Tag Archives: San Diego

Dropped balls

There are several balls that have been dropped by a whole range of entities (cannot call them people) and there is a larger setting. 

First there is Bioware with an at some point appearing Mass Effect and I wrote about the options of a remade and remastered Mass Effect 45 where you get Mass Effect 5 as well as an upgraded and ‘corrected’ Mass Effect 4. I did this in 2018 (might have been 2019) but it was over 6 years ago and I get that AAA games take time, especially if they are done in Unreal engine 5, that sucker takes heaps of precision, especially in the setting that Mass Effect has (and their is need for precision here) and that is merely the first. Then there is need for pointing out several matters. You see, Google with whatever version they are working gives when we ask for “Intelligence UAE” (I was apparently looking for SIA) but I got 

Now consider that the UAE is one of the safest countries in the world, as such, we have an issue. Yet when I ask for “UAE safety 2025” I get: 

Now consider that I ask this in 2025 and then try to question the first setting. As I have always said AI does not exist and the current Near Intelligent Parsing (NIP) that is managed by software engineers (programmers) and the setting we see here in Google is equally questionable by all who cater in the AI field. I also made mention of this in ‘And Grok ploughed on’ on November 27th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2025/11/27/and-grok-ploughed-on/) a setting that many aren/t looking at, all whilst the people at large need to recheck everything some NIP solution is and gives, whilst most of these are quite literally riddled with bugs (also called programmer features).

It started as I was curious about Project Raven (I knew nothing of this about 24 hours ago), I am not completely dim to that setting as Wiki gives us “Project Raven was a confidential initiative to help the UAE surveil other governments, militants, and human rights activists. Its team included former U.S. intelligence agents, who applied their training to hack phones and computers belonging to Project Raven’s victims. The operation was based in a converted mansion in a suburb of Abu Dhabi in Khalifa City nicknamed “the Villa.”” I know that Wiki isn’t the most reliable ever, but at present it is more reliable then the press and the media, but what I needed to learn were names, namely Karl Gumtow and Cyberpoint. Basically as I am also looking for a job, and there was word that they were operating in Australia as well (which was proven to be incorrect). 

But there was a setting that places like LinkedIn never considered, the NIP setting of connected business and whilst we can call this a dropped ball, the setting is clear. These companies can never be found by some as the short sighted LinkedIn people are still on the page of “Are you hiring at present?” And they ask it of people who never hired in the first place, as well as flooding the mail system because that is a metric that they can measure (and it is utterly useless). 

But that setting is out there, so perhaps a competitor of LinkedIn could step in? Considering that Saudi Arabia is advertising that they have over 3000+ available positions (source: Arab News) and not just them, ADNOC is also hiring, but people need to know this and that is a filtered setting. There might be a reason that these two firms are merely looking for local staff, but as I see it, companies in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and perhaps France is looking for people they cannot find. As such as I personally see it, LinkedIn dropped the ball there as well. 

Then we get numerous places, outside of the gaming industry and the tech industry Some give us jobs like Healthcare (Nurses, Aged Care, Support Workers), Technology (Data Scientists, IT, AI/ML Specialists, Cybersecurity), and Trades/Construction (Electricians, Plumbers, Managers), so where is that knowledge going to? Let’s confront places like Canada, who is short on a lot of them and where is the offer for UK people, apparently they have an unemployment that recently rose to 5.0% (as of September 2025), its highest level in years, with 1.79 million people jobless. As such where will they go? If they do not want to go anywhere, that is fine, but in this stage, where people either accept jobs in other places or drown in rising cost there is a new setting, one that approaches the great depression (1929 to 1939) in that stage people would travel for days. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25%, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and 9,000 of its 25,000 banks had gone out of business. People would travel to other states to get a job and support their families. It was not uncommon for people to hobo to California or Texas to find a job and send dollars home to keep their families safe. As I see it, these days are returning and people will Tavel all over the EU to get the same, or even go to the lands of opportunity like the UAE and see what can be gotten there. We aren’t in that stage yet, but that stage is just around the corner, especially for America as it is (apparently) “The US is experiencing significant job losses in late 2025, with layoffs reaching a five-year high, exceeding 1.17 million by November, driven by high inflation, interest rates, corporate corrections after pandemic hiring, and AI adoption, impacting sectors like tech, retail, and government, leading to a tougher job market with fewer new jobs and lower seasonal hiring.” I might seem low when the population if over 335 million, but that doesn’t matter to those who lost their jobs and these raking in the money handing out jobs (like recruitment company) and they are merely Direct Mailing all over the place to get their revenue. There is a larger need that is clear in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and several other places. 

As I personally see it, they are all in the mindset of “How can I get the same revenue for less work” instead of “How can I achieve more” because the second setting cleanses the Job loss setting and I am not saying that it solves everything, perhaps not even anything, but the lack in the mindset is the new prepared mind, which is currently not preparing at all.

