Tag Archives: the Guardian

October 26, 2015 · 23:25

The Next Nail

This is not the first nail, this is not the second nail; this is merely the next nail that is set upon the top of a coffin. We can argue that this was the last nail that was produced in Scunthorpe as Tata Steel sheds one in six jobs in the UK. This is only the beginning of an onset that many, including me had predicted this in some form. Yes, it is only in some form, because there were too many parameters that could fit the situation and as the levels change the combination resulted in different elements to shut down. Yet, this is not about steel, not about those steelworkers, or about Tata Steel. It is merely a facet in all this. Consider the two articles. The first ‘The Eurozone needs a strong French economy‘ from October 8^th (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/08/the-eurozone-needs-a-strong-french-economy), the second ‘Italy budget: Renzi risks Brussels battle‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/15/italy-budget-renzi-risks-brussels-battle) and the third ‘ECB meeting to be closely watched for stimulus talk‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/18/ecb-meeting-to-be-closely-watched-for-stimulus-talk-qe) from October 18^th. The articles are not related, but they show the continued path people should have been warned against. People should have been warned because those in charge are spending the little leeway they had to leave a mess for many others to clean up. Let’s take a look at my reasoning, because if that is at fault, than so are the conclusions.

You see, new rounds of stimulus are set to ward of deflation as it is hinted at in the third article. So basically, Europe will print more money this money is spend on all kinds of things, this in time when the treasury coffers of nearly EVERY European nation cannot afford it. Let’s take a little step back in time. Let’s take a look at Germany 1920’s, at this time inflation was growing at an alarming rate, but the government simply printed more and more banknotes to pay the bills. So, bills were printed to fight inflation perhaps? I actually remember holding one of those banknotes, for 15 seconds I felt rich, then I realised no one would touch that money, which is pretty much the feeling the people in those days had. The actions behind this were the Treaty of Versailles and the 1921 London Schedule of Payments. We can ‘paraphrase’ that into ‘debts’. So as we now see that governments have debts and that more and more money is printed, is the difference not merely cosmetic at best?

The next part is shown in the second article. The subtitle gives us the power part. ‘Italian prime minister unveils business-friendly tax cuts and rise in spending despite EU warning plans may breach austerity rules‘, another government that has decided to change the rules as it befits them. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is showing Italy and others a budget that they cannot afford. The line “Renzi said €5bn (£3.7bn) of tax cuts would include the abolition of a wealth tax on the main residence of all Italians, worth around €200 a year to most homeowners” gives us the first worry. Even though at 73% home ownership seems high, but is that the same in places like Venice, Milano, Rome and the larger cities? Or will that show that the 25% not owned by the tenant is still owned by someone, which would be giving massive benefits to the ‘Amici di Silvio Berlusconi‘ perhaps?

The next quote is “This year not only are the taxes not going up but they are coming down”, which sounds great to the people of Italy and they are welcome to it, yet the reality is not that great. In 2010 the debt was 2.4 trillion, or well over 110% of GDP. In 2013 it had risen to 130% of GDP, and even though the debt seemed to go down, these short sighted actions would show soon enough that Italian debt will increase, what happens then? Consider that the debt has grown to the effect that the due interest is almost 2,500€ per second. Yes, per second! So, in which universe is stopping reducing the debt a good idea? According to some sources, the wealthy of Italy has moved almost 200 billion away from the Italian shores. So that part will not get taxed any day soon. Another quote that matters is “Alessandro Zattoni, an economics professor at the LUISS business school in Rome, said the EU commission is concerned that the deterioration in world trade following the slowdown in China could hurt the Italian economy, hitting tax revenues and further widening the budget deficit“, I cannot deny that this is a factor, yet what other shores could Italy approach? It seems that the UK, the bulk of the EEC and a few others are considering China to be the economic oil of salvation. Yet, how realistic is that? My issue comes from the last part. “The Eurozone’s return to negative inflation is driven by cheaper energy costs, which fell 8.9% year-on-year following the tumble in oil prices“, well is ‘negative inflation’ not deflation? Seems a little ‘wankish’ to hide behind a double negative, doesn’t it? And how about the other part, ‘driven by cheaper energy cost’, in my view, cheaper energy means that the people keep a little more in their pockets, it could be used for lowering their debt or even buying consumer items. Perhaps that money is needed to pay for the 1.4% increase for food. So many options, yet if governments are depending on the revenue from their energy systems, what other mistakes are they making? Profit from energy to corporations? Could be, but how much revenue would that be?

So as we see this news, when we hear that the ‘Risk of global financial crash has increased, warns IMF‘, which gives us the first paragraph “The risk of a global financial crash has increased because a slowdown in China and decline in world trade are undermining the stability of highly indebted emerging economies, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)“, which is what I proclaimed for a long time. I never proclaimed that China’s economy would slowdown. This is because I had no decent numbers to compare this against, yet the need for manufacturing was a known and in that Europe has been in decline for some time. In addition, CNN reported ‘More cracks are showing up in America’s economy‘, with the quote “The Fed worries about negative inflation, which is associated with weak economic conditions and a symptom that prices and perhaps wages could be falling“, which is the second entity that seems to be ‘debutanting’ towards governments by avoiding the ‘deflation’ word. Which gets us to the quote “The September jobs report on October 2 was nothing short of disappointing. The U.S. added only 142,000 jobs in September. It stood in sharp contrast to the previous 12 months when the U.S. economy added an average of 256,000 jobs per month. Wages haven’t grown either. Job gains in July and August were also revised down“. This is the start of the issues that will also hit Europe. We will not notice this immediately as the US has to deal with Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas. This gives us a slightly better ‘time’ according to the economists, yet as Italy makes their changing and as the people in Europe will get more stimulus, the overall balance becomes less and less. This gets us to the final quote by CNN “As the global economy worsens, it appears the U.S. economy might not have the strength to prop up its peers. Instead, it might be getting dragged down by them“, which seems to be a mere exercise in simplicity when we look at cause and effect of the situation.

So how does France fit into all of this? Well, with Germany down and Italy taking a dive only the UK and France remain to keep the mess afloat, the two nations that are now in the process of dealing with an exit from all of this forced through its population. There is no guarantee it will be solved, there is absolutely no guarantee that either will remain within the Euro even within the EEC is a stretch at this time. All because proper financial legislation and better budgeting was something none of these governments seemed to have taken on, now there are little to no options left.

The quote “Whenever someone proposes turning the Eurozone into a transfer union, as France’s economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, recently did, the presumption is that Germany will carry everyone else on its shoulders. But why should only Germany have that responsibility? France’s economy is roughly three-quarters the size of Germany’s” is adamant here. France has the export article the entire world needs, and loves (fermented grape juice). Beyond that the bigger items (Cheese) has its own survivability, yet is that enough? Well, that is the question, more important none of these articles make the top 5 of export for France.

Machines, engines, pumps: US$66.3 billion (11.7% of total exports)
Aircraft, spacecraft: $57.7 billion (10.2%)
Vehicles: $47.6 billion (8.4%)
Electronic equipment: $44 billion (7.8%)
Pharmaceuticals: $35.2 billion (6.2%)

So Even as we get the following part “Progressive economists love the French government for spending a staggering 57% of GDP, compared with government expenditure of 44% of GDP for Germany“, yet there is also a problem, as far as I was able to find (apart from the presentation at the end of this blog), France, like several nations are setting their budgets against GDP, yet when the GDP goes down, spending does not go down, the debt just increases. It is one of several factors that show the inability to properly hold any level of budgeting ability. So as we look at the top 5 mentioned earlier, they represent 44.2% at 250 billion, giving us 566 billion, when we consider that France had a GDP of $2.8 trillion, we end up seeing that Export makes up slightly more than 20% of GDP, which is too low. What does speak for France is the fact that their economy seems to be decently diversified. So the negative impact of one industry is not as intense as some other countries face. Still with 5.7 trillion in debt, the French have quite the uphill battle to face, I honestly cannot say whether within the EEC or not, within the Euro or not is the best solution, but as European rules get ignored more and more, as governments are setting ‘new’ targets, we see that within either the Euro or the EEC is not ever going to be a solution. As several countries are trying to get cosy with China and as we now see statements that ‘7% growth is not set in stone’, we must all realise that every nation in the world is matching bad news management with the need to be seen as in ‘deflating’, so negative inflating it is. Who are they kidding?

This all comes to blow with the final Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/24/india-rather-than-china-target-of-britains-charm-offensive) titled ‘Perhaps India, rather than China, should be the target of Britain’s charm offensive‘, which is a fair statement by Ian Jack, yet I have been advocating for a stronger Commonwealth link for a long time. Will it be the better deal? That is a separate question, yet in all this, stronger Commonwealth ties also means and implies that overall a stronger Commonwealth would be the result. A thought that should benefit many people within the Commonwealth.

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Tagged as Alessandro Zattoni, Brussels, China, CNN, Commonwealth, Emmanuel Macron, Germany, Ian Jack, IMF, India, International Monetary Fund, Italy, LUISS business school, Milano, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Rome, Tata Steel, the Guardian, U.S. economy, UK, Venice

October 17, 2015 · 22:36

Relying on the margins

This is an issue that has been on my mind for some time, you see, I am not the smallest person (not just in length). I never looked like I have been hungry for a decade. I try to eat healthy, I have my regular salads and I walk a lot. I walk every day on principle, to the extent that I never bothered with a car (apart from the parking fees all over the city). So, as I go into the city to buy clothes, I am always confronted that 2XL does not cut it. Now, this is all good and proper, so I am slightly larger than the norm. But is that the case? Several sources including The Medical Journal of Australia has stated that obesity in Australia is set at 67%. Third place after New Zealand set at 68.4% (a world’s first where Australians are delighted that Kiwis have beaten them at something) and The Americans at 74.1%. We are trailed by the Barmy Army (aka the Britons) by 63.8%.

So we can state that on one side we have an issue, on the other side, it would make perfect sense that the fashion industry would cater to a need. So, explain to me why those places calling themselves fashion stores would avoid anything beyond 2XL? In some cases I get the ‘excuse’ “Oh, we ran out of stock“, or: “Let me check in the back” (whilst we all know they knew they never had any). Some just state ‘2XL is the biggest we have’. The Levi’s store has one model in 3XL (actually, more like 2XL+), yet as I went through Pitt Street, Myers, David Jones, the QVB building and the World Square Shopping Centre. When looking for decent brand clothing, only Sportscraft and Rodd and Gunn were able to satisfy my need (3XL was in some cases the biggest they had). So, why would anyone in their right mind ignore a customer base of over 50%? (I am ignoring the 3-4 shops that specifically cater to larger sizes).

Can anyone explain it to me, because it makes no business sense at all! Ibisworld states that 122,266, comprise 12,785 clothing businesses. This is of course over Australia, not just Sydney. So how many are catering to the larger sized population? The question has international impact for two reasons. First there is the economic impact. When we see ‘Popular Fashion Retailer Files for Bankruptcy. We didn’t see this coming!‘ we have to ask how stupid the quoting party is. The company has around 9000 staff in 19 countries and is known for its hyper-sexual advertising, which is all fine (to some extent), yet when we look at http://store.americanapparel.net/ and we seek and realise that you will not find anything over 2xl (in some cases no larger than XL), than this implies that American Apparel, as well as the bulk of the fashion store is ‘intentionally’ barring 74% of its possible clientele. Why should such stupidity be ‘rewarded’ with a Chapter 11? It is not like the people in charge considered the first 10 chapters, did they?

This now relates back to an article in the Guardian titled ‘Model who criticised agency: I spoke out about body shape to protect girls‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/16/model-criticise-agency-spoke-out-body-shape-protect-girls), here we see the quote: “The model who used an open letter to criticise her former agency for allegedly sacking her because she was “too big” has said she spoke out so that youngsters were aware of the pressures in the industry to maintain unrealistic body shapes“, the subsequent quote “Caroline Nokes, who heads the all-party parliamentary group on body image, will lead the inquiry into whether the fashion industry is promoting unhealthy standards of beauty. It begins in November” is also cause for concern, but not for the reason you might think. I think that Caroline Nokes, Conservative for Romsey and Southampton North in Hampshire needs to take a seriously different look. You see, the ‘unhealthy standards of beauty‘ norm is a joke (in my humble opinion), what does it solve? By the time this all takes a gander towards anything serious we will be at least two administrations later. If there is truly a want and a need to make a change, than turn the transformation into a hammer people will not ignore.

