Tag Archives: the Guardian

June 29, 2014 · 11:05

What’s in a health system?

Another day, another view on the failings of an NHS system in the UK is presented through the newspapers. The interesting part is not that we read it or that we know about it, for the most it seems to be about a level of blind acceptance that the NHS system might soon be no more. We see more discussions (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/28/cameron-warned-nhs-in-danger-of-collapse). One quote is “the NHS needed an extra £15bn from the Treasury over the next five years ‘if you don’t want the system to collapse during the course of the next parliament’“. Now, that comes down to an additional 220 pounds for every person in the UK. The additional quote “The grim analysis is backed by some of the country’s top health experts“, Really? Is that the actual solution? Perhaps the UK has the ‘wrong’ experts in the field. First we see a 10 billion pound IT system that never works, then we get another failed infusion of 3 billion pounds. Could the issue perhaps be that throwing money at it is no longer a solution? In addition, in a greying economy, healthcare will be the most important thing over the next 10-15 years, so perhaps sitting down and designing a completely new NHS, then seeing how the old system could be migrated might be a much better idea (especially as the other ideas are not working).

“The quality of patient care will be compromised by not having enough doctors and nurses on the wards and in surgeries and clinics. The well-publicised failures of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation were caused by precisely this kind of cost cutting, with tragic consequences for the families concerned.” Is a quote that is in the article and I have a few issues with it. First of all, let’s take a look at the issue (at http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/28/mid-staffordshire-nhs-trust-fined-gillian-astbury), it is without any doubt a terrible event for the family. The quote “Mistakes were made as her ward underwent as many as eight shift changes and 11 drugs rounds per day. The system for handovers, when nurses arriving for the next shift should be informed of the needs of the patients, was ’inconsistent and sometimes non-existent’, the trust admitted.” So we can agree that there was a shortage, the point is, was it avoidable? This is where the issue starts. Throwing more money at it is NOT a solution, having 1 nurse per 5 patients is also a non-workable solution. The more people go into all this, the more time we see spend on handovers, with two sets of nurses getting/giving updates, not to mention the absolute fortune this setup will cost. I found the following (at http://straightstatistics.org/article/alcohol-related-hospital-admissions-set-tumble), it is about ‘Alcohol-related hospital admissions‘, the quote “If we limit the numbers to admissions wholly attributable to alcohol, the numbers have risen from 45,000 to 68,500, an increase of 52.2 per cent“. Really? Is that what doctors and nurses spend their time on? How about we change the approach to alcohol (and drugs for that matter) and take a page from the quotes of Ebenezer Scrooge “‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”

It seems harsh doesn’t it? Does it? Now consider the possibility that Gillian Astbury aged 66, might be alive if something is actually dome about the alcohol cases. We see a little more clarity (at http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Resources/Documents/s/ss/SSPCTAlcoholneedsassessmentforStaffscountyJan08.pdf), where we find the quote “Trend data published by the West Midlands Public Health Observatory for selected alcohol admissions show that between 1999/00 and 2004/05 there was an increase in hospital admission rates by 40% for men and 30% for women across Staffordshire County“.

How about actually change people? So let’s do the following, a drunk in need is no longer given medical aid. If some youngling wants to be heroic and binge drink himself into a coma, then let his body fight it off in some cage (of course if they have money for private care, then that will be OK). If the body is unsuccessful, it will die. Plain and simple! We will call their mother telling them they should have raised them better and the case is closed. Consider the benefit of lower costs to the NHS, unemployment numbers will go down and we might even see an increase in rental options.

I know this is not a pretty picture, but these so called health experts need to see that the current course is no longer an option. We could do the same for the drug addicted population and get an even healthier commonwealth. The issue is not just the approach of certain people; it is the entire look that non-action gives all. Consider the PDF I added the linked to, in Table 9 (on page 26), we see a changed trend of 272%. So, almost three times as many go for the bottle in a group? The fact that this is not dealt with is a plain joke, especially as the NHS gets to clean up that mess in addition to dealing with the ‘actual‘ sick. There are alternatives! One is that all alcoholic beverages are raised by 23% taxation, which all goes to the NHS, which seems unfair to the population that can actually temper their alcohol use. The UK could instigate a Swedish approach to alcohol (also expensive), but you can only get hard liquor on an identity card, which gets registered and you cannot buy more than 2 bottles a month. Or we let the alcohol abusers die. You see, we can go in all directions, but most people, weak as they are, are unable to make the hard decisions and will force a situation where more money is given. This is fair enough, but then we add taxation, including to the lowest income bracket, to get more money for the NHS. Now, these same experts will tell you that this is not a solution either.

There is no choice; hard options will have to be selected in one way or another. It seems that steering clear of some zero tolerance options have been ignored for too long and those who are actually trying to get healthy so that they can contribute to family and society are dying, like Gillian Astbury. This part is however not shown to such a degree by the journalists at large. There is one more table to consider in that PDF. In table 19 we see that the total of the alcohol misusers cause a massive £1,701,900,000 to the UK health economy. So if we need cut backs, then here is one point seven billion in savings. Mr Prime minister! (I think I just earned my knighthood and a small cottage in saffron Walden) I think that the total savings in damages that these drinkers are causing is considerable larger than just to the health economy.

I am all for a better NHS, I am all for giving doctors and nurses a better tomorrow and if just throwing money at it would make that difference, then I would be all in favour of it, but there is almost 10 years of data disproving that, we see an NHS system that is rattled by big business (pharmacy and IT for example) and politicians and the approach as it is at present can no longer be maintained. Perhaps we need to make additional changes to the patients as well. The healthcare is all about keeping track of data and details, what if the patient becomes the data carrier? What if the nurse has a tablet with details and patient numbers, which is transferred to the new nurse and as they go over it, they can verify with the patient chip? When I go into ANY hospital, I see a multitude of papers, folders and more papers and people entering reports in computers and then printing it all. What if we take the next generation in solutions and take away 30% of that workload?

When people ask which company will do this, the answer should be ‘None!’. The UK is filled with universities, some of them regarded as the most prestigious and brightest on the planet. Consider that most IT people, might claim experience, yet their drama skills are the only ones that improved for the most, is it not up to the Universities, those who are introduced to the newest ideas, design a solution that would make the work of the doctors and nurses at the NHS better, slightly more efficient and a truckload of less hassle! Is that such a tall order?

We will get to the solutions if we are willing to navigate other options. We have seen that the current path is not a success; new methods might not be a failure. It is a road that politicians should be willing to go, if only to make sure that a possible solution was not overlooked.

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Tagged as David Cameron, doctors and nurses, Gillian Astbury, health, Mid Staffordshire, NHS, Saffron Walden, straightstatistics.org, Sweden, the Guardian, UK

June 25, 2014 · 10:19

View to the North

It is again the guardian that calls my attention to events happening (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/22/independent-scotland-startup-costs-200million). It is important to know that I have nothing against Scotland becoming independent. I think that the timing is not great as we are in a massive economic downturn, but the Scots will correctly ask when would be the right moment? Anyway, as this independence is becoming more and more of a reality, we all need to look at what happens after.

The Scots have a few advantages. As the Scots seem to be members of a conservative party with its motto “Let’s not trust a computer farther then we can throw it“, we are set with the positive part that not trusting computers is not at all bad (Yes, as an IT person I am stating this). The downside is that the average Scot can throw a log really far, so tossing a computer might not be such a challenge after all. The issue is in the headline of the article. “Independent Scotland’s start-up costs ‘could be as little as £200m’” and “Leading academic says that could cover duplicating core Westminster functions, but millions would be needed to build necessary IT systems“. I have an issue here. There is an underestimation of requirements here. Yes, overall the costs might seem low, but when Scotland realises that the costs go beyond initial costs and they get to deal with infrastructures, at this point the costs will not be contained that easily.

Why do I care?

Caring is not the best word here. I think that in this case it is more that I like to see goals succeed, even if I do not completely agree with them. Only a real loser is trying to do what they can to make others fail, making others fail is fair when you are at war and we are not at war with the Scots, or with Scotland. The fact that about 3-4 generations ago, my family was from Perthshire (as far as I could tell) does not work in either direction either.