And when you think that the US job losses are high now, consider what happened in 2026 when the impact of snowbirds is truly seen on the balance sheets in Florida and California. I reckon that in 2026 San Diego will face a massive job loss percentage and that is before the B&B that will go bankrupt in California as well as Florida hits US administration records. The Trump administration is losing more and more and as I see it, those waves will hit faster and faster in 2026. In the meantime there is every chance that Canada will be the next El Dorado, right in the middle of the snow as that is where fresh drinking water is found, America lost that setting too, because as I see it, no real investigation had been made for close to 10 years and whatever we see is a mere “Generally safe” and that it is the homeowners duty to check their wells. But no one is looking how the groundwater are impacted by chemicals and there is (as far as I can tell) no real investigation there. 

All balls that are dropped, some merely impact individuals and some impact whole population. All whilst places like Australia, Canada and New Zealand have larger settings to truly check these numbers. Did I show too much balls here? (Sorry, intentional grammar folly) The balls we see are not always the balls we care about, but they need to be shown to show that there is a larger failing and it is a very global failing. A setting we all saw coming, but it wasn’t our responsibility and it was not on our plate. Newsflash! The media isn’t doing its job and as such we need to have a wider look at things that COULD affect us, our families and our loved ones. 

Have a great day, except Vancouver and Toronto where I have to say “have a great yesterday”, my personal ever ready time travel jokes remain. 

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Outside of my comfort zone

This morning I got news passing me by and it left me with questions. Now most of us have heard of the Muslim Brotherhood and as far as I can tell rightfully so, it is branded a terrorist organisation. But the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-cair-muslim-brotherhood-declaration-9.7008351) gives us ‘Florida declares Council for American-Islamic Relations a terrorist organization’ and I was a little surprised. I had never heard of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), now this is not a complete surprise as I am not American and I am not Muslim, as such many who can make this claim are likely to escape that notion. And the most laughable setting is “The directive against the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) comes in an executive order DeSantis posted on X.” So what does Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis fear more? Terrorists or the actual and factual media? What makes any organisation a terrorist organisation? Some say:

An organization becomes a terrorist group when it engages in, plans, or fosters violent, criminal acts for ideological (political, religious, etc.) goals, often by intimidating populations, with governments officially listing them for engaging in terrorist acts or advocating for them, making membership, support, or funding illegal. Key factors include intent to cause harm, use of violence, advancing an ideology, and official designation by a government body. 

In that case the setting is likely also met by MAGA America and we might get the same idea when we see “intent to cause harm, use of violence, advancing an ideology, and official designation by a government body” towards the settings of ICE, but that might be a stretch. So what makes CAIR a danger? And lets be clear, America seemingly set the premise of CAIR from its infancy in June 1994 to about 25 chapters all over America and we are given “Following the attack, Muslim-Americans were subjected to an upsurge in harassment and discrimination, including a rise in hate crimes nationally; 222 hate crimes against Muslims nationwide were reported in the days immediately following the bombing. The bombing gave CAIR national stature for their efforts to educate the public about Islam and religious bias in America”, as such, since when does education give any organisation a terrorist stature? And I get it, we get this from the person who went to war with a mouse. And we get more at TRT (at https://www.trtworld.com/article/19f5c755f766) where we see ‘Why CAIR’s advocacy has spooked pro-Israel American politicians’ it gives me a second jolt, you see, why does a pro Israel make that person anti Muslim and vice versa? I never got that part. So when we are given “While the federal government does not classify CAIR as a terrorist group, these state-level actions underscore an effort to silence one of the most prominent Muslim-American voices advocating for Palestinian rights and reflect growing unease among pro-Israel politicians over CAIR’s push for justice and accountability in US policy toward Israel.” Would it be that simple? An organisation is branded terrorist as it tries to stand for Palestinian rights? I have nothing against that, but it does require the eradication of Hamas and that is the linked unease. These people are all about coloring whatever they can, but they will not act for the common good of Palestine and as I personally see it, that requires the eradication of Hamas. Hamas has shown again and again that it is unwilling to make any deal, We see images of destroyed baby food and hidden caches of food and miraculously. These images are gone within hours. And we are left with “Hamas hid tons of baby formula and nutritional shakes meant for kids inside a warehouse to allow Gazans to starve and further its claims of widespread famine to undermine Israel, a US-based Palestinian activist claimed. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, an anti-Hamas activist, accused the terror group of hoarding food meant for infants and young children to purposefully increase starvation in Gaza and damage the public perception of Israel.

