Yup, you can make money in three ways. You create it, you steal it, or you can make the government reimburse you. The third one is one that has its own risks. Yet the BBC informs us ‘Customers of failed crypto firm FTX set for refunds’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qz3dg21vqo) Where we are given “Creditors of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX are poised to receive up to $16.5bn (£12.6bn) under a bankruptcy plan approved in the US on Monday.” And we get more with “Last year, former boss Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of stealing customer funds ahead of the collapse and later sentenced to 25 years in prison. The deal will allow former customers to recover a sum worth about 119% of what they had in their accounts at the time of bankruptcy, according to FTX.” As such it seems that these customers get 19% on top of what they had in their accounts. There are ups and downs. We are also given “Some have suggested the repayment in cash will not match the loss of crypto holdings that would be worth far more today had they not been stolen. The value of bitcoin has more than tripled since November 2022.” As such I would surmise that someone went shopping with an approximate 180% of the total of sums. As the outstanding bill was set to “$8bn in customer funds were reported missing, not including debts to investors and others. Mr Ray’s team has since recovered assets worth $14.7-$16.5bn” As such 8 billion was found missing, Roughly double was retrieved and these customers only get 119%? I think there is a stinky fishy smell coming from the realm of banks. They might small consolation that Sam Bankman-Fried is convicted to 9125 days in Hotel Sing-Sing, but that might be merely the impression some feel. You see, the larger premise might be that we are given “the approval of the plan was a “significant milestone” in the firm’s efforts to repay the money to people and firms in more than 200 jurisdictions around the world” but the underlying issue that the BBC seems to ‘ignore’ is that people like Elisabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBM) are given way to much leeway. Holmes was given 11 years imprisonment, where the Guardian on May 8th gave us that her sentence was reduced by two years and four months before original date. As such her sentence is reduced by almost 20%, so what reductions is SBM looking forward to? If is is a similar 20%, he could be out by 2044 and if he plays nice (good behaviour) he might be out even sooner that that. As such we might surmise that crime pays nowadays. And the media will milk these two for whatever they can be milked for.
Yup, it happens. Sometimes the others are all on your train ride, but that does not make your prediction true. Yet to see this we need to take the whole image into consideration. For me I saw this come towards us like a freight train without any brakes when I wrote about it as early as September 2020. I wrote several times that these settings were a really bad setting and the outcome would not be a nice one. Then I warned that the US economy had nowhere to go, not when they insult and offend Saudi Arabia (and to some extent the UAE), as such China would gain billions in revenue. We saw last month (could have been 2 months ago), news that America was ‘worried’ about China making so much headway into the middle East. And now Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/01/29/the-us-dollar-is-finished-wall-street-legend-warns-trumps-and-bidens-china-nightmare-is-suddenly-coming-true/) gives us ‘The U.S. Dollar Is ‘Finished’—Wall Street Legend Warns Trump’s And Biden’s China Nightmare Is Suddenly Coming True’. Really? First off, this isn’t suddenly, I made mentions for almost 4 years that this stage was underway. The fact that the dollar is finished is not entirely wrong, but not to the degree we see predicted. Wall Street will take any stance to diminish that danger. People will end up with nothing, but the almighty dollar will sail on, even though the galleon it once had will be replaced by a simple sloop (as piracy goes).
So whilst we get “The U.S. dollar is “finished as the world’s reserve currency,” analyst Richard X Bove told the New York Times just days after his retirement from a storied 54-year career as a Wall Street analyst.” I initially tend to agree. Yes the dollar as a reserve currency is pretty much a bye bye black sheep operation. It is the “Bove, who sees bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as winning in a post-dollar dominant world, predicted that China will overtake the U.S. economy” part I do not completely agree with. You see the Yuan is and will be an important part of the global economy, but China has its own skeletons to deal with. Evergrande is one and that $300,000,000,000 issue will hinder the Chinese economy to a massive degree. Not to mention the Chinese population that is hurt by that loss. I reckon that being related to Shawn Siu in China is a lot more dangerous than being a loudmouthed disrespectful American in that region, but that could merely be my take on that situation. You see, China needs both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to get the traction to push forward. Yes, they will push the dollar of its throne and Americans with their arrogance did this to themselves, but without the Middle East China has no real momentum. That was the larger station we needed to see. I tried to warn people, but to them I knew nothing. And true, I have no degrees in economy, but I have looked into numbers for decades and I have both a creative mind to see beyond the numbers and a critical mind to question any hypothesis I have. As such I saw what is now being published as ‘suddenly’. My timeline has three years of warnings of the dangers the US and its dollar were facing. I do not have the knowledge or insight to discuss or oppose the digital currency changes, but I can tell that the ego of ex-presidents with his opposition to the digital dollar will be the end of the American economy. The digital dollar would allow Wall Street to diminish the impact the slam the dollar is about to make. If that stops the damage will be enormous. I don’t think the US economy will have any cards to play. Especially now that the EU nations are vying for the same defence contracts that were once almost uniquely America alone. With France, the UK and Germany vying for whatever spending dollars they can, China might end up with a little less, but they still have a lot of billions coming their way, all billions lost to America now and the EU is trying to get a few as well, an indoor fight between the US and EU is not one they were ready for and overall the American evangelisers are now starting to be a lot more quiet. Money talks and the US has none left. Now that the Ukrainian Russian military debate is now three weeks away from two years. A short term prediction by the Kremlin is now a setting that they could actually lose. A stage not considered a year ago and that also brings a lot more problems to the EU nations as well as America. America that has been catering to Russian needs no less and that is important as the people are now a lot more eager to accept China as the new leader. This is not some Nixon fantasy, this is the case of Wall Street deciding on what is best for the world and that is not how it works. That only has any value in the delusional mind of some. So whilst we see what happens next, we see that the power players are vacating towards the UAE. Some will go to other destinations, but the mess that they are leaving behind (not all due to them) will leave the American population without anything left. So what do you think happens when the dollar collapses and 200,000,000 Americans see that their savings are gone. Do you really think they will will side with Trump and his multiple multi million lost lawsuits? Consider that no one has a clear view on how much he owns. Some state that he only has now less than 3 billion and he was dropped from the Forbes 400 list, he came up $300,000,000 short (a lot more with the lawsuits he lost). To give you some reference, Elon Musk is apparently 96 times wealthier. He has 9600% more wealth than Donald Trump and that is the person Americans pissed off, all whilst he has the foundations of a solution for the energy shortage they face. So how is ego holding up? When the UAE engages with that solution, America will come up short in funds and energy. So the ‘suddenly’ setting wasn’t there. This has been out in the open for up to 4 years. And that picture goes from bad to worse soon enough.
