Tag Archives: reuters

Blame who?

You see, we all like to blame the first party we see and the richer that person is, the more guilty he can be painted. That was the setting I saw in the Reuters story (at https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/) where we are given ‘Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show’ and the underlying text “Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by Reuters show. And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day. Among its responses to suspected rogue marketers: charging them a premium for ads – and issuing reports on ’Scammiest Scammers.’” Seems to lay the blame squarely in the lap of Sir Mark Anthony Zacharias of the Zacharians from the city of Rome (I need to introduce drama here) but is that correct? I am not claiming he is innocent, but is it completely there? Or is there another side to this. You see, Meta, Facebook and legions others are in that same setting. What brings out the stage of Meta is the numbers of ‘willing to be fooled fish’ in that batter. And when we are given “A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.” We see the blame and the blame at the top of the hill is a youthful young sprout (41) called Mark Zuckerberg with his $251,000 million in his wallet (I am willing to wager that this amount does not fit in his wallet) and there is a reason for my approach here. You see, everyone is so happy that there is a setting for advertisements and that ball is thrown all over the place and as I personally see it, I reckon that LinkedIn is in a similar place and there another setting exists. The scammers place an job ad in LinkedIn and from there they get their pool of optional gophers to dig into. In the last week I have had over half a dozen scam attempts and I believe the source to be LinkedIn. As such I have a different setting. I reckon it becomes a massive essential development to tackle the Advertisement settings of these settings. Better protection is required and larger systems are required to vet the advertisers. I know that all kinds of people will object for whatever reason, but that means that you do not get to whine if you are scammed. And what about the FTC? The FTC has primary responsibility for determining whether specific advertising is false or misleading, and for taking action against the sponsors of such material. You can report consumer fraud to the FTC. So what did they have to say? And that becomes interesting as the Article by Jeff Horwitz does not mention the FTC, not even once. So what did they have to say? Or was the win here to paint the guy with the big wallet? So how does that play out with LinkedIn, what about TikTok (I am not on TikTok, so I am clueless here), I also dropped Facebook over a year ago. 

But the setting is clear, the Reuters story is massively not-finished. And there is a bigger setting. We went with the old settings and applied them to social media, but there are different rules that need to be applied and a simple portal or over the phone advertisement sale will not be sufficient for the safety of the consumers getting scammed. So, basically I am merely on LinkedIn and as such (with the scammers to try me) there is every chance that they have a similar problem and in that setting there are several job sites that need thorough sanitation (my personal view) because they are in the setting that every advertiser is revenue in the bank and that is not always the case. 

So the short and sweet of it is that there is little doubt that Mark Zuckerberg holds some of the blame, some, not all. Because as I see it, the FTC has a much bigger problem. And where is the Federal Trade Commission in all of this? And when we see “A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.” As such the FTC remained dumb dumb for over three years? And Reuters never fave that any thought? Neither did many other players and the FTC never went to the media saying that the advertisements require a larger overhaul giving them a new setting of hunting down scammers. And as most of them are abroad, other settings need to be considered, but Reuters missed that part too.

Have a great day and if you get an email from a prince in Nigeria telling you that you inherited a million dollars, there is a chance that this is not on the up and up.

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It was a phrase

Yes, we have that. We see a line and something is not quite right. That is not on the reporter or the reader, sometimes a certain setting merely rubs you the wrong way. That was what I felt when I saw saw Zawya (at https://www.zawya.com/en/business/investment/davidson-kempner-latest-hedge-fund-to-be-lured-by-abu-dhabi-kweef386) giving us ‘Davidson Kempner latest hedge fund to be lured by Abu Dhabi’, personally I see ‘lured’ with a negative connotation. And yes it is personal, with the decade of military training I see ‘lure’ and I think ‘oh oh’, nothing intelligent about it, it is merely instinct. But the setting is “Davidson Kempner has more than $37 billion in assets under management.” Well, if you say it fast, it doesn’t seem like much, but the setting is that these around 60 partners control the setting of 37,000 million dollars and as they pour some of that into Abu Dhabi, the UAE gets a massive jolt of productive energy. And whilst America is roughly down and out, these people (mostly from New York) are basically hiding behind ‘the grass is always greener on the other fellow grave” and there is every chance that they will move portfolios for their customers who have (sorry to say it) greed on the brain. And let’s face it, the UAE is happening, it is a delicious plate of revenue and returns served with a nice decanter of Cognac. As I said it before, Abu Dhabi is the new El Dorado and whilst I showed that the simplicity of a lost and found application could resolve a number of issues in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, that setting is merely showing us that the UAE is embracing (when the embrace is good) to the implementation of AI in the UAE. Yet whilst that is being said, Reuters gives us ‘First 200 MW from UAE’s Stargate AI campus to come online next year’ with the China escape clause close at hand. And as we are told “During a Gulf visit by U.S. President Donald Trump in May, the UAE signed a multibillion-dollar deal to build one of the world’s largest data centre hubs in Abu Dhabi with U.S. technology. G42 said at the time that the project would be powered by nuclear and solar power, as well as natural gas.” As well as “the first phase, known as Stargate UAE, set to go online in 2026” and “the deal to build the campus has not been finalised amid security concerns due to the UAE’s close ties to China, Reuters has previously reported, citing sources” this is a little weird for more than one reason as the earliest of the Barakah (1 through 4) reactors will come online in 2030 earliest. So what will they do in the other 4 years? Solar and Gas? IO am not sure if that will hold especially as the current plants are feeding the needs of the UAE citizens and I personally have no idea how much surplus there is. I find it amazing that Reuters didn’t dig into that part of the equation. As I see it, the Huawei solution is ‘boasting’ “This AI processor delivers 256 TFLOPS@FP16 and 512 TOPS@INT8 of compute performance with just 350 W of max power consumption. The massive boost in power efficiency is thanks to Huawei’s own Da Vinci architecture” Some shout that the Nvidia solution is more powerful, but at what energy settings? And the press isn’t giving us the numbers, so I have to ask. And this reflects back at the setting of Davidson Kempner. You see, it will go where the markets are and that is their ‘duty’ to the people holding the funds. And as I see it America with their anti-China setting and Europe with their similar feelings are not the places to be. It is a mere phrase set to ‘lure’ but the other setting is ‘good business is where you find it’ and that setting gives Davidson Kempner the upper hand and Abu Dhabi is happy to see them (as far as I know). So give a happy clap to these 60 parts era who are protecting the (greed driven) needs of their customers. 

So as we are given “the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) issued a total of 52 In-Principle Approvals (IPAs) for financial services firms, up 27% year-on-year. Global names such as Kimmeridge and Fortress announced their expansion to Abu Dhabi earlier this year” gives the UAE (and Abu Dhabi in particular) the space to breath and they will let the dice roll on the markets and on the return on investment shares because as I see it, those who invested in that place (Yas Island is a good indication) are getting a lot more than a mere simple percentage growth. You just have to look at places like Saadiyat Island to see that this will be the dream of billionaires for the foreseeable future. Not bad for a place that hardly existed on the mind of people a decade ago, now pretty much everyone knows that is it the capital and that it is regarded to be the El Dorado of the future.

