia seem to cover a lot, I reckon that if I look harder in the US I will have all the legal settings ready for the story (if I get around to it). I am still filling in the blanks in ‘Keno Diastima’ and I only have the smallest of basic foundations of ‘Vita Exhauriunt’. Most of ‘How to assassinate a politician’ is complete, but there I feel that more needs to be done, I need to add a cog, a need to add a few more parts. This is hardly a one hour story. But then, I never published an actual script before. Yet I reckon that ‘Wrath’ might open the doors to two of these solutions. So as I started to surf the internet to see if something could wake up my mind, I saw something else. Something I wrote about, something the media at large seems to ignore. So when we get to the story two days ago by the ICIJ ‘Pandora Papers journalists face government backlash for investigating financial secrecy’ (at https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/pandora-papers-journalists-face-government-backlash-for-investigating-financial-secrecy/) something stirred in me. It was the quote “The Pandora Papers is a global investigation led by ICIJ, published earlier this month, that included more than 600 journalists representing 150 partner media organisations from 117 countries and territories. Based on a leak of 11.9 million documents of 14 offshore services providers, the trove revealed the secret holdings of more than 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 country leaders. Ambassadors, mayors and ministers,  presidential advisers, generals and a central bank governor appear in the files”, I almost had forgotten about it. The station that this was a leak, it was not. When we see “14 offshore services providers” all whilst at least two of them have above average protection, this has not a leak. This was a hack, a hack by a government player (most likely the USA) the tax issue is setting the wrong steps, there was a delay, but that delay runs out in 8 weeks and in 6 weeks the ‘tax the rich’ BS starts all over again. In all this time the ICIJ NEVER gave anyone a top line summary. Things like nations involved, like nations with the amount of politicians involved. Not names, a mere tally. So far the ICIJ sounds as useless as the stories they give us and when it comes to stories, I am seemingly better then they could ever hope to be. 600 journalists and no one in all that time create a dashboard for the people to see the impact. We see accusations against Tony Blair, yet they also hid inside the story that he did not break any laws, so how useless is that. Apart from the screaming need to overhaul tax laws, something I have been advocating for well over a decade and the NSA hack (the most likely player) was not required. And the agreement, or better stated the quoted agreement that the ICIJ would not go after the source is even more lame. How stupid do 600 journalists need to get? In the end there is a chance that some of them will move ALL their wealth to Nassau, Dubai, or Riyadh giving the other nations ever more to worry about. There are options for Guernsey, Jersey and Monaco. The US and a few more places would lose out, Wall Street would suffer greatly (not the worst idea) and that is merely thee beginning, the EU would also suffer to a much larger degree, all because a few players would not clean their rooms when they were supposed to do that (2009-2011), it has been playing for well over a decade and as people are flim-flammed into looking at environmental issues, we see that the media still has not taken a hard look at the European Environmental Agency report that has been out now for almost a year. Why is that? Is a hard look into the mirror not sexy enough?

Now, we might all think of giving the ICIJ and their 600 journalists time, but they’ve had months, and so far the setting of a dashboard that gives us the stage of no laws broken (especially the billionaires that have pushed through legally available  means their fortune in zero tax havens) should cover well over 60% of these documents (a fictive number). The simplest setting that you all can see is the missing tally, the guardian gave us a tally of what to look through, but they had the 330 politicians, so that part could have been clearly given and a dashboard does not show criminal sides, it is merely that a tally, but I reckon that the tally shows that most of these people are in places the bulk of us do not give a hoot about, just like the billionaires. How many are people of royalty from some Arabian nation? Then we get to the remaining billionaires and we will see that they broke no laws, when you get to that point you get to the stage how useless the ICIJ was from day one and how they blow their own horn whilst these 600 people might be obsolete. I cannot guarantee that, but the assumption might not be far off. 

The blank stage is filled, and as assumption and presumption shake hands the stage goes from black and white to a malleable version of grey where we cannot see the difference between the black and the white. It was that from the very beginning, I pretty much predicted that in the first hour. 

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