Could I be wrong? It is a fair question and I ask myself that question pretty much every day. It is not indecisiveness, it is not doubt. It is about verifying the numbers again and again from whatever reliable source I can find. Verification is everything. Richard X Bove and I got to the same conclusions via different ways and as such I wonder why others were never on that page. Why was the media not all over this? They were so ready to protect Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, but this they didn’t see? Ask yourself that question and wonder what else they got wrong and more importantly why did they get that wrong. You might come to some conclusions that will scare you. Mainly because you all worked towards your retirement, but how many funds saw the golden future that the dollar bonds brought? When that falls flat your retirement will be gone and there is no coming back from that. I think that a few banks in America, as well as Credit Suisse Group AG (now part of UBS), isn’t it interesting that none of them were properly investigated by the media? They all gave the same story, but no one looked into how many dollar bonds these banks had. It might be nothing, but I doubt it. You see, Credit Suisse was handed a $54 billion lifeline. The fact that ANY bank needed THAT MUCH money was never properly investigated and it wasn’t just them. We see all the claims, but to need a 54 billion lifeline implies that that piece of rope is made from weaved platinum threads with diamonds. When did you ever need a lifeline like that?
And these places all matters, because that is to some extent the impact that the dollar pushed for, at least that is how I personally see it. There will be plenty of people stating that I am wrong, but after 4 years I have been proven correct too many times. Let them come up with verifiable data and clear sources to prove me wrong. I dare them.
That is not a term you are too familiar with, but in the old days (really old days) it became important to clean the reeds of all weeds. Weeds take the nourishment away from the reeds. It seems trivial but when a farmer had to live from a one acre field the impact of weeds becomes irritating and almost damaging. It is that setting that gets us to the Guardian who gives us ‘Microsoft accused of damaging Guardian’s reputation with AI-generated poll’ The article (at https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/microsoft-accused-of-damaging-guardians-reputation-with-ai-generated-poll) gives us “Microsoft’s news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week.” In my personal view it is a populist setting by a desperate joke (Microsoft).
Take a moment You see, AI does not exist that is the first thing you need to realise. We do not have the technology to have AI at present. I believe in 10 years we will be able to do so. IBM has two elements that are still in their infancy. The quantum computer and shallow circuits are still not up to speed, but these two essential parts are missing everywhere. I stated before “Machine Learning and Deeper Machine Learning” are two elements and they are awesome, but they are not AI.
The second stage is that whatever Microsoft has, it is lacking data, they don’t have enough and their data is not clean. To be stupid and tasteless to give us a poll with the three options “murder, accident or suicide”, so whatever idiot (at Microsoft) playing spokesperson with the lamest of all excuses “We have deactivated Microsoft-generated polls for all news articles and we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content. A poll should not have appeared alongside an article of this nature, and we are taking steps to help prevent this kind of error from reoccurring in the future.”
Stage Three Stage three is painfully obvious. You see the two missing parts of any poll we see tends to be ‘Don’t know’ and ‘no opinion’, but that doesn’t fit the populist agenda of Microsoft. It wants to rock, rule and conquer and it is done emulating generals like Cadorna, Pillow, Haig, Ludendorff, McClellan and fear not, Microsoft has plenty of stupid people ready to emulate whatever they need to make their ego’s shine at the expense of everyone else.