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The time has come

I have been sitting on a story for about three days. I have been hesitant as it is a field I am thoroughly unaware off, but it could hit me in the future and as we are given (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-19/first-guardian-shield-collapse-asic-and-superannuation-flaws/105783328) the setting of ‘First Guardian, Shield superannuation disasters expose deep flaws in Australia’s $4.3 trillion retirement system’ we see that ABC is giving us not only cause for pause, but also cause for alarm we are set in a stage of almost desperate inability to protect our retirements. And lets be clear if Australia is set to a $4.3 trillion danger, what is the dangers towards America, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany? 

I tried to illustrate dangers like this in ‘Wages of fear’ which I wrote in May 2023, two years ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/05/02/wages-of-fear/) and there I wrote “Lets be clear, this was NOT his fault, but the point where we cannot avoid what comes next was achieved. If only people had woken up a lot sooner. But there we got past a point where the problems would accelerate and now we are almost at that point. And the banks will be no help. I tried to warn you a few times over. Some of their risk and liquidity is in US bonds and when the US forfeits payment your 401K and many other things will become worth close to nothing” Now the fair question is, is this the same? I don’t think it is, but there is a larger failing into the retirement systems as it is not a hands on pathway. ABC in another story hands us “Ms Wohlers is one of about 12,000 Australians haunted by the loss of more than $1 billion of retirement savings after the collapses of First Guardian and Shield.” As well as “ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court, who has commonly described the First Guardian and Shield cases as “industrial-scale misconduct”, says the regulator acted as soon as it could. “We don’t think we missed red flags,” she told ABC News ahead of ASIC’s appearance at a parliamentary hearing on Thursday, when she was grilled by politicians about whether it was a tough cop on the beat properly identifying financial misconduct.” And it relates to the story we are given with ‘140 targeted by ASIC on Shield, First Guardian’ as I see it, a mess of a disastrous kind. Where the latter gives us “So, for example, the financial advisers are saying to us ‘you can’t hold us accountable for this because the ratings house had rated the Shield Master Fund as of investment grade’, while superannuation fund trustees are telling us the same – ‘well, we relied on the ratings houses’, or ‘we relied on the fact that these members had financial advice’,” (Source: Financial Newswire) I see it as a setting where there is a ring setting with no beginning and no end. I am in a setting where Microsoft could steal my IP and my only defense would be to convict 280,000 Microsoft employees to death and kill them myself. I get that this is utter madness, but that would be the result of one party just playing a game with other whilst that party knows that they cannot be held to account. I remember the rating houses in 2008 and they got away whilst millions lost it all. I see the simpler setting “You take from me, I take from you” and the setting that Microsoft losing over 45% of its staff (I am utterly destined to fail) making it implode on itself. Now take that to the setting of rating houses and the the truth comes out (if it ever does) the people need to react and react harshly. It is not ‘business as usual’ it will become business at the cost of souls and that is a harsh reality to face.

So whilst some will lawyer up and that is their right, they should not be allowed to walk away with even a dime. I reckon that they will sue the rating houses and those rating houses will need to get sanitized (to some extent) because losing billions is a larger setting and when Australia with their billions in losses (up to 4,300 billion) the setting for America and Canada is a lot more severe. And America up to ten times as much as Canada faces. And about a month ago we were given ‘ASIC takes further action against Ferras Merhi over First Guardian and Shield superannuation advice’ where we are given “ASIC has sought leave from the Federal Court to expand its existing proceeding against former financial adviser Ferras Merhi to allege he engaged in unconscionable conduct, failed to act in the best interests of clients, gave conflicted advice, and provided defective statements of advice whilst receiving millions of dollars.” Yet my question becomes did Ferras Merhi do anything illegal? You see, in my setting I would be, but did he do anything illegal? The setting revolves around “provided defective statements of advice whilst receiving millions of dollars”, so what makes a statement ‘defective’? You see, I am not protecting Ferras Mehri. I am looking at the following:

s12CB of the ASIC Act – engaging in conduct in connection with the supply or possible supply of financial services, which was in all the circumstances unconscionable.

So, what makes the setting of “all the circumstances unconscionable” an economist looks at this in one way and I as a law graduate and IT technician in another way. 

Then we get:
s952E of the Corporations Act – providing defective disclosure documents. As such, what makes the documents “defective disclosure documents”, I do not know and I look at them separately as that is what the law does and when merely one law falters, it all collapses (it matters later on).

Then we get:
s961B of the Corporations Act – failure to act in their client’s best interests, and what is that at the start? Most clients are ‘greed’ driven, they want the highest return and that is ‘their’ best interest. It is a hard lesson to learn that looking back the client gave the wrong advice to the advisor. I myself only work a balanced portfolio, I will never make large leaps but then again I am unlikely to lose a lot either. 

So in that setting we see:
the Court made interim freezing orders over Mr Merhi’s property. These orders remain in place until 12 December 2025 (25-024MR).
ASIC cancelled the AFSL of FSGA, effective 7 June 2025 and permanently banned its responsible manager (25-102MR).
In July 2025, the Court made travel restraint orders against Mr Merhi. Those orders prevent him from leaving or attempting to leave Australia until 12 December 2025, or until further order of the Court (25-024MR).

That is fair enough I reckon. But now we get to the settings that ABC at the top gave. We see there “In all of these cases, no criminal charges have been laid, but ASIC is heading to court to make allegations against the people at the centre of the Shield and First Guardian funds — those involved in managing and promoting the schemes.” The no criminal charges gives pause to consider that no criminal acts have transpired and when we look at some of the allegations the two that take the cake (a Tiramisu cake) is that the settings of “defective disclosure documents” must be proven and the lawyers will fight that. Then we get “all the circumstances unconscionable” and that is the ballgame, ‘unconscionable’ is not per se illegal and it is about the legality of the matter in court and that is the setting we see. So when I made a statement two years ago saying “Some of their risk and liquidity is in US bonds and when the US forfeits payment your 401K and many other things will become worth close to nothing” we see what bonds were worth 5 years ago. There we see “For the year, long-term U.S. Treasuries were by far the best-performing fixed-income investments, with a nearly 17% gain,” (source: Reuters) at present they are “the 10-year yield settled around 4.36%” that represents a loss of 13%, so who pays for that bond? This was a danger I saw 5 years ago (as uneconomical as I am) and 10 years ago I heard people to buy bonds as the interest is like free money and I stopped. There is no free ride and this is almost pushed into the AI field all whilst there is no verification in place. All settings that are interconnected and we now see the ABC giving us “expose deep flaws in Australia’s $4.3 trillion retirement system” so, what do you think you will end up with because as I see it, there is the chance that these people can do what they like all whilst there is no criminal accountability. Yes, he is stopped for now, but Ferras Merhi is about to walk away with more than $19 million in payments. As such he is willing to sweat it out for a few months. It is a lot more (like 79.2581 times more) than I ever made in my lifetime. 