This sets the larger setting against organisations like CAIR and the seemingly good they do in America. I state ‘seemingly’ as it is about perceptions and kinda like CAIR, I have absolutely no idea where Governor Ron DeSantis gets his wisdom, but I fear the worst if he merely gives this to X. And the previous ‘facts’ were released on the New York Post, as such there is limited credibility as there isn’t more in the media. And the actions of Hamas have been going on for months (at least from late September), but the overarching issue is WHY is CAIR a terrorist organisation? I fail to see any evidence of that. There is merely the setting that the Florida Governor gives, whilst there is nothing in any of the other location which gives us Washington DC, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Los Angeles, Sacramento Valley, San Diego, San Francisco, Connecticut, Georgia, Chicago, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Columbus, Cleveland, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Austin, Houston, Seattle and of course the Florida Chapter in Tampa. So where is the evidence that DeSantis has making the CAIR a terrorist organisation? And for that matter, how come in all these chapters, there is nothing else? 

Something does not make sense, although this man went to war with a mouse, so I reckon that there is likely another reason hiding in the tall grass. 

So whilst the Florida Phoenix (at https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/12/09/gov-desantis-welcomes-lawsuit-challenging-cairs-terrorist-designation/) gives us ‘Gov. DeSantis welcomes lawsuit challenging CAIR’s terrorist designation’ where we see “Monday, DeSantis declared via executive order that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are foreign terrorist organizations. CAIR promised a lawsuit, alleging defamation and that the order is unconstitutional.” And it comes with the only response that likely matters “Muslim-rights group replies: ‘See you in court.’

Is that the only place that matters, the place where he can talk freely, A court? It would be a sad life he has if that would be the case, but after the Disney court setting, it might be his only option for now and praying on the fear of others is (speculatively) the only option left to him, because there is every chance that his previous ‘win’ of 59.37% is likely his last because there is every chance that he will lose Osceola County, Tampa (surprise), Palm Beach County and optionally Seminole County (where apparently some Disney workers reside) and if this is true, the CAIR following is al that is stopping from Florida to become a Democratic state on November 6th 2026. I reckon that the CAIR is the nail on his coffin because he is unlikely to get any support from President Trump, making this state in a state to change colours from red to blue. Won’t that make his heart blue in the process? And there is some setting for this, there are according to some numbers 127,172 Muslims in Florida and in for at least one electoral location that is all that is needed to throw over the numbers. And as I see it the chance that 0% Muslims will vote for Ron DeSantis is close to 100%. 

It is all up for debate, but there are settings that matter, but what they are and how they matter will seemingly be a new case for the courts of Florida. Have a great day

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The setting changes

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

That was my premise (at first).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Say where?

Yup, where is the issue and it is very specific. According to Latin America reports (at https://latinamericareports.com/germany-rejects-uruguays-latest-passports/11771/) the ‘new’ passports from Uruguay will be rejected by Germany. The story gives us that both France and Germany are rejecting the new passports, but according to Uruguay the concerns are a lot stronger with Germany. The issue is that “is a result of the fact Uruguayan passports issued after this date do not indicate their holders’ birthplace. Passports issued after this date also have the field of “Nationality” replaced by “Nationality/Citizenship,” assigning the code “URY” to both natural and legal citizens of the country. However, it is the lack of “birthplace” field which has sparked concern amongst the German and French governments.” My issue is ‘only those two’? I reckon that such a setting should spark a lot more issues and we can assume that this (in part) is that “San Javier was founded by Russian immigrants in the early 1900s. For locals, Russia is still their Mother Land.” I reckon that this is the opening that organisations like the FSB are hoping for. As such when will Europe and optionally America will get a stronger inbound setting of Uruguayans and a speculative well over 60% might have a Russian heritage. It seems that a lot more nations should be complaining about this. As I personally see it, but is not a simple setting and to do such a ‘large’ change should have an almost global outcry. There is a debatable argument coming from the 825,273 penguins on McDonald Island (Australia) but that might merely be speculative semantics, as it is less then 5.21% of the Australian population. 

The larger issue is why the bulk of the western media is (optionally) losing this story as trivial. The reason for my thoughts is the case study (published in Vancouver, Canada) setting the framework

In 2021, a 52-year-old executive from San Diego sought to escape financial ruin and a collapsing reputation after his company went bankrupt amid a hostile media storm. Instead of disappearing illegally, he partnered with Amicus, filed for residency in Uruguay under its investor visa program, and legally changed his name through the court system after naturalization. Within 18 months, he held a new passport, a new name, and a tax ID number—entirely above board. He now lives quietly in Punta del Este and consults remotely for European tech firms.

A legally transference of personality and with the new passport he can go back into wherever that person wasn’t welcome, the place of birth no longer attached to this allows that person to reappear where that person wants. When we see this how often will this set a new premise of white collar crime who ‘faded’ into the limelight of Uruguay and in a year that person could get a new penthouse place a mere boat rode over the Rio de la plata to Argentina and living it up in Buenos Aires. And that is the simple drop of people wanting to vanish. It is the Lone wolf setting that should worry America (Europe too) and the fact that it doesn’t break media waters seems a little unusual. 

Make if this what you want, but consider the loops you have to jump through to get a passport and now consider the setting where it suddenly becomes really easy. 

Then there is the thought on why they made this change. There is no clear explanation for this, but to change a passport after it took years, if not decades to get accepted. Why change this?

