Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

July 13, 2023 · 00:40

Enemy of the stated

That is sometimes the case and I got that alert yesterday. It took me a while to get on board with some of the items, yet on the other side there is more and there is something else at that. So lets start with that part as it matters. Last year, almost 1 year ago I wrote an article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/07/18/for-those-not-seeing-the-oil-field/) with the title ‘For those not seeing the oil field’. In that Article I wrote “China could sell the Chengdu J-20 at a nice price to Saudi Arabia (I admit I was trying to get my foot in the door and make a play for a simple 3.75% commission), and when you consider that this bill might go up to 15 billion, my 3.75% makes for a nice half a billion (we all have overly big dreams), and merely to play the courier? You have got to be kidding, I am so ready for that part!” And that stage as already underway at that time (alas, not for me). In an age where in Australia we see nearly the entire nation ripe with age discrimination, I was aiming for a nice job getting 3.75% (an internal joke from 1996) of whatever comes up and recently I learned that this might be as high as $23.8 billion over 2 years. This would have gotten me a $892,500,000 pay-check (over 2 years). Would I accept that? Hell yes! For being a simple courier for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? I would have been so there. Australia has no enemy relationships with either country. Is it my best case scenario? Not exactly, I am a commonwealthian after all, as such I preferred to be courier to documents for the British Typhoon. Yet British Parliament gave it up for British tea grannies and their CAAT. The Americans made a mess of everything pushing their own solutions away from a decent revenue taxable future. So I was looking out for me and I would have taken that job, no hesitation about it. 

So now you have the background, lets dig into the article that sets this off. It was the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66160979) who gives us ‘US think tank founder charged with acting as Chinese agent’. In that article we are given a few parts. First there is “Gal Luft “agreed to covertly recruit and pay” an unnamed ex-US official to publicly support certain Chinese policies, federal prosecutors say. The 57-year-old allegedly attempted to broker arms sales involving customers in China, Libya, the UAE and Kenya.” Here we have two issues. Was he a broker? Did he connect to people, who via him conducted business? Broker is a bit of a lose term. And we aren’t talking two parties, we are looking at at least 3 channels, optionally more, but what is relevant and what matters? For Americans it is a setting for courts and good luck with that evidence. The second allegation is “In 2016, officials say he failed to register as a foreign agent while acting to advance Chinese interests in the US. He is alleged to have lobbied an ex-US official who was an adviser to then President-elect Donald Trump to convince him to “publicly support certain policies with respect to China”.” Here, in the first, was he a foreign agent, or was he a (technical) consultant? They are very different and evidence is bringing that up (I never saw any for that matter). And as the ‘activity’ happened in 2016, why did it take 7 years for anyone to take actions? Which policies was he catering to? Is that not the job of any stake holder in the political field? Was the policy a legal one or a illegal one? Three questions that blow away the setting if the court doesn’t have a proper deck of Trump cards (pun intended). Then we get a very specific one “Prosecutors also accuse him of attempting to broker arms sales without a US permit. He allegedly worked to help Chinese companies sell anti-tank launchers, grenade launchers and mortar rounds to Libya.” The short and sweet is, can it be proven that he was a broker, or was he an un-sided courier? Person A and Person B do not know each other (good enough), but they both know Person C and that person couriers the papers between the two. Isn’t that what DHL does? Is DHL a courier of an arms broker? Then we get “Federal officials say he attempted to bypass US sanctions on Iranian oil by directing an associate to say that the oil was Brazilian. According to prosecutors, Mr Luft was arrested in Cyprus on US charges on 17 February this year and fled after being released on bail pending extradition.” This is a specific allegation and a big ‘no no’ Iran is on the naughty list of many nations and there they might have a case. I reckon it is stupid to do what he did as the sulphur content of Brazilian and Iran are very different, did he not think this through? Well that is a case that might stick on him and the fact that he allegedly fled to Cyprus does not help him much. So what is the difference between George Luft and me? I am not American and I will not do business with Iran. But as we are both optional couriers I am still in a much better place that he is (alas a very poor one for now). As such in the end we get “He is charged with eight counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent, evading oil sanctions, two counts of making false statements to investigators and three counts of illicit arms trafficking.” What is true? What is legal? What is unacceptable? That is for the courts to decide, but I reckon that George Luft as the head of a think tank was already making a fair amount of coins, so why endanger it all? I never get invited to US Energy Security Council conferences, so I am a little clueless at present. But it seems that America is seemingly still out to declaw whatever China does and at present I cannot say that they did anything do wrong, the courts will decide on George Luft. I look forward to seeing that evidence. In the meantime, my delusional side will dream of getting his 3.75%, as all delusional people do.

Enjoy the middle of the week. 