So I see this case that ABC alerted me to with some suspicion. These people live by the setting of walking the edge of legality, there is no risk at that edge and I expect that Ferras Merhi is doing just that not doing anything illegal. As such 12,000 Australians are about to learn that they could lose it all without any illegal actions transpiring and I fault it to two settings (mentioned above) and we all considering setting the clocks to Islam where we see “Islamic banking prohibits the use of interest, speculation, and excessive risk. It emphasizes profit and loss sharing, fairness, honesty, and transparency in financial dealings.” By the way this setting was in place for hundreds of years. 

Have a great day and see that Statista gives us “Robusta, named because it can grow at a wider range of altitudes and temperatures, sold for 1.87 U.S. dollars in 2018, projected to sell at 5 U.S. dollars per kilogram in 2026” did you predict in 2018 that you would be setting your retirement to pay 267% for your coffee?

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The setting changes

That is at times a rule, but to call it the massive rule to measure things to is not the greatest rule to live by (you might have to think that sentence over a little while before it makes sense). You see, there is a story that bugs me and I was almost willing to let it go. But Yesterday in ‘Name Calling’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/09/17/name-calling/) I started down a rabbit hole, a hole that smothers and makes it hard to breath. You see the press to a much larger degree has become a populist media, they do not check sources (as shown yesterday) The media is losing credibility in massive waves. The problem is that I thought I was alone. When you are the only one shouting at a wall, is there a case that you yourself might have lost the focus? 

That was my premise (at first).

So when you start looking at the wall, not being a wall, but a sea the dimension changes. It is no longer the height, but the amount of water that becomes an issue (it makes sense after a little while) and when you start looking into the water and you realise that water is transparent, you start looking for things. As such I found several sources (I already had a few) and these sources are a lot more focussed on the sham that is the International Association of Genocide Scholars. There was the simplest setting that “a member in good standing—a status achieved simply by paying an annual fee of 30 dollars. No academic credentials are required” and this comes with the added quote “Dr. Sara Brown, regional director of the American Jewish Committee in San Diego and a scholar who has served on the IAGS advisory board, told The Media Line: “I was silenced. And the resolution was forced through. What really troubled me was the way that it was presented to mainstream media, that 86 percent of the association had unanimously agreed to condemn Israel for genocide. That’s inaccurate. And to be perfectly honest, it lacks academic integrity, basic integrity to falsely represent the association and falsely cite statistics.”” (source: the media line) The France24 news (added in yesterday’s blog) had a few other settings that were weird, but the overbearing setting was that the media didn’t care, they preferred to not do their job. They became (as I personally see it) as courtesans towards the digital dollar. 

The medicine also gives us “Only 28 percent of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) cast a ballot in the resolution declaring Israel guilty of genocide in Gaza. Of those who voted, 108 supported the measure—less than a quarter of the association’s total membership. Yet international outlets, including The Guardian, AP, Reuters, The Washington Post, and the Financial Times reported the outcome as if it were a sweeping consensus of the world’s foremost genocide experts. Critics inside and outside the association now argue that the process was unrepresentative and that the coverage misled the public into believing in unanimity where none existed.” Now I wanted to have a setting that if people like Amal Clooney (a revered British lawyer and human rights activist) was part of that list, you get a mixed setting, but that is as I see it less of a case. The doughty street chambers adds this to her name “Amal Clooney is a barrister who specializes in international law and human rights. She is ranked in the legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners  as a leading barrister in international human rights law, public international law, and international criminal law. She is described as ‘a brilliant legal mind’ who is ‘in a league of her own at the Bar’. The directories spotlight her ‘commanding presence before courts’ and describe her as ‘a dream performer before international tribunals’ with ‘superb advocacy’ that is ‘crystal clear in focus and highly persuasive’. The rankings emphasize her ability to galvanize ‘heads of state, foreign ministers and business … in a way that is very effective’ for victims of human rights abuses.” That would be a legal mind to say ‘wow’ to, but when you see the feedback from the IAGS (in the France24 story) stating that it goes through a “rigorous peer reviewing process” and that it went through three separate committees. Now here is the crunch, there are 500 members, did they came from that pool? Where is the paperwork on that? And that happens before the vote. So how was the voting set? What was the minimum amount of votes? Only 28% voted as other sources gave its (the France24 article never brought that out) the article also ‘pressed’ of those who voted. As I see it, Melanie O’Brien never gave the details and more over France24 never pushed anything on this. And she skipped over the report being a three page document. That alone should have halted the press. They didn’t. The joke about the journalist no one cares about was 106 pages (the UN document). One person, so how come that the ‘genocide’ setting that players like Hamas feed us can be summarized in three pages? So how is ‘extensive’ research done in three pages? And who are these reliable and extensive sources? That entire sham (about 4 minutes of it) was swallowed whole by the audience.

So, here I am digesting several matters. As such it is time to call in some assistance and (at https://www.thefp.com/p/another-reason-not-to-trust-the-experts) wee see that the Free Press gives us ‘Another Reason Not to Trust the ‘Experts’’ and it starts by giving us “The International Association of Genocide Scholars calls itself a body of experts, but joining requires only a form and a fee. Members include parody accounts like ‘Mo Cookie’ and ‘Emperor Palpatine.’” And the story start of in a most interesting way. “This week, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) voted on a resolution that accused Israel of committing genocide in its war against Hamas. Like moths to a flame, the mainstream press ran wild with the story of the organization’s declaration. “Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Leading Scholars’ Association Says,” ran the headline in The Washington Post.

And in continuation we get “The Guardian quoted the president of the association, Melanie O’Brien, declaring that the resolution represented “a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide.” In another interview with ABC News Australia, O’Brien boasted that the resolution passed with nearly 90 percent support. The BBC’s headline read: “Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza, World’s Leading Experts Say.” The problem for these publications is that if you kick the tires—even slightly—it becomes obvious that the resolution is a sham, top to bottom.” And the press is not waking up? You have gotta be joking me. With the source that according to most started the wave of looking into this setting we are given “On Tuesday evening, Salo Aizenberg, a board member of HonestReporting and contributor to NGO Monitor, tested that proposition. After exploring the IAGS website, he found that he could become a member of the organization with just a $30 contribution. “This organization that purports to be a leading organization of scholars is open to anyone who is interested,” he told The Free Press.” I got alerted to this setting by the Javier Bardem (who told us all on the red carpet in the Emmy event) and someone who went to town on this in LinkedIn. That was my trigger to give you yesterday’s blog and I found out most of what I know in under an hour of investigation. As such what did the Guardian, the Washington Post and ABC News Australia do? Is it weird that I call the ‘Courtesans of the digital dollar’? (I considered that calling them greed driven whores was too crass a statement to make). We then get “IAGS’s open membership is important because as Aizenberg learned in his research on the website, 80 of the 500 members of IAGS all claim to be based in Iraq—a country not known for universities with robust genocide scholarship. But it’s even worse than that. Only 108 out of the organization’s 500 members actually voted for the resolution. So contra O’Brien, only 21.6 percent of the IAGS supported it, not nearly 90 percent. That figure represents 108 out of the 129 people who bothered voting for the resolution at all.” As well as “One IAGS member, Sara Brown, the author of Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, posted on X that the leadership of the organization prevented members from filing comments criticizing the resolution before the vote. “We were promised a town hall, which is a common practice for controversial resolutions,” she wrote, “but the president of the association reversed that. The association has also refused to disclose who were the authors of the resolution.” After reading through the resolution, it’s easy to understand why the identities of the authors were shielded from the other members of the group. It’s riddled with inaccuracies and deceptive language. For example, the first paragraph asserts that Israel has killed “59,000 adults and children in Gaza,” without distinguishing between civilians and Hamas fighters.” You need to read the rest in the Free Press article (link above) And there is more to ‘convict’ the IAGS of, they make a sham of several settings and the press has no other recourse but to convict them as well, because if they do not, the press will have proven themselves to be biased and unworthy to call themselves news media. There is of course the funny setting that all these papers will have to be charged VAT from now on as most hide behind the zero VAT setting for being news sources. When that stops their advertisers go the way of the Dodo really fast.