That is the simple thought I am having. 

Have a great day.

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Shutdown to death

Time for the last article of the year.

In America the news is all about the shutdown, the government is in a stage of what some call ‘democratic’ application of force, some will call it a serious hoax against the American people and many think it is an atrocity, merely in play because of a wall someone wants. In that regards, it worked in China, not many Chinese left the country via the wall route, did they?

The Washington Post gives us that it is now probable that the shutdown will continue until January 3rd, when the new congress convenes. Some might consider the issue of “deny Trump any new wall money, keeping the Department of Homeland Security’s border-security funding at the current level of $1.3 billion“, yet the issue is a lot larger. It is transgressing borders (quite literally). I see it as the impact of a nation now bankrupt. As they approach a debt of twenty two trillion, or $22,000,000,000,000 we need to realise that even at a mere 0.1%, the US government has to hand over $22,000,000,000 in interest every year. Now we see the impact of the non-taxation of the FAANG group, not to mention all those Wall Street individuals and corporations that are able to have a career plan in tax avoidance (which is actually legal), tax evasion is not. So consider that no one pays a mere 0.1%, so the interest is a lot higher than that. Now consider the 22 billion and the fact that there are 325 million Americans. This would imply $67 for every American. Now consider that 12.3% is in poverty, so lucky for them no taxation and it amounts to 40 million people, this gives us an initial $2.7 billion short. Then we get the 10% group. It gets to be worse when we consider the 2016 numbers. There we see: “An estimated 45.3% of American households — roughly 77.5 million — will pay no federal individual income tax“, in addition those in the lowest 20% paid -$620, which implies no taxation and money from the government, and the picture does not get to be any better beyond that. So the US has a massive budget problem and as I see it, it is bankrupt. In this economist Laurence Kotlikoff actually agrees with me, he came to this conclusion in October, whilst I predicted the setting 3 years ago, the world economies have been in denial for that long. These people might hide behind some fictive ‘wealth of America‘, yet that group of people represents less than 1 million people, and they cannot fork over what the government needs and the picture is merely sliding from bad to worse and this is part of the entire shutdown issue, there is simply no money left.

And those behind “There is frankly no path towards him getting $5 billion in American taxpayer money to meet his campaign promise of a big, beautiful wall with Mexico,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said Sunday on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’“, you see, how strong will this wall be? How long until that wall gets ‘punctured’ with a few shots from a M72 LAW or RPG7? Perhaps more efficient is drilling a few holes and fill it with Dynamite. So, how long until that wall is nothing more than a leaky billboard supporter? How much costs will there be in repairing that damage, a wall 2,400 miles long? How much concrete, how many holes, how many troopers will be required? One could argue that the cure is a lot more expensive than the disease ever was. All that in an economy where a government could never ever correctly deal with a minus 22 trillion invoice? That is before we consider the damage to nature, Big Bend National park, Buenos Aires National Wildlife refuge, Kino Springs, Organ Pipe Cactus national Monument, the impact on Yuma looks disastrous, the outskirts of Mexicali, and the space between San Diego and Tijuana is a foregone conclusion as lost forever. All elements that can be presented around, but there is the real impact of a dozen complications, none with a solution that does anything but drive the price of the wall sky high, merely leaving the US to ridicule (by China) with the notion that their wall was nine times longer, completed and functional 375 years earlier. Yes, these are matters that you will see in the news soon enough. I have no doubt that there is some benefit of having a wall, yet at $5 billion and a lot more afterwards, is that really the way you want to squander cash when you are bankrupt?

A wall that will prove to be detrimental to the funding option of 2019, that and the fact that federal workers are now either growing hungry or mandatory taking vacation days, so that impact will be seen all over 2019 as well. And this is not the first, as the Washington Post tells us: “making this the third partial government shutdown of 2018“. Who signed off on this? So when I see: “Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) dismissed it as “really much ado about very little.”“, I wonder how many people on minimum wage were affected and would he be so kind to pay these people out of his own pocket? I wonder how trivial the matter remains at that point. And even as Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska gives us: “The votes are clearly not present in the Senate to provide $5 billion for the border wall“, I wonder if that is the full truth, I wonder if the actuality of the opposition is: “There are no funds left for such an outrageous symbol of discrimination“. I get there as terrorists and criminals will find a way around that wall, or under it, so there is that notion and that will happen, it happened, in Berlin, it happened in Colditz, it is still happening in Gaza, and as such it will also happen at the Mexican border.

It gets to be worse, especially in light of the earliest promise that this wall would be on the Mexican dime (never realistic), we see: “There is no mechanism for direct payments from Mexico’s government to the U.S. government for a wall in the trade agreement. And a number of Republicans have been greatly frustrated by Trump’s intransigence“. In light of that, why was $5 billion pushed for in American budgets? Although in this setting, the application was never made so artistically poetic by replacing ‘stubborn mule attitude‘ with intransigence, the Washington Post gets bonus points on that one.

