Tag Archives: reuters

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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A danger possibly foreseen

That was on my mind this morning. It was brought to the surface by the actor John Cryer (the famous duckster as well as a surgeon in NCIS). He referred to an NPR broadcast.

And the article (at https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5356476/social-security-new-rules) gave me pause. I had seen this before and after a few minutes and a ‘eureka’ moment I came up with my article ‘Utter Insanity’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/10/04/utter-insanity/) where I (read: Reuters) came up with “That could spare the United States a default, but would force other cuts, possibly in areas like Social Security or military pay.” I had come to that conclusion before that ion a few articles I mention there. It comes to ‘blows’ with “It is the relentless boasting government approach towards “My Credit Card is too big too refuse!” Yet that is at this point exactly what is going to happen next week Friday” and that moment was avoided with millimeters to spare. And now? Now we get the timeline change in a few ways. NPR gives us “Instead, they will have to seek services online or travel in-person to a local Social Security field office, which a new analysis from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP, found amounts to a “45-mile trip for some 6 million seniors.”” Here I do not completely agree with NPR, even though they talk in my street of the equation. The added NPR setting is “More than 4 in 10 retirees apply for their Social Security benefits by phone, as do most spouses who are eligible for benefits,” researchers wrote. “So do the substantial majority of bereaved family members who are eligible for benefits following the death of a worker.” This is a valid setting, however, the American administration has valid issues with “Agency officials have said these new measures “will further safeguard Social Security records and benefits against fraudulent activity” by creating “stronger identity verification procedures.”” I agree that they need to stop Fraudulent settings, but that might not be the best way to go about it. For one, the people with clear settings because they moved to Costa Rica or another warm place where their dollars has a better spread is one reason and there are plenty of places to do that and they fall into a dark gap of nothingness. 

So I am a little on the fence with “Beginning on April 14, Social Security will perform an anti-fraud check on all claims filed over the telephone and flag claims that have fraud risk indicators,” they wrote. “We will continue to conduct 100 percent ID proofing for all in-person claims. 4.5 million telephone claims a year and 70K may be flagged.” I agree a better setting needs to be found, but in clearness the American administration has a clear point with optional Fraud. The clarity is seen in the numbers and if there aren’t any, the question becomes why isn’t there a better documented stage? I for one am in the setting that consulates and embassies need perhaps half a dozen more people in certain places to do that work. Too bad America let go over 30,000 federal employees. Perhaps that was an unforeseen blunder of mega (or is that MAGA?) proportions. 

The fact was that I saw this in 2020 and whilst there were references in 2019 going back to 2014, they were partially the same but founded on different facts. So it might seem the same, but it is not. NPR has given a rather large spotlight on something that starts next week and that will have people buzzing in all kinds of panic modes, because retirees that face this will panic and that is on the administration of THIS government, no one else.

So what is the solution? Well, I have a few ideas, but why do the work for people who are making 7 figure numbers. Let them prove their value or perhaps they might be made redundant (too save a few coins in the process). Oh, and before you think I am merely stirring the pot of panic (not entirely incorrect) I decided to give a few ideas another thought like the Google Data centre on Iceland. You see, before 2022 I had an idea, I reckon it was around 2010, I thought (in light of a few Venusian settings. I saw that there that we get “Venus has an extremely hot average surface temperature of around 867°F (464°C) due to its dense, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and a strong greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system.” As such I thought (a partial solution that these sulphur batteries might be actively recharged (and happily ignoring other needs), but for unmanned recon it could suffice. So in the meantime we get 

Also in 2022, Researchers at Drexel University produced a prototype lithium-sulfur battery that did not degrade over 4000 charge cycles. Analysis has shown that the battery contained monoclinic gamma-phase sulfur, which has been thought to be unstable below 95 degrees Celsius, and only a few studies have shown this type of sulfur to be stable longer than 20 to 30 minutes.