The other quote is “the final tally would be decided in a ‘poker game’ of post-referendum negotiations, according to the leading economics professor who last month criticised the UK government for inflating his figures on the subject“. Since when would anyone decide certain matters in a poker game, is also beyond me. Becoming independent is either tactical or on principle and one should not gamble on the Achilles heel that the people could create in this manner. In that same matter I am not sure if I can agree with the setting that this professor sets. The reference is towards Professor Patrick Dunleavy at the London School of Economics. A person who very likely knows more than 10 times more about economics then I ever will, even if I started to study economics full time at this point.

As stated, I have issues. Scotland will need an infrastructure, services and other matters. Several Scotland, as part of the UK already has and I think they should just be given them, yet Scotland will now need a proper economical system and set up. A national bank, a defence structure and these things all cost money, often a lot more than most imagine. There is however the ‘other’ side. The quote “In May, the Treasury published a detailed analysis of the financial risks of independence which claimed that a previous report by Dunleavy put Scotland’s start-up costs as high as £2.5bn” feels equally overstated. In my view the truth is in the middle and leaning to the cheaper side. In my untrained mind the costs are well over 500 million, but remain steadily under 700 million. This all makes me wonder why the numbers of the treasury are so far off as well (remember, me is a non-economic).

It is this quote that gives a few insides into the views that are shaping within me “In a leaked Scottish cabinet memo, the finance secretary, John Swinney, estimated the costs of a new Scottish tax authority alone at £650m. The Institute of Chartered Accounts Scotland had put those costs at £750m, while other experts suggested a new welfare system would cost £560m“. Is this about independence, or is this about certain people getting ‘their’ greedy fingers in the Haggis called ‘the Scottish economy‘. This is the part I do partially get. We all seem to forget that Scotland represents an economic power in the books of someone, when that falls away into independence, some people will not feel too comfortable and they are all looking for keeping themselves involved.

My question becomes, what can be done and does not cost?

In the age of computers and millisecond decision, I at this time remember my old dentist. He was a Dutch dentist called ‘van Charante’. In the age of computers, this man had the most advanced filing system I ever saw. He had used folders and colour indicators that opening his drawer showed a multidimensional top line table in colours. He saw in seconds something half a dozen tables produced in any analytical system would not tell him in 5-10 minutes. I had heard some IT wannabe’s wanted to convert him. I do not think anyone ever succeeded there. Perhaps that is the direction Scotland should face. It might not be done within the 200 million imagined, but perhaps they could steer well clear of the 2.5 billion someone speculated.

What if the Scottish system reverted to the old systems, not just becoming one Scotland, but in many cases reverting to the 33 counties? Thirty-three areas of ‘almost’ self-management, with a few exceptions, like one police system. They would get a buddy system where the area does what it needs to do and the neighbours come to aid when needed (emergency services). In that case Orkney and Shetland would feel a little isolated, but that might be business as usual for them. The question will remain how to IT some of this, but a system consisting of 33 self-regulating satellites are likely to be more effective, then systems like taxation, healthcare and welfare trying to become three Scottish national systems. If my train of thoughts are correct, then once this is approach is solved, the Scottish system could be an actual WORKING template to fix the failed IT NHS system that has currently costed the UK 10 billion and counting and still not working that well.

Yes, in all this I left out Scottish defence. By the way, has anyone seen what they do with logs and hammers? You really want to run up their hills whilst they smile at you and throw you a gauntlet or two? I for one ain’t that stupid to begin with, but that might be just me.

A final quote from the Guardian is “The debate with Darling, which broadcasters say privately has been tacitly agreed for some time, is now expected to take place sometime after the Commonwealth Games, which end on 3 August. It would potentially be a defining moment of the campaign“, no matter what will be discussed on that day, the truth remains that with two approaches being so far apart, both sides have unresolved issues, without a proper light on both sides these talks will not be the marker of any beginning independence, it could end up being an acceptance on how far views leading to independence are still apart.

So, is my view the correct one? I honestly cannot tell, but I am in all honesty looking for solutions, like any puzzle, an independence remains a logistical conundrum with plenty of loose ends, solving the puzzle is at times the best challenge that can be faced. Getting others to see the puzzle the way I did is the next challenge and implementing that puzzle is another challenge still. Three links in a chain that leads to a solution. Micromanaging these events like the BBC did with their 5 questions (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26836126) seems a little too trivial an approach. Yes, these questions will need a solution and it will be up to Scotland to find them. I reckon the views we seen in regards to the disagreements between Theresa May, the current Home secretary and the European Court of Human Rights shows that the UK has its own puzzles to figure out and they have been at it a lot longer than Scotland.

May we all be one Commonwealth, supporting each other, fighting for each other and at times disagreeing with one another, especially when Scotland is playing England, at that time the disagreements must be loud, jolly and with a few better Scottish players on the Rugby field.

Go Wallabies! 😉

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Tagged as Alistair Darling, BBC, European Court of Human Rights, Home Secretary, Independent Scotland, infrastructures, Institute of Chartered Accounts Scotland, IT, John Swinney, London School of Economics, Orkney, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Scotland, Shetland, the Guardian, Theresa May, van Charante, Wallabies, Westminster

June 24, 2014 · 11:24

The sharks are circling

Today my mind was stopped by a Guardian article of a different kind (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/sir-tony-oreilly-irish-billionaire-insolvent). The headline was interesting enough ‘Bank pulls the plug on Irish billionaire who owned Independent‘, but that was not the reason for my interest. To be honest, it was not the fact that some rich ‘boy’ was hitting bottom either. You take any spoiled millionaire brat and the moment he is funding his trust into cocaine, you know he is worse off than whichever other rich person losing it all.

The following quotes are not the interesting part, but they are essential for painting the picture. “O’Reilly went on to a successful business career, rising to be chief executive and chairman of the giant US food group Heinz“, and whoever knows about their Ketchup, knows they have the good stuff! “Lawyers for Allied Irish Banks said on Monday the bank had run out of patience with O’Reilly’s efforts to repay €22m (£17.6m) of loans and a further €23m due from two of his investment companies. The court was told he had further debts of €195m. AIB accused the fallen tycoon of being insolvent and asked the courts to enter a judgment against him which would allow the bank to take control of key O’Reilly assets” gives us little more than the position he has gotten themselves into and “O’Reilly told the bank last month he had sold investments worth more than $150m in the past three years, all of which had gone to repay borrowings. But AIB claimed only a fraction of that sum – $300,000 – went towards repaying its loans. Other creditors, who are owed about €195m, have agreed not to pull the plug to give O’Reilly more time to sell his assets in an orderly way” gives us only a small indication on the matter how things are resolved. The next shows that this is no dumb boy, we know that the Irish can at times be pretty clever, yet the quote “He became chief executive, based in Pittsburgh, in 1979, and 12 years later was the first non-family member to become chairman. O’Reilly helped to transform the firm – its market value rose from $908m (£533m) to $11bn.” implies him to be a genius. When you change a company and up the value by 1100%, you are what some might say, the stuff of legends, which is only confirmed by “When he bought into the Dublin media company, it had a turnover of just €12m but under his ownership it grew into a worldwide company which at one point included the Independent in the UK as well as publications in Australia and South Africa. He stepped down as chief executive of the company on his 73rd birthday”

There is a lot more to the Independent News & Media group which runs into the billions and then it suddenly hit me. This was all strangely similar to the movie Meet Joe Black, made over a decade before these events were taking place. Was Anthony Hopkins portraying Sir Anthony Joseph Francis O’Reilly? If so, I would love to hook up with his daughter (Claire Forlani, we men have dreams too after all). His ownership also included Waterford Wedgwood plc; those who care about China porcelain will know it to be one of the most revered brands ever.

So what is this about?

Things do not add up completely as I see them. It is like watching a pattern that does not really exist. Giving into it is merely voicing the conspiracy theorist in us. Take this quote from Wiki (not as an academic value, mind you). “The markets reacted positively to the news, especially to the explicit truce between the O’Reilly and O’Brien shareholder blocs, with Denis O’Brien voicing public support for Gavin O’Reilly as CEO-designate“, the approach before was that he had gone in so deep that his hunger for media truly rivalled that of Rupert Murdoch. A group, having assets in excess of 4.5 billion, whilst having almost 1.5 billion in debts. Some will not see any issue at this point. Consider that the revenue is almost at 1.7 billion and the profits are set at 110 million. So, even though not too bad, it is not a great position. This is what some might say a good time to start selling off the smaller parts. Of course this is still not on the mind of Sir Tony. This is where the Wiki quote becomes interesting. You see, Denis O’Brien seems to be the pushing element and his son is set to get the CEO position. So far there is an awful close resemblance to that movie ‘Meet Joe Black’. From the moment Gavin O’Reilly takes over and he is pushed out due to the pressure of Dennis O’Brien, it is a mere 3 years. By that time Dennis O’Brien holds onto more than twice the amount of shares the O’Reilly’s have.