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July 12, 2023 · 02:13

One voice is still a voice

I made mention of this all over June. The production cuts that Saudi Arabia set out to do would have impact. Some called me stupid, most ignored the issue. Yet Bloomberg gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s Oil Production Cuts Are Quietly Starting to Bite’ (at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-arabia-oil-production-cuts-105634851.html), as such you need to consider. Not merely that I was right. The larger setting is that this is only one week into the new amounts and it is starting to bite. So how will the setting of less oil be in a month time? And before you know it North America and Europe enter autumn with all the heat they require at that point. We are then given “Brent oil traded in London had been stuck around the $75-a-barrel mark for weeks. That shifted a little Friday, when the contracts rose to about $78, a level they have largely held at since.” A setting we get and understand, but as the supply landscape is redefined, that price cannot be held and I reckon that in a month time it will hit the $90 mark and after that it gets nasty in a hurry. And there is an additional quote that matters. We are given “In the latest move, at least two processors in Asia sought less from the Saudis for cargoes shipped next month, and another said it won’t take any cargoes after an unexpected price increase.” This sounds nice on paper, but when we have 15 processors al vying for the 1 million barrels out there, at least 5 will have no oil to process. It is simple math and at that point the item of sulphur content will not hold much water. And whilst people are shouting where is our oil, I see a group of people that forgot that Saudi Arabia is building a new refinery in China which will gobble up almost a million barrels a day and China who got the deal with a clause accepting that payments are in Yuan is slightly too happy and when Europe (America and Canada too) realise that the reduction in oil is permanent and that China is now in a stage with loads of oil to fuel their economy. That is the point when people realise that they are losing a lot more than they bargained for. If only the US hadn’t pissed of Elon Musk to the degree they had. Yet this is about oil and not about batteries. The simplest setting is that this ‘biting’ is happening after less than 2 weeks into the reductions. So what will be the case in 4 weeks? Is someone considering that Janet Yellen had a portfolio of begging prescriptions towards China? I have no idea where this will end, yet I remember the ‘carless Sundays’ in the Netherlands in 1973. We might have that soon enough and now all over Europe and optionally America too. In 1973 it was fun. I got to test my roller skates on the A27 (a Dutch highway) which extension past Hilversum was brand new and I got to test that tarmac and not a car in sight, good times. Yet now it will be different and I reckon that the economic image will change for a lot of nations. It will not be a simple ‘lets add some money we do not have’. Now several members of the EU will be waging some kind of personal war to get the oil they all need. And I gave fair warning around two years ago. And it was not rocket science, it was simply based on the old premise ‘do not bite the hand that feeds you’ and that is how the escalation wth the UK (and their CAAT) and the US with whatever premise they thought they had and now they all want oil that they are denied. It sucks to be them soon enough.

It might be quietly biting now, but in 4-8 weeks it will not be quiet and when Europe (as well as the US) enters winter that setting will not be a nice one.

Enjoy the almost middle of the week.

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July 8, 2023 · 19:05

The pot saw the black kettle

Yup, we all see that at times. We see the good, the bad and the opposite. And as such the media is all about giving us a partial story. Still this is not always on them, I get that. So when I saw Reuters giving us ‘Yellen criticises China’s ‘punitive’ actions against US companies, urges market reforms’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/yellen-urges-china-adopt-market-reforms-insists-us-not-decoupling-2023-07-07/) my very first thought was “Is she for real?” 

Thi is a setting that started years ago with the US riling up support AGAINST Huawei. We saw the dozen countries all going against Huawei. The larger station is not that they went up against Huawei, the bigger part is that NONE OF THEM ever gave us ANY evidence that Huawei was a security risk. This is not me being pro Huawei or being pro China. This is me being pro evidence and we were never given any evidence. One case (that was settled) in 2010 is all we got and all the stories were laced with ‘could/‘ and ‘might be’. Cisco was the same danger but no one spoke out, not even when Cisco had its set of security issues. These things happen. Yet the US is still operating its set of systems. There is GARLICK, LADYLOVE, MOONPENNY, JACKKNIFE, TIMBERLINE, STELLAR, IRONSAND and that list goes on for a while. Yet China is the big evil and no evidence is clearly presented. 

So now we get “U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on Friday for market reforms in China and criticised its recent tough actions against U.S. companies and mineral export controls, while China’s premier called on her to “meet China halfway” and put bilateral relations back on track.” I t3end to say, either stop the anti-Huawei stages or present actual and FACTUAL evidence that Huawei is a national security issue. There is close to nothing else. And as for the ‘mineral export controls’, well there might be a reason China needs them, there is also the case that stopping Huawei without evidence comes at a price and it seems that the mineral export is part of that price. So whilst the world is seeking for gallium and germanium (the second one is not found in Germany) the US needs to realise that their stance as a bully comes at a price and now that these prices are set in the open, the US doesn’t get to say “meet China halfway”. It intentionally destroyed the Huawei 5G wave because Americans were too stupid to take the lead in 5G technology and counter what was out there. Even I have 5G IP that the US (and others) do not have. All because the fat cats were lazy in an age when China became a true innovator. As such, as we are told “a technology war with the United States and potentially causing more disruption to global supply chains” the setting is not incorrect but not complete. You see these two substances are decently rare and China has the largest load. The US cannot claim the amounts from Japan or the UK (Or France, or the EU) as such they are in a bind and this is what comes with the bully tactic we have seen these last 5 years. Gallum is a different story. I have no precise numbers, but China is not the largest exporter, it apparently is Brazil with the US in second place. But I reckon that the two together will set a larger station and yes it comes from China. So as we consider “Yellen met with Premier Li Qiang on Friday during a visit to Beijing aimed at repairing fractious U.S.-Chinese economic relations, but made clear in her public remarks that Washington and its Western allies will continue to hit back at what she called China’s “unfair economic practices.”” As unfair economic practices go, 11 years ago we were given “A 2012 White House-ordered security review found no evidence that Huawei spied for China and said instead that security vulnerabilities on its products posed a greater threat to its users. The details of the leaked review came a week after a US House Intelligence Committee report which warned against letting Huawei supply critical telecommunications infrastructure in the United States.” I reckon that with leaked their own stables are in order? In addition to that, the stage is escalating and now we see that as shortages of Gallum and Germanium imply that there is a danger to US National security, with their stockpiles having no reserves left. As such I have a two set mind. Janet Yellen as the champion for bullies should not talk about “market reforms”. On the other hand, I am not claiming that China is innocent. I want to see evidence that they are not and so far going back at least 5 years, the US and the EU NEVER presented this. This is the station we face and as I personally see it Janet Yellen is the new US version of Don Quichotte and China is the next windmill. And as I see it, the stage that STC and Saudi Arabia is embarking on, the shortage that the US faces in Germanium and Gallum implies that the lag that the US faces will close to exponentially increase during late 2024. This is a setting that was to some unexpected, but the Reuters article gives us a list of people and they are all monitoring the supply. This implies to me that the setting is not as good as some make it out to be and it sets a different stage for the UK and France. As the US shortages increase it will stage a takeover of these suppliers by the US a lot stronger and faster than anyone had foreseen. This is (as I personally reckon)  a station of close to exponential danger to these nations. It might be the reason why Janet Yellen was send and not some one form the US State department. Did no one consider that question? Why was Janet Yellen send? It is pure speculation on my side, but I reckon that Premier Li Qiang is having a great time. It might be the first time he is talking from a position of great strength, but I could be wrong here.