Yet in a volcano rich environment (like Iceland) these lava pockets might be the stage for thermal interaction and the lava (or magma which is a technical setting) flow could recharge almost indefinite. So we have power and as cooling might not be the issue, water is still needed to cool other stages of a plant like that. Fortunately the Greenland Sea (or North Atlantic around the polar circle) is plenty cool (read: cold), so could these two elements unite to give data centres the steps they need to become energy independent? You see, everyone needs more power, so power will cost more and more and we have Iceland in the North and New Zealand in the south, yet New Zealand doesn’t have thermal energy (as far as I know) so a different solution is needed there.

But the setting is still about social security (I got blown off track). So whilst the people are screaming for fraud setting, are there any clear numbers on how many are using social security for fraud (I am certain it is done), but are they overthrowing the system for 10-50 cases? There are 6 million seniors at risk. The question becomes how do the military deal with these cases? How many retired veterans does America have? Would their system be good enough to be adapted to the senior citizens of America? If the Military needs more staff to deal with this, I reckon that at least 20,000 people were fired and need a new job and as most embassies and consulates have military presence adding a few logistical people might be a better solution. Was that investigated? 

I reckon all good questions, but who has the answers? In the mean time Google needs to create data centers with independent power solutions, because the (around) 50 new data centers that seem to be coming all over the world will draw power dry to a dangerous level, being the odd one out will give them a leg up over anyone else. And perhaps they have a better solution than I just phrased. I am not the best, but I remain trying. That’s more than I can say for a lot of high paying people in the American administrations we see. 

So have a great day and while I have my ice water, I will dream of becoming a Goalie at 63, still preferred with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but Iceland will do as an alternative choice (I doubt they need me, but there you have it, I can be delusional too).

Toodles

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A political game

You know the setting for President Trump with his tariffs are out there. As only 4 hours ago we got word (via Reuters) that another $5 trillion has been wiped of the markets (at https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-stress-graphic-pix-2025-04-04) we saw another piece of news at NBC (at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nintendo-switch-2-pre-orders-us-delayed-trumps-tariffs-rcna199729) giving us ‘Nintendo Switch 2 preorders in U.S. delayed because of Trump’s tariffs’ and my cogs started to think. The population of Seattle is around 4,018,762. Now if only 10% wants to get a Nintendo Switch 2 (I reckon that number is much higher) we end up with 400,000 Washingtons wanting that novel contraption and as such the option for Vancouver to get an additional 2 billion in revenue seems clear. And a smuggling game emerged from my brain. The setting is around the interstate bridge ad connect that to a classical game named Frogger and the setting is near complete.

In this setting we get the frog to make it to the other side. Now we change the setting to:

Here we see the interstate bridge, like frogger (now in a north south setting) we move from truck/car to truck/car, the slow vehicles get its there and the fast vehicles get us there faster. And there seems no real challenge and the blue rectangle is the part we see in the game, so the game scrolls. 

Now we get to the border, the guards move from left to right (the don’t care about the Canadian side), if the guard spots you you are royally screwed and you are out $800, if not you pass and you gain $1500. Now on the way back you get by taxi, but here you can skip from taxi to taxi as they pass, if there is a Maga cap in that taxi, it is yours and when you wear the cap for a second trip the border patrol ignores you when you wear a Maga cap. The task is to smuggle as many as Switch 2 consoles as possible. And you can team up, each their own game, but the scores are shown I reckon 2 (or 4 in true Switch 2 mode). In higher levels the guard move faster and the gaps between cars/trucks increase a little. So, we should thank President Trump to give us a lovely smuggle game. We can improve the game in many ways, like adding fentanyl shipments, which gives us a bonus bump (like times 5), so that the profit goes to $7500, however if you are caught you are stopped for 30 seconds and that is where the opponents get 30 seconds of optional gains. There are a few other things you can do, but I leave that to you. I hand over this idea to the clever Canadian with programming skills. It is an Australian ‘Gudday’ to our Canadian brothers and sisters (the she-form of the male can program just as good as the man can). 