The second part is that any poll is set to a hypotheses and the data once verified will result in top-line numbers. The hypotheses is based on insight and whatever Microsoft has can’t do that. In addition any poll needs to be overlooked and optionally revised. This is pretty much 101 in market research. Microsoft ignored it all, just like they ignore all the usual culprits and they care only for the bottom line. That is one of the clear results that this poll gives you. So, whatever idiot was linked to “we are investigating the cause of the inappropriate content” should not be in any IT business. This should never have happened. All the issues state that their was no proper testing, no proper oversight BEFORE publishing and those hiding behind “better to ask forgiveness then ask permission” will merely assist bringing Microsoft down (and that is fine by me). And consider that in one swoop they also diminished Microsoft Start, which is about to make it market failure number eight. To lose market share to all these competitor eight times over. How long until the core subscriptions will also lose market share. Google and Adobe are ready to take over. In one article some time ago I made mention on how Adobe could set a much larger stage. A stage where Microsoft will only have Excel to rely upon. So how do you think they will maintain their $198,300,000,000 (2022) annual revenue when they lose fight after fight being short sighted and overlooking the obvious? I will let you ponder that but the results and evidence is showing up in more and more places. So how long until others figure out that Microsoft is pretty much the paper tiger we see, we admire the origami skills that were required to fold it, but we forget that any origami can be crushed with the hand of a child. The one obvious setting overlooked by all and especially people listening to Microsoft Marketing who will claim it is the prettiest and it has the sharpest claws of all the tigers in the world. Yet in the end a small child can crush it, not entirely unlike what Nintendo with its Switch did to the Xbox series X. Once you see that spin you will realise the parts I saw appear on the edge of my eyesight 3 years ago and I have written about it often enough. So when Adobe and Google make a partnership and we see that evolve Microsoft with its Office, its Office365, the connected outages, the Exchange server security holes and we can go on for some time. It is (as I personally see it) a diversifying screw-up of the highest kind and now that players like Adobe, Amazon, Google and IBM have their ducks in a row, they can start taking over Microsoft marketshare. This will not happen overnight, but before December 2026 Microsoft will be what we call an empty egg, all shell and no substance. That was the larger danger that they opened to everyone else and I reckon that a player like India will see their own indie developers take the first bites out of what was once a great company. They merely left it (as I personally see it) to greed driven executives, their biggest mistake. So when I made reference with the chihuahua stating “try Azure, Azure smells nice” I wasn’t kidding. We saw (a few months ago) “Microsoft’s Azure revenue is at least 25% lower than our previous estimates”, so was this fraudulent reporting (like the stuff Sam Bankman-Fried is found guilty of) or was this Microsoft ignoring the system missing part, something any market researcher knows from the get go (see Stage three). Your guess is as good as mine, but a drop of 25% is not a rounding error, it also gives me consideration why Microsoft was so desperate to partner up with Oracle. But Oracle has no master, it can optionally partner with Adobe, IBM and Google too. What it does show (to me at least) is that the Sybase engine that Microsoft bought in 1989 (I think) is no longer hacking it. It was once a contender, now it is down 25% and lagging massively behind Amazon.
Just like the weeds in the reeds, to be an eight time loser takes a particularly creative kind of stupid. But that is just me.
Enjoy Friday, the weekend and its 48 hour span are upon us.
Two articles came to my attention, all about the same subject. The first one was from the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67161638) where we see ‘Top crypto firms named in $1bn fraud lawsuit’ this article includes the two favourite in the Facebook (or META) realm. They are Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. There we see the accusations by New York attorney Letitia James who gives us “Gemini, a crypto exchange, had lied to customers about the risks of an investment account it offered, which paid high interest rates on crypto.” To be honest, I have yet to see any honest presentation of digital currency, but that is another discussion and we aren’t having that one today. It was the partial setting “Genesis, a crypto lender, and its parent company Digital Currency Group were also involved in the programme. It was halted last November, cutting off customer access to funds. That came shortly after the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now fighting fraud charges of his own. Genesis, which had loaned heavily to his companies, filed for bankruptcy a few months later.” You see, the term ‘heavily loaned’ is loaded. How much EXACTLY was loaned to Bankman-Fired? It is the stage of “In the lawsuit, prosecutors said Gemini was aware that Genesis had shaky financials from the start of the programme.” It implies that there was some under the table dealings between Genesis and Gemini. It doesn’t say so outright, but that is what I am picking up on this. So when we get to “Prosecutors said Genesis and DCG tried to hide the situation with financial manoeuvring and false reports, including to Gemini, while claiming publicly that its balance sheet was strong” we see a second cog in action. It is seen with “false reports, including to Gemini” if true enough it could allow Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss play the victim card. We get more emotion as w usually see in these kind of cases, but the chocolaty centre is there. It is when you consider the second article from Financial News London, who (at https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-sachs-crypto-firm-bitgo-dubai-hiring-expansion-20231023) gives us ‘Goldman Sachs-backed crypto firm BitGo eyes Dubai expansion’. They aren’t related, but when you consider the amount of issues that digital currency has, the stage changes. I reckon that neither Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss or Sam Bankman-Fried would accept extradition to the UAE if they get to be investigated for fraud or something as trivial as misplacing a few billion? So when we get to “The crypto firm, which is headquartered in the US, has applied for a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority licence to operate in the Middle East’s key financial hub.” I tend to worry. You see, the moment things go pear shaped and they will, there will suddenly be a lot of tug and pull issues with getting extraditions being completed. These people (the three mentioned) will cry foul, will cry victim and they would not want to face Emirati courts. But that setting will come to full fruition when Goldman Sachs will have to face the music, so when we see “We do have some hiring to do in Dubai as well” I merely wonder if people like Mike Belshe have any clue what they are in for. When you see the FTX setting, the crazy setting that now involves Genesis and Gemini the entire setting is a disaster waiting to happen and no matter how many media will play orchestra for alleged criminals, there will be a larger play in motion and as such when the United Arab Emirates will demand the extradition of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs, how many will have left the firm hours before that request hits the tables of the Department of Justice in America (or London for that matter)?