An additional short update

I made mention of it in my article ‘That did not take long‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/12/22/that-did-not-take-long-2/). there I stated: “because AT&T is going to start pretending its most advanced 4G LTE tech is 5G” and even as we were exposed to: “T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray wrote that AT&T was “duping customers into thinking they’re getting something they’re not.” The “E” is easy to miss, too, judging by a mockup AT&T sent out“, and it was the Washington Post (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/21/was-year-g-hype-g-reality-is-yet-come/) who gave us pretty much at the very same time: “We’ll make sure America wins the global 5G race,” John Legere vowed. “5G will unlock capabilities that will fuel job creation and innovation well beyond what we have seen so far“, as well as “AT&T said it too had switched on its 5G service, announcing it is the “first and only company in the U.S. to offer a mobile 5G device over a commercial, standards-based mobile 5G network” the catch? Access is limited for now to a select group of businesses and consumers in a dozen cities, and it requires the use of a mobile hotspot“, so is this real 5G, or is that the mentioned 5G evolution? In light of this article in the Washington Post, does this constitute deceptive conduct, or merely a missed communication between the WP editor and AT&T executives? And as we are treated to “As for when we will see the first 5G-capable smartphone? Industry analysts say the consensus appears to be the first quarter of 2019“, we see the completion of a stage of intransigence, I merely wonder who is not clear enough to see the sea of disagreement here. the fact that whatever comes is to be with an estimated price of US$1800 for the complete edition should also consider that this one item could max out the average credit card on the spot and that is without additional warranty and protection. So as 5G goes, it is seemingly merely for the rich (for now), so as such, is it truly an American first, or even a stage where America ends in a fictive first place? Perhaps it is perception on steroids, you can be the first in space, even if you send a monkey, it is in that light we get to see 5G soon enough. You merely have to contemplate who is remembered to be first in space, Yuri Gagarin on the 12th April 1961 or the monkey?

I wonder how soon we see the update on how trivial the difference is between 5GE and 5G, and how soon people realise that they are merely getting a new double priced contract whilst true 5G is not delivered, it might end up being a lovely day for contract lawyers in the US.

 

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When movies fall short

There is nothing as intensely satisfying as when we are confronted with a reality that is a lot more entertaining than a movie would be. Those are moments you live for, that is unless you are a part of Sony and it is your system getting hacked. Life tends to suck just a little at that point.

This is not the latest story to look at, but in light of the elements that have been visibly resolved, it is the best one around. Some will state that the Hostage story in Martin’s Place, Sydney is the big issue, but that is an event that is getting milked for every second possible by the media, I checked! The price of chocolate remains unaffected, so let’s move on to Sony!

The first part is seen in the article ‘Sony hack would have challenged government defences – FBI’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/12/sony-hack-government-defences-fbi), those who think it is new news seem to have forgotten the issues people had in May 2011 (at http://uk.playstation.com/psn/news/articles/detail/item369506/PSN-Qriocity-Service-Update/). “As the result of a criminal cyber-attack on the company’s data centre located in San Diego, California, USA, SNEI shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services on 20 April 2011, in order for the company to undergo an investigation and make enhancements to the overall security of the network infrastructure” 77 million accounts were compromised and the perpetrators got away with a truckload of data.

So when we see the quote “The cyber-attack that crippled Sony Pictures, led to theft of confidential data and leak of movies on the internet would have challenged almost any cyber security measures, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said“, we should consider the expression once bitten twice shy and not, when bitten use antiseptic, go into denial and let it be done to your network again.

The fact that this revolves around another branch of Sony is just ludicrous, it’s like listening to a prostitute stating that the sick man used the other entrance this time, so we need not worry! If you think that this is an over the top graphical expression, consider that twice in a row that the personal details of millions in the form of data ‘leaked’ to somewhere.

The second quote will not make you feel any safer ““In speaking with Sony and separately, the Mandiant security provider, the malware that was used would have slipped or probably got past 90% of internet defences that are out there today in private industry and [would have] challenged even state government,” Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division told a US Senate hearing“, as we know that governments tend to be sloppy with their technology as they do not have the budgets the bulk of commercial enterprises get, we can look at the quote and regard the statement to be a less serious expression of ‘do we care’, which is nothing compared to the ignored need to keep personal data safe.

You see, commercial enterprises have gotten sloppy. getting newly graduates to look into a system where you need seasoned veterans and you need a knowledge base and a good setup, all factors that seem to be in ‘denial’ with a truckload of companies the size of Sony, as they are all cutting corners so that they can project revenue and contributions in line with the ‘market expectations’.