How life can throw you a bonus? Well here you have it and there is not a Trump in sight to stop you. And as I go to enjoy the weekend now, I dream of desperate traders throwing themselves off buildings as their fortunes melted away among the trillions in market value. Trump might have stated ““Hang tough,” he urged his followers on social media. “We can’t lose.”” (Source: BBC), but the desperate and greed driven never hang tough, when the reaper comes reaping, the greed driven become suicidal. A simple lesson from life (1929 to 1939, the great depression where 7% committed suicide). 

So have a great day and when the stocks bite, pray you have a Canadian son/daughter who can program. This me having a spell of additional dark humor.

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A simple question

I question arrived in my mind today. You see, The Times of Israel gave us roughly one day ago ‘Ballistic missile fired at Israel from Yemen lands in Saudi Arabia’. This setting is given to us by both the Times of Israel and All Israel News. Yet that setting is not given to us by the New Arab, Arab News, Al Jazeera or a few other news media. So, I need to wonder, is this news filtered, did it really happen, or is there another reason?

I reckon that if Saudi Arabia is hit, there is a larger need to take out these terrorists. But I merely see a one sided news and other (western News media) give us nothing. So I need to wonder, what is going on.

My main reason is that I no longer trust the media to give us the goods and the question becomes. Why aren’t we given the news, why are some people giving us optionally disinformation and why is this done? There is a reason for Saudi Arabia not giving ‘us’ the news if the missiles landed in that huge litter box called ‘the desert’ and they decided that it wasn’t worth mentioning this. Is the Israeli media trying to convince the local population that Saudi Arabia is under attack, but the Saudi’s are refusing to answer that call, as to leave the Israeli’s to believe that they are alone in this fight? All reasons, but which one is true? That is the question I come to as the media is regarded as less and less reliable.

So what is the news? This is important as Al Jazeera reported a little over 3 hours ago ‘US fires on Sanaa as campaign against Yemen’s Houthis continues’ as news goes ‘per minute’ the western media should have been on top of this, especially American media. From their side, AP News merely give us the news 47 minutes ago. As I personally see it, the fact that Al Jazeera is more on top of this then American sources gives us a debatable setting. What gives, and why does the (speculative) accessible news go through stake holders? There is a larger question on settings and I seemingly see it more and more people are (read: should be) left with questions. 

This is the simple question that I have. It is not my imagination, the media (at present) has less credibility than the average drug pusher and that is not a good thing. The problem here is verification of the news given to us. The Media (as I personally see it) seems to be in hands of stake holders who seem to filter what is ‘need to know’ to us and this has been going on for a few years and as such I look at more and more media sources. The media stakeholders all have their own ‘needs’ and filter as such. Feel free to doubt my written words (which is always a good idea), but when you consider what others decide to give us and what is filtered as ‘trivial’ becomes a new age stage. In an age where multicultural sides are conflicting with what is filtered, there is the larger question that is prepping my mind. You see, what news is filtered away from Muslims in the western world. What news is filtered away from Asian and Latin Americans in the western world. If only there were rainbow tables that do that. Because I personally suspect that people are filtering the results of what Google gives people set to localisations of the reader. It is hard to find evidence of that setting, but that is a personal consideration I am left with. There is also the chance that for example Arab News might not be searchable outside of the Arabian Peninsula, I get that, but whether that is the case is the question. 

It leaves me with the stage that there is a larger gap in the schooling of people. We all (me included) need to learn on where we can set the ability to have access to some news. And that is a side that is not on Google, it is on us and on the publisher, but there is a larger stage where publishers could limit the visibility their news to limit the bandwidth approach of their internet workings. There are several options. Yet as I see it. The fact that Al Jazeera had it for three hours and AP News for less than an hour remains a setting that I expected more than these two. Several newspapers should have had that news (for example: the Guardian, the Observer, the Times, LA Times, San Francisco Courier, Boston Globe) and several others, so why were they absent from the searches?

Do you not think that these papers should have given their local populations the goods as America attacks Houthi positions? Just a simple question really.

So, have a great day and if you are in Toronto, enjoy your early breakfast, I’ll have tomorrow’s breakfast in Sydney in 6 hours.