What a weird weekend this is, enjoy yours.

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July 7, 2023 · 21:57

Two voices do not make a truth

This is a setting we must accept. Even as I am one of these two voices I accept that two rights don’t make a truth. Yet the implied stage is now setting a dimension for a larger orchestra. To this we look at Ben Rich (at https://au.news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-using-sportswashing-simply-202104084.html) where he gives us some of the ideas that matter. He gives us “While human rights abuses will undoubtedly continue to plague the Saudis’ efforts, bin Salman is betting big they won’t stand in the way of other states and companies engaging with an increasingly open and cosmopolitan kingdom. If history is anything to go by, he may just be right.” And even as he does not give us some elements, like the building of an Saudi English speaking news channel to rival El-Jazeera (see the Financial Times at https://www.ft.com/content/2c6f8228-5bcb-46dc-a817-0990727b7d35) there is more than simple sport washing. Saudi Arabia is setting itself up to be the axial of 5G telecom (with a little help from Huawei). Going well beyond its own borders, it is about to become the center between Europe and Asia pushing deeper and deeper into Europe. I reckon that within a few steps (timeline is too hazy) it will equal, if not surpass Vodafone. That would make Saudi Telecommunication Company (STC) one of the larger telecom giants on the planet. Less then 10 years ago that would have been an illusion, but Huawei had the goods and as America and its minions made all the claims for an anti-Huawei lacking evidence, we now see that the KSA has the fastest 5G on the planet and it is nation wide. The US is nowhere close to these numbers, at present only South Korea and Canada are close and they are about 30% behind. That is the reality of doing what needs to be done. There is even more in eSports and a few other areas. It is not about what is the best, it is who is wielding technology power and as we see the numbers it is no longer the US, even Europe is lagging behind. This is the larger stage that allows Saudi Arabia to be the voice of tomorrow before Vision2030 is due. As we see that Fox News is no longer a consideration regarding the joke they have become we see a lagging CNN and beyond that there is BBC World and Al Jazeera. This gives Saudi Arabia the push they need to become a larger voice on the news channels and did anyone consider where the advertisement money will go at that point? We could consider that Fox’s ad revenue also surged 43% to $1.88 billion. Yet at what cost and when the people shy away from Fox (as they are about to do) where will that ad revenue end up? I am not saying that this will end up in Saudi hands. Yet the world has 1.8 billion Muslims. Wo where do you think that they will put there advertisement money? One of my IP’s were banking on that and even as advertisement money was not a goal for me (merely a soft sideline) others will see it as serious money. It will also entice places like Bangladesh and Indonesia to the world stage, it will allow Egypt to be more prominent on the Mediterranean area and that list goes on. These are merely two of the elements that Ben Rich does not touch on. He shows us other matters and I believe him to be right. 

Yet the elements when combined gives us a larger stage created by Saudi Arabia and created for muslims and that is part of my IP. I wanted to fight islamophobia and I am about to be proven right. Not through my own IP, but in other ways too. The US (EU too) has overplayed its hand and from the initial pariah that Pre-President Biden proclaimed Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud to be, this same person is about to become a world leading voice on the global stage and it was something that I saw coming 3 years ago. The laughable joke (aka an essay by United Nations Eggy Calamari) has shown the world that presentation is only nice if you have the evidence to support it and we are about to face a new stage where the evidence is shown and presented by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, all leading up to vision2030, optionally up to 2 years ahead of schedule. 

As I see it that gives the song Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival an interesting twist. You see one man’s bad moon is another man’s illumination. Or as the expression goes some persons junk is another persons treasure, which is good unless you are adopted. what matter is that the stage we see and the stage we get onto are not the same and the presenters have given us a stage for decades that no longer applies and even now we are given the runaround. But over the next few years we see that the media that was in charge no longer has holds on any of us and that is when the STC gets to reveal and release their news channel and all the lost revenue attached to that. As such, how much credence do you think a player like Fox News will have after 2025? I leave it up to you to ponder this.

Enjoy the day and the weekend that is about to follow (all 48 hours of them).