The media line also gave us “For her, the flaws went beyond procedure. “They cite U.N. sources … and if you look at the citation, it says data that has not yet been verified by the United Nations, and then in footnote five it says Ministry of Health Gaza—the Hamas-run Ministry of Health,” she pointed out. “The fact that those are the statistics that they had to cite and it’s in the first paragraph immediately speaks to a lack of academic integrity … It’s not even academically lazy. It’s reckless. And the harm is real.”

The article can be seen (at https://themedialine.org/top-stories/only-28-of-scholars-associations-members-voted-on-gaza-genocide-resolution-but-global-media-missed-the-story/) and that part gives us that The Media line as ‘trusted news’ is a lot more trustworthy than the mainstream media at present. 

Darn, I forgot to shine the limelight on Microsoft again (my personal behemoth) and in that same setting I now wish you a good day and consider trusting the news media a lot less than before. So to all of you, have a great day today and don’t forget to question your news vendor at some point.

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When the masses start slipping

That is at times the boulder we are waiting to see and today Reuters is giving us just that (at https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-consumers-with-prime-credit-are-starting-slip-payments-2025-08-25/) with ‘US consumers with prime credit are starting to slip on payments’ was given to us a mere 10 hours ago. And for the non-alert this implies “Borrowers with prime credit scores tend to pose relatively little risk to lenders and creditors. With a prime credit score, you may qualify for more favorable loan or credit card terms, interest rates and reward programs” and when this group starts slipping, the financial world will be a matter of upheaval and that will drown the people of mortgages and other settings. This was a mere matter of time. I saw this danger about a year ago and when tourism fell down I alerted you all that the bed and breakfast people will be up soon. Now consider that California and Florida have at least 200,000 of such arrangements and 10% is now slipping. This implies that over the next year we can see this group grow to about 20%-40%, it all depends on who faithfully set the charters to repay as much as possible. Those who set a second setting towards more beds or a larger stage are truly screwed. Now consider that 20,000 up to 70,000 of these mortgages are now in disarray and likely collapsing on itself. The story gives me the benefit of the doubt. With “Late repayments over 90 days were up 109% year-over-year in the VantageScore superprime segment, while the prime segment posted a 47% increase year-over-year.” Sets the larger stage, where places are dwindling down on tourism, we see the setting change speculatively towards “Late repayments over 90 days were up 183% year-over-year in the VantageScore superprime segment” that point is what I see the point of no return. At that point bank and financial institutions are getting hammered as is the American economy. I reckon that this point will be reached by spring 2026. And with the quote “Even though in absolute terms the increase is modest, it shows that even consumers considered the most credit-healthy are also beginning to see some stress with regard to repayments.” The issue here is that these settings are on a 90% filled charter, as these regions are facing a lapse of over 10%, their food bills are up in the air. As I see it, you cannot gain momentum on an engine running on 100% all the time. This who had their repayments as high as possible and considered the chance of ‘bad weather’ are most likely to sit it out and that is the group that is way to small at present.

As such the expectations I had for America is starting to add up in the real world. As I see it Florida and California are up first, Las Vegas has had a tendency to make due with what they have, but the cracks are showing there too. California was until now one of the most economic viable situations in America, that is now ending and I reckon that after the fires and other altercations Los Angeles will not be a great place to live, crime will overtake the police there in mere months. But that last part is a speculation on my side.

Have a great day, Vancouver is just now coming into Tuesday (as is Los Angeles).

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The anger plug towards reason

That is at the moment my setting. To get that feeling you need to see the settings. First there is SBS News (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/trump-tells-zelenskyy-that-putin-wants-more-of-ukraine-drops-ceasefire-demand-after-summit/wmasymz0g) which gave us on August 18th “US President Donald Trump says Ukraine should make a deal to end the war with Russia because “Russia is a very big power, and they’re not”, after a summit where Vladimir Putin reportedly demanded more Ukrainian land.” With the dead on perfect answer “Zelenskyy rejected the demand” and six hours ago, the BBC gives us ‘Russia launches biggest wave of strikes on Ukraine for weeks’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62wj8yje2eo) with the sub-line “Russia has launched 574 drones and 40 missiles on Ukraine in one of the heaviest bombardments in weeks, Ukrainian officials say”, as well as “The attacks came as US President Donald Trump spearheads diplomatic moves to halt the war. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the strikes highlighted why efforts to bring it to an end were “so critical”.” This was the setting all along, Russia was never interested in any seize fire, they have too much vested in this war and President Putin needs to show a face of victory. To arrange that, President Trump arranged for a culling of the CIA. The economist (at https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/08/21/donald-trump-has-purged-one-of-the-cias-most-senior-russia-analysts) gives us “On August 19th her career came to an abrupt end, when Tulsi Gabbard, America’s director of national intelligence, revoked her security clearance, along with those of 36 other serving and former officials accused of “betray[ing] their oath to the Constitution”. Mr Trump’s administration has previously used its control over clearances as a political cudgel against retired officials”, as well as “In June Mr Trump also attacked leaked intelligence assessments by the Defence Intelligence Agency which contradicted his claim to have destroyed Iranian nuclear sites. The CIA has a long history of delivering unwelcome news to presidents—its dissenting analysis during the Vietnam war in the 1960s and the Iraq war in the 2000s resulted in repeated clashes between Langley and the White House—but this level of retribution is unprecedented. “It is hard to overstate the impact on morale,” says a former colleague of the CIA officer. “Everyone is so afraid and looking over their shoulder, asking am I next?”” So whilst we are given this, the BBC also gives us “Ukraine’s air force counted 614 drones and other missiles fired by Russia overnight into Thursday and said it had stopped 577 of them. It is the biggest air attack since July.” The timeline fits the setting. Russia’s losses are starting to mount up towards a ‘too heavy to continue’, Russia might be getting material support by several parties, but the price might soon be the total of their oil reserves and that was not what President Putin was after. Remember how this was a 72 hour run for the Ukraine? We are now in day 1275, we are approaching to the length of WW2, and as it seems Reuters reported on August 18th ““I think we’re pretty close to a deal,” President Trump said, adding: “Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they’ll say ‘no’.”” Well, you can bet your house that President Zelensky wasn’t going with that idea. The entire ’peace talks’ was a mere ruse for the largest bombardment to continue. As I see it, President Trump really earned the nick name that 2026 will bring us all President DumbAss. But the larger play is now also coming to light. With the EU (and NATO) busy setting the borders against Russia and Russia having lost too much, and no one will take America serious at this point. China can now sweep the planet, they never dd anything wrong and with the blisters of Huawei bright on the memories of the Chinese, they can sweep the planet. Join China or live in the mess they themselves made. That is the larger setting for China, the UK, Australia and India to join the Chinese collective. New Zealand will abstain, but they are a small nation and no harm to China, as such China will make large trade agreements with New Zealand. That is the reality that 2027 will bring.