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And another stage erupts

That was always going to be the case. Hamas thinks it can play the blame game and Israel has had enough. So when you think of the Trump setting as well as the Egyptian setting for a ‘riviera’ stage, Consider that this was not due to Israel. It was Hamas that decided not to release the hostages. They are holding onto and straws they can and now the world see that any peace is possible, but not until Hamas is eradicated, even the people in Gaza are starting to realise this.

And in the setting we see Mark Rubio (at state.gov) give us “They feel like Hamas is not serious about negotiations.  They are still holding hostages and bodies in terrible conditions.  They are insisting on these dramatically lopsided trades of hundreds of people for one or two.  The President’s expressed his frustration about it as well.  So the Israelis are going to do what they believe is in their interests to sort of force Hamas to make decisions.  As I said, Mr. Witkoff is heading to Qatar, and hopefully that’ll bear fruit and all of these hostages will be released.  They should all be released.  They should all be released.” In addition there are settings where we get Al Jazeera also gives us “Rubio says Hamas ‘must be eradicated’, casting doubt on Gaza ceasefire deal”, as I see it, my response is: “Welcome to the party pal”, I have been telling you this for over a year. The setting is that the hostages have been there for over 528 days. Enough is enough. 

And this is not the only thing. The disgraceful setting of that UN loser (António Guterres) is also one that requires mention. We are given “UN Secretary-General António Guterres says he is “shocked” by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and has called for the ceasefire to be respected.

In a statement, Guterres urged for humanitarian aid to resume for people in Gaza and for the hostages held by Hamas to be released unconditionally.” He didn’t say “He is “shocked” by the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. The hostages held by Hamas are to be released unconditionally and immediately and has urged for humanitarian aid to resume for people in Gaza and the ceasefire to be respected.” No, he is setting to onus on Israel, what a loser he is. I understand the setting that there is no talking to Hamas, and that is the only way he might make some inroads into Gaza. But I reckon that after 528 days it is over. We have no idea how many people are still alive and Hamas knows it will be the end of them. So as Gaza’s are dying today and tomorrow, let it be clear that this is due to Hamas, they started this and now it is coming to an rather rough end. 

So as these Palestinian losers in Universities go all anti-semitic, consider that we also get
(via Reuters) that ‘Rubio says US to revoke more student visas in coming days’, with the byline “In the days to come, you should expect more visas will be revoked as we identify people that we should have never allowed in”, as such the people who think they had a clue (and mindlessly repeated slogans from actual Israel haters) consider that mindlessly repeating slogans you never understood is removing you from academic consideration and throwing in the lap of the fast food industry (they are short staffed now), and it will come with a maximum annual income of $27557 or $13 per hour. Do you really think that you had a clue what was going on? I was in Rafah in 1982 and I did not completely get it, but in those days Yasser Arafat and the PLO were a much larger danger. So as you are reporting the words “From the river to the sea, we will be free” consider that you openly called for the eradication of 9,757,000 million Israeli’s and you are getting all that comes on top of you now. 

 And for your consideration, when you see the damage that is, how does Al Jazeera get the numbers “At least 326 Palestinians have been killed as Israel launched a massive assault on Gaza, shattering the fragile two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas.” How did they get the number 326? There is little communication, there is a lack of resources and a lack of adequate assistance in Gaza. They are summoning Humanitarian aid, but they know EXACTLY how many people were bombed? I doubt this sincerely. I will not argue that there are victims here (like the Israeli hostages) but the rest is all on the people in Gaza’s. Just remember the hundreds that came to ‘wave goodbye’ to the Israeli’s, to show ‘force’ to Hamas. Now it counts against you and Israel will not feel to burdened by the amounts of people killed in Gaza. You all support a terrorist organisation and the world has had enough. As such what is the UNRWA still doing active? Wasn’t there a call on October 29th 2024 ‘Coalition calls for UNRWA funding to be diverted to other aid groups after laws passed to ban group from Israel’? We were given “Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed laws overnight banning UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil — putting it at risk of collapsing when the laws take effect in 90 days.” So how are they still operating? Did Hamas ‘offer’ a helping hand? 