The quote that becomes interesting is “A link between Gop and North Korea has been muted over Pyongyang’s reaction to the Sony Pictures film The Interview, which depicts an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un“, so is this group calling itself Guardians of Peace (Gop), the ‘simpleton’ group they are trivialised to be, or is there more. You see, we see a growing abundance of data collections that seem to go nowhere, but is this truly the case? You see, data is money, it is a currency that can be re-used several times, the question becomes, finding someone willing to buy it. If we regard the 2 billion Microsoft paid for Minecraft to be more than just the IP of the sandbox game, then what is it? Which part of that 2 billion is seen as value for the 120 million registered users on PC? Do you now see the currency we are confronted with?

In my book the Sony exercise is a display of the expression ‘a fool and his money are soon parted‘. In light of the 2011 issue, the fact that security was increased to the extent that it could be done again makes for entertainment on a new level, in addition, like a bad infomercial it does not stop here, no! For $9.95 you get so much more then you see now. That we see in the article that was published two days before that (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/fbi-doubts-north-korea-link-sony-pictures-hack). The part that should make you howl like a hyena is seen here “The security firm hired by Sony to investigate the attack, FireEye, described the attack as an “unparalleled and well-planned crime, carried out by an organised group, for which neither SPE nor other companies could have been fully prepared” in a leaked report“, So did you notice ‘unparalleled and well-planned crime‘ and ‘leaked report‘, oh sarcasm, thy name be Miss Snigger Cackle!

The leaked report, which was from the 7th of December (at http://recode.net/2014/12/07/sony-describes-hack-attack-as-unprecedented/) gives us “demanding that organizations which have obtained the leaked information avoid publishing any more material from the hackers, and destroy existing copies. Boies called it “stolen information.”“, you see, the issue here is that if we consider the quote “This attack is unprecedented in nature. The malware was undetectable by industry standard antivirus software and was damaging and unique enough to cause the FBI to release a flash alert to warn other organizations of this critical threat“, so even after the malware, info was still going past the firewall, or was this just ‘leaked’ by an internal source? It takes a little twist when we look at the quote in the December 10th article “The malware had been signed and authorised by Sony Pictures, allowing it to bypass certain security checks“, in my mind this reads as follows: ‘Some idiot gave a pass to malware to roam free on the system‘, so is it that, or was this an internal operation all along? If the second part is true, then who was the beneficiary of all that private data? Who is it means for? You see, many forget that our information is not always for stealing from our credit cards, sometimes it is used to profile us, as a customer, as marketing or as leverage. Why the word leverage? Consider healthcare, consider usage, what happens when an insurance company gets to profile 20 million couch potatoes, what if your healthcare premium suddenly goes up by 15%, do you have any idea how much money that is? So as insurance companies keep the leveraged margins of charge, whilst overcharging risks in addition, we see a growing margin of profit for these insurance companies, whilst getting them to pay for what you are insured for has not gotten any easier has it?

So is this simply a cinematography from Sony Pictures film, called The Interview, which depicts an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un, or was that the smoke screen? The FBI seems to have ruled out North Korea, as far as I have been able to tell, the only fans of North Korea are the North Koreans and Dennis Rodman (who has no fame in any IT endeavour), so is there enough doubt regarding the reality of what happened and why it happened? Yes, as I see it there is, the question becomes, when there is this much smoke, where are we not looking? That part is to some extent seen in another Guardian Article (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/12/hackers-attack-film-studios-sony-pictures-leak-cybersecurity-warning). We see this quote “Sean Sullivan, senior adviser and researcher at the security company F-Secure, said that he believes the purpose of the Sony hack was extortion. “If it was just hacktivists, they’d have released everything all at once,” he said. “But these releases, it’s like they’re shooting hostages. One thing one day, another the next. This is a really different tactic from what we usually see.”“, this is certainly plausible, but is that it? Why ransom of data and sell it back with the FBI and others on your tail, when you can sell it in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Riyadh and a host of other locations. A simple transaction for an external encrypted drive, a deal you can offer to ALL parties for amount X, the more you offer, the higher X is.

Whilst our data is sold on and on, we run additional risks of getting invoiced for our lives choices and extorted by other financial firms because our privacy is no longer a given in the age of data and it is directly linked to corporations that cannot clean up their act. In the mean time we see leaked report on impossible hack successes, whilst it took only one executive to ‘accidently’ sign and authorise a mere trinket of malware.

So yes, the movies are falling short; reality can be scary and entertaining all at the same time. The question becomes, will there be a change to our invoice of life because of corporate considerations, or lack there off?

 

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17 or 70 trillion?

Even though we see so many ‘stories’ on how well the US is doing, we must ask ourselves on what value these numbers are trying to convince us of.

The thoughts I am about to phrase started a little after the following had been released (at http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/06/06/standard-poors-is-concerned-about-the-u-s-debt-burden/). “Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services put out research Friday confirming the AA+ rating of the U.S.“, so the US has dropped a notch on the credibility scale. This in itself should not be a reason for direct concern. The one part that does worry is that S&P was the only one doing this. The other part we should notice is the quote “The federal debt was $16.1 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2012, according to the Government Accountability office.” why are we not seeing a 2013 number, which according to some is over 17 trillion? How interesting is it to see the numbers game whilst the numbers quoted are not up to date?