Add to the restrictions of Bankruptcy, make the end date of an entry into the insolvency register 60 months, not 12. In addition, we add ‘unethical behaviour’ as a directive, so that debts caused through ‘unethical behaviour’ cannot be written off. Of course making a case for deciding to cater to 26% is unethical, which is a different issue and is still part of it all. Yet, consider that the need to cater changes, how can the fashion industry continue in its present firm when the catering part changes?

There is also an opposition from me towards this, you see, over-legislation is an equal evil. We believe in freedom of choice and as long as those persons accept the consequences and remain liable for the costs of what they did, they can do whatever they can. If someone wants to open a coffee shop just to cater to women, than they can. Oh no! They cannot, it is called discrimination. So how does this all fit? Well actually it does not! Shops can basically cater to the non-obese. They just ran out of stock, or they made ‘choices’ in their catalogue. Yet, in all this Caroline Nokes has a separate problem, until the view of what is ‘required’ utterly changes, she would end up talking up a storm to a collection of mugs without ears. Each holding a cup full of opinions and none replying to the actual situation. In all this a change is essential, but how to best go about it? As I see it, we can all have a business, we all make choices on what is the best course of business. Yet, when we go wrong, when our way was flawed, why should anyone else but us pay for our own mistake? Non-accountability has been at the axis of the law and legislation, especially corporate ones for too long. So we change that bit. If a business wants to exclude 74%, than that could be valid, it could be equally valid that some areas can never be supported, I understand that completely. Yet in all this, when we can state that it is more likely than not that a business could remain active if it had catered better to its possible customer base, than it should be regarded as an unethical business practice, as such the caterer should pay the price of unethicality. In all this a problem remains, how is catering to a specific group unethical?

If it is not, than can this person be labelled as unethical when the plan goes wrong? This remains an issue, as such there is little option for Caroline Nokes in this direction. In the end, segmentation is likely to safe businesses more often than not. So as such, what can we do to change this? There are as I stated two avenues. The first one is to stop enabling bad business sense. Of course you can engage in it, but if it falls on your face, the cost of that bad track will also fall in your lap and your lap only.

In the second (I still shiver for considering this) is to make a change to authorities like the financial services compensation scheme. That is a bit dodgier to address. As I see it, it is also not really a realistic path. In the end, is this just about me being unable to get a nice 3XL polo shirt?

The Guardian quote “Nokes said the industry is in a vicious circle, where agencies brought in young women to satisfy the designers, and designers made clothes “to fit the frame of a teenage boy” because those were the kinds of models that were available to them. “These are not clothes for women with busts and hips,” she added” only gets is a little bit into that direction, Another Guardian article, from August 27th (at http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/aug/27/where-are-all-the-plus-size-male-models), shows the addition we need. Now, we must agree that any business has rights to do as it pleases (as long as no laws are broken). So when we see “I asked three major agencies in the UK, all of whom have plus-size female models on their books, and they all said they have no plans to sign plus-size male models“. There does not seem to be any wrongdoing here. You see, they cater to the need of their clients, so the brands have no need for people in the plus-size range. Yet, should we not wonder why these brands are not catering to the missed population of over 300 million in the western world alone? Perhaps the better question becomes in this day and age of commerce, profit and revenue, why is nobody going there? (Apart from the 2-3 that are).

The additional quote “One of the biggest plus-size retailers in the UK, Bigdudeclothing.co.uk, started three years ago. It recently received funding from William Currie Group which invested in Asos and has seen 100% growth in each year it’s been in business. Its clothes go up to 10XL but it struggles to find models who best represent the brand“. So it seems that some are looking at the table that seems to be just set for them, completely with a 7 course meal. I stumbled upon a part that could grow their business even more. Yet is all this, is the truth truly exposed? You see, when we go to a store, we see that sizes M up to 2XL are all priced the same, yet should we not recognise that a ‘2XL’ requires 40% more material than a size ‘S’, should we not recognise that the costs would be a factor and prices and budgets are a factor. I am not certain that the argument is completely valid, but the facts are important here, as should the deeper search in this matter be.

So is Caroline Nokes correct that the inquiry on ‘the fashion industry is promoting unhealthy standards of beauty‘? I find for a partial no, because there is a factor that is actually worse and going for the least incriminating fact is just wrong! There might be a case that the industry is pushing for unhealthy work environment and unhealthy living requirements, which is another slice of cake altogether. Here we make the final step. I am referring to a 2010 paper called ‘Employment arrangements, work conditions and health inequalities‘ by Johannes Siegrist, Joan Benach, Abigail McKnight and Peter Goldblatt in collaboration with Carles Muntaner. (at https://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/projects/employment-and-work-task-group-report/employment-and-work-task-group-full-report.pdf), so what happened to that paper, more important, why is it not getting a lot more exposure? The quote “First, specific employment and working conditions are associated with elevated risks of reduced physical and mental health, elevated sickness absence and disability pension risk. These conditions are found in the English workforce. Importantly, these associations are not confined to traditional occupational hazards and related occupational diseases and injuries, but include increased health risks attributable to insecure employment and an adverse psychosocial work environment” (page 41), I say that modelling is gets to move high up that list here.

So we have a need that is partially addressed, we have a group that is under protected and over exploited, in addition we see an ego based business continuing in its track. There is no real injustice from a legal point of view, but there is a growing inequality. We can think whatever we want regarding Charli Howard, yet there is a line under all this that is ignored. We (me inclusive) seem to mix emotion and cold facts. Toby Wiseman, editor of Men’s Health magazine phrases it perhaps best: “When discussing anorexia in fashion, the health argument sensibly prevails; when obesity comes into play, emotive arguments tend to take over”, this is part of the problem Caroline Nokes faces. This is not about my need for a 3XL polo and a nice pair of pants, there is an ego driven society that is starting to be more and more disabling towards the market they are not interested in.

Again, is this about me and my 3XL shirt? Perhaps it is just me and opening a ‘bigdude’ shop in Sydney is the beginning of my fortune. Apart from having a decent business sense, I have absolutely zero fashion sense (my work and university brothers can attest to that). In the end, it is the observation of a shortage and the fact that no one is acting on it. From the previous part we can see that apart from a bad sense of business, these fashion stores are catering to ego, which is not a crime, or wrong and as such, they should not be legislated against, no wrong is done.

This gets us to the last part in all this. Again, the outrage given is all emotional, when Katie Hopkins decided in her act of ‘fatshaming’, she did one thing the other ‘fatshamers’ never did. She gained 4 stones (28 Kg), only to prove she could lose it again. Of all places, this comes from the daily mail (I am now ignoring the foul taste in my mouth for mentioning them). The quote “Meanwhile, weight loss expert Steve Miller, who fronts TV show Fat Families, said Katie’s latest project shows a ‘shallow’ approach to weight loss and does not take into account the emotional mindset of those who struggle to lose weight“. I am not sure if I can agree with Steve Miller. At least Katie Hopkins is going that distance. Now, I will also consider that certain elements are ignored, but I will get to that. One quote that touches on this is “To try to define all those who are overweight as somehow lazy or lacking in will power does a huge disservice to the experts who have made tackling obesity their focus” (at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2740537/People-say-Youre-lucky-youre-skinny-Katie-Hopkins-piles-four-stone-overweight-people-fat-fault.html). Yet, there is something in the approach that Katie Hopkins takes. If she pulls it off, it means that sometimes we all need a harsh kick to our sizeable arses. I do believe her view is slightly too simplistic, yet in all this, there is also the issue with Steve Miller, some will see his view as exploitative. A long term ‘sandwich’ so to speak. I cannot vouch for his success of lack there off, but the less than 1% of the successes show a certain type. This does not make for his failure, but in equal measure it would not stop the success of Katie Hopkins. Perhaps they are two different sides of the same coin.

What started on a mere margin of fashion is now something larger, a mere supersized trip on a massive group of people (pun intended) where we see the shifting sands of enabling, the absence of enabling and the dangers if legislation gets too involved. The models might be on the other side of that equation. Yet when we try to visualise this (with http://www.bmivisualizer.com/), when we look at the BMI tool, set it to female and add the details of Charli Howard (173/50), we get a dangerous underweight. Now we get into the field that ‘Employment arrangements, work conditions and health inequalities‘ brings. People in this field are increasingly in danger of: Inhibited growth and development, fragile bones, a weakened immune system, anaemia and fertility issues. So, tell me, which model contract has been mentioning these dangers to the teenage working population? In addition, when we get her to the earliest healthy point, we see that 5Kg was all it takes, the other opposite of the scale tends to be well over 15Kg too much. The scales are more than unbalanced. Yet in all this, the official words of Caroline Nokes are not here. They were: “Legislation should be a last resort, but I’m conscious the fashion industry isn’t responding to calls for change, we would prefer a code of conduct, if we could feel confident it would be adhered to”, it is exactly the issues that I raised. On her site (http://carolinenokes.com/), additional information is found, the French position where models with an BMI under 18 are not allowed to work, the solution seems to work (check it with the BMI tool), even though the measure can be just under the bar, it is at all times minimal. If our lives are measured on health, perhaps starting with the limitation that only healthy models can participate, a change can begin that others will see a shift towards the leaner side of life. Whether the approach of Katie Hopkins holds any water remains to be seen. If we believe her words, than she is now the new Jesus. Well, that works nicely for me, because Father Clayton and Bishop Terry know that I work for ‘the’ other side, so as I serve Morax, I would enjoy nailing her to the nearest cross I can find (any of the wooden support beams of St. Pauls will do). Our heavenly father will forgive me, because that is what he does. How did religion get into this? Simple, you and me we must live through faith, in most cases merely the faith in ourselves (as my exams are showing me harshly) is the number one act that makes for change, in addition, we need to have a sense of humour, if you doubt that, than ask the guards at the Vatican whom I told I was ordered by the Bishop of Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel White. As a true follower of the Cheshire cat, it seemed, in contrast to the queen of hearts that something needed to be painted, I decided a ceiling to be white. Let’s face it, after 510 years the IP of Michelangelo has lapsed, time for something new!

If you wonder now, why this step? Consider that the figure of absolutely not skinny was all the rage in 1500, so as we now find that part to be too offensive, let’s do away with all positive images that the Rubenesque age gave us. I will let you figure out the final puzzle that I left intertwined within the religious references.

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Tagged as "Employment arrangements, Abigail McKnight, americanapparel, Bigdudeclothing.co.uk, Bishop Terry, Carles Muntaner, Caroline Nokes, Charli Howard, David Jones, fashion, Father Clayton, fatshaming, instituteofhealthequity.org, Joan Benach, Johannes Siegrist, Katie Hopkins, Men’s Health magazine, Myers, obesity, Peter Goldblatt, QVB building, Romsey and Southampton North, Rubenesque, the Guardian, Toby Wiseman, work conditions and health inequalities", World Square Shopping Centre

October 5, 2015 · 11:25

How to cure economic sickness

The Guardian is bringing me grim news today. As a British conservative and as an Australian Liberal the news presented does not look good, it is slightly beyond critical. It also reminds me of a small gag I heard in the Netherlands 3 decades ago. The one-liner was: “Due to a death, this cemetery will remain closed for the next few days” (source Fons Jansen), yes it seems like a laughing matter, but the Grimness behind it is less amusing and more dread based than we realise. The news ‘Ministers ‘are hiding details of £2bn NHS cash crisis’‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/03/ministers-hiding-details-nhs-cash-crisis) is at the centre of all this. As a conservative my response (with all due respect) to Prime Minister David Cameron is ‘Sir, are you barking mad?‘ I will direct this at the Prime Minister because he is ‘our’ leader, the man in charge. If there is even the slightest hint that he was not aware than a massive reshuffle will be needed within the next 48 hours.