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July 4, 2023 · 02:00

Small victory

This article is a little weird (little being the operative word). You see, I got here via several paths, all walked at nearly the same time. The first started with me going through Skyrim for the 4th time, now on PS5. I bought the anniversary expansion as it was on special and a game that pleased me for over 11 years deserves a small infusion of funds. I am still in the same setting and this time around I found all 7 black books. This is a first in the 4 play-throughs. I got them all on my own and the feeling of pleasure to see a new level was almost overwhelming (I did say almost). This got me to think of a few things running parts in my IP. You see the IP I was creating for non-Microsoft systems had a few issues, but the idea of having a long term game is enticing. As such I created a set of events that makes a replay more entertaining and more addictive for the RPG player. Yet that was as far as I got and my mind was replaying old issues in programming. Like the setting of [SET mission to Class=1 and Gender=2 or Evolution=4] this gives us that not all see a mission and the mission is limited to gender and class in the first or the evolution is set to 4 (it makes sense a lot later and not today). This gives us that some missions are optionally never played. These are side missions. So as we replay a game we see missions that we never saw in the first play-through. Why? Well we can give it all, or give the player a nice ride a few times over and I believe in long term gaming. I have no time for people who play games with the solution page to their left (or right for that matter). These are simple track gamers and there are enough games for these people. 

Sidestep
Now I make a sidestep. This is important for the whole story. This sidestep is what the Australian Financial Review gives subscribers on China. As such we will jump over it. Yet one quote there is “China’s hostility to the west has come at a very substantial economic price” this statement is flawed and faulty. It is the west with its slamming Huawei that is at the center of a lot. All the accusations and the US and EU have NEVER given clear evidence of their accusations. I get the UK stance that no infrastructure should be in foreign hands. That makes sense, but handing it over to the US is no different. We get more on the Russian setting towards Ukraine and I cannot completely disagree, Russia is a losing stage and that will have larger repercussions down the track. I reckon that BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will exploit the setting as long as they can and then optionally dump Russia, they might not have a choice and with Saudi Arabia and the UAE bolstering their group the stage of ‘at a very substantial price’ is shown to be faulty. The collaboration at present between Saudi Arabia and China will bring oil and revenue to China. Saudi Arabia is in the process of ordering military hardware from China which will cost the West billions upon billions and it all goes to China. This is not new, this has been two years in the making and I gave warning of this as early as 2019 I believe. The article has a lot more claims, but they are empty. When I see “are privately more sympathetic to the US and its allies” reads like a joke and a bad one at that. The stage is that the population (read: consumers) is on the side of China via India. The wealth from the Middle East is pouring into China and is giving construction jobs to China for building all over Saudi Arabia with a several of them adding up to almost a trillion dollars. So where is the substantial economic price? At the next stage China has 5G Telecommunications via Huawei all over the Middle East and it is about to border Europe directly. Leaving the Mediterranean open to Saudi telecom hands soon enough. 

As such when I see “So far this year such investments in China are running a little more than $1 billion whereas two years ago it was nearly $50 billion” I tend to howl with laughter. You see, projects like The Line, Neom Bay, Oxagon, Trojena, and Sindalah represent well over $500 billion and China is about to get large chunks of that. Not sure how much, because I am not an insider, but I am certain that it will surpass $150 billion. Then there is the multi billion dollar military contracts and the refinery at the Chinese border, which is worth billions and more in infrastructure. So what economic loss? China is running on all engines and they are seemingly killing it. A world without the US and without the EU and these two players are making it happen. This is the price of arrogance and I have been clear over the last 5 years that this was about to happen, but the ego centrical politicians all stated that they knew better. We are about to learn the impact of stupidity on nearly every level.


As such I have a few issues with the AFR article. It is a good article, but a flawed one. One that boasts American supremacy, the little issue is that they no longer have the field. You see one source gives me “US National Debt Spiked by $851 billion in One Month, to $32.3 Trillion” now, I am not stating that this is true, but if this is true, then the US is already merely in a holding pattern until the next debt ceiling political setting and wth that BRICS (with Saudi Arabia and the UAE) will become a winner and the new global power. At that point China, India and Saudi Arabia will be better off shedding Russia. It has become too big a political and economical danger to them. And it is merely an egg timer away.

Back to the game
This is when my mind took me back to the game and a ‘new’ game. You see all these things were in my brain contemplating when I consider a different approach to the use of active and passive abilities in gaming. It played in my mind when I was remastering a Microprose game with similar settings, but now with a different approach. I call it Agent Gamer. This would be exclusive to Amazon Luna and whomever buys my IP. You see we have all seen passive powers in games like Mass Effect, Diablo 3 and more games. But they all have a similar approach to the use of passive powers. I am uprooting that and taking a different view. A game with active elements and passive elements. But you can spike these passive elements in different ways. In addition to adding several additions to the game, we can also rack certain abilities. It is like colour mingling. 

Consider the wheel. We have three basic colours (Blue, Yellow and Red). When we increase these skills we also influence the adjacent colours. Blue will influence Green and Purple, Yellow will influence Orange and Green and Red will influence Orange and Purple. It is simple setting where you make one 10% more effective (or easier), yet in the same setting increase the effectiveness of the other two by 5%. And this can be done in a multitude of ways, but the game is called ‘Agent Gamer’ and as such I will not reveal too much here. You see, to make Microsoft collapse by 2026 requires me to set the field to make the others more powerful (hence the Amazon Luna). Sony and Nintendo are on track to make their own wins (diminishing Microsoft in the process) Adobe and Apple are on other tracks and Google is no longer a contender in gaming (they have other fields). Overall the arrogance of Microsoft is about to bite them hard. Azure is doing not as good as some sources reveal. We see the Microsoft spin engines turning and we are given ‘We Think Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Can Manage Its Debt With Ease’ but I think they are in a bad state and it is getting worse. Still I have more than a year to watch them collapse, I merely want the timeline to be as correct as possible and as such if I can help their opposition being stronger and better I will do so. Gaming is only one side of it, but they interfered with my gaming pleasure and according to Zeus (Hades too), I can hold a grudge like nothing they have ever seen and I am happy to prove these two correct. In the end the largest stage could be coming from Saudi Arabia, especially as they are eager to feed their Esport settings and 50 million new members will go a long way towards that goal. Amazon had their chance and now it is up to the other eligible parties, which includes Tencent Technologies. 