In this Simon Birmingham “The Coalition supports increased humanitarian aid into Gaza, but it should be delivered by groups other than UNRWA.” In this I wonder what is more important to these individuals. Actual aid, or their pay-slip. I reckon that there is some provision around that they still get paid as long as they are there. So in this, who is minding the UNRWA store as there is every indication that Hamas gets their piece of pie from that bag of money and eradicating Hamas is what is at stake at the moment (or should I refer to the steak).

Well that is the goods I have today, it was only time when Hamas goofed it all up, all whilst them releasing all the hostages stating “You see, we can be talked to, we can negotiate”, I knew that was never going to happen.

Have a peaceful day today.

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Political Dundie Awards anyone?

There is a special award that people fear. It is a lot worse than the Razzies (Golden Raspberry Awards), it is the “Dundie Award for Worst Salesman of the Year” and this year it goes to President Trump. In one swift setting he made the Commonwealth drop America as an ally and in the second setting over two articles the first being (at https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portugal-wary-trumps-nato-policy-pick-fighter-jets-2025-03-14/) ‘Portugal wary of Trump’s NATO policy in pick of fighter jets’ where we see “Portugal could replace its aging American-made F-16 fighter jets with European jets rather than F-35s following U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy shifts, the country’s defense ministry said on Friday.” And the second one is seen (at https://news.az/news/canada-explores-alternatives-to-us-made-f-35-fighter-jets) with ‘Canada explores alternatives to US-made F-35 fighter jets’, where we are given “Canada is considering alternatives to the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighters and has begun discussions with competing aircraft manufacturers, Defense Minister Bill Blair announced late Friday, shortly after being reappointed to the role in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly established Cabinet.” The F35, which is currently going as hot cakes although each of these hot cakes go for the price of $109,000,000 each. So I reckon that Lockheed Martin is out a few pennies now and in light of the fact that sustainment costs are estimated to be around $1.58 trillion for the entire life cycle, these pennies tend to add up. And that is before you realize that several countries are still on the fence to change their order now. As such we might think that Saudi Arabia now certainly gets consideration as a customer (after a few years of denying them as a customer), yup President Trump really put his foot in that one. The nice part is that Portugal wasn’t a factor until yesterday and now it is costing Lockheed Martin billions. Considering that Norway recently got three of them nearly completing their order of 52 of them bad boys, consider what Portugal is now replacing and Canada is openly seeking another vendor. Of course, the Eurofighter (Eurofighter Typhoon) might have the inside track here. Yet wouldn’t it be the icing on the cake if China with its Chengdu J-20 wins that one? The irony to this  will be seen as howling with laughter.