You see, I have forever opposed hiding bad news. Managing bad news will always bite the parties involved in the end. When the implied deficit amounts to 0.5% of all collected taxations in 2014, we have a massive problem which must be addressed and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. You see, no matter how trivial this 0.5% might seem. The coffers are down well over a trillion pounds, which requires 100% of all collected taxations for three years to address. Now that act is not realistic, but that show you the massive damage the United Kingdom faces. Economies are slowing down, partially due to Asia, partially due to acts that America is about to do and as such the American economy will soon take another tumble. As I see it, Thanksgiving and Christmas might hide the events, but the end of January through March, especially when the US Department of Defence will make 40,000 people redundant, that economy will shift over the following 4 months. In all this, the UK can no longer afford to hide bad news of this nature. The Commonwealth in general needs to realise that as the US seems to enable greed based corporations, we as members of the Commonwealth will have to stick together. This is no longer about national pride and ego. Our collective politicians are more likely to walk away with opportunities that will guarantee the well-being of their families for more than two generations, whilst in all this the people will end up getting saddled with a debt that will stop them from moving forward in any decent future for decades to come. None of us agreed to such imbalance.

The quote “Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, said on Saturday: “This appears to be a cynical attempt to suppress bad news ahead of the Tory party conference. It makes a mockery of Tory claims to be committed to transparency in the NHS, and leaves Jeremy Hunt with very serious questions to answer. These figures must now be published in full as a matter of urgency”” gives weight to this. Part of me is also very cautious on her statement, let’s not forget that it was Labour that squandered 11 billion from the NHS and they have not been forthcoming at all, so let’s realise that this still remains an issue of the Pot calling the Kettle black.

The next part is set over two quotes. The first is “Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund think tank, recently said that the NHS’s fast-ballooning deficit was leading to “panic” at the health department and “denial” at the Treasury. The service’s overspend was so large that it needed an emergency injection of £1bn in the comprehensive spending review to keep functioning, added Ham“, the second quote is “Without extra funding, he argued, the NHS would end up unable to cope, “most likely during the winter when many hospitals run out of money … With NHS hospitals unable to go bankrupt…, the Treasury will be forced to intervene or accept a rapid decline in performance.”“. The issue is in more than one part. In the first we must question how the NHS ended up short by 2 billion. We have heard all the wild accusations in the papers, but what news there has any reliability? No matter how little of it is true, Jeremy Hunt has an official problem, because if he has kept facts away from the public than he has no right being in his position, if he is falling on his sword for the party, we have an even larger issue. Because the conservative members feel that they should be told the facts, good or bad. We cannot fix when things remain hidden. We within the Commonwealth will become puppets to those operating the machines. It is a fake freedom which does do no one any good.

Yet the NHS has issues on several levels. One level was discussed in my blog article called ‘In Greed we trust‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/09/22/in-greed-we-trust/). Here we looked at Turing Pharmaceuticals AG and the little caper they pulled on Daraprim. They weren’t the only ones. The Financial Post (at http://business.financialpost.com/investing/global-investor/valeant-pharmaceuticals-international-inc-shares-plummet-as-525-hike-in-drug-price-draws-fire) gave us “Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. shares fell as much as 20 per cent after Democrats in the U.S. House asked to subpoena the company for documents relating to drug price increases, the latest move by politicians seeking to curb price hikes on acquired drugs“. When we see places like Turing Pharmaceuticals ‘hiding’ behind places like PrWeb and PrNewsWire, you better believe you are facing marketing from the bottom of the barrel. Yet in all this serious demands from the government looking into these companies who bought up niche medications and driving up prices by hundreds of percentage points is a matter this government (as well as the previous one) did not have to content with and as such the NHS will receive even more pressure. This is exactly why I have pushed for close to two years towards a stronger Commonwealth coalition. India with its Generic pharmaceuticals that will become one of the pillars of salvation for the NHS. This needs to happen now, before the Australian government (as well as the previous one) does something irreversibly stupid like signing the TPP. We must recognise here that it was not Australian Labor or the Australian Liberals asking the questions that had to be asked, it was New Zealand that put up a fight against the TPP issues. So have we been watching a media event by Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals?

Because we all need to realise clearly that once the TPP is signed, the signing government will have placed a knife on the throats of nearly 21.7% of the population of Australia, whilst that group will be left with no medical alternative!

That part reflects on the NHS!

When we consider some information from the ABPI (at http://www.abpi.org.uk/our-work/library/industry/Documents/OHE%20ABPI%20Medicines%20Bill%20Forecast.pdf), we must also acknowledge that they, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, represents commercial enterprises, a branch not to favoured, or flavoured towards generic medication. They are given, as I personally see it (read: speculate) the inside track from ‘friends’ on how far they must lower the price to remain seated. It is a form of let’s say branded exploitation that can no longer be afforded. Now, we must be clear that there is nothing illegal on branded exploitation, but we have to acknowledge that the NHS can no longer afford to play that game (a 2 billion deficit is ample proof of that).

Within the ABPI we see plenty of information, now consider this one quote from one of their presentations: “Loss of exclusivity of some major brands is projected to yield £3.4bn cumulative savings to the NHS between 2012 and 2015 with £5.4bn cumulative lost revenue to industry“. Do you think this is about the savings to the NHS, or the revenue lost to industry? If you think that this is about ‘savings to the NHS‘ than you, the respectful reader, will be slightly too naive than is good for you! I cannot fault the ABPI, because it is doing what it needs to do, represent its industry, we all forgot that they are not living in a symbiotic relationship with the government as they provide THEIR solutions to the NHS. The people the ABPI is representing, is a commercial group. They want to get the most out of whatever they can. Culling their needs by having stronger ties with Generic brands, even Indian ones is essential. They might cry about their low prices, but the reality is different. These players claiming the high costs are hoping you forget about news from 2001 (and many other years) where we saw “The UK government is introducing tax incentives aimed at persuading British-based pharmaceutical companies to boost their research into diseases affecting the world’s poor, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria“, so they get the tax breaks for research, they have the inside tracks on ‘maximising’ product pricing solutions, yet overall they still complain. Which in light when we consider the ABPI document showing a 15% growth in spending on medication to be another issue. This is was a projection over 4 years (up to 2015), yet the facts remain, the NHS needs another solution and we agree that generic medication will not be as strong, however a medication that needs to be taken 10% longer might be preferable to medication that is 30% more expensive. Clarity is what matters here and for the implied accusation that Jeremy Hunt was keeping people in the dark should be offensive to all of us. There is one more side to all this, which is shown in that same presentation. The Office of Health Economics (OHE) is stating with their key message 6 that: “By 2015, new branded medicines launched between 2012 and 2015 will account for less than 2% of the total medicines bill. This underlies the issue in the UK of slow uptake of innovative new medicines“. From an analyst side I want to offer this thought to you. the quote ‘new branded medicines’ implies not that they are new medication, but new versions of existing medications, which means that rebranded and possibly marketed solutions is now implied to be below 2%, yet whatever deal is in place, it could also imply that this 2% is also a group that for now cannot be replaced by generic mediation. This is a speculation on my side, yet these kinds of presentations are never about ‘informing’ the people, it is about awareness on which questions to ask and what solutions to push for. Both tend to be expensive exercises for any NHS.

Yet medication is only one side, it is the one side we can clearly fight for with the possible reward of direct savings, but other sides need to be considered too. This we see in the comment article in the Guardian called ‘This junior doctor contract puts patients in danger‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/junior-doctor-contract-patients-danger). Can anyone explain to me how the stupidity of “The contract that the Department of Health is threatening to impose on junior doctors once again raises the prospect of 90-hour weeks being written into rotas“? I went to University with some of these upcoming doctors, the pressure on them is just beyond harsh. How can a 90-hour contract be allowed? apart from that being a step just one hair fraction away from being regarded as slave labour, the pressures on these people will result in a certain harm to them self, an implied certain harm to their patients and a long term harm to the NHS as a whole. Because this will fall over within 2 years after which there will be no doctors left, there will be nearly no nurses left and the UK gets to rely on the medical care we can import from Siberia and Africa, how would that end well?

As a final year student in Intellectual Property law I call upon my peers to aid the NHS, give aid to them by creating strong patents for Generic medication, for patents that lessen the stranglehold on prolonged exclusive medication. In 2008 in the Financial Times, Yusuf Hamied, stated: “I am not against patents, but India cannot afford them. I am against monopolies”, he is correct! In addition, now 7 years later the UK and many other nations cannot afford them either. That part has been ignored on many governmental levels all over the Commonwealth. The response the article gives: “he is a “pirate”, an opportunist who has exploited others’ intellectual property to swell his own profits. In the process, they say, he is undermining investment in future medicines, including the next generation of HIV therapies“, this fake response is flame baked with emotion, the reference to ‘the next generation of HIV therapies‘ does that. You see they had a patent, they had exclusivity for 20 years, but the people in that house became lazy and greedy and now they do not want to give it up. They try to revamp the drug to the tiniest part (they will call it an innovative new drug) and then they reshape it with a patent for 20 more years of exclusivity. They are now learning that this is not always successful. As a Patent Attorney (if I make it to the end) I would want to work on the patents of Generic medications, lowering the barricades to NHS on a global level, which is one of the reasons I oppose the TPP. Governments (including the UK) have squandered the position they had by prolonging a solution that never worked and voila, here we have the trillion pound deficit!

OK, I admit it is not a completely accurate statement and as such the issues are more complex, but we must fight the wars we can win and the NHS war could be won, however if Mr not so bright, I am hiding the numbers Jeremy Hunt MP is indeed hiding the numbers, any NHS solution will come too late, which puts 68 million in peril.

I feel that I am on the right track. Some will question my view towards Generic Medication Patents. When I consider my duties as stated in the Code of Conduct for Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys 2013, I see section 11 that a registered attorney must act as a patent attorney or a trade marks attorney in the following:

In accordance with the law; and
In the best interests of the registered attorney’s client; and
In the public interest; and
In the interests of the registered attorney’s profession as a whole.

The first two would carry for certain, the latter two are the debate. I believe that Generic Medication and protecting these is in the public interest on a global scale, I never believed that ‘reworking’ a patent, unless it is truly a new substance was in the public interest. You see exclusivity is a right given to the actual innovator, not giving in perpetuity, which only propagates exploitation, the last part is that the profession as a whole relies not on the cash of the rich client. It relies on driving true innovation, when we start repackaging the same solution with a new delivery method (which costs less than $15 dollars to make), the price hike from $20 to $175 is not just a tough pill to swallow it is a dangerous escalation in our greying population. The fact that Patent Laws as well as Patent Regulations have not been properly updated (even though this example is specifically for the US, not the UK) should give warning to other parts that needs to be overhauled.

This all hits back to the NHS. The Independent showed a few sides which reflects mighty badly on Jeremy Hunt. You see the quote: “it was his intention that no one should lose out financially” might sound nice and perhaps the change to a schedule where doctors work 7 days a week might not be an avoidable part, yet in all this the 90 hour a week part is still one of the deadliest issues. That person might not feel a financial ‘pinch’, but I guarantee you that these hours will drive most doctors bonkers within 2 years. How can the NHS survive when by 2018 23% of the medical GP’s are in a sanatorium? Did Mr Hunt add that risk to his spreadsheet?

So how will this end? Well, for Jeremy Hun MP not all that good I reckon (speculation on my side), but we have to wait to see all the facts to place judgment on this. In all this, as I see it, I started with the title: ‘How to cure economic sickness‘.

The answer in my case is by changing direction, by changing it massively. There is now more than half a decade of data and Business Intelligence that the US only considers the US and there they falter and fail as they refuse to deal with Greed. They hide behind more and more emotional stories (especially when there are school shootings), even there the US legislative branch is failing its people. The Commonwealth cannot afford these steps. We the Commonwealth must unite as never before. We the people of the Commonwealth must also realise that to make this work we must be willing to make large changes if needed. I always lived a global live, so if I am required to move to the UK, Canada or perhaps even India, than I will! In this day and age, holding onto your one little hill (especially those with tertiary educations) we must consider a global (read a complete Commonwealth field). The UK must start to realise this too, because they have squandered too much funds on solutions that never worked. Australia is moving into that direction as well as Canada, they just move in that direction more politely than the other players.