The next part is the article from Bloomberg on April 29th 2014. Here we see the following “The drop in net marketable debt will be $78 billion in the April-June period, $38 billion more than the pay down projected three months ago, with an end-of-June cash balance of $130 billion, the Treasury said today in Washington. The improvement will be short lived — net borrowing of $169 billion is projected next quarter, with $130 billion in cash Sept. 30th“. Can anyone see the issue I have with this? The debt of well over 17,000 billion is getting met with a quarterly pay down of less than 0.4588%. How is this progress and even though we see that the US still has a high credit score, is the likelihood of a continued credit score even realistic?

That part can be seen in the Market watch quote “We believe that renewed debate over the debt ceiling could resume after the midterm elections in November 2014 under certain scenarios. While we expect the discussions about the debt ceiling to be ultimately resolved as they have been, we still see risks that these debates entail.” So, not only is there no solution to the current debt levels, the chance of any serious solutions occurring within this current administration is close to zero, which means that the next administration will inherit a debt closer to 20 trillion. I do find the headline about ‘US debt level concerns‘ hilarious. Many with me had raised these dangers for well over 2 years and now as the game is up, some are ‘raising’ concerns, whilst those in charge and those on the watchdogs of economy had long known that any level of lowering the debt had been a mere myth for over 2 years.

There are of course other views. One is from Chad Stone who wrote in US News (at http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/05/16/too-much-deficit-and-debt-reduction-too-soon-will-wreck-the-recovery) “now about $17.5 trillion, found on the ‘debt clocks’ that are so popular with debt hysterics. Gross debt (and its close cousin, ‘debt subject to limit’) is debt held by the public plus debt internal to the government“. This is fair enough, yet there is no information, not even any indication when this debt will start to lower. There is another side to consider. When we look at the IRS data book (at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/13databk.pdf), consider that the IRS collected a net value of taxation of 2.4 trillion dollars. A slightly more accurate number is 2,490 billion.

When we consider all the numbers thrown at us, like the ‘% of the GDP’ and so on, even if we accept that the 17 trillion dollars debt is held on multiple level, compared to what the IRS collects, we see a number that reflects the tax collected, compared to the total debt. The US gets through taxation a mere 14% of where the debt is at. How is any of that realistic? So, the total collected taxation, before any other cost is taken into account (like paying government staff and utilities), it only amounts to 14%, after all that is done 0.1% is left if the US government gets a fitting budget (something that has not been achieved since president Clinton was in office).

My issue is not just with the US debt levels, it is also about the ‘blasé’ approach economists are throwing at the people stating that things are not that bad and that it will all work out. That part is a figment of THEIR imagination, because for things to resolve, actions must be taken and none are getting taken at present (or in the near future for that matter). My biggest issue with the Article of Chad Stone is seen at the end. His quote “Lowering the debt ratio comes at a cost, not only risking the recovery if it’s done too fast but also in burdening businesses and households with larger spending cuts, higher taxes or both to stabilize the debt ratio“. There is truth in that statement, yet the issue that the money should have NEVER been spent is an issue that is ignored. The culprits of this dangerous endeavour are not named, not held accountable and many of them walked away with millions in bonuses.

We are however nowhere near the end of this debacle. The articles give another view on the matter. An article was published in 2013 stating an entirely different matter of debt. The REAL total debt is set at 70 trillion (at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/15/california-economist-says-real-us-debt-70-trillion-not-16-trillion-government/). The quote that matters is “Hamilton believes the government is miscalculating what it owes by leaving out certain unfunded liabilities that include government loan guarantees, deposit insurance, and actions taken by the Federal Reserve as well as the cost of other government trust funds. Factoring in those figures brings the total amount the government owes to a staggering $70 trillion

Now we are off to an entirely different race, this only gets worse if we take the Bloomberg article into account from March 2014, which headlines as ‘Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-10/debt-exceeds-100-trillion-as-governments-binge.html). Make sure you realise that this last article is about global debt and not about US debt.

This was already on my scope for another reason, but I will return to that shortly. I need to return to the Fox News article where it stated the view of Professor Hamilton, an economics professor from San Diego. The reason for this is because I try to stay fair and balanced (statement plagiarised from Fox News) and as such, as I found additional views from the professor, it is only fair that I mention that too. This all is linked to a paper he published in 2013 (at http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jhamilton/Cato_paper.pdf), it is the starting quote “This paper examines the growth of federal liabilities that are not included in the officially reported numbers” which should grab your attention. Yes, we are talking about ‘off’ the book liabilities, which should make us all wonder whether ANY government should be allowed to be part of liabilities that are not on the books to begin with. If our job is to stem the tide of irresponsible spending, then keeping things ‘off the books‘ as the ‘kids’ seem to state, should not be allowed under any condition. If we look at the quote that was found in the Econ browser by professor Hamilton, we see “Similar calculations from the trustees reports for Medicare report Medicare’s net unfunded liabilities for current program participants to be $27.6 trillion. For more details see Table 4 and the accompanying discussion in my paper.” The floor should open to an entirely different debate and soon. I think it is high time that these events are properly mapped out and as such ALL governments need to adhere to a different level of ‘accounting’. Their books can no longer remain silent in regards to unfunded liabilities. Is it any wonder books are not in order in a massive amount of nations?