China saw her three contenders fight, so he let them and as the EU weaken Russia and America no longer cares, it takes itself out of the equation. Three opposers to the Chinese setting they all dwindles themselves to nothing, China won by never firing a shot. And the CIA is about to crumble there too, with compliments by President DumbAss. It is about to become a whole new world. Oh, and Russia? China will take care of that the moment they makes one wrong move. Did you think that 3.2 million troops including their 660,000 paramilitary troops have been sitting on their hands? Russia wasted most of its 1.32 million active soldiers, 2 million reservists, and 250,000 paramilitary personnel on a war with the Ukraine they never needed to have. As such the losses makes China the only power to consider and BRICS gives them protection from the only army with enough manpower to slowdown China, namely India. The America Army is busy arranging the red carpet for a war criminal. As for the Russian losses at present

Have a great day, I recommend you brush up on your Chinese rather soon.

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When the setting fits

That is at times the thoughts we have. Now, let me be clear. This is pure speculation. It is speculation because I am not in politics (not even the shady kind) and as such it cannot be presumption. There is no best educated guess, there is merely a best guess and the setting fits several thoughts I have had in the past. It all seemingly fits. It doesn’t make it more true or more reliable. 

That is something you need to keep in mind from the start and this was all set in motion through Reuters, who gave me in the first instance (at https://www.reuters.com/business/apple-pay-25-tariff-if-phones-not-made-us-trump-says-2025-05-23/) with ‘Trump threatens new tariffs on European Union and Apple, reigniting trade fears’ and here we see “U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to ratchet up his trade war again, pushing for a 50% tariff on European Union goods starting June 1 and warning Apple he may slap a 25% levy on all imported iPhones bought by U.S. consumers. The twin threats, delivered via social media, roiled global markets after weeks of de-escalation had provided some reprieve in the tariff battle. Major U.S. stock indexes and European shares fell and the dollar weakened, while the price of gold, a safe-haven for investors, rose. U.S. Treasury yields fell on fears about tariffs’ effect on economic growth.” A few thoughts came to mind. In the first “The twin threats, delivered via social media”, as such why not in an official setting? Why via social media? Is it because the threats might get rolled back? Is it because of non-repudiation? Then we get the Apple setting, why in America? Why is this so essential? (I will get back to this later on). And a few other thoughts are to mind. Then the article ends with “The president’s attack on Apple is his latest attempt to pressure a specific company to move production to the United States, following automakers, pharmaceutical companies and chipmakers. The United States, however, does not mass-produce smartphones – even as U.S. consumers buy more than 60 million phones annually – and moving production would likely increase the cost of iPhones by hundreds of dollars” keep this latest quote on the forefront of your mind for now.

Then Reuters gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-justice-department-reaches-deal-with-boeing-allow-planemaker-avoid-2025-05-23/) ‘US Justice Department reaches deal with Boeing to allow planemaker to avoid prosecution’ the two are actually more connected than you would think. Even as we are given “The agreement allows Boeing to avoid being branded a convicted felon and was harshly criticized by many families who lost relatives in the crashes and had pressed prosecutors to take the U.S. planemaker to trial. A lawyer for family members and two U.S. senators had urged the Justice Department not to abandon its prosecution, but the government quickly rejected the requests.

Then last we get yet again from Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-seeks-fast-track-new-nuclear-licenses-overhaul-regulatory-agency-2025-05-23/) ‘Trump seeks to fast-track new nuclear licenses, overhaul regulatory agency’ with the subtext “U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to cut down on regulations and fast-track new licenses for reactors and power plants, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months.” All this sets a premise of revenue. Boeing, the reactors and last (which I gave first) was the tariffs. America is desperate for revenue and I reckon the setting of the Microsoft linked firm going bust after being evaluated for a billion dollars didn’t help his need. He needs all revenue to come from America and all made there. It isn’t merely America First, it is the speculated setting that America is about to default on its loans. Well that Is how I see it and I might be wrong. The entire setting with the added setting of Greenland and Canada is that he cannot claim that America has plenty of resources making it a lot more wealthy, for that he needed Greenland and Canada. No, now he needs to move it all to America and that is where the problem starts. Because America wasn’t ready for that move, but that is as the America administration sees it, the problem on (and for) Apple. As I see it, this is a speculated final move before the American President has to admit that payment deals need to be made and they want to push it back as far as they can as the number one fear is that others will massively dump their US Bonds and that would instantly call for the near complete dismemberment of the United States of Bankruptcy. 

Could I be wrong?
Yes, I can be wrong. But this image seems to fit the partial shorts we have been able to see. The second option is that President Trump has completely lost it, but I do not think so. Too many settings don’t fit that view of him. Yet the knee-jerk reactions to keep on being seen as an “able to make payments nation” seems to fit the bill more. I reckon that the news last week regarding that Builder.AI is now commencing insolvency proceedings was perhaps the drip that broke the camels back as the expression goes. It is before Saudi Arabia and others would be pumping money into the United States, so there is that to come as well. As they say money must flow and the actions done (especially regarding Boeing) is all about revenue, not about the family of victims. Then we loop back to January when President Trump announced ‘Trump announces a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment in the US’ here I speculate that this was all about some Microsoft setting, at least in part and now that Builder.AI has become insolvent and it was backed by Microsoft gives rise to the 500 billion being set on shaky grounds. It’s like looking at the Chrysler building seemingly coming closer to view until you realise that it was build on a quicksand. And they figure this out after the building was complete and now the top of that building is making the rest sink into the marsh. As I see it (which is presumption in this case), is as AI doesn’t exist, that they had made clever moves with DML (Deeper Machine Learning) and LLM (Large Language Models) and that requires programmers and some extended programming, but the deeper you set your teeth into the pie, the harder it is to open your mouth without coughing up the pie. And the bad decisions made with Builder.AI (I do not know what they did wrong, but that is what some media gives us, you can read that in yesterdays story).