And finally my message to David Cameron. David, your Conservative party can be the solution, we all can be part of that solution, yet in all this we must know how bad things are and the playbook you currently use needs to change, the US can no longer be seen as a potential ‘solution’, they burned that bridge by themselves. Our Commonwealth can grow towards the empire it was, we have the skills, we have the innovators, we have the drive and (most of us) the loyalty to the crown, yet in all this, not enough drive towards a Commonwealth Union has been made. The SNP is partially evidence of that. They now realise that their oil revenue is not making it work, they need to realise that together we are stronger. Yes, perhaps that will be as an independent Scotland, but then it should still be a Commonwealth Nation, we must propel on all sides to show both the US and China that the UK is the 5th largest economy, yet as a United Commonwealth we can surpass China and become the second largest economy! The next 12 years will be about the innovators that propel ideas in many fields. We will see a growth in Trade Marks, in Patents and in Business solutions and all this will be resulting in new avenues of growth, yet as a single nation the UK can no longer compete to the extent it needs to. The costs are too high, the NHS is the first and clearest piece of evidence.

So economic sickness can be cured, it needs the right medication and this can be administered by acquiring the right medication, the current providers have shown that they are not up to the task!

I leave it to the honourable David Cameron to set the right course!

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Tagged as ABPI, Australia, Canada, China, Conservative, Daraprim, David Cameron, Financial Times, Heidi Alexander, Jeremy Hunt, King’s Fund think tank, Liberals, Martin Shkreli, New Zealand, NHS, Office of health economics, OHE, Patent Laws as well as Patent Regulations, Professor Chris Ham, the Guardian, TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership, Turing Pharmaceuticals, UK, United Commonwealth, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, Yusuf Hamied

October 2, 2015 · 22:33

How to blame an inanimate object.

Something happened in Oregon. For many it will be horrific, to some it has no impact, to others it has an emotional impact. The news at CNN (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrYkblNgs_U) is all about the breaking news. For Umpqua Community College it will be a dark page in their history. The news is giving all levels of speculation, they are not doing it in an irresponsible way, because they are factors to be considered, but the news diverts on several occasions towards ‘other speculated’ events and dangers. It stopped being news after 20 seconds. It was all about (as I see it) on prolonging the event. Moving from breaking news snippet to breaking news snippet. We can argue on the value here, but there is no issue with that approach, it is a choice. In the case of John F. Kennedy Jr, when on July 16, 1999 his plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts the issue was different. For 45 minutes we saw a sailor on the back of a deck. Nearly every newscast (CNN, Fox, CNBC et al) were all zooming in on that same sailor whilst I was at Dulles Airport waiting for my flight. Now that constitutes the pinnacle of bad newscasts, this is not, but there is an issue. You see, as emotions rise in that instance, we all were confronted with 10 dead, 20 wounded and the initial shooter has been apprehended. Something I could have stated in under a minute. Yet, it is not about this newscast, what happened afterwards becomes the issue. An interesting side is shown at EpicTimes.com by Jon Justice (at http://www.epictimes.com/jonjustice/2015/10/ucc-mass-shooting-blaming-the-gun-has-begun/).

This is not the first event and it will not be the last event either. The quote ‘Jon was frustrated to see so many people on social networks blame the NRA and call for more gun control‘ starts it of nicely. You see, guns do not kill people. People kill people. In addition we see the quote: “We need to get over this idea that you can put up a “Gun Free Zone” sign and it will stop the violence”, which is more than just bringing it to a point.

His podcast (also in the webpage) is emotional and seems to strike out to people trying to score political points towards gun at the expense of 13 cadavers. Yes, this sounds extremely crude, which it is. People ignore again and again that the gun culture is not the killing factor, the killing comes from criminals and monsters who seem to score names by going after children. Changes are needed and gun control has never and will never be the solution. You see, when guns fall away, we get blunt objects, knives and other devices that can end lives. Jon Justice starts to blame social media and 20 hours news a day. Jon Justice brings up a very interesting side. Social media and the option of notoriety is a growing concern, in all this guns are not even close to the largest dangers. Should we globally ban Facebook? In 2013 32,719 people died in a car accident. So, why is there no car control, you see nearly all the involved players had a driver’s license? Why are people not banned from cars FOR LIFE? In addition Jon brings up the discipline required for guns. Weirdly enough is that those who legally obtained a gun, some of these what people tend to call Gun Nuts, they tend to revere their gun. They take as many precautions towards gun safety and their weapon as a mother would towards their child. His speech takes a turn that people should observe. His consideration regarding 14 kills in Chicago, which has one of the strongest control laws. How many people spoke out in that regard? Those people taking a chance on political points thanks to the deceased from Umpqua Community College is appalling. Jon Justice clearly has a point.

Yet I started with the amendments. There was reasoning here. You see, the US constitution starts with the three amendments that safeguard liberties. To appease the anti-federalists personal freedoms were guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, whilst in addition limiting the government’s power. Yet, people forget that changing one is lowering the defence of all. I will go one step further, if the people lose the rights to bear arms, we should also change the first amendment where we state that the freedom of speech exists, yet after the editing the people can hold anyone liable for that what they print or speak. This should be great for Hollywood and their residents. Many people will rejoice that glamour press could be held accountable for their innuendo. They are connect because the first three rights were about the people. The first is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”

You see, people seem to attack the second amendment, which was one of three set towards the safeguards of liberty.

The American second Amendment states: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed“. This links to the Heritage guide to the Constitution (at http://www.heritage.org/constitution#!/amendments/1/essays/140/freedom-of-speech-and-of-the-press). The interesting quote is “The debates in the First Congress, which proposed the Bill of Rights, are brief and unilluminating. Early state constitutions generally included similar provisions, but there is no record of detailed debate about what those state provisions meant“, is that not interesting? Is the meaning and the debate regarding not one of the highest importance? The 1st Continental Congress in 1774 showed the following: “The last right we shall mention regards the freedom of the press. The importance of this consists, besides the advancement of truth, science, morality, and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of Government, its ready communication of thoughts between subjects, and its consequential promotion of union among them, whereby oppressive officers are shamed or intimidated into more honourable and just modes of conducting affairs” In this light, why do we not hold the press accountable? ‘The advancement of morality‘, is that not part that must be addressed? When we consider the Hacking scandal in the UK that involved the Murdoch Business, on June 3rd 2015 (at http://www.theage.com.au/comment/hacking-scandal-has-not-changed-murdoch-20150601-ghekss.html), we see the following two quotes: “New evidence … has led the Metropolitan Police to believe that this was unlikely to have been correct … the newspaper is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive“, which was regarding the deleted messages from Milly Dowler, which gave the parents the false hope that she was still alive. The next one was “I was taken aback when Davies told me, in a roomful of students and media buffs, that the premise of my question was wrong (and by implication, therefore, his story wasn’t). The Metropolitan Police, he said, had provided Lord Justice Leveson with a detailed report shortly after The Guardian’s correction was published. It showed there was a great deal of uncertainty about who had deleted what, and when. Naturally, Davies added, no one had reported this“, yet this remains linked to the issue that the press had been ignoring personal freedoms and blatantly hack the device of a person without consent. Yet in the end, the press did a double take on false ‘humility’ by promising to do better, an approach that was never met and blatant false allegations returned to be the norm less than 4 weeks after the end of the Leveson report considerations. So in all this, if people want control of something that is not to blame, in equal measure to ‘nurture’ a communion that seems to live on the needed premise of ‘Flight MH370 was crashed into the Indian Ocean in an apparent suicide mission‘, a statement that had no bearing as no evidence existed not at that point and no evidence existed a long time after that, even today 18 months later there still is no evidence of any kind that this was a suicide mission.

Now the second amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed“, this is the kicker! The fact that it is not infringed is nothing more than the ability to bear arms. Considered the image to the left.

Do you think that this is the weapon made by or owned by anyone who is about killing people? This is a work of art, plain and simple. The issue in Umpqua Community College is not plain and simple. The news gives us that the shooter was targeting Christians.

So is this person Chris Harper Mercer a mental health case or an anti-Christian extremist. You see, the speech from President Obama seems wrong on two counts. He stated ‘we do not have sufficient common sense gun safety laws‘, how wrong was he? You see, in the first case we can claim his speech should have been ‘Obamacare failed this young man, this young man who did not get the proper care and as a result people at Umpqua Community College paid for this failing with their life‘. In the other case the speech should have been ‘America is under attack, an extremist, under the guise of religious terminal segregation decided to attack Americans and the American way of life by killing future moulders of this great nation where freedom reigns‘. No, another speech was made and the gun, ‘the inanimate object’ got blamed.

The third one has no bearing on these events, yet this one is the last one that safeguards liberties in the US. The text: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law“, which basically gives a new view to the British expression ‘my home is my castle‘ in the US. The first is over protected, the second is shunned and prosecuted, and the third gets ignored. All facts that brought forth what was once the greatest nation on earth as well as the champion of freedom. That last part America seems to think it still is, yet when we consider the victims of Umpqua Community College. Was freedom of speech guaranteed so that one person could kill many (an act that was done not through voicing a thought or opinion) or has the right to free speech been taken away from the victims, who had a Christian and legal right to speak out regarding what they thought would be right in their lives and in their community? We will never know, because the dead do not talk.

How can we get past this?

First of all, the following part comes from the Seattle Times, which has an interesting side (at http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/roseburg-attack-latest-in-growing-list-of-horrific-killings/), it states: “Oregon is one of seven states, either from state legislation or court rulings, with provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public post-secondary campuses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The other states are Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Utah and Wisconsin.” So, there is a small side which does score points for President Obama, ‘common sense gun safety laws‘ is the issue in my view. You see, as I see it (oversimplifying issues as per usual), concealed weapons should not be allowed to anyone that is not part of the police, the military, governmental officials (members of the alphabet group) and cleared private security. It would not have made any difference today. But this fact should still be stated.

There is every option to stop the military from dropping the people who stood by them and let those getting close to retirement to become part of an education location security team, a group of people that is armed and is there to keep the students safe. They remain semi-military staff and are as such accountable for events, but I feel certain that whatever person, for whatever reason thinks that he will become famous, that person is a lot more likely to be the diminished towards a mere by-line ‘today an individual entered a campus armed with concealed weapons. Military protection was on site and none of the students became victim of this attack. The carcass of the transgressor will be disposed of shortly; his identity no longer matters‘. How long until these people regard a school not to be a target? How long until we acknowledge that anyone with a mental condition should not be allowed a firearm license? Will that stop the transgressor? No, that is extremely unlikely, but the presence of trained personnel on educational grounds will make it extremely certain that the loss of innocent victims will remain as low as possible. Consider the Columbine Massacre. April 20, 1999 from 11:19 a.m. until 12:08 p.m. An event where for almost an hour two people had access to a ‘shooting gallery’ causing the death of 12 people and wounding 21. Now consider another event. On 15 April 1912 a British Dinghy was lost at sea. It was called the Titanic (you may have heard of it). In 1914 the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) became in effect, a convention that is still in effect today. So, if sailors can get something this lasting done, how come that proper security in US schools is still not achieved 186 months after Columbine? The combined wars of the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War took less time to settle. The two costed the lives of 8044 in battle, since 1980 it is rumoured that only 297 people were killed, so perhaps if we get a few more casualties (like 8044 minus 297) things will actually change, as long as those pushing for change realise that blaming guns and trying to force gun control will never ever be a solution. The Titanic lost 1500 lives a number that outside a war would never have been fathomable in those days, so perhaps more deaths will push the American administration into action. I am however reluctant to consider that they show any wisdom in that regard. Guns and politicians react like a bull and a bright coloured blanket, with no option for any amount of fence. What people might forget is that the US military is cutting 40,000 troops (not of their own accord I imagine). Many of those now need to find jobs, which means that new pressures are about to hit the US job market, did no one consider the fact that many of these are exquisitely trained in keeping people safe? Is it such a jump to enlist these people within the Justice department as educational security (to avoid issues with the 1978 Posse Comitatus Act)?