This is part one. In this time, from my point of view, as the power is still firmly with the newspapers, Dennis O’Brien is already moving into telecom and radio stations. He is now regarded as one of the larger players in the UK. However, this is about Sir Tony O’Reilly.

When we see his assets, I almost see a picture of sliding technologies and Sir Tony did not move with his times. Whether it started with the removal from INM is uncertain. What is clear is that he had grown several businesses into behemoths, which makes the collapse of Waterford Wedgwood plc a mere ripple in a very large pond. The fact that his second wife is even wealthier than him should not matter, but the losses he and his brother in law (brother to his second wife) seem to tally towards half a billion.

Here we now see a certain pattern forming, even though thus far I have not mentioned the elements to that loom. Any person has values, profits, incomes as well as credibility. One element is the pushed change by Dennis O’Brien from the side of Independent News & Media. It goes however a lot further. Consider the situations the banks are in and have been in for at least 5 years. There are literally tens of thousands of people too far in debt with little chance to repay it. Then the information in the Irish Times hit me (at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/media-and-marketing/sir-anthony-o-reilly-locked-in-debt-negotiations-with-aib-1.1805920), and the one part I had almost ignored in the Guardian became a lot more visible. The bank, which was seen 4 times as ‘AIB’ in the Guardian article, gets a prominent place in the headline. So why is this an issue? Consider the following two quotes from the Irish times “A case has been listed for entry into the Commercial Court on Monday between AIB and Sir Anthony and two of his investment vehicles, Indexia Holdings and Brookside Investments” and “Brookside owns Sir Anthony’s coastal estate in Glandore, Co Cork, while Indexia is his private investment vehicle that holds his near 5 per cent stake in Independent News & Media and his share of the oil explorer Providence Resources“. So, there is no link, or so one would think. It is however weird that even in delayed matter, this is one customer that would repay the debts, so why this push? Is it not weird that forcing the hand of one party who will repay is somewhat strange in this day and age? Then we get this message (at http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/oil-giant-exxon-starts-160m-drilling-project-off-west-coast-29163728.html), which is more than a year old. Was oil found, is there a chance to find oil here? If not, then this is another half a billion bust for Sir Tony, making him pretty much broke. The following was found in the ‘ShelltoSea‘ site (at http://www.shelltosea.com/node/1890), considering that Providence resources (a Sir Tony company) is a partner in this then this quote “The Dunquin North and Dunquin South prospects hold combined recoverable reserves of 8.4 trillion cubic feet of gas and 316 million barrels of condensate, according to an offering document posted on Schlumberger Ltd’s IndigoPool Web site” means that there are vast amounts of money there, which makes the actions of the AIB odd to say the least.

Consider the Russian issues that are currently playing, whether they happen or not, will influence the value of the gas that was found. It is still the question whether oil will be found, it was not up to July 2013 as was reported through Reuters, yet the given options mean that there is still a vast amount for Sir Tony to hold on to his 750 acre cottage. It is the final link we get when we read this headline “Taxpayers will not lose money on the bailout of AIB” (at http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/taxpayers-will-not-lose-money-on-the-bailout-of-aib-bank-chief-30367989.html), So it was not about Sir Tony, it was about the other acts by the bank, holding onto the loans for Sir Tony that are now the issue of a possible upcoming forced fire sale. The banks statement “He added that the bank has paid more than €2bn to the State in fees and interest on rescue loans since the crash” give the message we were wondering about. The banks are slowly losing options, the money us due and as such, some visionaries are now under the hammer. Whether the acts of Denis O’Brien are at the centre of what could be seen as the fall of Sir Anthony Joseph Francis O’Reilly remains to be seen. The acts that are clearly within the realm of ‘the cost of doing business‘ are drawn in the sand. It reminds me of the quote Penn Badgley tells Zachary Quinto in the movie Margin call. ‘In the end one man wins, one man loses‘ is harsh and to the point, but as Zachary responds ‘You know that there is more to it than that‘ is equally correct. Two movies both created before the actual events that played out here are giving us the fact that sometimes life is like the movies, even the bad parts.

Sir Tony is a first eye witness to these events. What we at the sidelines see is that the banks are now slowly in a do or die presentation of liquidating what the banks regard as ‘risky investments’. For the most, we should be happy, but can we? The money remains gone and when the fire sale goes through and someone ends up finding any oil at a cost of 0.1 cent on the dollar, how many friends will the Allied Irish Banks end up with then, considering the boat load of scandals they were linked to?

Perhaps the most worrying part for most of us is not that a wealthy man has lost it all, but that banks are now closing ranks. We are so used to seeing the wealthy get away with proverbial murder shows that the banks are at the end of their ropes, which means that the little leeway we ones had is likely gone too. It should also be clear that this shows us all that the economy is nowhere near recovery; it is for the foreseeable future on a very tight arrangement with whomever has any actual wealth left.

A view we have not been introduced to until now.

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Tagged as AIB, Allied Irish Banks, Claire Forlani, Denis O'Brien, Dennis O'Brien, Dublin media company, Dunquin, Gavin O'Reilly, Glandore, Heinz, Independent News & Media, INM, Irish times, Margin Call, Meet Joe Black, Penn Badgley, Rupert Murdoch, Schlumberger, shelltosea, Sir Anthony Joseph Francis O'Reilly, Sir Tony, the Guardian, The Independent, Waterford Wedgwood plc, Zachary Quinto

June 22, 2014 · 20:00

The Illusion of control

It is three days after writing ‘Concerning the Commonwealth!‘, I stand by my piece. I think that the Commonwealth is facing increasing issues all over the field and as the numbers go up and up and up, healthcare will take a centre seat in a diminishing population of workers, which by the way include issues that will hit Australian shores too. Today (at http://news.sky.com/story/1287088/government-has-lost-control-of-the-nhs) we get to see more about the NHS, the mention of a 3 billion pound fiasco, which gets attached to the name Andrew Lansley, who is currently Leader of the House of Commons. He is also behind the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which is regarded to be highly controversial. However, before we go into any controversial parts, try finding a document called ‘ABPI UK NHS medicines bill projection 2012 – 2015‘, it is a PDF file (the Google link was too messy). There is a massive revelation on page 5, which diminishes a bible chapter with a similar name to a mere Paddington bear story.

As we ignore earlier mentions of a shake-up gone awry at 3 billion and mentions of an IT structure at the price of 10 billion that never worked, here we see that over the term 2013-2015 the use of brands go up from 14.2 to 15.5 billion, yet generic medication needs only rises from 3.2 to 3.9 billion. The interesting part is that even though there is still a brand growth, the bio-similar mention (generics) go up from 134 to 328, so there is more than 100% growth in change to generic medication, whilst the cost is still growing steadily on both sides (generic versus brands), what would the brand side have done if the generic side did not exist?

Three days ago I was extremely outspoken in regards to the need to get the NHS costs down. It seems that the search for generic alternatives is taking a backseat to other options. In an age of finding ways to make ends meet, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has no space reserved in regards to the need for a stronger presence of generic medication.

When we look at:

233 General duties
(1) In exercising its functions NICE must have regard to—
               (a) the broad balance between the benefits and costs of the provision of health services or of social care in
               England,
               (b) the degree of need of persons for health services or social care in England, and
               (c) the desirability of promoting innovation in the provision of health services or of social care in England.

Why was the following not added?

(d) the choice of generic medication where possibility for a responsible health care alternative warrants it.

Now, I will be the first one to admit that my choice of words is not the best one, but it seems where it is known that generic medication is such an important part for the survival of the NHS, that no mention at all (as far as I could tell) seems to raise a few more questions. Key message 4 on page 11 of the PDF shows exactly the part that matters: “Nine of the current top 20 selling brands lose patent exclusivity between 2012 and 2015” and when we consider the growth through bio-similars, we see that the right path seems to be taken as we read the numbers from the office of health economics. So, there is a path to better growth through managed costs (to some degree), the question becomes, why is this report quoting Jane Ellison as secretly taped? More important, why is Sky News not giving proper light to the NHS issues as they are (to a small extent) resolved? Why are they not taking a look a Professor Adrian Towse, Jon Sussex, Lesley Cockcroft or Martina Garau. I would think that the latter two as statistician and economist might be able to light a candle in the tunnel of ambiguous ‘tell tailing’ darkness ‘some’ are sailing.