OK, I admit that it is unlikely to happen, but the setting that President Trump started with the option of gaining a 51st state and now needs to build second wall to the north to keep the dozens of mighty dragons at a walls length. Canadians merely will have to fill the space between the two walls with water and we have a whole new setting movie like setting. I merely ask that they send 10 canoes to every Native American community there is (there are a few dozens), as such we get a new setting. It is as far as I can tell the first time a president became a clear and present danger to its own defense system selling on a near global scale. The distance between Canada and Portugal makes it near global as I see it. A parameter I actually didn’t see happen as a president is there for a mere 4 years and these babies get sold with decades in mind, but there you have it and there is more. YouTube is getting more and more video’s with American shops (Supermarkets and LCBO shops) where alcoholic drinks from the US and groceries from America are banned by the thousands of Canadian customers, this is all adding up. Perhaps the White House could consider pissing off the people with a nationalistic view? As I see it America first is now becoming America dropped first. In the last week we saw headlines like ‘Jack Daniel’s maker says Canada pulling stock worse than tariffs’ and in this case it grows with “Morgan Stanley analyst Eric Serotta said in a note to investors that tariffs would pose unique challenges for Brown-Forman, with the effects likely to linger. He added that 55% of the liquor manufacturer’s sales come from outside the U.S., and bourbon laws require domestic production so it cannot be produced internationally.” And this opens the doors of ‘connoisseur’ of that liquid as they might now explore the excellence of Japanese Whiskeys. A worry that the makers of Jack Daniels never had before. It makes it not a temporary, but a permanent loss. That threat is now at Lockheed Martins door if these nations pick the Eurofighter. It makes a tremendous win for Eurofighter GmbH, BAE Systems, Airbus, Alenia Aermacchi, and DASA. They are now offered billions of new business on a silver plate because of this and that could also mean that Saud Arabia might now set their sights to the Eurofighter as well. The one nation that was fixed on the F35 could now be shopping somewhere else. That implies a loss of planes, support systems and infrastructure spanning up to a new market of up to 283 combat aircrafts. How many trillions will that amount to? I reckon that it is up to five times the infrastructure of Norway, making the RSAF a $6,000,000,000,000 crown jewel for any company. All that lost by trying to force annexation down the throats of Canadian and pissing off NATO by catering to President Putin all whilst they are in a stage to denying assistance to NATO. So what is next? Consider that The Five Eyes is comprised of Commonwealth nations plus America, it is not without risk that the four will go it alone. You see intelligence merely matters as long as you have it and that is where the CIA might come up short soon enough. A larger setting that short sighted people in the White House administration overlooked. That can be considered as we saw the news by AP yesterday ‘Musk meets with head of National Security Agency to ensure it is aligned with Trump, spy agency says’, I reckon that there will be a certain level of panic whilst the CIA reports that their meeting could get seemingly cancelled. Now the NSA will have to focus on local issues and read in the FBI to at least a dozen projects. I know, it is merely speculative what I say, but that danger wasn’t even realistic last August, now in less than 9 months the pregnancy issues of intelligence might become a massive issues for America and it only recently got over the issues of that traitor Manning and COVID issues. So that is another mess America now has to deal with.

In the second stage, why was Elon Musk dealing with this? Shouldn’t the NSA address any issues directly with the President of the United States? And the questions rise. And the Political Dundie Awards (PDA) has a nice ring as Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is a pattern of behavior in which kids go to extremes to ignore or avoid anything they perceive as a demand. That aligns here just so beautifully. 

Ah well, Another day another giggle with a coffee. So you all have a nice day and Canada, I have your back (although from a distance). By the way congrats to Markie Mark of the British Bank, now to be known Markie Canuck of Canada.

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When words become data

There is an uneasy setting. I get that. You see AI does not exist, and whilst we all see the AI settings develop and some will be setting (read: gambling) 500 billion dollars on that topic, we now see that META is banking on a 200 billion on the stage. But what is this stage? We can tun to Reuters  who gives us ‘Meta in talks for $200 billion AI data center project, The Information reports’ (at https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-talks-200-billion-ai-data-center-project-information-reports-2025-02-26/) where we are given “A Meta spokesperson denied the report, saying its data center plans and capital expenditures have already been disclosed and that anything beyond that is “pure speculation”” However, when we set the stage on a different shoe we see another development. You see, when we think of this in non-AI terms we get that a Data Centre generally ranges from $10 million to $200 million with a typical commercial data center costing around $10-12 million per megawatt of power capacity; smaller data centers can cost as low as $200,000 to build. So when we consider that the upper range of a data centre is $200 million. So what kind of a data centre gives the need to be a thousand times bigger? Now, consider that there are enough people clarifying that AI does not exit. I see AI what some people call True AI and that springs from the mind of Alan Turing. He set the premise of AI half a century ago. And whilst some of the essential hardware is ready, there are still parts missing. Yet what some now call AI is merely Deeper Machine Learning and it gets help from an LLM. This setting requires huge amounts of data, so when you consider that that data comes from a data centre. What on earth is META up to? When need a data centre a thousand times bigger? The only size that makes sense for 200 billion is a data centre that could gobble up whatever Microsoft has as well as Google’s data centers in one great swoop and that is merely the beginning.