In the end there is a case to be made that 40,000 departures are arranged because the US is so broke that it has exhausted all options and hiring these people in other capacities is no longer an option. Which is the consideration one gets at minus 18 trillion, so how has this administration as well as the previous Republican one done anything to keep places of education truly safe?

I’ll let you ponder these facts, but when you do, consider the words of Bill O’Reilly (at http://video.foxnews.com/v/4524976308001/the-mass-murder-in-oregon-/?intcmp=hpvid1#sp=show-clips), the fact that again there is a link to social media and the fact that the ‘claim’ was placed before the event took place. In my personal view an anti-Christian extremist would not have given ‘warning’, making this a ‘some form of mental health case’. There are unknowns and there are speculations. The statement that people were killed based on religion was made by someone who was in the classroom where it happened seems to be acceptable enough as quality reporters have gone with that fact.

So where is any solution to be found? Gun control will not lead to any solution (in the US) and amending the laws and regulations are equally pointless against transgressors like this.

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Tagged as 1978 Posse Comitatus Act, 1st Continental Congress in 1774, American Revolutionary War, Bill O'Reilly, Chris Harper Mercer, CNBC, CNN, Dulles Airport, Educational Security, EpicTimes.com, First Amendment, Fox, John F. Kennedy Jr, Jon Justice, Justice Department, Leveson, Lord Justice Leveson, Milly Dowler, Northwest Indian War, President Obama, Seattle Times, second Amendment, the Columbine Massacre, the Guardian, Third Amendment, Titanic, Umpqua Community College, www.heritage.org

September 27, 2015 · 00:26

What news is news?

There are several pieces, not just in the Guardian, the BBC, the Independent or the Times. They all tell us that they have news, but do they have any actual news? The Guardian shows us a tech article (in the Tech section) called: ‘the node pole: inside Facebook’s Swedish hub near the Arctic Circle‘, all innocent news, one could surmise that it is just a space filler. Or was it done to give extra view to the article ‘Facebook is making more and more money from you. Should you be paid for it?‘, or perhaps to give extra light to ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘, which I gave my views on in my previous blog. You decide!

In the business section we see VW to get some centre stage, which makes perfect sense and that is just the Guardian. The independent also has a go at Facebook, but now has a go at its users, well, actually it is not the Independent, but the employee tribunal. Now the article shows all kind of signs of bullying, which is never OK and in that regard Rachael Roberts has a real case, but in light of the events, Mrs Bird does not seem to be a friend of Mrs Roberts, so why is the act of unfriending on Facebook the killer? Yet it is the quote “But employment lawyer Josh Bornstein told ABC news the unfriending incident was found to be workplace bullying in the context of several other issues“, which baffles me, if they are not friends, one or the other could unfriend the other party, that part seems clear cut to me, not bullying. So out of the 18 allegations of bullying in total, the unfriending in Facebook took the cake? It does not add up to me!

In addition we see two whole articles on Facebook being down and oh yes, the new iPhone is for sale! Let’s not forget the fact that the iPhone now allows for sextracking. So, parents buy your boy or girl on of these bad boys so you can find new ways on how you are about to become a grandparent! Really? You need to keep scores on your phone now? Didn’t Ashley Maddison teach you anything regarding sex that is on the internet, everyone will know soon thereafter?

Finally they also gave visibility to ‘Hospital apologises for removing RAF sergeant from A&E because uniform could ‘upset’ patients‘, which is a can of worms in its own right. In that light I expect the NHS to move all drug and binge drink casualties to their basement as not to invoke bad thoughts from the Presbyterian community. How insane was the idea to move a wounded RAF sergeant in the first place!

All these events, some are actually news, but no one seems to have any balls. No one is looking at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Which of course ties in nicely with the words of the Dalai Lama ‘Dalai Lama on Britain’s policy towards China: ‘Where is morality?’’, the answer might not be such a high moral one, it goes a little like “Who is willing to suck the smallest extremity for the good of one’s career?”

To some extent we can accept that the SFO is silent, only to the smallest extent. You see Tesco is dealing with a write-off of £6.4bn, which of course is massive. We have seen all the news on how some former Tesco entities are getting grilled (as they should) but the press on many levels in many nations keep on rehashing the old news and no one is digging into PwC. No one is digging there. Does that not sound awfully weird? Yet here is the kicker, we see more and more messages like ‘Multinational tax avoiders targeted’, with quotes like “while the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia warned about throwing up new hurdles in what is already a high-cost economy. The chamber’s board includes representatives from ConocoPhillips, GE, Boeing, PwC and Exxon Mobile“, yes it seems it is never a good time to go after tax avoiders (not to mention the impact it has on the bonus benefits for those working in that part of the financial branch).

Before you whisk this away as mere banter (which you are of course allowed to do), take a look at this article that is a little over a week old. It is from the Wall Street Journal, which I do not look into too often. The article (at http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/09/15/the-morning-download-identity-theft-key-to-attack-on-cisco-routers/) called ‘The Morning Download: Identity Theft Key to Attack on Cisco Routers‘, starts with: “Good morning. The international attacks on Cisco Systems Inc. routers, disclosed earlier today by security firm FireEye Inc.’s Mandiant unit, began with the theft of legitimate network credentials. Securing and managing the identity of network users continues to be a massive challenge for CIOs and CISOs and ultimately, the CEO and the board. The attacks have been named ‘SYNful’ because of how the malicious software moves across routers using their syndication functions “Cisco said SYNful did not take advantage of any vulnerability in its own software. Instead it stole valid network administration credentials from organizations targeted in the attacks or by gaining physical access to their routers,” Reuters reports today. Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system”

Now, to complement that statement, I will add the following. On June 5^th (more than 3 months before the WSJ article), I wrote ‘In reference to the router‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/05/in-reference-to-the-router/) , here I stated: “Soon thereafter no more firewall, no more routers, just the bliss of cloud servers and data, so much data!“, which reflected on the article I wrote on February 8^th (more than 7 months before the WSJ), there I wrote “I think that ‘hackers’ have created a new level (as I mentioned before). I think that Cisco IOS was invisibly patched“, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/02/08/the-next-cyber-wave/). I was literally accused by some to be insane, there was no way that this would EVER happen. Now we see in the Wall Street Journal: “Mandiant said in a blog post that it had found 14 instances of router implants, which replace Cisco’s operating system“, interesting how I am now proven correct. Are the members of the Baboon family (usually found in the FBI) reconsidering their North-Korean option? Let’s face it, this took top level skills, we can (as I pointed out in the past) find those boffins in the US, UK, FR, the FSB and Chinese Intelligence, however in North Korea not that much!

The Reuters article shows a lot more (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-cybersecurity-routers-cisco-systems-idUSKCN0RF0N420150916), however, they are just rehashing something I stated for almost a year, the quote ““That feat is only able to be obtained by a handful of nation-state actors,” DeWalt said, while declining to name which countries he suspected might be behind the Cisco router attacks” adds to my view that I was correct all along (finally another ‘I told you so!’ opportunity). The only difference is, is that DeWalt includes Israel, I have no real quality data on the Israeli cyber capabilities, so I am willing to give him that one. Finally we should consider the quote “Infected hardware devices include Cisco routers 1841, 2811 and 3825“, which is fair enough, yet in my article I offer the option that the CF unit found in nearly EVERY router could also open doors, so the danger could in theory go far beyond those three routers.

I also stated that my thoughts were based on sound speculation. You might wonder what sound speculation is. Basically, it means that even as I might not have them skills to program, I do understand that my solution is viable, the fact that routers are getting programmed with a new OS is clear evidence of that. In addition, it also gives weight to two infestation systems I speculated on as well as the weakness that those believing in the cloud are not realising at present. I was willing to look beyond the veil, a side everyone ignored. Yet when a router can be reprogrammed to the extent it was, also clearly means that data in motion is no longer safe, which means that pretty much any cloud data can be gotten too, the user only has to access the file to make that happen.

I even had a thought on dealing with the Iranian glow in the dark power plants when the time is there, just by thinking out of the box. It does involve a Piranha valve (which actually already exists in name, but mine is so much cooler). None of this is newsworthy, speculative opinion one might state. Yet in my speculation, I have shown solutions to be real in several occasions and in addition to that I also clearly outlined long before the press decided to show the minimalistic amount of balls (read testicles), that a look into Pricewaterhouse Coopers was adamant. It seems that apart from a December 2014 message from the SFO (rehashed by nearly all papers) not much happened, apart from that news, the press at large stayed clear of mentioning PwC and Tesco in one sentence. Is that not utterly weird?

Of course the luggage of someone’s mum in Tenerife (shipping at £122) gets front seat exposure, yet, the issue on £6.4bn getting lost due to assistance (better stated too weak opposition) by Pricewaterhouse Coopers seems too trivial to keep pressure on. Way to go Consumer Champions, Money! I actually mean that! They did do a good job and they have done so in the past, yet I fear that a letter by Dave Lewis on how his firm lost £6.4bn as the keeper of his books was not prudent, or is that tenacious enough to ring that bell very loudly when things looked too odd. Will Consumer Champions find that money? Will they write “Pricewaterhouse Coopers must accept responsibility for the signing off on books as the “accountant”?” Consumer Champions might not get this done, which is fair enough. It should not be on their plate, but the parties this should be very visible on are also not doing anything as far as we can tell, they remain silent, they remain this silent after 9 months.

Yet in all this there is one part both the Guardian and the Independent are getting right. It is the news on the NHS, there are massive problems and knowing them all is essential in finding a solution. In this matter the press has played a good role. In my view exposing former and current politicians a little more on the political game they play, so that we all understand that a proper solution is needed and taking the politicians out of that equation might not be the worst idea, the end result stays the same, the NHS is now too close on the edge of collapse to be acceptable, yet where lies the solution? Although I understand the issue the Independent shows, I partially disagree. The headline ‘New NHS junior doctor contract would discriminate against women, senior medics warn‘ is not incorrect (at http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-nhs-junior-doctor-contract-would-discriminate-against-women-senior-medics-warn-10516885.html), yet in all fairness, the quote “Under the new contract, trainees who decide to work part-time would see their pay increase more slowly than their colleagues” is a can of worms! Why would my co-worker doing 32 hours get the same raise as myself working 60 hours? (Remember, I am not a doctor). A choice was made! Yet, there is a level of fairness here too. Which means that to tackle it should be done in another way. Even as there is a shortage, the burnout of physicians is a known issue and making a maximum of 40 hours a week a mandatory status could be close to the only solution. Perhaps we have been too indulged, perhaps some options should only be there during the week. Perhaps the change to healthcare is essential (like hiring 40% more staff), but we also accept that at current not one government remains to afford that change (well perhaps Easter Island where there are less than 10 doctors). In the end the system has been ignored for too long. Too many politicians are on the ‘let’s get the computers up and running‘ whilst they know that staff will remains a problem for a long time.

That is news! That is what matters, but too many papers and too many news broadcasts are about the emotions and not the actual news that matters. That might be an incorrect view and a very biased view. It might be that some news is more important than other news parts, I will instantly agree, yet in all that the complete silence from pretty much all the papers regarding Tesco and some involved book keeping parties remains a mystery to me, how is that part not news? We will see more events that will not get the proper light in newspapers, both in paper as well as online, I’ll let you decide how that measurement applies to an involved party to events that started a £6.4bn downgrade.

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Tagged as ABC, Ashley Maddison, Boeing, China, Chinese Intelligence, Cisco Routers, Cisco Systems Inc, ConocoPhillips, Dalai Lama, Dave DeWalt, Exxon Mobile, Facebook, FBI, FireEye Inc, FR, GE, Iran, Josh Bornstein, Mandiant, NHS, North-Korea, Piranha valve, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PwC, reuters, SYNful, Tesco, the FSB, the Guardian, The Independent, The Morning Download, UK, US, Wall Street Journal, WSJ

September 24, 2015 · 22:06

Imperitos idiot

This is a view I have had for a while, it is a view that I have advocated on more than one situation, yet business remains silent, deaf and as they hide in ignorance they are limiting the options they have, in the future and in an acted decimation of one’s own future. The information in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/23/us-intelligence-services-surveillance-privacy) shows a title ‘Facebook case may force European firms to change data storage practices‘ that questions certain elements. The quote “a court accused America’s intelligence services of conducting “mass, indiscriminate surveillance”” in the first paragraph is the act of alerting, but is that all?