Enjoy Monday and for those still overcoming Canada Day last weekend, have a second coffee before you start any work.

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June 29, 2023 · 07:09

Doubt accelerated presumption

This happens, it happens to us all and now it is happening to me. You see my second or third IP (now my first) got a boost yesterday. The ascension number which was 0.0144% is now to be regarded as overly conservative as such its 1/x will merely increase by a lot. My chance to reel in the cash are actually a lot higher (or at least decently higher), but so far the real western fishes are seemingly or not interested and I get that. But now the stage is coming to a setting where others are picking up on where those billions are and I am not having it. As such the entire night I was contemplating taking my chance on waiting whether my ship comes in, or if I will offer it openly to Tencent Technologies. On this side of the pond, it is clear I get nothing. The greed driven people all want a free ride and they are willing to let me cop it. Tencent is an unknown and I have no idea how Chinese markets will react. So it is getting nothing on one side, or getting maybe something on the other side. There is no in between and I will not allow Microsoft near this. So I am about to learn the outcome towards something I said some time ago. Accept 165% of IP value from Microsoft (which will never happen) or accept 35% of IP value from the Saudi government. The Saudi government is no longer involved, but the equation stands. So I am about to find out whether I can correctly say ‘请喝一大杯咖啡’ (One large coffee please), or whether I see it all melt away. There are additional considerations. You see this is the beginning of the fleet. If China treats me wrongly, this will come out. If they do treat me correctly most of the western brainpower will consider a new venue for whatever IP they have. It could set in motion the largest exodus of brainpower the west has ever experienced. They think that firing thousands of people was their option, but when the people with the actual ideas also walk out you get chaos. To that I have close to zero doubts. And it will unlikely affect military stations, but consider all those firms and all these defence contractors relying on SaaS solutions, on all these Platforms as a Solution (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Solution (IaaS) and Solution as a Service (SaaS) not to mention Gaming as a Service (GaaS). So what do you think will happen when the actual bright people will sell and cash in on THEIR solutions before the wannabe board members are forcing a solution that meets their eyes? That is now in play and even as India is still a contender in many fields, the larger station is that now there is a genuine concern that the West (US and EU) will fall short here and that has people worried. As such I feel that I have given Amazon and Google enough time, they weren’t interested and that is on them and it is their right, but now I have a duty to make sure that I am getting what I am entitled to and give Tencent Technologies a call. 

I had hoped that Amazon would have bought it (for a few reasons) but now I need to consider where to go next and the article that a respectable news agency gave me reason me to think I am running out of time and I do not like running out of time. This gets me to a quote Frank Herbert gave us in Dune (1965) ‘He who destroys a thing, controls a thing’ And I think it is time how I feel about destroying a thing, which in this case amounts to my future. 

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June 21, 2023 · 22:18

The definition of diplomacy

Yup, we have all been there and me with my mouth at least twice a day. Diplomacy is at times where it is at and I scrapped that word from my dictionary. So as I stated over the last week that Blinky Tony (aka Anthony Blinken) had a hard time coming. First he had to visit Saudi Arabia, the place where its de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was labelled by President Biden as A pariah (before he become president) then the trip went to China where we assume that things did not go well, as we now see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65969802) the BBC headline ‘Biden calls Xi a dictator a day after Beijing talks’. So what evidence is there that President Xi is a dictator? I am not opposing the view, I merely do not know. You see the dictionary gives us “a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.” Now, lets be clear. President Xi was elected. I do not know the election process in China, but there was an election and he was elected in November 2012. Wiki gives us “a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, since 2012. Xi has also served as the president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 2013.” There is no mention that he took that nation by force. OK, I is havening to be jesting. The reality is much more serious. I thin this meaningless jab by President Biden implies that there are a few issues. Apart from the ties with Saudi Arabia, there is now a growing concern that Taiwan could be getting a new flag soon enough (see below).

And this was going to happen. For it not to happen, the US would have had to be able to be a real superpower. This is no longer the case. It is rushing from debt ceiling to debt ceiling and the people just know that this clambake will end sooner or later and sooner is now the premise of that game. You see America made gospel of the expression ‘Money talks, bullshit walks’ which has been around since 1968. Now that America has no money left, the ‘friends’ they had are walking away, the people who bled the system dry are vanishing to zero tax havens to live of their final years and the people caught in the middle will vanish without a penny in their name. 