When this goes wrong with 1 billion, what do you think that 500 billion gets you? There are only so many programmers who are adept in this form of programming and that is before all the data is validated, which if it fails makes for a totally new timeline and that is the crux of this setting. 

But feel free to ignore these settings and see what happens. That I what I think is happening. Microsoft fell short and others might not be in the market for such a failure and when the 500 billion stays away foreclosure of the land of the forsaken and the home of the arrogant falls flat. 

Here in all this I might be wrong, I admit that upfront. The question that comes to mind. What is it? Why do we get such a knee-jerk operation from left to right and from beginning to end. Now we get the news that is 15 hours old. ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) gives us ‘Reserve Bank on high alert for economic fallout as Donald Trump continues to spook investors’ If I am correct than this act is merely for the ones that holds these bonds will keep on holding on to them. And the second setting is “The bond market is now regularly questioning the value and stability of US government debt.” As I see it, the nightmare scenario for President Trump. He cannot pay anything over 10% of 36 trillion. When that happens America defaults on its loans. The nightmare that Wall Street fears. As we are given “In the lead-up to the passage of the bill through the US House of Representatives, the US Treasury Department tried to secure $16 billion of funding through the sale of 20-year bonds. It found the auction harder than usual to execute due to a lack of demand from investors.” And as I see it, making the other funds ‘more’ dodgy will work for the American administration and as such are the actions that I am seeing. Not because they are great actions. It is bullying not to go somewhere else and I admit that this is merely speculation. 

I leave it up to you do decide if I am right or if I have a case for my train of thought. But this is what I see, merely because I have been looking in this direction all along. And Moody’s downgrade, US debt had become riskier for the lender. That is a simple conclusion you can all consider to get behind. But if that is the case, the outstanding bonds are a bad bet because these bonds do not get reassessed, that is the bad bet they went into and the next step we get is when Moody’s set the credit from AA1 to AA2. But what happens after? I don’t think that the holders of these bonds will wait that long. They will sell wit a loss as not to see there bonds become ‘Junk’ material and those people will lose a hell of a lot of money. Consider Japan as it is with the debts they have also have around $1.13 trillion in US bonds and China holds $784 billion. If China dumps their US bonds, Japan will be force to do the same as not to lose too much money, but the  investors were already shy of the last auction and that was only for $16,000,000,000. Now we see that there is a risk that China sets 50 times that amount up for auction as such Japan is seeing the pressure to act before it is too late as it has almost twice the amount of China and the first of these two might get some money back. The one that flinches losses it nearly all. 

How would you see such a risk? And that with the Reuters articles made me speculatively realise that America is in a lot oof hot water at present, but my view is speculative. I have no hard data to back my thoughts, be aware of that. By the way, there is a second reason for the reactors, but I’ll let you work that one out for yourselves.

Have a somewhat great day.

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Death is nigh

Yup, a bit gloomy and perhaps a little too doom speaking, but the news is there and I for one saw this coming a mile away. I mentioned this in the article ‘Utter insanity’ on October 4th 2020 (https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/, aka World Animal Day), I mentioned in there the few articles where I also made mention of the US debt, one as early as 2020. So why now?

Well, Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-downgrades-us-aa1-rating-2025-05-16/) gives us that the credit rating of America has been downgraded. It went from AAA to AA1, this might not be a big thing, but it is, especially in current conditions. You see, Moody also gives us “Moody’s cites rising debt and interest costs” and with that one line the die is cast. Even if it is merely a rise of 0.1%, the implied setting of $36 trillion ($36,000,000,000,000) gives us an additional interest of $36,000,000,000 or $36 billion and the Americans cannot keep their budget as is. So how much larger will this debt become? You can all say that Saudi Arabia is now investing, the AI is coming. But the investment over years will not even pay for the interest increase and at present the top 10 least risky investments hold 10 countries and none of them is America. Makes you think doesn’t it? Then there is the second stage, the stage where some players might think that holding US Bonds might be a tat too risky for them and banker being the cowards that they are learned from the 2008 credit crises and they will be bailing at the first opportunity, especially as the UAE is a much safer and seemingly more rewarding venture at present. 

So is death really nigh?
That is a fair question and I am hesitant to answer either way because the reliability of the press is nowhere to be found (perhaps in a dozen places). So they cannot give us the goods and I saw this going as far back as 2011, as such we cannot see any press reasonably credible, especially when they quote market wannabe’s. And this is not on President Trump, although his actions did speed up the process. The World Travel & Tourism Council gave us “THE U.S. IS projected to lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending this year, falling to under $169 billion from $181 billion in 2024”then there are the losses in defense projects, the losses from allies regarding Canada and Greenland and that showed me that America is desperate, and it seems now that the hammer falls down on people realising that I have been right for over a decade, but bury your heads in the sand. All these presented ‘wins’ are a cloth covering the larger losses. The AFR gave us yesterday ‘China slams Trump’s new chip ban, reigniting trade tensions’ with “The US Commerce Department issued guidance this week that Huawei’s Ascend AI semiconductors are subject to export controls anywhere in the world on the basis that they were developed using American technology.” What a way to piss off your allies. We see this when we critically look at the statement “For Washington, restricting Beijing’s access to cutting-edge processors is a way to blunt China’s rise in artificial intelligence and military applications.” In the first, Huawei is using its own chips, making it doubtful that it is ‘cutting edge’ and in the second, you just tried to ‘beg’ Saudi Arabia for more money, do you think that they as well as the UAE will take that warning? Huawei already has a decent grip on that region with cutting edge development and Oracle is about to go there too. So is this the best way for the American administration to hedge their bets? Now that their credit rating dropped, I reckon the floodgates are no longer sealed, whatever they let through will cost America close to billions and there are people holding trillions in American debt, as such they are likely to get out while the going is good.

So what if I am wrong?
It is doubtful, but it is a fair question. Look at all the economy that America lost in this year and add the losses of next year too, because as I see it, tourism and all the connected spendings are close to gone until at least 2027. Then in 2029-2031 Saudi Arabia has its 2030 setting with all the new resorts (which was always going to happen) and as such you see, the strangling interest of 36 trillion on American and their dream settings. The fact that Tourism at present is “This significant shortfall represents a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak” as such their current setting is a lot less than 2019 before COVID, it is that bad and we might not care for the income of Disney, or Warner Brothers but this also impacts all the places around them as people cannot afford it all in these places. These places will share in those losses, as such I reckon that Florida will have a few massively bad years (compared to the present). Do your own researching and never accept anyones word as gospel (not even from me), know that data, know your area and see where the losses can be seen. 

I reckon that Oracle is doing fine and will be doing fine for some time to come, but they too have shed employees in 2024 and 2025. 