Speculation
The next part is speculation, I openly admit that. So when (not if) America defaults on their loans we get an implosion of current wealth and the new wealth will be data. Data will in the near future be the currency that all other parties accept. As such Is META preparing for a new currency? As I see it the simplest setting is whomever has the most data will be the richest person on the planet and that would make sense, that explains Trump’s 500 billion for a data centre and now META is following suit. You see Zuckerberg is really intelligent. I saw that setting 5 years before Facebook existed, but my boss told me that my idea was ludicrous, it would never work. Now we see my initial idea spread all over the planet with every marketing organisation on the planet chomping at the bit to get their slice of pie. So Zuckerberg does have the cajones and the drive to proceed. When data is currency they will be one of the few players in the new economy. And when you take my speculation (possibly even insightful presumption) these data centers make sense and being able to set predictive data learned from active and historical data makes sense in a very real way. Predictive data will be the wave of the future. It still is not AI, but it is in very real ways the next step in data needs. Predictive analytics set the path of this wave 1-2 decades ago. And now we see more data transformations and when the main roads are dealt with the niche markets can be predicted and seen in very real ways.

And the stage is more real than you can see. When people like Zuckerberg are cashing out to get their data centers up and running, there is a real drive to be first to cash in. As I see it, my next step would be to score a job with a data centre doing mere maintenance and support work. You see, as all these big players evolve their needs, their manpower will need to come from infrastructures that these data centers require. So support and power will have the greatest staffing needs in the next decade. Just my thoughts on the matter.

Have a lovely day today

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How does commerce work?

That is at times the question. As I see it President Trump has a flawed nd warped view of one. We get that from the Middle East Monitor, aka MEMO (at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250123-trump-calls-for-1-trillion-saudi-investment-lower-oil-prices/) where we are given ‘Trump calls for $1 trillion Saudi investment, lower oil prices’ And I thought it was an error, but it was not (several publications give me a similar view). The weirdest part is “US President Donald Trump, on Thursday, said he will demand Saudi Arabia and OPEC bring down the cost of oil and will ask Riyadh to increase a planned US investment package to $1 trillion from an initial reported $600 billion” (source: Reuters). And the weird part is set in fact. When we see that USA exports 10.15 barrels of oil daily and IMPORTS 8.53 million barrels of oil, we come to the conclusion that America want cheap oil so that they can get a better margin on selling their oil (which will not be cheaper). So why would Saudi Arabia and Aramco do that? Would anyone do that? As such I think that America is thinking of getting the (speculated) $40,000,000 a day margin to settle their mega trillion dollar debt. It also makes me wonder how close are they to becoming bankrupt? And beside that, they want Saudi Arabia to invest a trillion dollars over 4 years. To be honest it seems like a radical stupid notion to get someone to invest a trillion dollars and lower the price of oil so that Saudi Arabia will be regarded as a friend? Sounds a weird approach to business to me. The quote given is ““But I’ll be asking the Crown Prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion,” Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them.”” So exactly how has America been good to Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia has not been able to acquire the F35? Whilst Saudi Arabia civilian targets were hit by Houthi Terrorists, America did not come forward to sell necessarily equipment. So how has America shown themselves as a worthy ally?

You see, in my books an ACTUAL ally will aid when needed and supply hardware when needed (and paid for in some cases). There is also the notion that Iran have been circumventing the US Navy in several cases to deliver hardware to Houthi Terrorists, some navy. The funny part that MEMO describes “he will demand Saudi Arabia and OPEC bring down the cost of oil”, so now Saudi Arabia is seen separate from OPEC? OPEC is called that as it is the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. So, Saudi Arabia is not part of OPEC? A weird setting as I see it and if America is as broke as it seems to be, it makes some sense, but this would be regarded as a desperate knee jerk move (as I see it).

And on this setting, it has every notion of driving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia straight into the fold of China and their plans for the world according to China. So how does that help America?

Just a thought to have this lovely Saturday morning.

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