The article gives us ““The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset, in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it, was he didn’t know it was there,” Mr Biden said at the event on Tuesday. “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened,” he added.” There is a lot about a balloon no one cares about and there is even less known who the actual owner was. I am not debating that it was Chinese, but was it governmental, military, a science experiment from a Chinese telecom firm. There are many options, but the press is no longer to be trusted, they have been silent on too many things and the US government is all about boasting, but not on revealing ACTUAL facts (for as far as they might be known). As is see the lack of diplomacy by President Biden, there is every chance that China talks are falling flat leaving Taiwan in the middle of nothing. The other side is that there is every chance that the continuation of BRICS will have larger impact on the west and it will diminish America to a much larger degree. The larger part that we do not know is how China and Saudi Arabia will forge their connections. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now in a central setting to be the hub for connecting Asia, Africa and Europe, a strong setting and NEOM will be that hub implying that this half a trillion location will ensure trillions in business between 2030 and 2050, with news channels, sports inviting the Asian, African and European people to a much larger degree. I wonder if they have made their first designs on the F1 Neom track to start between 2030 and 2035. It will most likely be a magnificent track, add to that the most impressive golf course in history and we will see the first impressions that Saudi Arabia was not wasting money as some imply, they merely lacked vision for what was about to happen and more sport arena’s will follow. Now we see the part of China in a larger degree, the Silk Road and in all that Taiwan will play a more central role (an assumption by me). Two players who played the long game, not some spreadsheet game from quarter to quarter. By the way, what evidence that it was ‘two box cars full of spy equipment’? They blew up the evidence. I am not saying this wasn’t some agent 99 thing, I merely would like to see evidence, just like the evidence on Huawei that so far no one saw or presented. 

As such we get to the headline. The definition of diplomacy is “the profession, activity, or skill of managing international relations, typically by a country’s representatives abroad.”  In this I reckon that there is no managing international relations at present, whatever success Anthony Blinken might have had was undone by one sentence given by President Biden (according to the BBC). As such the situation for Taiwan is not on a good setting, but I might be wrong. And the other issues? Well, we have no idea, but I reckon that China told might have told America to put up or shut up, which is also a speculation by me. No matter how we slice it, there will be more coming soon enough, the question who will be making the initial revelations, China or America?

More soon enough and as we enter the second half of the week, this weekend might give us a little more than we expected.

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June 20, 2023 · 00:01

He said what?

The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-65920024) gives us ‘Blinken and Xi had ‘robust conversation’ in Beijing’ and I had to take a look, if not only to see what they mean with ‘robust conversation’, that is an expression that could go in any direction and not all of them good. The BBC hands us:

“He says he has been seeking to “disabuse” China of the notion the US is “seeking to economically contain them””, sorry this started a 5 minute intermezzo to get a hold of all the laughter I have. The US has been seeking to contain China since Huawei left Nokia and all others behind them in the 5G field, it is still going on, all whilst we have never ever been given CLEAR evidence that Huawei was doing anything negative. In that same timeline we have an Airman handing out classified information, a former president has more classified materials in his toilet than the CIA has in its archive and we have several other issues. That is before we look at Cisco and its issues (which was not intentional, I know). 

And even as several statements came from Strasbourg, the manner of speaking implies a clear American hand on the shoulder of the speaker. 

Then we get “Blinken reiterates that the US does not support Taiwan’s independence – stating it does not wish to change the status quo”,which is a harder issue. You see ‘The first agreement under the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade was signed on June 1, 2023.’ Might be seen as a declaration towards support for its independence. And that is debatable, I get that. It seems to me that America hopes it will go good, but at the same time it is afraid to anger China too much, so I can see how this plays and this is NOT against America. It is to acknowledge that some diplomatic strains are strained as far as they can get. 

Then it is time for “Blinken says some parts of the talks were “constructive”, but adds there is “work to do” in other areas”, OK a diplomatic answer if ever there was one. But in there are missing parts and there is every chance that they are not for our eyes yet. The ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia are worrying America. The new petroleum refinery that they are building in China must be a cause for concern. You see, the refinery is large enough to hand a lot more oil to China and that is where it is most likely to go, a setting America does not find comforting. They are already losing out to a million barrels a day, but with that new refinery that reduction COULD (could being the operative word) be reduced three times over to minus 3 million barrels a day. This could collapse the American economy and create a third world nation called The United Stages of Anything. For Taiwan it is not such a good stage. I reckon that China has been dipping its toe in the water to see how America would react when Taiwan is added back to China and charges Taiwan for overdue book fees and that invoice is likely to be stellar. Now, this is not a given, but that is what I would have done (if I was Chinese). In all likelihood as the EU and the US are uniting with Ukraine against Russia, China sees an opportunity because America is too broke to stop anything and that leaves Taiwan separated, segregated and all alone. A setting China would like at present and with three optional supports for Taiwan too poor to do anything (US, EU and Japan) Taiwan might not have too many options left. I reckon that a similar conversation with Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud took place almost a week ago. I reckon that at present China has all the answers it needs, but that is pure conjecture from my side. 

So as I see it, I wonder just how robust that conversation was, rejections by China does not make the conversation less robust, but that is about the only classification that conversation might have had overall. Am I wrong? Optionally yes, but the larger stage is catering to China, and with the ties with Saudi Arabia now stronger then anything, all whilst the ties with America are more and more dissolving leaves China in a much stronger position and as Saudi Arabia grows, so will the options for Huawei. It will not take long for the larger contracts with Egypt and Syria to start and when that happens, we get a triangle that covers part of Africa, towards Turkey all the way to India. It will not be overnight, but with the power core in Riyadh that setting would become one hell of a central chain for Huawei. And it is not a new setting, I saw this evolution come a little over three years ago. And with that infrastructure NEOM is not merely a small city, it will be a center piece of Saudi Arabia, uniting Africa to Saudi interests and they will all have that new Saudi news channel. It was a game well played and China is adhering to this not merely because it takes the wind out of the sails of America, it will diminish Europe in similar ways. Asia Times gave us in April ‘Huawei eyes Saudi Arabia as its regional hub’, I think it is only the beginning and it is a much larger partnership with China, who will have access to this and the Silk Road, which was never a secret. As such I wonder what expression they would replace ‘robust conversation’ with and very time that expression gets handed to us by the media, ask yourself. What did they mean with that? 