As I see it, when the masses get the insight of how bad America is doing, that coffin will basically bury itself. So have a great day and don’t let the recession hit you in the head, it is an expected two weeks away at present and there is the setting we all received there hours ago ‘Why France, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Finland, UK, Netherland, Belgium Issuing Travel Advisories to US, Making a Big Dent in American Tourism Revenue, The One Detail That Changes Everything’ as such the bulk of the EU is turning away from America on tourism, as you can see, I remained optimistic, it seems the news is pushing ahead of the settings we now see and when they catch on regarding bonds and America quality of life going down too, the panic will hit wall street and several other markets

So enjoy this Saturday.

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Repeating the same mistake

That happens, it happens to me too. As I’m decently convinced of something I will repeat that thought. Actually it might be the wrong idea, but you get the point. As such I saw over the last 24 hours several articles. 

The first is given to us by Time, (at https://time.com/7282450/trump-annex-canada-economy-recession-upholding-the-constitution/) we are given ‘Trump Speaks Out on His Desire to Annex Canada, Recession Concerns, and If He Has to Uphold the Constitution’ In this article we get “The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House have been dominated by talks of Executive Orders, tariffs, foreign relations and economic stability in light of the trade war sparked by the tariffs, comments about annexing Canada, the possibility of seeking a third term, and much more.” Followed by “Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose Liberal Party won the Canadian election on April 28, has—much like his predecessor Justin Trudeau—made it clear that Canada has no intention of taking Trump up on his offer. “It will never happen,” he said. In this latest interview, Trump said he had congratulated Carney on his election win, but doubled down on his desire to make Canada the 51st state, saying he will “always talk about that.” Trump repeated his previous sentiments, referring once more to Canada’s former Prime Minister as “Governor Trudeau.””. As I see it, the southern folks might as well call these southerners “The United States of Canada” soon enough (my reason follow far below). His reasoning is ““If Canada was a state it wouldn’t cost us. It would be great. It would be such a great—it would be a cherished state. And, if you look at our map, if you look at the geography, I’m a real estate guy at heart. When I look down at that without that artificial line that was drawn with a ruler many years ago… You don’t even realize. What a beautiful country it would be,” he said. “Again, remember this, we don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything. We do very little business with Canada. They do all of their business practically with us. They need us. We don’t need them.”” As I see it, the first deception, more to follow in the near future and that deception is given through “They need us. We don’t need them”. Then we get to the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/04/trump-greenland-denmark-military-force) where we are given ‘Trump says he ‘doesn’t rule out’ using military force to control Greenland’, so what kind of a yahoo dictator reverts to force to attack its allies? And these two have been given the stage that their resources are up for grabs and America needs them. The same for Canada. A setting that is concerning as this is the likely first setting that they need us (Greenland and Canada) a lot more than they need him. So as again deception rules, we are left with “Donald Trump would not rule out using military force to gain control of Greenland, the world’s largest island and an autonomous territory within Denmark, a fellow Nato member with the US.” America never needed it for the longest of time, but America is on the outer limits of bankrupt and it needs their resources to survive. So as such the ‘promise’ of “It would be great. It would be such a great—it would be a cherished state” is like a crack whore begging for anything to get that ‘cherished’ high. That is how I see it. The biting effect of 36 trillion debt, for America at 4.5% it comes down to 1.62 trillion dollars (aka 1,620,000,000,000) EVERY YEAR and that is how it bites. During fiscal year 2024, the IRS collected more than $5.1 trillion in tax revenue, that implies that 31.76% is lost of that revenue is lost on interest alone and it gets worse, because (as the US Treasury gives us) “Compared to the national deficit of $1.06 trillion for the same period last year (Oct 2023 – Mar 2024), our national deficit has increased by $242 billion.” And the funny part was that on the occasion of World Animal day 2021 I gave “In 2013 the US debt was $17,000,000,000,000 (17 trillion), and over 8 years 8 trillion was added, a nice $8,000,000,000,000. This implies that the US government overspends a trillion a year with no exit strategy on how to cope with the debt and it is on both Republicans and Democrats.” I saw this moment come to mind over three years ago and over this time, of three years, the debt doubled. So how is that for foresight? I did so (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/) in the blog article ‘Utter Insanity’ I saw that clearly ahead of it all and due to American politicians sitting on their hand it is now too late and I made notice of this before 2021 as well. Reuters might give us a Met Gala and how things are bolder, but it still needs people with incomes to afford it all and that is about to end and President Trump doesn’t want to be the president having to inform the people that it is about to end, as such we will get The United States of Canada with (at this time) Prime minister of the Americas to become the biggest president the world has ever seen. As such I opt that he will unite several states as one with in the east called the Cockcoeske collective (honouring the Rappahannock Tribe of the 1600’s) named after the first female chief following her father Chief Captain Chawanta Nelson) this would unite the states of Virginia and all the states to the North of that. I know it is a little mean but America was stupid and mean to elect Donald Trump as such, so they don’t get a choice in the matter. And it makes sense, to elect this, they will need the upheaval and as such one third of the boards of any new states in America will consist of Native Americans and in the settings that America is out of funds, other measures will have to be taken, with a damper on spending, military spending is a first and most remaining spending will go on infrastructures and soup kitchens because as I see it, when the defaults start pretty much all retirement funds go belly up. Wanna doubt me? That is fair, but show me a non-violent and non invasive solution. I bet you can’t do that. I voiced the overhaul of the American tax system for the better part of a decade and now it is too late. Time is up and not one politician stated that it needed to be done. 

As a third article we get USA Today (at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/05/04/donald-trump-canada-greenland-military-force/83447719007/) giving us ‘Trump says ‘highly unlikely’ US uses military force to annex Canada’ where the tone is set by “In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”, President Donald Trump said he still wants to make Canada the 51st U.S. state and does not envision the United States using military force to seize the neighboring country. During the interview, which aired on May 4, Trump said he’s still interested in annexing Canada but does not label it in the same category as Greenland, a Danish territory Trump has repeatedly suggested the U.S. could one day be compelled to acquire.” As such the tables are turned, America will not annex Canada, America will be given to Canada, to safe it from dangerous politicians and the people of America give it to Canada to deliver it from destitution and the people utterly out of funds. If only they had listened to me as I voice it a little over a decade ago. Redesign your tax system. It was never about taxing the rich, it was about redesigning the tax system they had, as it was never working on the design it had. You want to blame Apple (the first to become a trillion dollar company) and that never made sense with all the trillions of debt that America had and it took a mere abacus to work that out, not an non-existent AI supercomputer.

And now, as time is up for America (as I personally see it) we see the more violent side of America (annexing nations resources) and that solution is already too late to safe America, it might merely delay this setting a few more years and in the meantime, it will mine the hell out of Canada and Greenland, destroying these environments and to that I say ‘Hell no!’, because we need to step up for the environment and also because Canada is a Commonwealth brother and Greenland is part of our ally Denmark.

So have a great day and try to salvage your goods, because American time is, as I personally see it, done for.