And when you consider that the US and the UAE do not have a formal written extradition treaty, we see why people want to skate on that ice rink, but until America can actually successfully prosecute these people I wonder if it is a good idea to allow this evolution to begin with. I don’t think that anyone in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is willing to hand over real created revenue to American cowboys in the setting of billion dollar frauds. There is a fool born every minute and the UAE people don’t strike me as fools. Personally I would never allow this to happen, or at least not until we see proper prosecution and a real extradition treaty in place, but that is just me and as always, I could be wrong.
That was the realisation that I got today. The reason that I had that thought was a BBC article. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66747694) gives us ‘Another FTX executive Ryan Salame pleads guilty’. It is there that we find “He agreed to surrender more than $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to authorities. The pleading comes ahead of the October trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.” I had issues from the very beginning, the total lack of checks and balances were the first hurdle I saw avoided by too many. The fact that someone can just push over a billion dollars out of the way is what I personally regard a first piece of evidence. That in itself does not warrant my thought that America is for criminals. That is seen with “authorities said they would accept $6m, two properties in Massachusetts and a 2021 Porsche as part of the plea deal, according to Reuters.” That is the deal for criminals. Fail your criminal empire, you get millions, two houses and a Porsche, that is nice too, not? Has anyone gone insane? That I the way you hand over the keys to criminal empire makers and no matter how you think it goes. The station of crime pays in America. My question becomes what did after former Alameda chief executive officer Caroline Ellison, former FTX technology chief Gary Wang and former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh get? The setting of such a deal that they all get some plea deal with houses and millions is just too sickening to my stomach. In the end we have one month to go until we find out what happens to Mr Bankman-Fried (or Mr Bonky-Fired as I call him). I wonder what plea deal awaits him. What option do they offer him as he was too confused for matters. Perhaps it is the the crypto currency what drove him insane, it gave too much imbalance to whatever medication he was on. prosecutor Damian Williams, US attorney for the southern district of New York gave us “Ryan Salame agreed to advance the interests of FTX, Alameda Research, and his co-conspirators through an unlawful political influence campaign and through an unlicensed money transmitting business, which helped FTX grow faster and larger by operating outside of the law,” Yet I wonder not what was said there, I wonder what was possible to set the station to advance criminal intent within the law, that is the stage that is connected and it is the parts that is not drilled on. Yet, that is pure speculation from me.
The fact that billions went awry is still matter for the court, because that is the stage that is perhaps largely ignored. I personally see it as an absence of checks and balances. And yes, I could be wrong here. But when you consider the way that billions were moved from left to right, from the US to untouchable to the US is still matters to consider and with proper checks and balances this should not have been possible. So in the end, is America merely a place for criminals and greed driven people now? I will let you ponder that, but remember that the plea deal here included millions, a luxury car and two houses. That person will be allowed to live in a style that well over 98% of Americans will never know. Consider that part of the equation too.
Enjoy you weekend without millions, a Porsche and two places to live.
Yup, it is all about the digital manure as some would say. This all started last night when the BBC gave me (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65935263) ‘Binance exits Netherlands and faces France probe’. This sounded strange because exiting one nation in the EU sounds pointless to me, so what was going on? The article gives us “It follows the announcement of the company’s departure from the Netherlands after it failed to obtain a licence from the Dutch central bank.” OK, no biggie. It was “In a statement Binance confirmed French authorities visited its offices last week and will comply accordingly. “We had an on-site visit last week by the relevant authorities. Binance, as always, was fully collaborative and we met our obligations accordingly. We continue to work closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies on all ongoing compliance requirements to uphold high standards,” a company spokesperson said.” Still, not an issue (at present) but the BBC article had me piqued, as such I started to make a search for Binance and the issues started to rise. In order of timeline, I got (at https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/16/binance-france-chief-brushed-off-concerns-days-before-police-visit.html) an article by CNBC, where we see ‘Binance France chief brushed off concerns days before police visit’, which sounds like a nice party-line, but I am not buying it. You see “the crypto exchange’s top French executive dismissed concerns about U.S. regulatory charges affecting Binance’s other operations, comparing them with the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.” Is that so? You see yesterday’s news was not wholly interesting, yet only hours ago (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/06/17/binance-escapes-asset-freeze-in-exchange-for-a-raft-of-restrictions/) we see ‘Binance Escapes Asset Freeze In Exchange For A Raft Of Restrictions’ with the added text “The U.S. subsidiary of cryptocurrency exchange Binance has avoided an asset freeze that would have made it impossible to do business, but it has agreed to burdensome terms to keep operating during a civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that charged the company with evading “critical regulatory oversight.”” We now have a party. So where is that Hudie flapping? If they are referring to the SEC, it is not a butterfly, but a dragonfly hungry for substance. And lets be clear, all these accusations do not make for an issue. The SEC accuses people all the time (more often than not justified), it is the combination of the Dutch, the French and the American SEC that gives light to something going on. You see, we can make assumptions and I would too. It is “Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets.” That sounds familiar. It gets too close to Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX. As such was there an issue, or was the SEC scared it had another issue potentially coming up? I cannot tell as I do not have all the numbers and data, but I was surprised that I saw in seconds hat none of the media seemed to have. Even with all the speculations, no one seems to be on that horse. I might be all wrong, but there is too much in common to ignore it. Even if it is only to follow through and find that this was NOT the case. That is what I would have done and no Fox with their wannabe dictator statements comes anywhere close to this. So what gives?