None of these matters are coming to light at any stage. Even the Guardian on April fool’s day, did little more then http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/01/health-service-biggest-challenge-history-nhs-boss. I will admit that the article of the Guardian was decent, yet the quote “the NHS is facing a perfect storm of rising demand, funding pressures and worryingly low staff morale“, no matter how true, seems to be about the hardships (which remain true). Yet the information that the Office of health economics seem to have is escaping these Journo’s of bad news writings. Slide 13 of the initial PDF shows an even stronger view on how the UK is getting by, whilst the US is facing an overall hike from 176% to 281% compared to the UK index, Only Spain, Finland and France were barely better off. That part remains in question when we consider their population, if the results was correctly weighted (small oops on that slide), then the pressures for patent change from American shows just how desperate the American position is, which is shown even stronger on slide 6 when we see just how hard medication hits both Japan and USA as they spend well over 2% of GDP there, whilst the population of Japan is twice that of UK and the population of the USA is set at well over 400%. These slides will also leave is with other questions in several regards, yet the initial positive view is not reverberated over the press sites, or by the UK journalists. It seems to me that the information by certain newsgroups, especially in the LACKING sight on the importance of generic medication leaves us with questions. However, the Guardian was all over the business side of Pfizer trying to take over AstraZeneca. Did no one properly wonder why they were willing to dish over 69 billion? When did a US company EVER spend such an amount unless they knew that they would end up with double the amount? When we consider those events, we should wonder why the papers aren’t a lot more outspoken in regards to informing the public.

Even if this was all not true, don’t you think that the press would (should is a better word) have been all over the members of the Office of health economics I mentioned asking them the questions I am voicing and a few more after that? Is the silence of the press not deafening? The late April article in regards to Pfizer – Astranezeca headlines as ‘Pfizer refuses to guarantee UK jobs if AstraZeneca takeover goes through‘, which should make us wonder whether this is about income, jobs or patents. Would that takeover stopped any patents, or at least delayed them? If many patents have 1-2 years left, why pay that many billions, which information was kept hidden from us? It is the quote from Pfizer CEO Ian Read that states “The combination of Pfizer and AstraZeneca could further enhance the ability to create value for shareholders of both companies and bring an expanded portfolio of important treatments to patients.” This is a fair, honest (to some degree) and clear message. It is about the shareholders and the message that these billion will come back to ‘us’ and then some. This is clear business, I do not object, yet the overview for the UK? What will it cost them besides jobs? We saw little of that and the NHS has been played like a piñata donkey for a little too long. This is not me stating that the NHS is okay. Actually it is far from that, it is about getting the proper illumination on events, which does not seem to be happening either.

In the end, the quote in the Sky News article “A spokesman for the Department of Health told Sky News: ‘Giving operational control for the day-to-day running of services to doctors was the right decision but we’ve always been clear that ministers are responsible for the NHS’” might have been a correct one, the added information could have been a lot more insightful. When you Google ‘Office of health economics‘ you will not find any links to any newspaper, which is puzzling when you go to the Office of health economics and look at some of their publications. If I would add one more ‘light‘ remark then it would be that the members of the editorial and the policy board of the Office of health economics seem to have more degrees then a Kelvin scale, making them in my mind an essential source of health information for any journalist.

So where are these articles informing the public?

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Tagged as ABPI UK NHS medicines bill projection 2012 – 2015, Andrew Lansley, AstraZeneca, generic medication, Health and Social Care Act 2012, health economics, Ian Read, Jon Sussex, Lesley Cockcroft, Martina Garau, NHS, Office of health economics, Pfizer, Professor Adrian Towse, Sky News, the Guardian, UK

June 9, 2014 · 10:10

Criminally stupid!

Another day and another Sky News article grabbed my attention. Today it is “Metal Studs Treat The Homeless ‘Like Animals’” (at http://news.sky.com/story/1277765/metal-studs-treat-the-homeless-like-animals).

In London, the reaction to a homeless person sleeping in their entry hall was met with an almost medieval solution. They decided to place spikes on the floor at an interval so that a person would not go to sleep in that location. Most people reacted in outrage on the solution. The article goes on a little more and added the following statement “Homelessness charities say this is not a one-off, metal studs have been appearing across the country for the last decade as the number of people sleeping rough rises.”

So the people are actively ‘acting’ out against these homeless people. The part that puzzles me is the legal side of the matter. In the UK they have R v Miller [1982] UKHL 6, a criminal law case demonstrating how actus reus can be interpreted to be not only an act, but a failure to act. The judgment here “I see no rational ground for excluding from conduct capable of giving rise to criminal liability, conduct which consists of failing to take measures that lie within one’s power to counteract a danger that one has oneself created, if at the time of such conduct one’s state of mind is such as constitutes a necessary ingredient of the offence.”

I found it pleasing to use the vagrant case, because the person who did this is less a person than the people he/she is trying to chase away. In this case it is not just the homeless person, but ANY person tripping, falling and getting hurt because of those spikes. The culprit who placed the spikes will be directly responsible for inflicting grievous bodily harm, which under section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 could get the spike culprit a sentence up to life imprisonment. It was interesting that the news cast did not bear this out, or any criminal transgression for that matter. The Guardian has almost the same story and is pleading for the Southwark council to act against this.

Let’s look at this situation one more time from a legal perspective (me now grumpily looking up my UK Offences against the Person Act 1861 section 18 in PDF form). Even if it is the homeless person and not an innocent bystander, we could prove harm with the first instance (one drop of blood is enough) and as the victim is likely either a homeless person or even a junkie, we get a factor indicating greater harm as per “Victim is particularly vulnerable because of personal circumstances” in addition we have culpability through “Offence motivated by, or demonstrating, hostility to the victim based on the victim’s disability (or presumed disability)“, which we might achieve considering the social status of the person, which also proves discrimination. The spikes and the effort required shows premeditation and the two additional aggravated factors are “Deliberately causes more harm than is necessary for commission of offence” and “Deliberate targeting of vulnerable victim“.

My question becomes, why are the parties (or so they seem to) not talking to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Services) in regards to this act? There is a host of additional parts in these events and they all point to acts of maliciousness.

Even here in Australia the NSW Crimes Act 1900 would have a powerful case against the placer of these spikes. It becomes thus a question on whether it is just for the council, or are nations in the Commonwealth facing a new level of intolerability and as such, the wave of these events are not even properly looked at. The fact that the press is not speaking out in regards to the crimes that these spikes represent is also a matter of question, as is the lack of visibility from the CPS in this matter, especially if we consider the quote “they appeared a few weeks ago after someone had been sleeping rough there“, which implies that several authorities should have alerted the police and they should have alerted the CPS to these events.

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Tagged as CPS, grievous bodily harm, homeless person, metal studs, NSW Crimes Act 1900, Offences against the Person Act 1861, R v Miller [1982], Sky News, Southwark, Spikes, the Guardian

June 8, 2014 · 10:13

17 or 70 trillion?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tagged as BBC, bloomberg, Credit Suisse, Deborah Hargreaves, Econ Browser, Forbes, Foxnews, government, Government Accountability office, IRS, James Hamilton, Julia Kingston, Jullian Assange, LIBOR, market watch, Paul Mason, Professor Hamilton, Robert Peston, San Diego, the Guardian, UCSD, unfunded liabilities, US News

April 2, 2014 · 05:14

The reality of decimation

This is not an academic piece, I would personally state that to some extent this is not even a sane piece, but is it an incorrect piece? That is indeed the question we must ask ourselves. Consider the events as they have plagued us for a little over 20 years.

This piece partially started with the UN report on the environment, but some of the elements have been on my mind for some time now. This is not about the War in Iraq or Afghanistan; this is about something a lot more basic.

Let us start with the UN report on Climate Change 2014 (at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-threat-food-security-humankind)

It is also good to take a look at the policy maker’s summary titled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (at http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf )

We should consider the quotes that the Guardian article gives us.

First there is “The summary mentioned the word ‘risk’ more than 230 times, compared to just over 40 mentions seven years ago, according to a count by the Red Cross“.