Another day, another step closer to next Friday.

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June 19, 2023 · 01:23

Simple clarity

That should happen, but not always. If the spectator is to be believed, clarity is not on anyones mind. So lets take a look. The article (at https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-saudi-arabia-bought-the-world/) gives us ‘How Saudi Arabia bought the world’, which is in part not false, but this is how the Americans wanted it. It was all about values and commodities and the more the better, that is until they went broke. Now it is all about human values, an option they never considered when they handed the reigns to Wall Street. Now America according to sources “The Treasury Department paid a record $213 billion in interest payments on the national debt in the last quarter of 2022, up $63 billion from the same period a year earlier.” $213 billion a quarter, implying that they are now paying $855 billion a year, that is the price of uncontrolled debt. I gave warning over the last several years, yet everyone was calling me crazy, stupid and a whole range of names. Well now the opposite is coming true. Others are now in charge. First Anthony Blinken (aka Blinky Tony) went to Saudi Arabia, now he is trying to convince China on miscommunications. A good trick if he pulls it off, especially after all the anti-China rhetoric. But this is about the Spectator, who gave us the cool image below.

There we see “Sarah Leah Whitson, of Democracy for the Arab World Now, the organisation founded by Khashoggi, told me the deal makes no sense in purely economic terms. ‘It’s really important to know how much of a premium the Saudis have paid,’ she says. ‘This is a political move.’ In fact, the FT estimates the Saudis will pump $3 billion into their new purchase. That translates into astonishing rewards for individual players. Some already on the Saudi payroll are reportedly getting $200 million a year.” It actually makes sense. You see people love sports and Saudi Arabia has seen what the eyes on Dubai can achieve and now there is a start to set the eyes on Riyadh. Sports are a first. The Jetset sports like F1 and Golf are a start and more is coming. The people want their games, their sports and if you try to count on the amount of video’s on YouTube and TikTok that are about Dubai and the Dubai Mall, the number goes into the millions and they nearly all have counts that are in the triple digits or close to that. That is visibility. With the projects that are coming over the next 5-7 years these numbers are adding up. Saudi Arabia, like China have been playing the long game and now they are the winning side of visibility. It all adds up further when the KSA launches their English version of Al Jazeera, then the numbers start racking up fast. That realisation was why I tried to sell my IP to Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holding. It is now an IP that is approaching $35 billion in value. There was a reason that I never wanted Microsoft near it, they only screw things up and the value merely goes down. I would if all goes well end up with 5% of that, more than the accumulated wealth of all my ancestors combined. Yet, this is about Saudi Arabia and it matters, you see next we get “Greg Norman, the former champion who runs LIV, has already ‘moved forward’. Asked last year about Khashoggi’s murder, the body dismembered with a bonesaw, he said: ‘Look, we’ve all made mistakes…’” this is why America is losing all options. What evidence is there? The bone-saw bit and all the other bits. The media was in a frenzy pushing speculations, but in the end there is no evidence, there is no evidence of ANY direct involvement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. That UN essay (aka the joke of the century) was no help either, if nothing else, it merely showed how useless the UN has become. If there was evidence fine.  Yet there was none and when you consider that part. Is it any surprise that Saudi Arabia has had enough of America and the west? 

Then we get “All of this has emboldened MBS, who has been steadily creeping back into international favour since Khashoggi’s murder.” Is it because there was no murder? Was it because there was no evidence? Was it because internationally the people in charge are figuring out that siding with America is starting to be a rather large loss? In this America did this to themselves, they invented “Money talks, bullshit walks” and business America embraced that expression as gospel, the problem is that when you are broke, when you rush from debt ceiling to debt ceiling you have nothing left and when the bulk of your budget goes to the interest, you have little less to buy. It is a simple equation, and an abacus can give you that result it will not be a pretty result, but a result none the less.

Then we get to hedge funds, real estate (London) and several other places. These people go to Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia is one of the few places that has the money. If the ROI (Return on Investment) is good, they are likely to take the offer. It used to be America, but you know where they are at and Japan is almost there too. Consider the wealthiest nation in Europe (Monaco) How many projects did Monaco fund in Europe? Look at that list and see where their money is going, when you figure it out you will see why Saudi Arabia is seemingly buying the world. The world is a commodity and no one else is able or willing to buy it. So hard times are ahead (especially for America and Japan) and we are all falling in the middle. It is why I selected Saudi Arabia, Kingdom Holdings and Tencent Technologies for my IP. I go where the money is and the few players that had the money in the west decided to leave billions on the floor. I don’t have that kind of time for them to wise up and consider what they were missing. It is their choice t rely on wannabe executives, it is their loss. To be honest I never expected my IP to get that high this soon, but the inclusion setting I wrote about a week ago (0.0144%) made it a lot more valuable. And that is not even close to the end. All the settings that came secondary will now have primary impact on others too, merely icing on a yummy cake. Yet in the overall setting where we see the Spectator and the other media copying and paraphrasing that part there is a nasty underside. When the Chinese-Saudi link gets firm, when silk road evolves into a next stage and when the governmental coffers in Europe and the US dry up, what will you be left with? Because that is the moment that pensions fall to zero and that, in a greying population is the nightmare scenario that is now a mere 5-10 years away. I tried to send the warnings, but everyone was so sure that this would never happen. So how many debt ceiling raises will go through next? When sports fall away, as such when advertisers go elsewhere (Google is already setting up that side road in Saudi Arabia this year) when marketing options fall flat and result is the only currency that is allowed. How many corporations will remain? How many jobs will remain? Soon it will be about skills that are bankable, billable hours and it will go to every layer of business. And that is the sad part, we enabled that road all by ourselves. There was never any other outcome there. 