Well, the Federal case against Sam Bankman-Fried with “Federal prosecutors in New York said they would drop several criminal charges, at least for now, against disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried if the judge agrees to try him later on those charges.” (Source: ABC) is losing momentum, as such they aren’t willing to fail twice in a row, it makes them look bad.
Yet is that the case? It is from my point of view and I am not disagreeing with CNBC who gives us “Prinçay insisted Binance’s US assets were separated from the international exchange, an assertion also made by the exchange’s legal team. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Binance last week with 13 securities charges, disagrees, arguing that Binance user funds are at “significant risk” of flight due to founder Changpeng Zhao’s alleged ownership of an interlocking set of Binance-related companies.” But there are cogs within cogs and as I do not comprehend the machine, I will give different values to some cogs of that machine. The fact that the media isn’t looking too hard gives me the idea that they do not comprehend that machine either. So is there an issue with Binance? I think there is, but I cannot tell whether anything illegal or any criminal issues are actually in play, that matters as we are nations of laws and the law sets out what is to be and what is not to be done.
The issue becomes larger when you consider Forbes giving us “In a June 6 motion asking the federal court for the District of Columbia to freeze the American subsidiary’s funds, the SEC said it was seeking to ensure the safety of customer assets at the U.S. operations given the companies’ “years of violative conduct, disregard of the laws of the United States, evasion of regulatory oversight, and open questions about various financial transfers and the custody and control of Customer Assets.”” And this is where the party (which I mentioned) started. You see the CNBC article is less than 24 hours old and Forbes mentions events from June 6th, that means that CNBC should have been on the ball and they apparently are not. In addition we see ‘years of violative conduct’ which is a BS argument. If there were violation it becomes criminal and they should not be in business at all, if not it is posturing which goes nowhere opting a movement from Binance to seek compensation for lost business, all in all some parties are not aware what the hell is going on (including me). I understand and accept that the SEC does not do things lightly, but is that because the US is broke? Or is that because they do not have a firm grip on the Crypto laws and settings on what is valid (read: legally allowed)? Your guess is as good as mine. What mattered to me is that the Dutch Central Bank refused licences and that counts, it implies that whatever Binance is doing is not all on the up and up (my speculated view) and the French visits are supporting that. Yet the media should have ben on top of this since June 6th and some were, but the rest were not. They are too busy calling an elected president a wannabe dictator. This is what the media has come to. For whose benefit? You tell me.
I will keep a lookout on this, just as I am on that FTX Bankman-Fired person, who is now facing two court cases. So, what’s next? Well, I will snore deep into the final part of the weekend, tht’s is how I roll this weekend.
It started early this morning, the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65057809) gives me ‘Jack Dorsey business target of Hindenburg report’, so someone is finally asking questions of this person? With the byline “Tech billionaire Jack Dorsey is facing scrutiny, after a report accuses the payments company he leads of inflating user numbers and catering to criminals” one part some people noticed that about Twitter, which is why Elon Musk paid well over twice the price and no one in the media was willing to ask questions. I know nothing about the payment company, as such I have no view. The catering to criminals is new, not sure where I stand on it. As such when I see “Block, which former Twitter boss Mr Dorsey co-founded in 2009 and leads as chief executive, said it was exploring legal action against Hindenburg for the “factually inaccurate and misleading report”.” I stopped my response as I did not want to give more ammunition to Jack Dorsey, but the statement ‘factually inaccurate’ requires investigation and data. So as we are given “Now worth more than $30bn (£24.4bn), it was renamed Block in 2021, to reflect another, fast growing side of its business: Cash App, a payments app that was the focus of Hindenburg’s report.” No one seemingly reacts and that is fine, these places happen. Yet the setting is that it grew by well close to 1,000% over the period of less than 8 years. That implies a 125% year on year growth, that is a bit much and the accusation seemingly makes sense. And the criminals (or organised crime) would see the benefit of a cash app. There would be all kinds of benefits for them. This does not make Jack Dorsey guilty, but after the Twitter debacle it makes sense that a deeper look is given to this event. I reckon that I would be able to find a few more items if I had access to all that data, but that is the second stage. Not merely the data, the income streams would be invaluable for a player like China (or Russia for that matter). So as the BBC gives us “While conducting its research, Hindenburg claimed it had easily created obviously fake Cash App accounts in the names of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and made public records requests, which allegedly showed that Cash App was used to facilitate millions in fraudulent pandemic relief payments from the government.” Which leads to “that reflected “key lapses” in compliance processes” and there is one of the elements I warned for for well over two years. The BBC calls (or quotes) key lapses, but I see another fintech app lacking checks, balances and the ability to vet the correctness of information. And the added ““Former employees described how Cash App suppressed internal concerns and ignored user pleas for help as criminal activity and fraud ran rampant on its platform,” Hindenburg said. “This appeared to be an effort to grow Cash App’s user base by strategically disregarding Anti Money Laundering (AML) rules”” merely gives rise to my thoughts. And the world seems to be stagnant to act to any FinTech when needed. Yes, we see it at the BBC now, but how many more will look into this? How many media will give Jack Dorsey another free pass? I cannot tell at present, but over the last 11 hours the media did not go nuts over this, yet jokes like the ICIJ with their Pandora papers, their Pickwick papers and their cups of tea are seemingly in the dark on too much of this. So whilst some will wonder why Charles Dickens comes into play. Consider “A great hokey-cokey of eccentrics, conmen, phony politicians, amorous widows and wily, witty servants, somehow catching an essence of what it is to be English, celebrating companionship, generosity, good nature, in the figure of Samuel Pickwick, Esq, one of the great embodiments in literature of benevolence.” Now consider that view whilst I edit that part into “A view of FinTech solutions, conmen, phony media, and, silly exploiters, somehow catching an essence of what it is to be a wannabe, celebrating greed, need, and exploiters, in the figure of an unknown person at present, one of the worst instigations of hardship creators” it took less than a minute to get to that part of the equation and the crumbles of the media pie were all over the table for well over a year. So it is good to see the BBC make mention of this, but I wonder who will follow and will there be a real investigation? And I have to make one alteration, the Australian Financial Review got there about an hour ago, so they were on the ball. Yet who else was? Not that many for sure.