The Case C‑362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner is the calling entity here. A request for a preliminary ruling.

Let’s take a look at the elements. We see at [25] Mr Schrems lodged a complaint with the Commissioner on 25 June 2013, claiming, in essence, that the law and practices of the United States offer no real protection of the data kept in the United States against State surveillance. That was said to follow from the revelations made by Edward Snowden from May 2013 concerning the activities of the United States intelligence services, in particular those of the National Security Agency (‘the NSA’).

[35] Nevertheless, according to the High Court, the revelations made by Edward Snowden demonstrated a significant over-reach on the part of the NSA and other similar agencies. While the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (‘the FISC’), which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, (18) exercises supervisory jurisdiction, proceedings before that court take place in secret and are ex parte. In addition, apart from the fact that decisions relating to access to personal data are taken on the basis of United States law, citizens of the Union have no effective right to be heard on the question of the surveillance and interception of their data.

This all goes back to ‘the revelations made by Edward Snowden‘. I have forever had issues with the ‘revelations’, too many holes, too many issues that from an IT perspective are a given no no. In addition, it assumes a level of ‘openness’ within the alphabet group that does not exist. Such openness has never existed, yet the press and many others have been very willing to blindly accept the events of Edwards Snowden, yet the data was never made bare, the data is filtered and was largely ‘stamped’ as complex, as too dangerous. Yet proper analyses of the data was never made by any person that could be regarded as trustworthy. For now, to underline what comes, I will give you this quote “An intelligence operation is the process by which governments, military groups, businesses, and other organizations systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals. With such information, or intelligence, an organization can both protect itself from its adversaries and exploit its adversaries’ weaknesses“, the source is not important right now, the impact will be discussed, yet before I do this I want to continue the other elements I started.

Now consider [224] where we see “In addition, the Commission expressly acknowledged at the hearing that, under Decision 2000/520, as currently applied, there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured. However, in the Commission’s submission, that finding is not such as to render that decision invalid. While the Commission agrees with the statement that it must act when faced with new circumstances, it maintains that it has taken appropriate and proportionate measures by entering into negotiations with the United States in order to reform the safe harbour scheme“.

Now consider the following thought by transforming the quote: ‘there is no guarantee that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be ensured‘ into ‘it will be certain that the right of citizens of the Union to protection of their data will be unsuccessful‘. The issue is that moving data will open up a massive amount of dangers, data instabilities and data security hazards. Too many players within the EEC and other places all want their fingers on the data so that they can get a foothold of power. It is THAT simple in my opinion!

All these nations wanting access to data, setting up corporations, all trying to make a quick buck whilst during political manipulating, the security of our data will be available to anyone offering 39 pieces of silver. Before you start listening to people with nice PowerPoint presentations and long winded explanations with considerable non liability asterisks on how this is so not possible consider the following events (at http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/). Ashley Maddison might be the most sensual one, but also the most embarrassing. In that same light we can see 145 million records of EBay, Sony, Heartland with 130 million and that list goes on for a long time. So the last thing I want to see is our data in the hands of some ‘seemingly’ ignorant individual, whilst completely unexpectedly and totally against ‘protocol’ the data will make it into the hands of third parties. Now I go back to that other quote, which I will paraphrase: “An intelligence operation is the process by which businesses systematically collect and evaluate information for the purpose of discovering the capabilities and intentions of their rivals and exploit the weakness of its adversaries“. This is what I foresee. This is why the crying over the NSA, whilst handing over health data to parties too unprepared to properly protect that data is more than just a big farce. Now we need to look at two sources. The first is the Guardian on the 28th February 2014 (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/nhs-data-will-not-be-sold-insurance-companies-jeremy-hunt), which gives us “Health secretary to provide assurance that confidential information will not be used for commercial insurance“, now Wired three days before that reported (at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/25/insurance-companies-buy-medical-records) “Details relating to hospital admissions from 1989 to 2010 were given (for an extraction fee) to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The 13 years of data covering 47 million patients were given to the professional body to help them ‘improve accuracy in pricing’ of insurance“, yet all insurance is commercial, so as data goes, it is out there and too many players want a slice of that pie. Forcing more personal data into any open direction is beyond dangerous. That part can be constructed from http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-health-care-insurers-seek-big-premium-increases-1433206078. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is looking to raise rates by averages of 29% or more. In Pennsylvania, Highmark Health Insurance Co. is asking for 30%, according to proposals submitted by insurers for the year ahead. Around the country, some of the main market leaders are looking for double digit increases“. What do you think in all honesty will happen when they get the option to make healthcare unaffordable to all or unaffordable to some. Data will become the compromise and that danger is a lot larger when it is in the hands of ‘other’ third parties whilst the law is unable to deal with the issues at hand. The US has some strict rules in place that barring national security cannot be broken. Now we see a push towards fields where these levels of security do not stringently exist. What do you expect will happen? And healthcare is not the biggest slice of it all, just the most visible one.

In all this there are issues on both sides, yet at the core the pushed fear for governmental access is a fake and an illusionary one and it is shouted the loudest by people who have a little too much to hide. Hiding for the sake of their ego, their acts and/or the need for continue or renewed satisfaction of greed. Yes, I agree that my view is polarised to some extent, I agree that my view has flaws, but I approach it from a clinical side, whilst the others are all hiding through the shouting and claims set behind the emotions, the push to fear.

In all this I have yet to see the cold light of evidence that the alphabet group is disserving the people. The link to movies and conspiracy theories, nearly all of those claimants with their own agenda, sometimes badly hidden. Yet, in that light, is my view not too conspiracy theory set? I ask that of myself too, because without that consideration it is just a viewpoint. It will remain a viewpoint no matter what, yet consider that when you seek ‘NSA transgressions’ you find very little acceptable news events, with this I mean events that are of a decent level of report. When we look at data transgressions from other parties, that list is growing at an almost exponential rate and the size of the transgressions seems to be increasing, shifting data all over the place is not my first idea of safety.

Is it your choice?

When you decide and it goes wrong, you only have yourself to blame and as I see it, you lose all rights to complain when (not if) it goes wrong.

The next iteration of our lifestyles that what happens over the next 2 generations will all be about data and who has control over it and who gets access to it, which is not freedom.

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Tagged as Blue Cross of Illinois, Blue Shield of Illinois, EBay, Edward Snowden, EEC, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Heartland, Highmark Health Insurance Co, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Jeremy Hunt, Maximillian Schrems, Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner, NSA, Sony, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Wired

September 22, 2015 · 22:11

In Greed we trust

In greed we trust, all others are expected to die! That is the basic setting which is now ruling the internet and it all started when the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG bought the rights to generic drug Daraprim and he subsequently raised the price by 5500%. This now creates two parts. They are:

How is this legal?
How to prevent such dangerous situations?

The initial part is not found. You see, when we look at the definition of Financial Exploitation, we get: “Financial exploitation occurs when a person misuses or takes the assets of a vulnerable adult for his/her own personal benefit. This frequently occurs without the explicit knowledge or consent of a senior or disabled adult, depriving him/her of vital financial resources for his/her personal needs” (source: National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA)). Most forms of protection against exploitation is against what people own. One of the most famous cases in Australia is Commercial Bank of Australia v Amadio (1983) 151 CLR 447; [1983] HCA 14. Yet, the law regarding exploitation of something that is not owned is not clear, in certain places we see that in the Generics and Biosimilars Initiative Journal (GaBI Journal). 2012;1(3-4):146-9. The title of the PPRI conference reports gives us this with ‘The potential of generics policies: more room for exploitation’. The tactic is quite sound, if the price of normal medication cannot be lowered, than raising the price of generics is a sound strategy from the view of the greedy. The paper also gives us “Mr Richard Bergstrom, President of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations stated that ‘once patents expire, prices should fall to a low, but sustainable, level’. In this panel discussion but also throughout the conference there appeared to be a common understanding that generics competition works well”. This was a view stated almost 3 years ago, which is true. However, the solutions that are addressed to a 2% or even 1% market does not seem to have too many alternatives, this is where the solutions like Daraprim and Cycloserine seem to come into play. The older small solutions that have no equal because the need is too small, now a massive option for larger profits.

When we look at Bloomberg on August 6^th, we get: “Allergan Plc’s Actavis unit got a subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department seeking information on the marketing and prices of its generic drugs, becoming the biggest company yet to draw scrutiny in the government’s widening antitrust probe of the industry. The June 25 subpoena also sought information about communications with competitors regarding the products, Allergan said Thursday in a filing. While the company didn’t supply further information and didn’t specify the competitors, rivals including Lannett Co., Endo International Plc, Par Pharmaceutical Holdings Inc. and Impax Laboratories Inc. have made similar disclosures in the past several months“, as well as “Some 10 percent of generic drugs doubled in price between July 2013 and June 2014, and half of all generic drugs rose in price, according to an analysis earlier this year of Centres for Medicare and Medicaid data cited by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who’s running for president, and Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland”

So as we see these events, why did Martin Shkreli make this move? An entrepreneur of his achievements does not play around. What is his game?

The ‘defence’ we see from the other side is “Shkreli said: “We need to turn a profit on the drug.” He defended the decision by telling Bloomberg News that newer versions of the drug needed to be developed and his was the first company “to really focus on this product” for decades and that such research was extremely expensive“. This goes against the statement he later makes, which was “He also promised that: “If you cannot afford the drug we will give it away for free.” Shkreli also said the drug was currently under priced” (source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/21/entrepreneur-defends-raise-price-daraprim-drug).

Now we have an issue with all this. Is this about the medication, or is this a first step to bleed dry health systems?

For this we must show one additional quote. It is “Shkreli’s start-up company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired Daraprim in August. The drug was first developed in the 1940s and is used to treat toxoplasmosis, an infection that is not common but is particularly dangerous and can be fatal“. The question in my mind is how this existing drug is any form of treatment against the complications of AIDS? A drug that is over 60 years old, which is suddenly the foundation towards a cure? What are we not seeing? Well, that part is shown by CNBC (at http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/21/drug-prices-big-price-increase-for-daraprim-rescinded.html). Here we see that this is the second act. The first one was “Cycloserine was acquired last month by Rodelis Therapeutics, which promptly raised the price to $10,800 for 30 capsules, from $500. But the company agreed to return the drug to its former owner, a non-profit organization affiliated with Purdue University, the organization said on Monday“, after which the price ‘stabilised’ at twice the original price. So is this about a changing approach to the increase of generic medication by 100%-300% in the end? In addition, the other CNBC quote is “However, outrage over a gigantic price increase for another drug spread into the political sphere on Monday, causing biotechnology stocks to fall broadly as investors worried about possible government action to control pharmaceutical prices. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell more than 4 percent“, now this is all starting to make sense. A hedge funds manager playing the market and playing the waves of market exploitation. This is not unheard of, more important, for the most, we could argue that no illegal acts were undertaken. The Guardian stated “It is not uncommon for companies to use inventive interpretations of government regulations and loopholes in the law to corner the market for certain drugs, especially ones that were developed a long time ago and have only a limited market“, which is true, but when we considered the additional event that the Guardian ignored, give us cause for concern. I am not stating that the Guardian is trying to misinform its readers, their conclusion on one case is sound. Yet, when we see the addition that came from CNBC regarding Rodelis Therapeutics, we see another side. Here we see a side of market exploitation and Market manipulation, as far as I can tell at present in a very legal way. That we see from “Mr. Hasler said the new price was needed to stem losses”. Really? So is this about feigned losses, or is this one of many steps where drugs that treat smaller populations to grow 100%-300% in price to assure a market niche that most NHS systems (US, EEC and Commonwealth nations) are unable to fight. In this way on an international level the respected NHS versions will be placed under additional pressure. As I see it, Martin Shkreli has started Turing Pharmaceuticals AG to dig into this very profitable branch. In addition, for something this expensive, how come those rights transferred for only 55 million?

It seems to me that parts in all this remains unstated. Why?