My first counter is that this is not an event that has grown for only 7 years, these events and risks have been in place for well over two decades, the people in governmental power and the power players of big business are no longer aligned. Money only gets you ‘alignment’ to a certain degree. If you doubt this, then consider the power Big Tobacco had from the 70’s until the early 90’s. In the Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business (at http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1606&context=njilb) we see the quote “tobacco companies argued that plaintiffs assumed the risks of smoking. They also capitalized on the fact that they could afford the best lawyers to defend against generally under-funded plaintiffs“.

This is only the first quote where government has been holding its hands over the heads of big business for far too long. It is nothing short of treason against your own population (a slight exaggeration, I admit). It is not just their best lawyers against the plaintiffs, there has been a host of events where political powers had been ‘softly motivated’ to take a stance for the economic growth of a nation, whilst selling its people straight down the drain.

The second quote to consider from the Guardian is “Other food sources are also under threat. Fish catches in some areas of the tropics are projected to fall by between 40% and 60%, according to the report” (the part I saw did not specify the size of the area, or the exact locations).

Consider the amount of nations depending on their livelihood on fishing for themselves and their families, not to mention for whatever income from selling it to others in villages and cities. The claim ‘some areas’ is a loosely placed term I reckon. Consider the massive requirements for Japan alone. There is no evidence what so ever that this will lighten up any day soon. The events of fish shortage will grow above the mere population. A change to that effect will have a massive yield on the oceanic biosphere and as such mass extinction events on our fauna are almost a given certainty. So as we see the events there, we will see that the impact will soon thereafter hit waterbirds which will affect another chain of feeders. The third quote is “Almost everywhere you see the warming effects have a negative effect on wheat and there is a similar story for corn as well“.

Even though, to some part there is a claim that longer warm timeframe might yield some positive benefits, the overall consequence is that the events will be negative. Hunger will soon be an issue that stretches far beyond the third world nations, did anyone consider this?

The report is massive, so digging into this will take some time (after I get it downloaded, which is never easy from the UN document server), in the meantime, follow the next link to take a look at a document now released from the US State Department (at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219038.pdf)

Now let us go into the deep end. We have seen how being nice, how ‘finding’ a compromise will not get us anywhere. If you doubt this, then consider the fact that several nations are now, after giving us some ‘good news management’ additional grief will soon be gotten by the Dutch (at https://www.nvm.nl/nl-nl/actual/maart_2014/asscher_in_zomer_kijken_naar_lastenverlaging.aspx). They will be looking at lowering the costs for the Dutch population. Consider that the Dutch debt is currently in excess of 25,000 euro’s per citizen. Again, politicians will be trying to spend money they do not have. Even more hilarious, is the fact that they will not have that money for at least half a decade. If we consider this in regards to the UN FCCC report, where we see that climate is not just hitting us, many nations will have to pour billion upon billions into places to prevent flooding’s and other climate calamities. In this light, we will not have any lightening of economic pressures before 2018. The Dutch are not alone in this. The UK, France, Spain, Italy and to some effect even Germany will have to spend large amounts of money. If there is truth to the downward spiral of the climate, what will happen to France when their wine economy takes a 20%-30% tumble? (This is not a found number, that percentage is a mere estimation from other numbers in the UN FCCC report). Such a tumble will devastate the France GDP, which means that their debt will almost literally drown them.

So what is a solution?

Well, to safe our planet we might have to become drastic. The fact that politicians will not act and at the first sign of good news (managed or not), they will try to keep the status quo so that they look good (and leave it to the next person in office). This has been going on for some time and it has been happening in nearly every nation. So, we could rig the game and get rid of 4.7 billion people. It is not a happy act and if it happens I will unlikely to remain (or be allowed) in the ‘surviving’ group.

You see, healthcare, retirement shortages and lesser productivity (in the eyes of big business), would mean that we are to be removed from life. There is additional evidence for that. When we consider the words of the BBC (at http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26818377), where it is quoted “Risk of death by any cause over the course of the study was reduced by 42% for seven or more (up to around 10 portions a day)“.

Are they for real? When I was growing up, I had three meals a day. My lunch could include a sandwich with sliced cucumber and tomato and there were greens at dinner. That makes for two helpings. My grandfather lived to a ripe old age on those meals. So, who is paying these people to state 7-10 portions a day? Let us not forget that the UN FCCC report will have something to say about that. The IPCC report stated (at https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html) “Productivity of some important crops is projected to decrease and livestock productivity to decline“. This is not a global thing, but overall the population is still rising and food would be getting scarcer.

So, that option of decimation, which would be unfortunately for me, is starting to make sense. So how will we go about it? Will certain groups get targeted? When we see the HealthCare and retirement options as they dwindle then getting rid of anyone over 45 makes statistical sense (not morally). Alas, we are not that fortunate. If we consider the population numbers, as shown by the UN, Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2011), we would also have to shed a little over 75% of the population that is between 15 and 44. How to go about that? If we take the people over 30, our population will face the reality that we saw in the movie ‘Logan’s Run‘. We could of course use the classic ‘Soylent Green‘ as an example, which also solves the food issue for all non-displaced citizens. Perhaps the list will be diminished in the way it was sung by Gilbert and Sullivan in ‘the Mikado‘ through the song ‘As some day it may happen’, “none of them would be missed”, I do however request and require that Nigel Farage will not be allowed to make that list (#JustSaying).

So, if you are currently extremely nervous about what will happen next then do worry, I definitely do! No matter how we will be dealt with (through hunger, war or just permanent removal). The consequence will be a global one. If we can rely on statistics is that within 40 years, if untouched through war, two civilisations remain, the Indian and the Chinese one. It is a simple consequence of the numbers as these two represent 36% of the planet, which means that no matter how much we get ‘culled’, either natural or unnatural, they would then be the only two remaining governments with the size that would places them in power.

All this reads like a joke, but it is far from it. As we have seen governments go into the acts of managed good news, whilst slowly giving us the bad news little by little (as the economic meltdown has shown), we will soon see similar acts by ‘spokespeople’ on how soon crops are grown with almost no water, how we see the use of Genetically Modified crops. The Economists had an article, which is not that relevant, but the quote in there “genetically modified (GM) crops pose health risks” is. The truth is that this is not true as I see it. Actually, we just do not know what the true dangers are. I feel that there is a risk, but there is no actual evidence (at present) that there is a danger. There is in my view indeed a risk, but no long term evidence exists. We are then in the same place as people were with Big Tobacco in the 70’s onwards. Big Tobacco had too much ‘protection’ and as such governments remained idle for far too long. Genetically Modified foods are likely to go into a similar field, but this time governments cannot stand idly by. The cost will be too great when it goes wrong. So am I against GM foods? I feel uncertain, until the long term dangers are known we should not proceed, yet if the shortages in food, space and water are truly coming, what can we do then? Consider that the global population grows by the size of the population of Germany every year, which is the 16th largest nation. Also consider that children 0-6 have the highest need for good food and clean water to survive, now see these items diminish as there is less, there are more mouths to feed and the climate change is soon making it harder on all of us.

The next two generations will likely be the hardest ones in the history of our planet. Never before was mankind hit by so many elements all at once. They will inherit a polluted planet, they will inherit debts unlike anything we ever faced and if the Status Quo does not change really fast, they will walk this world in an environment that could be near extinction on land, in the sea and in the air.

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Tagged as BBC, Big Tobacco, China, climate change, FCCC, Gilbert and Sullivan, India, Japan, Logan's Run, Nigel Farage, NVM, population, Soylent Green, the Guardian, the Mikado, UN report on Climate Change 2014, UNFCCC, US State Department

March 21, 2014 · 07:27

Growing the deficit?

I stumbled upon a small piece in the Guardian by Dean Baker (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/08/us-deficit-obama-grow) this morning. He wrote it in 2013, yet in light of several events this story still holds some visible issues, even though I completely disagree with it. It was however a nice piece to read. Dean Baker is the co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, which means that he has degrees in economy and I do not. So, why do I disagree?