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Rollback

That is the word of the day, I have always had that word in my vocabulary. The setting that any solution o programmed in Clipper had the setting for a rollback. This is how I grew up (growing up in the Clipper age was a little weird). You see, I had two settings. The first was the data didn’t change and as I was a ‘little’ verbose with my data creation there was the option of registering a data version, so that was the setting. We needed a rollback in several situations and that is where the setting ends. You see, today I got to see a few news lines. 

First there was Reuters (at https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-jet-returns-us-china-victim-trumps-tariff-war-2025-04-20/) giving us ‘Boeing jet returns to US from China, a victim of Trump’s tariff war’, now that is a scrumptious hotdog to say the least. At almost $100 million, according to one source, that is a delicious snack to say the least and as we are told. China send it back. The tariff could cripple Xiamen Airlines as the tariff is 125%, and even as Reuters give us that the plane is a mere $55 million, we can say that the price difference is a little too much to be acceptable, the larger setting is that several players are trying to dam in the losses that are projected to become American losses. 

Most of us will have seen the trade agreements that China made with Mexico, so there is that. Then there is the setting we see at where Business Insider gives us the setting that ‘Some Canadian Stores Are Labeling US Imports With a T for ‘Tariffs’’ (business insider put it behind a paywall, so that’s all you get. And only three days ago I saw the headline ‘China’s Strategic Pivot from US to Canadian Oil Imports’ (at https://discoveryalert.com.au/news/chinas-pivot-canadian-oil-imports-2025/) I cannot vouch for this source, yet in that setting we are given “Data reveals Chinese refiners have slashed US crude purchases by approximately 90% between 2023 and 2025, redirecting roughly 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) toward alternative suppliers, with Canada capturing a substantial portion of this market share.” So the first step to a change has been given and I foresaw these changes even as I never knew about the oil. So as I see it, these changes show billions upon billions in losses for America whilst we see damage to their export, their revenue making defense industry, their tourism and we can go on a little longer. Wouldn’t it have been great if America had a rollback setting for their elections? 

So as Goldman Sachs gives us “The decline in the world’s reserve asset during an episode of elevated volatility comes as investors are increasingly focused on the US’s growing debt burden and other countries are also increasing their borrowing. “Markets are dealing with a lot of competing factors right now — fairly significant drivers where it’s hard to trade all of them at once,” says William Marshall, head of US rates strategy in Goldman Sachs Research.” Really? Only now do we see “investors are increasingly focused on the US’s growing debt burden”, that’s about 4 years too late, but whatever. I saw (and reported on this danger for a few years at least). If the EU, Japan and China dump their bonds (that will be an expensive exercise) the value of the Dollar doesn’t just drop, it ends up having getting a CCC− grade (to give a mere view on the matter). At that point the imminent suicide risk will spike all over Wall Street (a clear but reliable speculation).

I reckon that the one dropping them first gets the best value for it, but after that it will be a quick fall to the luxury value of zero. But it is not just America, the bonds of the EU and Japan will face a similar risk, America is merely the highest as someone thought it was a great idea to introduce the tariff game to their economy. Global News told their Canadians ‘Avoid U.S. travel if possible, Canadian academics are being urged’ with others following in similar settings. The Detroit News gives us ‘Avoid U.S. or take burner phones, Canada executives tell staff’ and there are more sources that give us that, with the added “Arrivals of noncitizens to the United States by plane declined by nearly 900,000 people, almost 10%, in March from a year earlier, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Administration. Travelers are reacting to President Donald Trump’s trade war and to stories of harsh detentions at U.S. airports. Border figures show 4,970,360 came to the U.S. from Canada in March 2024. That number dropped to 4,105,516 travelers a year later. More visitors reportedly traveled from Canada to the U.S. in March 2022 under pandemic-related travel restrictions than they did last month.” I think that Canada is the most likely of number drops, but I reckon that it is not the only one. So as I see it, the danger is not only to Tourism, but business travel too and in that case, hotels in all the major cities in the United States will report on losses of 10% or more, so what does that mean for the value of Marriott International, who operates 9,361 hotels worldwide as of 2024. In addition there is Hilton who operates over 8,400 hotels worldwide. I have no idea how many they operate in the USA, but these are merely the two larger players, especially in the business travel setting. So how many businesses are under the hammer because of this situation? And now as Canada is growing closer to the Commonwealth and they will protect their bigger brother (Canada is 9.985 million km² and the UK a mere 243,610 km²) OK, Australia is 7.688 million km², away highly smaller brother than the United Kingdom. But that setting now gives us that these business meetings are likely to be held in the United Kingdom or Australia. Hilton and the Marriott will still get their coins, but the underlying issues will hurt America to a much larger degree. And as this escalates over the next month or so, the damage to America will increase. Additional damage as China and India rolls in as expecting ‘saviors’ to Saudi Arabia and the UAE will change global politics and global economics to a much larger degree. India will get new options to get additional Pharmaceutical products sold to Saudi Arabia and that is another slice of a billion dollars. Then we get the UK, Australia and Japan hammering on improving their slice of Optical, photo, technical, medical apparatus, as such the American slice of $1.39B will decrees a lot more. All this started with tariffs and basically this setting was staged by President Trump. I merely wonder what got into him to drive America to the edge of insanity (and bankruptcy). What a miss that politics don’t have rollbacks and I reckon that the lawmakers in America will push for a larger change of settings, because I am certain that the Republicans are desperate to see this damage undone and it is me personal believe that they will accept any other politician, even a democrat to undo the damage they are seeing right now.

A mere 21 hours ago we got (at https://jakartaglobe.id/business/indonesia-seeks-stronger-trade-ties-with-eu-australia-to-offset-potential-us-export-losses) that Indonesia Globe gives us ‘Indonesia Seeks Stronger Trade Ties with EU, Australia to Offset Potential US Export Losses’, which is fine by me as I love the Indonesian version of Bami Goreng with Saté Ajam with peanut sauce. The best dish I ever had, even now after a decade, the scent penetrates my nose, even as I haven’t had it in over a decade. So I am looking forward to stronger ties with Indonesia and I kinda miss the spices we had in Batavia (my weird sense of humor). But the stage is drawn as more countries seek replacement for America, their tariff becomes their setting for isolation and Australia will be happy to have ties with a country that has 281.2 million potential consumers. I already gave the premise to Saudi Arabia as they have access to something Indonesia desires. As such there are more players to take over the places that America is about to lose and lose more of them. Next in line are the international students who will seek safer places to be. In this Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have good chances as they all have great places Oxford, and Cambridge might be the first you think of, but not everyone can afford these places. There is till the University College London, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Toronto, University of Manchester, University of Technology Sydney, University of Southampton. These are merely a Commonwealth grasp of those who are in the top 100 and I reckon that the losses for America start to add up now. And that was merely the Ivy League, America has more good universities and now that the international students will seek education elsewhere, the economic picture of America will deteriorate more and more. 

Wouldn’t it have been great to have some kind of political rollback in place? 
Have a great day and consider where you need to set your focus to next. 

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