Now in this part I am not having a go at journalists as in the past. For one, this is an evolving story, in the second part there are a few sides to all this. For one, I am speculating in what the game is here (speculating is not now, nor should it ever be regarded as factual). In addition there are sides that have not played yet. One of these sides is the law. As I personally see it, certain entrepreneurs, wealthy or not are now trying to corner the 2% treatment solutions, perhaps even the one percent group. Consider how this affects the UK. Let’s use the UK statistics. When we consider 240 million patients a year. If 2.4 million people require a drug and if that price suddenly goes up from $500 to $1000 (the Cycloserine example). This is only in the UK. Which gives them an additional 1.2 billion and this is only ONE nation, now consider the effect on the EEC as well as the US and the other Commonwealth nations, now the money becomes really handsome. Even at 0.1% it is a massive influx of money and for now all very legal. I have full faith that the law will be adjusted, yet we will see that it will be adjusted too late and some of these fast moving rascals will have made a massive additional amount of money, which is not an illegal act by the way.

This whilst I am still slaving over my issues of Infringement. That and a massive student loan will not propel me whilst some dubious hedge funds individual walks away with billions. A clever mind is half the battle!

So as this event escalates, the UK will have a new problem, because as is, the prospect stated ‘Planned NHS expenditure for 2015/16 is £116.574bn‘ is possible off by no less than 10%, the generic pharma side is only one side. I wonder what happens when these ‘entrepreneurs’ acquire the service contracts of hospitals at large, what happens when the MRI contracts are sold off to third parties? What happens when those prices go up? This is a path that Stadium Group CEO Charlie Peppiatt seems to be walking towards in a very successful way. As one third of the planet goes into ‘one foot in the grave mode’ that population will require a massive amount of support in medical terms (until they move towards their respective casket or urn). There is one side that is an issue for the other players. As I see it Martin Shkreli might be the most visible one but as I see it not the brightest (massively richer than me though), in one bash he has given visibility to a move that many wanted to keep under wraps, because out of sight, out of mind and that would have resulted in profits (loads of it). The visibility forced on the eyes of many might now result in NHS safety valves that could stop the forced squandering of funds. I wonder if my view is correct and more important will proper steps be taken sooner rather than later.

I’ll let you decide.

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September 13, 2015 · 22:40

The choice of a new religion

The Guardian had an interesting article yesterday by none other than Alex Hern. He and I look towards the gaming world in very different ways, it does not make him wrong and it does not make my view right. We have at times different views on things. That is the wonderful world of gaming, it is one of the few fields where the approach to any solution tends to be almost artistic, many views, none the same can still warrant true correctness or success. In ‘Apple wants the Apple TV to be a games console. But can it be trusted?‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/12/apple-tv-games-console-can-it-be-trusted), which is a very true piece. The subtitle states ‘Apple would like to see its new set-top box become the next Nintendo Wii. But it’s questionable whether the company really understands gaming‘, which is as true as it gets. I have been ‘connected’ to Apple systems in one way or another since 1990. One thing from the very start is that the Apple systems were always ahead in many ways, even in artistic ways, yet true gaming was never supported to the extent it should have been. One of my very first freelance jobs was to take a look at ‘Balance of Power’ (by Mindscape), I ended up checking it on the Mac as well as the Amiga. Another one was Shadowgate by the same makers. Even though these games were always worshipped, but on the Mac they seemed to be on the side, accepted as in existence, but never truly part of the ‘Apple’ environment accepted. It is hard to get it into words. You would have had to be there to understand it.

The quote “The problem is that games are treated as just another type of app by the company – albeit a very profitable type. The games store, for instance, is organised in exactly the same way as the rest of the app store, with prominence given to a few select apps and then three charts of top-selling paid games, most-downloaded free games, and “top grossing games”“, helps here. It is like a bunch of economists see games in the spreadsheet as deep green and those economists really like deep green (as in profit). Yet games is a lot more than numbers (something Ubisoft has an issue with too). To see Apple people look at games and advice their users on is like going to your accountant for sex guidance. That person gets off on spreadsheets and a balance books, for many people not the orgasmic solutions to embrace. Yet there is also a side where I have to disagree on.

Part one is “Similarly, in the newly-released guidelines for Apple TV apps, the company reveals that “the maximum size of an Apple TV app is limited to 200MB”, with no persistent local storage. In other words, apps must be lean, and they must download everything they show from the cloud“, part two is “The top-tier consoles right now ship their games on Blu-ray discs, which store at least 25GB and can rise to 128GB per disc (twice the total storage of the highest-capacity Apple TV“. Now, Alex speaks the truth and he is 100% correct. My issue is that quote 2 implies (he never really states it anything in that way) that size makes the game, that is wrong. Still there is a truth here. 200Mb is nowhere near enough for any decent game. If we look at previous games, like Metroid Prime on the GameCube, that game exceeds the 200Mb. Many games from the PC could get close to the 200Mb, but will in all likelihood exceed that part.

In addition, the statement “In other words, apps must be lean, and they must download everything they show from the cloud“, which now implies that we are all dependent on quality connection. A property that is even debatable in parts of Western Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. For Apple it must be good to know that at least Scandinavia and its 18 million people will see the bulk of Apple TV gaming. The second issue is “Unlike PC games, consoles have always been fairly locked down by the platform manufacturers. In a way, it’s “no sex, no drugs, only rock and roll” attitude is merely replicating the same approach that Nintendo has emphasised for years in its efforts to keep its games consoles family friendly“. Now I am all for family friendly games, yet some people want more than Mario Kart. Some want to play the master Sergeant (HALO). Some want to be in the wasteland (Fallout) or they want to sneak their ways around a city (Thief). Many of these games would never be allowed, with a massive portion of the gamers being 21+, they end up being nothing more than a nuisance to Nintendo and without a massive arsenal of IP that will not happen any day soon.

It is the final quote that is concern as well as the source of howl of deriving laughter “But its success as a games console would be handing yet more control of the medium to a company which fundamentally looks down on games and gaming. And that should concern anyone who likes to play“, wasting this level of resources on a system with no expertise on quality gaming will put a dent in the Apple coffers, in addition, once rejected by gamers, those at the helm will be forced to take a harsh look at their choices and their considerations. It seems that so far in new gaming only Elite Dangerous made it. If the iMac 5K would have one additional hardware update. If they had something in equal or exceeding the Radeon R9 295X2, the system would become something to behold, not just with Elite Dangerous, but in addition with games like No Man’s Sky (if it ever gets here). The iMac would be an option, the Apple TV is clearly not that option, beyond Minecraft there is not a lot that plays on the Apple TV. So do I disagree with Alex?

Actually no! When we consider his quote “Despite my concerns, there is the chance that the Apple TV could be good for gaming“, it connects to my thoughts that good gaming is not about the size (well not completely). Consider that some of the games that were a massive success on the Commodore 64, the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST can still be the games in the new generation systems like the Apple TV. The games by Sid Meier, games like seven cities of gold, some of the legends like Lemmings, Dune 2 (Command and Conquer), pretty much most of the games Peter Molyneux made (including Dungeon keeper), there are loads of other games. The opposite is also true, now we can get a pirates game Sid Meier could never offer when he did because technology stopped him. In equal measure quality gaming has dwindled as there are no limitations, so that game designers are no longer trying to squeeze the maximum out of a console. Tomb Raider is an example here. When we consider that Apple TV could get a market, whilst the hard core end games on consoles and PC remains, I state ‘Yes’, that is a definite option. Yet Alex does illustrate a side of Apple that the foundation of Apple should be ‘concerned’ with. “If you want to criticise a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical App. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store”, in all fairness there should be space for that approach, but it will hinder your business. You see, the guidelines at 15.1 state “Apps portraying realistic images of people or animals being killed or maimed, shot, stabbed, tortured or injured will be rejected“, which is nice but that pretty much sums up almost every game ever made, including New Zealand Story, where the little Kiwi loses health when he touches a spike. 15.3 makes any WW2 game a non-starter, unless Apple insists that Nazi Germany was never a real government where my response becomes: ‘good luck with that one!’

So, even though we can accept that guidelines are needed to keep certain groups (read children) free to wander on the app store selecting games. I get that, but as I stated before, it limits the Apple TV to the realm of Nintendo who already has a massive grip on its user base through several means, why would Apple TV wander in that field? It almost reads like Apple wants to add to the foundation of a failed system. The idea that was a write off in 2007, regarding a big fat fail in 2010, suddenly got the title ‘How Apple’s biggest failure could be one of its greatest accomplishments‘ in 2014 (at http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/saving-apple-tv-think-different/) we see: “Apple has a chance here to beat its competitors to the punch, first and foremost, by making sure that you can play every significant type of video file type that Apple TV doesn’t offer now. This will broaden the range of apps the device can support, and ensure they never have an issue like they did with Hulu again. They would also be wise to create a browser for the device, and to let users access its hard drive“, which is true, yet the article reads like a marketing approach to ‘new’ options for Apple TV and now a year later we see the games ploy. Is it truly about that, or is there a fear within Apple that they are being passed by, passed by those who had a clear goal and by growing in any direction they get to hold onto non-write-off a little longer.

I will let you decide on the parts that are a given, but are they truly a given? I must warn my own view that it is tainted and also clouded. There is a view that comes from true gaming and as such Apple TV does not add up to much, yet what is small can grow and as I stated, let true innovation grow through limitations. It gave us true pearls on three generations of consoles, innovations that seem to be missing in NextGen. Yes, there is still innovation, but not to the extent there was in the past. The idea that Apple starts it up again is partially pleasing. Pleasing because that is the one part that have been downplayed by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to the larger extent, if you doubt that, then look at how many independent productions made it to consoles in the past. The fact that this year is a lot more about independents is not a given, it is a fab and no guarantee exists that independents will make it through in 2016 and 2017.

That is the part where Apple could grow, you see I personally believe that the next 12 years will be all about the small innovators. As larger players have become vultures, eating the small ones and carrion eaters as they devour their brands in the insane vision that growth comes from interactive innovation, large jumps are ignored. You only need to see the success of Markus the Notch and Minecraft to see that I am right. Will Sean Murray be the next one to show this? David Braben is on the right track to do so too and they are not alone. Even though Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is not likely to be the success others are becoming, the truth is that this game is innovative. Even though in respect to my Tomb Raider view that 10 hours of game play is not acceptable, it would be equally unacceptable to see a 6 hour story as a good thing (source: YouTube). Yet, it is a story and the challenge as such is too small. You only need to look back at the game Portal (by Rob Swigart) to see something a lot larger, even though not in an open world environment, the result as well as the story was truly unique. That does not make the game a failure or inferior, yet the truth remains that the challenge needs an upgrade. Too small, yet remains a true innovation compared what is out there. In all this my own perception is an issue for discussion too. Where is it a given that a 10 hour game is insufficient? I base it on past play and play that some games give, as such 10 hours of gaming just doesn’t hack it neither does 6 hours. Yet all this started with a new religion, one of gaming. not the worship of a controller, or the divination of a system, but the choice of what we believe is to be an open direction, a choice of innovation, because without innovation gaming seizes to survive and we get iteration of a given, in the artsy world gaming exists in, that part can never be allowed to remain in iteration. This is one of the core reasons why the iteration of Assassins Creed, the iteration of Lara Croft the raider of Tombs and Call of Duty will simmer down, will cease to be the cash cows they once were.

The future is all about true innovation in gaming, in that Apple TV could have a space if it opens the doors to independent developers. When we consider the iPad, it has had a nice collection of games and some are truly innovative, in all that IOS has a place and the Apple TV could bring it to the big screen (and I do mean on your TV). In the final part, I agree with Alex for the most, except for the part “a company which fundamentally looks down on games and gaming“. I am not certain it does. It seems to have an approach not unlike Nintendo. Do we look down on them? The question does remain when we see gaming as a religion. It could be the one religion that should be without a bible, which is fair enough, but what about the 10 commandments? Should we not consider some guidelines? Personally I state no, but then again, I started in a world where gaming was born, where it evolved. In all this gaming can evolve within any limited system (consider the 16KB VIC-20), as such any system can bring the joy of gaming, we only need to consider where we take gaming. Nintendo took a direction, there is nothing stopping from Apple taking it in the same direction. In my mind, it should be now and forever about innovation, because that is what draws us to a new game. Consider how Elemental Kingdoms took the concept of CCG and gave it a digital evolution, that is just one of many options, I hope many that are yet unemployed and it awaits the next visionary to create that path.