This situation is still fluidic and I will take more looks, because I think I owe people like Elon Musk to take a larger look into this person, merely for the reason that the media refused to do so and that ain’t right. So will Jack Dorsey join the flock containing people like Elisabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried? I do not know, that is for a court to decide, at present it is an accusation. But in this the BBC has for the most been a righteous party, so for now they are getting the benefit of the doubt and the fact that the AFR is supporting that view is not a bad thing either. Perhaps the twist and dance of Jack Dorsey is in its last stage Time will tell.
Yes, it is me on THAT horse again, and with the media giving their digital dollars preference towards Andrew Tate, it seems that I need to go on another headhunt. Yet first I need to give you the real part that was as far as I could tell ONLY given to you by News dot com dot au weirdly enough. Here (at https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/being-a-controversial-figure-is-not-a-crime-andrew-tates-lawyer-defends-jailed-influencer/news-story/f361ecc354b8de15a09f37bc54e22f74) we are given “Tina Glandian, defending the pair, said they should be presumed innocent until proven guilty as no charges have been laid. She said on Piers Morgan Uncensored the brothers have been subject to “huge injustice” after their arrest on December 29.” So, for over two months a person was held in prison without being charged. Where is that sanctimonious court in Strasbourg now? This is a simple fishing expedition and there is now the optional chance that the Romanian law is aiding organised crime. You see, I reckon that they are all furious that some kickboxer got his foot in the legal stages of whatever business they are in and they ended with $700,000,000. That is a real setting and I am persuaded to think that this is not cool and not clean. I get that a person is held for a week until charges come, yet in this case it has been over two months and three more weeks to go and there are no charges at present. Why is that?
Then we see the mention of “falsely claiming to want a relationship”, yes that is claimed but that setting also fits over a billion teenage boys hoping to put their erection in a vagina. How many of those were arrested? Then we get “Romanian prosecutors launched their investigation last March after one of the brothers allegedly raped a trafficked woman”, so they are not arrested for trafficking this woman, but ‘merely’ for allegedly raping her. This is a classic he said, she said issue in court. It does not mean that this did o did not happen, but the stage is that they have been in jail without charge and that is the ballgame. A ballgame that is set up but for the benefit of who?
Then we get to the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64523028) which is more blahblahblah with mentions of the early years and how they made millions in 7 years. We are also given “Talisman Enterprises makes its money from web portals, according to official Romanian records. It hasn’t posted a profit since 2017”, OK. That sounds nice, but didn’t Donald Trump do the exact same thing in the US? How long has he been in prison? I reckon that the answer is 0 seconds, making this setting even less just and even less acceptable, but Strasbourg is not making a noise, why not?
And then there is the Guardian, they really made a mess this time around. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/02/andrew-tate-twisted-ideology-infiltrated-british-schools) giving us ‘how Andrew Tate’s twisted ideology infiltrated British schools’ where we see “Children are not only mainlining Tate’s toxic social media content, which has resulted in him being banned from most major platforms; they are also tracking his progress through the Romanian criminal justice system, where he and his brother, Tristan, have been remanded in custody until 27 February while investigations continue. An appeal against their detention was rejected yesterday. They deny all the allegations”, and here I get to be a little insulting. So Sally Weale, where were your tits when it came to Elizabeth Holmes? Where were you when she was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors – three counts of wire fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud? Where was the Guardian interviewing the Whistleblower Tyler Shultz? Thanks to him this was stopped, but not before six hundred million ended up being lost. So where is the indignation there? Where is the indignation regarding Sam Bankman-Fried? OK, he is still being investigated, but there is a clear issue with someone finding $5,000,000,000 that they allegedly lost. I checked my sofa at least 20 times. Not a billion. Hell, I would be over the moon with 100 million or massively happy with a mere 25 million, but no way Jose, the sofa did not hide any green papers. Nor did my desk for that matter. So what do you think happens when you misplace billions? In all this Andrew Tate hasn’t even been charged yet. One is convicted and her subtle side-road of getting a one way ticket to Mexico was largely ignored by the media. Not enough digital dollars there? And the amount of silence we see around Sam Bankman-Fried is even less acceptable. But the Tate’s, no, they represent digital dollars for too many media outlets and that comes first, the hard truth or the actual and factual news be damned.