So cheer up, it is about to be Monday, your favourite day of the week is now a week away. 

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June 16, 2023 · 20:49

The news I never saw coming

We all have this, we see events. We see impact and we see the fallout of choices. There are no real surprises. Yet Google surprised me a little. First they dump their Google Stadia and through that shed market share, all whilst there is a stage where they also denied themself to billions in revenue. This happens, there is no blame. There are a whole range of corporations who needed to adjust their mission statement, their party line. I get that (in the 90’s not that much). So I was taken by surprise when Al Arabiya gave us (at https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2023/06/15/Google-announces-training-for-Saudi-Arabia-gamers-MENA-Gaming-Summit-in-2023) with ‘Google announces MENA Gaming Summit in 2023, training for Saudi Arabia gamers’. So first they dump their Stadia and now they start training gamers? What will they use a PS5, or the Amazon Luna? So when we see “Last year, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince announced a plan to develop the country’s gaming and esports industry, aiming to create 39,000 jobs and boost GDP by $13.3 billion (50 billion riyals) by 2030.” I merely go ‘meh’, they turned me down when they stood to make billions in advance, optionally I would be representing 40% of that revenue in phase 1. I admit that my solution is not much for the Esports category, as such I am not a solution, but indirectly they could be fuelling all kinds of business and the revenue adds up. Still this is not about me, it is about Google. Their training manuals are pretty sic and as such that choice makes sense, yet under what guise are they restarting a gaming initiative after dumping their console? It is not the weirdest question to ask.

And it is also there that some parts are starting to make sense. With “Gaming experts and partners from Google will run training programs for over 250 university students across Ahsa, Abha, Dammam, Jeddah, and Riyadh from September 2023 with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s Centre of Digital Entrepreneurship (CODE). The program is expected to cover entrepreneurship strategies, gaming career opportunities, monetisation through Google Ads solutions such as PerformanceMax and AdMob, distribution best practices on Google’s app store Play, storage solution Cloud and video streaming platform YouTube.” It seems to me that the gaming side is merely a sidetrack. The real deal is seen with “monetisation through Google Ads solutions such as PerformanceMax and AdMob, distribution best practices on Google’s app store Play, storage solution Cloud and video streaming platform YouTube” as I see it, this is about advertisement money at ANY expense. How lovely from Google. At present we see the funny money hype through gaming as an advertisement handle. How to maximise on that, which is not the same as gaming. It is at times actually the opposite of it. 

And with “YouTube will offer a workshop at the Saudi Esports Federation’s Gamers8 conference for 50 Saudi-based creators and Esports players focusing on gaming content and channel optimisation, audience development and engagement with the gaming community on YouTube.” I reckon that before long it will become about advertisements pushing through engaging with gamers. I could be wrong, but that is how I am seeing it at present. There is one part I find deceptive, but I could be wrong. With “Saudi Arabia is home to over 22.3 million gaming enthusiasts, many of whom can be equipped to turn their passion or hobby into a full-time career.” I am wondering what the endgame is. You see, Saudi Arabia has 32.1 million people. This statement gives us that 69% of Saudi Arabia is a gamer. That is an uncanny large population. And then we get to ‘many of whom can be equipped to turn their passion or hobby into a full-time career’, I cannot say that this is false, because I have no data whatsoever giving evidence that the statement is correct or false, yet the statement that the larger setting of 69% can be equiped to be professional players implies that there is a massive need for hardware. Perhaps that is true, but it also opens up other dangers for Saudi Arabia. An average gamer and his PC sets the need for an 850 Watt power supply. Now consider that half of that, roughly 15 million will suddenly require 850 Watt for the PC and then we get the monitor and other devices. That is one hell of a power drain. The KSA would need to consider the larger need of 2 nuclear reactors commencing their building within 60 days and there is every chance that if the Google numbers are right, they will come up short long before these rectors are completed. These puppies take 5 years, they can rely on gas or oil reactors for power, but that puts whatever environmental needs they had going on the draft of failure. All that and the largest setting is not even being met. That level of gamer additions and the rest of the nation will face labour shortages, but that is merely me trying to be realistic.

So is there something? Well yes, this does not come out of someones imagination, but I have some question around the numbers and that is merely before we consider another side. You see Statista released in April “Nine out of ten adults in the UAE play video games, and 90% of respondents in a Global Consumer Survey by Statista considered themselves gamers, with 23% identifying themselves as frequent players, meaning they play at least 11 hours per week. In 2023, the UAE’s gaming market is projected to reach over 306 million USD.” As such is the reaction of the KSA regarding what the UAE is giving us and is Google merely the facilitator? I get the 90% bit, I consider myself a gamer, but that is not my professional setting (it was not possible to be a professional gamer when I was young), so they have other professions as it will be in the KSA, yet to be a professional esports person, making it your full time career requires other elements and when you consider these parts the numbers do not add up, not in the frontal version and not in the aftercare (power needs). 

In the end, we will have to wait to see what the MENA Gaming Summit in 2023 actually ends up being. We will see, it will be soon enough.

Enjoy the weekend now starting near you.

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