This now grabs back to other observations I made and more important the small revelation my data implied. On March 22nd 2013 I wrote the blog article ‘60% confiscated and counting in Cyprus!‘, here I quoted “If this is what frightens the US, then consider the consequences of a system like LIBOR being manipulated through the total value of trade. If that would have been off by 11.2%. Out of $1000T (UK and US combined) then that difference would be $112T“, I implied to some extent that not only were the percentages messed with, I had some reason to believe that someone had messed with the total trade value that LIBOR represents. Perhaps my mistake (to some extent) was thinking that it was ‘just’ manipulation. In my defence, I came up with these findings before Professor Hamilton had finished his paper, so as a non-economist I was slightly in the dark to begin with. Consider that some politicians could be overspending, whilst using the options of unfunded liabilities within LIBOR to excuse themselves for accountability? What will other governments say, when such events are brought to light (if that would be happening). More important, if my number was closer to the truth then many considered, the global economy is playing high stakes poker with debts twice the size then most realise and our cost of living is based partially upon the irresponsible spending of both Washington and Wall-Street. How are the people ever to get a fair shake at a happy life, when a group of no more than 3000 people have been spending the dreams and futures of well over 1 billion people? Most do not realise that this goes way past the borders of the US, if there is indeed an established group editing the total value of trade considering the manipulation of the LIBOR percentage, the established setting of unfunded liabilities, as well as the breaking up on loans as they might occur. For this example, I would like to point you towards www.lsta.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=2480, here we see a paper from Credit Suisse made by Julia Kingston in August 2006. The next part is just pure supposition on my side. Look at slide 35, here we see a term loan set in three parts. What happened when something falls over in 2 or 4 months? How many parts when Wall Street made its 8 trillion bungle was not written off? Is my consideration that the TOTAL LIBOR trade value has a massive amount of ‘entries’ that had remained hoping it would turn for the better? We have seen a multitude of financial advisors playing just such a card on many levels in the 2008-2011 periods. My question now becomes, was my implied 11.2% just the tip of the iceberg?

I am not claiming, nor do I pretend to have the actual answer here, My issue, as it was in the past is that ‘proclaimed’ Journalists sitting in the top newspapers have not taken a hard look at some elements. It is nice for them that Reuters does much of their work for them and many aspire, but will never come close to people like Paul Mason, Robert Peston or Deborah Hargreaves. Yet, how deep did they dig into LIBOR? Also linked (especially with the Guardian) was the claims that Jullian Assange made in regards to banking, they were never followed up (or so it seems), not even by the Guardian as far as I could tell. Consider the article the Guardian had on February 10th 2011 (at http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/feb/10/julian-assange-wikileaks-book-claims). The quote “Asked about the ostensibly sensational bank leaks Assange keeps suggesting he is ready to release, Domscheit-Berg said the only banking documents he knew WikiLeaks had were ‘totally unspectacular’ is at the heart of this”. When it was ‘just’ about the US military there was some upheaval (especially by the US), yet when banking issues were raise (slightly mentioned in the Forbes interview in November 2010 at http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/wikileaks-julian-assange-wants-to-spill-your-corporate-secrets/). The interview gives us the following “Will we? Yes. We have one related to a bank coming up, that’s a mega leak. It’s not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it’s either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it. Is it a U.S. bank? Yes, it’s a U.S. bank. One that still exists? Yes, a big U.S. bank.

After this the hunt for Jullian Assange really takes on additional energy. I have no idea what he found, or if it is even related, the issue is that there is a recorded atmosphere of unaccountability within the banks (on a global scale) which must stop, if not, not only will governments be allowed to continue in irresponsible ways, but the additional ‘myth‘ that banks and governments apply checks and balances need to be thrown out of the nearest window. A last quote from the Forbes interview is every bit as important “We’re still investigating. All I can say is: it’s clear there were unethical practices, but it’s too early to suggest there’s criminality. We have to be careful about applying criminal labels to people until we’re very sure.

This is the part I had written about for some time, it was not just that the issue with Goldman Sachs imploded the financial industry; it was the issue that they, in black letter law, basically had not broken any laws. The people lost well over 8 trillion and no crime was committed even though their money was basically gambled away. It is that part, especially in the LIBOR sight, as well as the issue raised by Professor Hamilton in regards to unfunded liabilities. No laws are broken, but we are all kept in the dark in regards to the debts inflicted upon us, which in itself is a massive wrong.

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