I have several issues and the media remains number one, the fact that the Guardian is seemingly digital dollar driven is becoming an increasing disappointment on several levels, but that is me and perhaps I am wrong. You go seek the factual news and you tell me.
I promised this piece and I was a little dragging my feet and also in need of checking certain facts. You see, the media is having a go at Andrew Tate, a person I actually do not care about, but the media, that corrupt institution is one I hate with intensity. It is therefor essential to give idiots like Alice Evans (as I personally see it) a little taste of their own medicine.
You see How much coverage did the BBC give Tyler Shulz? The person that started the clarity of criminal activities by Elizabeth Holmes, founder of that joke named Theranos. You and your peers were all about praising Holmes when it suited your needs. So how much checking did you do into Elisabeth Holmes? If you cannot put your vagina where it needs to be, you can at least put your vagina where it should be and that is in a chair in a Romanian court making sure that everything is reported honestly and correctly. You see, to answer your question on how people ‘How schools are tackling his influence’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/education-64234568). Yet how much influence did Elisabeth Holmes have, she is a convicted criminal now. Did you check? How about the man behind FTX? Sam Bankman-Fried is being investigated. So how about him? How about he just ‘found’ the 5 billions missing, billions till lost. Yet no one is asking how someone misplaces 8 billion, did you? So why would we need to tackle influence? He is innocent until proven guilty, that is the real setting, not the one the media is painting. And lets be clear, at present the bulk of the media has less credibility than a crack pusher in a schoolyard. You and your peers made that so. So when we see “the problem is, she says, Andrew Tate is also pathetic” we accept that this is your view on the matter, not the one that teacher Charlotte Carson has on the issue. You see, Andrew Tate went from nothing to $700,000,000 that is a reality, you all embraced cash is king, so you enabled him. Members of press, members of society, members of government. Then there is the reference of “Taliban beliefs”. He might be Muslim, that does not make him Taliban. And there are a few Middle Eastern papers that see him not as the prominent person they would like him to be. But here we are in the west where cash is king making him pretty much an emperor. As I see it more of an emperor than Jack Dorsey who you and your peers refused to report on. It was so much easier to get digital dollars out of Elon Musk. How is that going for you Alice?
And now we see “Tate, a former kickboxer, has millions of online followers – despite being banned from sites including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for misogynistic comments.” I cannot comment on things I did not see, but here is the crunch. He is banned and criminals like Elisabeth Holmes? Are they banned? And when the case of Sam Bankman-Fried is decided, will he be banned if found guilty? That is beside the captains of industry who liquidate their companies and not pay staff, you will happily give those people a pass too. Have you not figured out that you are part of the problem and not the solution? Now, if Andrew Tate is found guilty will you dig into that, or just let it fly? You do remember that the hell you and your peers allowed Tyler Shulz had to face is on you and your peers, do you see that?
You failed to do your job to the degree you needed to in the cases of Elisabeth Holmes and Jack Dorsey, so how much longer will you hand out filtered information? When will you go back to reporting the news? I am curious about that part because most reporters have eagerly stopped reporting the news in several places as I personally see it. In the end if he is found guilty and you want to do a piece on how schools are tackling his influence, I have no complaints. At that point he is a convicted person, but you better make sure that you report on the actions of Elisabeth Holmes and Jack Dorsey as well. The media is for the most no longer something that should be recognised with positive feelings. You, your peers and their need for digital dollars made that so and that has been an issue for years. That is how I see it. So fix it and start reporting the news, unfiltered by your shareholders, your stake holders and your advertisers.
We all have such moment, we are given some parts when things go wrong, this happens, but to the degree we see at present, does it make sense? I think that it is clear that there is almost no one left on the planet who has not heard the name ‘Sam Bankman-Fried’, the media has been bringing it like Jesus of Nazareth was the second coming of this individual. It was only three weeks ago when we were given ‘FTX TO LAUNCH ITS OWN STABLECOIN SOON, SAYS SAM BANKMAN-FRIED’, there we see “The fresh capital injection, which is still subject to negotiations, would keep the crypto conglomerate at the same valuation it had landed after a $400 million funding round back in January. At the time, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried was valued at $32 billion. According to leaked financial documents, global trading revenue generated by FTX hit $1.02 billion in 2021, having increased more than 10 times from the $89 million recorded in 2020. Additionally, FTX’s operating income swallowed $272 million throughout last year’s bull run from $14 million a year earlier. FTX saw net income of $388 million last year, up from just $17 million in 2020” and there has been too few questions, no one was looking into matters. Just like the issues surrounding Jack Dorsey. The media had forsaken its duties. It’s like all the paparazzi’ were heralding a 42nd crack maiden as she was giving out free blowjobs to anyone coming along. They had no problems slapping Elon Musk, because he was too arrogant, he was evil. The media had forsaken its duties to the largest degree. To properly inform us and it was at that point when someone informed me of a Dilbert comic. I know off Dilbert, but I do not religiously follow him. I have a book with Dilberts, but that book is at least 20 years old. So I had to look him up and I placed him below.