This view comes through the following quotes. “First, the United States has large deficits because the collapse of the housing bubble sank the economy“. That in itself does not sound incorrect, yet when we look at the definition of ‘deficit’, we should accept this simple one: “The amount by which expenses exceed income or costs outstrip revenues“. So how is this housing bubble a US deficit problem? Houses are built through real-estate people, developers and such. So, there is a little truth in there. As these people made a huge loss, they would not be paying any taxation, which means the US is not getting money through taxation, which means that they get less money for their budget. So, in that regard we are all fine. The linked 2008 economic downfall was due to several idiots (or geniuses depending on your viewpoint) in Wall Street and Financial districts who were playing with all kinds of mortgage based hedge funds and in that way ‘lost’ about 8 trillion dollars, which comes down to devaluating 32 million houses from newly built to the instant value of $0. This comes down to the housing value of 27% of the US households became null and void with the instant snap of the fingers.

So, yes, we can agree that this impacts the deficit as taxation goes down, however should we consider that part of these events is because the US treasury failed completely? Consider that there was a recognised housing bubble at the time that Henry Paulson (who was at that time the big boss of the US treasury). The deficit grew to such an extent because the elements were not properly monitored. So in this view the quote “First, the United States has large deficits because the collapse of the housing bubble sank the economy” should be “The United States diminished its income as the US Treasury did not act preventive, proactive and in a timely fashion in regards to the housing bubble“.

The second quote we see by Dean Baker is “Second, if we had smaller deficits the main result would be slower growth and higher unemployment“. Well, that is one bubble we can pinch through. If taxable amounts increase deficit goes down, if expenditure goes down, then so does the deficit. Neither forces us into the view that this will result in higher unemployment rates, neither prove that there will be a slower growth.

This all depends on the application of the tools available. Yes, taxing extensively is a massive downturn, but is that the approach that should be taken? Am I against taxing the ultra-rich? That depends on the way taken. I do not think it is fair to just tax the rich, yet removing some of the tax shelters would be a very acceptable approach. Consider the following quote by the NY Times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html)

“In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent“. This is less than people making $36,251 – $87,850, they pay 25%. So, there is a massive imbalance here, which leads to the approach that a smaller deficit could be gotten by properly addressing a flawed tax system.

This is where we get to the news of January, (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/bill-de-blasio-new-york-mayor-inaugurated), where a quote is given that reads like an incorrect act. “But the most controversial element is to extract an extra $530m (£323m) in taxes from those earning more than $500,000 a year to pay for universal pre-kindergarten education and after-school programmes“, so New York wants to get a little more cash. I have mixed feelings, yet I do understand this move when the top 1% of the people in New York makes up for 39% of all income. Those objecting to this better understand that the tax increase amounts to an annual rise of $973 for those making a million a year, which is less than the price of a coffee a day. My issue is the fact that tax deductions allow for millionaires and billionaires to pay 4% less than those on an average income, which adds up to massive amounts of dollars. Dealing with these factors will not slow growth, it will not lead to a higher employment rate, it will however allow for a smaller deficit as the US grows its collected income from tax donations.

The third quote by Dean Baker was “Third, large projected long-term deficits are the result of a broken health care system, not reckless government ‘entitlement’ programs“. In my view it is both. I have a hard time speaking out against certain entitlements. Not because they exist, or should exist. The reason is that the 2008 crash left a massive population in an unfair position. A large group of people lost their house and homestead and these people had to be protected in some extended form. The fact that those who caused it walked away with amounts in that year would be beyond what the victims would earn in an entire lifetime is just obscene. Consider that in 2008, the year of the crash, Merrill Lynch handed out over 3 billion in bonuses (at http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/28/wall-street-bonuses-business-wall-street_0128_bonuses.html) and it happened just before they merged with the Bank of America. When we look at this all, we see entitlements, who largely impacted the US government due to what should be seen as high stakes poker games played by the commercial sector, which was loosely ignored by the US treasury. When we see the broken health care system, it seems that there is an issue there. We see the massive amounts of issues on all kinds of newscasts where we see that Obamacare will cost the people. Their premiums will double and in some cases triple. Now, on the side of the people there is outrage. I get that, but look at it from the other side. Does this mean that for decades, the people got medical care, whilst not getting properly charged for it? It is nice and easy to lash out at President Obama on this, but is this his fault? The actual costs, the investigations and as such the in-activities would play into the hand of President Obama. I might just casually ask whether the US treasury should have looked at this. Was this an area that had been ignored for way too long?

So in the end, Dean Baker makes one point that holds ground to some extent.

So why was I looking into this article 405 days (actually 4926 hours and 17 minutes) later? This is all due to an article that the NY Times published (at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/business/us-current-account-deficit-is-smallest-in-14-years.html). Let’s not get fooled here. This article is about trade deficit, not the US deficit or the US debt. The quote “Big gains in exports and overseas investment income narrowed the United States’ current-account deficit in the fourth quarter to the lowest level in 14 years“. So for one quarter they were only short a little north of 80 billion. It reads like when you have debt, flaunt it!

The valid question that you the reader might have is how the articles and the issues are linked. Well, they are not, but the issues of data behind them are. We are offered information by those who should give us clarity and information, yet, we have been ‘bamboozled’ for some time with an overly deep view in information, so the overview is gone for nearly all readers. When you want something to pass unseen, you just make sure that you give the people everything. It is something some researchers do. When the initial results lead to that one question, you just give them all 1247 result tables; there is a high chance that the certain question ends up not getting asked.

The last point to leave you with is the small issue that is playing thanks to some Ukrainian disagreements. How will these numbers impact when the acts of the EEC and the US will result in Russia closing the gas tap to Western Europe. As the Dutch NOS reported earlier this week, the Rotterdam Harbours are ready to switch and get their energy through the provision of liquid gas from the USA, the trade deficit will get smaller even still, yet the 20% hike the consumers in Europe face is something the people will only read about after the fact.

The US has a long way to go, with a national debt of well over 17,500 billion and a total debt of around 61,350 billion, being short by 80 billion seems like a pinch not worth mentioning, yet consider that the US is forecasting an total income of 3 trillion (before expenses), in 2013 the deficit ended up being $680 billion, which makes it unlikely that 2014 is a turning point for now, which means that the total deficit will grow for at least one more year. Then and only if severe cuts are found, it will still take up 70 years for the national debt to be gone, there is no way to predict how long the total debt of 61 trillion will take. So when you read all the upbeat articles on how there are three issues with the deficit remember, it will take 3 Generations (3G) to get rid of the national debt, the USA, now a 3G nation, how happy can anyone in the free world be for the foreseeable future?

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Tagged as Barack Obama, Dean Baker, Forbes, Henry Paulson, housing bubble, Liquid Gas, Merril Lynch, NY Times, Obamacare, President Obama, Rotterdam, Russian Gas, the Guardian, Ukraine, United States, US Treasury

March 19, 2014 · 23:00

Any sport implies corruption!

Yes, I agree that this statement is over the top, but at present, I have had it with sports. Whenever we hear about any sport, we are likely to hear doping, corruption or treason. When was the last time you watched your favourite sport and one of these three elements were not in play? Even if this is the case, when you Google your sport with the keywords ‘crime’, ‘corruption’ or ‘investigation’ you will see a list of events that is tainting your favourite sport.

I am originally Dutch, which means that cycling, skating and Soccer make the list for most Dutch people. I (being a statistical outlier in all this) do not really care about those three. If I am at such an event I will enjoy watching it, but I usually do not really bother watching it on TV, unless it is a special event (like a semi-final or final for a world cup or something like that).

So, when I saw on TV that Qatar had won the World Cup host for 2022, I was just happy for Qatar. I was happy, because a thoroughly European sport would go to the Middle East, hopefully inspiring more people and more nations to take up the sport, which is always a good thing. I also considered that the location would show the ‘smaller’ nations had an opportunity to host the ‘big’ boys in soccer and show them that they too can wield the torch of hosting pride. I had no negative thoughts at all. Although I realised that this was a very warm place, it would be nice for other teams like Qatar, Cameroon and Mexico get to play with home field weather advantage, which was pretty much it for me.

So when I got the news this morning that another corruption scandal had hit FIFA, I pretty much lost it on the spot. I remember the Final games of the 1978 world cup. It was NOT the final that was fixed; it was the match before that. What I still consider today as a match-fixed battle between Argentina and Peru, where the hosts needed to win by four goals to reach the final when they slaughtered Peru with a score of 6-0. I saw how Argentina passed on the left, passed on the right and the Peruvian team played frozen, like zombies in a Haitian Dance festival. In my personal view Argentina made it to the finals on false grounds. Yes, the finals were in my view honestly won, but they did not get there honestly and as such the Dutch were robbed of their final victory.