Who? That is up to the developer that dares to dream and make it reality.

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Tagged as Alex Hern, Apple TV, Call of Duty, Command and Conquer, David Braben, Dune 2, Dungeon Keeper, Elemental Kingdoms, Elite: Dangerous, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, IOS, iPad, Lara Croft, Lemmings, New Zealand Story, Nintendo, No man's sky, Peter Molyneux, Portal, Rob Swigart, Sean Murray, the Guardian, Tomb Raider

August 11, 2015 · 23:25

About the child

This all started innocently enough. Here I was, reading on the facts for an exam next week and suddenly, during my break the news on David Beckham passes by. Now, personally I do not care about him (no offense intended). He is a soccer player, and I am not much of a soccer fan, so I was about to click next when the title hit me ‘‘No right to criticise’: David Beckham hits back at Daily Mail coverage’, which is funny on two parts, the first that someone gives any consideration to the Daily Mail is funny enough, especially when ‘Still in the honeymoon phase! Michelle Keegan flaunts her long legs in stripy mini-dress as she goes hand-in-hand with husband Mark Wright in LA‘ is considered headline news. The second reason is that this is about a child (yes, a small non-grown up individual) using a dummy.

And the by-line is ‘Experts warn David and Victoria Beckham’s little girl….‘, giving plenty of hilarious consideration as the ‘expert’ either knows all the facts (as a consultant of the parent) and as such he/she has broken all kinds of ethical standards, or the person (in the article named as Clare Byam-Cook) is not entirely aware of the massive lack of data she should have before speaking. Consider the Facts (at http://www.contentedbaby.com/team-Clare-Byam-Cook.htm), she is 49, she is a qualified nurse and ‘retired’ from being a midwife in 1985, which is 30 (yes THIRTY) years ago, so 49-30 is? She retired from being a midwife at the age of 19! Can anyone explain her ‘expertise’ to me? If she retired in 2015, there would be expertise, but that is not the case according to the facts. In addition, it seems to me that she could not have all the facts, so why the warning?

I know life in the NHS is hard, but if you can afford to retire at 19, she must have done something (not sure what).

So what is going on?

Well, for that we need to take a look at the Instagram of David Beckham. Here he states: “Why do people feel they have the right to criticize a parent about their own children without having any facts?? Everybody who has children knows that when they aren’t feeling well or have a fever you do what comforts them best and most of the time it’s a pacifier so those who criticize think twice about what you say about other people’s children because actually you have no right to criticize me as a parent“.

Well, I do not have kids, so I would not know, but I was a kid once and when we feel truly bad we tend to become nightmares and as I see it, the little princess got something from daddy that made her feel a little better, so what is the issue? And it seems to me that an instance is not a pattern, an event is not an overwhelming ‘danger’ to the speech of anyone. Yet the Daily Mail needs to get another page with David Beckham on it and as they tend to be clueless on the best of days, this would constitute some level of Journalism. So let’s take another look.

“After about three months, most babies should not need a comforter” is a quote here. Really? If I remember correctly babies start teething at 6 months and I believe that parents will really lose sleep without the pacifier (not Vin Diesel, but that sucking toy). I took a sidestep towards ‘Parenting and Children’s health‘ (at http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=122&id=1736#8), where I found “Children need the comforter most between about 1 and 3 years of age, before they have learned to feel safe when their parent is not there“. There is a lot more interesting stuff there, but this one applies really nicely, because it applies to Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere and key owner of the Daily Mail! You see, this child is under constant barrage of paparazzi’s and Journo’s (or people calling themselves that) and as such children feel distress, so lacing your paper with recriminations on ‘what a child needs‘ whilst your own media engine could be instrumental in causing distress is like ‘the hack calling the advice of the quack’ (there was a reference to pot, kettle and colour, but I forgot the specifics, all semantics anyway).

So, instead of digging into anything truly newsworthy, we get more invasion of the Beckham’s. Can’t they get a relaxed day with their little one?

Which gets me to me! Why am I picking this up? Well apart from the Guardian siding ever so slightly with David B. We see this quote “Beckham’s Instagram post had been liked more than 404,000 times by Monday evening and attracted more than 12,000 comments, including a large degree of support for his stance” giving us the goods on support, but no one looked at the ‘retired’ midwife herself. She remains casually quoted. I have a partial issue with that, especially after finding more than one ‘health’ source opposing her view.

I do keep a cautious stance regarding some of the health sites, mainly because I have no medical training and I am also not a parent (I am on the other hand one hell of a Medici).

Yet, if I can find these elements so easily, why can’t the Daily Mail do any actual reporting? You see, when we consider “News reports are found in newspapers and their purpose is to inform readers of what is happening in the world around them” we can contemplate that a page was ‘wasted’ on the use of a dummy (read pacifier). Whilst the article is opposed by the health site as it states “As the child gets older and she is able to feel more secure inside herself, she will need the comforter less and it will gradually fall into disuse. It is important for the child to have control over this“, countering more than one statement in the article. In addition there is “If a child still clings to the comforter by school age, it is important to ask what it is that is making the child worried, rather than to take the comforter away“, countering more statements the article makes. Finally there is “It is best for children if they can give up their comforter when they are ready, not when other people think they should“, which takes the cake against statements like “The NHS Choices website recommends parents ‘should avoid using dummies after 12 months of age’ to prevent speech development problems“, I cannot judge this, but several sources have no issues with a dummy being used until she is three, debunking the bulk of all claims. In addition, children do not get permanent teeth until they are 6, until that time they have baby teeth (or milk teeth).

So, as a non-parent, I was able to debunk most of the article, which now just reads like a bad piece of a paper having a go at the Beckham’s. Yet, there is a light in all this, you see, all the information I saw from several sources leave the clear indication “Children use comforters most when they are worried, or afraid, or tired“, if we can prove stress, than it is in view of the court to make it clear that paparazzi and press are a danger to the mental health of a child, which means that no less than 100 meters distance from the child should be kept (which is for a judge to decide). Wouldn’t it be nice that the kids of Beckham will enter an age of privacy only because the Daily Mail ignored basic Journalism?

It’s almost Wednesday! What a lovely day it could be!

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Filed under Law, Media

Tagged as Clare Byam-Cook, Daily Mail, David Beckham, Jonathan Harmsworth, Mark Wright, Medici, Michelle Keegan, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, Victoria Beckham, Viscount Rothermere

July 24, 2015 · 10:30

The wrong presentation

The BBC treated its readers half an hour ago to a segment where the title tells all and says nothing (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33646704), the title ‘Obama urges UK to stay in the European Union‘, we then get a few quotes that matter, even if they give clear voice to another direction. First there is “UK’s EU membership “gives us much greater confidence about the strength of the transatlantic union”“, then we get “the EU “made the world safer and more prosperous”” and it is followed by “the failure to pass “common sense gun safety laws” in the US was his biggest frustration“, which is nice to hear but to some extent pointless.

I wonder how he gets all these thoughts. Perhaps as I speculated in ‘Diary for a wimpy President‘ which I wrote in January 2014 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/01/18/diary-for-a-wimpy-president/), there I wrote “Did anyone consider how nervous certain people in Wall Street were; if their mobile information was known? What if certain links were proven? The accountability of certain people would mean that they could actually end up in jail. Yes, the Wimpy kid in the Oval Office is making certain that certain connections will never end up there (always blame the man at the very top)“, which is a reference not just to the president, but to his advisors, those who are behind the curtain giving voice to what keeps the high and mighty, high and mighty.

So let’s take a look at the quote “UK’s EU membership gives us much greater confidence about the strength of the transatlantic union“. I would oppose that thought, you see, the US requires the EU to remain in disarray, on the edge, because a better EU means a worse US and it should have tipped over the edge two years ago, this continuation can only remain as Germany and the UK are dragged down, if it was truly just about confidence, the US would have stepped forward regarding Greece 6 months ago, but they waited it out, only as Greece was about to get expelled did the President speak up, because a collapsing Euro means a collapsed dollar. I am not contradicting myself here, there is a difference between a collapsing Euro and a weak EU, it is a tightrope game which is partially enabled by the power players of what we would regard the ‘Wall Street gang’, because if the Euro goes, so does their combined 7 trillion dollar life. Now as we consider Greece again when we see the Quote in the Guardian Live “IOBE now fears that the economy will shrink by between 2% and 2.5% in 2015, due to the damage caused to exports, tourism, business investment and consumer spending“, now compare that to the issue I raised in ‘If at first you don’t succeed!‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/06/13/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed/), so just in one month, we went from the revelation “the forecast of Greece is 0.5% in 2015 and 2.9% in 2016, I wonder how they got to it all and if such misrepresentation should not be a cause for liability?” to what we have now. Can anyone explain how a forecast has been off by 3%, the danger to tourism was already known, so as we have to go through iteration of managed bad news, we see that there is too much ‘miscommunication’. So reader, realise this part, even with the bulk of the fact known, the forecast was wrong not by 0.3% (which could happen in really bad predicted turmoil), the forecast is off by 3%, which is a massive failing. So, as we get pushed around and as Greece goes from minus 400 billion to minus 550 billion, how could any of the so far surviving members of the EU consider remaining in something that is dragging them all down?

The UK has a few massive problems and the EU is stopping the UK from dealing with them, all this is fine for the US as it needs to stop themselves from drowning, the issues in Japan are just accelerators to all of this. And the words chosen are they not interesting too? Instead of the European Economic Union, he refers to ‘the strength of the transatlantic union‘, is that perhaps an underlying NATO reference?

Now we get to the second part “the EU “made the world safer and more prosperous”“, which is a non-truth, the fact that the EU is now well over 7 trillion in debt counters the statement of safe and prosperous, the fact that only a few got out with loads of cash implies to me that the President is catering to those few, not the 25% unemployed in Spain or in Greece, neither does he take notice trough that statement to the massively rise of people below the poverty line, but perhaps for economic tainted America they do not count, hence they are ignored.

So now we get to the last statement where the president seems to get into emotional mode and refers to “common sense gun safety laws“, yes, that sounds nice, but again, guns do not kill people, people kill people. To illustrate, the latest event gives us three quotes “Dylann Roof, the man accused of a shooting spree that left nine people dead at a historic black church in Charleston on Wednesday night, should not have been able to get a gun“, “Roof was arrested and later charged with felony possession of Suboxone” and “According to his uncle, Roof received a .45-caliber pistol from his father in April for his birthday“, so common sense went out the window, because ‘moronic daddy’ bought his junkie son a gun!

In all this there is one possible upside, with the US president making blundering whoppers like that (decently possibly due to the advisors he has), there is every chance that the coming election will give the next presidency to the Republicans, in all this, they might win by default, because what will shine is that the President waisted so much time on common gun laws that he ignored (read: did not correctly change the power of) the number one killer, which is a 18 trillion dollar debt, a budget that is non-existent and absolutely no control on the government spending.

A mere travesty of the situation when we look at the given reasons to keep the UK in the EU. In the end the people will choose what is best for them and as such merry old England will raise its voice giving direction to parliament, as it should be, that is why the power players are so afraid of monarchies, because the monarchy considers all citizens, not just those with an economic value. In all that, I wonder how he will consider France, because the UK is not the only one who has had enough of all this.

So as I see it, a pleading President came with the wrong presentation, he should take a look at his advisors and the agenda’s that they have, because as I see it, at present his last 18 months seem to be about what cannot be done and who comes next, his current track could invite the event that he gets a beautiful bouquet of flowers as he exits the White House with a thank you note from the GOP, which could be a first in US politics.

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Tagged as Barack Obama, BBC, Charleston, Democrats, Diary for a wimpy President, Dylann Roof, EEC, Eu, France, GOP, Greece, Guardian Live, If at first you don’t succeed!, President Obama, presidential elections, Republicans, Suboxone, the Guardian, Wall Street

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