So here we see what I have been telling you for years, but the person was onto something. If we are to accept the wisdom of Scott Adams, the ‘We’ in the second image represents governments, corporations as well as media interests? It is the last one that was a little forgotten. Not by me, but I was equally not s inclusive as I had needed to be.
This part becomes clear when we see the Australian Financial Review (at https://www.afr.com/technology/ftx-came-dangerously-close-to-upending-futures-markets-20221117-p5bz5m), there we see ‘FTX came dangerously close to upending futures markets’ with the added “FTX’s ambitions were grandiose: It wanted to carry out every aspect of customers’ crypto derivatives needs on its own, using algorithms rather than brokers to help clear trades”, you think this is it, but it isn’t even close. Yet it lifted the veil and gives us the question “Why was the media asleep?” Things of these nature get noticed and the media was not asking questions. It goes from bad to worse when we see the Guardian giving us ‘Why were so many smart people so dumb about FTX? Did they seriously just like Sam Bankman-Fried’s ‘vibe’?’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/commentisfree/2022/nov/15/why-were-so-many-smart-people-so-dumb-about-ftx-did-they-seriously-just-like-sam-bankman-frieds-vibe-), it is actually a much better question than you think it is. The ‘vibe’ part is indicative and subjective, but the setting of smart people being dumb is central. The media is allegedly supposed to be smart and they never saw it, they never investigated. Was it them or their shareholders, their stake holders and their advertisers that could not stand the sight of critical questions? The fact that I found 6 billion that Google and Amazon overlooked implies they are merely reckless, shortsighted and only optionally stupid. But tell me what company goes around ignoring 6 billion in revenue whilst they are getting ready for recession dropping employees left, right and centre? Then we see the subjective part “The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange will cost investors billions. But why would anyone give money to a man who plays video games in important meetings?” There is a dangerous stage here. They are not wrong, but it also implies that the important meetings are egocentric. I found 6 billion through video games, in addition, I knew WHERE to look. It implies that these so called important meetings are important to some and not others. Are they therefor important? And we get more information when we see “It seems, however, that FTX was doing some very dubious things: namely, furtively shifting customer funds to Alameda Research, a firm also operated by Bankman-Fried, which then gambled them away on risky trades. Instead of becoming the world’s first trillionaire, SBF saw his net worth plummet from $16.2bn to about $3 overnight. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers has likened FTX’s collapse to the Enron scandal, saying that from the reports, there were “whiffs of fraud” about it.” And the information we get is not about SBF or FTX, it is that the media fucked up, it massively fucked up. Who in the media started to look into Alameda Research? How much of the $6.2 billion was lost by the time someone woke up? All questions that the media will not look into or shed light on. Too many got burned by Leveson and when we illuminate that the media has more priority towards digital dollars than to inform the people on events, it is at that point that the people will demand investigation of the media and that scares them. Like fucked up Chihuahua’s they will cry the freedom of the press and the fact that they can police themselves, yet there are enough indications that there is no freedom of the press, there has not been for quite some time and the final push is seen through the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63662396) where we see ‘New FTX boss condemns crypto exchange’s failure’, a stage that happened 13 hours ago where we are given “The firm filed for bankruptcy in the US last week and, in court filings, Mr Ray said he had never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls”. Mr Ray, who replaced Sam Bankman-Fried, also criticised a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information”.” In a stage that is a mere three weeks old we see someone from second coming to financial terrorist getting nailed to a cross. And when we realise that this is a stage that was 3 years in the making and the media ignored too many signals and it is time to demand answers. So called idiots making environment claims a mere two days go with “30 newspapers and media organisations in more than 20 countries have taken a common view”, how about you do your fucking jobs and report the news, the actual news, not filtered information!
That setting has been clearly out in the open, but the media does not investigate itself and we are now at a point where the people ned to hold the media to account. When we are given by the BBC “Mr Ray also criticised what he said were “erratic and misleading” public statements by his predecessor. Mr Ray said that FTX had concentrated control in the hands of a “very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals”, and that it did not maintain centralised control of its cash. Instead, he said, there was an “absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories”. So far he said it had been possible to locate “only a fraction of the digital assets” held by the firm.” All this whilst the media was praising some crypto brat like he was evangelising the new economy, and there were no checks, no balances and the media was nowhere to be found. A place like FTX made over a million victims, lost over $16,000,000,000 and the media was nowhere to be found, oh yes, when the carcass was out in the open for everyone to take a bite from, but such numbers aren’t created in a day, there was a long stage of planning and the media was nowhere to be found. Why not?
In light of all the stupidity I see there is now a decent stage where people should consider handing their IP over to China and hope for the best, because our system made a righteous mess of it all and that kind of damage does not happen overnight, it requires the media to forsake its duty to a massive amount. And this is not one media, it is the bulk of them. And my view? When the BBC reports “Meanwhile, Mr Bankman-Fried has told the Vox news website that he regretted filing for bankruptcy.” Vox? And the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Times, the Guardian and others aren’t wondering why the Vox got that little part and none of the others are all over the Crypto Brat? Makes you wonder what else they aren’t looking at, not?
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 