So when I see sports and corruption I tend to go slightly mad. The allegations against Qatar can best be found at http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/oct/03/world-cup-2022-fifa-qatar.

In my view the hosting game needs to get changed. I am so sick of these corruption events. In my view the following needs to happen. When a person is found guilty of corruption, those nations, in this case Brazil, Paraguay and Cameroon are barred from getting officials into FIFA and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) for a term no less than 16 years, furthermore, they cannot become a host nation for that same amount of time. For the first upcoming World Cup, those three nations are then prevented from entering. There is of course a small chance that their families will slightly suffer when Soccer fans go a little nuts at that point, but who gives a fuck? (Pretty please pardon my ‘French’ here.)

I have seen too much corruption and treason and it had too often got settled with a ‘reprimand’. These two transgressions are now often seen as legalised gambling. You have no risk, you get money and perhaps a fee and a slap on the wrists if you get caught. It would be nice to see these people run for their lives. I foresee that sport corruption could take a steep dive towards a 0% sport crime rate, which is good for sports overall.

To be quite honest, until the article in the Guardian, I was willing to ignore the stories. In my personal view, the Telegraph tends to be a less then academic levelled source of information (they usually lay it on a little too thick). I even contemplated the option that all this were false allegations through media giants as the timing and temperatures might result in a shift in dates to play, which could result in a loss of advertisement coinage no less than 1 Billion Euro on a global scale, not to mention the merchandising that might make a sizzler, all that because the Qatarian time zone could shift the games to less civil times for many of the European TV viewers.

Yet the Guardian shows another story. The one passage I do have a slight problem with is “Mohamed bin Hammam, from Qatar, at the time the challenger to Blatter’s presidency, was found by the court of arbitration for sport last year to ‘more likely than not’ have brought cash to two meetings in May 2011 which was then handed to FIFA delegates”

The more likely than not is a bit of an issue for me. It is more likely than not that I do not have the purest of thoughts when I see Olivia Wilde (or Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Natasha McElhone or Olivia Munn for that matter). That is a sentence that holds ground (not grammatically). In regards to funds it does not really hold any ground (unless there is a better quality of tangible evidence).

I desire a woman? (Yes and it is not illegal!), I desire money? (To some extent, a definite yes if it gives me access to desire group number one and again it is not illegal), Will I be corrupt for it? Very less likely, however I might be willing to falsify my medical records if it gets me access to my initial group one. The last would actually be illegal and it is covered in Criminal Law, so I am definitely not willing to pursue that avenue.

Why the previous rant? It is about evidence and ‘more likely than not‘, just does not cut it in my book when it comes to these levels of corruption. Even though it is a Civil Court requirement and has been in UK courts since Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372, which was stated by Lord Denning, former Lord Justice of Appeal and former member of the House of Lords and Master of the Rolls as “more probable than not“, yet when we regard the world as it is today, more probable then not is in my personal view no longer a valid reasoning when it comes to larger amounts of money. It is too easy to frame a person; in the electronic age it is too likely to be falsely processed and when you consider the Bitcoin issue of February 2014, was it stolen or actually lost? More likely than not is very probable to imply involved parties in acts of fraud and theft and less likely that a data files were corrupted and through this misplaced into nothingness.

So there we have it! Is there guilt? I am not sure whether this can be easily proven. If certain people are missing out on a billion in revenue and securing it would require blaming three people of taking a few million, is framing three people so far-fetched? I personally think that this is not the case, or stated under the legal premise ‘it is more likely than not that three people were falsely set in an illegal light so that several unnamed persons could walk away with many hundreds of millions of Euros‘. This is a lot easier to sell in many civil courts.

So which scenario is correct?

I honestly do not know, but it still bothers me that no matter what the truth ends up being, and in hindsight when we look at FIFA, the IOC as well as groups that offer global events had to be revamped in several ways for well over two decades. Consider the ‘old boys’ brigade as it was in the UK between WW1 and WW2. In today’s global setting of fast paced events, where this approach just does not cut it.

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Filed under Gaming, Law, Politics

Tagged as 2022, Bitcoin, Cameroon, corruption, FIFA, IOC, Laura Vandervoort, Leslie Bibb, Lord Denning, Mexico, Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372, Natasha McElhone, Olivia Munn, Olivia Wilde, Qatar, Qatar 2022, Soccer, the Guardian

March 9, 2014 · 17:39

Is gender equality too futuristic?

This is not an article for many. Some will be livid, some will be outraged and many will be angry. Yet, will my view be wrong? This is at the centre of what some call the future of women in high positions.

If I compare it to Law School, then we have our share of women, most of them highly intelligent, many of them no less to Law savants. The last one might be regarded as a cheated achievement, as they usually come from parents with law education or even law practices. They do have a benefit, but to make it in Law, you cannot get by on daddy’s (or mommy’s) tailcoats. You are either truly good, or you won’t pass past your first case. For me in most cases, it almost feels like cheating, as I would be a 1^st generation law graduate. I had to do it alone, no daddy to help me (thank god that the alcoholic is dead). So, there is no anger or envy towards these male of female co-students. As we see how these women are now growing the ranks of the senior, partner positions and the silks of the bench, we see how women are not just up and coming, they are growing the waves of the future benches of the courts. This is not a negative issue for me. As the women had grown in the legal profession from the 80’s onwards, they are now becoming the future of the high courts. In that regard I recall my first year mentor. She was not just bright, she was part of a team that wiped the floor (OK, the proper term is victorious) against the Oxford Law team. even though India won, the fact that both groups outdid Oxford should give you a clear view on how good you need to be. If we see the perception of many students, the regarded rankings like Oxford, Harvard and Yale (as we see Ivy League schools), then the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) did a mighty fine job.

How is all this connected?

I am getting to this. It is first important you see the views I have and the way I got to my view.

So what started all this? Well, yesterday the following tweet passed my screen:
“UK Prime Minister @Number10gov Mar 8
Tomorrow is International #WomensDay – see how UK govt is supporting & celebrating this year’s #InspiringChange theme http://ow.ly/ulkZ4“

It came right after a tweet By Neelie Kroes (@NeelieKroesEU)

Her headline on Twitter is “I am Vice President of the @EU_Commission leading @DigitalAgendaEU and #ConnectedContinent plans. I am fighting like hell for a EU you can believe in. Global (based in Brussels) – bit.ly/KroesNeelie“

I remember her as a politician (when I was living in the Netherlands). I never saw eye to eye with her views, but I do no hold that against her. What is important is that she is extremely intelligent. I reckon that if Albert Einstein would have been around when she turned 21, his words would have been “Whoa girl, you’ve got skills!” Let’s, be certain about the fact that he would refer to her political skills, not her skills in physics. Basically, she is one clever lady is the view of many.

My issue is all about the International Woman’s day as some ‘portray’ their support of it! I am not against it in any way, but let us take a look at the other side of this.

This we see at http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/adfa-skype-scandal-cadets-sentenced-avoid-jail-20131023-2w0hz.html, where we see the quote “The woman told the court last week that she had been bullied and ostracised across the ADF after details of the Skype affair became public. She said she was offered little support, and was referred to as “that Skype slut” by her peers. The victim said the incident destroyed her life and forced her to leave her dream job in the military.“

The two men got a 12 month good behaviour order. The interesting part is that the media seemingly buried it after August 19^th 2013. Interesting how little exposure these issues get. I found two more items as they were places after the August date, yet this one (at http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2013-11-09/adfa-cadet-daniel-mcdonald-sacked-over-skype-sex-scandal/1217280) seems to add one more item. The quote “Today, Defence released a statement saying McDonald had been told it intended to sack him in mid-September and after giving him an opportunity to respond, his services were terminated as of last night“

So how should that be read? He was offered to walk or get booted?

This is not an isolated case for the military on a global scale. The header ‘Conflicting accounts open U.S. Army general’s sex crimes trial‘ (at http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/07/uk-usa-courtmartial-sinclair-idUKBREA260OK20140307) gives a clear view that we are not anywhere near ready for an International Woman’s day. As we see these transgressions go on and on. In addition, as we see the media staying as blasé and diminishing the exposure of such events, then you tell me how fair it all is. When we see a celebrity drink too much, EVERYONE shows it off to the maximum of the gettable coinage possible, which includes the Washington Post, the Guardian, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Reuters and such large ones. When we see the General being accused of these acts, the amount of newspapers that make it to Google page 1-3 is pretty laughable (even though the big ones mentioned earlier are also there). Why the military? Well, it is pretty much the last bastion of testosterone. When women get an accepted place without the psychic and physical assault dangers, then we are truly entering a new area. If you want to disagree with my view here, which would be fine, then compare the hits you get when you compare the allegations between Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair (US Army) and PR guru Max Clifford (UK publicist), so even though the UK is only 20% of the US, Mr Clifford gets 500% more hits on Google. As this goes into the millions I decided not to look at all of them, but is there any value to the conclusion that a PR guy is bigger coverage, or that the media does not ‘regard’ the alleged transgressions as such important news. The General did plead guilty to having an extramarital affair with the captain.

So why do I have this issue? As mentioned before I illustrated the evolution of Law staffing. A Dutch research showed only a few days ago, that the incomes are changing. Within the younger population, income between the younger populations of gender has changed. The women are now ending up with a better pay package. This is in my view clear evidence that not only is there more equality; the game is changing in a better respect for all. If both sides of the gender path will get the same chance to get the high coin, then we are entering a competitive field where the victor takes the spoils, no matter what gender the victor is, it ups the game and all will become better competitors because of it.

Yet, if we see the article CNN placed last year (at http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/15/opinion/chemaly-tech-leaves-out-women/) we see a clearer view on why I think that there should be an International Woman’s day, but at present there is no reason to party on that event. I must state that I do not completely agree with Soraya Chemaly on her article ‘In tech world, women ignored‘. The reason for this is because as I got my training and degree in IT, the amount of women I saw was a massive minority. When I got into the data game in the 90’s, the women represented a presence of a mere 5% would have been overstating their presence. If getting to the top takes 12-15 years, then it will be at least another decade until we see a visible level of female presence in the tech world. There is however another side to this. When we consider tech PR companies like ‘Panache PR‘, we would see that the founder Cathy Campos is regarded as a global authority in the gaming industry. I met her in the days of Robert Maxwell, as she was the visible side of the marketing of Mirrorsoft (1989) and her drive to market the visibility of games by the visionary Peter Molyneux were ground breaking. She is not just accepted by all, I reckon the newbies in this field will consider an internship with someone like Cathy as the start of a possible golden future.

One of the statements I do not agree with is “The tech industry has a well-documented pipeline problem, one largely the result of gender stereotypes that reach into the educational system” Really? When I was into gaming, meeting any woman who was into games was regarded as a joke, both genders thought of games and gaming as uncool, nerdy and not worth the effort. That view only seriously started to change around the time the Xbox 360 was announced to become the hot potato of the future. So, basically, in that tech field women are less than one console generation old. When we look back to the early years we see the names like Roberta Williams (Kings Quest and a few others), Jane Jensen who worked with Roberta Williams on KQ6. Dona Bailey, who is an Atari Legend as she was one of the founders of Centipede, which is still regarded as one of the better arcade games of all times. Lastly there is Graner Ray who worked on Ultima VII (my favourite RPG series). She entered this field late in the Ultima series, but giving it artistically a unique view. So, when we consider these 4 women to be at the foundations of gaming, is it a wonder that the female population in this tech field is still small? Nowadays, we see a much stronger female representation in the gaming field, and many of them are outstanding in their own rights.

This is why I do not completely agree (not opposing either) the view we see at http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/7/5408194/how-smarter-schools-can-help-break-the-game-development-boys-club. I personally have never cared about who wrote the game, only that it was a good game. Consider that Kings Quest was one of the first PC games I loved. It was made by a woman and that never mattered.

So is it about the game or the developer? This is why I opposed the quote from Soraya Chemaly “Controlling women’s access makes men keepers of speech, keeps sexist status quo“. No! The gamer wants a good game, value for money, so anyone can get into this field with a good product. I reckon that especially in places like India, women could grow into this field as they offer originality in gaming through iTunes (iPad) or Google play (android). I reckon that 6 successful new female developers are all it takes to prove my hypotheses in this case. As additional female developers enter the field from MIT game lab and UTS (and other universities of course) we will see a clear shift. I do have a few questions to my own train of thought, which was caused by the quote I read (at http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/7/5408194/how-smarter-schools-can-help-break-the-game-development-boys-club) “Indie developer Mike Bithell tells us the lack of women in development ‘monumentally embarrassing’ for the games industry“. It raises my concerns on how wrong I might be, but is that because of the games developed, or by the games that get funding? You see, I focused on the gaming side, because that side I know from various sides. As I see women in Law proceed to the high places, I feel that my views remain correct. The ones who now will get the high posts are the ones I study with at University and they are truly good at what they do. That view is to some extend reaffirmed by the NY times (at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/great-expectations-for-female-lawyers.html). The quote “Of course, the attrition rate is high for men, too — but not nearly as high; in American law firms, the overwhelming majority of partners are men” shows that even though the men are in a massive majority, these are the partners that came from law school 12 years earlier. It took a while for new generations to get into these seats and as such the women we study with are likely to be the majority of high law ranks as they continue their law careers over the next 10-15 years.

When we get back to gaming we could see a correlation with the evolution of high placed women in gaming. If we accept the quote in the previous link affirms my position “Women make up only 11 percent of the total of those pursuing a career in the games industry as of 2005“. So, women do not select this track, which means that it will take some take until the top of gaming has an equal female representation. Yet, is there unfairness in this? When we see a current coverage of only 11%? So as time progresses we see 1 in 20 making it to the top, not because there is inequality, but because only 5%, which is half of the coverage proves to be that good and the math is on my side as I see it. That same math which predicts that over the next 10 years the women in high law positions will likely double, that same curve will apply to the gaming industry as women pursue in several fields they will take the lead as times passes. The issue that many ignore is that this evolution has been just a little over 2 generations and as we see the gender changes in fields, the growth of women in the area of visionary and evolutionary powers, moved to equality to encompass middle managers, which now leads to upper management, this is not a bad record.

As for International Woman’s Day, I am not against it, or against the visibility. The issue is that the field remains unequal, especially when the media is handing us a ‘stacked’ deck. How eager they are to steer away from certain trials, whilst in most of these cases they just spout the same ‘average leveled‘ information. The stacked deck is not in the direction that the BBC shows (at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18187449). As I stated my view, that over time the percentages have shifted and they are shifting even more, but consider the issues as we saw it in regards to Jimmy Saville, not just what he did, but as alleged how those around him are stated to have reacted and how the matter was dealt with for several decades, that part seems to be ignored to a larger extent. Even now as we see the events unfold, we see the Saville jokes, we see the investigation, but the ‘support system‘ around Saville, as he got away with the amount of events does not get the media scrutiny it is supposed to be getting. So, this is not just about the women in general, but the ‘old boy’ groups as they remained around for too long a time. This is the case that many articles made, but I personally see this as the ‘wrong side’. I would much rather see how we see that now in Law, and how women in new fields, like Technology, Gaming and other new areas can more easily inhabit these areas and they could be ruled by the best in the field, no matter what gender. That is the side that does not get enough visibility. It should and the media should use moments like International Woman’s Day to show what is possible, because if it is about inspiration, it should be about where opportunity lies, not just where some ‘stated’ view on the places where the uphill battle remains. This does not mean that I am now opposing my own words, but that it takes time to get women in these top positions, which they achieved within 2 generations (banking examples: CEO Westpac and Christine Lagarde, IMF). When we look at a new field like gaming, which is only now entering its second generation, women are on an equal field, as there is little to no historical entry to content with.

In the end a true visionary will always be successful and get funding, simply because being the first implies that this person is the best and new fields are always ruled by the visionary (closely followed by the evolutionary visionary). Consider this last point; would it have made any difference to the success of Facebook whether it was Mark or Marcia Zuckerberg who invented it?
I feel certain that this would not have made any difference to the global change it brought.

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Tagged as Albert Einstein, BBC, Canberra Times, Cathy Campos, CNN, Dona Bailey, General Jeffrey Sinclair, Graner Ray, International Woman’s Day, Jane Jensen, Jimmy Saville, Law school, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Clifford, Mirrorsoft, Neelie Kroes, NY Times, Panache PR, Peter Molyneux, polygon, Radio Australia, reuters, Robert Maxwell, Roberta Williams, Soraya Chemaly, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, Twitter, UK Prime Minister, USA today, UTS

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